General Debate 9 September 2009

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kaya

I wonder who the clown was who wrote the email to CYFS staff telling them their relationship with boss Paula Bennett was akin to “slave and master”. A wee bit of “I’m a smart arse” gone wrong I think. Of course the MSM jumped on it implying it originated from Bennett herself. Muppets.
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September 9, 2009 8:10am
Bok

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/carbon-trading-scandal-linked-to-government-20090908-fg32.html
And so it begins.

Even intelligent people like our host DPF happily lauds one CTS over another.
The PM is furiously pushing his particular CTS.

An answer please from you wise and sage like creatures.
Forget about whether or not GW or AGW even exists. Lets for the sake of this argument say it does.

Please explain to me how CTS’s will change anything?
David a few weeks ago you endorsed Key’s CTS. Please tell me how that will affect the atmosphere?

The same way a doubling of fuel costs over a one year period slowed down consumption perhaps?

And now we see the true worth of CTS. Just another way for the dodgy to fill their pockets.
And the politicians are right in front of the cue, helping themselves.

Oh how the world prays for the little child to cry out “The emperor is naked”
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September 9, 2009 8:10am
kaya

Henry and Mau are on fire this morning, Freemasons, secret handshakes, riding goats and women’s titties, all in the last 20 minutes! Damn I have to go to work!
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September 9, 2009 8:16am
Auberon

I do wish Radio Live / TV3 would quit reporting Clayton Cosgrove’s dog whistling on Police as if it were holy writ, only for their lead stories to unravel as the hours tick by. For heaven’s sake people, check these things out.
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September 9, 2009 8:18am
peterwn

See:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10596093
‘CYF staff told: you’re minister’s servants’

British civil servants signed letters to the public “I remain your obedient servant xxxxxxx”

Years ago a national MP received a letter from a constituent signed “You remain my obedient servant xxxxxxxx”

I somehow think that Paula would have no time for this sort of thing.

There is tension here. A bureaucracy will shield a minister from hearing anything but the ‘official line’ whereas a Minister worth his or her salt will establish channels into the bureaucracy and among the public to find out what really is happening.

Is it any wonder that the late Keith Holyoake had his Ministerial house phone number in the book (he lived at 41 Pipitea St, a nice house but hardly suited for a PM – Matt Rata had the house next – he had lots of kids and needed the space).
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September 9, 2009 8:20am
XChequer

D’oh!!!! (Homer style, that is)

Bill E is in the shit again over accommodation.

By now he must considering just buying a tent so he doesn’t incur more bad press! No doubt someone would get huffy over where he pitched it though.
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September 9, 2009 8:21am
big bruv

Ah yes, Matt Rata.

Who can forget the sign painted on the side of a upper Willis street commercial building by Sir Robert Jones in the late 70’s.

“Matt Rata reads comics”
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September 9, 2009 8:26am
CraigM

“UN wants new global currency to replace dollar”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/currency/6152204/UN-wants-new-global-currency-to-replace-dollar.html

Slowly and surely, they drew their plans….
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September 9, 2009 8:31am
big bruv

That is why the UN must be resisted at all costs
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September 9, 2009 8:32am
toad

kaya said: I wonder who the clown was who wrote the email to CYFS staff telling them their relationship with boss Paula Bennett was akin to “slave and master”.

Yep, a very bad look. I blogged about it here yesterday evening.
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September 9, 2009 8:42am
TripeWryter

Peter:
You jogged my memory. In the 60s Mr Holyoake got a phone call about 2am at Pipitea St. He answered it, and on the other end was a woman in a phone box who said her husband had chucked her out of their house.
Mr Holyoake expressed sympathy, but asked: “What do you want me to do about it?”
“Well, you’re the prime minister, you’re in charge of the country, so you must know somewhere I can stay.”
He put his hand over the mouthpiece, explained the situation to Mrs Holyoake, and asked, what do we do?
Mrs Holyoake was in no doubt: “We can’t leave her out there on her own. The weather’s awful and you don’t know what sort of men are about. Ask her where she is, you go and pick her up, and I’ll make up a bed in the spare room.”
So, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, in a dressing gown and slippers, went out, got into his car, and drove all the way out to Miramar, found the woman, picked her up, took her back to his home. Mrs Holyoake had a cup of tea and hot soup waiting for her.
Mrs Holyoake took her in hand in the morning in sorting out her situation with the welfare people.
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September 9, 2009 8:49am
kaya

CraigM – Shit, Zeitgeist Addendum will have to come out for a watch tonight again.
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September 9, 2009 8:50am
big bruv

Tripe

What happened to that New Zealand?
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September 9, 2009 8:51am
kaya

Toad – there is a difference, I am saying the person sending the email was a smart arsed, cardigan wearing socialist who thought they were being clever. You are implying it was a genuine email
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September 9, 2009 8:56am
Ryan Sproull

What happened to that New Zealand?

You don’t think there are New Zealanders today who would do the same? Or that there were New Zealanders back then who wouldn’t?
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September 9, 2009 9:01am
Cerium

Some of that New Zealand still exists. But it is in danger of being overwhelmed by selfishness and the government syndrome – blaming the government for not fixing things, and blaming the government for employing people and spending money trying to fix things.

It is easy to see how that Holyoake story – experiencing real life ordinary people situations – could have influenced policies. I can see a bit of it in Key too, he hasn’t been in politics to long to be encased in the bubble.
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September 9, 2009 9:01am
big bruv

Ryan

Not as many, you certainly would not have seen any PM’s since Kiwi Keith doing anything like that, can you really imagine Klark being as open with the public?
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September 9, 2009 9:08am
philu

um..!..it was/is a ‘genuine email’..kaya..

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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September 9, 2009 9:08am
kaya

philu I disagree, someone thought he/she was being a smart arse. No one refers to their employment relationship as master/slave. It was a leftie social worker who dislikes Bennett and wanted to be “intellectually cynical”.
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September 9, 2009 9:13am
TripeWryter

Keith and Norma Holyoake were very down-to-earth people.
It used to piss me off in the 70s and 80s how various media types and cartoonists would portray him as some plum-in-mouth, colonial-cringing toff. He was nothing like that.
One night, after he had eaten tea at my parents’ house, he came into the kitchen, picked up a tea towel and helped the family with the dishes.
You could have a conversation with him. I could ask him questions about current events, and he never once gave patronising or condescending answers. I was surprised about who among his fellow politicians he really liked and respected. Many of them were in the Labour Party.
Often he would drive himself to electorate meetings, his driver beside him. Sometimes they would switch seats about a mile from the venue.
At electorate meetings, he made sure that the first cup of tea and biscuits went to the driver, who usually stayed out in the car.
So there you go. Different times, different people.
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September 9, 2009 9:16am
Trevor Mallard

Keith Holyoake seemed to change a bit when he became G-G and i think more of the charicaturing came from that, there was also the question of the Kinloch/Western access roading which never looked very good.
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September 9, 2009 9:25am
kaya

Bok – “And so it begins………Just another way for the dodgy to fill their pockets.”

It has been going on for a few years now, the Western economies have gotten too cute for our own good. Too many have moved from being the builders and manufacturers to taking too much out for no real input at all.
The financial “markets” are a casino that don’t produce anything yet apparently they make up 40% of the economy. No wonder the US and EU are in a pile of shit at the moment and the only way they can see to get out is to print “money”.

Like the ETS it is a market based on nothing real. The true markets and what they were created for have been distorted beyond recognition. Shit like that can’t be sustained for too long and apparently Wall Street has learned nothing.

From Ian Matthias:

“Since it worked so well the first time around, Wall Street has spawned a new age of securitization — instead of mortgages, this time it’s life insurance policies. Before we spit on this one, here’s how it works:

* A senior with a high-premium life insurance policy, for one reason or another, chooses to cash out
* Instead of taking a “cash surrender” directly from the insurance company, the old fella sells his policy to a “life settlement company”
* That company pays him a larger amount than the “cash surrender” would pay, but not nearly the totality of the policy’s value.
* The company keeps paying the premiums. When he kicks the bucket, the company collects the insurance policy.

That’s where the story would normally be over. But now, just like pools of subprime, Alt-A and prime mortgages, investment bankers are crafting securitized pools of these insurance polices. Basically, they pool together a bunch of beneficiaries that will likely die around the same time, buy up their policies from life settlement companies, package them into securities and sell them to investors around the world.”

The pile of shit gets deeper and deeper. Why not an ETS, it’s no worse than anything else out there………..

Oh and as someone posted earlier, the moves to abandon the US dollar as default world currency are well under way, now it isn’t just the Chinese and Russians making noises, our good friends at the UN have joined in.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/currency/6152204/UN-wants-new-global-currency-to-replace-dollar.html
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September 9, 2009 9:28am
dave

Here’s something interesting

Larry Baldock’s petition question seeking binding referenda by way of a vote on a non-binding referendum looks like it may be approved by the clerk soon.
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September 9, 2009 9:34am
racer1

“philu
um..!..it was/is a ‘genuine email’..kaya..

phil(whoar.co.nz)”

Phil, you seem to be misunderestimating kiwiblog’s amazing power to believe things into and out of existence.
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September 9, 2009 9:45am
dime

a global currency? whats next? we all get a special mark? 😛

what is the end game of the UN anyway? just misery all round? do we all have to feel as shitty as a damaged lefty? will that make then happy?
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September 9, 2009 9:46am
Brian Smaller

I had a beer in a pub in the Wiararapa with Holyoake when I was at Massey in the early 80s. Must have been a couple of years before he died.. We rolled in on a bus pub crawl – about fifty drunk students. He shouted several rounds for the entire bus.
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September 9, 2009 9:50am
Ryan Sproull

Not as many, you certainly would not have seen any PM’s since Kiwi Keith doing anything like that, can you really imagine Klark being as open with the public?

I don’t know, I’ve never really met her.

Maybe there aren’t as many folk like that these days. What do you reckon has caused that?
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September 9, 2009 9:51am
racer1

“dime
a global currency? whats next? we all get a special mark? 😛

what is the end game of the UN anyway? just misery all round? do we all have to feel as shitty as a damaged lefty? will that make then happy?
”

Farming babies is south east Asian brothels for the liberal elite to eat for dinner according to mr Wishart.
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September 9, 2009 9:51am
big bruv

I am surprised that Van Jones resignation has not generated a lot more debate here.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112636478
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September 9, 2009 10:19am
big bruv

Dime

The “goal” of the UN is world government, why the hell do you think Klark was so keen to get her corrupt arse up there.
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September 9, 2009 10:26am
philu

is aerosmith breaking up again..?

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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September 9, 2009 10:32am
gazzmaniac

Trevor Mallard wrote:

there was also the question of the Kinloch/Western access roading which never looked very good

.

The Western Access Road is my preferred route through the Central North Island – there isn’t nearly as much traffic as SH1, and if you cut through Mangakino and Arapuni you can come out on SH3 near Te Awamutu. I’m not sure it’s any quicker but it is certainly less stressful. The only really annoying thing is that the link between SH1 and SH32 travels almost due west – not exactly the direction you are trying to go, but only a 20 min drive. And who cares if Holyoake had a house at Kinloch, Ms Clark was going to spend a lot of money diverting the Waterview motorway into tunnels so nobody in her electorate lost their house.
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September 9, 2009 10:32am
gazzmaniac

Also interesting that in 2degrees’ first month of operation the number of requests to transfer telephone numbers has tripled.
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September 9, 2009 10:34am
s.russell

TripeWryter, you make Holyoake sound like John Key: genuine, direct, willing to get his hands dirty, and answers questions without condescension or snideness. (Yes he was a bit snide to Keisha, but he apologised for that)
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September 9, 2009 10:35am
Cerium

“I am surprised that Van Jones resignation has not generated a lot more debate here.”

I’m not surprised. Van who?

What about the mock uproar over Obama addressing school kids? A President shouldn’t speak in case some whackos interpret it as socialist indoctrination?

“America is a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere” ?
or
“America has become two political slums, separated by an abyss of distrust and hate and cynical manipulation”?

We are small enough to avoid it. If we want to.
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September 9, 2009 10:45am
philu

“..Trevor Mallard (137) Vote: Add rating 1 Subtract rating 4 Says:
September 9th, 2009 at 9:25 am ..”

ah..!..mr mallard..on a general thread..

a few questions for you..?

how are you and the rest of labour feeling about your time in power…given the release by the oecd of our child poverty statistics..?

(i know..from my short visit to your (benchmark in censoring) blog..red alert…that you will not countenance such questions there..

and instantly erase them..and will allow no comments of that ilk/subject..

..but..here..?)

it is really a subject you may well want to avoid..given as yr letterhead reads ‘labour’..eh..?

and these statistics could not be more of an indictment of your failures..

of your turning your backs on..and demonising along the way…the poorest/most struggling in new zealand..

how do you feel the founders of your party would feel about this/you/your record..?

how..since the 1980’s ‘greed-revolution’..you have effected policies to further widen the chasm between the ‘haves’..(you)..and the have-nots..

with this perhaps reaching its’ peak with your establishment of two classes of families..the ‘deserving-families’…and the ‘un-deserving-famiilies’..

the ‘deserving-families’..we were urged to shed tears over…(as they struggled on seventy grand a year..) ..

..in the campaign to introduce ‘working for families’..(what a blackly-ironic title that one is..eh..?..a ‘wicked’ sense of humour there..?..eh…?)

whereas the ‘undeserving families’..sole parents on 15 grand a year..the sick..the invalids..the unemployed..

they all got nothing..those families..’cos they are all ‘undeserving families’..eh..?

you should be prostrate in fucken shame..!

begging forgiveness..!

not strutting around like a chimpanzee with a fucken hard-on..

eh..?

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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September 9, 2009 10:53am
Brian Smaller

Jesus Philu. Are you becoming a right winger?
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September 9, 2009 10:56am
Steve

Mallard is here? in General Debate?
Or is it imaginary?
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September 9, 2009 11:00am
Colonel Masters

From the NZ Herald:

The idea has support from Auckland defence lawyer Peter Williams, QC, who said the proposal could save defendants time and the embarrassment of turning up to court.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10596165

Perhaps they could save themselves the time and embarrassment by not committing the crime/offence in the first place??
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September 9, 2009 11:05am
Falafulu Fisi

Did anyone watch Close-up last night? An artist was awarded $15,000 as best for his artwork, which is just a pile of rubbish.

Waikato art award winner just rubbish – artists
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September 9, 2009 11:06am
philu

“..It was a leftie social worker who dislikes Bennett and wanted to be “intellectually cynical”..”

as it turns out ..it was more a case of rightwing toadying..

eh..?

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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September 9, 2009 11:07am
TripeWryter

For Trevor Mallard:
I posted about Sir Keith based on a little bit of personal experience. I wasn’t making it a National-Labour thing, nor was I taking implied shots at anyone, other than some media people and cartoonists, and that was an explicit comment. As I said, different times, different people.

Brian Smaller:
Yes, I’d believe that.

S.Russell:
I don’t know enough about John Key to make the comparison. Right now I Am (in my best best Til Lindemann imitation in the Rammstein song Buck Dich – Bend Over) Displeased, So Very Displeased, with John Key. On the anti-smacking legislation I thought that he would be different. Apart from that, I’m not going there today.

As for Keisha … yes, well, I have a lot of admiration for Keisha. I’ve said before how when news of her pregnancy broke and the media rushed off to find their favourite ‘expert’ hand-wringers in the twittering classes, and quoted their so-called expert opinions, even though they didn’t know the girl, she just got on with her pregnancy and had her baby.

In a way, Key was doing Keisha a favour when he suggested she stick to acting. By getting caught up in the Sign On thing, and trading on her ‘celebrity’, she leaves herself exposed to having gaps in her knowledge revealed. And for a young kid that could be tough. Perhaps the prime minister understood that. But, the way these things work these days, what with perception apparently being everything, it didn’t look like that. He was never going to win.

The other day The Gisborne Herald ran an article written by someone whose name I have forgotten. The guts of it was, apart from we’ve had warm and cold periods before, that the temperatures at the ice caps would have to rise 40 degrees celcius for the world’s sea level to rise by a metre. Does Keisha know that? Is it true? I don’t know. I know there are people on this blog who might know more about it than me. But do they know?

You see, Keisha (and Lucy Lawless and Robyn Malcolm et al) have to rely on what they’re told, and by whom. If it’s Greenpeace, she’ll get a one-sided view. And unless Greenpeace have top-notch climate scientists who can say definitively that we’re all headed to a hellish, fiery end, then they’re believing what they want to believe. Keisha, and Lucy and Robyn can believe what they like — but their being ‘celebrities’ gives me no reason to listen to them or take any notice of them.

I read in a recent newspaper article about Keisha that she said she was concerned because she was a mum. I believe Robyn Malcolm says the same thing. Well, my answer to that is: ‘so what?’. I am a father. But being a mum or a dad confers nothing special, it gives no extra credibility. I was surprised that the journalist who wrote the story didn’t ask that question. Or did his/her editor?
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September 9, 2009 11:21am
Leg Break

Why can’t someone in the media come up with something a little bit more original than “Christchurch’s House of Horror.”

What next; Horrorgate?
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September 9, 2009 11:41am
labrator

@gazzmaniac Have you seen the new Taupo bypass getting built? Goes in on the North where it splits off to Rotorua and comes back in just below the airport. Presumably there will be in interchange with SH5 to Napier along the way. Must be a huge time and thus money saver for freight companies and will mean Taupo will be more of a destination than a thoroughfare.
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September 9, 2009 11:56am
gazzmaniac

I’m well aware of the Eastern Taupo Arterial – it has been kicked about for years (I grew up in Taupo) and I am quite amazed it is actually being built. There are going to be roundabouts at the intersections with SH5 to Rotorua and Napier (presumably this was cheaper than building motorway style interchanges).
Yes will be great for motorists travelling through the CNI not to have to go through Taupo, and will be better for Taupo in the holidays since through traffic won’t be routed along the lakefront. I will still travel SH32 if I am going to Hamilton/Auckland from Kapiti unless I actually want to go to Taupo though.
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September 9, 2009 12:23pm
Jack5

New topic for a second if I may…

China is trying to buy what is possibly NZ’s biggest farming group, Crafar Rarms(see link below). It produces about a quarter of a billion dollars worth of milk a year, if the report is right. It employs 200 people. The sale would give China an important stake in Fonterra.

If Key’s government allows this is is selling the country out. Surely, we cannot leave opposition to the Greens, who for historic socialist reasons oppose China’s expansion. If Key gives the nod on this, Winston Peters, here is your opening.

China is acting aggressively in both Australia and NZ trying to buy out product sources. Japan didn’t do this when it was the rising Asian economy. My sympathy rises every day for the Tibetans, the depleting indigeneous minority in China’s Inner Mongolia, and the Turkish people of the Sinkiang province, and especially for Taiwan.

The link:

http://www.interest.co.nz/ratesblog/index.php/2009/09/09/chinese-firm-in-talks-to-buy-nzs-largest-dairy-farming-group/
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September 9, 2009 12:52pm
gazzmaniac

Jack5 –
It really doesn’t matter who owns companies in New Zealand. The farming company and its workers will be pleased that they have a reliable customer. I also think it is fair to say that the Chinese firm (which is not China any more than Fisher and Paykel is New Zealand) won’t treat it as badly as some New Zealand firms would (think Fay, Richwite etc – I don’t think there will be much asset stripping, considering that most of the asset is cows, infrastructure, land and shares in a dairy company). It’s not a bad thing; Chinese firms are buying a lot of Australia’s mineral wealth – and a hell of a lot of Australian people are making a lot of money because of it.

One thing that is more amazing is that the farming family in question is partly blaming the banks for their mistakes – nobody twisted their arm and made them borrow money to expand their business. It is simple, they took a risk and it didn’t pay off. They are lucky in that they might get out with nothing – many other people in the same situation remain in debt or become bankrupt.

As many people have said, just because China is becoming the world’s biggest economy doesn’t mean that there is going to be a massive push to world domination. All they are doing is playing the game by the rules of the West, and doing pretty well. By rights the biggest economy in the world should be the one with the most people, and it was until about the 18th century.

As for a Chinese company taking a stake in Fonterra, that is a matter for Fonterra to sort out – if it has rules about foreign ownership of the cooperative then so be it, otherwise I don’t imagine it has a leg to stand on.

This deal will free up capital to the tune of $M200 for the financiers to invest in other ventures – and that is not a bad thing at all, especially considering the current economic situation.
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September 9, 2009 1:14pm
Kris K

Ryan Sproull 9:51 am,

Not as many, you certainly would not have seen any PM’s since Kiwi Keith doing anything like that, can you really imagine Klark being as open with the public?

I don’t know, I’ve never really met her.
Maybe there aren’t as many folk like that these days. What do you reckon has caused that?

I think it’s the increasing lack of respect and trust of others through the removal of foundational values that NZ used to pride itself upon.

I blame the liberals/socialists/Marxists/Darwinists et al, and those too gutless to stand up against them.

Oh yes, I blame the anarchists, Ryan, too.
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September 9, 2009 1:17pm
big bruv

Anybody else starting to get a bit pissed of with the family who live next door to the stupidly named “house of horrors”?

http://clintheine.blogspot.com/
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September 9, 2009 1:18pm
Jack5

Gazzmaniac at 1.14pm posted “… It really doesn’t matter who owns companies in New Zealand…”

This is rather purist economics-theory position, Gazz. Even with this position you must concede that part of NZ’s balance of payments problem is the big outflow of returns on investment to foreign owners. In this way, foreign investment resembles borrowing from overseas and may even cost more.

There are other concerns, as most successful countries note. Try buying property to divide in Singapore, for example. It would have been hard to buy a Japanese car maker when Japan was recovering in the first three decades after World War 2, as well. Even BP gets the bum’s rush in Russia, and we can cheer at that given what these pricks were prepared to trade off in victims’ rights in return for Libyan oil rights.

In Australia, sale of mineral resources will weaken Australia’s bargaining strength in negotiating iron ore, coal and other prices. Foreign ownership of a solid chunk of NZ’s dairy industry will weaken NZ’s hand in any dealing with China in dairy issues.

Another example is our banks. Our Reserve Bank’s controls are weaker and NZ citizens and business suffer in competitive service because the BNZ was sold to Australia after management was bungled following the appoint of gung-ho financiers to its board. This was reinforced by the privatisation, merging and sale offshore of our savings banks. Foreign ownership certainly has not helped in our banking.

Those who advocate your position, like Douglas Myers, and the robber barons who grew rich in the downside of Rogernomics, tend to bugger off to another country to live anyway, Gazz. They take the capital out of the country.
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September 9, 2009 1:37pm
Jeff83

And in pointless study 93845 scientists find out men look at naked woman breasts, I mean seriously people what the hell.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10596177

– haha just seen there is a post on this. Classic
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September 9, 2009 1:39pm
gazzmaniac

Kris K
What on earth do Darwinists have to do with the removal of foundational values? Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species… doesn’t have anything to do with the social fabric of New Zealand any more than Einstein’s theories of relativity as it is a scientific publication. There is nothing in the text about not having a creator (yes, I have read it) and nor was it intended that way.

If anything, Origin epitomises the values of the time when New Zealand was settled – the Victorian notion that scientific discovery and growth is the way of the future.
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September 9, 2009 1:44pm
side show bob

There is a brilliant opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal tittled Kiwi Carbon Haze “NZ’s cap and trade rationale is a bunch of hot air”. This should be compulsory reading for Shonkey and his mindless minnows, to quote one line. “But the truth is that no one really knows what the ultimate impact will be, given that NZ, by rendering it’s industries less competitive , will make it permanently harder for them to compete at home and abroad. To cut it short it is saying we are up shit creek and I and thousands of others are saying the same. Are we as a people, for ever more, cursed to be governed by those that never seem to have our best interests at heart.
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September 9, 2009 1:48pm
gazzmaniac

Jack5 –
The attitude of your post is exactly why people bugger off and live in other countries. Ask almost any of the million kiwis that live in Australia what is wrong with New Zealand, and they will say it is the entrenched tall poppy syndrome that New Zealand suffers from – the notion that anyone who is successful must have cheated or be part of the establishment. It really pisses everybody off, and that is why they leave, taking their physical and intellectual capital with them.

Selling something you have built up or made does not represent a net loss of capital. When you sell something (or take a loan against it), somebody else’s capital (generally cash) replaces the capital you gave to them. Therefore no net loss of capital, assuming it was done at market price (which it would be unless the seller or buyer were under duress). In the case of Craife Farms, they swapped some of their capital for cash when they borrowed money against it – and on the face of it the Chinese firm will be paying above market rate for it.

New Zealand’s banks are among the strongest in the world, and it is fair to say that it is mainly because of their Australian ownership. The big 4 Aussie banks (Commbank (owns ASB), Westpac, NAB (own BNZ) and ANZ) are now in the top 50 banks worldwide (I think Commbank, NAB and Westpac are in the top 20). New Zealand is very well off with the standard of service that it receives from its banks, and as there are many non bank lenders they tend to act in good faith. I think your feelings may stem from a general dislike of big businesses – another common trait among much of the New Zealand public.
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September 9, 2009 2:06pm
Kris K

gazzmaniac 1:44 pm,

Kris K
What on earth do Darwinists have to do with the removal of foundational values? Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species… doesn’t have anything to do with the social fabric of New Zealand any more than Einstein’s theories of relativity as it is a scientific publication. There is nothing in the text about not having a creator (yes, I have read it) and nor was it intended that way.

If anything, Origin epitomises the values of the time when New Zealand was settled – the Victorian notion that scientific discovery and growth is the way of the future.

Much of the slave trade was justified based on Darwinian thinking, as was Hitler’s attitude toward Jews, Blacks, et al. Darwinian thought allows for the belief that certain ‘races’ are either sub-human, or not human at all, and therefore it is acceptable to treat them as nothing more than animals.

And to imply that Darwinian thought is in any way associated with (true) science is a leap in logic (and evidence) that few of us can make.

Oh, and here’s the FULL title of Darwin’s little book:
“On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.”

And the ‘Favoured Races’ bit ain’t referring to the animal kingdom.
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September 9, 2009 2:45pm
Kris K

gazzmaniac 1:44 pm,

Darwinian thought attacks the very foundation that ‘all men are created equal’, and therefore justifies persecution of those ‘less favoured’ by removing their very humanity.

NZ’s attitude toward abortion, for example, is justified by dehumanising children in the womb; we call them foetuses to appease our consciences. This gives us free reign to terminate what we have ‘declared’ to be non human. Darwin has a lot to answer for when he stands before his Maker. As do those who condone abortion.
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September 9, 2009 2:56pm
gazzmaniac

Origin justifies the belief that certain races are sub-human just as much as the Koran justifies suicide bombings or the Bible justified the inquisition – it doesn’t. Have you read it?

The title of the sixth edition in 1872 was changed to The Origin of Species and most people know it by that name.

Races in this instance does not refer to people – rather it refers to people and to other species. The theory of evolution challenged the incumbent idea that people were some sort of higher being. It introduced the idea that people were animals that had evolved differently via the method of natural selection. It is certainly not a racist or bigoted text. I challenge you to reference (in context) a specific chapter or paragraph that can prove me wrong.
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September 9, 2009 2:57pm
Jack5

Re gazzmaniac at 2.06…

Actually Gazz, most people I know who leave NZ permanently do so to get away from the economic fuck-up caused by people who think like you, and to grab opportunity in bigger foreign countries. Certainly I did for a few years for these reasons.

What the hell have controls on foreign investment got to do with the tall poppy syndrome? Nothing at all. Myers might have said that was why he left, but he wanted a more lavish lifestyle than is available in these remote, egalitarian islands. He sold up from Lion because under him it was beginning to make a hash of things, such as with its big brewery in China.

To describe our big four Australian owned banks as NZ banks is hypocrisy. And who says NZ is pleased with their service? Not the many dairy farmers they are shutting down on, nor the home owners they are now selling up after providing 100 per cent or near-100 per cent loans, nor a few thousand small business owners who bear the brunt of banks of the backlash after bullish bank lending in the boom.

I don’t hate big business, though I don’t have a helluva lot of time for bankers, most of whose expertise and wisdom is overrated. I wish we had more NZ-owned big business. I do hate fuckers who would sell the country from under our feet and spout how this is unimportant, when economic history shows otherwise.
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September 9, 2009 2:58pm
gazzmaniac

Much of the slave trade was justified based on Darwinian thinking,

Slave trading was outlawed in the British Empire in 1807, 52 years prior to the publication of Origin

Evolutionary theory takes into account the notion that due to a genetic difference some people might reproduce while others do not. It has nothing to do with people being equal under the law, and anyone who says so is pulling your leg. Show me the bit that does.
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September 9, 2009 3:01pm
Jack5

Whoops Gazzmaniac, I forgot to take you up on a point in your 2.06 post…

“….When you sell something (or take a loan against it), somebody else’s capital (generally cash) replaces the capital you gave to them. Therefore no net loss of capital…”

But if you sell your NZ property to a foreigner for cash, then take your cash out of the country with you, selling the NZ dollars for, say Australian dollars, you are arguing there is no loss to NZ? The equity goes overseas and the cash goes overseas and we lose nothing? IF every NZ dairy farmer sold out to the CHinese then migrated to a warmer place, the Chinese would have our dairy land, and what asset would we have in its place?
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September 9, 2009 3:07pm
gazzmaniac

Jack5
Nobody forced anyone to take out 100% loans on property, nor did anyone force farmers to borrow money in the good times to expand their farms. The banks saw a gap in the market (not helped by government policy) and used it to make money. People do that all the time.
I am quite pleased with the services that ASB offer me. It is no better or worse than the service that I receive from the building society who holds the mortgage to my property or from the CBA and NAB I use in Australia.

If you don’t want New Zealand companies sold off shore then buy them yourself or set up a consortium to do so.

And IMHO the “economic fuck up” was caused because the reforms initiated by Mr Douglas have not been followed through. It was primarily due to them and the Richardson budgets, followed by a series of modest tax cuts by the Bolger government that New Zealand had better GDP growth than Australia from 1992 to 2001. One can only speculate where New Zealand would be now if Helen Clark become prime minister in 1999.
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September 9, 2009 3:10pm
Ryan Sproull

Darwinian thought attacks the very foundation that ‘all men are created equal’, and therefore justifies persecution of those ‘less favoured’ by removing their very humanity.

Darwinian theory doesn’t address questions of moral equality or inequality any more than it addresses which ice-cream flavour is best. However, shortly after Darwin’s observations and explanations came out, a second school of thought – “social Darwinism” – came out, which made the foolish mistake of deriving oughts from an is – values from a fact. Their conclusions were as absurd as any other attempt to derive values from facts. But for a while the ideas were fashionable. They’re just not essential to Darwinian theory.

NZ’s attitude toward abortion, for example, is justified by dehumanising children in the womb; we call them foetuses to appease our consciences. This gives us free reign to terminate what we have ‘declared’ to be non human. Darwin has a lot to answer for when he stands before his Maker. As do those who condone abortion.

The word “foetus” predates Darwin by about 2000 years. Where one draws the line between non-life and life is not a question for Darwinian theory, not least because it’s a question of values, and Darwin’s theory deals only with facts.
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September 9, 2009 3:16pm
Jack5

Gazz, re your 3.10..

The banks lured some senior citizens into shonky funds in the run up to the financial crisis, didn’t they? And I’m not sure what such a free marketer as your goodself is doing in a bank that is at least partly mutually owned. How can you bear to have it manage your money?

I don’t think any country in the world has ever followed your extreme laissez-faire philosophy, though Hong Kong may have come closest to it. Even Hong Kong however, did not have a completely free currency for example. It used a currency board.

As for Ruth Richardson… some of the companies Ruth has been on the board of haven’t been that successful.

Douglas had some good ideas, and if there wasn’t such a rush for time, they would have been better implemented, such as NZ Rail (Richwhite and co) and the Govt Printing Office (which helped on its way the person who is now Australasia’s richest man).

China is a dirigist economy, with a communist government. Japan was dirigist. Singapore was and is dirigist. All use free-market fronts, but they have not followed anything like Rogernomics. Their big state-owned investment funds are buying up Western companies left and right, from Wall Street firms to Australian mines to NZ engineering companies.

I’m certainly not convinced free-market economics is right about everything.
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September 9, 2009 3:21pm
Ryan Sproull

And the ‘Favoured Races’ bit ain’t referring to the animal kingdom.

Yes, it is. Quite explicitly. Have you actually read the book?

Because you seem to be judging the book by its…

What’s the word? Sleeve or something.
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September 9, 2009 3:33pm
gazzmaniac

But if you sell your NZ property to a foreigner for cash, then take your cash out of the country with you, selling the NZ dollars for, say Australian dollars, you are arguing there is no loss to NZ?

Sure, there is a loss to New Zealand. If a New Zealander sells his house in New Zealand and moves all his money to Australia there is also a net loss to New Zealand. That is to do with migration, not with selling assets.

If a New Zealander sells his shares in, say, Fisher and Paykel to a foreign investor he can either choose to leave his money in New Zealand and invest in something else (net GAIN to New Zealand), or invest in something offshore (no net change as it is effectively trading a foreign asset for a domestic one). The problem comes when he decides to sell his shares and invest in something that will devalue quickly, such as a big TV that is built offshore. Then, although there is initially no change for New Zealand, there will be an imbalance as he would have trouble selling the “investment” for anything close to what he paid for it.
It is worse when you consider that many people borrow money that has been sourced offshore to buy such products, as the money didn’t exist to start with, and now he (and “New Zealand”) will have an extra debt for no real gain.
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September 9, 2009 3:43pm
chiz

Kris k:Darwinian thought allows for the belief that certain ‘races’ are either sub-human, or not human at all, and therefore it is acceptable to treat them as nothing more than animals.

Religion allows people to do that do. Look at Apartheid, or the caste system in India.

Kris k:And to imply that Darwinian thought is in any way associated with (true) science is a leap in logic (and evidence) that few of us can make.

Evolution is as well established as the roundness of the Earth. Your inability says more about you than it does about the evidence.
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September 9, 2009 3:48pm
Owen McShane

The Wall Street Article on NZ foolishness is at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574397112556058826.html
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September 9, 2009 3:49pm
gazzmaniac

The banks lured some senior citizens into shonky funds in the run up to the financial crisis, didn’t they?

People know the risks of an investment before they go into it – and those who put all their eggs into one company or sector are at higher risk than those who spread their wealth about. Provided of course that the directors of those funds are operating within the law – and how is the bank meant to know if they’re not? ANZ got badly caught with Opes Prime in Australia.

I’m not sure what such a free marketer as your goodself is doing in a bank that is at least partly mutually owned. How can you bear to have it manage your money?

The same way that I use a private health insurer that is mutually owned. They offered a good deal and I agreed to it. The ownership of the society or company is quite irrelevant if it offers a good product or service.

Prior to being returned to China, Hong Kong was one of the wealthiest nations on Earth – and it has to import most of its materials. Maybe free market economics does have something to offer New Zealand.
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September 9, 2009 4:04pm
gazzmaniac

Owen –
The article is on the money.
It has to be noted that (apart from agriculture – which actually has a net effect of zero due to the fact that plant matter takes carbon from the air to start with) New Zealand has lower per capita carbon emissions than almost any other developed country, due to the enormous hydroelectric and geothermal capacity in the electricity system.
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September 9, 2009 4:12pm
voice of reason

[gazzmaniac (180) 0 1 Says:
September 9th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
– The banks lured some senior citizens into shonky funds in the run up to the financial crisis, didn’t they?
…People know the risks of an investment before they go into it…. ]

True, that is unless investments sold as low risk were in fact high risk……. And as we know banks never do that do they???
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September 9, 2009 4:19pm
gazzmaniac

voice of reason –
It was not only the banks that called those funds as low risk. It was also credit agencies such as Standard and Poors.
It still doesn’t change the fact that if people have all their wealth in one place and that place falls over, they lose all their wealth.
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September 9, 2009 4:41pm
Jack5

Re Gazz at 4.04

Hong Kong is still one of the most wealthy countries per capita. Enlightened, mainly free-market administration certainly allowed its economy to soar. However, it was and is protected from the wider world in a way that NZ is not. When its currency was nearly busted by speculators Beijing rescued it by promising to virtually underwrite its HK dollar. The fact that HK’s wealth continues within dirigist, communist China tell you something about whether pure free markets are a necessary condition for economic success. Hong Kong’s economic wealth largely rests on its role as an entrepot (and under Mao the only entrepot) for China. NZ is entrepot to what? Nieue and the Cook Islands?

You should compare your generous buy-anything-you-like stance towards the Chinese interest in our dairy industry with what China is doing in rare earths. It controls sources of up to 99 per cent of these minerals, of critical importance to electronics and green-energy supply. China has gradually reduced permits for export of them to force world manufacturers to locate in China.

Try buying into Chinese rare earth extraction or manufacturing based on this Gazz. What a contrast to this would be selling our prime dairy land to China.

You seem to advocate free market for NZ but accept dirigist strategy for everyone-else.

No wonder ACT is under 1 per cent and falling!
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September 9, 2009 5:25pm
Jack5

Re Gazz’s 4.41…

I don’t recall the ratings agencies suggesting to retired and near-retired people that they should put their savings into specific funds.

Gazz you don’t give a stuff about the scores of thousands of older NZers who lost (or have locked up) as much as $5 billion of their savings in finance companies and bank-recommended funds, do you?

Your philosophy seems almost to be caveat emptor in everything. A lot of sharp arses will agree with you, but eventually it catches them out. Live by the fraud, die by the fraud.
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September 9, 2009 5:34pm
gazzmaniac

I don’t advocate a free market for New Zealand and dirigist strategy for everyone else. I suggest that if every country in the world adopted a free market strategy then there would be no wars for resources because there would be no barriers to buying what is required.
That said, it is foolish to stop trading with a society because it is run differently to ours.

As for China controlling 99% of the world’s supply of raw rare earth minerals (which I would like a source for), if the purchasers of those metals had their heads screwed on, they might have bought the rights themselves before China was on the scene.
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September 9, 2009 5:40pm
Jack5

Further to Gazz’s assertion at 4.04 that Hong Kong has to import most of its materials.

Hong Kong does very little manufacturing, and has done little since China opened up and HK’s real growth surge began. It clips the ticket on goods made in south China and passing through Hong Kong. So HK imports few raw materials.

Incidentally, with the rise again of Shanghai, and the possibility of a big new container port near Hong Kong, HK is likely to slip down the ladder of China’s biggest trading cities, though it will remain of world importance, of course.
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September 9, 2009 5:42pm
Jack5

Gass at 5.40 wants a source for China’s control of rare earth production. Assuming you are talking about a source of information, not location of a Chinese mine, here it is:

New York Times, September 1, Keith Bradsher article.
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September 9, 2009 5:45pm
gazzmaniac

Jack5 at 5.34 –
I accept that many retired people (and people who aren’t retired, of course) lost money in finance companies that were poorly run. What I don’t have is sympathy for people who take a risk and put all their money in one company or sector. Any financial advisor worth his salt (including the ones at banks) should be able to tell people that.
The people who ran the first companies that fell over (ie the Bridgecorps) will not have the credibility in the market if they start a new finance company. This will be reflected because people won’t recommend their companies as low risk quite as readily.
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September 9, 2009 5:46pm
gazzmaniac

Jack5
I accept that Chinese interests may control a large portion of the rare earth element market (incidently only 99% of the market for 2 elements). Chinese companies are quite right to sell resources to whoever they want, and if they feel more comfortable selling to local users then so be it.

There are other places less explored (much of Australia is not properly explored for minerals, ditto for Canada) that may also have deposits of those minerals.

There is also a market feedback system – if there is a lack of a resource the market will compensate and other technologies will emerge to replace them.
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September 9, 2009 5:55pm
Hurf Durf

“I am surprised that Van Jones resignation has not generated a lot more debate here.”

Not really, big bruv. They want to keep it as quiet as possible. Imagine if it became widely known that the White House hired a fruitloop, even though Jones didn’t take their questionnaire and their lawyers said that he had some unsavoury connections? Imagine if Bush did it, in other words.
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September 9, 2009 6:03pm
Cerium

Imagine if Bush had done something like appoint someone to head a selection committee who then selected himself for the job, effectively ran the government that secretly spied on it’s own citizens, promoted torture and started an unjustified war that hugely benefited the company he had been CEO of.
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September 9, 2009 7:21pm
Hurf Durf

Ah, here comes the Halliburton boogeyman. Thanks Delirium.
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September 9, 2009 7:38pm
big bruv

Cerium

What do, George Bush (43), Al Gore, John Kerry, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, John Howard, Hans Blick and a whole host of other world leaders and informed people have in common?

Give up?….thought so, let me tell you the answer then…

Every single one of them were of the opinion that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, yes, this proved to be incorrect however it is nothing more than a blatant lie for you to continue to push that bullshit line “started an unjustified war”.

While you are at it, how come the Yanks are still in Iraq?, did not B Hussein Messiah Obama say he would remove the troops?
Obama lied, he has not kept his promise yet I do not hear you banging on about that.
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September 9, 2009 7:51pm
big bruv

Hurf

Come on now mate, you know that you are not allowed to go after a Black fruit loop, if he has been white then he is fair game, but the liberal MSM will never go after Jones like they should lest they get hit with the racist tag.
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September 9, 2009 7:54pm
reid

“Every single one of them were of the opinion that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction”

Er, no.

They said they believed it. Whether or not they actually did, is another question. And Blick, as I recall, never did, but my memory may be faulty there…
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September 9, 2009 8:23pm
big bruv

Oh Ok reid, so its alright for Kerry, Gore and almost every democrat in the house to say that they agree that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction because……well, they really may not have meant it?

Does that make their eagerness to jump on the “unjustifiable war” bandwagon more acceptable?
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September 9, 2009 8:33pm
Cerium

They ignored Blix, but what would he have known.

Congress was basing their decision on what the Bush administration told them.

By March 2003, Hans Blix had found no stockpiles of WMD and had made significant progress toward resolving open issues of disarmament noting “proactive” but not always the “immediate” Iraqi cooperation as called for by UN Security Council Resolution 1441. He concluded that it would take “but months” to resolve the key remaining disarmament tasks. The United States asserted this was a breach of Resolution 1441 but failed to convince the UN Security Council to pass a new resolution authorizing the use of force due to lack of evidence. Despite being unable to get a new resolution authorizing force and citing section 3 of the Joint Resolution passed by the U.S. Congress, President Bush asserted peaceful measures couldn’t disarm Iraq of the weapons he alleged it to have and launched a second Gulf War, despite multiple dissenting opinions and questions of integrity about the underlying intelligence.

President Bush later said that the biggest regret of his presidency was “the intelligence failure” in Iraq, while the Senate Intelligence Committee found in 2008 that his administration “misrepresented the intelligence and the threat from Iraq”.”
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September 9, 2009 8:41pm
big bruv

cerium

Still trying to rewrite history I see?
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September 9, 2009 8:52pm
Cerium

That was from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

There is heaps of corroboration eg http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Dec09/0,4670,IntelligenceIraq,00.html

Bush told ABC News last week his biggest regret was “the intelligence failure in Iraq.”
“I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess,” Bush said.

Thomas Fingar is in a better position than many in the intelligence agencies to assess those possibilities. Before the Iraq invasion, he was second in command of a small group of State Department analysts that notably cast doubt_ albeit behind closed doors _ on a key Bush administration rationale for the 2003 war.

A 2002 intelligence assessment pushed by the administration contended that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had an active nuclear, chemical and biological weapons program. Fingar’s office dissented on the nuclear question.
Part of the blame goes to time pressure, Fingar said: The Bush administration ordered the report to be produced in less than two weeks. Similar intelligence estimates can take months or years.

“It’s my observation that it’s very hard to dislodge a mistaken interpretation once it gets into the head of a decisionmaker who has used it in a speech, built it into a policy, conveyed it to colleagues around the world,” Fingar said. “That puts to me an awfully high premium on taking the time to get it right.”
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September 9, 2009 9:03pm
Jack5

Re Gazzmaniac at 5.55pm ….

I posted that China controls sources of up to 99 per cent of rare earth minerals. Gazzmaniac asked for my source, and I supplied it. Gazzmaniac then, from the article to which I pointed, says of these rare earths “incidently only 99% of the market for 2 elements.”

What Gazzmaniac doesn’t say is that the article also says China acccounts for 93 per cent of all rare earths production, and is trying to buy Australia’s rare earths mine.

China is on an international resource-grabbing binge, and only the most fuck-witted ACT supporter, probably of Christchurch ACT’s ZAP-Scientology type, would support selling our dairy land to China.

Gazz also says: “…if there is a lack of a resource the market will compensate and other technologies will emerge to replace them…”

But this has to be quick, Gazz. How long have we been waiting for new technology to replace oil. In the end it will be introduced only when governments provide incentives and disincentives for oil? Otherwise every time it begins to get off the ground, the oil price will fall and choke the new technology.

In the long run we are all dead as a famous economist wrote.
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September 9, 2009 9:12pm
big bruv

Cerium

None of that excuses the way the left ran away from their original agreement that in all probability Iraq DID HAVE weapons of mass destruction.

You cannot blame Bush (43) for the mistake that the intelligence agencies made, he (Bush) is right to concede that the intelligence failure was a regret but given that he (and Kerry, Blair, Gore etc…) did not have any other information to go on AT THAT TIME then it is wrong to suggest that the war was unjustifiable.

Of course the other issue you Bush haters conveniently overlook is the reign of terror Iraq suffered under, I don’t suppose it bothers you guys that Saddam and his two “lovely” sons were murdering people by their hundreds.

I also note that you have avoided the issue of B Hussein Messiah Obama’s lie about getting out of Iraq, how come the troops are still there Cerium?
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September 9, 2009 9:19pm
gazzmaniac

Jack5 –
Oil has been cheap for a long time. If it were sustained at a price somewhere over $150 per barrel we would be reconstituting natural gas or coal to make liquid fuels to power our vehicles. With current technology this breaks even when petrol is about $2.50/l. It is cheaper at the moment just to use the existing means of getting oil, that is buying it from the middle east.
I really don’t care that Chinese interests are buying a lot of mineral rights – they are trying to control a market. There will be other technologies available to do the same as what those rare earth elements are now. I do recall some time ago that some people were worried about a worldwide shortage of tungsten for lightbulbs that was “imminent.” Well, lo and behold, we now have compact fluorescent bulbs instead. No big deal. A new technology (that likely has existed for some time) was introduced to the market, it happens to be more efficient and it also solves a problem of running out of resources.
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September 9, 2009 9:27pm
Cerium

I don’t blame puppet boy GW. Cheney and Addington were the pushers and string pullers.

Iraq is taking control of it’s own territory.

“For most U.S. soldiers in Iraq, the war as they knew it came to an abrupt halt June 30, the date by which U.S. forces had to be out of Iraq’s cities under the terms of the U.S.-Iraqi security agreement.

The winding down is due to start in earnest in January, after Iraq holds national elections. Odierno’s plan is to keep U.S. forces in place as a stabilizing presence until the vote, after which they will begin a rapid withdrawal to meet President Obama’s August deadline — assuming all goes well.”

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq-troops7-2009sep07,0,3994476.story
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September 9, 2009 9:38pm
Jack5

Gazz, re your 9.27 on compact fluorescent bulbs.

These were introduced because of Green pressures about energy consumption, not as a result of market forces. In fact now that the NZ government has rescinded a projected ban on tungsten bulbs, they are back in favour.
No market forces here.

Markets are generally excellent, but are imperfect, and cannot always produce immediate change. After the world financial crisis, most people ought to see they can be flawed.
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September 9, 2009 9:47pm
Hurf Durf

The winding down is due to start in earnest in January, after Iraq holds national elections. Odierno’s plan is to keep U.S. forces in place as a stabilizing presence until the vote, after which they will begin a rapid withdrawal to meet President Obama’s August deadline — assuming all goes well.”

More than likely they’ll be transferred to Afghanistan, that’s if O’s nerve holds and he doesn’t cave on Afghanistan. He needs a good foreign policy score to offset his long-derailed domestic agenda.
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September 9, 2009 10:11pm
lilman

So the great pygmie that is TWEVOR Mallard is back, what a scumbage you are twrevor, the man who resorts to violence,this great new zealander who is committed to New Zealand and the downtrodden.

Pity about the commitment to the wife and kids,ooooopppppppssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!
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September 9, 2009 11:08pm
reid

You cannot blame Bush (43) for the mistake that the intelligence agencies made, he (Bush) is right to concede that the intelligence failure was a regret but given that he (and Kerry, Blair, Gore etc…) did not have any other information to go on AT THAT TIME then it is wrong to suggest that the war was unjustifiable.

You and others who think the same might correct your ignorance on this matter bb, by reading George Tenet’s book “At the Center of the Storm.” As head of the CIA, I think Tenet knows better than you what actually happened re this issue. He concludes, the Bush Administration from the beginning spun and spun and spun, drew unjusitifiable conclusions from the intelligence, were informed their conclusions were not justified and yet, continued to allege those lies.

Of course the other issue you Bush haters conveniently overlook is the reign of terror Iraq suffered under, I don’t suppose it bothers you guys that Saddam and his two “lovely” sons were murdering people by their hundreds.

Well I certainly don’t and never have overlooked it, bb. But surely, surely, you’re not suggesting that that, in whole or in part, is why they went in or that that justifies how they went about it – looting museums, disbanding the Iraqi army, etc etc. I mean duh. Ask your average Iraqi today, whether they would have preferred Saddam’s regime to what happened. Secondly if you really think that was a factor in any way, then why aren’t other brutal dictators taken out around the world? Oh wait, no oil.

Fact is, the neocons were in control, they had their PNAC strategy, which was later reinforced by the revision to the NSS (post-invasion). That revision showed PNAC was the Administration’s FP blueprint. Hope you’ve read it. If not, you will never understand the drivers behind the Bush 43 years. Secondly you have the attraction of the oil reserves. Thirdly you have the convenient fact that Iraq was one of the two biggest security threats to Israel. Add all three together and that’s why they went in. WMD was an excuse, used cynically by the neocons to cloak their vicious plans. Always was. Some of us knew that at the time. It’s taken some others quite awhile to catch up and some people still haven’t. Talk about useful idiots. Emphasis on the idiot bit.
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September 10, 2009 7:12am
Cerium

“Of course the other issue you Bush haters…..”

I’m not a Bush hater. I think he went into the job on family reputation and influence, probably had good intentions but he was out of his depth, weak, and easily manipulated. He would have been better to go for bishop, get all the adulation he wanted without having to do anything important. The world may be better off too, the US almost certainly would be. McCain would have been a much better bet (in 2000).

“….conveniently overlook is the reign of terror Iraq suffered under, I don’t suppose it bothers you guys that Saddam and his two “lovely” sons were murdering people by their hundreds.”

Why would I do that? Obviously he was a prick, but only dangerous to his own country by then, it seems obvious his fingers were burned in Gulf I and the Iran war. It was good to see him gone, but it wasn’t good to see the reign of terror Iraq suffered after that, at the hands of the US who killed conservatively 100,000, caused a lot of damage, imprisoned, tortured and tried to impose their “democracy”.

Due to a totally unjustified (that is proven) war Bush was responsible for more US deaths, many more casualties and far greater financial problems than 9-11. And he let the real problem areas, Afghanistan and Pakistan, to fester and become a bigger problem. And recruited a heap more fanatic Muslims – was that deliberate, to keep having an excuse for the never ending war powers?
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September 10, 2009 7:48am
Ryan Sproull

And let’s not forget that the reason for invading was to disarm Hussein of WMDs no one believed he had.
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September 10, 2009 7:51am
Redbaiter

Two complete fantasy world morons, with ignorant opinions underpinned by lies distortions and deceit, and suffering such gross mental damage as to be beyond reason and rational debate.
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September 10, 2009 7:54am
Ryan Sproull

Redbaiter,

The intention to disarm Saddam is a matter of record. Look at the US-proposed resolution that the Security Council didn’t ratify.
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September 10, 2009 7:58am

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