General Debate 17 December 2008

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getstaffed

Call for urgent action on jails

Up to four more prisons will be needed in the next eight years and there are concerns public safety may be at risk unless more prison staff can be found, Corrections has told the Government.

Can anyone explain why Mt Crawford prison in Wellington has been closed and empty since 19-Sep-2008?
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December 17, 2008 9:21am
billyborker

Ever wondered why Capitalism gets such a bad rap?

As reported in Time,

April 2,2007 Tribune Co. accepts an $8.2 billion dollar purchase. Purchaser (samuel Zell) puts up $315 million, borrows rest against emplyee pension plan.

Dec 20, 2007 Sale finalised, company’s debt trippled.

Jan 2007 – Dec 2008 Over 1000 jobs gone, various assetts sold to reduce debt.

Dec 8, 2008 Tribune Co files for bankruptcy.

Just who are these idiots that think they can rule the world? The morons who lend with so little equity?

The Bankers who ate the world.
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December 17, 2008 9:22am
expat

Get Staffed – It doesn’t have heatpumps, aircon and in-room broadband.
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December 17, 2008 9:23am
expat

Borker – the national reserve banks who created the liquidity that the idiots borrowed. Doh.
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December 17, 2008 9:24am
billyborker

Then there’s Bernard Madoff, just strolls off with US$20 billion, right under the noses of bankers and advisors. What a hero, the perfection of Capitalist Man – To me according to my greed, from each according to my needs.
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December 17, 2008 9:28am
CraigM

I recieved this via email his morning. Apart form a very loud ringing of truth in my ears, I also had a thought. This is why so many socialists seem to be so miserable. They don’t get this.

There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life — happiness, freedom, and peace of mind — are always attained by giving them to someone else. –Peyton Conway March
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December 17, 2008 9:29am
expat

Borker – Ahem – it was $50 Billion.

And “MR” Madoff used to be the Chairman of NASDAQ.

AND has been quoted as saying on camera that you could NEVER get away with pulling the wool over the regulators eyes! LOL!

Fucking scarey isn’t it.

Pundits are commenting a) that this wont be the last b) the US capital markets are now officially fucked.
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December 17, 2008 9:30am
dad4justice

Build more prisons as the tranny granny Human Rights Review Tribunal wants to pay out more money to the many homicidal maniacs that pollute society and get hurt feelings while in a cell. Does anybody know if any other country in the world pays out compensation to callous cold blooded murderers? Speaking of prisons, I hope they build a nice one to house Miss Klark and her sick cronies.
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December 17, 2008 9:32am
billyborker

Looks like the world’s biggest ponzi scheme
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December 17, 2008 9:35am
billyborker

dad, have you stopped beating your wife?
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December 17, 2008 9:36am
Bok

Yes Borker and then there i Helen and Mikey who so far has spent coming up to 10 bil on…. nothing really. it just vanished. But here is the rub. The people who they ripped off had no choice to invest in their little schemes. If they did not they could go to prison. Cool people hey?
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December 17, 2008 9:37am
expat

Borker – Spreads on HSBC were trading inside the UK Govt Gilts. Does that mean that HSBC is lower risk than Gordon Brown even given that HSBC lost about a bill on the big Ponzi scheme?

Wonder what ACC would be trading at if it was public? A very good reason why ACC wasnt privatised during the labour terms. aye.
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December 17, 2008 9:38am
expat

>>billyborker (42) Vote: 0 0 Says:
>> December 17th, 2008 at 9:36 am

>> dad, have you stopped beating your wife?

Borker – Have you stopped beating yourself off in public lavatories? You slimey little tosser.
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December 17, 2008 9:42am
dad4justice

“dad, have you stopped beating your wife?”

Is billy borker a large brown smelly object that was deposited in the lou through the back end of James Sleep?
Yawn, these lefty sub standard creeps are hideous sour losers.
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December 17, 2008 9:46am
billyborker

getstaffed (2630) Vote: 1 0 Says:

December 17th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Call for urgent action on jails

Up to four more prisons will be needed in the next eight years and there are concerns public safety may be at risk unless more prison staff can be found, Corrections has told the Government.

Can anyone explain why Mt Crawford prison in Wellington has been closed and empty since 19-Sep-2008?

Being prepared for the political prisoners the SIG were about to arrest?
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December 17, 2008 10:13am
side show bob

Expat, ACC is a test model for the coming AGW scams. Just look at ACC, what a fucking con, hundreds of millions fleeced from the punters under fear of fines or imprisonment and what do we get for our efforts, sweet fuck all. Sure ACC payout to the lucky or those with good lawyers but the vast majority of claimants have to jump through hoops just to get a sniff of some money. I note that ACC are now heavily investing in farm land, for fucks sake, what chance does the average working Joe have if they want to buy a farm and they have to compete with ACC who can go out and buy land with poor old Joe’s ACC contributions, it fucking stinks. ACC is socialist pyramid scheme but they lucky as they don’t have to go out and look for new punters to pay for the old, the punters just keep paying. Expect any emission scheme to be run on the same lines.
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December 17, 2008 10:16am
expat

Phil Goffs SIG. Yes Borker?

Perhaps you should go back to your union job and do what you are paid for – look after your members.
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December 17, 2008 10:18am
Camryn

SEC deserves a ‘beat down’ for missing the Madoff fraud. Apparently multiple whistleblowers over the past several years didn’t set off any alarms. There seem to be too many regulatory agencies in the US and none of them particularly great at doing their job. What’s the point debating the level of regulation when they’re all horrible at doing their job and their responsibilities overlap in some areas and leave gaps in others? I’d suggest just one top-level financial oversight entity with divisions specifically assigned certain areas of oversight, and strip all oversight out of the other non-regulatory government financial entities. Gah! Then, let’s debate what they regulate and to what extent… once there’s a working f**king tool.

(Disclosure: I’m extremely grumpy about finances in general because the Kiwi dollar finally tanks against the US but I don’t have any US$ savings to repatriate – as I usually would – because I went and got married and spent it all on flowers and booze)
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December 17, 2008 10:18am
expat

Bob,

ACC would be bankrupt now if it was a pubic company.
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December 17, 2008 10:20am
senzafine

Can anyone explain why Mt Crawford prison in Wellington has been closed and empty since 19-Sep-2008?

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominionpost/4598176a6000.html

All very odd.
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December 17, 2008 10:49am
Owen McShane

Madoff was regarded as a person beyond suspicion and of high repute.

Just like the UN IPCC.
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December 17, 2008 11:00am
Inventory2

Seems that the Greens are not very happy that the Police (and by definition the Labour government) tried to spy on them…

http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2008/12/labour-spied-on-greens.html
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December 17, 2008 11:01am
Bok

Is it just me, or does others have the suspicion as well that Borker is the latest incarnation of the multi-faced liar and thief (of others work) Phillipjohn, rogernome etc etc etc
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December 17, 2008 11:34am
Brian Smaller

ACC levies – Why not call them Income TAX like the rest of the money they government steals from my pay packet each week. Now these are going up again to cover the billions in ACC funding shortfalls. For about $1200 a year in premiums I could have had a gold plated private compensation scheme.
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December 17, 2008 11:38am
billyborker

Bok, It’s just you.
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December 17, 2008 11:49am
dad4justice

Hi roger borker – you claim to live in Oxford. What street as I live in this town? Is it Nome Drive ?
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December 17, 2008 11:51am
gd

heh guys lets be fair to billy borker and the others As probably the most right wing capitalist pig who posts here I am ashamed of the throughly bad governance bad ethics and bad morals that have been displayed by polliticans civil servants bankers etc etc. All are a disgrace to to the capitalist cause and if I had my way each would be hung drawn and quartered.

they have bought the great capitalist cause into disrepute and we freedom fighters have the right to take our revenge on them.

Like all arseholes they have spoilt it for those of us who want to see a fair just ethical and moral cause flourish and succeed.

But we have to defend the cause and therefore attack those who have damaged that wich we hold dear to us

Similarly to be consistent we must keep on attack the corpses of Clark Cullen et al for the equally immoral unethical manner in which they governed to the extent they have left a multi Billion dollar laibility behind after wasting multi billions on their mad cap socialists failures.
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December 17, 2008 11:53am
aardvark

Perhaps if the ACC hadn’t invested so much of the money it took from our wallets in the stock market and other funds that have crumbled of late, they wouldn’t need to dig even deeper into our pockets.

I can see the need to provision for the demands of those with long-term dependencies but why do they steal from us to gamble it away on the markets?

Wasn’t it ACC that had investments in tobacco and munitions companies?

Sigh.
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December 17, 2008 11:53am
Lee

A question for DPF,

are statements like this one: “dad, have you stopped beating your wife?” from billyborker acceptable?
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December 17, 2008 11:56am
dad4justice

Lee, I must NOT get angry, ask big bruv, as he knows all.
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December 17, 2008 11:58am
Ryan Sproull

A question for DPF,

are statements like this one: “dad, have you stopped beating your wife?” from billyborker acceptable?

I shouldn’t think so. When I saw it, I assumed that it was a reference to a “damned if you say yes, damned if you say no” type of statement that Dad4Justice must have made. But I couldn’t find one.
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December 17, 2008 11:59am
labrator

What happens when the fed drops interest rates below 0%? Do they start paying you to take their money or is this kind of what they’re doing with the bailouts anyway…
US Fed slashes interest rates to record 0.25pc
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December 17, 2008 12:00pm
WebWrat

# expat (1683) Vote: Add rating 1 Subtract rating 0 Says:
December 17th, 2008 at 10:18 am

Phil Goffs SIG. Yes Borker?

Perhaps you should go back to your union job and do what you are paid for – look after your members.
………………………

He is looking after his member … with a firm grip.
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December 17, 2008 12:06pm
billyborker

Ryan Sproull (1070) Vote: 0 0 Says:

December 17th, 2008 at 11:59 am
A question for DPF,

are statements like this one: “dad, have you stopped beating your wife?” from billyborker acceptable?

I shouldn’t think so. When I saw it, I assumed that it was a reference to a “damned if you say yes, damned if you say no” type of statement that Dad4Justice must have made. But I couldn’t find one.

Both Lee and Ryan are correct, my statement should be unacceptable, and I would withdraw (or not make it in the first place) were it not for the fact that D4J never contributes to a debate, he simply thrashes and froths like an epeleptic on speed.
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December 17, 2008 12:08pm
big bruv

“Lee, I must NOT get angry, ask big bruv, as he knows all.”

Damn right!
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December 17, 2008 12:08pm
peterwn

getstaffed – there seems to be a sufficient ‘pause’ in prison population increase to enable Mt Crawford to be temporarily closed for maintenance. This means they can have an ‘unlock down’ meaning contractors can do their work unimpeded by prison security routines since only the front door need be locked. Mt Crawford is quite small compared with Rimutaka the latter being the main facility for the region.
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December 17, 2008 12:11pm
big bruv

“you claim to live in Oxford”

Nobody “lives” in Oxford………..they exist.
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December 17, 2008 12:11pm
billyborker

That’s not very nice WW, and here I was wondering if you were the author of the piece in today’s Press re CPWL, quite well written thought I.

Expat, just for your info, I don’t have a union job, in fact I don’t have a “job” at all. I run a succesful small business, working on growing it. Yes, it is possible to run a business and still have a heart.
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December 17, 2008 12:11pm
billyborker

dad4justice (4511) Vote: 1 0 Says:

December 17th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Hi roger borker – you claim to live in Oxford. What street as I live in this town? Is it Nome Drive ?

There is no Nome drive, but there is a High St and a Main St, I live on one, work on the other. Maybe you could shout me a beer at the Workingmen’s Club. Oh, but you’re not a man or a worker, are you?

And why isn’t the children Need fathers trust registered with the Charities Commission?
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December 17, 2008 12:16pm
Ross Miller

Wot is Winston Peters doing now?

No ‘dragons’ to slay
No Question Time to Grandstand
No secret trusts to worry about
No Honorary Consuls to appoint
No Ministerial Limo to ride in
No money to pay Tommy Gear
No more hob nobbing in North Korea
No more freebee ‘fishy’ meals
No more Tauranga

Only his Parliamentary pension to console him.

And what about the $70k to the ‘Victims of Crime’ … did it/has it actually happened or did it get sidetracked into paying off NZF debts?

and does anyone care?
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December 17, 2008 12:18pm
PhilBest

James L. Gattuso: “Meltdowns and Myths: Did Deregulation Cause The Financial Crisis?”

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2109.cfm

Excerpt:

“…….look at the budgets of regulators.

These also show little sign of reduced regulatory activity during the Bush years. The total budget of federal finance and banking regulators (excluding the SEC) increased from approximately $2 billion in FY 2000 to almost $2.3 billion in FY 2008 in constant 2000 dollars. The SEC’s budget during the same time period jumped from $357 million in 2000 to a whopping $629 million in 2008. During the same time period, total staffing at these agencies remained steady, at close to 16,000.[5]

In the wake of the financial crisis gripping the nation, it is tempting to blame “deregulation” for triggering the problem. After all, if the meltdown were caused by the ill-advised elimination of necessary rules, the answer would be easy: Restore those rules.

But that storyline is simply not true. Not only was there was little deregulation of financial services during the Bush years, but most of the regulatory reforms achieved in earlier years mitigated, rather than contributed to, the crisis…..”

GET THAT:

16,000 Regulators; a 2 Billion dollar annual budget.

And none of them saw this crisis coming.

I suggest we should forget most regulatory agencies and get back to “Caveat Emptor”. Regulatory agencies and government guarantees just introduce a whole lot of moral hazard, people make stupid investment decisions based on the false sense of security that these things result in.

Note that it was the pure free-marketeers like “the Austrian economists” who DID see this crisis coming. It is the big government types who refused to listen to them then and still refuse to listen to them now.
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December 17, 2008 12:25pm
baxter

Bruce EMERY who is reportedly a family man and having no previous convictions has been denied bail over xmas and prior to sentencing for what at worst seems to be manslaughter of a tagger under provocation. Meanwhile Dean WICKLIFFE who has cold bloodely killed a shopkeeper, and aquitted of killing another, a known drug dealer with a long list has been granted bail. Typical of the judgement of our judges the worst type of killer or gangster seems to have little trouble getting bail while those who try to live law abiding lives receive little consideration. The arguments concerning EMERY’s bail application have been suppressed. Open Justice…….Yeah right.
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December 17, 2008 12:28pm
dad4justice

“And why isn’t the children Need fathers trust registered with the Charities Commission?”

Silly Phillip John Borker the Ministry of Economic Development Certificate of Incorporation of the Children Need Parents Trust is 1911718. Why do you ask liar? Oxford doesn’t have a communist community does it. Pull the other one it plays jingle bells!
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December 17, 2008 12:30pm
PhilBest

Oh, and Billy Borker, have you read “Animal Farm”? What type of character with their snout in the trough, at the expense of “the people”, was Napoleon the boar meant to illustrate? Fat cat capitalists?

Billy Borker, meet Kim Jong-Il and Fidel Castro.

Which system should get the worst rap, Capitalism or Socialism? Hey, look at the scams that have come out of governments and government involvement in the economy.
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December 17, 2008 12:31pm
Ryan Sproull

Animal Farm was written by a socialist.
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December 17, 2008 12:33pm
PhilBest

Right on, Baxter.

I am gutted that I did not know before yesterday, about THIS superb essay from Theodore Dalrymple in 2006, I can’t think how I missed it before:

“Real Crime, Fake Justice” By Theodore Dalrymple

http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_3_oh_to_be.html

“For the last 40 years, government policy in Britain, de facto if not always de jure, has been to render the British population virtually defenseless against criminals and criminality. Almost alone of British government policies, this one has been supremely effective: no Briton nowadays goes many hours without wondering how to avoid being victimized by a criminal intent on theft, burglary, or violence.

An unholy alliance between politicians and bureaucrats who want to keep prison costs to a minimum, and liberal intellectuals who pretend to see in crime a natural and understandable response to social injustice, which it would be a further injustice to punish, has engendered a prolonged and so far unfinished experiment in leniency that has debased the quality of life of millions of people, especially the poor. Every day in our newspapers we read of the absurd and dangerous leniency of the criminal-justice system…….”

DO READ IT ALL……..
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December 17, 2008 12:35pm
PhilBest

“………liberal intellectuals and their bureaucratic allies have left no stone unturned to ensure that the law-abiding should be left as defenseless as possible against the predations of criminals, from the emasculation of the police to the devising of punishments that do not punish and the propagation of sophistry by experts to mislead and confuse the public about what is happening in society, confusion rendering the public helpless in the face of the experimentation perpetrated upon it.

The police…… are like a nearly defeated occupying colonial force that, while mayhem reigns everywhere else, has retreated to safe enclaves, there to shuffle paper and produce bogus information to propitiate their political masters. Their first line of defense is to refuse to record half the crime that comes to their attention, which itself is less than half the crime committed. Then they refuse to investigate recorded crime, or to arrest the culprits even when it is easy to do so and the evidence against them is overwhelming, because the prosecuting authorities will either decline to prosecute, or else the resultant sentence will be so trivial as to make the whole procedure pointless…..”
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December 17, 2008 12:36pm
big bruv

Well said Baxter
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December 17, 2008 12:37pm
PhilBest

“……..at the heart of the British idiocy is the condescending and totally unrealistic idea—which, however, provides employment opportunities for armies of apparatchiks, as well as being psychologically gratifying—that burglars, thieves, and robbers are not conscious malefactors who calculate their chances of getting away with it, but people in the grip of something rather like a mental disease, whose thoughts, feelings, and decision-making processes need to be restructured. The whole criminal-justice system ought therefore to act in a therapeutic or medical, rather than a punitive and deterrent, fashion. Burglars do not know, poor things, that householders are upset by housebreaking, and so we must educate and inform them on this point; and we must also seek to persuade them of something that all their experience so far has taught them to be false, namely that crime does not pay…….

“……..the failure of the state to protect the lives and property of its citizens, and to take seriously its duty in this regard, creates a politically dangerous situation, for it puts the very legitimacy of the state itself at risk. The potential consequences are incalculable, for the failure might bring the rule of law itself into disrepute and give an opportunity to the brutal and the authoritarian……”
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December 17, 2008 12:38pm
PhilBest

“…….how close we have come to an almost totalitarian uniformity of the sayable, imposed informally by right-thinking people in the name of humanity, but in utter disregard for the truth and the reality of their fellow citizens’ lives. Better that they, the right-thinking, should feel pleased with their own rectitude and broadmindedness, than that millions should be freed of their fear of robbery and violence, as in crime-ridden, pre-Giuliani New York……”

END OF QUOTES FROM THEODORE DALRYMPLE.

Do read the whole superb essay.
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December 17, 2008 12:40pm
PhilBest

Ryan Sproull, I suggest that the socialist who wrote “Animal Farm” was having serious second thoughts by that time, in fact he was having serious second thoughts way back as far as when he wrote “Homage To Catalonia”.
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December 17, 2008 12:42pm
philu

why is there selective blocking of access to certain threads..?

..am i the only one experiencing this..?

(ie..now i can’t get into the trevett/questiontime thread again..

..oh well..!..)

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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December 17, 2008 12:48pm
big bruv

“..am i the only one experiencing this..?”

Yes.
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December 17, 2008 12:55pm
billyborker

dad4justice (4512) Vote: 0 2 Says:

December 17th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
“And why isn’t the children Need fathers trust registered with the Charities Commission?”

Silly Phillip John Borker the Ministry of Economic Development Certificate of Incorporation of the Children Need Parents Trust is 1911718. Why do you ask liar? Oxford doesn’t have a communist community does it. Pull the other one it plays jingle bells!

Your registration details look like they are out of date. Is that the current address? isn’t Rolleston where the kiddie fiddler prison is? Anyway, it isn’t an Oxford address, and yet you claim to live in Oxford. How bizzarre.

And, of course, if you were an Oxford resident, surely you would know what communities we do and don’t have. There is no communist community, but there IS The OBI, which does have the whiff of socialism about it. Imagine, a benevolent society in this day and age, and one that shows current movies for only $5!!! Shame on them for making things affordable.
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December 17, 2008 1:02pm
billyborker

PhilBest (3825) Vote: 0 0 Says:

December 17th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Ryan Sproull, I suggest that the socialist who wrote “Animal Farm” was having serious second thoughts by that time, in fact he was having serious second thoughts way back as far as when he wrote “Homage To Catalonia”.

Yes, he was showing the honesty of a true socilaist by being prepared to critique it and point out when it is less than it should be. Although, Animal farm is as much a critique of humanity as any human system.

At least Orwell WAS prepared to critique his beliefs and values, something most of you here are afraid to do.
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December 17, 2008 1:05pm
philu

meh..!

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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December 17, 2008 1:07pm
Ryan Sproull

Ryan Sproull, I suggest that the socialist who wrote “Animal Farm” was having serious second thoughts by that time, in fact he was having serious second thoughts way back as far as when he wrote “Homage To Catalonia”.

Could be. I’d say he was more concerned about statism and top-down hierarchies.
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December 17, 2008 1:22pm
dad4justice

Oh well billy bunker keep producing your vile rhetoric you filthy animal.
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December 17, 2008 1:23pm
billyborker

Come clean dad, do you live in Oxford, Rolleston or Shirley?

Are you a man? A worker?

Would you like an application form for assistance from the Oxford Benevolent and Improvement League?
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December 17, 2008 1:26pm
WebWrat

billyborker (49) Vote: Add rating 0 Subtract rating 1 Says:
December 17th, 2008 at 12:11 pm

That’s not very nice WW, and here I was wondering if you were the author of the piece in today’s Press re CPWL, quite well written thought I.

………….

No sign of this on their site.
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December 17, 2008 1:33pm
dad4justice

Nice work billy bunker, wrong on three counts. You should stop calling men wife beaters or paedophiles. I have many friends in Oxford and it is a rather unhealthy occupation. Of course hiding behind anonymity on the internet is better suited to slime like yourself.
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December 17, 2008 1:34pm
PhilBest

Seeing Billy Borker was sounding off earlier about the heinous Bernard Madoff scam and Capitalism generally:

Here is the latest Wall Street Journal Editorial:

“Madoff And Markets”

“Capitalism runs on trust, so inevitably there will be men like Bernard Madoff who attempt to steal from the trusting. His alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme is exceptional mainly for its size, the length of time he was able to run his con, and the affluent and sophisticated circles in which he operated. There is something especially shocking when a man held in high esteem turns out to be a thief.

Among the stranger arguments in the wake of Mr. Madoff’s disclosure is that this proves the case for regulating hedge funds. Huh? Hedge funds were among the main victims here, along with well-heeled individual investors, nonprofit endowment funds and foreign financial companies.

As a broker-dealer, Mr. Madoff’s firm was already heavily regulated, and news reports say the Securities and Exchange Commission investigated him in 1992 without finding anything wrong. The SEC said in a statement Friday that its New York staff also conducted inquiries into Mr. Madoff’s firm in 2005 and 2007. Mr. Madoff’s separate investment company registered with the SEC in 2006, which is all that hedge funds would have had to do under the SEC’s proposed (but failed) hedge-fund rule of a few years back.

In the wake of Enron, Congress also gave the SEC more money and people, as well as new political motivation, to pursue wrongdoers. And Mr. Madoff also operated in New York, under the supposedly watchful and relentless eye of former Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

Yet Mr. Madoff pulled off his alleged con despite all of this market supervision. We are now supposed to believe that the same SEC lawyers who couldn’t detect a fraud at a firm for which they were directly responsible would somehow have done so if only they had been able to examine other hedge funds that invested in Madoff Securities. Thus does every enforcement failure become an excuse for more enforcement, especially among law-school professors and journalists who specialize in hindsight. Mr. Madoff, by the way, was a big donor to Democrats who favor tougher financial regulation. Perhaps that was also part of his strategy to avoid more scrutiny.

The reality is that it is impossible for the SEC or any regulator to prevent every financial fraud, just as it is impossible for city police to prevent every burglary. If even Mr. Madoff’s two sons claim not to have known about the scheme, despite working at the firm for decades, how can we expect outside regulators to do better?

Mr. Madoff’s investors will in retrospect kick themselves for not asking more questions, especially about the remarkable consistency of his returns over the years, his apparently fly-by-night auditing shop, and his small trading book despite having so much money under management. But the broker’s long record of showing gains and years of rising stock prices no doubt provided reassurance. The 70-year-old Mr. Madoff wasn’t some dot-com upstart but a pillar of the community and philanthropist. The best con men are always those you least suspect.

The real lesson here is about men, not markets. Human nature doesn’t change, and crooks will always be with us. For investors the lessons are the eternal ones of diversification and diligence. Don’t trust your life savings with any single money manager or investment. Don’t assume that passing some new federal law will banish financial fraud, any more than “campaign finance reform” will stop the likes of Rod Blagojevich from trading political favors for money. As Shakespeare understood, the fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
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December 17, 2008 1:35pm
gd

PhilBest Infact Id go further IMHO Clark Cullen et al actually get off on making the good citizens powerless and then watching the crims attacking and harming us and our families and getting soft cock sentences. In fact some of them have even siad WEll he/she was in the wrong place at the wrong time so tough shit.

They cream their pants seeing Mr Emery being punished for defending his property against those wastes of oxygen.

Fact is as Theo says the pollies civil servants police have taken away our rights and given them to the crims.

maybe its time for the good citizens to take back their rights and tell these arseholes to go FOX TROT OSCAR
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December 17, 2008 1:39pm
billyborker

webwrat, its on the Opinion page in the print edition, written by Rueben Hunt.

Dad, first you said you live in Oxford, now you say you have “friends” here. I ibet you have more friends in Kia Marama.
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December 17, 2008 1:40pm
dad4justice

You would know.
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December 17, 2008 1:45pm
PhilBest

# labrator (448) 1 0 Says:
December 17th, 2008 at 12:00 pm

“What happens when the fed drops interest rates below 0%? Do they start paying you to take their money or is this kind of what they’re doing with the bailouts anyway…”
US Fed slashes interest rates to record 0.25pc

Labrator, and anyone else who is interested, take a look at THIS essay:

“Deflation And Liberty” By Jorg HULSMANN

http://www.mises.org/story/3231
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December 17, 2008 1:48pm
WebWrat

The Press search engine doesn’t seem to know Rueben Hunt … maybe they haven’t gt his article online yet.
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December 17, 2008 2:13pm
WebWrat

The Press search engine doesn’t seem to know Rueben Hunt … maybe they haven’t got his article online yet.
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December 17, 2008 2:13pm
Rex Widerstrom

expat says (re Mt Crawford closing):

Get Staffed – It doesn’t have heatpumps, aircon and in-room broadband.

I seem to be suffering from failing eyesight. Could you perhaps have a look at the picture accompanying this story and tell me where a single one of those items are visible?

As opposed to a tiny room into which two people are squeezed with their only “entertainment” once the door is closed being averting their eyes while using the lavatory in full view of one another, I mean.

Have you ever been locked in such a place? The conditions are shocking. Or perhaps the elderly man I met who was virtually a cripple because he slipped on the slimy wet concrete floor caused by the leaking roof and broke his hip was lying… he’d really tripped on the shagpile while getting up to adjust the air conditioning.

And before the knuckle dragging “vengeance” brigade chime in with calls for hanging etc, ponder this: Forget your prejudices towards inmates for a moment (including the vast majority who haven’t committed a crime of violence) and instead look at the research that proves that jails with harsh conditions produce redivism rates of around 50% whereas those who treat prisoners humanely have rates as low as 17%.

People like Dalrymple know this, by the way, but they revel in the public attention brought about by venting their prejudices. I’ll see you Theodore Dalrymple and raise you Baroness Vivien Stern (Senior Research Fellow at the International Centre for Prison Studies (ICPS) at King’s College, London, Honorary President of Penal Reform International (PRI), independent member of the House of Lords, member of the parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, Convenor of the Scottish Consortium on Crime and Criminal Justice, member of the Scottish National Advisory Board on Offender Management, which advises the government of Scotland on penal policy). She’s written a vast amount (which I won’t cut-and-paste ad infinitum) but I’d recommend anyone interested start with her book Creating Criminals: People and Prisons in a Market Society.

The inescapable conclusion is that – leaving aside the violent criminals, who deserve incarceration and are usually beyond redemption – if you take a non-violent offender and treat him or her like a human being, you’re actually protecting society from crime.

Or does the vicarious thrill of watching others suffer outweigh the creation of a penal policy which both rehabilitates offenders and protects the public?
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December 17, 2008 2:56pm
billyborker

Jesus Christ Rex, don’t expect the majority of folks here will have a clue waht you’re on about. Most folks here simply equate crime with colour – eg white murderer was simply defending himself from the confrontation he initiated while brown tagger got his just desserts. Just look at the moaning when a judge does the right thing and denies bail to a convicted killer – they scream about how harsh it is.
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December 17, 2008 3:02pm
billyborker

WW, not all the content makes it to the online site. You’ll either need to buy a copy, subscribe to the digital edition or wait for your fish and chips to be wrapped in it.
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December 17, 2008 3:04pm
big bruv

To those of you who are political junkies I strongly suggest that you do not miss the movie Frost/Nixon, it is simply outstanding.
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December 17, 2008 3:19pm
Rex Widerstrom

billyborker:

Actually I find most people equate crime with class. If they’re walking through a poor neighbourhood they’re nervous and assume they’re about to be robbed.

What they don’t realise is that they’re in graver danger walking into the plush oak panelled offices of Mr Madoff and his ilk. Look, he has a tailored suit and gold cufflinks! He couldn’t possibly want to rob me!

So rather than hang nervously on to their wallet and get the hell out of there as quickly as possible, they open it up and write Mr Madoff a big fat cheque. And then buy him a drink to thank him.

The appearance of racism occurs because more people with dark faces happen to be poor. But as I commented at The Standard yesterday when they were calling Garth McVicar a racist, he’d likely get out the best silverware if, say, Ron Mark dropped buy for a nice chat about the value of torture as a deterrent.
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December 17, 2008 3:25pm
billyborker

I guess growing up in a poor neighbourhood has made me warier of the madoffs too.
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December 17, 2008 3:39pm
billyborker

meanwhile, in a parellel universe, aka the USofA, a three year old boy is denied a birthday cake with his name on it.

http://www.theage.com.au/world/a-names-a-name-parents-of-adolf-hitler-3-lash-out-20081217-70b0.html

The father of three-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell, denied a birthday cake with the child’s full name on it by one US supermarket, is asking for a little tolerance.

– No cake for little Adolf
– Father calls for tolerance
– Focus on future, ‘not on the past’

I wonder if the boy will be on the no fly list? if he can get a passport? A visa for Israel and Austria?
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December 17, 2008 4:01pm
AG

Rex:

“Or does the vicarious thrill of watching others suffer outweigh the creation of a penal policy which both rehabilitates offenders and protects the public?”

Sadly, I think it might. Add to this the lure of “common sense” reasoning, that says if you make consequences worse and worse, there will be greater disincentive to act in a way that attracts those consequences … which overlooks the fact that the persons who end up in jail are (by-and-large) there because they weren’t in a fit state to act rationally (ie: they were drunk or drugged) or simply cannot do so because they suffer from various cognitive/psychological disorders.
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December 17, 2008 4:06pm
big bruv

Meanwhile……

The Ockers are batting first in Perth and are 16 for 3, Hayden, Ponting and Hussy all gone.
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December 17, 2008 4:10pm
AG

“Meanwhile……

The Ockers are batting first in Perth and are 16 for 3, Hayden, Ponting and Hussy all gone.”

Now there’s something we can all come together to celebrate …
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December 17, 2008 4:23pm
billyborker

And still the Aussies will have several over 50, at least one to hit 100 or close to… and the world, as we know it, is set to rights again.
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December 17, 2008 4:35pm
WebWrat

Speaking of Adolf … why the hell is McCully getting Klark’s advice on how to deal with Fiji?
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December 17, 2008 4:45pm
AG

Ummm … maybe ’cause she has extensive experience dealing with the regime there, and foreign affairs is a bipartisan policy area?

Or would you prefer McCully to risk f*cking things up, just to prove some sort of “we’ve won, you’ve lost” point?
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December 17, 2008 4:51pm
big bruv

Not me AG, despite being a born and bred Kiwi I think the Aussie cricket team (and Aussie sportsmen in general) are fantastic.
Sure there are one or two dick heads in their team but the same could be said for the woeful NZ team, above all they play an entertaining style and never give in.
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December 17, 2008 4:55pm
AG

BB:

But as we saw in November, even the best teams must hand over the mantle after years and years at the top. And this is a good thing, no?
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December 17, 2008 5:00pm
dad4justice

“even the best teams must hand over the mantle after years and years at the top.”

Was that in the corruption league? Liarbour’s absolute power regime was in a class of its own AG, you dumb wombat.
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December 17, 2008 5:20pm
AG

But as the Aussie cricketers show us, you do what you got to do to win!

And isn’t “dumb wombat” a tad unnecessary? How many smart wombats do you know (aside from Russel Norman, perhaps)?
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December 17, 2008 5:24pm
dad4justice

I didn’t say a Russian Communist Norman wombat you silly cretin AG.
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December 17, 2008 5:25pm
billyborker

What drugs is d4j on? Did he get them at kia maramar?
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December 17, 2008 5:31pm
Steve

Who is this billybaulker?
So full of shit it comes out his mouth.
Ignore him d4j, he will disapear after today, it’s school holidays.
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December 17, 2008 6:18pm
PaulL

billyborker – the problem with the get rich quick schemes is that there’s a sucker born every minute. Blaming the shysters is a bit silly, we should be blaming the people who put their money into schemes that are too good to be true.

The attitude we have created over the years in NZ, in which we think that the wealthy get their money through pure luck or through some secret magic that they are being denied, is the cause of much of this. As long as you think other people got rich through these means, you think you might too. Of course, look under the covers, and those who get rich either inherit it or work bloody hard to get it. Chris Trotter and his ilk who pretend that people get rich by exploiting the masses are continuing to engender this sort of attitude. So, we need a culture that rewards and values hard work, and tells people that yes, they can be rich too, but they better be prepared to spend every waking hour at it. And if they don’t want to work that hard, that is fine too, you just won’t be rich – that is a choice, so stop being envious of those who made a different choice.

As for jail – too many people with too little experience of what goes on are opining on them. There are some people who are beyond redemption, the right answer is to maximise their jail time so as to minimise the crimes they commit. There are some people who are just on the wrong track. They need some consequences for their actions, but they also need to be set on the right track so as to minimise the likelihood of reoffending. I think I agree with you here Rex. And, by the way, sharing a cell with a large guy called Bubba who wants to call you “sweet cheeks” is not part of the punishment a civilised society sentences people to. I am against shared cells for this reason.
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December 17, 2008 6:42pm
Steve

PaulL,

And, by the way, sharing a cell with a large guy called Bubba who wants to call you “sweet cheeks” is not part of the punishment a civilised society sentences people to. I am against shared cells for this reason.

Simple, don’t be a criminal and “Bubba” won’t tell you to be his wife. You have a choice before you commit a crime.
That should be a deterant.
I will never share a cell, why? because I will never be there, I abide by the rules.
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December 17, 2008 6:59pm
PaulL

Steve, too simplistic. People commit crimes for a range of reasons, as Rex noted above. Deterrents are proven to have minimal effectiveness in a range of situations – many crimes are crimes of passion, or under the influence. Not excusing the crime, just saying that the likelihood of sharing with Bubba doesn’t change the likelihood of the crime.

Nowhere in the laws of NZ does it say “4 years, and by the way, share a cell with Bubba.” Interestingly, it also doesn’t say “and if your name is Bubba, you get a perk in your jail cell, which is a pretty young man by the name of sweet cheeks.” If nothing else, you must agree with the logic that Bubba is getting free sex, and clearly that isn’t an incentive for him to stop committing crimes.

Joking aside, rape is a serious crime. Just because you personally committed a crime doesn’t mean that the justice system should be turning a blind eye to other crimes that are committed against you. It is, quite simply, wrong, and we shouldn’t be allowing it to happen.
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December 17, 2008 7:15pm
Redbaiter

Proof the Obama loving treasonist left wing scum posing as the mainstream media are deliberately spiking the story of the century-

http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2008/12/05/hot-seat-obamas-birth-certificate/

America online poll on the issue.
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December 17, 2008 8:06pm
wikiriwhis business

“NOTHING about this has any merit. Anybody who thinks they can prove Obama ineligible to be President must think they’re smarter than the GOP, which would have left no stone unturned to prove this BEFORE the election. C’mon!!! Doesn’t that seem obvious?”

That’s a very good dose of common sense Redbaiter.
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December 17, 2008 10:01pm
OldNews

Serious question – what should Key do about Chen & Palmer? This ‘law firm’ is basically a front for the Labour Party and seems to make most of its money of the state, govt depts, SOEs, other govt entities. Now it’s fine for people to have their own beliefs, but I don’t actually think my tax dollars should go into a firm that is just a bunch of Labour hacks. I guess we can’t actually ban the govt using them but why don’t depts use Crown Law or reputable firms?
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December 17, 2008 10:23pm
Rex Widerstrom

Good point, PaulL. I had lunch with a Magistrate just last week and put that to him. I like intelligent conversation, a good glass of wine, am not interested in spending hours talking about sport and drugs, like decent food and don’t see committing violence on others as a form of recreation. Thus I find prison an appalling environment.

If however I relaxed by using recreational drugs, loved sitting round discussing their price and availability when not discussing the rugby league, was used to junk food, and found hitting people amusing, then jail’s actually not that hard.

He admitted this was true, and that he wished it was a factor he could take into account, but the law says he cannot.

And you’re also correct regarding deterrence. If someone has a personality that is so enraged by the mere sight of someone tagging their property that they’ll chase them 400 metres and stab them when the vast majority of us wouldn’t, that same personality isn’t going to stop and think “hang on, I might end up in a bit of trouble here”. Likewise someone high on drugs or booze.

Not to say punishment is not deserved, but I can’t help laughing when I hear a judge reel off a list of mitigating factors suggesting the just-found-guilty prisoner should receive a lesser sentence “…but I must bear in mind the need for deterrence…” Yeah, right.
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December 17, 2008 10:49pm
bringbackthebiff

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4796021a11.html

Stuff report by 2025 three times as many women will be in tertiary study as men. Whilst I am all for equal opportunity. 20+ years of affirmative action, has lead to boys being neglected in the education system. Somewhere the system needs to strike the balance.
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December 17, 2008 10:56pm
Lee

“And, by the way, sharing a cell with a large guy called Bubba who wants to call you “sweet cheeks” is not part of the punishment a civilised society sentences people to. I am against shared cells for this reason.”

This idea that homosexual sex is common in prisons is a myth (here in NZ and in Aussie at least). In fact here in NZ it is rare and often punished by the other inmates. One senior member of the Mongrel Mob who chose to ignore the rule on just one occasion was expelled from the gang and had a hit placed on him (don’t know of it was ever carried out).

Going back through the thread a bit, I agree with Rex about the reality of prison life. The common view that they are holiday camps with all the trimmings is utterly false. Even minimum security prisons are harsh environments that re-enforce the very character traits that help people become criminals in the first place.

I am all in favour of National/ACT’s tougher sentencing law changes, but ideally these should be combined with prison reforms that create environments conducive to repentance and moral reform.
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December 18, 2008 9:30am
Harpoon

Hey David,

Interesting news on front page of today’s Dompost (not online – I wonder why), and the Herald. The Herald says:
==============
A $258 million deal to sell a New Zealand iron sands operation to Hong Kong’s Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings has been scuppered amid plunging steel prices and economic uncertainty. … The application was rejected by the Government because CKI did not meet the Overseas Investment Act criteria of substantial and identifiable benefit
==============

How do you feel about the National-led government’s decision?

I’m asking you this because I remember your post noting the irony “that the Government moved heaven and earth to stop a Canadian pension fund having a minority voting stake in Auckland Airport, yet has absolutely no problems with a Chinese business owning 100% of Wellington’s power lines”

You also attacked Michael Cullen, saying: “decision to sabotage the Canadian bid by way of retrospective regulation was economic sabotage, and worse of all breached our legal obligations under international agreements.”

You approved of Treasury’s advice to Cullen that intervention in the share bid … “is almost certainly a breach of our international obligations …[and] would create considerable disruption and uncertainty … affecting investors’ property rights … may cause investors to be … more wary of investing … [and] increase the risk premium for investment in New Zealand”(quoting Treasury).

You said: “Some will argue decisions on investment should be at political whim, and not have any consistent rules or laws around them. You can do that, but we will find there is a lot less investment if people can’t trust the law to be applied fairly.”

So. Will you now attack Bill English and John Key?

As they say at Question Time, “If not, why not?”

🙂
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December 18, 2008 11:15am
David Farrar

Harpoon: As far as I can see with this decision, the neutral officials did not advise in favour of this bid. And also National did not change the rules halfway though the bid. If you can not work out the difference between applying the rules and rigging the rules, well so be it.
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December 18, 2008 11:45am
Patrick Starr

Billyborker “white murderer was simply defending himself from the confrontation he initiated while brown tagger”

So Bruce Emery is ‘white’ and Pihema Cameron was ‘Brown” but Obama is not Black?

“So, my point remians – Obama is not black, he is bi-racial.”
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2008/12/general_debate_14_december_2008.html#comment-517758

Maybe you should disclose what drugs YOU are on?
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December 18, 2008 11:47am

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