General Debate 11 April 2011

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bearhunter

First?
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April 11, 2011 8:02am
Rodders

Jack Elder drew a similar conclusion over 15 years ago. What took Damien so long?

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4870142/Labour-MP-leaves-list-to-gaggle-of-gays

Would Damien have slammed the list if he thought that he would be placed higher ?
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April 11, 2011 8:07am
Murray

Yes I think he would because even a high place means nothing if it doesn’t suit Andrew Littles agenda Rodders.
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April 11, 2011 8:15am
Grizz

Perhaps Damian should start a left wing party for straight shooters. Call it something like, the “Stiff Left Party”
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April 11, 2011 8:19am
Rodders

@Murray – Perhaps, but how is Damien achieving anything, complaining about a list after it has been announced? Too little, too late (no pun intended)
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April 11, 2011 8:19am
flipper

There was a time some 100 -75 years ago when unions were necessary to develop safe working conditions and proper wages. But the world has passed them by. In 2011 they are solely for the self aggrandizement of union employees and their “bed-fellows”. Their economic literacy is zero. Their political acumen is zero. All this is witnessed by the 20 point electoral disconnect with Labour.
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April 11, 2011 8:27am
Murray

Better than just toeing the party line I think Rodders.
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April 11, 2011 8:46am
Ryan Sproull

There was a time some 100 -75 years ago when unions were necessary to develop safe working conditions and proper wages. But the world has passed them by.

Safe working conditions and proper wages still elude most of the world’s working population.
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April 11, 2011 8:52am
rouppe

I see the chairman of the Gay Business Association of Christchurch, Robert Martin, said the comment was inappropriate and “a bit redneck”.

That’s pretty precious isn’t it? What is wrong with saying the truth? What if he said “self serving men and a gaggle of women”? Would that be offensive? Or “self serving academics and a gaggle of sycophants”?

If there is a preponderance of unionists and gays in the Labour caucus, it can’t be offensive to point out the fact.
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April 11, 2011 8:53am
JeffW

Flipper, Unions can play a significant role in generating employment. The easiest example I can think of is from the US, where the United Auto Workers Union has played a starring role in generating new employment opportunities in southern states, and in Japan and Korea as well. Back here in NZ, remember the Boilermakers’ Union, and how they generated employment using reinforced concrete construction techniques. And how the Seamen’s Union helped to boost jobs in road haulage.
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April 11, 2011 8:55am
rouppe

JeffW

Unfortunately I can’t remember that. All I can remember is the ferry going on strike every Christmas so ensure that ferry crew could live anywhere in NZ and be flown to Wellington (at the expense of the traveller) to start their shift.
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April 11, 2011 9:00am
James Stephenson

Perhaps, but how is Damien achieving anything, complaining about a list after it has been announced? Too little, too late (no pun intended)

It looks like a sensible move to me, distance himself from the Goff-led shambles and put some clear old-school-labour water between himself and a party that hasn’t changed at all from the incarnation that got slung out at the last election. He’s trying to get re-elected on the Coast, not Auckland Central…
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April 11, 2011 9:02am
Manolo

Tell me something new, Damien.

A Labour MP says the party’s new list is dominated by “self-serving unionists and a gaggle of gays”.

The party was the target of a bitter broadside from list MP Damien O’Connor, who opted not to go on the list, which he said was dominated by unionists and a gaggle of gays. Instead he will pin his hopes on winning the West Coast-Tasman seat held by National’s Chris Auchinvole.

Labour yesterday handed former president Andrew Little a certain seat in Parliament, and has given other union-backed candidates winnable slots in its party list for the November 26 election.

O’Connor said he stood aside because he did not trust the list ranking process. “Frankly, I didn’t trust the system to give a straight-shooter a fair deal … It is dominated by self-serving unionists and a gaggle of gays.”
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April 11, 2011 9:02am
East Wellington Superhero

@ Rouppe.
The left, and often the gay lobby, tend to choose arrogant self-righteous pejoratives to describe their critics, rather than engaging in a reasoned debate.
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April 11, 2011 9:06am
KiwiGreg

LOL JeffW I had to read your post twice before I got it.
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April 11, 2011 9:17am
KiwiGreg

“Safe working conditions and proper wages still elude most of the world’s working population”

Really? What is a “proper wage” for a sewing machinist in Cambodia Ryan?
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April 11, 2011 9:18am
David Garrett

For those too young to remember, this is how unions worked circa 30 years ago…and at least partly why they largely destroyed themselves..

1983, the Methanol plant construction site in Taranaki…there being no rig work at the time, I took a job as a TA working for a large engineering company. Still being a believer I agreed to be the union delegate (Engineers Union) for one part of the site.

One friday, some guy from Wellington who no-one knew turned up and told us we were all going on strike (the reason eludes me), but we would reassemble Monday morning to “decide” whether to return to work. Off we went without luxuries like a ballot – secret or otherwise.

The following week – having “decided” to return to work – a guy working on some supposedly locked out [made safe] pipework almost got his head taken off when removing a plug from a supposedly de-pressurized section of piping. On my own intitiative I shut that area down, told the guys to stop work, and went to talk to the site organizer one “Noddy” Huggard. I said I thought we should stop work in the area of the plant concerned until it was ascertained how a live section of pipework had had a ‘safe to work” tag put on it.

Long story short, I was told that “the boys in Wellington” didnt want any disruption that week, and that I should go and tell the guys to continue working. “Noddy” would ensure the pipe work was in fact depressurized. That was the last time I ever acted as a delegate for union. This incidentally was the era when if a labourer or TA touched a strop, there would be an international incident over “demarcation” – that was riggers work. Same thing if a rigger picked up a box of electrodes which had fallen off a ute into the mud.

Anyone else who worked on unionized sites during this period will have similar stories.
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April 11, 2011 9:24am
publicwatchdog

Good moaning little pet goldfish!

Seen this?

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10718472

“Goff boosted in latest poll
By Claire Trevett
5:30 AM Monday Apr 11, 2011

If all publicity is good publicity, Labour leader Phil Goff has reaped some gain from the Darren Hughes affair.

In the first poll since news broke that Mr Hughes was facing a police complaint laid by an 18-year-old student, Mr Goff’s polling as preferred Prime Minister has reached 11 per cent – four points up from the previous 7 per cent in February.

It is the first time Mr Goff has made double digits in the One News Colmar Brunton poll since becoming leader in late 2008. He still trails John Key, whose rating as preferred Prime Minister rose seven points to 55 per cent.

The National Party rose from 51 to 54 per cent – 20 points ahead of Labour on 34 per cent. But Labour’s party polling held up – lifting slightly to 34 from 33 per cent in February.”
………………”

Oopps!

errrr……. it appears that there may have been unintended consequences of the corporate media campaign to undermine the Labour Party and Phil Goff’s leadership?

Actually had the opposite effect to what had been intended?

It appears that the Darren Hughes affair DID actually strengthen Phil Goff’s leadership?

bugger.

😉

Penny Bright
http://waterpressure.wordpress.com
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April 11, 2011 9:24am
George Patton

@Penny,

The poll is good news for Phil, which is bad news for Labour.

You will notice the same poll that showed Labour up 1, also had National up 3. In other words, National are increasing their lead.

The Greens went down 1, and Winston no-where near 5%. Which coalition partners will help Labour get a majority then?
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April 11, 2011 9:29am
All_on_Red

Penny
I cant believe you are spinning 11% as a victory. Oh wait, yes I can.
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April 11, 2011 9:33am
mattyroo

Spot on David Garrett… And it still continues to this day in Australia – eventually the unions will fuck Australia, by driving wage price inflation so hight that the country will not be able to compete. It’s starting to happen already. I know of one instance where employers are colluding on wages, because of what the unions are doing.

And a little unionist anecdote of mine: I was working on a rig lat year when the union lackeys all threatened to go on strike because they did not have “skin coloured” zinc! Nevermind the umpteen different colour zincs that they did have! Anybody would think that being on a rig some 80k’s offshore (populated by hardline males) there is some kind of imperative to look good.

Oh and Ryan Sproull, you clearly are a fuckwit – wanting to deny people jobs in 3rd world countries, because their pay is not a “proper wage” – in your eyes.
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April 11, 2011 9:34am
David Garrett

Mattyroo: Even to this grizzled old curmudgeon the “wrong coloured zinc” story sounds (almost) unbelievable…but it sounds awfully similar to the Seamans Union on the ferries when the “reason” for a strike was often that the mince served for breakfast was too hot…or too cold. Never mind that their “brothers” in the Cooks and Stewards Union [do they still exist??] had cooked it..
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April 11, 2011 9:39am
Pete George

It appears that the Darren Hughes affair DID actually strengthen Phil Goff’s leadership?

It emphasised that no one else in in Labour was willing to stand up and challenge him, so I guess it strengthened his position withing Labour, but I doubt it strengthened his leadership credentials outside of Labour.

11% is not a huge endorsement when the party gets three times (34%) that amount of support.
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April 11, 2011 9:41am
publicwatchdog

# All_on_Red (91) Says:
April 11th, 2011 at 9:33 am

Penny
I cant believe you are spinning 11% as a victory. Oh wait, yes I can.”

errr…… it’s not complicated ‘All_on_Red ‘

The campaign to help undermine Phil Goff and Labour should have resulted in both losing – not GAINING support?

What if that TREND continues?

eeeek?

NB: there are MANY, MANY weeks left until the stated election day, and it’s SO true – a week is a LONG time in politics…….. 🙂

Penny Bright
http://waterpressure.wordpress.com
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April 11, 2011 9:43am
Dazzaman

JeffW, haha. That was good.
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April 11, 2011 9:46am
Manolo

The Messiah starting to get pushed to the limit.

Obama Reached Breaking Point in Talks After Tense Hour With Boehner

President Barack Obama had finally reached his breaking point. For more than an hour in an Oval Office meeting on April 7, House Speaker John Boehner had insisted that any compromise on the government’s budget include a prohibition on federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

Obama already had reluctantly agreed to a provision banning the District of Columbia from spending funds on abortion services — and that was as far as he would go.

“Nope, zero,” he told Boehner, according to a senior Democratic aide. “John, this is it.” The room went silent.

The tense negotiations culminating in a last-minute deal the next night to avert a government shutdown underscored the challenges facing both Boehner and Obama as they tackle the fiscal issues that will dominate the debate during the next two years in Washington.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-10/wrangle-over-u-s-budget-compromise-defines-next-two-years-fiscal-debate.html
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April 11, 2011 9:49am
Bevan

Safe working conditions and proper wages still elude most of the world’s working population.

So when was the last time the CTU/EPMU/LRWU funded a Health & Safety campaign in a third world country?

Your arguement is the third world needs unions. How does that make local unions in NZ relevant?
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April 11, 2011 9:58am
Ryan Sproull

A “gaggle of gays” is actually the correct collective noun for a group of three or more gay people.

See also: A clusterfuck of security guards. A smug of libertarians. An ejaculation of boyracers. An apocalypse of reality TV shows.
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April 11, 2011 10:03am
DRHILL

Loved Armageddon Expo on the Weekend – Got Starbuck to sign my Battlestar Books!
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April 11, 2011 10:30am
David Garrett

Bevan: The tragedy is that both workers in the third world (and some workers here) could benefit from unions advocating on their behalf. [That may well be contrary to ACT policy but that is no longer my concern.] While it is all very well in theory to say that everyone can negotiate their own terms and conditions, the reality is otherwise in some workplaces, particularly those in which employees have few skills to sell, and/or little choice but to accept the conditions offered to them.

The problem arises when – as happened here – unions become the vehicle for promoting the political ideology of those at the top rather than the interests of their members in the workplace.
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April 11, 2011 10:31am
TripeWryter

To Ryan:

“See also: A clusterfuck of security guards. A smug of libertarians. An ejaculation of boyracers. An apocalypse of reality TV shows.”

That’s not bad, especially the ‘ejaculation of boyracers’.
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April 11, 2011 10:50am
badmac

David. I also worked on that site 1986-1990. Was part of One of the unions (can’t remember which one but it was compulsory to have the fee deducted so you had to belong). Saw many “stop work/strikes” called for the most stupid reasons, one so the union delegate could go shopping for his wife’s birthday! Yes he was a pom!

Put me off unions and union people and I have never gotten over it. As soon as voluntary unionism was reinstated I withdrew and never felt the need to rejoin, even in that place with it’s elitist management culture.

I can still remember knock off was 4:00pm and some tosser union had negotiated 5 mins hand washing time. So at 3:50 you stopped work (actually you stopped way before that), you walked to wash room syncronised watches and ensured you were walking out the door at 3:55pm so you could walk out the front gate at the first strike of 4:00pm.

Only place I have ever been paid quadruple time, and 30mins of that we sat at dinner and played 500. No wonder the place couldn’t make money.
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April 11, 2011 11:09am
gravedodger

The last frontier for workplace health and safety in NZ is personal responsibility. With the plethora of protection provided by employment law, the employment court, Osh and the dept of labour any employer forcing a worker to do something that puts the worker in any jeopardy would be dead in the water by lunchtime however stupidity by the employee is very rarely considered the problem but too often the major contributing factor in workplace “accidents”.
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April 11, 2011 11:30am
DJP6-25

JeffW 8:55am. I had to read your post twice before I got it too. Whenever I saw a car with the ‘Unions Yes’ bumper sticker in Christchurch, I always thought; ‘Unions why?

cheers

David Prosser
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April 11, 2011 11:39am
DJP6-25

Ryan Sproull 10:03am. Those definitions are excellent.

PS Q: Why don’t security guards have coffee breaks?

A: So they don’t have to retrain them afterwards.

cheers

David Prosser
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April 11, 2011 11:47am
DJP6-25

gravedodger 11:30am. All this health and safety stuff is only secondarily to do with that subject. It is intended primarily to provide unemployable socialists, with joke ‘degrees’ , a job. Then they can help build socialisim.

cheers

David Prosser
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April 11, 2011 11:54am
Lance

Yea DJP6

Real men saw their hands off, fuck their hearing and shake hands with the mains electricity.
That’ll sort the men out from the poofters.
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April 11, 2011 12:05pm
Rick Rowling

Anyone see the union woman complaining about the new union access law (on Sunday(?) last night)?

Complaining about how hard it was to get access immediately, as the site was short staffed that day, and what an imposition that was.

And then “and all I was going to do was hand out a few pamphlets and stuff”.

Yep, it’s important to slow down everyone’s productivity with no warning for that.
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April 11, 2011 12:59pm
David Garrett

Lance: you obviously haven’t been reading (or you don’t believe what you read).

In the anecdote I recounted, the UNION OFFICIAL – who supposedly was there to protect the workers’ interests – couldnt give a f… if one of the boys got his head taken off by a plug leaving a pipe with 2000 psi behind it…because it didnt suit the “boys in Wellington” to have industrial action that week.

Badmac: you must have worked for Petralgas after the construction was finished? Re the finishig times, in our case by the “end” of the work day – when we were theoretically packing up tools etc. – we were in fact already in the vans (the companies had to provide transport) with the engines running, waiting for the hooter… when it went off 10 vans started spinning wheels heading for the gate.

It makes you feel old, but no-one under 30 (or possible even 40) will ever have experienced workplaces like this.
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April 11, 2011 1:41pm
Rex Widerstrom

Talking of safety at work, yet another lone police officer has pulled over a driver and been seriously attacked.

The courts have just sentenced the thug who took a machete to a lone officer who pulled him over, then turned his back.

Where is the police union in this? Here’s a hint for a strategy they ought to have their members follow forthwith: Pack up the speed cameras, boys, and join your fellow officers on patrol so there’s always two of you in a car.

Sure, a whole lot of evil, dangerous lunatics doing 110 km/h *gasp* will get away with their heinous crimes, but meanwhile when an officer goes to pull over a guy who was “denied visiting rights to see a friend in Rangipo Prison because he was drunk and had driven off in his car” he won’t be “knocked unconscious and suffer cuts to his eye and mouth”.

Or is there a cosy unwritten agreement between the union and the government that precludes them admitting that many of their members are nothing but revenue collectors, in return for gaining increased powers from the politicians?
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April 11, 2011 2:41pm
Manolo

Congratulations to Brian Smaller for his excellent letter on the vile “religion of peace”, published in today’s DomPost.

Take a leaf from Islamic playbook.

So once again Muslims fly into their inevitable rage and turn to murder and violence to protest about a hillbilly preacher in the United States who burnt a Koran.

Perhaps Christians should take a leaf from the Islamic playbook and start rampaging and killing the next time the Saudi Government burns or shreds a load of Bibles, when Christians are murdered in Pakistan, or another church is torched in yet another Muslim country.

The West must stop bowing and scraping to Jihadists and start calling Islamic governments on their own intolerance, hatred and bigotry.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/4870743/Letter-Take-a-leaf-from-Islamic-playbook
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April 11, 2011 4:48pm
publicwatchdog

I was a union delegate at a home appliance factory in the Wairarapa back in the 1970s, where pregnant women were deliberately shifted to heavy work, involving lifting, which meant that if they didn’t leave – they ran the risk of miscarrying and losing their babies.

A factory where there was no heating after the gas got turned off in Masterton, and people would work in their overcoats.
When the doors were opened to let the forkhoist in, there would be a cold, icy blasts of air, directly on the workers.

Some got pneumonia.

A factory where there were four lots of redundancies in six years, and the boss stated that he had no legal or moral responsibility to those workers who he was sacking without any redundancy pay.

Union organisation on that job certainly helped to sort out some of those problems.

PS: When the ‘unions’ are called ‘associations’ – and serve the interests of employers or ‘professionals’ they are all good are they?

🙂

Penny Bright
http://waterpressure.wordpress.com
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April 11, 2011 5:26pm
Inky_the_Red

No comments on what the Deputy PM said NZ should aspire to (the third world)

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10718419

I see now the speculator is supporting the fool
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10718623

At least the real left aren’t ignoring it
http://newmasses.wordpress.com/2011/04/11/andthe-poor-will-always-be-with-us/
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April 11, 2011 5:42pm
Manolo

Inky, actually Double Dipton English blundered badly when he spoke that way.
Instead of supporting him, Key should sack him and find a decent new minister. English is a man of the past.
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April 11, 2011 6:00pm
Steve

Fuck the Unions, especially the Engineers Union. Back in the 70s I refused to join. The only time I saw the Union Delegate prick was when it was time to pay. He could not do anything to improve my employment conditions (I was on well above award wages, had use of company vehicles if I need them, had a yearly bonus just as thanks)
I refused to join full stop. It nearly ended up in Court with the Union on the back of my employer. My employer paid the Union fee, but I still refused to sign and join. All blew over when it became voluntary
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April 11, 2011 6:07pm
starboard

“A man who killed his four-year-old daughter by throwing her off a bridge in Australia’s second-largest city as her horrified brothers watched was sentenced to life in prison.
On Monday, Judge Coghlan sentenced him to life in prison with a non-parole period of 32 years.”

..now thats what I call a decent sentence… 32 years without parole for a particulally disgusting murder. If only our namby pamby judges had the testicals do the same.
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April 11, 2011 6:39pm
Viking2

What have unions and insurance companies got in common?
Well both are always there to collect the money but never there when you need the help or money.

The Insurance industry is gearing up at rapid pace to screw its customers. According to one advert on TV last night full cover means cover less depreciation.
watch out for all sorts of scams coming along. CHCH businesses are already finding that because CHCH is depopulated because the city is shut down they do not qualify for loss of business and loss of income.
We may find that we will only be able to insure for 80% of value or even less as happens in California. Now that will piss off your bank manager. You may be forced to carry much higher no claims up to several thousand, and there is no doubt that the premiums will rise significantly.
Already happening with renewals.
Be warned watch you policies.
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April 11, 2011 7:21pm
kaya

Outstanding!!
Icelanders have rejected the latest plan to repay the UK and Netherlands some 4bn euros lost when the country’s banking system collapsed in 2008.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/11/us-iceland-referendum-idUSTRE7383KP20110411

The “no” camp said the Icelandic taxpayer was under no legal obligation to pay for a private bank’s losses and that the deal would put a heavy burden on the nation.

I had thought (and hoped) Ireland would have told the financiers to get fucked but they rolled over. It will be interesting to see how this pans out. Hopefully it starts a trend that shows this mickey mouse monetary system up for the Ponzi scheme it is.

Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager said: “This is not good for Iceland, nor for the Netherlands. The time for negotiations is over. Iceland remains obliged to repay. The issue is now for the courts to decide.”

Hilarious.
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April 11, 2011 7:26pm
Bobbie black

Is it just me or did Anna Macdonald come across very fake in her TV1 interview?

Can’t see what she achieved by it either.
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April 11, 2011 8:05pm
Viking2

Strong earthquake rocks Japan, tsunami alert issued for Pacific

* By staff writers
* From: NewsCore
* April 11, 2011 6:42PM

JAPAN has issued a tsunami alert after a strong quake struck the east and northeast of the country, one month after the devastating March 11 earthquake-tsunami disaster.

A strong earthquake struck Japan today, swaying buildings in the capital Tokyo and leading to a tsunami alert for the Pacific, including the Fukushima province, Kyodo news agency reported.

The 7.1-magnitude earthquake was centered in the Fukushima prefecture, NHK reported.
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April 11, 2011 8:51pm
reid

Outstanding!!

Indeed.
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April 11, 2011 8:59pm
Put it away

We seem to have a lot of entertainers in this country who aren’t particularly bright

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/4872499/Tiki-Taane-arrested-in-Tauranga
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April 11, 2011 9:27pm
kaya

Looks like the bun fight between the banks and the government is heating up in the UK. Banks threatening to move offshore if they see proposed changes to the “industry” as too tough.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/apr/11/lloyds-sell-more-branches-banking-commission#start-of-comments

Some of the comments are excellent, I enjoyed this one from dunnyboy:

I love the way that they’re threatening to go abroad. Which government in the world is going to welcome a bank and say, “yes, of course we’ll underwrite all your losses and won’t regulate you, because that’s been such a success elsewhere”?
Well, there are a few governments which might say it, but the bank won’t have much joy when it goes to the Burkina Faso finance minister and says, “You remember how you promised to cover our losses if we moved our headquarters to Ouagadougou? Well, we need a trillion billion pounds by the end of the week or we’ll go bust

I’d be pretty keen to take a punt against the “too big to fail” argument.
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April 11, 2011 9:41pm
kaya

http://www.client9themovie.com/

Looks like a good watch.
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April 11, 2011 10:36pm
James

Just a shame the “unregulated banking industry” line is total bullshit…in fact banking was heavily regulated in the US and still crashed.Government knows best fails again…but who’s really surprised?
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April 11, 2011 11:07pm
reid

in fact banking was heavily regulated in the US

Really?

You clearly haven’t read Elliot Spitzer’s comments on that when he wuz NYS Attorney-General.
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April 12, 2011 12:12am
James

Not PC put up a post that destroyed the “unregulated market”myth…and Bernard Hickey…..says it all.

http://pc.blogspot.com/2010/09/feds-new-super-stimulus-will-not.html#c78824851728476292

UPDATE 4: Bernard Hickey has contrived not to notice that the government’s own central banks have been front and central in pumping up the boom; that their flawed and relentless pursuit of bogus price stability is at root responsible for both boom and collapse; and he’s now abandoning what he calls the “free market orthodoxy” and plumping instead for protectionism, nationalism and braindead big governmentism.

Fuck him.

He’s an easy read of how bad economic education leads to dire economic reporting.

He rightly derides our high debt, and the fact NZers did so little productively with it in the boom years. Yet he is oblivious to the place wherein the vast majority of that credit was created: the world’s central banks.

He says we need “measures to control our currency.” Hasn’t he noticed that the Reserve Bank has been pumping and un-pumping our currency for the last decade? With what measure of success we can already see.

He seems to have bought wholesale the idea advanced by Alan Greenspan and elaborated by Ben Bernanke that what was actually responsible for the bubble was an excess of global saving—an “excess” from which Bernard now thinks we should wall ourselves off from. But as George Reisman pointed out when Greenspan and Bernanke advanced this alibi to distract from their own culpability, “the very notion of a saving glut is absurd, practically on its face.”

And he seems to have bought the idea that for the last decades we have had “completely free markets and capital flows” Free markets! What is he smoking! This hot-shot economics reporters is apparently blind to the fact that in the markets of the last decade there is virtually no price or profit relationship left untouched. You think the age of Muldoonist price controls and interference with profits are dead? In the last few decades the “orthodoxy” worldwide has overseen:

interest rates controlled by an economic dictator with powers Muldoon would have killed for;
specific interest rates, such as home mortgages, manipulated through subsidies as well as price controls;
indirect currency controls virtually everywhere;
direct government manipulation of the gold market by both world govts and the IMF;
asset price floors—in addition to the ‘Greenspan put,’ we’ve had money printed and “toxic” assets bought, anything to keep asset values raised ;
wage floors, essentially a guarantee of widespread unemployment in a downturn;
wage ceilings, especially for executives;
direct price controls, especially in medicine and education;
good old-fashioned protectionism—not just currency manipulation, but outright tariff and non-tariff barriers;
the dismissal of business bankruptcy and liquidation as “old-fashioned”;
pumping up illusory profits by inflating the money supply, creating an inflationary illusion of profitability and prosperity;
the grant of virtual monopoly powers to the very credit agencies that didn’t know a bad thing even when it was held right under their nose.*
These are just a few of the means by which govts ran price controls and interference with profits in recent decades—and still are. But Bernard, and hundred of thousands of others trained to view all this as part of a “free market” are too braindead to see them for what they are, and now with the failure of this system of control calls instead for the controls to be tightened!

He has the frankly braindead notion that somehow the people in govt responsible for creating, overseeing and extending this economic disaster need to take back the reins. He has apparently either lost the brains he once had, or has now reached the point (as it has with most educated in mainstream economics) where the real world has now outstripped his learning, so has resorted to the siren cry of the braindead everywhere: “Bring me more big government! Now!!”

Bernard Hickey is a fucking moron. That’s all that’s left to be said.
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April 12, 2011 12:35am
publicwatchdog

Seen this?

http://birdflu666.wordpress.com/2011/04/09/first-iceland-bank-crash-prison-sentence-handed-down/

First Iceland bank crash prison sentence handed down

Quantcast

First Iceland bank crash prison sentence handed down as country prepares to vote on new bank debt repayment package.

Posted on07 April 2011. Icenews.

Reykjavik District Court has today passed sentence on the first case by the special prosecutor into the banking crash.
Baldur Gudlaugsson has been sentenced to two years in prison for insider trading.

Baldue Gudlaugsson, former permanent secretary at the Ministry of Finance, committed serious crimes, the judge said;adding that his sentence is particularly harsh because he abused his position as a civil servant.

Read more: http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2011/04/07/first-iceland-bank-crash-prison-sentence-handed-down/#ixzz1J200eYLl ”

Penny Bright
http://waterpressure.worpress.com
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April 12, 2011 1:12am
kaya

Because the free market can be trusted to run the economy in the best possible manner. Grab me a Tui while you’re at the fridge will you?

There has been no Government regulation for the last 20 years because the main central banks, particularly the Fed, make the regulations to suit themselves and no one else. It isn’t called Government Sachs for nothing. Paulson, Bernanke, Geitner, Summers et al, nothing but crooks looking after themseles and their buddies.
Government has no influence on banks which have been left to their own devices and they have fucked it up badly.

The banks own the Government. The banks ARE the government. There are more than 5 financial lobbyists for each senator.

One thing the left and the right agree on, the banks should never have been bailed out.
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April 12, 2011 1:41am
James

One thing the left and the right agree on, the banks should never have been bailed out.

…And in an UN-regulated free market they would not have been.But in a free market its very doubtful…if virtually impossible for the circumstances that cause boom and bust to occur anyway.The banks ran with the incentives put in front of them by interfering Government…and the fear of the threats the government made if they didn’t comply with stupid loan approvals etc.With no free market operating there weren’t the feedback loops that self regulate behaviour….. Government having put a “penny” in the fuse box.Re read the PC post…says it all.

Game set and match to me….thanks for playing.
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April 12, 2011 1:59am
kaya

James – the link to the wannabe econmystics at Not PC doens’t enhance your argument. Their whole basis of economic “discussion” is to call Hickey names. moron, dumb fuck, fucking moron, economic illiterate dumb fuck

I can’t wait to go back and be enlightened again.

Cheers, you should go into politics, you have a winning, persuasive manner.
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April 12, 2011 2:06am
James

If you can’t answer the obvious flaws in your case Kaya then don’t cry about it.

In your OWN words…The banks own the Government. The banks ARE the government. There are more than 5 financial lobbyists for each senator.

Repeat after me….such things are what happens in the absence of a Free Market….where the Government plays NO part in the economy.

Understand yet?
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April 12, 2011 2:12am
kaya

James – Really? We have no control over the financial system BECAUSE there is no free market??? The government being owned by the banks came about as a result of your free market which allowed them to get to that position. Any illusion of regulation is exactly that – an illusion.

Pure free marketeers are as deluded as hippies with hemp shirts and mung beans, both constantly searching for some ideological nirvana that doesn’t exist. Get used to it. Bed time. Have a good one.
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April 12, 2011 2:17am
James

James – you didn’t read what I said. The banks ARE the government. That came about as a result of your free market which allowed them to get to that position. Any illusion of regulation is exactly that – an illusion.

I’m sorry but you can’t see the regulated wood for the Government trees…..sad.
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April 12, 2011 2:21am
Manolo

Trump criticises the (false) Messiah:

Trump: Obama Is to Blame For High Oil Prices

Real estate developer Donald Trump blames President Obama for the rising price of oil, warning, “this country can never, ever recover” if oil prices continue to go up.

“That’s really the life’s blood of the country,” Trump told CNBC in a phone interview on Monday. The Trump Organisation chairman, who says he’s considering running for president, plans to decide “before June” on the matter. He contended that Obama is not a leader and is “in bed with these (OPEC) people. He doesn’t speak the way you have to speak to them.”

http://www.cnbc.com/id/42532489
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April 12, 2011 8:13am

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