Is John Key the man to lead NZ?

[Hinny]

I think I would probably give up work if I could pick up $40million a year for no effort nor expense.

Buy a new bike ...
$40m could come in handy I reckon.
Probably get a directorship as well - another $100,000p.a.

Would I say "all you proles could kiss my arse, you could have done the same if you had got off your fat lazy arses"?
No, I wouldn't. I'm not like that.

[Hinny]

So, you are quite right when you point out that the dogs always remain in public ownership, as the canny investor simply wont buy them.

The dogs don't always stay in public ownership.

Urea plant in Taranaki. One of National's 'Think Big' projects. Never had a positive IRR from its inception. Became worse as the project proceeded.

The Govt. paid Fletchers to take it off their hands.

[rainman]

First, John Key made a decision and has stuck to it, that in itself is strong leadership

Depends on the decision, usually it's a greater sign of strength when someone admits they cocked up. "Loose lips" Key hopefully at least apologised to his party.

Second, that cameraman knew jolly well that he had left that recorder on the table and that it was recording

Conjecture - unless you're keen for a defamation suit I'm recommend you think before you boldly leap to conclusions.

Third, that cameraman could have done the decent thing and wiped the recording immediately, consistent with his reasoning that it was accidental.

Why? Fuckin hell, a tape of Key and Banksy trash talking Brash and assorted other persons is gold, accidental recording or no. He'd be a muppet if he didn't try to get more than a few bucks for it.

Couple of points: the common belief that SOEs once sold can never be recovered is trumped by two examples of exactly that occurring - NZ Rail and Air New Zealand.

At what price and by whom? I've been (as have we all) paying significant amounts of taxes to acquire this sort of infrastructure and I regard myself as a public stakeholder. I don't appreciate having my investments stolen and flogged off to Johnny's overseas mates (49% or no) thank you very much. Tell you what, he can flog off the assets if he gives them an equal share of the debt that we have. No? Let me guess, I get to keep that. Bloody thieves and hypocrites, that's what they are. Bet you they still talk about the sanctity of property rights.

Meanwhile instead of selling the asset (or liability) completely, allow a minor share (less than 50%) to be sold to investors from where ever, in order to free up some tax payer finance to either prop up the asset or be freed up to help some other struggling public asset/liability!

For an old guy, you're pretty gullible.

Im no lefty.

But when I was a kid, we had chooks. They laid a few eggs and we got to eat a few, but we were never happy. We always wanted more. Our Ozzie neighbour had more chooks than us, and we were always jealous.

One day, Uncle Bill came to stay. He sold our chooks to the neighbour. He spent the money wisely, and came home with bacon, eggs and a pack of beer. plus he retained ownership in the rooster, it was our share.

He was wildly popular.

A bit later we had no chooks, no bacon, no beer, and got woken up at 5am every day by the rooster.

Luckily our neighbour was still happy to sell us eggs.

You keep assets, thats why they are assets. You dump liabilities if you can.

And you invest in a way that allows you to control MORE assets. Thats how wealth is made. The accumulation of profit making assets is the key to wealth.

Anyone who advises you to sell quality assets, is undoubtedly working for the man that you will sell them to.

Fucking A. I have no problem rebalancing our asset portfolio, and there are no sacred cows - but selling energy assets to buy irrigation and build schools is just idiotic. We need to come out of whatever transactions we do owning more and better shit, not selling the good stuff to satisfy ideological demands.

[Indiana_Jones]

The Conservative party has an excellent manifesto

Just been on their site today, and they seem pretty good.

-Indy

[avgas]

No you just think you dont need it. Why spend money on roads when you can have better suspension to absorb the bumps on the roads we already have.

I ride a bike with bald tyres, cable tied indicators/lights, old brakes, rusty chain, 3/4 frame bolts, forks preloaded with $3 in change and a fully dialed up rear shock of 80's origin.

And I have no problem with NZ roads.

Must be your riding.

[oldrider]

For an old guy, you're pretty gullible.

And you sir are a loser ..... what's more, next Saturday, it will be confirmed!

[SPman]

And you sir are a loser ..... what's more, next Saturday, it will be confirmed!

Aaaaah - a loser - as will be most people in NZ........

[Hinny]

And you sir are a loser ..... what's more, next Saturday, it will be confirmed!

Agree with SPman - If the polls are right we will all be losers.
I can envisage a return to Springbok tour type revolt.
- the NZ Spring.

[oldrider]

Aaaaah - a loser - as will be most people in NZ........

Agree with SPman - If the polls are right we will all be losers.
I can envisage a return to Springbok tour type revolt.
- the NZ Spring.

Hoist with my own petard! Rainman 1 oldrider 0 ......

[Edbear]

Aaaaah - a loser - as will be most people in NZ........

As is most of the world's population...

Has a change in Government ever lead to a better life for its citizens? A few things change for the better a few things change for the worse, but overall the quality of life and our personal security, both health and financial, has been diminishing for a very long time.

If you really want to know the future for NZ, just carefully examine the rest of the world. For a long time both NZ and Aus have been to a large extent insulated from the rest of the world, not suffering the extremes that other "Westernised" countries are suffering, but sure as eggs, to use another poster's analogy, it's coming to a town or city near you and there's precious little we can do about it.

NZ and Aus are not big enough to stand aside from the woes of the world for much longer. When National got in the economy was booming and suddenly the WFC struck. Not National's or any other party's fault but neither could they do anything about it. Doesn't matter who gets in now, the situation will not change, prices will not come down, jobs will not magically appear and all anyone can do is reshuffle the deck chairs on the global Titanic.

When the world's powerhouses are bankrupt and unable to recover, when they have rioting in the streets, when whole economies are failing among our key trading partners, what is any NZ Govt. able to do? China is in trouble, the EU is on verge of collapse, the US can't raise interest rates, that means they still have 0% and are in danger of defaulting again.

We're alright, Jack. We can play tiddlywinks here and simply wait for it to happen...

[Hinny]

Has a change in Government ever lead to a better life for its citizens? A few things change for the better a few things change for the worse, but overall the quality of life and our personal security, both health and financial, has been diminishing for a very long time.

For a long time both NZ and Aus have been to a large extent insulated from the rest of the world, not suffering the extremes that other "Westernised" countries are suffering.
When National got in the economy was booming and suddenly the WFC struck.

Conveniently ignoring history.
Left wing economics that with a change of govt. brought us out of the great depression.
The adoption of policies from the Fascist Manifesto .... by which party? ... has led to a better life for our citizens.
For example:
The Manifesto of the Italian Fasci of Combat (a.k.a. the Fascist Manifesto).presented on June 6, 1919

The Manifesto supported:

• the creation of universal suffrage for both men and women
• proportional representation
• the creation of an eight-hour work day
• a minimum wage
• worker representation in industrial management
• revision of the draft law on invalidity insurance
• reduction of the retirement age from 65 to 55,
• a strong progressive tax
• revision of military contracts to allow the government to seize 85% of their^[who?] profits.
• a foreign policy designed to be peaceful but also competitive.

Are you really prepared to say our society would be worse off without these policies.

The global economic crisis was largely over by the time the Nats got in. As John Key said "then we had the NZ. recession of 2009, 2010 and 2011".

With the GEC, Argentina defaulted on its debt. A change of govt., adoption of trickle up theory and the economy bounced back. 20% growth last year as opposed to NZ 0.5% ... in a time when we are getting record returns for our primary export earner.

To say that a change of govt. will not make a change is disingenuous bullshit.

[avgas]

Aaaaah - a loser - as will be most people in NZ........

If any of the big 4 get in. NZ loses.
Come to think about I don't know a single person in politics which is in it to fix the country.

If there was, they would work for free.

[Edbear]

Conveniently ignoring history.
Left wing economics that with a change of govt. brought us out of the great depression.
The adoption of policies from the Fascist Manifesto .... by which party? ... has led to a better life for our citizens.
For example:
The Manifesto of the Italian Fasci of Combat (a.k.a. the Fascist Manifesto).presented on June 6, 1919

The Manifesto supported:

• the creation of universal suffrage for both men and women
• proportional representation
• the creation of an eight-hour work day
• a minimum wage
• worker representation in industrial management
• revision of the draft law on invalidity insurance
• reduction of the retirement age from 65 to 55,
• a strong progressive tax
• revision of military contracts to allow the government to seize 85% of their^[who?] profits.
• a foreign policy designed to be peaceful but also competitive.

Are you really prepared to say our society would be worse off without these policies.

The global economic crisis was largely over by the time the Nats got in. As John Key said "then we had the NZ. recession of 2009, 2010 and 2011".

With the GEC, Argentina defaulted on its debt. A change of govt., adoption of trickle up theory and the economy bounced back. 20% growth last year as opposed to NZ 0.5% ... in a time when we are getting record returns for our primary export earner.

To say that a change of govt. will not make a change is disingenuous bullshit.

An expected reply. Keep on thinking that way and please don't whatever you do, spend some time in researching what has been happening in recent years and looking around the world right now. Hate to spoil your illusions...

[mashman]

An expected reply. Keep on thinking that way and please don't whatever you do, spend some time in researching what has been happening in recent years and looking around the world right now. Hate to spoil your illusions...

+1 "cannot spread etc...". For all of our wonderous advancements we have gone backwards socially. I don't see that as a positive at all, not in any way shape or form.

[avgas]

Conveniently ignoring history.
Left wing economics that with a change of govt. brought us out of the great depression.

Really.
I thought the war fixed it.

History books must be wrong then. It was clearly change in leadership that put more food in fields and more money in pockets.
But clearly by making a campaign about "happy days" made the whole world change. That Roosevelt is like a modern version of Jesus too