Who will win the 2011 election?

[imdying]

Enough with the moaning for pitys sake! We live in a paradise compared with most countries. Open spaces, long empty beaches, clean air and water, food enough that its thrown away after the best by date. Heat pumps, cheap airfares to the Gold Coast, modern motorcycles and cars, internet most places, smart phones, good roads, sports grounds, social welfare, free healthcare, the list goes on.

If you don't believe me check out India, southern China, and most of Africa. And South America. And Central Asia.

Our "problems" are non-existant. Give thanks for living in such a blessed country.

Amen

[SPman]

Sooo...a thread on the Election dissolves into "attack the rich pricks'...who knew??


Honestly I get tired of the simplistic attacks on nameless quiet New Zealanders who have achieved financial security. The rich. Who are these people? The alleged 1%ers who own all the wealth? Damned if I know.

I suppose I'm related to a few - farmers. Ok fair enough, but the bastards aren't spending it. In fact they look poorer than me judging by their cars and houses. True, once they are dead, there will be some big numbers but actual spending money...? Nadda.

So there must be 40,000 other rich pricks out there and we need to know their names and addresses. I'm googling envy cards right this minit....nek minit.....

Sigh.........I guess I'm not very good at getting my point across....too much time on US sites, where they really have problems.....quiet nameless NZ'ers who have achieved financial security - good on them - unless you're being obtuse, these are not the people I'm talking about and I wish I'd never mentioned it. I'm from farming stock m'self..... Envy? Why would I envy them - I have sufficient most of the time and have seldom envied anyone in my life - except, perhaps, the riding skills of some people around.........

Back to the elections - has J.K shot himself in the foot over "Teagate"? And will the fine people of Epsom and Ohariu realise they're being played for mugs, and vote for who they want to....?

[Spearfish]

Back to the elections - has J.K shot himself in the foot over "Teagate"? And will the fine people of Epsom and Ohariu realise they're being played for mugs, and vote for who they want to....?

I'm not sure how any this has a controlling effect on how a free thinking person physically ticks a box.

Perhaps if a militant sector of a party was doing something illegal disrupting the democratic process then maybe that could have an effect, if "teagate" wasnt the hot paper seller its built up to be then perhaps the leader of said party with its militant sector could be asked if his openly communist views influences his "blind eye" and the direction its turned during the illegal attacks on the democratic process.
Just asking...

[Winston001]

Envy of the rich and successful is a simple catalyst and the loathing of the recent bailouts of the (1%) banking fraternity can be manipulated to whip up mob an emotional frenzy.

Like the 81 Springbok tour, the righteous are prepared to fight and die for a principal so are easy to manipulate.

Unlike the springbok tour this raising up against capitalism is world wide and IMHO is being driven by the very people it is aimed at!

Prepare for the disintegration of society as we now know it, those who need this least will provide the fuel to ignite it .... watch this space!

Ummm John, shouldn't this be in the Occupy Dunedin thread?

Whatever: couple of points.

Firstly, the bailout of banks in Britain and the US wasn't to save the banking fraternity. It was to save innocent investors who had put their savings and retirement funds with the banks. Same with saving the American car manufacturers - to prevent their collapse and hundreds of thousands of jobs lost.

As an aside, Detroit is the first modern city I can think of which has collapsed. Its weird to think it could even happen.

Secondly, the objection to the bailouts is that some of the bankers and financiers not only kept their jobs but got their usual bonuses and high salaries. I find that reprehensible and obscene. No wonder people all over the world are finally saying enough is enough.

[SMOKEU]

Before you vote for John Key, ask yourself this: Can you REALLY trust a jew to tell you the truth?

I rest my case.

[mashman]

Before you vote for John Key, ask yourself this: Can you REALLY trust a jew to tell you the truth?

I rest my case.

Oy vey.....

[oldrider]

Before you vote for John Key, ask yourself this: Can you REALLY trust a jew to tell you the truth?

I rest my case.

Hmmmm, might be a bit over the top that one.

There was that Jew named Jesus, he has a lot of fans who believe his word is the truth .... but then there is SMOKEU!

Do you think your words of truth will be remembered by anyone 2,000 years from now? (just a simple initial response to your post)

[SMOKEU]

Do you think your words of truth will be remembered by anyone 2,000 years from now? (just a simple initial response to your post)

You never know.

[oldrider]

Media (including polls) should be excluded from political reporting at least one month prior to any election, the cunts just cant be trusted to act rationally!

Inaccurate reporting is just about as destructive and anti-social as drink driving IMHO.

Pity they can't breathalise their keyboards and smash their fingers if they catch the fuckers lying!

[shrub]

Media (including polls) should be excluded from political reporting at least one month prior to any election, the cunts just cant be trusted to act rationally! :

Why? Journalists in NZ (and I know a few) are almost entirely very ethical, hard working and honest. The biggest problem is that news is now a mechanism to support advertisers by drawing an audience (good old free market economics), so "what bleeds leads" meaning the sensational and the dramatic get front page. At an election we depend on the media to present the parties policies and promises, but most importantly we need the media to shine a spotlight on the politicians and their parties. It's that spotlight that allows us to see their flaws before we vote for them.

In cuppagate we have seen John Key revealed as a man who lacks judgement and the ability to remain composed under pressure - is that what we want for the man who will lead our country? Contrast that to the carefully stage managed John we have been presented of a thoroughly decent guy with commercial acumen and the common touch. Until now everything he has said and everything he has done has been stringently managed by the team on the 9th floor to make sure NZ stays in love with him regardless of his competence as a prime Minister.

It amuses me that he is banging on about how all he wants to talk about are policies and economics, yet until very recently his department had refused numerous requests over 3 years by radio NZ and both TV channels to discuss them.


I

inaccurate reporting is just about as destructive and anti-social as drink driving IMHO.

Pity they can't breathalise their keyboards and smash their fingers if they catch the fuckers lying!

If a journalist gets caught lying they're unemployed (unless they work for a political party that is). Damn near every story that gets published or aired gets checked, and anything remotely contentious is ripped to shreds for any inaccuracy at all because a media outlet's reputation is all they have - remember what happened when News of the World got caught being dodgy?

It's nice to blame the media, and the political parties encourage it, but it's also like blaming the weather reporter for rain.

[shrub]

There was that Jew named Jesus, he has a lot of fans who believe his word is the truth

or perhaps more accurately a lot of people believe what men who never knew him and lived many years after he died claimed he said.

[oldrider]

or perhaps more accurately a lot of people believe what men who never knew him and lived many years after he died claimed he said.

More likely that they just believe what they "want" to believe! .... Whatever smoke their tyres!

At least they were free to choose, that option may not be around for much longer!

[Usarka]

Before you vote for John Key, ask yourself this: Can you REALLY trust a jew to tell you the truth?

Like most kiwis I'd rather vote for a jew than a south african!

[SMOKEU]

Like most kiwis I'd rather vote for a jew than a south african!

You can trust a white South African more than a jew...

http://www.stormfront.org/jewish/antisemite.html

[rainman]

Sooo...a thread on the Election dissolves into "attack the rich pricks'...who knew??

Honestly I get tired of the simplistic attacks on nameless quiet New Zealanders who have achieved financial security. The rich. Who are these people? The alleged 1%ers who own all the wealth? Damned if I know.
...

So there must be 40,000 other rich pricks out there and we need to know their names and addresses.

Sorry for the slow replies but I have been working too many hours lately to get near KB (or more importantly, my bike). However this "if you do't know them by name and address your argument is invalid" bullshit does need a challenge...

Social stratification easily accounts for why many here don't personally know that many really wealthy. NZ has a well-developed class system, however much we don't like to admit it. If your kids don't go to the same schools and you don't hang at the same country clubs, or even live in the same towns as the super-wealthy, you often don't get to know them. How many people actually know Graham Hart or Alan Gibbs or Paul Reynolds socially, not just via the usual kiwi two or three degrees? The numbers are small, give our tiny population, only 13000 (0.4%) or so earn over $250k. (Our wages are so shite, being in the 1% just means earning over about $165k per year. But then the bottom 50% earn less than $40k pa, and the bottom 90% below $70 pa).

So I don't need to know who the really rich are in person, I just need to look at some basic stats to know they exist.

The real fallacy comes from those in the 5% or thereabouts, who are working hard and doing moderately well, who then identify with and defend the 1%. This leads to the beliefs that a) if they keep working harder they can one day "make it" and be very wealthy too (this has the side effect of making people buy the false faith that making money is the meaning of life), and b) that if only the lazy bludgers at the bottom worked harder they could also "make it". These sentiments are often expressed here. Useful idiocy at it's finest.

Now of course hard work is a far better way to make money that sitting on your arse is; no-one disputes that. But it's only a small part of the picture, and to advance it as the only or even the prime cause of our ills is just intellectually dishonest. To have the ideal world where everyone is engaged and working, and we are thereby succeeding individually and as a nation, we would need to address a whole bunch of difficult stuff like education, drugs and alcohol, employment conditions, job availability, infrastructure/geography, motivation, legal and economic policy (dis)incentives, population, immigration, race and prejudice, ownership and globalisation. These are tough issues, and no political party has come close to fixing them yet - although some approaches are better than others.

So, are we at least heading in the right direction?

Between 1975 and 2005 (latest stats for this, but indications are it's getting worse) the NZ top 1% increased their share of total income by 3.21%, the 90-99ers up by 1,02%, and so the bottom 90% went down by 4.23%. Not as bad as the US where the trends are about 9% up for the 1%, 9% down for the bottom 80%, and the rest up by a tiny smidgen.

I don't need to know the wealthy by name and address to know hat this ain't right, or sustainable - particularly given the likely hardship we are heading into globally.

Now I'm not arguing against the middle group in the hard work/fair reward category - hell, I are one: much though I'd hesitate to call myself rich, in NZ terms I'm doing OK. 90% or so of people earn less than me, although long hours and high risk are involved so it's arguably "fair". To be honest I could (currently) earn even more in a different organisation but money isn't everything by a long chalk. And I've been skint often enough to know hard work isn't all that's required.

I happily pay my taxes because they are actually fairly low, and are the price to pay for living in a civilised society. I think I get reasonable value for my investment, but would always like better efficiency - not just less government, but government better aligned with delivering the correct strategic outcomes for (all of) us as a country. Tackling the tough stuff I listed earlier. I regard National as a worse investment than Labour because they are more fucking useless than Labour, considering their "do-nothing" policy settings by default, and the fact that they will actively damage the place with asset sales in particular. YMMV, of course.

Envy is not involved in my complaint, nor is some neo-Marxist redistribution narrative, 'cos that doesn't work for long. I'd like us to fix the problems properly. Bleating about dole bludgers not working hard enough is not just misidentifying the problem, it's beating up the victims (some exceptions).

Who among us seriously thinks we can just keep letting the rich get richer, though?