OnPoint: PREFU 2011: "What credit downgrade?"
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
though that tag still seems to be framing some coverage.
Oh, for fuck’s sake… There are some sections of the media who need to asked whether Michael Ashcroft fucked their girlfriends, skipped out on a bar tab or laughed at their weiners while sharing a urinal. Otherwise, I can’t really see the news value. Isn't there a general election four weeks from Saturday or some such trivial nonsense?
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
oh sorry Ben, those were all places that govt cut jobs. Although Is Zespri a SOE? Did I misread? Quite capable of that :)
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
No he just:
- is heavily entwined with the government of a corrupt Central American tax haven- was a UK politician while not actually fully resident there for tax purposes – representation without taxation, as it were
- runs his political spending through an offshore firm, again to avoid paying tax
- makes his money through corporate raiding that even raised the eyebrows of a British High Court judge
- I won't even mention various grey areas around US investigative agencies, as he seems to have managed to "prove" himself nominally in the clear on that, and I wouldn't regard said activities as immoral anyway
I find it interesting that he’s starting to participate in *our* politics, obviously without doing anything ridiculous like moving here, taking residency or filing a tax return.
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With friends like this...
...and as seen on the TV3 news tonight Ashcroft also seems to affect Key's memory - he can't even remember who contacted who, it was just in his diary so he had to go... wonder if he has any shares in any Ashcroft companies or if so could even remember how many, I'm sticking with my Manchurian Candidate theory!
There's a whole raft of interesting Ashcroft stories here
I especially liked David Mitchell's light hearted piece... -
Craig Ranapia, in reply to
I find it interesting that he’s starting to participate in *our* politics, obviously without doing anything ridiculous like moving here, taking residency or filing a tax return.
I find it interesting, Rich, that apparently being in the same room with Ashcroft (who happens to also be a senior official in the Conservative Party) is not only "participation in *our* politics" but corruption by osmosis. (Which seemed to be the entire thrust of the rather feeble Three piece Ian linked to which is identical to the equally feeble piece Three ran three years ago.)
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Russell Brown, in reply to
I find it interesting, Rich, that apparently being in the same room with Ashcroft (who happens to also be a senior official in the Conservative Party) is not only “participation in *our* politics” but corruption by osmosis.
I rather our PM wasn't meeting with Ashcroft. I think Ashcroft is a dodgy influence-peddler. But I don't think them having lunch is evidence of anything much.
BTW, Ashcroft isn't Conservative Deputy chairman any more. As the 3 News story notes, he resigned last year because his tax status was becoming an embarrassment, especially that given that he promised to "take up permanent residence in the UK" as a condition of his knighthood in 2000 and still has not done so.
If the Conservative party decided it was better off without Ashcroft, I suspect we are too.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
I rather our PM wasn’t meeting with Ashcroft. I think Ashcroft is a dodgy influence-peddler. But I don’t think them having lunch is evidence of anything much.
Quite - Australian politics is full of somewhat odoriferous individuals on both sides of the aisle, but I wouldn't presume there's anything sinister in both National and Labour having quite extensive contacts with their equivalent parties across the ditch.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Jumpin' Jack Flash...
Which seemed to be the entire thrust of the rather feeble Three piece...
Maybe, but Key needs to learn how to stall questions better then,
'cos his body (& actual) language screams avoidance maybe even lying...
I just don't trust someone who squirms, twists and turns that much,
and he really does need to work on his memory, that ploy is getting old...
Gas, gas, gas...
As an aside - this gas leak thing is a worry, it is showing up our
infrastructure problems again - 30 year old buried pipe ...
- if one weld goes what are the others like? and that aerial footage
of the same pipes just spanning gullies in mid air was chilling...
one good earthquake and those could be ruptured - and they had
a 5.2 near Taupo tonight (admittedly quite deep) but all it needs
is for those pipes to go in a coupla places and the entire upper
North Island grinds to a halt - maybe they need to reinvent the
Tank Farm and a few big storage gas tanks somewhere - what
happened to those old gas tanks in Freemans Bay/College Hill? := )and what was that whole thing about the company not being
insured for this kind of outage eventuality - will the customers/
taxpayers have to shoulder this as well - scary... -
While I think stupidity explains more things in this world than malice, let me say that there are only 365 lunches in a year (give or take a few). About that many dinners and breakfasts too.
Given that, I'd rather our politicians were having lunches with people who actually uplift us, make things better. There are plenty of them, despite that goes on in the world.
(Perhaps then they wouldn't risk the perception of taint from people of ill persuasion. Yeah, I know I'm naive. You need such people to survive, I'm told.)
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
As an aside – this gas leak thing is a worry, it is showing up our infrastructure problems again
I rather liked the farmers assessment of the whole gas leak of which he did complain about on the Friday and again on Monday after ( the RWC finished) the assessment of there being "nothing to see here move along " The pipes could have leaked for weeks and only been noticeable when the farmer did a drive by. He is correct. The cliffs are eroding, the pipes are moving. See, trouble with the insurance is, being partially owned by Shell, there could be other private contingencies. (Underwriters etc) but I do think this is a perfect example of trying to figure out who is responsible for what. Not Vector Pipes but they are contracted to maintain and that is privatisation. Pass the buck when the shit hits the fan as such.
Oh and Key, ugh Who took down the handshake Mr Key? -
merc,
Mr McKenzie said the 30-year-old pipe was in good condition.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10761960
Wonder what the required lifespan for the pipeline was, and if they knew when laying it that the ground was subsiding?
Doh, of course they did.
Infrastructure, not sexy but at least it's ours? -
Bart Janssen, in reply to
Although Is Zespri a SOE?
No Zespri is the marketing company for kiwifruit sales overseas. The relationship with the govt is that it is granted sole export rights, essentially a govt mandated monopoly.
Before anyone gets all up in arms about that - there used to be a very successful sole marketing body for apples and pears and a strong apple export industry - that was disestablished (by Labour) and the apple industry collapsed and still has not recovered. The company that pushed for the disestablishment has since gone bankrupt after having sold many of its orchards for housing developments. For NZ such sole marketing organisations work.
Zespri is essentially owned by the growers who pay a levy. The layoffs in Zespri are primarily due to the death of (particularly gold kiwifruit) vines in Italy and France. Unless we are lucky we are likely to see similar vine death and layoffs in NZ :(.
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
You can’t just store substantial quantities of methane in tanks like petrol, or even LPG. It boils at -161C and typically has to be cryogenically refrigerated, which is complex, expensive and energy wasting. Or pumped underground into salt caverns - if we had any salt caverns conveniently placed.
Also, I would say that in terms of pipelines and powerlines, we suffer from sparse population. If we were running gas for 20 million people, there’d be several pipes and failure of one would be acceptable. With just 2 million or so people in the upper North Island, a full-size spare would spend most of its time idle.
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Campbell live last night made a great deal about the insurance angle. As far as I know there are quite a few large global industries that do not use insurance companies. Companies like Shell are so large that they can handle even the largest contingency internally, I don't recall there being a big fuss over insurance in the Gulf of Mexico incident. I do, however, have concerns over how Shell will compensate Fonterra and the farmers who had to dump milk, that one is complex.
ETA.
I was wondering whether they knew earlier but decided the fallout during the hospitality industry's biggest earner, the RWC. but decided to take the risk of a massive explosion instead, well, it was only a farm. :-| -
peterpeasant, in reply to
Economics is about as reliable as Tarot Cards.
I am sure the National Party believe in their Tarot cards. Really, truly.They mean well for all New Zealanders.
It is just possible that they are wrong.
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