Posts by Angus Robertson
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But there's also a really useful and unpleasant lesson for bystanders here: your silence will be taken as assent. She's saying society supported these men, because nobody spoke up. Not because anybody else joined in with them, but because nobody supported Hannah. We have to do better.
No. Silence is not taken as assent.
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There is a suggestion the NSA taps directly into the hub networks of the USA. It would make more sense for them to do this physical spying than for them to act through the likes of Google or Yahoo, because the access would be more reliable and exclusive.
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On a lighter note Obama has just completed a summit with Xi Jinping where the American complained loudly about an on-going violation of cyber security.
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Although Snowden carefully distinguishes his own actions from the indiscriminate leaking of Pfc. Bradley Manning, one observation can be made of both of them: how on earth could relatively junior staff (more so Manning than Snowden) apparently have access to everything? It is quite extraordinary.
Their intelligence gathering appears to be based upon:
A - gather all info they can possibly obtain.
B - try to make sense of it.Part B isn't going to be a small task easily managed by few people, think collating the equivalent of the NZ census every what? Day, hour, minute... on a continual real time basis.
There are gaps in this story that could have been closed by its source and its puzzling that they haven't been.
It is more likely he doesn't know.
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Speaker: Generation Zero: Let's Grow Up, in reply to BenWilson,
The future vision of endless growth with steadily reducing employment is not only not inconceivable, it’s not even necessarily bad. It would only be bad if unemployment meant no access to the goods of society. If everyone became unemployed, but remained rich, and growth continued steadily, we’re actually talking about utopia. It’s not even that hard to imagine, in an age of automation.
What the West is achieving is endless asset growth. The asset based goods of society are grown out of reach of the poor to accentuate the wealth of the rich and props are created so that the rich cannot fail, but the poor get subsidised and need to work less. A seeming corporatist/socialist utopia is being achieved.
Unfortunately to finance this growth the society as a whole must accrue significant debt. But that is okay because, that debt is backed by a growing economy and all is well. Until something happens and the asset bubble you have been creating pops. Then no one is willing to loan you even more money, you cannot accrue more debt and the whole system falls apart. Leaving rich people with all the assets and poor people with all the debt.
Oh and as a side note, you borrow against savings if your return on investment is greater than the cost of the money. It's how the genuinely talented rich have succeeded - the ones who have built empires from scratch rather than being gifted them by parents or buddies.
On a side note to this side note: it is even better if you can get someone else to borrow the money and give it to you.
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Speaker: Generation Zero: Let's Grow Up, in reply to Sacha,
It is right now.
If the bank is too big to fail.
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Speaker: Generation Zero: Let's Grow Up, in reply to BenWilson,
The reasons I gave why it's difficult in NZ are only more so in the "Western" economy. Until tools are implemented so that debt deleveraging can happen without catastrophic consequences, I expect we will continue to explore the infinity of interest rates between what we have now, and zero.
I've got a few shares so I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the taxpayers of America, the UK, Europe and Japan for paying for my largely unearned capital gains. Indeed if there are any voters from those countries reading this please don't read after this paragraph, you are doing a marvellous job.
Seriously if you live in the USA, EU or UK stop reading now.
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.That said (just between ourselves) I'm pretty sure even those idiots can't be trusted to go for it long term, because their growth is jobless. Their economic policy is to inflate assets, so all local investment is into assets. High asset prices then make foreign investment difficult. Japan has been doing the zero% interest thing for 30 years and in that time the labour participation rate has fallen from 64% to 60%. It kind of works for Japan because they have extremely restrictive immigration and a very low birth-rate - they needed to reduce their workforce.
Try the same thing in places which have more normal demographics and serious social problems will occur around employment. Governments will fall and this will change the policy.
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Speaker: Generation Zero: Let's Grow Up, in reply to Russell Brown,
I am predicting a change in global economic conditions will have more impact than anything we do. And since almost any change in the global economy would result in higher interest rates, I am predicting higher interest rates.
NZ does not have low interest rates because we have decided in isolation that we need to have low interest rates. NZ has low interest rates because the USA, the EU, the UK and Japan are dumping money into the world economy.
It might be that these places will continue to dump money into the world economy for ever and ever and ever. But I think they won't.
When the Western world ceases its current policy of very low interest rates we will have to do the same only more so, because we are smaller and a much riskier investment.
I suppose we could keep interest rates low even if economic conditions change, but then we'd incur shitloads of debt and have really high inflation.
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Speaker: Generation Zero: Let's Grow Up, in reply to Russell Brown,
The question was "how does Auckland get affordable housing?"
And I'm feeling cynical.
Interest rates are currently at an historic low, they are much more likely to increase than decrease. Doubling them from today will place them just about at historic averages. Tripling them wouldn't be especially unlikely.
And a rise in interest rates seems way more likely than Auckland Council and NZ Government cooperating to solve any issue.
If the question was "how do you want Auckland to become an affordable city?" the answer might be different. And less likely.
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Speaker: Generation Zero: Let's Grow Up, in reply to James Bremner,
so how does Auckland get affordable housing?
By doubling or tripling the interest rates charged on mortgages.