Posts by stephen walker

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  • Speaker: Good Times on High Street,

    Zanzibar used to be the Hungry Leopard Restaurant in the early days

    with Chasers Nightclub downstairs (cringe!)

    i'm pretty sure before it was the Hungry Leopard it was a theatre restaurant called...sorry, that brain cell is corrupt. 404 error.
    anyway, i think my father took my sister and her friends there for her 16th birthday party.

    and btw, until about 1990, the seediest thing about Fort St. was Rock 'n' Roll Records (just joking, Kerry!)
    the street was dominated by a flour mill and a newspaper newsroom/printing works, and lots of trucks coming and going.

    nagano • Since Nov 2006 • 646 posts Report

  • Island Life: Burn fat, not oil,

    how very charitable of you, David.
    in my own, personal, velour-cushioned op-ed universe, anyone who isn't a hippy or hippy sympathiser would be shot at dawn. or prefarably sent to live nextdoor to you-know-who in Kaiwaka. i'm sure you would cut me some slack too, wouldn't you?

    nagano • Since Nov 2006 • 646 posts Report

  • Island Life: Don't need no steenkin' lockup,

    sorry, but demonise i must.
    and the use of "it's all ACT's fault!" as a way of weaseling out is quite pathetic, imo.

    Key and his merry band of rammers-under-urgency are a disgrace. and a reflection of all that cerebral action on the part of the people who voted for them. ACT didn't even get close to the 5% threshold but National got 45%, ffs. all of them demons. hyperbole? yes. pissed off? yes.

    and now, predictably, we get Key and English about to let loose with some diabolical budget while using the excuse "but S&P made us do it!". cue the violins, please.

    the only thing O'Sullivan got right in that piece was the quip about it all being well rehearsed and "choreographed". ycsta!

    nagano • Since Nov 2006 • 646 posts Report

  • Speaker: Good Times on High Street,

    i've been trying to work out for the last couple of days what Le Bom was. been there, the Martinis worked. ha.

    i had also thought the infamous Billy Idol promo tour was 84, now you've confirmed it. i heard he also managed to proposition K. Hay during an interview for RWP.

    nagano • Since Nov 2006 • 646 posts Report

  • Island Life: Don't need no steenkin' lockup,

    What exactly did people think they were getting

    Ben,

    you're not seriously implying that the people who voted for National actually did so based on "thinking", are you?

    being pre-programmed by the corporate/state-owned media doesn't count as "thinking".

    (sorry, couldn't resist that)

    nagano • Since Nov 2006 • 646 posts Report

  • Island Life: Don't need no steenkin' lockup,

    @Sacha

    Fran O'Sullivan?

    This week's repeated admonitions by S&P that it would expect the New Zealand Government to start posting Budget operating surpluses over the next three to five years translates to: "Get your affairs in order, Government - or we'll whack you with a ratings downgrade."

    "batshit crazy"

    LOL

    It is a role S&P is increasingly playing worldwide, as Governments - some of them still triple AAA-rated, like Britain - take advantage of the practical utility of having an outsider tell the public the unpalatable fact that their country is living beyond its means. This reduces the potential for political backlash that would otherwise occur if the same message was delivered deadpan by a politician with no chorus line in sight.

    ooh, the good old "shock doctrine", eh Fran?
    because S&P are so, well, credible, just like the IMF.

    speaking of "credible", how about John Whitehead, Esq., Secretary, New Zealand Treasury?

    CREDIBILITY 'R' US

    Sacha, you're right, people should read the O'Sullivan piece and then read the Oram piece.

    One reads like a silly gossip column while the other provides a compelling analysis and argument based on evidence. i wonder which one is which?

    nagano • Since Nov 2006 • 646 posts Report

  • Island Life: Don't need no steenkin' lockup,

    What do you chuck overboard?

    anyone whose initials are P.H. and whose first name is Paul gets a free one-way ticket to Bagram Air Base.

    nagano • Since Nov 2006 • 646 posts Report

  • Island Life: Don't need no steenkin' lockup,

    they use S&P to let them know if a country has gone batshit crazy

    anyone who thinks that S&P is a credible source of creditworthiness information is "batshit crazy".

    S&P, et al, are the banksters' bagmen. they facilitated the CDF and MBS meltdown (pyramid scam), which has subsequently seen a massive consolidation in the financial sector favouring a select few Wall St. firms, and the dishing out of $trillions of central bank/treasury money to said banksters.

    .....

    "Hello, S&P? We want to sell this tranche of mortgage-backed securities with zero chance of the underlying assets remaining sound. Can you give them AAA+? Great, thanks. Those Norwegian village councillors will be over the moon with such a great investment!"

    nagano • Since Nov 2006 • 646 posts Report

  • Island Life: Credit where it's due,

    i think Captiver captured it quite well, actually.

    S&P, Moody's and Fitch are at the very core of the credit default swaps (CDF) and mortgage-backed securities (MBS) meltdown. these people were the enablers. how could this possibly be in dispute? and yet, here we are, business as usual (BAU). fffff.

    please read this:
    http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom
    really, read it.

    But he couldn’t figure out exactly how the rating agencies justified turning BBB loans into AAA-rated bonds. “I didn’t understand how they were turning all this garbage into gold,” he says. He brought some of the bond people from Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, and UBS over for a visit. “We always asked the same question,” says Eisman. “Where are the rating agencies in all of this? And I’d always get the same reaction. It was a smirk.” He called Standard & Poor’s and asked what would happen to default rates if real estate prices fell. The man at S&P couldn’t say; its model for home prices had no ability to accept a negative number. “They were just assuming home prices would keep going up,” Eisman says.

    nagano • Since Nov 2006 • 646 posts Report

  • Island Life: Burn fat, not oil,

    David,

    excellent blog, i strongly agree with what you say.
    And well done everyone who organised and took part.
    i would have been with you if i'd been in AK.

    The "MOTORWAYS FIRST, LAST AND ALWAY" brigade have ruled AK since 1959. Fifty years is long enough, thanks. now it's time for something smarter.

    nagano • Since Nov 2006 • 646 posts Report

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