Posts by Stephen Judd
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Ian, I think that's quite plausible. Your last link is to David Irving's website though... yick.
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Hard News: The scandal that keeps on giving, in reply to Paul Campbell,
he last thing he wants is a “jewish PM won’t stand up to Israel (like Helen did)” meme
Oy. The thought of just how bad that could get makes me churn up inside. OTOH, the opposition has very decently always avoided any insinuations based on his ethnic affiliations. If such a view were to spread, I think it would erupt from TradeMe discussion boards etc, not from establishment sources.
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dc_red: that's what Key does when he's caught flat footed and ignorant. I agree, his performance was untruthful, but I don't think he's concealing anything more than the fact that he had no idea what was going on.
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stephen walker: you're about a day late, I'm afaid. Check out today's Stuff.
In the last 24 hours, nothing new has come out of Tuletts story and some things are already being walked back.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5317568/Yes-but-I-still-back-sources-on-Israelis
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5317453/Israeli-man-had-nothing-to-do-with-nobody
It looks to me like the SIS is chasing at rumours.
I hope people aren't relaxing their normal suspicion of the SIS' motives and competence just because it's Israelis at the sharp end this time.
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Hard News: The scandal that keeps on giving, in reply to Sacha,
And we know it's true because of the wording of Key's refusal to talk about it.
Do we? Key is generally not on top of things without a minder and a briefing. And he dimly knows PMs shouldn't talk about the SIS. He's as likely if not more so to be covering up his ignorance of what's going on.
In fact, consider this. What we have here is a leak from an agent, not an official announcement. Perhaps someone senior decided there was no real story here (we don't know why), someone junior was pissed off enough to leak or maybe just got pissed down the pub and blabbed, and Key never heard about it until just now. He'd lose face if he confessed to being ignorant, so he stalled. I'd imagine he thinks that preserving his image of being in charge is in the (N)ational interest...
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Either that, or tell people they can have Muldoon-level super when they agree to Muldoon-level taxes.
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OnPoint: Easy as 1, 2, 22.8 billion, in reply to BenWilson,
I agree with this comment of Ben's in every detail. Including the fact that my parents never voted for him either.
In fact owing to the FPP gerrymander, Muldoon's mandate came from a minority of voters for his entire tenure, and not even from the biggest group of voters for the last 2/3.
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OnPoint: Easy as 1, 2, 22.8 billion, in reply to DexterX,
Without wanting to comment directly on these peoples’ circumstance
I wonder whether their daughter is really called Porsche, or that a Herald reporter can't spell Portia? An aspirational name either way.
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Hard News: The scandal that keeps on giving, in reply to Andre,
Thanks for that link, Andre. Which reminds me -- anyone know what happened to James Coe's splending Editing The Herald?
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When I was about 30 or so, I compared notes with a mate who's a highly skilled fitter/welder. He used to get megabucks doing things like working on the Huntly power station annual shutdown/refurb.
One of the things about working in manual trades is that by the time you get into your 5os, a reasonable proportion of your colleagues are missing fingers or worse. What they make as skilled workers with dangerous tools partly reflects the risk of being maimed.
Another thing he said to me is that when on a break, tradesmen rarely or never reflect on what they do as something to look back on. It's great to keep a power station running, but you don't generally look back on a bunch of welding, or drain laying, or wiring, or toilet unblocking, the way that you might in more cerebral professions. You do your day's work, thank Christ that it's over, and look forward to when you don't have to do another one.
Another interesting thing is that he started earning large money at a younger age than me. I'd say I peaked in terms f hourly rate in my early 30s, he'd peaked at a lower but still large rate in his 20s. Compound interest has easily kept him in parity with me.
I talk to my daughter about what she might want to do for a living. It's not clear to me that university education, in particular graduate level education, is worth it unless you actually love the subject.
On another note, appearances can be deceiving. Neighbour dude might be buying all that shit on credit and saving nothing.
Finally, I come back to the idea that wealth is really about assets. If I have enough assets that I can pay for a room and power and groceries until I die, without further work, I'd say I'm rich compared to most people I know (I don't, yet). It is impossible to judge people's level of assets from observation. Often people living large have a net worth of nothing, people in rags own heaps. I'm not sure personally about where taxation fairness lies between big earners and careful savers.