THE CONVERSATION 2

Now here’s an interesting article from earlier this year (before the election);

"Cuts to EQC enable $372m surplus"

And here’s another interesting article more recently (AFTER the election);

"Government surplus in doubt"

Weeeellllllllll, who’d have thought THAT would happen!!? The finances return briefly to surplus before the election, but mysteriously drop when the right-wing hacks have bought and spun their way back into power? Gosh. Between elections, at the most serious, highest levels of government, I bet a conversation like this took place:

BILL: Hey John, the old finances are a bit up shit-creek.
JOHN: WHAT? What do you mean?!! We promised the proles a surplus by 2014!! Our whole bloody re-election might depend on it!
BILL: Yeah, but what we promise and what we can deliver are two different things.
JOHN: Pfff. [Rolls his eyes] Ain't that the truth? Well tell me, farm boy; what are the figures?
BILL: Well, we have a surplus of $372m.
JOHN: Fantastic! So, what’s the problem, bumpkin?
BILL: Well, we had to cut $200m from EQC to do it - God forbid that Christchurch find out about it! As well as that, you said we’d bail out AMI’s earthquake liability.  You said on Campbell Live, “We will not walk through this alone, Christchurch.”  
JOHN: Big deal. So What?
BILL: Umm…. AMI didn’t re-insure itself enough. The directors didn’t buy enough overseas cover for a major event like his.
JOHN: ** sigh ** So what? Get to the point, sheep shagger.
BILL: AMI’s earthquake liability is $500m. They’re bust, remember?
JOHN: So what? It’s clearly the shit part of the business. Separate off the broken part and screw the policy holders.
BILL: Weeeeellllll ….. we can’t do that, I think. We have thousands of Christchurch householders who would have their assets nullified as AMI policy holders. And Campbell Live would eat that lunch before we had pancakes.
JOHN:  Shit.
BILL: And .. . they’d tell all their friends around the country. Our ratings would sink from sympathy, and we’d never be re-elected.

JOHN: Bugger. Ok, what do you recommend?
BILL: No idea, I’m just used to dealing with sheep miscarriages and fences. Gosh, John, this is your specialty . . .
JOHN: Hmmm. Ok, I’ve an idea. How’s this? We break up AMI. We set up a separate company from the broken bit of the AMI debacle.

BILL: Do we sack the incompetent directors from AMI?
JOHN: Hell no, they’re our friends and potential National donors. No, let our mates have the good bits of AMI still, and we’ll manage the shit part somehow.
BILL: So how are we going to spin the debt and the break-off, and the failed business without hurting our corporate buddies?
JOHN: Hmm. Well, first of all, we call the failed-bit of AMI something friendly, like “Southern Response.” That’ll keep the Christchurch proles suckered into thinking we actually care about them, rather than the truth -  which is our wafer-thin surplus promise to the rest of the country. Next, we’ll hire some Aussie pitbull as Southern Response's Chief Executive to fuck-over policy holders who dare to ask for their entire policy entitlement.
BILL: Duh, how will that help?
JOHN: Hmm .? .. . hang on . . just looking for something [flick, flick, flick] . . .  GOT HIM! Peter Rose. Characterless, cold, numbers-robot. Perfect. We’ll remind him his SOLE responsibility is to the National Party - AH – Ahem – I mean, eh . . . to the TAXPAYER. Then we’ll let him off the leash.
BILL: SO, HOW DOES THAT SOLVE THE SURPLUS PROBLEM?!!!!! Oh gosh, I’m only a simple farmer, John! I only understand fly strike and lusty rams. I just can’t keep up with your sophisticated manipulation of metro politics!

JOHN:  Hah! And that, my friend, is exactly why a convicted goat-fucker wearing a blue rosette would be still elected in some of your farm-country provinces! Hang in there, sheep-shagger, and I’ll summerise:

• We have $372m surplus, but $500m AMI debt. 
• We’ll drip feed $100 each year to Southern Response to get Christchurch houses fixed. It’ll take 5 years for quake-stressed Christchurch residents to have their houses fixed, but our election promises and business buddies’ interest are much more important. 
• We can STILL spin that we’re helping Christchurch [**snigger**]

BILL: Duh, so, I can say we have a $372m surplus going into election year – even though we don’t, really?
JOHN: Yup.
BILL:  What about the $80b we have in accumulated debt since we got into power, because of loss of revenue from tax cuts to our rich buddies!!?
JOHN: Sssshhhhhhhh
BILL: Ok, wait.  So you’re saying, we have $80b accumulated debt, including $500m from our shite executive mates at AMI? We can manipulate a surplus only if we cut EQC’s money and limit the liability to Southern Response to only 20% this year. That means $372m surplus, with only $100 mill this year to Southern Response?!!
JOHN: Yup.
BILL: Whoof. That’s a big ask of Christchurch!
JOHN: They a Labour city or National City?
BILL:   What? Um . . Christchurch? Ehhhh . . this election or next election?
JOHN:  Any election.
BILL:   Umm, pretty much Labour every time.
JOHN:  Huh. Then, fuck ‘em.


FURTHER READING: 
* Government surplus on a knife edge
* Government says surplus on track despite treasury predictions 
* Southern response investments
* Accountant claims surplus result of clever accounting

THE MAORI PARTY'S HAD THE SNIP

Now here’s an interesting article:

"Maori Party focused on rebuild"  [NZ Herald, Saturday 1 November 2014]

I'm a little concerned if Te Ururoa Flavell (pictured left) truly doesn't understand why his party has lost support.  He says he doesn't understand comments about the party turning its back on Maori.  Or perhaps he’s just spinning, because the truth is too dangerous to admit.  Whether he likes it or not, the perception out there seems to be that his target voters are not as comfortable with buddying-up to the right-wing National Party as Flavell is.  If Flavell were to admit all that, he’d be admitting he’s out of touch with his voters.  And that, my friends, is called “Political Suicide.”

However, Flavell is up against John Key.  And Key is an exceptionally intelligent and astute political animal.  Key knew that the best way to neuter the Maori movement was the same way any establishment neuters a radical movement: he offeres “crumbs from the rich man’s table” [Luke 16:19-31].  Helen Clarke foolishly dismissed and underestimated the strength of the Maori movement.  John Key did not.  In fact, Clarke arrogantly took the Maori votes and the Maori seats for granted.   John Key would love to do away with Maori seats, but dare not.  Helen Clarke foolishly stated that there was “no child poverty in New Zealand.”  Cleverly, John Key said there WAS child poverty in New Zealand – he just doesn’t want to do anything about it.   The former Maori Party leader, Pita Sharples, claims the Maori Party has achieved much for Maori since aligning itself with the National Party;  

• “influence on the poverty committee”
• “paid parental [leave]"
• “free medicine at the doctors for the young”

Strangely enough, Sharples won’t be drawn on if he would have secured more for Maori in a Labour coalition, or whether the “achievements” above would have happened in committee as a matter of course. I would suggest to you that health, poverty, obesity, and smoking are the issues pressing for Maori, not crumbs or the damn flag:

• From 1997 to 2012/13, adult NZ obesity in NZ has increased by 19%.  48% of those obese were Maori, compared with the 31% NZ average.
• Nigel Latta, eminent NZ psychologist, demonstrated that institutionalised sugar additions to food is increasing our obesity, increasing our diabetes rate, and it’s killing us.  
  
•          77% of Māori deaths are before 75 years of age compared with just 34% of non–Māori (see graphical comparison, right)
• Former National MP and food Industry spokesperson, Katherine Rich, says claims from anti-sugar researchers are “hysterical.” 
•   There are up to 300,000 diabetics in NZ.  Diabetes is most common among Māori and Pacific Islanders. They’re three times as likely to get diabetes as other New Zealanders.
•   The numbers of Maori in poverty are roughly double that of Pakeha [European ethnicity] rate.
•   Katherine Rich claims that, despite high-powered brand marketing, and the fact that bottled water is more expensive than fizzy drinks, consumers still have “choices.”
•   Māori children are over-represented in child poverty statistics.  
•   John Key seems to be tough-on-smoking; the tobacco law of 2012 means tobacco products can no longer be displayed in public view in retail outlets.
  
• Despite the Maori Party wanting to make New Zealand smokefree by 2025, John Key says his government was unlikely to ever ban smoking.  It would be ''tremendously difficult''.  
• In the run up to the 2014 NZ election, Maori Party ratings decline, and John Key gifts seats to Todd Barclay and Chris Bishop (pictured right). They used to work for Philip Morris Tobacco and are now National MPs. 
• Leaked TPPA documents reveal there is currently a section in the TPPA that would allow Philip Morris to sue NZ over its anti-smoking legislation in an international disputes court.

The reality for Flavell, is that many of the issues above - that SHOULD concern Maori leaders deeply - will NOT be addressed by this corporate-friendly National Government.  This government will NOT be taken to account by the current Maroi-National arrangement.

John Key has done a superb job, in completely fracturing the left vote.  Key must be laughing his socks off at Labour being squeezed in between National and the Greens, as Labour feels it should go right not left.  However, Key may have watched the Maori Party strip the Maori seats from Labour, with perhaps some concern.  Hence, Key must have pondered on how he can neutralise this growing, pervasive force for change.

So, by “inviting” Maori into government (when a National Government doesn't actually need to!), Key has turned a potentially strong, radical, opposition wolf . . . into a meek, gelded lamb.  

FURTHER READING:

Obesity; 

http://www.health.govt.nz/nz-health-statistics/health-statistics-and-data-sets/obesity-data-and-stats

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11142268

http://www.otago.ac.nz/news/news/otago072102.html

Diabetes;

http://www.health.govt.nz/your-health/conditions-and-treatments/diseases-and-illnesses/diabetes

http://www.maoridiabetes.co.nz/

http://www.midlandshn.health.nz/uploads/maori-health-profile-2012-v3.pdf

Smoking;  

http://www.cantobacco.org.nz/the-issues/m%C4%81ori-and-smoking
http://www.quit.org.nz/file/research/factsAndFigures/maori-smoking-tobacco-use09.pdf
http://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/maori-smoking-tobacco-use-2011.pdf

TECHNOLOGY: A PLAGUE ON OUR HOUSES

Now here’s an interesting article;

"It's time for 'the next big thing'" [Aardvark, 15 January 2013]

 

I read the article again, and it took me back to the early days of my career at NCR and British Telecom.  Then and there, I loved working with pioneering technology.  In the nineties, I was selling 802.11 (now called wi-fi) as early as 1991, I worked with PC-based video conferencing (pre-Skype) and even tablet PCs.  Email was being touted around London-based Head Offices as “The Next Big Thing.” 

And it’s one of the reasons I’ve virtually stuck two fingers up at my former profession. In those early nineties, when we were flogging email around the financial institutions in London, we told them that it would increase productivity and information flow.  We described how it would usher in the paperless office.  We added that it would save money and give companies a competitive edge.

Well, wharalorrabollox that turned out to be. Now that every major organisation in the world has email, how has it worked out? 

• Productivity has plummeted as staff spend more time reading joke emails than actually working.
• Information flow has ground to a halt as staff are flooded with more emails than they can realistically answer in any single day.
• The paperless office has been revealed as a myth, when staff actually print out multiple copies of their emails.
• Businesses and other organisations are forced to spend more money on network bandwidth as LANs are swamped by emails with unnecessarily large attachments.
• The competitive edge is a fallacy, because now every company has adopted email and is wallowing in the same quagmire.

      My wife spits disgust at the latest fad technologies, and I don't blame her.  She marvels with cynicism at the revolution of Smartphones, Facebook, Google Glass, tablets and more.  But has it solved world peace?  Has it solved world poverty?  Has it solved starvation in Africa?  Of course it hasn’t.  The technology industry now produces frivolous toys; gadgets and gimmicks.  Indeed, the once-proud, high-status technology industry is now at risk of lowering itself to that of a ridiculous, joke, farce industry - like fashion:

• Kids now confine themselves – even more – to their bedrooms, sending thousands of text messages, when they could actually talk to their friends.
• Teenagers become further reclusive.  How many people think THIS is a serious news article?
• Families spend less quality time together as members sit in different rooms with their own, individual internet devices.
• Couples go out and play on their Smartphones, instead of enjoying intimacy.
• Kids discover violence and porn earlier, as technology makes such objectionable material more accessible. 
• Technology companies find even more ways to tie us to our de-sensitising screens, with glasses, more games, and newer, irrelevant operating systems.
• Employees stop talking to each other, as trust goes out the window in an email-blame exchange.

It is with a little shame and guilt that I look back at what we sold back then, and how we sold it.  However, the failings of what we in the IT industry sold didn’t become apparent for many years.  In contrast, the failings of today’s technology are staring us in the face right now.  The question is, what are we going to do about it?