The Key scandals begin to roost

The scandals that have swirled around the Key led National Govt since 2008 are flocking in to roost as Key announces the election date.
For too long Key has operated as this cartoon illustrates:

Key attempts to distract the voters from real issues.

Since the Pansy Wong and Richard Worth resignations, the bus ticket flaps at Double-Dipton English, Heatley, Banks, Dunne, Smith and others NZ has witnessed Key manipulating the truth a gross of times.
Now the scandals that have flowed from the Sky City deals, the Warner Bros sell out, Welfare payuts to Rio Tinto and other cash for favours deals we see an arrogant Cabinet minister declare her self innocent of serious conflicts of interest in her dealings with a company her husband is heavily involved in.
The inability of John Key to act and severely discipline his out of control minister demonstrates to the nation that he is, behind the carefully PR crafted image, a weak, ineffective and ethically challenged Prime Minister and figure head leader of the once proudly honourable National Party.

It is obvious that there are serious problems and conflicts crawling from the closets of the Key cabinet as the previously concealed leadership struggles, held in check until Key officially told them that his boredom (The Bellman reckons that unofficially Key has been canvassing his desire to quit NZ politics among his associates as he has ticked off his bucket list of things to do as leader of the National Party. This quotation from John Armstrong's Herald opinionista piece amply illustrates this rumour:
However, there is an eerie feeling that the current circumstances are about as propitious as things can get for National, yet the party is by no means guaranteed victory on September 20.
The onus is thus on Cabinet ministers and MPs to hold the line until polling day by projecting an image of competence and confidence while ensuring as much as possible that this picture is not clouded by foul-ups or embarrassments.
National MPs will be asking why Collins failed to see how her actions were compromising this strategy - and whether, for all her undoubted strengths, there are some previously hidden flaws in her character which have now put her leadership credentials in serious question.
This is not an academic matter. Key made it very clear this week that should he lose the September election, he will not be hanging around Parliament for very long afterwards.) with the position had reached its limit, within the National Party break for open ground.

I read this and thought of Paula Bennett and John Key immediately (Social Journal Europe)

America’s War On Poverty, America’s War On The Poor

13/01/2014 by David Coates Leave a Comment

David Coates

January 2014 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the State of the Union Address in which Lyndon Johnson launched the War on Poverty. This anniversary is leading to much soul-searching here in the United States.

Partly that soul-searching reflects the high levels of poverty that persist in contemporary America. The US does not define the poverty level as the EU does: as a percentage of median income, and therefore as normally a rising target. It defines it still in money terms, with the poverty level adjusted only for size of family and inflation.

There is much debate here currently about the adequacy of that measure. When the War on Poverty was first launched, the percentage of Americans with incomes lower than the poverty level for their size of family stood at 19%. After a decade of sustained policy, that percentage had fallen to 11.1%. The official poverty rate then stabilized, oscillating between 11% and 15% with each business cycle. As a result of the 2008 financial crisis and resulting recession, it is currently back to a peak of 15%, with almost one American child in five growing up in poverty. At stake in the soul-searching now underway is whether poverty persists in these proportions in modern America because, as Ronald Reagan once famously put it, “in the war on poverty, poverty won;” or whether, on the contrary, the war on poverty failed because his administration (and subsequent administrations) stopped fighting it.

The political conflict around that question is now intense. Advocates of a renewed war on poverty point to the significant impact on poverty levels made by key government programmes. Take those programmes away, they say, and the level of poverty in the United States would be dramatically higher. On the most recent data available to us, the Earned Income Tax Credit reduced child poverty by 5% in 2012 alone. Food and nutrition programmes had much the same effect. Advocates point too to the involuntary nature of most contemporary poverty. The vast majority of Americans who are currently poor are poor in spite of their own best efforts. They are poor because welfare payments are low and limited. They are poor because low-paid employment (of the kind offered by, among others, America’s largest employer – Wal-Mart) still keeps people below the poverty level. Or they are poor because large-scale involuntary unemployment (there are still three unemployed Americans for every available job) is steadily pushing the long-term unemployed out of the American middle class.

The Politics of the War on Poverty

Unfortunately for the poor, however, conservative critics of welfare provision do not see it that way. They either deny that anyone is America (or, from the point of view of Paula Bennett and the Key led National Government, in New Zealand) is genuinely poor – so many of them have televisions and cars after all – or they insist that most of those now in poverty are there because of poor life-style choices or an unwillingness to work. For such critics, the welfare net is not too modest. It is too generous. Any narrowing of the gap between welfare income and low pay removes the pressure on the long-term unemployed actively to seek work. Indeed, so certain are conservative critics of this truth that, in the current US Congress, Republican legislators voted in November to cut food stamps and cannot now be persuaded in sufficient numbers to extend long-term unemployment insurance to the more than one million Americans whose insurance ran out in December. And among the Tea Party base of the Republican opposition to welfare provision, it must be recognized, strands of racism linger. The American poor is still disproportionately African-American and Hispanic, attracting arguments from libertarians about the need to honor the defining American tradition of self-reliance, and arguments from intense nationalists about the need for repatriation and the closing of the border.

But the poor in America now come in many colors including white, and in many ages – both young and old. The social compact between firms and workers that once traded modest wages for guaranteed healthcare and a reliable pension is eroding fast, and though in 2014 Republicans will no doubt still point to “welfare queens” as spongers on the public purse, they too have now to address the poverty issue in all its complexity – not least because many of their potential voters are either in or on the edge of poverty themselves. So many of the men now in poverty in America are keen to find work but cannot, and so many of the women are grandmothers struggling to survive on a modest state pension, or are high school graduates struggling to find work of any kind at all, that their plight is simply too evident and too entrenched to be ignored by even the most strident critics of welfare provision. Whether they like it or not, poverty in America has become a problem for Republicans. For Democrats it needs to become a cause.

The current political gridlock in Washington is leaving more and more Americans vulnerable to poverty. There is an enhanced churning here as well as an enhanced volume: between 2009 and 2011 the incomes of approximately one American in three (31%) fell below the poverty level for a while, remaining there for at least two months. The evidence is clear. Political gridlock and the resulting absence of effective anti-poverty programs in the contemporary United States benefit the rich, but they leave the rest of us with increasing income inequality, vast areas of urban blight and suburban drabness, and diminished access to the American Dream. Lyndon Johnson was right:

the man who is hungry, who cannot find work or educate his children, who is bowed by want, that man is not fully free.

But try telling that to a Republican legislator who is safe in his/her gerrymandered constituency only so long as the Republican Party’s Tea Party base is not enraged by any softness on the poor.

There is a lot at stake in 2014 in America, as the last mid-term elections of the Obama administration approach. We can expect Democrats to press the poverty button heavily as they campaign. Let us hope, for the sake of the American poor, that this time pressing that button works: that at long last the progressive message on wage growth and income distribution gets through to the American electorate on a scale sufficient to return power to more compassionate legislators than those currently controlling the House.

A fuller version, with appropriate footnotes, is at www.davidcoates.net

NATIONAL PARTY DIRTY TRICKS BRIGADE EXPOSED

Ever since the emergence of John Pinnochio Key onto the NZ political scene there have been rumours of a concerted dirty tricks brigade behind him and many of his caucus and support Parties: Dunne, United Future, Banks, and ACT.

For much of the time these rumours were ignored and often derided by journalists as "left wing" paranoia but, with the leaks beginning to appear around Key and his caucus it has become clear that the rumours weren't paranoia at all.

Here's the first leak: It targets the Lusk-Slater (Whaleoil) group immediately. A group determined to sell the NZ political system into the fringes of the Republican- Tea Party in return for corrupted influence and control.

Here's the second leak that takes the National Party back to it's 1975 ties with the Republicans who, allegedly, helped fund the National Party's infamous Dancing Cossacks cartoon advertising campaign.A further sign that the Key dominated National-ACT Party want to see NZ as a client state controlled from the States. Even if Key denies links to the Slater-Lusk group his willingness to sell out NZ's legislative process to Warner Bros, big Oil  and an international Casino group would indicate otherwise.

Here's the evidence of their meddling and willingness to corrupt due process in a Labour dispute.

Here's the evidence of the leaking around the Key cabinet as the public perception of Key as lacking trustworthiness begins to grow.

Add to this growing mountain of evidence that the Key led National-ACT govt is on shakey (shonkey) ground the Key orchestrated and orginated attempt to paint a Labour led government as the  communist red flag waving "Devil Beast"  and one sees a panicking and ideologically berefit Party trying to justify its existence by creating an imaginary being to generate fear that the corruption the present leaking exposes will loose it support among its membership. It also paints Key and his cronies into a corner they cannot escape from... as they try to dodge away from the leaked strategies cooked up by Lusk & Slater and, no doubt, supported by those MPs they have mentored and placed in the caucus. It makes Key's (like David Cameron's ) alliance with the questionable tactics of the Crosby-Textor spinners even less acceptable.

Ralston,bloggers, journalists, photographs and things

Bill Ralston's commentary on the sorry saga that is the Worth affair is an indictment on someone who claims to be a reputable senior journalist and political commentator, at least in the small journalism pond that is Auckland.
It is a poor effort because it is obviously derivative of the spin lines being provided by the National Party HO sourced blogsites - the repeated mantra of a "purposely created honey trap" set and sprung on a poor and unsuspecting Richard Worth by a woman who had been primed to do so by forces greater than herself.
The line is then spun out for credibility sake with photographs of Ms Choudary at various functions around Auckland where she is seen posing beside Labour Party MPs from Helen Clark down with the assertion that Ms Choudary is, therefore, a high ranking activist because she unsuccessfully nominated for the Botany Electorate in 2008.
One should be clear about Ms Choudary's involvement in the NZLP to assess how high ranking she is. Enquiries would indicate that she is not a member of the NZ Council of the Labour Party. She is not an active member of any of the NZLP's policy committees and she is not a member of any of the Party's regional committees.
All that can be substantiated is that she is, or has been, a member of the Botany Electorate Committee and was involved in the Botany Campaign during 2008. She is or was also heavily involved in the various Indian community groups through out Auckland.
To imagine her, as Ralston and others in the NACT spin machine have attempted to do, as a high ranking activist is to allow one's imagination to soar to stratospheric levels.
We should, if we were objective, be wary of any collection of photographs showing an individual in close proximity to any person of status, be it political or social, for these merely record the prescence of the individual at a function where he or she could meet and be seen. For example a photograph of Ralston, Slater and Farrar with Clinton and Obama doesn't suddenly make them high ranking members of the American Democratic Party or personal friends of Clinton and Obama. It simply meeans that Ralston and company took the opportunity to be snapped in the company of Clinton and Obama and, perhaps, use the photograph to enhance their own petty status.
One could contend that Ms. Choudary is in the same situation as the Ralston example - that she has been a regular attender at functions where she could be seen to rub shoulders with MPs and others and that she, like many people, especially those from countries where meeting and or seeing one's MP is a remote possibility, has taken the opportunity to be photographed in their company.
One wouldn't be surprised if, on digging through files of photographs taken at functions hosted by the Indian community during the 2008 election at which there were National Party MPs looking for support one could find photographs of Ms Choudary and others like her posing beside Key, English, Williamson and Worth etc. These photographs could easily be construed as implying that Ms Choudary was a high ranking member of the National Party.
One could also presume that these MPs encouraged such photographs to be taken without enquiring about the political persuasion of the Indian, Korean, Chinese, Japanese... person concerned because such a photograph could be used for political advantage - a photographic endorsement of the National Party policies from the members of the ethnic community concerned.
Perhaps, too, Mr Worth attempted to recruit Ms Choudary to the National Party as he probably did, during the election campaign, to all people who he may have come in contact with in the hope that this would give him an in to the community. That he attempted to carry this invitation past the enquiry about the individual's possibilty of joining his campaign was his "honey trap" and his own nemesis.

National's Perpetual Talk the Talk but not Walk the walk fests

This press release from Mangere M.P. Su'a Sio deserves wider circulation than the local press will give it. His commentary is relevant especially for those whose real work provides the foundation for the economy.

Communities want job security and income protection.

I have been critical of the government’s job summit as being a mere talkfest, that government wasn’t moving quick enough while the plight of our economy continues to grow, that Government was excluding ordinary communities from the summit, and that the very communities that will suffer the greatest from a depression would not have a voice in the summit. Then as I watched the television coverage of the event, I have to admit; the Government looked good. Admittedly, the television coverage of the event was carefully orchestrated and clinically scripted suggesting duplicitous behaviour for the sake of politics.

Nevertheless, the most innovative idea I picked up from the news coverage is the 9 day working fortnight with one day for education and this should be explored. The initial concerns by ordinary families on this idea will be who will pay workers for the days they give up? If no one pays us, how will we meet our daily living expenses if we are forced to give up what would normally be a paid working day? If our incomes are reduced by one day will our fixed daily expenses such as rent, power, water, sewage, and phone lines be reduced as well?

To add further concerns to troubled minds, the inability of the Government to come clean on what it intends to do with the Super Fund is cause for considerable distress amongst our senior citizens. Many Grey Power members remember well the Government that reduced superannuation to 60% of the average wage in the 1990s.

Then on Sunday the Government’s ‘fire at will 90 day’ law will come into force on the premise that it will boost employment opportunities with small to medium sized businesses. In reality however, National is telling employers they can hire people for up to three months and then get rid of them without any hassles. All this law will do is remove worker’s rights to take personal grievances for reasons of unjustified dismissal and will leave workers open to being taken advantage of, and abused by unscrupulous employers. This is another cause for more worry by ordinary communities.

Notwithstanding, the real test now is how Government will give confidence to its citizens that it will meet the needs of all families, especially vulnerable communities throughout New Zealand.

In Mangere, families aren’t just concerned about job security, we are also concerned about income protection, and how the needs of our families will be sustained now and into future years.

Women in red drive men crazy - Why the Nats get upset over Helen!

At last! We now have an answer to the question that has been bugging political pundits each election for the past nine years: "Why does Helen Clark get under the skin of the male young Nats and really infuriates the older ones, like Ian Wishart, who have to resort to homophobic rumour mongering to explain their own reactions?

Researchers have discovered the reason: Women in red drive men crazy. It would appear that men rate a woman as being more sexually attractive if she is shown in an image framed by a red border rather than some other colour (like blue for example?).

So what happens in the NZ political situation is that old Nats, living on past memories, and young Nats, living in hope, see the photos of Helen framed in a warm glow of red on the Labour Party billboards and become overcome with a feeling of being attracted to the icon of social democracy. Then, because they cannot cope with the revelation that they do and are attracted to Helen and the Labour Party can only retreat into good old fashioned reactionary abuse or, in the case of the billboards, scrawling offensive grafitti across her image.

We must thank the US researchers for this exhaustive study and the explanations it now gives us for the viputrative commentary that sometimes passes as investigative political analysis in New Zealand.

Where ACT & National would take us with their Crime policies.

Irony or Truth? The Gambler & the Casino.

A couple of postings ago I wrote an analysis of the National Party's economic policies and the supposed economic management expertise of their present finance spokespeople. In that posting I commented on the parallels that exist between riverboat gamblers and the money "traders" who gamble on the money markets.
I noted that the leader of the National Party made his reputation working for Merrill Lynch as a gambling speculator on the NZ dollar during the 1980s. Other bloggers have noted that the gambling on the NZ dollar at that time almost caused a collapse of the NZ economy if the Reserve Bank hadn't intervened.
It is, therefore, with great interest and a sense of the heavily ironic that one notes that the National Party with its "Great Gambler" at its helm is to launch its official 2008 campaign at The Sky-City Casino in Auckland on the 12th of October.
It is, perhaps. fitting that a political party with its roots deeply embedded in speculation, in money market gambling and other gaming activities should decide to associate itself with a Casino as it attempts to persuade the N.Z. public that it has a rational, well thought through and non speculative set of policies that would fit it to govern the country responsibly.

Conflict in the Engkeylish camp of Tax Cuts, asset sales and increased Borrowing.

A simple question: How does a party leader this answer these questions and maintain logic:
"How will you fund the infra-structure building you plan to do with a reduced tax take from the large tax cuts you have promised?"
Answer""By borrowing thus increasing the public debt."
Question: "But aren't you borrowing to fund the deficit created by introducing huge tax cuts?"
Answer: "No we'd be borrowing to build infra-structure."
To any intelligent listener the logic of this series of answers is as somewhat tenuous and revealing of the speaker's fundamental lack of economic logic as the increased borrowing must logically follow from the reduced income created by the tax cutting programme that he espouses. If the Government has a decreased income flow because the tax take doesn't fund the planned spending then the borrowing is necessary to fund the tax-cuts.
Then the real answer must be that given by the man John Key says he'd be happy to resign to after one term holding the reins of power - Bill English who declared in a taped interview at the National Party Conference "We'll sell State assets - i.e. KiwiBank." (Un-said by underlying the message: at least not until we've been wielding power for a term... and have convinced the public that asset stripping, like the cane was said to be, good for the state as the country's assets are best held by foreign companies.) After all selling the family silver will allow National to reduce state taxes and allow private enterprise to levy taxes in the shape of tolls and increased charges and prices.

Tax Cuts and the politics of selfishness

The calls for and promises of extra big tax cuts coming from the National Party Conference are the manifestation of the politics of selfishness.
They are argued with such self centred statements as:
“I want to avoid paying tax because other people gain a benefit from my tax payment. I believe that those people don’t deserve those benefits.”
“I want to avoid paying tax because I am, at heart, a charitable man and would gladly and liberally give alms to the begging poor so the State needn’t provide welfare schemes.”
“I want to avoid paying tax because I believe that the country can and should borrow against the future to fund any programmes I object my taxes being used to fund..e.g. social welfare, state education, public health services and, anyway, what are insurance companies for for but to provide these services from the investment individual insurance policies are designed for. After all individuals should take responsibility to provide for themselves by buying from private providers.”
“I want to avoid paying tax because I believe that the State, in providing socio-economic developments is providing too much and is employing too many people and thus growing too big - and, anyway, there are too many people getting assistance they don’t deserve.”
“ I believe I shouldn’t pay tax as private enterprise can provide all the services and infra-structure for the economy without the State being involved.”

In all these demands to avoid paying tax, in all the political grandstanding by the National Party the big question is avoided: “ Who pays private enterprise to build and provide all the infrastructure and services?” The answer is, of course, the non-tax paying individual who must pay a premium for the goods and services he wants at an ever increasing rate and price as our ever increasing electricity bills and the asset stripping of Air New Zealand and Rail N.Z demonstrate once private enterprise and the presumed benefits of the competitive economy were introduced under a previous National Government.

It is a pity that the present political discussion hasn’t explored or commented on the fallacies of individualism and the selfishness that underpins the tax cutting policies espoused by the National Party. New Zealand sorely needs the debate to be widened and treated with greater seriousness than we have seen and heard over recent months.