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notices and features - Date published:
6:00 am, February 13th, 2025 - 38 comments
Categories: open mike -
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Open mike is your post.
For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.
The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Step up to the mike …
Richard Murphy – Trump will more than likely crash world markets, and a lot of people will be made very uncomfortable with that!
And, as usual, our CoC won't have a f****** clue how to deal with it.
So brace yourselves!
10.35 mins long
The vampire squid playbook; buy, strip, and flip.
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Feb. 12, 2025
WASHINGTON — House Republicans released a budget plan Wednesday that sets the stage for advancing many of President Donald Trump's top domestic priorities, providing for up to $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and a $4 trillion increase in the debt limit so that the U.S. can continue financing its bills
https://baynews9.com/fl/tampa/politics/2025/02/12/house-republicans-budget-plan-debt-ceiling
America's Year Zero?
Opening sentence: “They are young and seizing the reins of government on their master’s behalf with an imperial swagger. It will end in many tears”.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/12/elon-musk-america-government-doge
Thanks for that great (brief) opinion piece, especially the zingers in the last paragraph.
As governments 'slim down', the already very wealthy will be lining their pockets.
Nat Energy Minister Sherlock Simon Watts, stating the obvious…..
Another non event..
Well past time for a shakeup….lets not leave it till winter. Oh, riiight.
Link within the link reveal the upcoming danger.
I had earlier posted about this,
But here's another . Economist nails them…
Labour. How about a New Energy Deal ? Many people at the lower end economically, are going to be majorly impacted by this.
Give us something different to shake this Lab/Nat similarity off. Take back our NZ Electricity.
Maybe have a list of the various idiot things done by the Luxon and Key governments that you are going to reverse. Make sure you describe these things as vandalism by an economically illiterate and self-serving elite who despise ordinary people. You could even take the piss out of the fallacious, self-aggrandizing CEO target-setting bullshit by chopping the list up into the first 27.35 days and the next 41.052 days etc.
That dangerous idiot list is growing longer daily. Surely we (Left opposition) can knock them for six !
Return power generation and supply to full public ownership and control. Some compensation if the gentailers go quietly.
A transitional period could reward those that reduce dividend payments in favour of sustainable generation-wind, solar, marine to tide over the dry hydro times.
Capitalist power operators have relentlessly price gouged and rewarded shareholders instead of developing infrastructure, parasites that need to go. A vote winner for Labour/Green/TPM.
Yep. Good summation of What we need to see. And…
I reckon !
Spot on Tiger.
Set up a state owned renewable power company, where all renewables have battery storage attached, funding this through a wealth tax and a tax on bank excess profits.
This would rapidly become self financing
Humph. Probably only got the job through what's sometimes called "nominative determinism".
Not having struck that particular term before…I do like that the Standard can be a language/Idea expander. Cheers : )
How this fits Simon…could have differing interpretation.
More likely ignoring, rather than openly challenging the 4 year term in office of POTUS 47.
Trump is McKinley era, tariffs and American empire and thus was a Buchanan economic and foreign relations isolationist in 2000.
It helped his cause that Bush discredited the rules based order (previous adventurism had been Cold War era global "security" excused – such as Mossadeq to Shah and onto Ruhollah Khomeini and Ali Hosseini Khamenei) aided by Blair via 2003 regime change in Iraq (and less well known the move to a Panopticon Society surveillance state, turning democracy into a manged regime suppressing dissent against a God and mammon regime – now manifest in Project 2025).
And that trade got blamed for rising inequality.
Trump's American empire co-exists with others.
Fraser was wary of the impact of the UNSC veto enabling a world cartel. Two power blocs doing bad things. This enabled the Warsaw Pact (and thus NATO) and then the US navy dividing China in 1949 by enabling the Nationalists to occupy Taiwan. Thus the Korean War.
And now its the USA and Russia carving up the rare earth minerals of Ukraine. And Trump posing as some sort of new world under God figure, with his new philistine real estate development in Gaza.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/02/13/as-trump-abandons-the-old-world-order-nz-must-find-a-place-the-new-one/
https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/02/13/trump-says-he-and-putin-have-agreed-to-negotiations-to-end-ukraine-war/
Train goes t …o …o …t t…o…o…t
https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/02/13/first-test-train-travels-through-aucklands-city-rail-link/
Economic growth starts slowly under C of C policy.
Might even occur in the next electoral cycle.
Oh my god this is hilarious! It needs an honest trailers approach.
From the team who brought you roads, roads and more roads brings you…late by two months,
the CRL, yes we did Key or Simon Wotsit did or something even though we clearly wouldn’t now, we did…
though it was due to be ready a year ago, and is a woke disaster..
but all the brilliant proper city part was all us, though it’s a late woke disaster.
Bernard Osman in the continuing miserable old bugger, struggling to ever be happy in Auckland…with Chris Bishop and WAYNE mcfkn BROWN genuinely bringing the upbeat optimism!!
Ahh New Zealand.
Standing as the Green candidate for Mayor.
https://wellington.govt.nz/news-and-events/news-and-information/our-wellington/2024/04/council-taking-over-some-projects-from-lets-get-wellington-moving
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/541699/wellington-s-golden-mile-upgrade-final-design-revealed
The past 3 years.
What to do about (and correct answers)
1.the Library, restore (but should have remained in use longer before work began and a shorter time in temporary spaces).
2.the Town Hall rebuild ongoing in 2025. The St James Theatre reopened in 2023.(real community assets)
3.Regent Theatre (nothing, right in the end, do not subsidise the private sector).
4.the overbridge to be or not to be (keep it and have guardians keep numbers on it down at events while consider future options when there is funding).
5.Begonia to be or not to be (money saved above covers the cost of retaining).
6.airport shares (sell, minority stakes do not allow any public good to be done. Only wealth funds invested outside the region allow a secure provision for insurance risk).
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/541746/council-meets-over-future-of-wellington-s-begonia-house
If the library needed restoration (because of risk of catastrophic failure in an earthquake) – then it could not have been occupied while assessment and planning went on. If it's not safe, then it's not safe. If it's safe to occupy, then the rebuild was unnecessary.
However, the ….lack of urgency…. displayed by the council to resolve this situation was notable.
Making a decision (almost any decision) would have been better than the ongoing flip-flopping.
Any of their building/planning staff could have told them that the cost of remediation would absolutely blow out (indeed, just looking at the ongoing rehab projects could have told them that).
It came down to three choices (which should have been made on service/philosophy ctriteria, not cost):
Any of the solutions, implemented in a timely fashion, would have been better than what's happened.
They chose to continue with a central amenity.
And they did a mix of the first 2, not either. The restore did involve changes – reassessed needs.
https://wellington.govt.nz/news-and-events/news-and-information/our-wellington/2022/04/take-a-look-at-wellingtons-new-central-library-design
The building was obviously safe to continue with as a library – but the structural damage meant it was no longer up to current standards.
There are a number of buildings in current use that have to meet higher standards to remain in use.
Masterton.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/shock-as-new-trust-buildings-fail-quake-standards/VSOC7GAR3M3XDHB4EO5M7B3XC4/
Palmerston North.
https://www.boinz.org.nz/Site/resources/News-and-Media-Releases/palmerston-north-buildings-possibly-have-design-problems.aspx
My understanding is that it had to be closed (as in no staff access, let alone public access) as it had the same structural issues that caused the StatsNZ building to pancake.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/200m-problem-why-is-wellingtons-central-library-closed/TDMLEBJV3DGMQXISYPC6NTTZKI/
If you accept the argument that it was at 60% of rating – and wasn't an immediate risk. It never should have been closed at all. And, with the amount of work on the Council's books to remediate the critically risky buildings, it shouldn't even have been a project.
TBH, I can understand the risk-averse nature of the Council over this one – if there had been a major quake during opening hours, and there had been a structural collapse, there was the potential for hundreds of people to have been killed. cf the CTV building in Christchurch.
But, nothing prevented them from identifying an immediate strategy and following through (if they accepted the argument that it was a critical risk). The backwards and forwards over cost (which option was going to cost more) – resulted in the project being more expensive (whichever option was chosen), and the ratepayers being denied the amenity for much longer, than was necessary.
No one in the Council (either the current administration or the previous one) has come out of this with anything but mud on their faces.
Also, the option they've (finally) chosen is the most expensive of all. Restoration, with a partial re-build. And will take the longest to deliver on.
Not to mention, almost certainly resulting in fewer books immediately available (forgive my bias, here – I'm pro books, rather than space to house Council services in a public library building)
https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/books/130677235/fewer-books-new-heritage-area-on-the-cards-for-wellington-central-library
No, the article did not indicate it had to close.
The council was not required to act.
Legally, it could have planned for remedial action and kept the building in use until that was ready to begin.
As for time deciding on a preferred option, this would have coincided engineers deciding on the best alternative for a pre-set concrete base (whether a refit or new build) for a building of that type.
Legally they could have decided not to close it. Practically and morally, I doubt whether they felt they had an option.
And, if they didn't have to close the building, then it didn't need to be at the top of the rebuild queue – i.e. the whole project didn’t need to happen in the short/medium term, at all.
Wellington is in a continued decline for various reasons, including the vandal CoC Govt. the whole downtown looks like it needs a good water blast really.
Why bother with this kind of street rearrangement bollocks till for instance…public transport works better, and exploding showers of shit from ancient pipes are rectified?
Not going to bag Tory, Wellington has a history of dodgy Mayors-Mark Blumsky anyone…and around the country Mayors typically preside over narrowly divided Councils.
They have funding for the Golden Mile project from the previous government. A case of use it, or lose it.
The Kaikoura earthquake had an impact on the state of the already aging pipes.
Note to moderators: where have all the comments from the 'dire' thread gone…?
Come to that, why have the comments for that thread been closed off altogether? Pretty unusual.
Interesting. Been coming to this site for many years. Don't recall it happening before.
Someone issued a threat of legal action cos they don't like what is being said? I wouldn't put anything past the current lot in power.
It might be a ‘human error’; I’ve followed up in the back-end.
..and..?…any luck with finding what has happened…?
butter fingers, fixed now.
https://businessdesk.co.nz/article/opinion/the-ai-guardrails-schism-where-should-nz-stand
New Zealand signed up to the 2023 standard.
This complicates AUKUS Pillar 2, as the EU, India, China, Japan, Oz and Canada signed up to the 2025 Paris AI Action plan. As AI is one of the included areas for co-operation.
https://insidegovernment.co.nz/nz-to-join-uk-bletchley-declaration-on-ai-safety/
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/feb/11/us-uk-paris-ai-summit-artificial-intelligence-declaration
Droit du seigneur…
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A consultation on changes to UK copyright law is “fixed” in favour of artificial intelligence companies and will lead to a “wholesale” transfer of wealth from the creative industries to the tech sector, according to a crossbench peer campaigning against the mooted overhauls.
Beeban Kidron said the government was undermining its own growth agenda with proposals to let AI companies train their algorithms on creative works under a new copyright exemption.
Lady Kidron, an award-winning film director whose work includes Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, said the government consultation on amending copyright law appeared to be a foregone conclusion.
“We’ve got an open consultation but that consultation is fixed and inadequate,” she said.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/feb/11/uk-copyright-law-consultation-fixed-favour-ai-firms-peer-says?
What tech bros exploiting talent for mercenary gain?
Highway 6 Blenheim to Nelson has a max limit 90kph. Where do. I go to voice my desire to maintain limit at that level? Hunted on line but blank.
Hi ianmac, “Start the survey” could be a starting point – best of luck.
https://www.nzta.govt.nz/safety/driving-safely/speed/state-highway-speed-management/speed-reversals-and-consultation-transitional-changes-in-2024-25/top-of-the-south/
Thanks muchly Drowsy. Will act on the link. But why is it so poorly advertised? My own view on travelling that route is that traffic seems so much steadier with seldom being overtaken above the 90kph. The data on significant lowering of the accident rate is so real. (Will check the numbers.)
I will also contact Marl District Council and Marlborough Express to ask for more public access/publicity to "Speed limit reviews in your region" ““Start the survey”
Ianmac, agree with your POV and thanks for the reminder to respond.