I also just read this:

Prime Minister John Key yesterday indicated National would not progress the former Labour Government’s plan to implement a new standard for light bulbs, which would see old incandescent light bulbs phased out by the end of next year.

I guess he’s another politician that promised change and didn’t have the guts to go through with it. Of course he’s not living in the Wellington’s Premier House with it’s amazing tennis court iether…oh well.

So is it just your opinion that communists advance the cause of ’social justice’ or is that (as has long been suspected) official Green policy?

I’d trust George Soros even less than I’d trust John Key. He’s one dude with a inflated sense of his own importance and delusions of granduer.
http://www.feasta.org/documents/feastareview/sorosreview.htm

I hear were you’re coming from but from what I know about Nicky Hager he will not write these things without a proper source. I don know that he is religious about protecting his sources as all good Journalists should be.
He guards his reputation jealously because doing the kind of journalism he does his integrity is all he has.
Finding out about techniques used by C/T and the figures behind them make me highly suspicious whatever Nicky’s own opinion is or not.
From what I have heard Helen Clark hates Nicky with a vengeance too because of disclosures made by him so he seems to be capable to get up the noses of left and right.

Have you read my first comment? Click on the links and find out for your self.

With regards to the banks John Key has worked for.
I don’t want to write in more detail here because I am working on a post on the subject for my own blog, suffice to say that although the banks he worked for were indeed huge but he has worked in key areas were nasty stuff happened so to give him a free pass would be naive. If bankers on the level were John Key worked call you “Smiling Assassin” you must be bloody good and ruthless at what you’re doing.

If you put everything together. Nasty banks and key positions, secretly hiring nasty secretive PR companies from the moment you are the leader, trying to bully news papers into silence or retraction and refusal to publicise your policies so they can be scrutinised by the people you propose to lead conveys a pattern of secrecy, deceit and disrespect for the electorate and I for one get a nasty feeling when I get treated like that.

Is Labour up front about everything? Hell no, I’m sure they’ve got their skeletons in the wardrobe. Anyone who wants that kind of power does. I don’t particularly like politicians period.

But I do know that worldwide we are heading for a perfect storm and I would prefer the government to be in the hands of people with experience and who understand that we all have to get through it one way or another not just the privileged few and have a proven track record in protecting just that shared destiny.

Somehow I don’t think that John Key who only launched his career a few years ago and doesn’t seem to have the faintest idea what he is on about half the time is that person.

http://www.spinwatch.org/content/view/135/8/

SpinWatch: “And Mark Textor?�?

Tory: “I can’t tell you anything about Mark Textor,�?

SpinWatch: “Why not?�?

Tory: “ Because its not policy to do so,�?

SpinWatch: “Is he working for the Tories?�?

Tory: “I can’t say anything about it.�?

SpinWatch: “You can’t say anything about it? - Can I take your name?

Tory: “No�?

SpinWatch: “That’s not very helpful. Is there any reason why you are not being helpful?

Tory: “I am not saying any more�?

By all accounts staff and clients who have worked with John Key give him glowing reports. Not having meet him I can’t say anything, but there is no evidence of him having broken any laws of this country or any other.

Look the blogosphere like talkback loves to demoise people, whether they are left or right - because this sphere is operating on emotional response rather than evidence, reason or rationality.

This was historically the approach adopted by marxist ideology - it was al about the dialetic - you shift the conversation or language of the conversation to a platform that you control and thereby you argument wins.

Historical evidence shows that over time this produces bad outcomes (devastated Soviet Union, rise of autocracy etc).

Now what evidence did Nicky Hager present. Nicky said all political parties use PR, Nicky personally does not like C/T. Therefore according to Nicky no one should work with C/T. Nicky gives no information on who labour uses or who the greens use - so in terms of journalism there is no balance, just opinion - so again we are back to the dialetic. Nicky constructs an argument only he can win.

travellerev - your argument is the same construct i.e. i think Merril Lynch is despicable and corrupt therefore John Key is evil and corrupt. Sigh I hold greater hope for humanity and our leaders than this. I will give Labour the benefit of the dubt and say there actions over the last 9 years have been done through the best of intentions, some of it has even been good.

Time to leave the dialetic in the past and move into today and the future to make the world and NZ a healthier, happier, wealthier and environmentally sound place.

So to be critical or inquisitive about what the Smiling Assassin is up to is not a judgement on the banking world in general.
It is his career and what banks he has been involved in that make him suspect. Picking a PR company with C/Ts credentials for nasty character assassination (no pun intended) smear campaigns and the stifling of healthy debate which is the live blood of a Democracy does not bode well.
Especially since National and John Kay have been attempting to bully the media into not printing information about the them.

He has worked for some of the most despicable and corrupt banks in the world The bankers trust and Merrill Lynch. He has been involved in currency raids such as the NZ dollar in 87 and in the Asian currency crisis in 97. He has been the head of the European department for Bonds and Derivatives products developed by the bankers trust and currently causing the sub prime crisis. Additionally he has made it to international head of the global division for Foreign exchange for Merrill Lynch from 1999 until march 2001. He was an upon invitation advisor of the privately owned Federal reserve of New York. This is not a position you get if you are not completely and utterly devoid of conscience and integrity.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he got that top job as a reward for the role Merrill Lynch played in one of the biggest hedge funds to loot the Asian countries and by extension the damage done to New Zealand.
It was in his role as specialist in south Asian countries that made him attractive to Merrill Lynch after all.