I’m the person that Bradford named as having made a death threat against her. The fact I didn’t and the Police are not investigating as she claims is proof of what she does to her opponents speaking out against her.

But the same things happens here. Comments like “piss off” does NOTHING for this site. Who cares if you are or are not a Green member. You do not have the monopoly on all things Green.

If you want to have a system where only inbred comments are allowed, then you risk losing touch with the majority of the voters, people you SHOULD be listening to for future policy initiatives.

The Greens should allow everyone to be heard, and allow everyone to see so called democracy at work. So what if there is conflict, thats a sign of a political party that is alive, and its why I am glad Bradford quit. This site shouldn’t be learning her methods, telling people to “piss off” or making false accusations against them might score you some quick political points, but in the long run, it does more harm than good.

You should embrace these people, thank them for visiting, and try to “teach” them with the aim of converting them to your way of thinking, of gaining new members. How many new recruits to your cause have you lost with comments like “piss off” is unknown, but the Green party is dropping in the polls, theres a very good indication.

You see, the joke is on Bradford, I’m probably more Green than she is, except, I do not repeatedly dye my hair for two reasons, 1) I’m not as insecure as she is, and 2) I don’t care if the people love me or hate me.

I wonder what all those chemicals has done to her local waterways though?

With the departure of Bradford, the most divisive MP since Helen Clark left office, you should take the time to learn to respect the voices of the people and allow them to be heard, because, isn’t that what got voters offside with Bradford in the first place? And also, its democracy at work.

Having democracy work FOR you means you must allow everyone the chance to post and be heard, after all, that is the nature of a BLOG! Right?

Rejoice that the Queen of half truths and propaganda is leaving. It is indeed a new start that the Greens desperately need.

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Got him in one Valis.
As for what jh ‘throws around’ , it’s more slights than anything else.
He’s a slighter, slightly up from a slater.

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Yes, anyone who can only hurl the same invective no matter the topic instead of debating the issues, speaking of swimming and quacking.

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That you think the Nats aren’t anti-environment after the last 10 months says it all really and belies your supposed concern for the environment. Or you could be ignorant of their record given how much time you spend throwing watermelons around.

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“we’d fall in with such an anti-environmental lot”

you mean Act. Chances are environmentalists are neither left or right of center.

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My observation of the old left is taht they adhere to a simplistic (and outdated) paradigm. They support beneficiaries to a point where beneficiaries earn more than many people in tedious (or otherwise unpleasant) paid work and champion unions such as the maritime who are well above the average worker (for example). While I agree there is a lot of greed corruption and unfairness in the system, the paradigm of the old left doesn’t work. Going back in time they were the odd-balls who were apologists for North Korea etc.

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Rimu says the blog is full of “trolls”, where “troll” is (presumably) someone who presents damaging information or claims such as: ” the Greens are water melons”; the membership is “stacked” etc. and might (by way of counter reply) state: “if it swims like a duck, quacks like a duck”…etc

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No worries: “that’s normal in a cycle between elections”. S. Bradford Mornings TV 1.

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… and they have succeeded. The threaded system makes it worse. Some well meaning new voice makes a comment and immediately underneath is an aggressive insult from one of the boring broken record brigade.

The place has turned into a locker room, with a handful of voices dominating. If robust moderation excising all personal attacks is impossible, how about a limit on the number of posts you can make per day?

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The history books in your head.

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Rather desperate aren’t we!?

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It is not an extra cost on the home buyer that some might think.

(though one could still exclude the impost on first home buyers).

The theory of it is that the OCR could go from 2.5 to 3.5 or 4.5% in a year or two as things are, this could maintain the current high dollar and prevent it from falling. But if a 1 and then 2% surcharge was applied instead (with the OCR staying at 2.5%) the total mortgage cost to the home owner would be no higher than under the current policy settings.

And this way the dollar could come down and give the economy a revenue boost and the growth creates both jobs and finance to government.

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A surcharge on a mortgage? It may appear simple but it seems to me that it has to have an exception for the first home buyer or it keeps the existing lockout.

It DOES shift the benefit from the Australian Banks to New Zealand’s national coffers, but its action against NZ real-estate “investment insanity” seems indirect to me, a way to measure how much the Aussie banks are taking advantage of us perhaps, as they WILL consider how much they can reduce their rates to compensate, so as not to let the market die.

I certainly agree that the economy is balanced like a flat tire, but this one simply strikes me wrong. Surtaxes and surcharges are (to me) admissions that something else is more seriously wrong, somewhere else. I won’t fight against it, but I don’t “like” it.

I have to work on real work stuff for the next 24 hours so bear with me.

respectfully
BJ

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It’s surprising that the simplest idea of all – that of the surcharge (Australia has stamp duty) you dismiss with an insinutation that it is nonsensical. Whereas you “get” something much more difficualt to enact – requiring a proportion of domestic saving/funding to mortgages.

The surcharge is something the RB Governor has already asked for as a tool if he is to apply a domestic anti-inflation policy without raising the OCR (which pushes up the dollar and obstructs both investment and profits in exporting – no prospect of future profits why invest, not making any profits and investing is unaffordable).

To do nothing about the OCR/high dollar problem is to have economically barren policy (a lack of growth, low productivity, low wages and low savings).

LACQ and capital gains tax are of themselves incomplete answers and need to be part of this wider framework, if we are to get the results that we want and need from those changes.
Our economy needs more than a few tweeks here or there, it is the most unbalanced in the OECD. The market reforms of the 80′s were not optimum for our economy, we can only succeed with them if we re-design the way a small open economy of our profile inter-acts with the global market. And of course a longer term view on environmental sustainability for the economy should be part of this.

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Why so complicated? Break the LAQC for “investment” housing and apply a Capital Gains tax. I see the point of possibly adding the domestic funding requirement, but not the surtax on the mortgage. Even if you exclude the first home buyer it has started to look a bit like Rube Goldberg was working on it. It has far too much resemblance to a bit of badly hacked code.

Which is often an indication that you’re trying to fix something that is wrong somewhere else entirely. Usually when you have an increasingly complex fix, the real solution is simplification somewhere else.

respectfully
BJ

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Our particular problem is foreign finance (loans) enables us to bid up our land and property values and otherwise our reliance on the OCR for domestic inflation management.

There are measures that can be taken. One is provide the RB Governor with another monetary policy tool (a range from 1, 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, 2.0% surcharge on land and property loan mortgages) – one which not place upward pressure on the dollar value through otherwise raising the OCR itself (the money raised from the surcharge being used to reduce tax on interest income, so saving continued despite a lower OCR). The combination of tax advantages for saving and higher cost to mortgage borrowing should help correct a structural imbalance in our economy.

The other measure is regulatory – requiring a proportion of domestic funding to any mortgage (this the RB could adjust as another tool managing foreign mortgage finance inflows to the domestic savings rates) and minimum level deposits. This works well with Kiwi Saver being used by workers to save a deposit to buy a house.

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No BJ, you are wrong.
It won’t be the 82nd airborne, it will be the 101st!!

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PERSONALLY I think that the most effective change is actually indirect. Breaking the “growth imperative” built into the economic system would have the greatest effect in the long run. No matter what carbon target we choose or how many of us convert to vegetarianism, that imperative remains.

The source is surprising. We use a Fractional-Reserve (debt based) currency. In short, every dollar issued in any country in the world, is backed by someone else’s promissory note… someone else’s mortgage. The currency is not redeemable, so government feels no effect of issuing ever greater amounts of debt… but the system requires growth for stability.

This is long. It is also eye-opening if one pays careful attention to the growth requirement. The current economic collapse is a symptom. The 3rd part explains it fairly well. I haven’t figured out what happened to the second part. It was there last time I looked (a year or so ago).

http://www.notjustnotes.ws/howbanksrobyou.htm

Point is, that the economic underpinning of the global economy is “fractional reserve” banking, and that means that every country in the world is addicted to growth and under the complete control of the bankers.

This is unsustainable as everyone here recognizes… but campaigning against it without removing the reason for it is futile. (tin hat time) One can notice the list of assassinated Presidents and their statements about banks and money.

I favor a two-pronged approach hits them on the other side as well. All currency right now is irredeemable “fiat” currency. No friction at all, the money slides around the globe like snakes in a bucket of snot.

So I would go for a currency that is NOT created by “fractional reserve” but issued directly by the government ( I hear “you mean it isn’t?” in there, but it isn’t ) and redeemable in KwH “work” delivered at standard outlets in the major “banking” centers of NZ. The conversion to a fiat currency puts “friction” in the system.

I have my reasons for this… thinking about it you may work out some of them but the post is long enough already. The key however, is that the instant that first crack appears in the monetary system, even in little insignificant New Zealand, the weaknesses of the fiat currencies will become obvious to everyone.

Of course, this COULD lead to the 82nd airborne showing up here to “restore order”. I am betting that the collapse of Wall Street would happen before they could get mobilization orders through the Pentagon.

Best of all, we probably would not have to fire a shot to achieve the revolution.

See… I am not a “conservative”… just a really sneaky Green.

BJ

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Yes, the party is about the environment not change but, as you accept that the environment is broken, change is a necessity, so the part really is about change, right now. If the environment gets fixed, then it will be about maintenance.

So, as change is desperately needed, how can that be achieved?

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yet the point of any environment party is accepting the need for change in how we go about things.

No… the point of the party is the environment. Not the need for change. If it isn’t broken, don’t fix. The fact that the environment is as broken as it is makes it easy to think it is ALL about change.

Yet when we venture outside the realm of the environment proper, into social and economic policies… there change for the sake of change is NOT indicated. Human civilization is a complicated thing. We’ve figured out some stuff we know doesn’t work well… philosophically pure ideologies that ignore human nature such as Libertarianism and Communism for instance.

So while a more centrist Green party might well suit a conservative, there is no need for Greens to occupy the center or even edge to the right of it. We can comfortably remain left of center and get a good electoral result. What we can’t do is occupy the territory left of left and get that “good result” because most humans instinctively recognize that human civilization as we have it now may be imperfect but it is working, and they don’t want a lot of big changes to the social and economic milieu. Even though we NEED some big changes to the economics.

The requirement for us however, is to argue those changes casewise. Not to stake out automatic positions at the extremes… to make it harder for people to marginalize us… but not giving up basic values. A finer line than the German Greens walked.

respectfully
BJ

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