Kevthefarmer

EU now belongs to Goldman Sachs

2011-12-09T12:58:00.000-08:00

This is from uk.yahoo news. I always like this stuff from mainstream sources as I feel that, for doubters and waverers, it carries more weight than stuff from the more "alternative" sources.

See the original article by Ian Dunt at Yahoo! Newsblog

Italy is no longer a democracy. It is a frontier outpost in the gradual takeover of governments by the financial markets. When technocrat Mario Monti was installed and filled the government with unelected administrators, it was not just a defeat for democracy, it was a victory for the banks.

Monti is Goldman Sachs' man. He was lifted out of academia by Berlusconi in 1995 to work at the Europe Commission, first in internal markets and then on competition. The bank spotted him and made him international adviser.

Something similar happened in Ireland, where Peter Sutherland, attorney general in the 1980s and former EU competition commissioner, became non-executive chairman of Goldman Sachs International and a non-executive director of Royal Bank of Scotland, until, you know, it collapsed, and we had to share the pain — but not, it goes without saying, his salary.

Mario Draghi, who recently became president of the European Central Bank, is a former Goldman Sachs man, as is Antonio Borges, who recently stood down from the IMF for personal reasons.

The banking lobby could not win its war in Greece, where creditors — the big banks of Europe - were forced to lose 50% on bonds. This was an unprecedented defeat, although not one which will save the Greek people from brutal and self-defeating austerity for a generation.

The banks made sure they won their other battles. The big fear, that they could lose out from the situation in Spain and Italy, will not be realised. The most important aspect of Merkozy's eurozone deal this week is that it rules out creditors ever having to shoulder a portion of future bailouts in insolvent eurozone countries.

Even the use of current IMF practise - that experts should decide on a case-by-case basis whether bondholder losses are necessary - is being negotiated, with a push for it to be moved from the text of the treaty to its preamble, where it would have no legal weight.

The idea that creditors should not suffer a loss when their investment goes wrong is the reason we are inflicting unparalleled economic and social misery on Europe. The austerity measures, the rescue funds, even the European Financial Stability Facility, derive from this principle, the principle that whatever happens, we must not penalise the banks. Every national bailout is in fact a bailout of the banks. Add it to the bill.

By cementing the complete subservience of European political life to the market, the Markozy deal does an extraordinary disservice to our continent and our society. But it doesn't stop there. The deal also suggests automatic sanctions on countries that allow a budget deficit of over three per cent of GDP and inserts a rule into eurozone countries requiring a balanced budget. Unlike creditor amnesty, this is at least a commendable economic and political principle - but it directly overrides the principle of national sovereignty.

Nicolas Sarkozy has been offered joint press conferences with Angela Merkel, complete with a torrent of barely-conscionable photographs of them kissing. But these presentations are merely theatre. Everyone knows France is an afterthought. We are seeing the takeover of European national sovereignty by Germany, which will effectively wield a veto against individual states' budgets. The national angle is easy to overstate, however. Germany is merely the handmaiden of the financial markets, which got us into this place and now sit like vampires turning their own catastrophe to their advantage.

The markets reacted with sluggish enthusiasm to news of democracy's acquiesce. Spain's ten-year bonds were down 5.2% while Italy's fell to 6.3%. With commendably comic timing, however, Standards and Poor intervened to put major European economies on watch. Only the best will do for the markets, you see. They won't be pacified until they have total immunity set in stone.

It won't fix the problem in the short-term, because it will kill demand and force European economies into a death-spiral. It won't fix the problem in the long term, because fiscal fetishism, while bafflingly politically popular, does little against what is, at heart, a balance of payments crisis made particularly acute by currency union. Actually, fiscal austerity makes us particularly vulnerable to cyclical downturns.

And what has David Cameron's response been to this dramatic turn of events? He has shown even more contempt for democracy than his counterparts on the continent. The left — a political designation Cameron spoke of as if it was contemptible during last week's PMQs - wants the public to be protected from the tyranny of the markets. The right wants some recognition of national sovereignty in Europe, some guarantee that their worst dreams of an ever-expanded, monstrous technocratic super-state are not being realised.

Both left and right are correct. There is plenty of scope for cooperation in preventing this disaster from unfolding. The idea that investors should be protected from the ramifications of their gamble is not a capitalist one — quite the opposite. The idea that the public should swallow losses and be denied profits is not capitalist either. Similarly, there is nothing right-wing about believing countries are entitled to make their own laws and their own budgets, without the arrogant intervention of other, more powerful, states.

Cameron has shown himself deaf to both concerns. He has ignored eurosceptic pleas to extract Britain from the situation and his only demand in exchange is that the City of London be protected from further regulation.

Paris and Berlin's desire for a financial transaction tax is self-interested, but that does not make it wrong. It is at least one small commendable action against the tyranny of the financial markets.

Opposing it is not, as Cameron says, in the national interest. The national interest would see Britain take action against a financial sector which has ruined its economy and now demands public austerity for its own mistakes.

The modest proposals for a financial transaction tax constitute one small ray of hope in utter darkness. It is one the British prime minister is intent on defeating. Not only will he support the dismantling of European democracy, he will do so on the basis that he can promote the market's dominance even further than the puppets of Europe would tolerate.

Stuart Jane Bramhall -The Solution to the $100 Trillion Global Debt

2011-12-01T02:43:00.000-08:00

I tip my hat to Stuart Bramhall! I rave -on post after post about the debt crisis and the criminal banking system and here she wraps it up in one succinct post. Go to her original post and add her blog to your reading list - and don't forget to peruse her archive material too.

The Solution to the $100 Trillion Global Debt- by S.J.Bramhall

There seems to be broad agreement among both classical corporate economists and latter day non-corporate ones that the $100 trillion global debt is suffocating the world economy. The large amount of debt banks carry on their books severely restricts their ability to issue loans for the business creation and expansion needed to create jobs. At the same time consumers, who are losing jobs or taking wage cuts aren’t spending money. Because of massive drop in consumer demand, corporations are finding other uses for their record profits (CEO bonuses, for example), rather than reinvesting them in new factories or retail outlets.
Where the two economic schools part ways concerns the solution. Externalizing costs (getting someone else to pay for your messes) is a basic pillar of classical, corporate economics. In the case of the global economic system, the investment bankers who crashed the system through greed, fraud and speculation want the middle class, youth and the poor to pay for their recklessness. Although mainstream economists like Ben Bernanke agree that debt reduction and austerity cuts aren’t enough, they refuse to officially endorse “monetization” as part of the solution. This is why he calls it something else (QE1, QE2 and QE3 – which are short for quantitative easing) and fudges on the true amount of monetization that is occurring.
Ending Debt-Based Money, Perpetual Growth and Ecosystem Destruction
On the other side, most latter day, non-corporate economists (for example Ellen Brown, Steve Keen, Deirdre Kent, Thomas Greco, among others) call for an end to our debt-based monetary system and perpetual economic growth, along with a “downsizing” of the economies of the industrialized north in line with dwindling resources and rapid ecosystem destruction. They make a strong case that the citizens of western society are living beyond their means and must drastically reduce consumption if we are to preserve the human species. The problem is figuring out how to get there without creating an intolerable level of human suffering for disadvantaged groups who already struggle to meet basic survival needs. It’s much easier for mainstream corporate economists, who have already decided to reduce the global debt burden on the backs of the middle class and young people, dooming an entire generation to becoming a marginalized underclass. Instead of doing any belt tightening themselves, the richest 1% are using the economic crisis as an excuse to further increase their personal wealth.
Political Reform Must Accompany Economic Reform

Most latter day economists are committed to the principle that belt tightening is only tolerable if it’s shared equally. Here is where a discussion of solutions becomes really hypothetical. There is no political commitment at present for the ruling elite and special interests to share in the belt tightening. Thus true economic reform is highly unlikely so long as corporations continue to dominate and control western democracy. It’s possible that the economic and ecological crises that confront humankind can’t be fixed without dismantling capitalism itself, a view shared by many in the Occupy movement. Others believe that channels can be created (through constitutional conventions or similar national gatherings) to establish direct participatory democracy and make corporations accountable to local, state and national authorities. It’s only in this context that economic and monetary reform has any chance of being meaningful and effective.
Latter Day Economic Solutions to the Debt Crisis

Where there is political will to share the costs equally for fixing the financial crisis, there are a handful of straightforward policies which, if enacted together, could restore global economic stability within months. Monetization (the good kind, where new government money is spent directly into the economy) is a major one, but monetization alone is unlikely to be enough. As the Germans proved after World War I and the Japanese after their 1989 economic collapse, monetization on its own only makes things worse – either by creating hyperinflation or increasing debt and deflation. To work, monetization must be enacted simultaneously with other basic debt reduction measures:

The world’s largest economy (the US) must end their deficit spending, not via austerity cuts, which will only worsen deflation, but by ending their deficit-financed wars in the Middle East, by repealing Bush’s tax cuts on upper income earners and by ending corporate tax avoidance.
Western governments must require global investment banks to forgive the sovereign debt they have incurred by assuming their toxic assets (their valueless subprime mortgages). This extent of forgiveness (referred to as a “hair cut”) must depend on the amount of toxic debt these banks still carry on their books and the extent to which they have insured themselves via Credit Default Swaps. Banks that become insolvent in this process need to be nationalized, rather than bailed out, to protect depositors and pension funds with major bank shareholdings.
World governments must agree to end the private debt-based monetary system and replace the Federal Reserve and other central banks with national government banks charged with creating and controlling the money supply.
These national banks must be allowed to create and spend new money directly into the economy to create jobs and repair infrastructure, make good on depositors savings and repay unforgiven debt. To avoid incurring new debt (i.e. borrowing from future generations), it may be necessary to temporarily increase taxes (above 39% in the US) for millionaires and billionaires.

What about the "New Economics Party?"

2011-11-29T17:34:00.000-08:00

I've seen a video courtesy of Robin Westenra's blog:

-and seen their website

Still I can't get my head round their website, seems like a dogs dinner of vaguely populist ideas mostly adopted because of their acceptability to the disposessed without actually requiring them to get off their arses and become responsible for their own sustenance, i.e. we just adjust certain facets of the structure of the economy and all good things follow.

The trouble is that any movement that is aiming to achieve prominence by collecting votes is doomed to populist policy. This party is clearly aimed at urban populations that don't own land, don't have access to land, dont want to work on the land but see land as a priviledge of the wealthy that can be taxed to provide an income stream to be given free of any commitment to do real productive work to those who have become unhealthily attached to their urban service sector "thinking rather than doing" lifestyle jobs that are in reality only possible because of the anachronism of a century of subsidy by cheap oil.

These guys really need to understand the concept of distributism, which is a well thought-out concept of land use that is the only way that everyone is going to get fed in the post oil age. Unfortunately working the land is an abhorrent thought to the vast majority of those in Auckland or Wellington and that is where political power (and civil disorder danger) lies. For these populations, I'm afraid only the misery of an empty belly at some future time will be sufficient to cure them of their attachment to town life. See here my blog post on supply chain collapse for likely outcomes.

For a seriously plausible alternative economic strategy see Positive Money NZ.

Deirdre Kent of the New Economics Party replied:

There is nothing populist about our policies. We leave that to the Green Party to go for the middle ground and not campaign on the urgent issues of our time which are positively alarming. No one is going to argue that recommending a 4-6% decrease every year in our oil imports would appeal to anyone except those who know the reality and know we must face it.

If you think it is a "dog's dinner" by which you mean it doesn't fit any previous models (actually I meant it was a basketful of snippets from here-and-there) you are right. No other party wanting the whole world to have access to food, housing, water, health, education and social justice is currently recommending such a radical reversal of tax policy.

We say we need to tax unearned income not earned income. After all it was the banks in the early 20th century who demanded of our government that they impose income tax, we didn't have it in NZ up till then. GST is regressive and why should any government tax enterprise?

On the other hand, as Greens have pointed out for two decades, prices give the wrong signals because companies and individuals use water, land, oil, artificial fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides etc and society pays the price of clearning up the mess, (rivers, toxic sites and so on). The way to internalise costs is to charge an annual rent for the privilege of using that part of the commons you "own". Many industries today can only operate because their costs are externalised – an "I keep the income, someone else pays the costs" mind-set.

As Charles Eisenstein says in his book Sacred Economics "The price of a tank of fuel doesn't include the cost of the pollution it generates, nor the cost of the wars fought to secure it, nor the cost of oil spills."

Ours is a party that recognises that more people need to return to the land and to work the land. Just outside our major cities we watch as lifestylers commute all week and play on horses and ride-ons all weekend but don't use their valuable land for growing food. And meanwhile they watch their property value rise as community infrastructure round them is built by others while they gain unearned income. Here where I live I know a guy who bought his land on a river near a town which was growing. He bought it for $400,000 and it is now worth over a million while he has worked in Wellington and let the property decline and decline. And our council wants people to grow food on our good land! But without tax signals and rating on unimproved value they are relatively helpless. Ridiculous and unfair.

Our policies of imposing resource taxes rather than income tax and GST are designed to reward those who work to improve their properties. If they are not working the land they should sell it to someone who does.

Actually when an Australian NGO called Earthsharing Australia did some research on land values they found that the biggest concentration of land value was in the centre of the cities. A land value tax is the way to stop speculators sitting on valuable sites and waiting for them to appreciate. As the 2009 Tax Review stated a land tax will bring in income from overseas owners where before they didn't pay tax.

And our policy is that those who contribute back to the commons should be monetarily compensated. This includes farmers who remove land from production to provide ecological services like carbon sequestration, water and soil conservation or provide habitat for plants insects and fish.

With land value taxes and the removal of the incentive to speculate on land and resources the cycle of boom-bust is evened out. The price of land remains more even and doesn't rise exhorbitantly.

The Greens in their campaign seem to have one resource tax – the tax on the commercial use of water. This is a good start. Capital gains tax will never do it for land though.

Kevthefarmer Replied:

I have to say, re-reading the website there is nothing in the NEP that I can disagree with apart from the Land Value Tax, which I find perverse and offensive in every way, and which provoked my snarky blogpost.

"But income is a poor predictor of someone’s ability to pay. Their wealth is a much better predictor, and much of their wealth is often tied up in property."

Cursory examination shows this to be untrue. All farmers (and most people will be a farmer in the not-to-distant future) -are capital-wealthy and cash-poor. You (or someone) use the phrase "tied up", which indicates lack of liquidity- which is exactly the case with land holding, whereas income is a liquid asset and is easily available for taxation purposes. This whole passage is an oxymoron. The perversity is that a person using the land for a productive purpose rather than speculation runs the risk of being driven off their land by the Valuation Officer. This happened to some fairly smallscale (few hundred acres) farmers in Golden Bay (Laurences turf so he should know) because the V.O.realised they had "million dollar views" of the mountains and sea! Land Value Tax is popular with government book-keepers because you can"t export or hide the land. therefore it is easy to charge. That is its only "advantage".

Death duties and capital gains tax do work well for a wealth tax, given certain exemptions such as first dwelling house and land farmed in-hand. Community Land Trusts and the State could be exempted

Do you realise that land based industry only accounts for 5% of GDP in NZ, whereas service sector is 70% and manufacturing is 25%. how do you propose to extract a significant proportion of the more-or-less 40% of GDP that the state requires for its purposes from a sector that only accounts for 5% of GDP?

There is more- Let me join the discussion at your website!

Regards, Kev.

Predatory Banks Target NZ Farmers Again.

2011-11-29T02:40:00.000-08:00

Well I just started to write a snarky bit of Agribiz-knocking invective but I thought I'd stop myself and take a bit of a different tack and bash the banks, which is really boring because that's what I do all the time. This article in Stuff.co.nz -Business Day entitled "Banks need to be choosier lenders" gets the point completely backwards. The fact is that farmers need to be choosier borrowers, in fact, like the rest of us they need to not borrow but to pay down their debt as fast as possible- there will be no debt write-offs for those holding physical assets such as land -not even the however many of them that are sitting in parliament on the National government benches. Good point actually -can you be a sitting MP and a bankrupt at the same time? Perhaps we won't have to endure the full three years of this government after all.

The author of this article so wants to not take sides, be everyones friend. Why not tell us about the bullshit "audits" the banks offered farmers, totally slanted to encourage the taking of loans- I know about these things- I have a farming insider down in South Canterbury tells me, though anyone with a pulse ought to know intuitively that's what these sharks do for a living.

"The insinuation was that anyone over 50 is too old to be farming". More like too old to be intimidated / bamboozled into signing on the line eh?

Let's not pussyfoot around with the banks

2011-11-21T09:45:00.000-08:00

21 November 2011

Let's not pussyfoot around with the banks

Tony Greenham of the New Economics Foundation
Head of Finance and Business

A closer examination of money creation shows the need for major banking reform.

Originally posted at London Loves Business.
There is a simple fact about the UK banking system that is both profound and mundane. It is also little known, and yet the source of much hyperbole. What is this simple fact?
Commercial banks create new money.
This statement often seems to have a strange effect on people, either sending them down to St Paul’s with a Guy Fawkes mask and a tent, or backing away from you in horror as if you had just blasphemed in front of the Pope.
I really don’t know why, because it is merely a description of how fractional reserve banking allows banks to expand “broad money”, or bank deposits, when they create new credit. This is really the whole point of fractional reserve banking. Indeed, the ability to create new money in this way to finance investment and growth in consumption was arguably a major factor behind the successful industrialisation of nations, the UK being first and foremost among them.
So if you are not happy with the statement “banks create money” I hope you will read our new book Where does money come from? which has been endorsed by Professors Charles Goodhart and David Miles, former and current members of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee respectively.
The real questions should be: “Is this a problem? And if so, is there any sensible alternative?”
I think it has become a problem. The proportion of the money supply created in this way has shifted considerably over the past decades to reach 97 per cent, while the Bank of England’s control over this process is in reality minimal, or at least ineffective.
The result is asset-price inflation and a highly unstable financial system. The system reinforces booms, leading inevitably to credit bubbles, and reinforces the subsequent bust, leading to a credit crunch in particular for SMEs.
Another nasty consequence is that the creation of new money is privatised, but its exchangeability is guaranteed by the state – that’s you, the taxpayer of course – leading to the calamitous moral hazard spoken of by Mervyn King, and the inevitability of publicly funded bail-outs of private losses.
So what can be done to improve matters?
One approach is to go the whole hog and properly privatise money – broadly speaking the approach of the Austrian school of economic thought represented by Hayek.
There would be no state backing of bank deposits or banks, who would compete on their creditworthiness and reputation to ensure that their bank deposits were accepted by other banks.
Theoretically this should get taxpayers off the hook and, one would hope, restore market discipline to bankers. However, it is not clear that it would stop the boom and bust cycle.
Everyone seems creditworthy in a boom.
And as the credit crunch demonstrated, everyone looks like an unacceptable risk in a banking crisis. In this event, would it be credible to imagine that the central bank could sit by and watch large swathes of banks close their doors imposing potentially huge losses on their customers?
Another approach is to properly nationalise the control of Sterling. Give the central bank not just control over interest rates, but closer control over the quantity of new credit created by banks and its sector allocation – a sort of Project Merlin with teeth. This should improve the Bank of England’s control over inflation and stability. Credit control, or sometimes less formal guidance, is a feature of many country’s monetary systems including the UK up to the 1960s.
A more radical variation is to remove credit creation powers from banks entirely. Banks would then offer two sorts of account.
First, a payment and safety deposit account (think paypal, but backed by the Bank of England).
Second, an investment account where funds are actually transferred to borrowers (think Zopa or stockbroker). This is sometimes referred to as “full-reserve banking”’.
Key to this would be an acceptance by customers that if the bank’s lending was poor, that they could actually lose money on their investment account. Radical perhaps, but surely the alignment of risk with reward is at the heart of a free market system, so why should we expect risk free returns on our savings if they are being lent to businesses or individuals who might never repay?
Finally, we could have a multi-currency world where Sterling is used alongside local currencies issued and controlled by local banking institutions. Local currencies increase the local money multiplier effect that can support jobs and business is less wealthy areas. National and international currencies would remain the payment medium of choice for national and international transactions.
Pie in the sky? Not really, because each of these four suggestions have more or less operated successfully around the world in the past, including in the UK. As we watch the continuing debacle of chronic financial crises unfold, isn’t it time to ask some more fundamental questions about our money system?

The World is Drowning in Debt, and Europe Laces on Concrete Boots

2011-11-15T12:29:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Robin Westenra at Seemorerocks for forwarding this one.

Tuesday, 15 November 2011

The World is Drowning in Debt, and Europe Laces on Concrete Boots

by Charles Hugh Smith

oftwominds

14 November, 2011

Three metaphors describe Europe: drowning in debt, circular firing squad and trying to fool the money gods with an inept game of 3-card monte.

The world's major economies are drowning in debt--Europe, the U.S., Japan, China. We all know the U.S. has tried to save its drowning economy by bailing out the parasite which is dragging it to Davy Jones Locker--the banking/financial sector-- and by borrowing and squandering $6 trillion in new Federal debt and buying toxic debt with $2 trillion whisked into existance on the Federal Reserve's balance sheet.

It has failed, of course, and the economy is once again slipping beneath the waves while Ben Bernanke and the politico lackeys join in a Keynesian-monetary cargo-cult chant: Humba-humba, bunga-bunga. Their hubris doesn't allow them to confess their magic has failed, and rather than let their power be wrenched away, they will let the flailing U.S. economy drown.

Europe has managed to top this hubris-drenched cargo-cult policy--no mean feat. First, it has indebted itself to a breathtaking degree, on every level: sovereign, corporate and private:

Germany, the mighty engine which is supposed to pull the $16 trillion drowning European economy out of the water, is as indebted as the flailing U.S.

Second, the euro's handlers have already sunk staggering sums into hopelessly insolvent debtor nations, for example, Greece, which has 355 billion euros of outstanding sovereign debt and an economy with a GDP around 200 billion euros (though it's contracting so rapidly nobody can even guess the actual size). According to BusinessWeek, the E.U. (European Union), the ECB (European Central Bank) and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) own about $127 billion of this debt.

Since the ECB is not allowed to "print money," the amount of cash available to buy depreciating bonds is limited. The handlers now own over 35% of the official debt (recall that doesn't include corporate or private debt), which they grandly refuse to accept is now worth less than the purchase price. (The market price of Greek bonds has cratered by 42% just since July. Isn't hubris a wonderful foundation for policy?)

In other words, they have not just put on concrete boots, they've laced them up and tied a big knot. We cannot possibly drown, they proclaim; we are too big, too heavy, too powerful. We refuse to accept that all these trillions of euros in debt are now worth a pittance of their face value.

When you're drowning in debt, the only solution is to write off the debt and drain the pool. The problem is, of course, that all this impaired debt is somebody else's asset, and that somebody is either rich and powerful or politically powerful, for example, a union pension fund.

Third, the euro's handlers have set up a circular firing squad. Since the entire banking sector is insolvent, the handlers are demanding that banks raise capital. Since only the ECB is insane enough to put good money after bad, the banks cannot raise capital on the private market, so their only way to raise cash is to sell assets--such as rapidly depreciating sovereign-debt bonds.

This pushes the price of those bonds even lower, as supply (sellers) completely overwhelm demand from buyers (the unflinching ECB and its proxies).

This decline in bond prices further lowers the value of the banks' assets, which means they need to raise more capital, which means they have to sell even more bonds.

Voila, a circular firing squad, where the "bulletproof" ECB is left as the only buyer who will hold depreciating bonds longer than a few hours, and all the participants gain by selling bonds before they fall any further. This is the classic positive feedback loop, where selling lowers the value of remaining assets and that drives further selling.

As many have noted, soaking up all the Greek debt--a mere sliver of the eurozone's impaired debt-- would essentially wipe out the entire EFSF "stability" rescue fund.

The "solution" to the cargo-cult crowd is "obvious"--print, baby, print, and use that new paper to buy 3 trillion in mostly-worthless bonds. But that is just another circular firing squad, as Nobel prize winning economist Thomas Sargent noted: "There's a fundamental truth that everyone has to understand: what the government spends, the public will pay for sooner or later, whether in taxes or inflation or having their debt defaulted on." (Source: BusinessWeek 11/20/11)

The 3 trillion euros comes of somebody's pocket, one way or the other; there is no free lunch.

Even worse, debt is the only engine of "growth" left in the developed world. This chart shows how America's "growth" since 1980 has been fueled by debt that expanded by 136% ($30 trillion) beyond actual economic growth. The same is also true of Europe, where Italy, for example, borrowed 1 trillion euros over the past decade or so in return for essentially zero growth.

This reveals the key dynamic of the past decade: the diminishing productivity of debt. What happens when an economy is so burdened by the friction of inefficiency and indebtedness that borrowing a trillion euros just keeps the economy barely above water? The next trillion won't even keep "growth" at zero, and the economy sinks beneath the waves.

The world has reached the point of debt saturation. Creating more debt no longer generates "free lunch" growth, even in China, though the central bank in China is still playing as if shifting debt off-balance sheet into a "shadow" system will fool the money gods. It won't.

Everybody in Europe is playing the same sort of games, hoping to fool the money gods and keep the "free lunch" economy "growing." While everybody focuses on the circular firing squad in Italy, untold billions of euros of impaired private mortgage debt in housing-bubble-popped Spain still sits on the books of Spanish banks at full value, lest a sneeze of reality send Spain's entire banking sector to Davy Jones Locker.

Though no official publicly admits it, nobody really knows how much debt there is in Greece, or who even holds it. Here's the fig leaf confession: "Scarce data makes estimates difficult." Yes, I'm sure it does. So the true size of Europe's debt is unknown because everyone with a stake in the charade is trying desperately to keep the true scope hidden. (Ditto in China.)

The debt will get renounced, and debt as the "engine of growth" will also be renounced.

Europe is an inept 3-card monte player attempting to swindle the money gods. The gods aren't fooled by such shallow shuffling games, in fact they are greatly annoyed that humans even dare to attempt such flimsy tricks. Their wrath is building, and human hubris will only make the reckoning worse.

Attempting to Turn a Shed-Full of Used Toilet Paper into a Perpetual Meal-Ticket.

2011-11-11T13:21:00.000-08:00

Oh to be UK Prime Minister George Osborne. Today we heard the happy news that thirty of the City’s leading lights had been kind enough to get in touch – how helpful, that in this time of global economic turmoil, a friendly troupe of business leaders knows exactly what’s to be done.

"An early removal of the temporary 50 per cent tax rate would attract wealth generators to the UK and support the entrepreneurs we need to help us grow the economy and provide jobs.”

Any statement that includes the notion "return to growth" is specious nonsense. The era of growth-model economics is over, due to resource constraints. Many hundreds of academic and lay articles have been written about "reaching limits to growth". It beggars belief that at least a significant proportion of the "city investor" types don't know this, therefore one must conclude that this constant hum of "return to growth" is merely "soft soap" to lull the public into complacency while the evil-doers carry on scheming.

The "scheme" if I may digress, is to convert the toilet-paper "assets" into real wealth -physical assets. The so-called "complex financial instruments" that represent the output of twenty years of deregulated banking have no more real worth than toy money. They used to have a "value" as the institutions traded them among themselves in their fantasy game in order to inflate the book-value of their businesses upon which their salaries were based, but now they are worthless. A child knows you can't take toy money to the shops and buy lollies, but for the bankers, the governments of the world are playing "toy-town bank" swopping their used toilet-paper for real spendable money and in turn running up unsustainable sovereign debt and the "promise to pay" of taxpayers for generations to come -no wonder nations credit ratings keep sliding! A happy result of this, for the bankers, is that the resulting sovereign debt creates the conditions for sell-offs of capital assets -Crown land, public utilities, water rights, proprietorship of which enables the new owner to collect rents. This is the planned perpetual meal-ticket for yesterdays "city investor" -being a neo-feudal overlord in a new dark age. splendour for the one per cent, squalour for the common herd.

Our choice? force the institutions to acknowledge the inherent worthlessness of their toxic assets -put the used toilet-paper into the appropriate hygenic disposal place. I am reminded of a very funny situation many years ago when a friend was carrying his two year-old daughter in his arms. She was grumpy with a cold and her nose was streaming with green snot. Her father had her blow her nose into a tissue, after which she screamed at him "Give me back my bogie"! The city financier types will just have to get over it like my friends daughter got over the loss of her bogie.

The present banking system can only function in a state of more-or-less permanent growth, That phase of human economic development is now over. We must institute a banking system not based on creation of money as interest-bearing debt, and properly regulated against speculative scheming, as detailed at the Positive Money Website so that banking can serve the economy, not the other way round. The G20 nations foolishly resolved in 2008 to back the banking sector to the bitter end with no significant concessions toward banking reform. It is now time to take heed of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement and its many spin-offs and reverse that folly to stop being complicit in our own enslavement.

Phil Goff's Election Time Suicide Gaffe.

2011-10-27T18:45:00.000-07:00

What the hell does Phil Goff think he's doing being drawn into engagement with National on the raising of the pension age a month before the election? This is a mid-term issue for an incumbent government- why should anyone vote for a labour party whose policy gurus are so intellectually retarded they invite the electorate to kick them in the teeth on election day by raising it now? John Key knows this is a vote loser and will be totally irrelevent before the timescale the changes are proposed over has even begun. Key knows that in the radically polarised world he anticipates forty years hence, the common herd are unlikely to even have a life-expectancy of sixty-seven years so he can play this issue as as pure piece of electioneering politik. My heart is filled with despair at the ineptitude of the parties of the opposition in the face of this cynical, sinister man and the fawning cronies that surround him.

There was a little gem that came out at the time that Standard and Poor's downgraded New Zealands credit rating that, had National continued with the taxation policies pursued by the previous Labour government, then the credit rating would not have been lowered. Labour could have jumped on this and ridden it all the way to the election. Allied to this is the fact that, by failing to raise enough tax revenue, they have deliberately taken the country into deep sovereign debt in order to create the pre-conditions, as provided in the European economies by bank bale-outs, for future cuts in public services and the sell-off of publicly owned assets. Where did you hear the opposition parties raise this? Nowhere. Instead, Labour are effectively buying-into Nationals vision of the future world by addressing the "affordability" of future pensions in this way.

Tasman District Council declares war on Lifeboaters.

2011-10-19T05:19:00.000-07:00

Tasman District Council is on the warpath against lifeboat-builders.

Tonight at a meeting called by the Motueka Valley Association in the tiny settlement of Ngatimoti, 140 residents of the District from as far away as Golden Bay and Rotoiti came together to voice their support for Valley residents caught up in a recent trawling exercise by the TDC to seek out and enforce against property owners who have entered into "irregular" living arrangements on their rural properties. One such owner has allowed individuals and families to live rent-free in yurts and straw-bale buildings that have been erected without consents and building regulations in return for the "tenants" help in creating a self-reliant and resilient community. It seems there has been no complaint at-all from neighbours regarding these "irregularities". prompting one commentor to suggest their be a policy of "no enforcement actioned without a bona-fide complaint", which idea was sniffily dismissed by the council officers present.

One commentor from the floor raised the issue of the world sovereign debt crisis and the likelihood of a "collapse" causing a mass exodus of the urban population into the rural hinterland in search of the means to produce their own food. The concept was lost on the councillors and officials present (and, frankly, on most of the lay-attenders too) who seem unable to view the issue in any other light than that of "lifestyle choice". Personally, I doubt whether many actual "lifestylers" (as opposed to true smallfarmers) would volountarily enter into such arrangements on their "play-farms" with members of the "great unwashed" without coercion or a full-blown crisis prevailing. Instead, the focus seemed to be on suggesting that the council revisit the "Rural Management Plan" to see if those desiring alternative living arrangements could be accommodated.

Guess what? guys- while you are waiting for the sloth that is local government to pontificate (and most likely find against you), the global sovereign debt crisis is going to knock you from arsehole to breakfast-time!

In any case, one of the major issues, which the officials were at pains to emphasise is out of their hands as it is governed by national legislation, is that the building regulations wouldn't allow people to live in these type of structures because they are not "code compliant". Makes you wonder how in the quarter of a million years of human evolution we survived the first 249,950 without these "heroes" to protect us from ourselves! Don't you think?

It will come as no surprise to those familiar with the antics of public officials to know that, having turned a blind-eye to minor irregularities in the valley for years, this new found zeal for detection and enforcement is happening during the time leading up to the proposed but ill-concieved Nelson City / Tasman District amalgamation. With the threat of the loss of 60-70 jobs from a combined council, officers will be running around trying to fill the case-book with anything to keep themselves looking busy and indispensible for the months and years to come. They percieve this issue as a "soft target".

For the time-being, the law is on the side of the council. However, under the present circumstances right, and plain common-sense, are on the side of those building resilient communities.

Credit must be given to TDC's planning policy chief, Steve Markham for his enthusiasm for the ability of the public to initiate change to the Rural Management Plan, although this scarcely helps those already ensnared in the enforcement process, and the process is obviously too slow to help with the effects of the unfolding global crisis.

The deplorable attitude of ~~dinosaur~~ councillor Trevor Norris is also noted. Cllr Norris seems to bristle with self-righteous zeal at the prospect of the enforcement process being used as a blunt instrument to beat down those who don't subscribe to his archaic view of rural land use. Wake Up! Cllr Norris!

A History Lesson on the Absurdity of the Banking System

2011-10-12T22:00:00.000-07:00

Sorry to all for the lack of original content at the moment, the time of year demands full attention to farming matters. Please forgive!

Thanks to commentator Lautturi over at The Automatic Earth for this history lesson.

A note from history books:
January 24, 1939, Robert H. Hemphill, credit Manager of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta said:

If all the bank loans were paid no one would have a bank deposit and there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation. This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous: if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture the tragic absurdity of our hopeless position is almost incredible, but there it is. It (the banking problem) is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon. It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it becomes widely understood and the defects remedied very soon.

Jerry Mataparae is the Wrong Man to be Governor-General

2011-10-01T04:00:00.000-07:00

A bit of a worry, really, having this man as Governor-General. I suspected, when Mataparae was made director of GCSB (the government spy agency, effectively, under the ANZUS treaty, a proxy for U.S. intelligence gathering) after retiring as head of the armed forces that this was a man who's ideology was absolutely compatible, although possibly not complicit, with John Key's vision of hegemony to the interests of financial elite of which Key himself is an agent and cadet member, and that has already completely captured the U.S. body politic. Mataparae has already shown lack of understanding of the requirements for the position as demonstrated by his breach of protocol with his comments regarding Nicky Hagar's allegations concerning the role of NZ forces in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Despite my personal leanings towards devolved autonomy for individuals and communities I have always held a candle for the constitutional monarchy and particularly the role of the Governor-General, as the legal commander-in-chief of the armed forces, police and so-on, as an insurance against the siezure of power by a political faction. Despite the fact that these powers are, by convention, never used they are nevertheless very real and pertinent in times of constitutional crisis. It seems that the present political faction have managed to foist "their man" into the position at just such a critical time. I believe that during the next five years, we will see some kind of "end game" played out and the last thing we need is a Governor-General who is a poodle of the cabal that seeks to destroy the sovereignty of the crown as representative and guardian of the common-wealth of the people.

More TPPA Treachery

2011-09-08T04:11:00.000-07:00

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) is a “free trade” agreement currently under negotiation between NZ and eight other countries, including the U.S. The countries want to complete negotiation by the end of 2011.

Trade is only a minor part of the agreement, that’s just a clever branding exercise. A TPPA would be an agreement that guarantees special rights to foreign investors. If these negotiations succeed they will create a mega-treaty across nine countries that will put a straight jacket around what policies and laws our governments can adopt for the next century – think GM labelling, food security, foreign investment laws, price of medicines, regulating dodgy finance firms, NZ content on TV etc.

The New Zealand Human Rights Commission has declined a request for a scoping study on the human rights implications of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), saying it doesn’t have the resources. It would be more accurate to say they can't comment because they're not allowed to see the draft!
….no surprises there, then. You can almost taste the desperation of John Key to get this one in the can with the minimum of disruption.

There is a petition opposing the agreement

To sign the petition GO HERE

“The negotiators themselves say this is not an ordinary free trade agreement."
“ why are they scared to release the draft text and open it to scrutiny?” (Prof. Jane Kelsey, Auckland University)

Absolutely this is not even a free trade agreement or even a treaty in the normal sense as has been understood since the middle ages. The TPPA promoting itself as a free trade agreement whilst shrouding itself in secrecy is essentially like a pirate ship of old flying a false flag in order to engage its intended victim by deception, that is to say to secure a binding agreement behind the backs of the citizens of sovereign nations.

It would not even be true to say this is about the Americans trying to pull a fast one on smaller nations. Essentially the agreement is designed to make international capital the sovereign power within nations with precedence over the elected assemblies that are presently considered to be sovereign. The incumbent leadership of the nations involved are attempting to tie the hands of future generations of elected representatives who may choose to make decisions based on their "national interest" rather than the interest of the worlds elite.

Arguably, the financial elite see the writing on the wall for the future of their ability to dominate the worlds economic activity. As the global financial bubble deflates, as it is doing right now and will continue to do so at an accellerating pace over the next few years, future governments and communities will need to pursue initiatives of relocalisation that will severely reduce the elites ability to make profit through trade, commerce and industry. The elites plan for the future is to use their present wealth (before it deflates to nothing in the financial meltdown) to capture resources (such as land, water, minerals) and enforce intellectual property rights so as to maintain their wealth and position through "rent-seeking"

The TPPA agreement is a "traitors gambit " and should be exposed as such at every possible occasion.

To sign the petition GO HERE

A Jute Rennaisance?

2011-09-06T16:35:00.000-07:00

According to the BBC, there’s a resurgence of jute cultivation in Bangladesh.

Jute Renaissance? Could it be that the clever Bangladeshis see a great future in the attire of “sack-cloth and ashes” in these times of austerity in the western nations?

NZ online petitions for your consideration.

2011-08-31T21:22:00.000-07:00

Firstly, against the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA)

Petition:

We the undersigned citizens and permanent residents of New Zealand call upon the Government of New Zealand

• to cease negotiations on the Transpacific Partnership agreement; and

• to not sign this agreement; and

• to cease work on any other in-progress or proposed international trade and investment treaties containing clauses which limit or abrogate New Zealand's sovereign and democratic right to make and enforce laws and regulations and provide services which differ from those of other states or transnational organisations.

Sign the petition

Next, Against the Food Bill 2010, Which, as drafted, will make the trading of foodstuffs, including fresh fruit, vegetables and seeds, a privelege regulated by ministerial discression rather than a right. This will apply across the board for smallholders, home gardeners and community gardens, not just to corporate producers.

http://www.petitiononline.co.nz/petition/oppose-the-new-zealand-government-food-bill-160-2/1301

A Taxation Programme to Address New Zealands Own Debt Crisis

2011-08-27T12:10:00.000-07:00

Since the Election of November 2008, the National Party have deliberately pursued a treacherous programme of unnecessary bale-outs and unaffordable tax cuts designed to bankrupt the country in order to facilitate the outcome of the sale of sovereign assets- power, water, other state-owned enterprises and the very land itself. We see New Zealand wantonly reduced from a position of strength relative to the economies of the USA and european nations that were more afflicted by the banking crisis for reasons of pure ideology.

Their ideological basis for this is their fundamental lack of belief that all humans are of equal worth and worthy of equal representation and consideration in a sovereign nation. They would probably fantasize about a system whereby an individual was represented in direct proportion to their wealth, say, one vote per $100,000 of wealth, with corporations viewed as "legal persons" for electoral purposes or at very least the reinstatement of the "property qualification" for voters.

Realising that such views are utterly unconscionable in modern society, the next best thing for them is to remove (sell off) the assets of the nation so that although we have universal suffrage, the body politic has very little bearing on public access to or dominion over things that we have come to consider as human rights- food, water, shelter, warmth, health etc. This is the perverse logic behind the governments present seemingly disastrous course of action.

Regular readers will know how much I deprecate the so-called "left" in modern politics, including the New Zealand Labour Party, for pandering to bureaucracy and for statism. This is because the public service and the businesses that derive their income from state spending is where Labour's core electorate lies, rather than "breeding them in South Auckland" as the knuckle-draggers of the National Party rank-and-file would have us believe.

Having said that, I have to say that I endorse the programme outlined in the Youtube presentation below, my caveat would be that the revenue raised be dedicated to the paying-down of the debt and preservation of a reasonable level of services rather than being used to further "big government" schemes.

Iceland's Ongoing Revolution

2011-08-24T04:38:00.000-07:00

Why Iceland Should Be in the News, But Is Not

By Deena Stryker

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/01/1001662/-Icelands-On-going-Revolution

An Italian radio program's story about Iceland’s on-going revolution is a stunning example of how little our media tells us about the rest of the world. You may remember that at the start of the 2008 financial crisis, Iceland literally went bankrupt. The reasons were mentioned only in passing, and since then, this little-known member of the European Union fell back into oblivion.

As one European country after another fails or risks failing, imperiling the Euro, with repercussions for the entire world, the last thing the powers that be want is for Iceland to become an example. Here's why:

Five years of a pure neo-liberal regime had made Iceland, (population 320 thousand, no army), one of the richest countries in the world. In 2003 all the country’s banks were privatized, and in an effort to attract foreign investors, they offered on-line banking whose minimal costs allowed them to offer relatively high rates of return. The accounts, called IceSave, attracted many English and Dutch small investors. But as investments grew, so did the banks’ foreign debt. In 2003 Iceland’s debt was equal to 200 percent of its GNP, but in 2007, it was 900 percent.

The 2008 world financial crisis was the coup de grace. The three main Icelandic banks, Landbanki, Kapthing and Glitnir, went belly up and were nationalized, while the Kroner lost 85% of its value with respect to the Euro. At the end of the year Iceland declared bankruptcy.

Contrary to what could be expected, the crisis resulted in Icelanders recovering their sovereign rights, through a process of direct participatory democracy that eventually led to a new Constitution. But only after much pain.

Geir Haarde, the Prime Minister of a Social Democratic coalition government, negotiated a two million one hundred thousand dollar loan, to which the Nordic countries added another two and a half million. But the foreign financial community pressured Iceland to impose drastic measures. The FMI and the European Union wanted to take over its debt, claiming this was the only way for the country to pay back Holland and Great Britain, who had promised to reimburse their citizens.

Protests and riots continued, eventually forcing the government to resign. Elections were brought forward to April 2009, resulting in a left-wing coalition which condemned the neoliberal economic system, but immediately gave in to its demands that Iceland pay off a total of three and a half million Euros. This required each Icelandic citizen to pay 100 Euros a month (or about $130) for fifteen years, at 5.5% interest, to pay off a debt incurred by private parties vis a vis other private parties. It was the straw that broke the reindeer’s back.

What happened next was extraordinary. The belief that citizens had to pay for the mistakes of a financial monopoly, that an entire nation must be taxed to pay off private debts was shattered, transforming the relationship between citizens and their political institutions and eventually driving Iceland’s leaders to the side of their constituents. The Head of State, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, refused to ratify the law that would have made Iceland’s citizens responsible for its bankers’ debts, and accepted calls for a referendum.

Of course the international community only increased the pressure on Iceland. Great Britain and Holland threatened dire reprisals that would isolate the country. As Icelanders went to vote, foreign bankers threatened to block any aid from the IMF. The British government threatened to freeze Icelander savings and checking accounts. As Grimsson said: “We were told that if we refused the international community’s conditions, we would become the Cuba of the North. But if we had accepted, we would have become the Haiti of the North.” (How many times have I written that when Cubans see the dire state of their neighbor, Haiti, they count themselves lucky.)

In the March 2010 referendum, 93% voted against repayment of the debt. The IMF immediately froze its loan. But the revolution (though not televised in the United States), would not be intimidated. With the support of a furious citizenry, the government launched civil and penal investigations into those responsible for the financial crisis. Interpol put out an international arrest warrant for the ex-president of Kaupthing, Sigurdur Einarsson, as the other bankers implicated in the crash fled the country.

But Icelanders didn't stop there: they decided to draft a new constitution that would free the country from the exaggerated power of international finance and virtual money. (The one in use had been written when Iceland gained its independence from Denmark, in 1918, the only difference with the Danish constitution being that the word ‘president’ replaced the word ‘king’.)

To write the new constitution, the people of Iceland elected twenty-five citizens from among 522 adults not belonging to any political party but recommended by at least thirty citizens.

This document was not the work of a handful of politicians, but was written on the internet.

The constituent’s meetings are streamed on-line, and citizens can send their comments and suggestions, witnessing the document as it takes shape. The constitution that eventually emerges from this participatory democratic process will be submitted to parliament for approval after the next elections.

Some readers will remember that Iceland’s ninth century agrarian collapse was featured in Jared Diamond’s book by the same name.

Today, that country is recovering from its financial collapse in ways just the opposite of those generally considered unavoidable, as confirmed yesterday by the new head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde to Fareed Zakaria. The people of Greece have been told that the privatization of their public sector is the only solution. And those of Italy, Spain and Portugal are facing the same threat.

They should look to Iceland. Refusing to bow to foreign interests, that small country stated loud and clear that the people are sovereign.

That’s why it is not in the news anymore.

Understanding the International Monetary System

2011-08-21T06:50:00.000-07:00

A recent "conversation" I had with Steve Baron at his blog "Better Democracy"

Understanding the International Monetary System

Steve has recently graduated in political science and economics- congratulations! Steve.

Gas Fracking in New Zealand

2011-08-21T05:13:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Robin Westenra at his blog Seemorerocks for bringing this to my attention:

Until recently I operated under the illusion that fracking was limited to North America!

Josh Fox, director of Gasland a documentary which exposes the health impacts of Fracking or horizontal hydraulic fracturing where a mixture of water, sand and chemicals is injected at extreme pressure to crack open rock, boosting gas flow; Russell Norman, co-leader of the Green Party; and Bernie Napp, a policy analyst for Staterra the umbrella group for the New Zealand resource sector (which includes mining and exploration).

If the Taranaki Regional Council were, in the course of fulfilling their duties to environmental protection, to find against the use of "fracking" by the gas industry in the region, they would be putting themselves in the same position as Environment Canterbury did over the issue of water quality in relation to intensive dairying in their region, and to face the threat of suspension and the imposition of commissioners. Is it any wonder then that we find TRC regurgitating verbatim the gas industries platitudes concerning the integrity of wells when we hear that one in twenty is compromised by casing failure. Here we see again the conflict between what the government wants- facilitation of penetration of the interests of commerce and industry- and the Regional Councils' foremost duty- to protect that most basic of human rights, the security and safety of the drinking water supply.

Russel Norman says that the Taranaki Regional Council have economic development objectives that may bring jobs to the area as well as those of environmental protection and these are of course potentially conflicting. This true but in my view this is deliberately avoiding the above mentioned "elephant in the room". I believe the parliamentary Greens are anxious not to unduly rile the National party as they are mindful of the possibility of an arrangement with the Nats following the election in November.

Role models from the riots?

2011-08-19T12:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.neweconomics.org/blog/2011/08/18/role-models-from-the-riots?

This article is wierd. It seems to be mostly a clumsy vehicle for the handful of links incorporated within it. Of course most young people didn't riot, but then how many came out onto the streets to face-off or protest against the rioters. Not many- perhaps those three young asian men killed in Birmingham were the only ones? does this mean that most were silently approving / disapproving, scared, or just plain complacent.

There has been a concerted effort to frame the recent events within the realms of "mindless criminality". Is the lack of obvious political context at-all surprising when for the last several decades all effort has been directed at the de-politicisation of the populace-at-large, young people being particularly affected.- Nevertheless the context is there for all who care to see it. Television and all the other banality of what passes for "culture" in the present age and the very tedium and lack of gravitas in modern political process have all contributed to this, not to mention the obvious complicity of the political class in the scandals referred to in the links within the article. The idea is fostered that politics is too "complicated" for ordinary people to be engaged in and is best left to the "experts". Now that ruse has come back to bite them in the backside, but then, how much easier to denounce this unrest than if it had been overtly political?

I don't like the tone of this article, and the two previous comments with their empty plaudits raise my suspicions. I note that Mike Harris has only been at NEF for two months and that his profile page details put him firmly in the "political elite" camp in my view. I know that NEF is not a radical organisation and tries to bring along as broad a spectrum of followers as possible, but these factors together make me suspect that what I am seeing is an example of "gatekeeping". The board of NEF should be very circumspect about what this means for the credibility of the organisation.

Threat to rights to trade food and seeds in New Zealand

2011-08-04T08:19:00.000-07:00

Reposted from Robin Westenra's blog, Seemorerocks.

If you have just seen the report of the raids on an organic store in the USA and think it couldn't happen here, think again...

If this Bill is passed it could compromise everything all of us in Transition Towns and the sustainability movement stand for.

THIS HAS TO BE OPPOSED!

New Zealand Food Security

Hello all.

It seems that you're concerned about the Food Bill, which will turn the basic human right to grow and distribute food into a restrictive, government-authorised privilege that can be revoked.

The website www.nzfoodsecurity.org has been set up to illustrate the problems with the bill and highlight the solutions. Please tell as many people as possible about this, so we can remain well-fed.

The bill will breach the Treaty of Waitangi by interfering with traditional cultural values (growing and sharing food). It will also breach it by restricting the usages of taonga species - which the Waitangi Tribunal says are "species beneficial to humanity" (WAI 262) and fall under the "full authority" of the natives of this country.

Now, you're a native if you were born here. You can exercise your authority accordingly. Please approach your local marae, and discuss this bill with the local kaumatua and kuia (elders). Even if it is passed, it can be overridden with information available via www.maoricustomarylaw.org.

Please also visit www.nzfoodsecurity.org, and leave feedback.

Thank you for your time.

Food Bill: threat to seed saving and natural medicines? Guy Ralls (Organic NZ, July/August 2011 Vol.70 No.4 Issue)

The Koanga Institute’s directors say the Food Bill is a “significant threat” to heritage seed saving networks, and that “any bill saying people can’t exchange food and plant material is fascist in intent.”

The Food Bill, which went through a submission process late last year, is likely to have its second reading in Parliament in the next few weeks.

Bob Corker and Kay Baxter spoke out following confirmation by lawyers that the Food Bill will criminalise people who exchange seeds, plant material or home-raised produce – even by giving these away – if they cannot afford or are otherwise not granted a government licence to do so. MAF says that the Bill covers only food for sale for human consumption, and not seed (unless it were for human consumption); and that the definition of ‘sale’ includes bartering but not giving away.

“New Zealanders are losing their basic right to barter and exchange food and plant material,” says Corker. “That’s crazy. How are they expected to put up with that rubbish?” Baxter also condemns as “laughable” the fact the WWOOFing would be outlawed. The Bill could also affect the sale or exchange of rongoa – medicinal herbs.

“We now need to seriously look at its position in relation to seed sharing,” says Bob Corker. “Our practices may need to be protected in a Claim of Right or even Maori Sovereignty. This Bill is in breach of human rights.” (guyralls@gmail.com)

What can you do?

Share this information, write a letter to the editor, approach your MP or marae.

Kevthefarmer wrote:

The fact that this bill is being brought in to bring NZ into line with WTO / Codex Alimentarus standards gives us a clue to it's true purpose. WTO/Codex exists to further the aims of corporate farming, corporate food processing and corporate retailing.

For years now the compliance sector have pursued this agenda, using "one size fits all" compliance models to advance corporate penetration and at the same time as a "town-hall job-creation scheme" to employ the low-grade graduates that can't get a job in real science and who's sense of entitlement precludes their engagement in "dirty hands" productive work.

A fine example of the collusion between bureaucracy and corporate sector to disempower and parasitise both the small business sector and the general public good.

Here's the subsection that means that small producers that use Wwoofers will not be eligible for exemption from the registration requirements requirements of the Food Act.

Small scale businesses:
95(5) Without limiting anything in this section, a person who may be granted an exemption under this section includes someone
who—
(a) produces in his or her own home any food for sale; and
(b) sells the food to a consumer only; and
(c) does not employ or engage any other person to assist in the production or sale of the food; and
(d) does not otherwise sell or distribute the food.

Note the use of the words "might" and "may". In legalese, these mean that any exemption is entirely at the discretion of the minister and thus might never even come into being, and if it does, could be revoked at any time.

Disgusting. In my opinion a treason worthy of our utter contempt.

Report from my travels in the UK

2011-07-19T17:12:00.000-07:00

My days have been occupied by nostalgia tripping, (here is a link to my travel blog) and I have yet to be gripped with enthusiasm for anything progressive, although there are tell-tale signs of full allotment gardens, people growing a bit of food in their home gardens. I feel like I need to go cold-calling on likely looking people to get any kind of a sense of awareness, let alone urgency or resolve. The Steyning Downland Scheme (I went out with a gang of their rangers to do some work up by the Court Hill Barn on Saturday 9th after I arrived) are working hard to achieve positive ecological benefits, but if the rural environment was actually functioning as it should- producing food and fuel etc. for local use- the desired environmental outcomes would come forth as inevitably as night follows day. I suppose we must see it as a necessary stopgap measure until the real deal- if it ever comes...

Yesterday (Sunday 17th) I visited my father Bill and his wife Davina in the afternoon, we had tea, quite a few bits were from their garden, and eggs from their neighbour that they did exchanged for salad things. I was heartened.

The price of food was a shock- per Kilo prices are cheap compared to NZ regardless of what basis you compare it, relative to exchange rate or proportion of earnings. Trouble is it's all crap! The first meal I ate I couldn't taste anything! Yesterday I went to Sainsburys supermarket on the way to Dads and shopped- a horrible, time consuming and surreal experience, by the way. On the basis of what I had experienced earlier with the "standard" stuff I bought organic, including organic vine-ripened tomatoes. Still crap- almost indistinguishable on flavour from the "standard issue" stuff. I would take this to equate to a similiar defecit of nutritional value. Now I really see the relevence of Kay Baxters prioritizing of Nutrient Density over merely being organic- in fact, certified organic is absolutely no warranty of fitness or quality, and in most cases has merely become a corporate marketing tool. I am also reassured that the stuff we produce at the farm, although sometimes a bit scruffy-looking, is utterly superior.

The political life of the country is non-existent. There is this (what should be a) huge scandal going on at the moment following the discovery that journalists at the Murdoch press had been hacking the mobile phone of a missing girl called Millie Dowler, deleting texts to make more space for new ones, giving her family hope she was still alive when in fact she was murdered, presumably to "enhance" the newsworthiness of the story. Turns out the Met.Police knew about this all along but "worked around it" and didn't tell the family or act against the journalist involved. Since this came out there has been a landslide of "me-too" cases indicating massive circumstantial evidence of collusion between the Murdoch press, politicians at the highest level, including Cameron the present PM who hired a News International exec. as a PR consultant just five months ago, and the Met at a very senior level.

The government announced a Judicial Inquiry into the affair, the very next day the Met "arrested" the CEO of News International, one Rebekah Davies, which totally undermines the Inquiry because now the principal players at N.I. and the Met. have had all the time they could possibly need to collude on their story at the Inquiry in the privacy of a police interview room. Likewise, Davies (and I presume also the police) can now withhold evidence from the Inquiry on the grounds of "sub-judice" or self-incrimination. Murdoch, who has sworn to back Rebekah Davies to the last ditch, is presently in the UK but can't be sub-poenaed to appear at the Inquiry because he's not a British subject. In my view he probably could be arrested but this would undoubtably provoke a diplomatic crisis with the U.S. so not much hope there.

Of course, to the Great British public, this- which should be a public outrage- is merely another soap-opera played out on TV. I am quite convinced that even viewing the "good stuff" (which, of course, 99% of people don't even go there) is toxic to the ability to reason. Stuffing the senses with endless (or perhaps even relatively small amounts of) sounds and images dissociated with the physical presence destroys the ability to distinguish between truth and fiction, relevent and irrelevent. Perhaps it is the effect of having a one-way relationship with a machine that cannot engage in rational discussion that reduces the recipients to banal idiocy.

Transition Towners and Lifeboaters; Part 2

2011-07-19T07:20:00.000-07:00

Before the events of 2008 demonstrated that the fragility of the global economy (debt bubble) will be the leading factor in impending events rather than environmental and resource depletion issues, Richard Heinberg, Hopkins, Kunstler et.al. were predicting a bumpy descent of economic activity as a result of resource depletion. However, to consider their writing to be permanent works like the Ten Commandments is to do a disservice to the authors themselves. Even the Transition Towns movement itself is not some church with an established Creed and Litany. Transition from what? The start point is now, and where we are now depends on our personal circumstances and changes on an almost daily basis in a manner that is almost completely outside our control. To what? Some want socialist utopia, others prefer libertarian freedoms, some might see a clan or tribal system as a desired outcome.

Do you even realise that today the US is only two weeks away from sovereign debt default without a Plan B? You have no idea of the global shockwave that will produce. If they manage to cobble together a rescue plan how long do you think it will work until they need a Plan C? QE1 cost the US taxpayer 70 billion dollars and has staved off collapse for two years. Yes- I said collapse, not crisis. Crisis is what they (which means "we" effectively in a globalised world) have already.

The reason Kunstler turned into a "ranting shock jock" is the realisation of the above facts. Are you one of those who still believe that peak oil and subsequent decline will cause the global economy to shrink 7% year-on-year? That's so old-school,-it was a best-case scenario. That's what would have happened if the global economy was fundamentally sound in all other respects. It turns out that since bank deregulation in the Reagan-Thatcher-Douglas era the jokers have created a house of cards(derivatives bubble)to inflate their own wealth with no underlying real asset value. The politicians could tear it down (mark banks "assets" to market value = almost worthless) if they wished, but they don't wish, because the politicians belong to the bankers (in NZ, it seems, they often are bankers!), bought and paid-for. Then we would be back to the managable 7% year-on-year decline that is the basis upon which a broad-based Transition programme might just enable us to avert civil chaos.

As it is, a disruptive global economic event will result in the investment required to extract the remaining resources even at the rate required for "only" a 7% year-on-year decline not being made. The situation will not be recoverable becaused the resultant decline in economic activity will result in fewer current resources being able to be bought to bear to extract the required future resources. Thus instead of the lovely peak, descending ramp and soft landing we see in conventional peak oil curves, we will see a nosedive. This is collapse. Go and find Joseph Tainter on Wikipedia. this guy is a heavyweight (but eminently readable) academic, not some "raving shock-jock doomer". He was writing well before peak oil awareness became mainstream and certainly well before the financial events of 2008 so this is not "cleverness with the benefit of hindsight". There is a book called "The Collapse of Complex Societies" but there are links to free papers at Wiki- check out his CV too whilst you are there.

Have you ever heard the saying "hope for the best but prepare for the worst" this is such a truism it exists in every culture. Transition Towners and Lifeboaters may not be exactly the same thing, but neither are they mutually exclusive or in conflict. I really don't see why some TTers consider that lifeboaters are gleefully awaiting Armageddon or are doing anything that actually conflicts with the interests of Transition Towns. We actually are creating the world that we should have. Creating. Not "helping", actually flogging our guts sixteen hours a day doing. I'm sorry if we got bored waiting for the rest of you to get your finger out and actually take personal responsibility for your future well-being, but we are not going to let ourselves and our families suffer just so we can say "oh, we may be completely completely shafted but at least we didn't break with the concensus of the lowest common denominator".

Transition Towners and Lifeboaters

2011-07-18T17:48:00.000-07:00

TT, as a non-membership non-organisation is inevitably going to have a make-up (can't really call it structure, can we?) where the greatest number are the least committed and the most committed will be the smallest handful. That is the nature of any movement that comes into being on such a broad base. TT can only really act as a consciousness raising endeavour. Any attempt to actually push forward a practical agenda for survival at a pace that gives even the remotest possibility of success requires that all parties agree to obey a central command whether or not they agree with every decision made by the command. The command can be democratic or autocratic, actually it makes not much difference practically. For an example of democratic centralism I would give the Bolsheviks, for autocratic centralism I would give the Nazis. This is not the modern way, not the liberal way, not the Kiwi way, but it is the only way to effect rapid transformation.

I would hazard a guess that most of the most prepared have a small or zero public profile- these are the lifeboat builders. some will be gun-toting survivalists, others will be established farmers in remote areas planning to bring their extended families home when the crisis hits hard. A few will be "people just like us" only better organised. The Koanga lot over at Hawkes Bay would be in that category. They have had a presence on the TT website, but by their own admission they are not TTers. They believe its too little too late. I tend to agree.

A common thread is that they are more or less secretive. Their greatest fear is of their lifeboats being sunk by the burden of too many fellow travellers. Koanga actively sought out a site far away from a major city, ostensibly to discourage members from taking paid jobs rather than commit wholeheartedly to the project. I am sure they realised that it would also put them far away from a major source of would-be fellow travellers when the crisis comes.

Ironically, those who have tried to build lifeboats have struggled. I know of three groups personally, one started thirty years ago, one fifteen and the other five years ago. They all failed to find a crew for their lifeboat. People came and looked, told them what a great idea it was, but they decided they would rather be captain of their own lifeboat than first officer training for joint command of someone elses. Of course the vast majority of these didn't actually get to build a lifeboat of their own at all. The lot that started thirty years ago just sold their lifeboat because they were too old to sail it. To the very end they failed to find a crew.

Me? I think that if things get that bad it won't be the would-be fellow travellers that swamp the boats, it will be the government, or what's left of it, will torpedo the lifeboats to punish the lifeboaters for daring to think up such an audacious scheme, and to enable the common herd to each have a tiny piece of driftwood to clutch for comfort as they drown anyway. To that end, I refuse to keep my lifeboat a secret.

Electoral Reform

2011-07-02T14:29:00.001-07:00

In reply to steve Baron's post at "Better Democracy"

2011 Electoral System Referendum

Hi Steve, great to see you back blogging again!

I absolutely agree with everything you say here, Steve, particularly with regard to the perceived win-win situation for the government, and indeed that could be extended to the political class as a whole.

Perhaps the two votes (constituency and list) should be made fully transferable, ie one could elect to use both votes on the list or for the constituency or one on each. As this would imply that both votes are of equal value, the number of seats chosen from the list should be same as the number of constituencies. However, if the number of constituency votes in any constituency fell below a certain threshold (25% of total votes cast would seem to be a legitimate level) then no member would be elected for that constituency and the number of seats for list members would be increased by one to keep the number of seats in the house at a constant level. Of course, parties would be free to put forward an "associate MP" for those constituencies in the same way that losing parties do now.

This would eliminate the issue of "back-door MPs" and would eliminate the need for the thresholds ( as rubbish a PC contrivance as ever existed anyway- the situation that arose after the last election with ACT and NZF was truly ridiculous) as the list members would have their own legitimacy through equal status. Of course the option of making a preference selection from party lists would be a great fine-tuning if it were at-all possible.

What do you think? I reckon it's a work of genius myself. Can you think of any reason why it would not work? Can you think of a name for it?

Regards, Kev.

Hi Steve,
I've been thinking further about this overnight, and have a couple more thoughts to add.

Firstly, the present variant of MMP is postulated as being fairer to the electorate as it gives those who support a candidate who is a "no-hoper" at a constituency level a "second chance" to have an influence via the list candidates. Having given this some further thought, and applying the "Machiavellian test" (as I am wont to do) I realise that the above view of MMP as it exists today is merely a sales-pitch by the political class. The true purpose of present variant MMP is to make sure that, should a key (ha-ha!) member of a parties caucus fail to be elected on the constituency basis- because the lists are assembled in priority order as determined by the caucus itself, and as members elected in the constituencies are removed from the list before seats are allocated- The unfortunate loser will always reappear in parliament by virtue of their high position on the list.

This is a reinforcement of the long established process whereby "new entrants" to political parties are groomed and weeded out as they pass through the party machinery until those that actually appear as candidates in electable seats or list positions are nothing more than clones of their selectors.

We exist in a political climate where the political elite of all persuasions are persuing agendas that are based upon loyalty to special interest groups. National/ACT court global corporate business, Labour court the bureaucracy, both at a national level and transnationally (Helen Clark's U.N position would be payback for her loyalty). These party aparachiks are not going to allow a more just system of representation to damage their chances of persuing their respective agendas.

The party list system institutionalises the position of the parties in the political arena. There is no constitutional basis for this. It just grew from small beginnings until it came to dominate the organs of democracy and statecraft with no mandate other than that from those who clawed their way to the top of the political pile and then sought to entrench their position. As with all things that grow in an intergenerational way, the public just accept that "it is that way because that's the way it is".

The answer? Certainly to disestablish the party lists as unconstitutional and anti-democratic. MP's are meant to represent their constituents personally, not as themselves representatives of an organisation to which they owe an overarching (and enforced by the whip) loyalty. The electoral list should be a single schedule of personal names (of course they can declare their position of support for a given party in their manifesto) and a list vote should consist of a chosen number of individual candidates prioritised 1,2,3,4,5 etc. What do you think?

Regards, Kev.

German E.coli Outbreak a Bio-weapon Attack on Organic Farming?

2011-06-27T11:39:00.000-07:00

A current article from the Institute of Science in Society postulates that strain of bacteria responsible for the recent outbreak of E.coli in Germany could have originated from genetic engineering or horizontal gene transfer.

Very circumspect of David Tribe to speculate that the bacteria was not genetically engineered as a "bioweapon". Of course, even if it was, it does no credit to anyone (at present) to rave on about it publicly as it allows "mainstream" to then dismiss those concerned with the issue as "conspiracy theory nutters".

Nevertheless, it still seems amazing how so many of the "right" characteristics from so many diverse sources for a dangerous and antibiotic resistant pathogen should all turn up in the same package. Also, do you not find it strange how this just happens to turn up in organic produce? Is it just possible that this is intended to be used as a "trojan horse" for an attack on the organic sector because their produce is grown using animal manures, allegedly a potential source of E.coli?

After all is it not a fact that a while ago a bill was proposed in the U.S., apparently the impetus for which emanated from "Monsanto friendly" members of the house of representatives, that would have effectively made the use of animal manures illegal on "public health grounds"? No doubt that particular attack on the organic sector being a part of their ongoing "dirty tricks" campaign for global domination of the food supply. Could there not be a connection?

Issues Raised by the Argument for a Steady State Economy.

2011-06-20T12:53:00.000-07:00

Ted Howard raised the following point. "We'll need quite a period of descent/collapse before things settle down to a level where we could even dream of steady state..."

Absolutely, Ted. But the mechanism of a steady state economy also allows for managed degrowth during that descent by enabling the treasury to remove currency from circulation at a rate appropriate to the rate of degrowth. Of course, this should have happened decades ago. Perhaps when global GDP per capita began to fall after 1976 or '78 we should have realised the growth model was faulty. In fact, those who know the history of fractional reserve banking know that the monster should have been strangled at birth.

The present system of banking was founded upon a criminal fraud perpetrated by the mediaeval goldsmiths that governments, instead of crushing, bought in to- as it allowed them to raise money for wars on a "buy now- pay later" basis. Ironically, intrinsic unavoidable growth was probably a consequence unintended by the original perpetrators of the "goldsmiths fraud". They would have seen it as a simple "trick" to extract extra value from the economy without actually owning the required capital.

Unfortunately (for almost all!), the financial rules that institutionalise the growth model do a very good job of concentrating wealth towards the most wealthy, ultimately to the detriment of all others, so this elite will not give up their "right" to create debt money without a deadly fight.

There is no doubt in my mind that banking with money created as debt is the main driver of resource depletion and all associated woes, but the bankers are vampires, drawing the life-blood from their already anaemic victim, knowing the victim will soon die but unable to refrain because of their own psychopathy.

Arguably, it is now too late to institute these reforms in time to avert catastrophic collapse. However, It is still necessary to state that there is an alternative in order to discredit the present norm in the minds of those we wish to influence whose inaction is sustained by the belief that the present system is somehow "just" or "inevitable".

It is not for no good reason that, despite the obfuscation of modern clerics, usury is forbidden to Jew, Christian and Muslim alike, and most likely in all other religions too. It was seen by the ancients as the most damaging evil. How much more damaging then to perpetrate the "uber-usury" of lending money that doesn't yet exist?

Dick Smith, Sustainability and Steady-State Economics.

2011-06-05T00:00:00.000-07:00

Much time and energy is expended by those concerned with transition initiatives iinto ways of addressing resource depletion. The most obvious one is actually moving to a way of living that we call "sustainable", which we usually define as using resources no faster than they can be replaced by natural ecosystems. That much abused word has spawned a hundred oxymorons courtesy of the sophistry of PR drones in every industry and field of commerce. Even in the certified organic sector, where, to many green consumers, sustainability is automatically implied, we have grotesquely unsustainable practices such as daily alternate row spraying of lime-sulphur on Hawkes Bay apple trees during the fruit forming period this year. This permitted input chemical consumes a huge amount of energy in its production, and sulphur, one of it's constituents, is rapidly becoming a depleted mineral, not to mention the number of tractor passes required to apply it to the crop. Sustainable economic growth must be the ultimate fantasy that is pedalled to us with monotonous regularity by the empty- headed spin-doctors of mainstream thinking.
The single biggest driver in all this, arguably the only driver- is the growth model of economics. Apologists for the growth model will argue that iti is possible to have economic growth without commensurate resource use growth by expansion of non-physical goods such as the knowledge sector but I think most of us agree that the number one desire in the consumer society is more physical goods, as in our society these are encouraged to be seen as talismans of well-being and success.
It was interesting to hear Dick Smith, founder of the electronic goods retail chain on the Kathryn Ryan programme on Radio New Zealand National. He tended to focus on the issue of population growth, but the point he was making was that countries such as Australia, indeed most countries, with the exception of a few such as the Kingdom of Bhutan, I think he mentioned, see population growth as the most reliable driver of economic growth. Advanced countries such as the developed countries of europe (Italy springs to my mind personally) are terribly worried about the economic consequences of the demographic shift of low birthrate. Many see immigration as a solution, but it is a very dubious one, as it has so many cultural implications.
Dick Smith pointed out that, in Australia, the Murdoch Press ridicules and vilifies anyone of note, himself included, that speaks out in opposition to the concept of unbridled economic growth. Interestingly, he observes that the impetus for this positioning seems to come from the executives, rather than from Mr Murdoch, who, Dick Smith says, is a "decent bloke" who has taken the initiative to make his company "carbon neutral".
Here we see again the "tail wagging the dog" as we see in so many relationships between proprietors and executives in both private business and public bodies such as councils. My own personal view is that this is because the executive class is largely composed of up-and-coming individuals who are willing to take a high level of risk (mainly I would add, with their proprietors assets) in order to further their own ambition, and hence are willing to buy into the Ponzi scheme that is unfettered growth. They cross their fingers and hope the house of cards doesn't fall until they've made their fortune. The proprietor class, being already very wealthy, tend to display a high level of risk-aversion in times of instability. One can only surmise that the proprietors, and in this category I would include the citizens of democratic nations and the electorate of local government bodies, have lost control of the game and the executive are wildly out of control. Compare this with Congressman Ron Pauls unofficial state-of-the-nation address recently in the USA. It seems that the executive, or professional managers, have contrived to subvert the relationship they ought to have with their proprietors by bamboozling them with clever "insider" talk designed to intimidate the uninitiated and to portray the notion that modern business administration is far too complicated for anyone without an M.B.A. to understand. In short, they have turned themselves into "indispensable men"
It seems that what Dick Smith is arguing for here is the establishment of a steady-state economy, although I'm not sure he actually uses this term in the interview, he mentions the characteristics of such an economy several times. My feeling is that he was trying to keep the tone of the interview nice and down-homey and not to use too many ideological sounding terms. An interesting observation from him was that of course business would still be possible under zero-growth conditions, but business people would have to be smarter about how they do business and not expect to make outrageous fortunes from their activity. I would add here that one compensation for this would be that business would be less risky without the boom-and-bust cycles that are a feature of the growth model., He observes that "any fool can make money in a growth economy". He is definitely not talking about a Soviet style command economy here. Market forces would still be at work to determine what gets produced and at what price.
Dick Smith did not expound on the minutiae of how to achieve the desired steady-state within the economy, but we know that is to remove the ability of the banks to create new money as debt and have all new money supply added to (or even removed from) the economy by a central authority whose remit is to keep economic activity at a level that is sustainable according to the usual definition as described above, Another advantage of this is that the government would have the right of Seignorage, or first-use of any new money entering the economy, which it could then use for any purpose, but capitalising the transfer from depletive to sustainable industry in the public sector such as transport and power generation would seem like a good place to start.
Naturally the banks aren't going to like this and will fight dirty in order to retain their right to create money. There will still be a banking business, but it will be about managing customers' money according to their wishes dependent on whether they desire safe-keeping or investment for profit at some risk. Of course the bank may do with it's own money what it wishes, but at its own risk, and not by gambling with depositors cash.
At the moment, government is definitely part of the problem rather than part of the solution. This is largely due to the fact that central government executives, as "international players" identify strongly with trans-national corporation executives, a phenomenon known as "status grouping". These executives will continue to promote "business as usual" as they really don't have a strategy for dealing with the failure of the growth model except to presume on taxpayer bale-outs because they are considered to be "too big to fail".

The Last Nail - by Ron Paul

2011-05-31T11:53:00.000-07:00

Why is this important to us here in New Zealand?
Because wherever the U.S.A. goes, there we follow just a step behind:-

Sunday, 29 May 2011 21:00

Congressman Ron Paul delivered a five-minute speech on the floor of the House of Representatives May 25, a short speech that may sound to the uninformed like one wild statement after another. However, as documented in hyperlinks, everything he is saying is based on actual facts. In his speech, Dr. Paul (he's an obstetrician) made a number of charges that the executive branch of government has established a virtual dictatorship with the willing assistance of Congress and many Americans who fear for their "security." But Congressman Paul is complaining about the erosion of constitutional protections that have already happened. It is not foreseeable, it is already in place. Following is his speech verbatim, along with links documenting his allegations. All words are by Congressman Paul; hyperlinks were added by The New American's Thomas R. Eddlem.
The Last Nail
by Congressman Ron Paul
The last nail is being driven into the coffin of the American Republic. Yet, Congress remains in total denial as our liberties are rapidly fading before our eyes. The process is propelled by unwarranted fear and ignorance as to the true meaning of liberty. It is driven by economic myths, fallacies and irrational good intentions. The rule of law is constantly rejected and authoritarian answers are offered as panaceas for all our problems. Runaway welfarism is used to benefit the rich at the expense of the middle class. Who would have ever thought that the current generation and Congress would stand idly by and watch such a rapid disintegration of the American Republic? Characteristic of this epic event is the casual acceptance by the people and political leaders of the unitary presidency, which is equivalent to granting dictatorial powers to the President. Our Presidents can now, on their own:
• Order assassinations, including American citizens;
• Operate secret military tribunals;
• Engage in torture;
• Enforce indefinite imprisonment without due process;
• Order searches and seizures without proper warrants, gutting the Fourth Amendment;
• Ignore the 60-day rule for reporting to the Congress the nature of any military operations as required by the War Power Resolution;
• Continue the Patriot Act abuses without oversight;
• Wage war at will;
• Treat all Americans as suspected terrorists at airports with TSA groping and nude x-raying.
And the Federal Reserve accommodates by counterfeiting the funds needed and not paid for by taxation and borrowing, permitting runaway spending, endless debt, and special interest bail-outs.

And all of this is not enough. The abuses and usurpations of the war power are soon to be codified in the National Defense Authorization Act now rapidly moving its way through Congress. Instead of repealing the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force [AUMF], as we should, now that bin Laden is dead and gone, Congress is planning to massively increase the war power of the President. Though an opportunity presents itself to end the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, Congress, with bipartisan support, obsesses on how to expand the unconstitutional war power the President already holds.
The current proposal would allow a President to pursue war any time, any place, for any reason, without congressional approval. Many believe this would even permit military activity against American suspects here at home. The proposed authority does not reference the 9/11 attacks. It would be expanded to include the Taliban and "associated" forces — a dangerously vague and expansive definition of our potential enemies. There is no denial that the changes in Section 1034 totally eliminate the hard-fought-for restraint on Presidential authority to go to war without Congressional approval achieved at the Constitutional Convention.
Congress' war authority has been severely undermined since World War II beginning with the advent of the Korean War which was fought solely under a UN Resolution. Even today, we're waging war in Libya without even consulting with the Congress, similar to how we went to war in Bosnia in the 1990s under President Clinton. The three major reasons for our Constitutional Convention were to:
• Guarantee free trade and travel among the states;
• Make gold and silver legal tender and abolish paper money; and
• Strictly limit the Executive Branch's authority to pursue war without Congressional approval.
But today:
• Federal Reserve notes are legal tender, gold and silver are illegal;
• The Interstate Commerce Clause is used to regulate all commerce at the expense of free trade among the states;
• And now the final nail is placed in the coffin of congressional responsibility for the war power, delivering this power completely to the President — a sharp and huge blow to the concept of our republic.
In my view, it appears that the fate of the American republic is now sealed — unless these recent trends are quickly reversed. The saddest part of this tragedy is that all these horrible changes are being done in the name of patriotism and protecting freedom. They are justified by good intentions while believing the sacrifice of liberty is required for our safety. Nothing could be further from the truth.
More sadly is the conviction that our enemies are driven to attack us for our freedoms and prosperity, and not because of our deeply flawed foreign policy that has generated justifiable grievances and has inspired the radical violence against us. Without this understanding, our endless, unnamed, and undeclared wars will continue and our wonderful experiment with liberty will end

NZ Government is Anti-Resilience

2011-04-30T22:46:00.000-07:00

I don't believe the government has any intention of taking steps to build resilience or even to take steps to create the conditions for communities to create resilience for themselves. I believe the government are actively hostile to the concept of community resilience. I believe a government of the left would equally be hostile to community resilience but they would use bureaucratic rather than economic means to undermine resilience. It is the nature of all politicians to seek to create dependence amongst those they govern / claim to represent, but this particular government are pursuing a particularly vicious course.

Most countries in the "free" world are suffering to a greater or lesser degree from Sovereign Debt Crisis. In most parts of the world this has been caused by bank bale-outs following the collapse in credit (electronic money) supply as the value of the securities that it was backed by have plunged. The governments have been using many devices to shore up the banks but the end result is the same. The private debt of the banks has become the public debt of the Sovereign Nations.

New Zealand doesn't need to be running up a massive sovereign debt. We only had to bale out a few dodgy finance companies, the bill was less than $4 billion (thats still $1000 for every Kiwi adult and child alive. but small beer compared to the US, for example). In fact we didn't have to bale them out at all. Our government chose to extend the "bank credit guarantee scheme" to these small finance companies in order to show "good faith" to the larger institutions. In my view the gamblers that put their life savings into these institutions that were offering high interest rates and thus were obviously high risk should have been allowed to lose all. But thats another story.

No, In New Zealand the government is choosing keep in step with the US, UK etc, creating sovereign debt by running the economy with spending levels at the OECD average but revenue levels lower than OECD levels. Why the hell would they want to do that!

As is the way with ruling elites, they always manage to find a way to pluck an advantage from other peoples misery. Fortunes have been made in dire times of war. During the depression of the 1930's the banks ended up owning vast tracts of land across the US midwest and so-on. The advantage that the ruling elites seek most in the present crisis is resource capture.

Globalised business knows that in the near future, as a result of peak oil and other resource depletion, it is going to become very difficult to make money by the more traditional business activities like producing goods and services to sell at a profit. This is because de-globalisation ( it is coming whether we seek it or not due to infrastructure failure) is going to cause business to be done on a local scale that does not fit the global corporate model. Their answer is to maintain profit and control by what economists call rent seeking. This means that they control resources such as land,water, minerals, intellectual property and so-on and charge money for access to them. This means they get paid regardless of how profitable or not the human activity requiring these resources is. Masterplan!

The problem is that a lot of these resources are in the public domain as they have traditionally seen as being too important to be controlled by private interests. This does not sit well with the rent seeking elites.
In other parts of the world, bank baleouts and the resulting sovereign debt crisis have resulted in conditions where sovereign governments will have to sell off public assets just to balance the books. Here in New Zealand, that precondition is not present so the debt crisis is being manufactured.

This all sits very cleverly with the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, presently being negotiated in secret, which aims to secure a situation such that when these assets are privatised, a future sovereign government of a signatory country will be unable to re-nationalise the assets without paying punitive compensation to the usurpers.

Well-being as a Measure of a Nations Success.

2011-02-25T17:16:00.000-08:00

If you have ever looked at the UK's New Economics Foundation you will find a lot of interest in the concept of Well-Being as a measure of a nations success or otherwise as an alternative to GDP. Most recently a post entitled Well-Being, then and now
Well I just followed the Integrated Household Survey link and I have to say the "four questions"
• Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?
• Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?
• Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday?
• Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile?- might as well have been written by a fourteen year old for a school project- I do understand from later on in the Office for National Statistic's press release that a smaller number (1000) will be surveyed in more detail but these four questions are trivia.
I once heard a psychologist say that happiness is an unbalanced state of mind. Wellbeing is best defined in terms of the more stable senses of security, satisfaction and contentment rather than the more ephemoral feelings such as happiness, sadness, anxiety. these are secondary emotions that are in part derivative from the presence or lack of the previous mentioned stable senses, but are also in part determined by an individuals psychological make-up.
I consider well-being best reflected by a persons sense of security, meaningfulness-of-life, social, and civic engagement. Of course these factors would have different weightings for different individuals, that would be an item for further research. To-whit, I have come up with my own "four questions" as follows:

On a scale of nought to ten

How certain are you that, for the forseeable future, you will be able to secure an income sufficient to fulfil your financial obligations and maintain an acceptable standard of living? (0=completely uncertain, 5=obligations only, 10=completely certain of an acceptable s.o.l.)

How trivial or meaningful do you consider the sum of your worklife, recreational activity, hobbies, volountary work, etc. to be? (0=completely trivial, 10= completely meaningful)

To what extent do you feel that you have meaningful social engagement with your close and extended family mambers, friends, neighbours and colleagues in work and leisure activities? ( 0= not at all, 10= fully engaged)

To what extent do you believe that national and local politicians and public servants in general are willing and able to address issues that you consider to be important to you personally? (0= do not believe at all, 10= believe completely)

Of course these could be subdivided further if you actually wanted an indication of what policies to pursue to enhance well-being, rather than just to measure it.

The Saxon Villages of Transylvania: A Mediaeval Model for the Future Eco-Village?

2011-01-22T15:05:00.000-08:00

I was prompted by an article in the most recent Ecologist magazine to find out more about these remnant mediaeval villages as a potential model for future farming as I see it. All the links from the article had the inevitable "coffee-table magazine' look about them- pretty flowers, wild animals you know the sort of thing- triumph of style over substance.
Eventually I came across this report commissioned by H.R.H. the Prince of Wales and published way back in 2001

http://www.kimwilkie.com/images/projects/ovs/transylv/transylvania_prt1.pdf

It still has lovely pictures but more importantly it has diagrams, aerial views and descriptive text. The producers of the report have included the inevitable nod to "sensitive tourism" and "appropriate integration of agricultural technology", but then this was ten years ago before peak oil awareness and agricultural commodities were at very low prices. The need for "cash earners" was predicated upon the notion that cash is needed to provide the "mod-cons" that must be provided to discourage all the young people from deserting their communities. I believe that ten years later with agricultural prices rising, peak oil a historical fact a billion hungry people in the world and apparently a change of heart in the E.U. that has until recently sought to destroy the remnants of "peasant farming", this mode of living could suddenly become very attractive to those who formerly might have wished (and been encouraged by politicians) to abandon it for a "better life" in the cities.

I am particularly impressed by the combination of family autonomy in the gardens and arable lands and community co-operation in the use of the common pastures and woodlands. As you will see from the village layout the houses, yards and barns are all very similiar in size indicating a self-imposed egalitarianism in these communities (remember these people were free peasants- not vassals of some feudal lord). I am sure that hundreds of years fighting off Mongol and Saracen hordes built a great sense of community solidarity.

As you know, I pretty much sit firmly in the "doomer" camp when it comes to the notion of sudden vs. gradual collapse. I have been a long time looking for a model of what I see as a realistic and practical solution to post peak secure and sustainable living and have found on the one hand a lot of fluffy co-operative idealists (everything is everyones responsibility so no-one does much) and individualistic fortress building survivalists on the other. Here I find inspiration- but sadly I have little confidence in our ability to act in a suitably urgent fashion. Perhaps I need to take a crash-course in Romanian language?

The TPPA is a Traitors Gambit

2011-01-14T15:00:00.000-08:00

In reply to Media Release: Professor Jane Kelsey . Friday, 10 December 2010

“The negotiators themselves say this is not an ordinary free trade agreement."
“ why are they scared to release the draft text and open it to scrutiny?”

Absolutely this is not even a free trade agreement or even a treaty in the normal sense as has been understood since the middle ages. The TPPA promoting itself as a free trade agreement whilst shrouding itself in secrecy is essentially like a pirate ship of old flying a false flag in order to engage its intended victim by deception, that is to say to secure a binding agreement behind the backs of the citizens of sovereign nations.

It would not even be true to say this is about the Americans trying to pull a fast one on smaller nations. Essentially the agreement is designed to make international capital the sovereign power within nations with precedence over the elected assemblies that are presently considered to be sovereign. The incumbent leadership of the nations involved are attempting to tie the hands of future generations of elected representatives who may choose to make decisions based on their "national interest" rather than the interest of the worlds elite.

Arguably, the financial elite see the writing on the wall for the future of their ability to dominate the worlds economic activity. As the global financial bubble deflates, as it is doing right now and will continue to do so at an accellerating pace over the next few years, future governments and communities will need to pursue initiatives of relocalisation that will severely reduce the elites ability to make profit through trade, commerce and industry. The elites plan for the future is to use their present wealth (before it deflates to nothing in the financial meltdown) to capture resources (such as land, water, minerals) and enforce intellectual property rights so as to maintain their wealth and position through "rents" (In the economic sense of the word).

The TPPA agreement is a "traitors gambit " and should be exposed as such at every possible occasion. John Key, (through his connection to Merrell Lynch an obvious croney of the financial elite) had to climb down over the Crafar Farms sellout and even coined the populist slogan "Tenants in our own Country", but as usual the fuzzy glow of that climbdown will be used to blur the greater evil of this TPPA treachery.

The Future Belongs to the Adaptable.

2011-01-12T02:35:00.000-08:00

Read this and understand what you need to do to survive the coming economic meltdown.

1- Get out of debt by any means possible.
2- Be liquid- cash or govt. short term bonds will do nicely thanks.
3- Make the effort to produce at least some of what you need for your day-to-day existence yourself.

Reposted abridged from The Automatic Earth

Stoneleigh: As our readers know, we do not provide investment advice. We do not exist to help people make money in the markets, but to help them avoid losing what they have in a deflationary crisis, at a time when almost everyone will lose a great deal. Our position is that being in cash on the sidelines is by far the safest option at this point, and where most people would be better off by far. Those who are still in the markets are playing a very dangerous game. Many of them know this perfectly well, but they can't walk away from the casino. The upside is limited, possibly very limited, and the risks are steadily increasing.

Stock market bubbles (and housing bubbles etc) are ponzi schemes. As with all ponzi schemes, only a few manage to cash out, and the majority are those who do so early. Those who do not cash out become the designated empty bag holders, but that empty bag can look awfully attractive at a market top. Trying to catch the top tick, and wring every last ounce of profit out of a collapsing system, is foolish. Most investors who play that game are likely to lose badly.

They may be convinced that they are clever and quick enough to get out before the rest, but the odds are not good. Also, the rules of the game are likely to be changed along the way, so that one would have to be both right and lucky in order to profit. For instance, shorting is likely to be banned at some point, and speculators demonized. There will be opportunities to make a killing, but many more 'opportunities' to lose your shirt.

Capital preservation is essential in a deflation, and the best way to preserve capital at this point is to be liquid. Cash constitutes uncommitted choices, and in a world of uncertainty, one needs to be flexible. There will be plenty of opportunities over the next few years (both to improve circumstances and avoid disaster) that will only be available to the few who still have the options cash provides. It isn't necessary to have a fortune. Even a small amount of cash can go a long way as deflation causes prices to fall.

Those without any cash, or the means to earn some (in what will be a very difficult earning environment), will be at the mercy of whatever the world has to throw at them. Most of us are accustomed to far more choice and self-determination than most people have had in human history, and there would be nothing harder to lose. Nothing is as addictive as freedom.

The best way to approach a major threat with attendant uncertainty is to minimize the consequences of being wrong. If people follow our suggestions then they will have reduced or eliminated debt, will have cash on hand and will have perhaps some control over the essentials of their own existence. In short they will be far more resilient in a world where many families are brittle, with little ability to weather even minor turbulence.

These measures are actually prudent under most circumstances. If one takes such steps and things do not go as badly wrong as we think they will, what is the downside? There may be some opportunity cost, but the result will not be catastrophic. Alternatively, if one does nothing to prepare, on the assumption that the situation is under control when it is not, then being wrong could easily be an unrecoverable disaster.

The rally we are living through has done nothing whatsoever to change the nature of our times. We have lived through the largest credit expansion in human history. Credit expansions create excess claims to underlying real wealth through ponzi finance. When the debt created can no longer be serviced, the bubble will implode and the excess claims will be messily extinguished. This is deflation, and it is inevitable once a bubble has developed. The aftermath of a bubble implosion is generally proportionate to the scale of the excesses that preceded it, hence we can expect the impact to be extremely severe.

Being grounded in positive feedback, deflation builds momentum relatively slowly at first, but later at an increasing pace. When credit contraction reaches a 'critical mass' it can unfold with terrifying speed, and for this reason extreme caution is warranted. It is well possible for the global banking system to seize up in a matter of hours, as it came very close to doing in September 2008. Given the scale of the threat, and how long it can take to extract oneself from an over-leveraged and highly vulnerable position, it is entirely appropriate to convey a sense of urgency. In fact it would be irresponsible of us not to do so.

We are now seeing a firmly established received wisdom that recovery is underway and that the Fed has saved the day with quantitative easing. Bullishness is at an extreme. The psychology of the market is the opposite of what it was at the March 2009 bottom. This represents a large red flag, as sentiment extremes are major indicators of approaching trend changes. It takes time for a position to be widely accepted and internalized, and the greater the extent to which that has happened, the closer one is to a reversal. I think we are close to one, but it really doesn't matter whether the top is this week, next month, or even next year. It is coming soon enough that evasive action is thoroughly warranted now.

In fact several years ago, when we first began warning people, would have been a better time to act. Those who did are now sitting comfortably liquid on the sidelines with little or (preferably) no leverage. They didn't suffer huge loses in the first phase of the credit crunch, which other less lucky people have been using this rally to recover from (and if the less lucky hang on too long they will see even larger losses once the decline resumes). The prudent early movers can sleep at night because they will not be wiped out in a bubble implosion. They may have forgone a certain amount of profit in the meantime, but they have also avoided an enormous amount of risk.

There are many actions one can take to lessen the impact of deflation for family, friends and community. The challenge is reaching enough people who are aware to be able to work together with a group rather than in isolation. The effort is absolutely worth it, as those who prepare will be very much better off in a few years time than those who do not. It can be difficult to convince others, however. It certainly strains relationships when people have widely differing views of the future, hence we work to disseminate the information people need to make informed decisions that will allow them to retain their freedom of action. The future belongs to the adaptable.

There will definitely be hard choices to be made, as we have collectively invested so much in a way of life that cannot continue, and extracting oneself from the resulting structural dependencies can be both difficult and time consuming. Trying to live with a foot in two different worlds during the transition to a more resilient life can initially mean all the work of both, without the many of the benefits of either. This is not an easy path to walk. We wish all our readers the very best of luck in walking it, and we intend to remain your traveling companions.

Taming the Vampire Squid

2010-12-14T03:18:00.000-08:00

Comment on this article by Ruth Potts at the New Economics Foundation concerning the proposed changes to the Bank of England Act, though equally applicable in all countries.

Of course the banks wield a very big stick when it comes to the damage they could do to a nation or government that threatens their hegemony. It seems unlikely, but we may hope the government are playing a bluff with the banks in order to buy time to organise a "coup de grace" against the vampires, placing them under administration, reforming accounts strictly into safe storage accounts for those who seek a safe home for their money, investment accounts for those that can afford to take a risk in order to seek a return on their capital and to "mark to market value" those toxic "assets", derivatives etc that the bankers have invented to inflate the apparent worth of their business and so justify their huge bonuses. The banks are certain to be as obstructive as possible in this matter. The political elite must realise that the unfettered growth of the financial sector in the last thirty years or so at the expense of the real economy has made the economy highly unstable, and that the social trauma of the inevitable deflation that must follow as night follows day will send the world into chaos and tyrany. The big question is- who will be brave enough to take the quantum leap?

What Might a Civil Emergency Caused by Supply Chain Collapse Look Like?

2010-10-04T02:09:00.000-07:00

For a likely scenario I would consider what happened in Russia in the years following the revolution. The country was in disarray due to the aftermath of WW1, and they were also under embargo from the major powers who were also backing the "White Russian" forces in their counter-revolutionary civil war.

The populations in the cities were starving, and the ruling communist party knew that they had better be fed or they would lose control of the situation, so they dispatched commissars with militia units to the rural areas to sieze food supplies from the peasants and "kulaks"(larger landowning farmers)who, of course were vilified as "counter-revolutionaries" in order to justify the appropriation of their goods. As a result of this many of the rural workers and experienced and knowledgable agriculturalists starved- guess what that did to the food supply?
I suppose what I am saying is that, in this sort of a crisis, the government is more dangerous to you than random pilagers if you had the foresight to produce enough food to keep yourself and your family (which we do).

Provision needs to be made to enable the movement of significant numbers of urban workers to be billeted in areas capable of food production- ideally with friends and relatives at first. Surveys need to be done to determine which areas of the country best produce the foodstuffs we mainly import (principally grains) which shouldn't be too difficut as NZ was self-sufficient in grains until the 1970's.

The political parties will never address these issues as political power lies principally in the cities. City dwellers would be horrified by what I am suggesting (I can hear the cries of "Pol Pot" as I write) but how many of them have ever actually experienced an empty belly? Many city dwellers produce "wealth" on paper but in a crisis their efforts become completely nullified as they create no tangible benefit with respect to peoples immediate needs. In the longest term I would expect to see a reduction of urban population to between 10 and 30% of total population. I sincerely believe every one of us needs to develop three skill sets to survive and thrive- as a food producer, as a craftsperson, and a cultural / artistic component too.

Snivelling MAF-Biosecurity Toadies Let Arrogant CRI Blunderers off the Hook Again!!

2010-08-03T02:55:00.000-07:00

The defiant attitude of managers at various Crown Research Institutes that have been responsible for breaches of biosecurity conditions imposed in accordance with Acts of Parliament beggars belief.

They seem to believe that it is ok to ignore containment conditions if they consider them to be inconvenient or entailing costs on the basis of "we know best". If we all flouted the Laws of the Land because we judged ourselves to be above them on account of our superior intelligence, my what a sorry state we'd be in!

Perhaps if investigation and prosecution of the offenders was made a police matter rather than being left to ERMA and MAF-Biosecurity, both of whom seem overly familiar with the genetic science fraternity, we would see a sharpening of their sense of probity.

To say the Aridopsis seeds were "inaccurately identified as not-GE on import documents" verges on an abuse of language. "Falsely declared" would be less mealy-mouthed. Presumably the said documents had a signature- is signing a false declaration on import documents no longer an offence?

For Plant and Food’s chief executive to say that GM research helps to support industries worth hundreds of millions of dollars each year to the economy is stretching credulity beyond belief. GM plant science has failed to live up to expectations and has been dogged by a litany of horrors including reduced yields, crop failures, toxicity, pesticide resistant superweeds and pest tolerance. Meanwhile New Zealand's reputation for producing wholesome, natural foodstuffs is put at risk from the spectre of GM releases.

Rather than a simple "cut and paste" operation, insertion of genes into organisms has proved to be like a many sided Rubik's Cube, entailing multiple consequences, most of them adverse, which none of the pioneers could have forseen. None of the old hands who have dedicated lifelong careers in search of this particular Holy Grail are prepared to say "sorry, we were wrong". Like High Priests of some arcane religion or alchemists of old they continue to draw in accolytes to their futile search, thereby wasting talented young scientists efforts in pursuit of this perversion. One suspects that for many, the quest has become more important than the goal.

Many years ago, New Zealand had a global reputation in the field of plant breeding that was built on painstaking work, meticulous testing and record-keeping. Many of the grasses, clovers and forage plants bred fifty and sixty years ago are still in use or are the parent plants of todays varieties. This type of plant breeding may not be a "sexy" as the high tech GM approach, but it is proven to give better, safer results and the vast majority of the world's plant varieties are produced this way.

Roger Douglas addresses UK think-tank REFORM

2010-07-10T04:39:00.000-07:00

My response to:-Better Democracy NZ: Reforming Public Services

By all accounts, it is perfectly reasonable to dismiss Roger Douglas as "selfish" or, to be strictly accurate, self serving. Douglas was a labour MP for twenty one years and a natural choice for the labour party heirarchy as his family had strong ties with the trade-union movement, and were actively engaged in politics. His father Norman and brother Malcolm were both Labour politicians. During the mid 'eighties, Douglas as finance minister pursued economic policies that were fully in step with the neoliberal policies of the Thatcher and Reagan administrations. As a result, he, with the support of the Labour caucus, managed to keep the Parliamentary Labour party in their careers by pursuing policies that were in direct conflict with the aspirations of the rank-and-file membership of their party. I say this neither to condemn nor endorse those policies, but merely to illustrate the self-serving nature of the political elite.

I agree that people need to take more responsibility for themselves, but to say they are "looking for the taxpayers to bail them out" is simplistic. The tax and benefits system is about co-responsibility and it is a form of insurance which some lucky individuals (like Douglas et.al.) will never be in the position of needing to avail themselves of. It is these individuals (or, rather, a subgroup of self-congratulatory ideologues) who vocally pursue this attitude of "devil take the hindmost". A few unfortunates will always need cradle-to grave support (or will we leave them on a mountainside to die, like the ancient Spartans?) The fact that there are people out there who abuse the system says more about the lack of moral values in our society which is in turn a result of a lack of social cohesion.

Why the emphasis on creating greater wealth?- the era of economic growth is all over bar the shouting. The global per-capita wealth has been falling since 1970, including right through the "efficiencies" of the Thatcher/Reagan/Douglas era and has nothing whatever to do with state versus private responsibilities. It is merely a function of population growth pitted against depletion of the worlds finite resources. Surely the most desirable outcome is resilient communities, from which the above-mentioned moral values, social cohesion and yes, even a full participation in meaningful democratic processes would naturally spring.

It is true that "many have come to accept that it is the responsibility of the government to continuously look after them" but this paternalistic attitude has been deliberately fostered by politicians of all persuasions in order to undermine the notion of citizens as Sovereign. it goes hand-in hand with the "trust us, we know what's best for you" attitude. Neither the established Left or Right has any interest in fostering "personal responsibility for our own lives" as it undermines the power of the Bureaucracy on the one hand, on the other the power of Corporate Capital. People who take "personal responsibility for their own lives" are fine if they are a few high-flying entrepreneurs, but a few million of them equals a revolution! There is no-one, NO-ONE! in the mainstream political arena advocating for rights, responsibilities and sovereignty of individuals. They are weeded out by party apparatus and the electoral system itself.

Given the chance, any public service will grow to the limit of available resources. Every sectional interest, be it health, pensions, education, defence etc. whether it be run as a bureaucracy or on a business model will seek to enlarge itself at the expense of others vying for the same funds. I do not believe that public sector inefficiencies necessarily cost more than extraction of profit by the private sector. Swings and Roundabouts. We need to decide how much to put in the kitty and what proportion goes to which service. Which we do. One thing is for sure, degenerate lifestyle choices makes for sick, lazy people who are a drain on us all. This goes back to moral values and social cohesion again.

Now is not the time to be encouraging people to be putting their hard earned cash into insurance companies and superannuation schemes run by banks. These loathesome snakes have been sucking the lifeblood out of society for aeons and are very soon going to get their come-uppance on account of the aforementioned "end of the era of economic growth". The banks are desperate to get "Mom & Pop" pension investors on board to justify future bail-outs when crisis comes round again (see here) (and here)

Compulsory Kiwisaver? Invest in your own Slavery!

2010-07-03T02:38:00.000-07:00

Mr Sam Knowles, CEO of Kiwibank wants us all to be forced to put our hard earned loot into "savings" (or should that be "slavings") - better off stuffing the mattress with it, I recon, or using it for bog-paper for that matter.

"If we have compulsory taxation for retirement, we need compulsory savings. That's part of the balance of individual responsibility," he says. -Isn't that what's called a non-sequetor? shouldn't one of those "haves" and "needs" have a "don't" in front of it. Is this logically fallacious buffoon really a chief executive? One thing's for sure, he's an obedient minion of the Banking Elite (must be looking for a job in the private sector-or be a mate of weary banker John Key) who've got the governments of the world firmly by the short-and-curlies with their credit guarantees and now they're asking wage-earning workers to set themselves up as "human shields" to enable them to carry out a future heist. "Oh help, Mr prime-minister of some government in the not-too-distant future! the banks are failing again! Pleeeeeeze! bale them out again or we'll loose our pensions."

You could call this a lose-lose-lose-lose situation. First, the hard earned gets sucked out of the victims pocket. Next the victim spends years wellwishing those disgusting usurers whom he ought to hate and despise. Then when the banks have another crisis the nations are blackmailed into another support package underwritten by the very same taxpayer whose 10% premium they've been bludgeing for years. Eventually it all goes to custard anyway and the poor sod starves in old age or civil society picks up the tab yet again.

How should pensions work? - see my previous post

Anti-Democratic Elitist Political Class

2010-06-20T13:27:00.000-07:00

One thing that politicians, political scientists and civil servants have in common is that, in the main, they believe that the modern state is far too complex and interconnected with global political and economic forces to function in an autonomous way. That is to say, they believe that sovereignty has to be subservient to these forces. Thus the processes of government become a task of administration within the framework defined by non- democratic institutions such as the United Nations, World Trade Organisation and trans-national corporate businesses.

In order to maintain the credibility of their offices, the political establishment have to give the impression that they are functioning within the remit of democratic government. Thus we have the window-dressing of endless tinkering with minutiae of the law eg. the anti-smacking bill or the new seabed and foreshore act which the commentators say will make very little difference in practice. The proposed referendum on changing the voting system still leaves the same clique in power, albeit in slightly different proportions.

The greatest travesty against democracy in recent times- the suspension of elected Ecan councillors by the Minister for the Environment using his statutory powers shows the true colours of the political class- anti-democratic when is comes to the service of a couple of hundred fat-cat cow-cockies versus the democratic right of 300 000 Cantabrians- because of their slavish belief that the income to the nation of increased milk sales overseas is more important than democracy itself. As Steve Baron of Better Democracy NZ says tongue-in-cheek- "Perhaps we could also repeal representative democracy"- well here you see that repeal in action.

This is what we do for a living

2010-06-17T02:03:00.000-07:00

Kieth Lockes Republican Referendum Bill Falls at the First Hurdle

2010-04-23T03:05:00.000-07:00

Once again, the Green Party (who I ought to be a supporter of, considering my views on the environment) demonstrate their willingness to sup from the poisoned chalice, just as they did with the "anti-smacking bill". The Green party certainly buys into the whole "trust us we know whats best for you" gambit and ought to be a tendency within the Labour party for that is where they belong (the parliamentary party that is, there are many good people within the rank-and-file).

A President as head of state will, for all sorts of reasons that have been discussed here before, NOT deliver a better alternative to the Monarchy UNTIL we throw the treacherous "political class" of all shades out of the beehive and get some sort of mandated, recallable, delegate system going in it's place. This is a core requirement for popular Sovereignty, along with our State resuming sole right for the issuing of Currency, thus ending the disastrous result of centuries of usury that has seen the banks become so powerful that their interests have precedence over the interests of individual and national well-being.

The Political Class want rid of the Monarchy for the same reason they wanted rid of the Privy Council- They don't like ultimate authority vested in some institution that is not dominated by them or cannot be bought by them. For this reason even John Key is a closet republican and would have his party vote for a Republic were it not for the fact that a lot of their core voters are sentimentally attached to the Monarchy.

The best argument against a republic I have seen

2010-03-01T12:50:00.000-08:00

( from stuff.co.nz / comments)

Keith #4 8:22am

Anyone who thinks that becoming a republic is just a matter of having a debate and then signing the legislation off has not bothered to read history. Most republics in history have been born out of war, revolution or constitutional crisis - not debate. And even most nations that became republics in the post-WW2 era have collapsed into some form of military or political dictatorship at some stage of their existence. Republicanism guarantees nothing in terms of democracy, even in countries with a European-based culture. France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Spain all suffered dictatorships in their early republican history and names such as Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and Franco have become by-words for everything that can go horribly wrong in supposedly civilised nations. Even the United States could not avoid a brutal civil war early in its history. South Africa and Rhodesia both declared themselves republics in the belief that breaking their ties with Britain would solve all their racial problems. Instead, it just made things worse. Rhodesia - now Zimbabwe - is an absolute basket-case of a republic ruled by a racist megalomaniac. The republic of Fiji has spent most of its time under military rule. The republic of Turkey has just arrested most of its top military officers on charges of plotting a coup. The Spanish restored their monarchy after the death of the dictator, Franco, because they understood its unifying value in a politically-divided nation. Contrast these events with the relative political stability enjoyed by constitutional monarchies such as Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands and you can see what we have to lose. Yes, New Zealand may become a republic sometime in the future but there is no justifiable political reason to do it now.

We already have a community exchange system, it is called CASH!

2009-12-28T12:32:00.000-08:00

We already have a community exchange system, it is called CASH!

From what I gather from going to a few meetings about currency issues, 97% of all money in circulation is "funny money" that is created by the banks as interest bearing debt. The remaining three percent is cash issued by the government through the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, which unlike the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank is 100% government owned. That's not to say that the RBNZ is a benign institution, as it is still a part of the overall system of usury that is the root of all our problems, but at least our(!) government owns it.

It draws a wry smile from me when I see people I know are involved in TTNZ paying for shopping with eftpos. I wish these people would realise that every time they do this, or write a cheque, take a loan or use the bank in any other way they are "feeding the monster that enslaves them".

Endeavour to transact as much as you can in cash. If you must keep a bank account, keep it with a state supported bank such as Kiwibank. Keep only enough money in it to do the things that you absolutely cannot do with cash. Forget the convenience aspect of it - this is war, and some inconvenience is to be expected.

For me, I guess, this is easier, as we are market sellers of home-grown organic produce, and our customers pay cash. If, however I was doing a job where I had to be paid into a bank account I would withdraw the bulk of it as cash and spend it as cash. Don’t worry too much about security, just hide it well and don’t carry more on your person than you need. Better to be robbed than taken as a slave!

Convert all your spare money as soon as you can into tangible assets such as land, infrastructure and tools. Obviously you need to keep a bit by for emergencies.
Never take credit from a bank! This is the modern equivalent of selling yourself into slavery. Better to go hungry and buy all your clothes in the op-shop.

If the demand for cash is greater then the amount in circulation, it will be increased by the Reserve Bank to ensure that the demand is met. No government can be in a position where people go into the bank to get cash and there is none. More cash transactions mean the banks are starved of their life-blood. If the banking system goes into freefall people will still need to buy and sell stuff and those who have real cash money will be able to transact when the eftpos card is just a piece of worthless junk.

Complementary currencies are just for fun. The IRD won’t allow you to transact your main revenue generating occupation in them and the only thing you seem to be able to get for them is massages and bicycle mechanics. I need to pay the rates and put fuel in the truck and pay my agricultural contractor. Cash will do all these things and the bank can butt-out of my business. Cash is utilised in face-to-face transactions, thus it automatically stimulates the local economy, but is still "legal tender for all debts public and private" where complementary currencies are not.

I would encourage you to keep proper account of your transactions and pay your taxes just as you would have to if running your business through a bank account- squeaky clean keeps you out of jail (mostly).

Who should pay for pensions?

2009-12-24T01:47:00.000-08:00

Historically, that is to say throughout human existence, except for the last, say, sixty years, the welfare of the older generation has fallen upon the younger generation. In it's simplest form this was all well and good. I well remember my Great Grandfather living with my Mothers Aunt and Uncle in the final years of his life and doing what he could as far as gardening and so-forth until his death well into his nineties. Of course the whole system relied on a high degree of social cohesion, although there were many instances of unrelated "friends of the family" being taken in in order to live out their final few years in a modest but civilised environment rather than destitution.
In these days when people have fewer children, and with regard to the lottery that occurs when a person/couple are unblessed by the advent of children, or their sexual orientation precludes the production of offspring and where the general disintegration of the social fabric enables the younger generation to deny responsibility for the wellbeing of their elders, then society has deemed fit for the state to assume that responsibility.

The figures put forward by RogerDouglas are no doubt accurate from an accountants point of view, but to extrapolate the notion of seven percent return on investment over the next several decades is a dangerous nonsense. Forty years ago, with hindsight, any sum invested would yield a huge return, but in that time, limitless growth seemed like a given truth. In 1972, the Club of Rome commissioned the report "Limits to Growth" that attempted to model the interaction of the concept of limitless growth with the realisation that the planet earth does not provide a limitless resource base. So far, 37 years on, the pattern of the global economy has been consistent with their findings.

The consequences are dire for the uninformed investor, but the banking sector has much invested in the concept of "Businesss As Usual Until The End Of The World As We Know It". Any other notion for them is unthinkable.

For us, we have the freedom to visualise a world where Natural Law takes precedence over the artifice of accountancy. We can look forward to a time where our Sovereign Government resumes sole authority to issue money on our behalf and to see an end to the centuries old "crime of usury" perpetrated by the banks that the likes of Douglas, Brash, Key et.al. depend upon for their very existence.

Defense of provocation is gone.

2009-11-27T13:12:00.000-08:00

28 Nov.
The police and crown prosecutors are persuing an agenda of seeking the removal of motive from the equation of criminality. Politicians of all persuasions are easily swayed into this reductionist viewpoint by the promise of cheaper legal proceedings and a higher conviction rate.

The Crown vs Weatherston case, which has been used as a trojan horse for the removal of the defense of provocation, has in fact demonstrated that the defense of provocation was NOT an easy way out for a criminal. A defense counsel has the right to enter a not guilty plea and a duty to argue the case for the defense as best they can. The outcome is for the jury to decide. No-one can doubt that in this case the jury did their duty.

Motive is the very essence of criminality. To remove motive from the equation and to find guilt based solely on the forensics, a smoking gun and a dead body will lead incrementally to the obsolescence of trials by jury as no judgement call will need to be made. Another short step on the road to a bureaucratic and police state.

I believe that the Ellis Family were primed/groomed by the police and/or prosecution to bring, by their statements, the defense of provocation into disrepute. I believe they have been cynically manipulated by a bureaucratic elite who waited for the opportunity of an emotive case (pretty young woman killed by nerdy academic misfit) upon which to fly their flag.

When, at some future date, a battered woman kills her abusive partner and a jury is left with no option but to find her guilty of murder, then the chickens will surely come home to roost. Remember, the defense of self-defence is only valid as an immediate response to an actual physical attack (abuse can take many other forms). One wonders what would be the outcome? Either the woman is found guilty of murder, or the police or prosecution service refuse to prosecute the case for fear of the fallout from the outcome, or the absurdity of a not guilty verdict followed a rash of copycat slayings. The proper outcome – a defense of provocation with a conviction for manslaughter and more or less leniency in the sentence according to the merits of the case – will not be an option.

Herein lies the thin end of the wedge. Repeal of section 59 of the Crimes Act (removal of the defense of reasonable force with regard to child discipline) was the thinnest end. This latest machination (repeal of section 169) is the newest nail in the coffin of common sense. Coming up in the future will be the removal of the (already severely curtailed) defense of self-defence.

29 Nov

With regards to the gay cases vs provocation in the sense of domestic violence, street brawls and so-on there is a huge difference. The disgust or revulsion that a homophobic or racist person feels in a certain situation is generated in their own mind more or less independently of the actions of the person “provoking” that emotion. i.e. it is a product of prejudice. Whereas in “true” provocation the provocateur is actively trying to cause fear or mental anguish in the provoked person. That should be the “legal test”. If the provocateur succeeds in provoking their victim to the extent that the victim reacts in an irrational way, even if the outcome is fatal, then that should be sufficient defence to allow the conviction to be reduced from murder to manslaughter.

The case of the murderer of the gay man being found guilty of manslaughter following the defense of provocation is clearly a miscarriage of justice and if the above test had been applied it ought not to have happened

I cannot accept that “now that murder is punished the same as manslaughter*” it makes no difference if a person is convicted of murder or manslaughter. A murderer is a murderer for the rest of their life, not just for the duration of their sentence. It is a lifelong stigma and for some people murder is an unforgivable sin. ( *In fact this is not true, as in a conviction for murder, there is a presumption to life imprisonment, which is almost never observed by sentencing judges.)

I cannot agree that an abused woman should have no other option than to plead “not guilty by reason of loss of mental faculty”. This amounts to a nice way of admitting a susceptability to “temporary insanity” and pays no recognition to the fact that the abusive partner set out to cause fear, intimidation and mental anguish to the accused. The lawyer may advise it but it is merely a legally expedient construct that does not actually have to be true to be effective in court. I believe the defense of provocation allows the victim of abuse to come out of the situation without stigmatising opinions regarding their sanity. I think both options should exist for the defendant.

“What about the government wanting to reduce the types of trials that are heard before juries, just so that they can speed things along?” I think it is possible that the thinking behind this is not just speeding things along, but also that there is so much rubbish and politically/economically motivated law coming onto the statutes these days that the government are worried that jurors will rebel. Defendants will stand up in court and say “Yes I did it but I’m not guilty” and the jurors will say “good on ya mate” and find them not guilty. I’m talking about, for example, selling traditional medicinal herbs (Yarrow, Tansy, etc) at the farmer’s market and being prosecuted under some “Theraputic Goods Act” for selling “Restricted Substances”.

“The decision should reside in the sentence imposed by the judge not the jury” -and what makes you think that a judge that allowed, perhaps because of his own homophobia, a defense of provocation to be entered despite the fact that in no way could the situation be regarded as truly provocative as opposed to merely inciting revulsion in a prejudiced person- makes you think that this judge will not continue to exercise the very same prejudice in his sentencing?
The law has been debased by the removal of the mandatory life sentence for murder, now it has been further debased by this tinkering with permissible defense and now it seems that in the face of an intelligent debate that should have taken place a long time ago before this wretched bill went through parliament we are all being told to shut up!
Like so much of modern “democracy”, I dare say the whole thing was sewn up in the corridors of power before it even went to the chamber so no proper debate or committee proceedings have taken place, just a cross-party clamour to be seen to be closing a percieved loophole because a couple of senile judges have embarrassed the political establishment with their prejudice and ineptitude.

1 Dec

I just spent half a day re-reading the Law Commission report. Notwithstanding my general objections to the law change, the following glaring omission sticks out like a sore thumb;

Recommendation of Law Commission:

R2. The Sentencing Establishment Unit SHOULD DRAFT A GUIDELINE addressing departure from section 102 of the Sentencing Act 2002 AS IT OUGHT TO OPERATE IF SECTION 169 OF THE CRIMES ACT 1969 (defense of provocation) WAS REPEALED. The guidance should cover not only the relevance of provocation under section 102, but also the range of other mitigating circumstances that might justify rebuttal of the presumption. PRIORITY SHOULD BE GIVEN TO THIS WORK, with a view to ensuring that a draft guideline is available IN TIME TO INFORM THE VIEWS OF THOSE CONSIDERING OUR RECOMMENDATION for repeal.

So the Law Commission saw fit to place this second recommendation alongside that for the repeal of section 169 with sufficient gravity to use terms such as OUGHT and SHOULD, rather than “could” or “may” indicating that they see the sentencing guidelines as vital to the proper interpretation of the law as amended. BUT parliament saw fit to adopt the first recommendation without the second. Of course we can understand the National Party persuing this approach. They don’t like sentencing guidelines on principal as they wish the judiciary to have a free hand to dispense a different level of sentence to “their” class of people as opposed to “our” class of people.

This surely would have been worth a fight over, even if it meant Labour attempting to align with the apalling ACT party and the treacherous MAORI party and the despised GREENS. When will the Parliamentary Labour Party get it into their heads that they are meant to be “Her Majesties Opposition” and it is their duty to OPPOSE. It rather negates their vehement advocacy for the Law Commissioners report that they are only prepared to stick up for half of the commissioners recommendations. The public would in the end give them a lot more Kudos for engaging battle with the Nats than for hitching a ride on the populist bandwagon out of fear of not supporting this emotively hyped law change . After all, the maximum sentence for manslaughter is life the same as for murder (apparently the stigma of being branded a murderer is of no consequence) so the whole issue has only been about not giving defendents the platform to say nasty things about their victims in court. Am I right?

Electoral Reform Referenda 2011 & 2014

2009-11-14T19:57:00.000-08:00

This idea of two referendums is nothing but a sham attempt to defuse discontent over the governments defiance of the electorate in the "anti-smacking" referendum. It matters scarcely a jot which electoral system is in place when the result is government by a political class who persue their own agendas without reference to public mandate and without recall. It is a diversion from the path to direct democracy and is merely window dressing. I for one have nothing but contempt for this circus sideshow.

Better Democracy

2009-10-30T17:39:00.000-07:00

I would like at first to state my support for Steve Baron's Better Democracy campaign for legally binding referendums. The government of New Zealand, in stonewalling the issue of the 87% vote against the "anti-smacking" law is sending a clear message to the citizens of this country that they are not prepared to have the public at large dictate to the political class how they run the country.

The most important thing for them is to demonstrate to their true masters, the global financial community, that they have the public at large on a tight leash and are able to govern without deference to public opinion. Of course the (Trans-) National (Corporation) Party and their far-right allies would dearly love to dump this piece of limp liberal social engineering in order to show faith with their rank-and-file supporters, but there is no capital to be gained by scoring brownie points over the Labour (Bureaucracy) Party this far away from an election and it is far more important to maintain the stability of the political class as a whole so they can carry on gorging at the trough of their taxpayer funded expense accounts whilst doing the bidding of their unelected overlords at the World Trade Organisation, World Bank and United Nations.

When Corporate interests and the Bureaucratic interests work together in this way to subvert the will of the people, this is the very definition of the word FASCISM.