Hard News: Arrest the bastards at the border
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bah, forget Holmsie and co - I say nice-up and thanks to Big Matt.
Riiiiiiiight!
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When I saw the title of your post, Russ, my first thought was that "the bastards at the border" referred to NZ Customs, and you'd had a bit of strife coming back into the country!!
Which reminds me of a time I saw Christchurch customs officers, obviously bored with their stationing in a provincial outpost, go nuts towards every sunburnt kiwi tourist returning after a week on the Gold Coast....
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It's not often I wholeheartedly agree with Winston Peters...
And there you've lost me, Russell... Sorry, but if Peters wants to pontificate about the 'corruption of politics' in New Zealand, then I think we should line up the people he's slandered under parliamentary privilege, and count how many times his allegations have turned out to have (shall we say) a rather distant relationship to the truth.
BTW, Russell if you find it so objectionable that "Fay and Richwhite buying their way out of an insider trading investigation", then I assume you now support law changes that would require (say) the IRD or WINZ to automatically prosecute in all cases of alleged wrong-doing? What I don't want to see changed is the tiresome notion that even people I don't much like are entitled to the tiresome presumption of innocence thing, even if Winston Peters doesn't agree.
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If that "Faustian pact" reference reads like a criticism of Paul Holmes, I should also add that I think he'd be a very good Dad to have at a time like this. A man who has stumbled himself knows the score. As a parent, my sympathy goes to him and Hine. This stuff's hard enough without being in the middle of a circus.
It was interesting that Millie's name was on telly and in print within hours of arrest. Names are not supposed to be published until the court first reviews the issue. Schadenfreude is not a defence.
Holmes could do them but has stated that the family had no desire to seek suppression and wished to face up to the situation as quickly and as honestly as possible. That shows the integrity that Paul realises his position demands. Many others in public life would have sought to bury this deep on annother continent.
He has impressed me in the middle of a difficult situation that is all responsible parent's worst nightmare.
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Names are not supposed to be published until the court first reviews the issue.
Grey area at best Andrew - there's also nothing actually preventing publication until a court first reviews the issue.
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Sure. But it was one of those conventions the media seemed to gleefully discard
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BTW, Russell if you find it so objectionable that "Fay and Richwhite buying their way out of an insider trading investigation", then I assume you now support law changes that would require (say) the IRD or WINZ to automatically prosecute in all cases of alleged wrong-doing? What I don't want to see changed is the tiresome notion that even people I don't much like are entitled to the tiresome presumption of innocence thing, even if Winston Peters doesn't agree.
Que? The pair have just made the largest settlement of its kind ever in Australasia in order to have the insider trading case halted. For reasons of cost to the Crown and simply having the matter done with, I can see why the SFO would agree to the deal. But I'm hardly going to place a lot of stock in the fact that as part of the settlement they don't have to admit liability. The uncontested facts of the TranzRail story are damning enough.
Thing is, is not even any criminal behaviour that makes me despise those people. It's their behaviour full stop, as detailed so comprehensively by Brian Gaynor. As Shane Jones put it yesterday:
"Why do so many Kiwis have doubts about our capital markets? Why does the current CEO of the sharemarket still struggle to build people's confidence? Because people have not forgotten how these two individuals gorged for their own personal growth.
"They squeaked out of the Winebox but the cork, having been pulled off this bottle, shows the sludge of their wrongdoing hasn't been forgotten by us. Not at all."
Amen.They hurt this country. And the fact that Fay in particular tried to harness a misguided nationalism to further his personal cause sickens me just that little bit more.
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Grey area at best Andrew - there's also nothing actually preventing publication until a court first reviews the issue.
Fair point, Graeme. But I think it might be equally fair comment to compare and contrast how quickly Millie Holmes hit the headlines as opposed to a certain former TV3 newsreader. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall any media outlet being in any rush to 'out' Darren McDonald before his application for name suppression could be heard. (Though, back in 2003, our host did pour some. righteous scorn on the Herald when the sanctimony machine started to crank up.)
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That great Gaynor piece seems to have permanently disappeared from the Herald site, but here's an excerpt from a 1999 Hard News about it:
Most of us probably also missed an amazing piece of analysis by Brian Gaynor in the Business Herald last Saturday. The picture he drew, from information on the public record, had a lot more to say about what's been wrong in this country than any argument on Winebox points of law.
His column was about Michael Fay and David Richwhite and a series of transactions in which their merchant bank was involved between 1986 and 1993 - involving their companies European Pacific, Capital Markets and Fay, Richwhite and the Bank of New Zealand, Tranz Rail and Telecom.
In the course of five major transactions, Fay and Richwhite personally pocketed over half a billion dollars - at the same time as their minority shareholders lost $277 million. Someone of less moderate inclination than Gaynor might say that they basically raped their shareholders.
And the worst of it is, the government helped them do it, handing them sweetheart deals like the Telecom share option arrangement in September 1993, which allowed Fay and Richwhite to pocket $274 million from Telecom share sales without having to put up a penny in advance. While they wallowed around in cash, their shareholders made precisely nothing.
I apparently offended one Fay, Richwhite employee so much last week that he signed off the Hard News mailing list. In which case, let me say that again: anybody who believes those two ratbags to be any kind of heroes, any sort of role models, is utterly deluded. Disgust seems too weak a word for how I feel about those people.
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Heh heh - don't sugar it up guys, tell it like you see it!
No doubt this is mentioned in one of those links above, but where do the Fay Rich Whites live these days?
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merc,
Monty Fay and Smithers Richwhite, the Simpsons is cast in NZ.
Also who backed Key's selection? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fay_Richwhite -
I believe they're tax exiles in Switzerland.
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Arrested on Sunday. TV told. No chance for suppression. Monday the debate on middle class P use is in full flight. Is this the police using celebrity deliberately to fuel debate?
By the way. What should we do to the passports of the politicians who sold state owned monopolies to private equity firms and then claim they opened the economy and deserve our undying respect?
Economic Theory. There's only 1 thing worse than a state owned monopoly and that's a private one.
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But I'm hardly going to place a lot of stock in the fact that as part of the settlement they don't have to admit liability. The uncontested facts of the TranzRail story are damning enough.
Well, fair enough - just as there are (I would respectfully suggest) people who don't place much store in the probity of tens of thousands of beneficiaries who've clearly received money they're not entitled to, and WINZ has exercised their discretion and declined to prosecute for welfare fraud. Now, if some excitable MP stood up and said this was proof of widespread corruption in WINZ and political cronyism on the part of the Labour Party, I think someone would be told to calm down a little bit.
As Shane Jones put it yesterday:
"Why do so many Kiwis have doubts about our capital markets? Why does the current CEO of the sharemarket still struggle to build people's confidence? Because people have not forgotten how these two individuals gorged for their own personal growth.
"They squeaked out of the Winebox but the cork, having been pulled off this bottle, shows the sludge of their wrongdoing hasn't been forgotten by us. Not at all."
Amen.They hurt this country
Well, with all due disrespect to Mr. Jones,what has the rolling farce over his role on the board of Te Ohu Kaimoana done for the repuation of Maori in business or politics? Or dare I say it, allied suspicions among Maori that the Business Brown Table look after themselves and the flaxroots can get stuffed? Bugger all.
And before Mr. Jones gets too sanctimonious, it's also worth remembering that he had no problem with voting for legislation to retroactively legalise his own party's election over-spending, and the rorting of the public purse by all parties that I doubt many Kiwis will remember with any degree of affection.
I have no esteem for Messers Fay and Richwhite. But please spare me the shit-breathed piety from the likes of Jones and Peters.
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. . . tens of thousands of beneficiaries who've clearly received money they're not entitled to . . .
Tens of thousands? Is that right? Got a link for that?
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Well, fair enough - just as there are (I would respectfully suggest) people who don't place much store in the probity of tens of thousands of beneficiaries who've clearly received money they're not entitled to, and WINZ has exercised their discretion and declined to prosecute for welfare fraud. Now, if some excitable MP stood up and said this was proof of widespread corruption in WINZ and political cronyism on the part of the Labour Party, I think someone would be told to calm down a little bit.
Sorry, you've lost me there. I can't divine a comparison and I'm really not sure what you're saying.
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Yeah Craig, time to jump of that miniature pony of yours and think about what comparisons you are making. Two individuals who managed to fleece the country of $100's of millions, as well as arguably set up some rotten private monopolies (costing businesses and the public billions more) and all you can do is whitter on about some mythical levels of benefit fraud.
Your moral relativism is bizarre to say the least...
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Regardless of the legality of whatever they've done in the past, there's something that always gets me kinda worked up; how can people (not just these parties in particular) sleep at night?
Making more money than anyone could ever spend, without producing anything tangible...it sure would be nice, but I don't think I could stomach it.
Brings to mind a NOFX song called 'The Irrationality of Rationality', which has a lyric 'When one makes $20 million, that 10,000 people lose, what keeps that one from swallowing a shotgun?'
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try as I might I can't find any link between anything in your post, Craig, and Fay Ritchwhite, oh, and I have add to the previous poster's query...when do certain pollies have to pony up and answer a few questions about all this.
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when do certain pollies have to pony up and answer a few questions about all this.
Well, I am sure Richard Prebble could give us a few more funny and timely anecdotes about the inefficiencies of NZ Rail during his glorious days of control there.
Rogan, they were doing for the good of the country, and you know, if they had not earned so much some other country might have tried to poach them away from us. Then where would we be...
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The quarter billion Telecom share option was a doozy. Not a penny down. Gibbs was also an option holder and now all that money is making amphibious cars. AND NOT EVEN IN NZ!!!
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It is precisely these sorts of envy politics that force great entrepreneurs such as Fay and Richwhite to flee the country to more welcoming shores, and should they ever want to return, be compelled to purchase islands off New Zealand's shore.
If you can buy your way out of an insider trading case, why shouldn't you be able to? This is the free market at work, whereby capital is gained through exploitation of opportunities, with some of the profit reaped set aside to deflect legal attention at a later stage.
This method of operation is not for everyone of course. Only those savvy enough, and wealthy as a result, can avail themselves of it.
Those who fall outside this category must be punished by the full force of the law, as they cannot pay. Again, this is the natural order of things and fighting it with artificial ethical or similar constructs is abhorrent and inefficient in economic terms.
By gracefully handing over $20 million, have the pair not saved the New Zealand tax payer vast amounts of money that would otherwise have lined the pockets of lawyers? I say it's time for a second benighthood and gongs galore to messieurs Fay and Richwhite!
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Can someone who has Juha's contact details please let him know Craig appears to have gained access to his PublicAddress account?
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When a very canny businessman pays $20 million for something, you can be sure it was because it was a good deal.
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Did you mean to write "a good steal" up there, Stephen?
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