Posts by BenWilson
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Craig, it could be a perfect opportunity to admit to a very understandable mistake. It could be honest. Hell, it could be *interesting*. Stage managed soundbites are really so dull.
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Simon, I agree. I do wonder why even bother having a leader, in that case. There could just be a 'system', by which the will of the people is directly enacted without any need for the anachronism of a king or any supreme leader of any kind. It had seemed to me that Clark served this role well, following polls and acting accordingly.
It seems like one of the annoying triumphs of the political right that they have made it seem that an elected leader should act like a king. Strong, presidential style is seen as good, for some reason, and people who facilitate real debate and then go with the majority are seen as weaklings.
But such is representative democracy. I guess there are just so many people that want someone else to tell them what to do and think. I take heart that MMP has led to public vacillation of the leader of the National Party. It remains the job of whistle blowers to show that this vacillation is real. Not really an efficient system, but it seems to work.
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With Key, more so than with Brash, the question is not about how he want to sell himself, but what he really thinks and will do.
Obviously, at this stage, he's selling himself as centrist. The real question is whether this is accurate. That he has vacillated on every issue doesn't necessarily indicate to me that he doesn't have firm views - it just indicates that he's not sure what image to sell yet, and wishes to delay the questions until he knows a bit more about how his support stacks up.
Which is sensible. So we don't really know much at this stage at all.
What interests me the most is that his fortune was made as a investment banker. When I worked in a stockbroking firm in Oz, I had to support many such folks, and have impressions of the class of person.
-Most of their work is carried out in complete secrecy. To even approach them to fix their computers I had to pass through a 'chinese wall'. But amusingly, that eventually became a matter of smiling winningly at the elderly receptionist. I think winning smiles must be a core skill for IB.
-They make phenomenal amounts of money from no capital at all. I don't know exactly how, but it sort of stands to reason that being exposed to secrets about the movements of massive corporations couldn't have any other outcome. Whether they are simply paid heaps to ensure their honesty, or a blind eye is turned to an acceptable level of insider profiteering, I don't know. Both, probably. But in that firm it was the fastest track to incredible wealth for anyone that didn't already have it. I personally got a massive pay rise almost entirely from responding rapidly to a crazy demand for obscure data from one of them. Wink and nod to my uber-boss, and bingo, I'm in management.
-They are usually very intelligent. It's an extremely competitive business, and the big deals only involve few people, so they're the best people.
The rest is speculation. Some say it's a very devious business. Films like American Psycho further such perception. Certainly the work involves a great deal of ruthlessness - what other state of mind could you ascribe to people who deal in secret to tear companies to pieces, making thousands of people redundant, whilst they profit hugely? Not every deal is like that, sure, but many are. These are the exact people who would be charged with the job of selling off state assets (the firm I worked with made most of one year's profits helping with the privatisation of Telstra).Hence the joke in American Psycho where a high-class hooker asks the anti-hero what line of work he is in, and he replies that he's into 'murders and executions'. She mishears that as 'mergers and acquisitions', her biggest paying clients.
That Key worked in this field for ages is my biggest clue to his nature. The other interesting thing, from Wikipedia, is that his mother is an Austrian-Jew, and his dad died when he was really young. How that doesn't make him jewish himself, rather than the christian he professes, I don't know. Piques my interest. I'm sure there's an innocent explanation. Born again? Must be a convert at least.
Will be very interesting time. He comes away from Hollow Men surprisingly clean - so he's either more discreet, or a better man.
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A little story to warm the cockles of the heart:
My business partner, a very successful software writer, managed to get Telecom to pay back $5000 to him due to pathetic service on one of their most expensive plans.
We both changed our plans simultaneously - I went for the cheaper option with the higher data cap. He went for the faster option with a lesser data cap but much higher touted speeds, on the justification that he might need the speed some days, and he could afford it. That was about a year ago.
Since then his broadband has been slightly worse than mine. He faithfully paid every cent Telecom billed him, and kept every email in which he complained about their pathetic service with constant outages and bandwidth well below promises. We were both network technicians in previous lives, and could readily diagnose where the faults in our networks were, so the constant Telecom attempts to blame local issues could usually be crushed in seconds, usually followed up with one of my partner's favourite lines "Can you please
put me through to someone who has a clue?". We both got pretty good at cutting through Telecom helpdesk bs over the years of fixing up our customer's DSL problems.Finally he cracked, and demanded his money back, threatening legal action. After some perfunctory denials and half arsed attempts to really fix his issues, they have finally agreed to refund him the difference between his service and mine, and have fixed his service too.
I hope this inspires others to hold them accountable too.
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That is impressive, they managed not to get sick during winter once in 5 years.
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"About 25 guests had gathered from around New Zealand for the breakfast meeting, held at the home of Diane Foreman, in St Stephens Ave, Parnell. The guest list included Ruth Richardson, Roger Kerr, Catherine Judd, two ACT MPs, Rodney Hide and Stephen Franks, Auckland mayor John Banks, Business Roundtable chair Rob McLeod, Jenny Gibbs, well known right wing donor Michael Friedlander, various heads of large companies and Independent newpaper editor, Jenni McManus. But notice who was not present: the National Party. The only National MP present was Don Brash, escorted by Bryan Sinclair." - Hollow Men p52
I hope these folks give him as good a send off as his congratulatory breakfast, and that he is always welcome in Brethren churches everywhere. May his kiwifruit remain forever tax deductible.
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Jimmy D, if it could also put some techno to the lyrics you'd be on to a winner.
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He'll retire to a life fitting an ex-almost-PM.
I finally get a quip made on kiwiblog about me! My name is referred to in the book. But it's a different me, some inner circle Nat. No, I'm no whistle blower. Hope I didn't get the real me in trouble by being 'off message' all this time ;-)
Hard News gets a mention as a primary source - p209, see endnotes. I can't actually find the primary in your archives, or indeed any article titled 'Right and wrong'. Was this in the dreaded medium of printed material that I've been indulging in enjoying the retroness of for the last few hours? Those printed archives which will no doubt be lost in the digital future, whilst the digitally published will form the part of the Google cache that will fit into the thumb drives of 20 years from now. Only data archaeologists will be interested in such arcana as print.
That is the kind of footprint Brash was making in his obsessive use of email to document every stupid thing he has done. It could be one of the most famous stupid things ever done with a computer. If only they had a political 'Darwin Awards'.
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A Brethren with email??? He must be the mole.
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Russell, and cite he does...I count 376 references to emails in the endnotes, out of 977 total citations. Some are obviously the same emails, and my count rough (45 pages of endnotes leads to eyes blurring).