Posts by Kumara Republic
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Speaker: The Government lost the election, in reply to WH,
We should work on reducing our costs - like housing - instead.
Too right, if NZ can stand up to its unelected House of Land-Lords who have too much to lose from any challenge to the status quo.
We also need to take upskilling a lot more seriously than successive governments have done - in practice that means reskilling at no cost for today's and tomorrow's jobs. Especially for those who need it most, such as people at risk of technological unemployment.
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Speaker: The Government lost the election, in reply to linger,
Joyce has plenty of experience rubbishing others; where he has little experience is in NOT having his bullshit automatically believed by being in government. If he's performing poorly now, that says more about the NZ media's habitual leg-humping of National than about Joyce himself.
Joyce likes to call himself a "Minister of Everything". In practice, he was actually the Minister of Truth, insisting everything was doubleplusgood.
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Hard News: Out of sight, out of mind:…, in reply to Russell Brown,
In that the drugs baby-boomers took were generally safer and more reliable than the drugs their children and grandchildren are getting, yup.
And in many cases, the more dangerous drugs appeared because the safer ones were forced out of the market in one way or another.
And reading of the opioid overdose epidemic in the States, Big Pharma has lobbied heavily against the DEA taking it to task on the matter.
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Hard News: And so it begins ..., in reply to Paul Campbell,
I think Bannon's heading not so much towards treason as towards obstruction of justice
Which was basically what took down all involved in the Watergate scandal. But I suspect this time round, Trump's most die-hard loyalists are an order of magnitude more radical than those who refused to accept the outcome of Watergate. One such Watergate denialist was Roger Ailes, who went on to form Fox News in revenge for Nixon's resignation.
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Speaker: The Government lost the election, in reply to John Farrell,
Andin means this story, I think...
Just as the Hooverites and Forbes-Coatesians were caught off guard by the 1930s Great Depression, today's Thatcherite/Reaganomic holdouts must have slept through the Great Recession and the bank bailouts.
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Hard News: And so it begins ..., in reply to Stewart,
I'm with you on the concern about what the fall-out from this will be. While another American Civil War might be stretching it a bit, they could well be heading down the road to Constitutional Crisis.
There's a lot of Trump-supporting folks out there who are likely to take any impeachment proceeding personally, and to react correspondingly. Interesting times, indeed.
If there isn't a 2nd American Civil War, there could still well be an American Troubles or a Belfast-on-the-Potomac. Already, America has its UDA-in-training in the form of the KKK, Proudboys, Vanguard America & Identity Evropa, with possible know-how and sympathising courtesy of the NRA & Oath Keepers. Who'd be the American IRA? The John Brown Gun Club + Redneck Revolt?
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The political body count so far:
√ Paul Manafort
√ Rick Gates
√ George Papadopoulos
× Felix Sater
× Michael Flynn
× Roger Stone
× Carter Page
× Michael Cohen
× Corey Lewandowski
× Sam Clovis
× Steve Bannon
× Jeff Sessions
× Jared Kushner
× Eric Trump
× Donald Trump Jr
× Donald Trump -
The Economist finally acknowledges that elephant-curve globalisation has fomented Brexitrump-ist nativist-protectionist populism. As for solutions, it still seems hamstrung by a classical liberal world-view. In any case it seems the best way forward is to rescue distressed workers (offering financial aid to adapt & retool) rather than distressed companies (bailouts with no guarantee of long-term ROI).
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We shouldn't have to be reminded that there's nothing edgy or kitsch about dressing up like a Nazi, just crass and pissing on history. Uniforms like that belong in a museum or films set in WW2.
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Hard News: All Change, in reply to simon g,
More international reckons: a UK Tory gets just about everything wrong, worth a read and a giggle.
Even funnier when read out by Rik Mayall in character as Allan B'Stard, if he was still alive.