Posts by Alfie
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Speaker: Confessions of an Uber Driver…, in reply to goforit,
the government will have no choice…
I’d like to believe that goforit, but this is the National Party we’re talking about. They’re more likely follow ideology and hold some sort of psuedo-review which recommends removing all restrictions on taxis. Expect phrases like "level playing field" and "benefits to the consumer" to be bandied around. And thousands of existing (legal) taxi drivers to go broke.
After all, this is a US multinational we’re talking about and in the Key government’s eyes, they can never be wrong. Let the market decide!
Of course once the TPP is signed (if ever), Uber will be able to sue the government in a closed kangaroo court run by american lawyers with no right of appeal. And guess who’d win that one?
-
Hard News: The war is still with us, in reply to Rob S,
The Iraq war was primarily an American imposition on the Middle East. Blair was led into it by the fool Bush.
Excellent post Rob. I’d like to add a little about the American motivation behind the Iraq “war”. We know now that it never had anything to do with WMDs. That threat was dreamed up* by the Bush administration as a lowest common-denominator excuse, one that the media and the population would swallow. (*Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz – Vanity Fair interview.
Cheney, Rumsfelt and others had already used the shock of 9/11 to pursue their goal of opening up the US military machine to private companies. The "War on Terror" facilitated the transfer of billions of dollars from taxpayers to private corporations, a rort that continues in the US today.
The Bush neoconservatives were looking for a middle east country to become a “model” for capitalism, one whose economic transformation would serve as a catalyst to inspire other Arab-Muslim countries to join the democratic/neoliberal wave. In a post-9/11 world, Iraq fitted the bill. Apart from its vast oil reserves it provided a central location for military bases. And besides, Saddam’s use of chemical weapons on his own countrymen made him an easy target to hate.
The plan was to win the battle in a few days, then take advantage of a country in shock to privatise the Iraqi economy and open it up to American companies. While winning the war turned out to be more difficult than they’d anticipated, US multinationals including Halliburton, Gilead and Lockheed flocked to Iraq where there were billions to be made.
They installed Paul Bremner as governor (CEO) of Iraq. He took over Saddam’s palace where the US Defence Dept faxed him trade and investment laws which he signed and imposed as law on the Iraqi people. He lowered the corporate tax rate from 45% to a flat 15% and allowed foreign corporations to take 100% of their profits out of the country. The Economist described this as "the wish list that foreign investors and donor agencies dream of for developing markets."
Around $US73b went into rebuilding Iraq, but none of it went to state or local businesses. Nor did they employ locals. The US companies preferred to import their own labour with Halliburton employing 50,000 people in Iraq. They sacked 500,000 state workers, including doctors, teachers and engineers.
A group dominated by high level Mormons called the Research Triangle Institute was given $466m to bring “democracy to the country. They believed they could persuade Muslims to convert to Mormonism. That didn’t go well.
Bremner’s administration also took over $US20b of revenue from Iraq’s national oil company, much of which simply went missing. The war machine made a lot of Americans very wealthy.
This never was a justified invasion. There never were any WMDs. For Cheney & Co this was a giant free market experiment which history will judge as a miserable failure. As Rob said, Blair was taken for a fool, as were many other world leaders who participated in the coalition of the coerced.
Blair had the information to make a wiser decision but decided to suck up the US rhetoric instead. As the former British PM responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people, he deserves to be tried as a war criminal.
Apologies for the lengthy rave.
-
Kerr has been sentenced to an additional 15 months for possessing and selling party pills.
-
Speaker: Confessions of an Uber Driver…, in reply to goforit,
doesn’t actually tell you anything that is useful...
Apart from the fact that Uber has been forced into a minor... nay, a very minor backdown. Every little chink in the armour counts.
And I agree with izogo that Uber is plainly inciting others to break NZ law which should deserve a visit from Mr Plod. At the very least.
-
Speaker: The Government you Deserve, in reply to simon g,
Alfie, you’re giving cherry-picking a bad name. I hope you’re reading all the other Guardian articles as well.
I read the Guardian every day Simon, along with several other European news outlets. We have a son living in the UK and I correspond with several British friends, having lived there for a decade and worked in news for much of that time. I’m a news junkie with an interest in UK politics. We survived a few years under Thatcherism and the feeling I get from people on the ground over there informs my opinions.
Please stop insulting my intelligence, it’s tiresome.
It’s not all about you Simon, and you’ll find that the PAS audience is on the whole more intelligent than you expect.
While I’m not exactly sure what your problem is, it’s starting to feel like you're giving stalking a bad name. If you don’t agree with my opinions then fine, just ignore them and move on. Please!
-
Uber has published its Driver Deactivation Policies for AU and NZ.
-
To those who fail to see the rising groundswell of support in the UK for Corbyn’s style of Labour, I commend read this piece from the heart from Dan Isles. He’s one of the people who found Corbyn inspirational and signed up to the party, doubling its memnership under Corbyn.
Labour has rediscovered its soul under Jeremy Corbyn.
If he goes, so do I
Related Brexit reading:
Nick Clegg – LibDem leader 2007 to 2015
Britain must have a general election before activating article 50Deborah Orr – Guardian columnist
In Brexit Britain the elites will run amokGerman vice-chancellor Sigmar Gabriel
Germany should offer citizenship to young British expats -
Polity: Post "post-truth" post, in reply to despud,
Why do we not see headlines of the form:
“John Key lied about X”Where's "Murray McCully lied and misled parliament" over the Saudi sheep bribe?
While Phil Vine's excellent report Inside the Saudi sheep deal on The Nation finally provided proof and exposed McCully's lies, none of the MSM have picked up on the fact.
-
Hard News: Back in Christchurch, in reply to Emma Hart,
...there’s this thing where you say hello to everyone you pass the way you wouldn’t on a footpath.
Living in a small seaside village where everybody waves or says hello, the few (usually temporary Book-a-Bach clients) who do their best to avoid eye contact really stand out. While they may feel that they're maintaining their privacy, in reality it has the opposite effect and incomers usually stand out like dogs' balls. That was the main reason the people behind the recent big meth-bust-on-the-beach were sprung.
I guess the desire to remain anonymous comes from living in cities, but that connection -- knowing that you're part of a community -- is what makes New Zealand's small towns so damn pleasant to live in.
-
The Nation has an excellent report from Phil Vine on McCully's multimillion dollar Saudi sheep bribe. Producer Tim Watkin follows up on Pundit, suggesting McCully not only mislead parliament but is guilty of pulling the wool over Key's eyes as well.