Posts by Angus Robertson
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The point made up-thread that Mt Albert's possibly more contestable than people realise is an important one. We don't yet know the impact of Helen's leaving and Labour have to field a strong candidate (I know only two of them and both seem good) to do justice to the local electorate, to Helen's legacy and to combat the popularity of the government.
Mt Albert (2009) is not the electorate it was when Helen Clark took office (1981). The property boom was particularly strong in the central Auckland suburbs, driving out lower income workers. The immigrant communities are now more East Asian and less PI. There has been the overspill of Ponsonby gentrification.
Labour needs to field a right-wing candidate to win and any candidate who is capable of writing policy papers extolling the virtues of private military forces is a good choice. This "gotcha" from National will not hurt David Shearer win Mt Albert, but the implied denial (that Shearer might have a right-ward lean) made by Annette King can damage his chances. Also there is the possibility that the NZ left-o-sphere is about to come out and say David Shearer is completely ideologically pure left wing material - which will be bad.
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Nobody with an ounce of awareness would equate NZ's domestic politics with responses to human catastrophes.
Equate - no, apply common reasoning - yes. Everybody does.
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Michele Malkin going at it with Christy Hardin Smith as a pair of oinking sow - that is funny.
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It just doesn't seem to make sense that a virus would become less virulent as it spreads. Who knows?
The second wave of infected less likely to be living with pigs.
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Really, she actually seemed to have a good point.
By the end of the week there will be a hate crime complaint against Cadbury at one of the Canadian HRCs.
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Even if the US is bankrupt, what do you do about it if you're the prime lender, Hu Jintao, for instance?
Stop giving them money, borrow against the strength of your own economy and invest in local infrastructure projects to stimulate internal consumption and generate more jobs.
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Real world US debt is closer to 125% of GDP.
As far as I can tell the Americans are paying money to their "Cullen Fund", but then borrowing money from the Fund to pay for expenditure, but listing the debt they are borrowing from themselves as assets owned by themselves.
Maybe I am wrong about this adding to the overall debt/GDP ratio, my accountancy is not a strength.
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Plus the US government is a good risk. US public debt is 61% of GDP, which is mainstream (more than NZ, less than Germany). If the US wanted or needed to reduce its debt, it has lots of room to cut spending and increase taxes.
America internalises (hides under carpet) a lot of its public debt by borrowing against its social security trust.
Oh hang on, maybe that's the horror that the wingnuts forsee. Making America behave like other states!
Which will be interesting for a lot of people - not just wingnuts. Normal states account for social security payments on the books, that would see US debt rise by approximately 80%. Also the book value of the TARP "assets" is inflated so there is another $trillion or two to add there.
Real world US debt is closer to 125% of GDP.
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There's a genuine history of violence, and even mass murder, in this fringe: Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, the Unabomber and the various thugs who attacked abortion clinics. They were all the same sort of people that Beck reaches out to.
Glen Beck's veiwers/listeners number about 2.5-3.0 million, the psycho killer whackjob fringe amoung Americans is smaller. Get a big enough set of people following any political cause and yes there will be some whackjobs.