Sub-editors all at sea on dingy Stuff

a second search shifting to locating a dingy

I guess the sub-editors at Stuff are all at sea today looking for a dingy dinghy.

Trust, reputation, integrity, fiducary responsibility...

Wall Street, as it has been throughout time is based on trust, reputation, integrity and the knowledge that the firm has its clients best interests in mind as they have a fiduciary responsibility to do.

The belief that any of the previous paragraph is true is where the problems begin.

Understanding Derivatives

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Chicago.

She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar. To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.  Heidi keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).

Word gets around about Heidi's "drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi's bar. Soon, she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Chicago. By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages.
Consequently, Heidi's gross sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Heidi's borrowing limit.  He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral.

At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS.  These "securities" then are bundled and traded on international securities markets. Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as "AAA Secured Bonds" really are debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi's bar. He so informs Heidi. Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed alcoholics, they cannot pay back their drinking debts.

Since Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Heidi's 11 employees lose their jobs.  Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%.

The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank's liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.

The suppliers of Heidi's bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the BOND securities.  They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and lose over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.

Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.

Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multi-billion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the government.  The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, nondrinkers who have never been in Heidi's bar.

Now do you understand?

(Source unknown)

Now about that "are saved and bailed out by a multi-billion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the government".  Sounds just like the economy long espoused by certain rabid greenies here in New Zealand right up to last week.

flogged from here without apology

Greenies causing climate change

Researchers from the Met Office established a direct link between levels of industrial pollution and the frequency of hurricanes in the North Atlantic. 

For much of the 20th century, sooty pollution in the atmosphere has made conditions unfavourable for the storms, causing their numbers to drop. 

But since the 1980s, cleaner air over the Atlantic has created better conditions for hurricane formation, with more tropical storms developing and battering American and Caribbean coasts as a result. 

Aerosol pollutants in the air make clouds brighter, causing them to deflect more sunlight directly back into space, scientists explained. 

Greater concentrations of aerosols affect ocean temperatures and circulation patterns in a way that makes it harder for hurricanes to form, but cleaner air in recent decades has resulted in more favourable conditions for tropical storms.

Well, once again the law of unintended consequence strikes as Mother Nature seeks to balance the effects of rabid greenie ferals on our daily lives. 

Time to light the fire and do my bit to get those soot levels to where they should be.

Stroppy sheilas on the out

national council of women is in financial trouble

troubles arise from loss of charitable status (leading to some rather large tax bills) 

There's a report over at The Bent Mirror that their charity coven of political activists previously enjoying minimal tax status courtesy of the taxpayer is now against the wall.  As is the norm, the business model of such organisations fail Financial 101 without the taxpayer dime.  Not to mention the sudden waning interest once the prospect of a cosy desk job disappears.

Of course, there are the usual screams 'won't someone think of the wimmin'.

it's a huge backwards step.  we need a strong organisation that is able to do the research and provide the policy advice on issues that impact the lives of women.  we need a strong & organised voice, one that is able to continuously challenge prevailing attitudes, cultural norms & institutional practices

Need?  Really?   Fund it yourselves.  A little volunteering goes a long way.  As for changing attitudes, wimmin seem to have held their own place in the homo sapiens species over millenia without any of my taxpayer wedge.  Long may it continue.

Far be it my place as a mere male to make further comment, but in my view having less stroppy sheilas in your face can only be a good thing.

"not just unethical, it's immoral"

 Mana party is promising to give Maori no deposit, low interest home loans funded from the Government's coffers

not just unethical, it's immoral

Damned right!  If you are not carrying the right genes, you will not be eligible for this barefaced electoral bribe.  But you will pay!

cut out banks and their mean-spirited attitude to Maori

scheme had not been costed ...  issue isn't about cost; it's about priorities

Mr Hatfield is stepping up a gear.  But definitely unethical and immoral as New Zealand rushes headlong into the apartheid state.  And white mofos will be left to pay.

Just wondering...

In a just released decision by the Electoral Commission, the party has been given the go-ahead to file its documents electronically but still faces a six to eight-week wait till its registration is confirmed.

Eh?  6-8 weeks???  You've got to be joking.  Surely the EC has the registry of eligible electors in suitable electronic form squirreled away in a database somewhere.  If you can't find it, your mates at the GCSB or the Yanks in the NSA will tell you where it is. 

After all, the esteemed Hairdo has been allowed to submit his 500 names electronically.

Just how long does it take to write and run a comparison script?  No many could write such a script in BASIC (remember that?) to do that job in minutes. 

Surely not in this modern age they are doing a manual comparison at 12 names a day?  Let's face it, there's nothing else like an election to count going on in the EC's orbit at present.

So I was just wondering why they need 6-8 bloody weeks to complete this task?

Mr Key, the pricks over at the Electoral Commission need a rocket up their backsides.

That didn't take long for the ferals to turn up

the issue of the five permits tramples on environmental, Maori and private land ownership values

Greenie ferals and the eternally victimised with their pet taniwhaii have arrived on the scene.  That didn't take long. As previously noted.

Won't be long before the haggling begins over the bribe to be paid by the taxpayer.   With a long established pedigree of prostituting rights for money, the only argument on the street corner will be the size of the koha bribe.

Dingo Chief of Army confirms he wants a bunch of pussies

There is no place for you among this band of brothers and sisters

The rot in our Defence Forces starts at the top with pricks like this confirming he's happy to be in charge of a bunch of pussies and eunuchs.

No wonder our troops get killed when real world pressure goes on.  You think the Taleban gives a flying f**k about being "a feminist hero"? 

Harden up, your prime job is to kill, not to be nice to your fellow man.

All I can say is I'm thankful to no longer be part of an organisation that espouses such feminist views.

Drill, Baby, Drill

an exciting opportunity for Northland and for New Zealand

is significant potential for the country to grow the economic contribution

Aaah.  The fishy smell of taniwhaii about to surface as various locals will look to get their cut of the action.  And as is normal politicians of all stripes will freely piss in their pockets to quench the stench with my taxes of yet more 'full and final' offerings.

And no doubt the place will be inundated with unwashed feral greens and their carbon guzzling MPs  lauding the positive effects of mining our minerals for sale.  I think not.

Web hoster off air? [update - back online]

It looks like local web hoster www.webworld.co.nz went off air overnight and has taken my mates website with it.  And no doubt a few others.  Thankful that he has a backup.

A community notice to start your day.

[update]

webworld is now back online at around 0825.  I note without any message to say why.

Why the Nats haven't stood against Lyin' Len

Housing Minister Nick Smith has told Auckland Mayor Len Brown to get a move on with the Unitary Plan so more houses can be built in Auckland

a "head-on collision" was looming because Auckland Council would not sign an accord which fast-tracked 39,000 new homes

councils rejected a law change which gave ministers power to override council plans

That should do it.  Lyin' Len will be sidelined before the election.  No need to waste your time in October voting for Len, for the government will have taken over the reins, in the same manner as they did a couple of years ago with that regional council of troughers down on the Mainland.

That will be why the Nats haven't stood candidates in JafaLand.  You heard it here first!

"I'm pretty sure the voters will be interested in that sort of thing"

questions about the fundraising "came as a big surprise"

said he would give the money to charities and the community

He was not entirely aware of the situation

unable to give the money back

One of Hone's would be MP's has been practising for future office, using fiscal sleight of hand and offering lame excuses when caught with his fingers jammed in the till.  Unfortunately a principled would be MP from the other racist party doesn't like the dodgy accounting.  Like criminals, there is no honour amongst politicians.

Labour candidate Meka Whaitiri said it was not an issue she was concerned about

 Nikora has said in previous interviews that he redistributed all of the money given

He's in good company.  The Labour candidate fully supports the rort.  But then Labour have had years of dodgy accounting.

We have to think of this in not so much a money way but in a Maori way

It's high time the disinfectant of sunlight was extended into the dark recesses of the Maori way bribes and palm greasing, particularly on the East Coast.  Fully transparent electoral finance legislation would be a start.

1Law4All Update

A comment I've just made over at Not PC

Greig, You can keep 'wasting your vote' with your party of choice - Libz, a party of high ideals, even a few I like, particularly small government, but something is very wrong with the implementation.

Although I'm open to correction, nowhere in the world have Libz parties made significant traction at the ballot box, managing to get their ideology into the limelight.

Hell, even in New Zealand other small parties have proven to be able to shame some of the larger parties into sorts of action (witness brekkie in schools this week, something I disagree with though), but not Libz.  So for me, they'll always be in the realm of theoretical nutters but possibly with some good political ideas.

Every foul epithet possible might be directed at 1Law4All, but like others agree in the commentary above, something different in our government has to be done, a different route has to be travelled to deflect New Zealand off the insidious track to apartheid down which it has sped in the past 3O years.

Once purged of the scourge of racist legislation based on genealology, the way may well open for other new initiatives such as small government and a written constitution embracing all irrespective of colour or creed.

Hell, along the way there might even be room for my inner tree hugger to surface with a view to look after some of our degraded environments, but not at the expense of a developing economy which would encompass mining resources on land and at sea. That's for the future to get our economy back on track and balanced via serious reductions in government outgoings.

I for one am willing to step onto to that path, one I had hoped Nats might travel, but have proven to be nothing less than profligate liars in recent times. 

As a side note, I had never heard of 1Law4All till this morning, but have long wished for such a party.

I see RedBaiter has something similar - often screamed at and written off as certifiable, he too appears to have had a gutsful of the direction of New Zealand politics.

Yes!!!

One law for All

Where National should be, but chose to slide leftward.

ht Not PC

Exactly!

problem debt, substance abuse, poor decision-making, and a history of neglect were common reasons why some parents were not taking full responsibility for their children.

there are people that spend money in ways that perhaps some of us think they shouldn't be and are not putting their children first

not so much lack of money, but lack of ability or willingness on the part of a significant group of families to spend it wisely

Exactly!  Parents need to sort out their priorities towards their children.

Government benefits were enough for most people to get by on

It's not as if there isn't enough to go around with all the welfare being sprayed around, but today we have another sob story of her own making with loans to pay and running a car. 

INCOME:
$293 from Winz, plus $120 rent assistance.
EXPENSES:
$285 rent. $30 electricity. $60 loan repayments to the bank and people to whom she owes money.
$38 left for petrol, food and unplanned expenses.

Ditch the car, that will save $45 a week for a start, then do everything possible to kill the loan.

It's all about priorities and putting your children first.

"there will be a clean out"

The wet wing of the National Party control the senior ranks of the party and cannot be easily replaced without losing an election. After National loses an election there will be a clean out.

In my view, the rout cannot come quick enough.  National needs to lose this election to ditch the leftward facing liberals and get back to core principles, putting the country on the fast track to fiscal and moral balance.

A long time overdue, politics in New Zealand needs marked separation of those with nominally conservative values from parties that sit on the centre-left fence. 

The first organised group to professionalise and fund politics properly will obtain prime mover advantage and control the market for sometime. This is a one-off opportunity to exploit the gap in the market

I'm sick of being offered lily-livered liberal time-servers ever willing to trade principles for my vote.  As far as I'm concerned, National squandered any advantage with their pandering to the racist Maori Party and continues to move ever leftward.

there needed to be a focus on "taking over the public sector" to create a pool of fiscal conservatives who would work with politicians

Union money will not be able to match business money

show MPs "the consequences of ignoring donors"

Damned right!  The public service is riddled with Labour stooges ever willing to work against a centre-right government, particularly through leaks and indoctrination via our schools.  One only has to see the cocky school principals on telly this week always working against the government.

I look forward to Mr Lusk having a greater role in a seriously right facing future government when the nice Mr Key is rolled at the next election.  I and no doubt many others are looking for somewhere else to place my vote in 2014.  Yes, the National party does need to clean house.