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Most viewed
Top 10 at 10: Italy warns Britain on debt; Lehman's Repo 105 scandal; Dilberts
Here are my Top 10 links from around the Internet at 10am. I welcome your additions and comments below or please send suggestions for Tuesday’s Top 10 at 10 to bernard.hickey@interest.co.nz
1. Brace for it - Ambrose Evans Pritchard at The Telegraph does his patriotic duty and points out a warning about British debt from an Italian bank. Mama Mia! What has the world come to. HT Andrew Wilson via email.
UniCredit has alerted investors in a client note that Britain is at serious risk of a bond market and sterling debacle and faces even more intractable budget woes than Greece.
"I am becoming convinced that Great Britain is the next country that is going to be pummelled by investors," said Kornelius Purps, Unicredit 's fixed income director and a leading analyst in Germany.
Mr Purps said the UK had been cushioned at first by low debt levels but the pace of deterioration has been so extreme that the country can no longer count on market tolerance.
"Britain's AAA-rating is highly at risk. The budget deficit is huge at 13pc of GDP and investors are not happy. The outgoing government is inactive due to the election. There will have to be absolute cuts in public salaries or pay, but nobody is talking about that," he told The Daily Telegraph. "Sterling is going to fall further over coming months. I am not expecting a crash of the gilts market but we may see a further rise in spreads of 30 to 50 basis points."
2. It's all coming out now - Details about how Lehman misled investors in the final few months before the collapse are now coming out. It's all about a tool called a 'Repo 105.' NPR has a useful explanation of how Lehman used the Repo 105. Essentially Lehman covered up US$50 billion of debt from investors, regulators and counterparties. How many other US investment banks did this? HT Gertraud via email. Ernst and Young are in the firing line on this one. Will it turn into E&Y's version of Anderson and Enron?
Related Topics
Here's the full Lehman Brother Chapter 11 Examiner's report, which has plenty of of juicy details.
Lehman accounted for Repo 105 transactions as “sales” as opposed to financing transactions based upon the overcollateralization or higher than normal haircut in a Repo 105 transaction. By recharacterizing the Repo 105 transaction as a “sale,” Lehman removed the inventory from its balance sheet.
Lehman regularly increased its use of Repo 105 transactions in the days prior to reporting periods to reduce its publicly reported net leverage and balance sheet.
The Examiner described to Secretary Geithner how Lehman used Repo 105 transactions to remove approximately $50 billion of liquid assets from the balance sheet at quarter-end in 2008 and explained that this practice reduced Lehman’s net leverage.
3. Here's a Dylan Ratigan video from MSNBC on the Lehman Repo 105 issue. HT Troy
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
4. The Chinese boom - Charles Hugh Smith from DailyFinance.com has a useful overview of the real estate boom in China that is being driven by local governments targeting growth figures. HT Hugh
The key difference between China's current real estate bubble and the U.S. bubble that popped in 2007 is this: In the U.S., it was individuals and lenders who made overleveraged, speculative bets via subprime mortgages. In China, explained Northwestern University researcher Victor Shih to NPR, the leveraged debt fueling the speculation comes from local governments, which have borrowed trillions of dollars worth of funds from China's banking system to develop real estate projects in their jurisdictions.
Shih has found that almost 50% of the Shanghai government's revenues come from land sales, and local governments have come to rely on this income.
"Local governments now are forming their own real estate developers and would actually buy land from themselves. As this becomes more common -- and it is becoming very, very common -- then local governments have a high stake in maintaining and increasing the value of real estate in their own jurisdiction," Shih observed.
5. Tracking the toxicity - NPR's Planet Money is an excellent example of public service journalism funded by the public. I think it's a great model for Radio New Zealand (hint there is sponsorship involved) Here NPR have done something very clever. Their journos bought a toxic mortgage security to watch up close and personal what was happening inside it. There's a great interactive chart to go with it. HT Troy Barsten via email.
6. Ominous noises - The noise in the propaganda war between America and China over China's peg to the US dollar is getting a little ominous. Some are beginning to worry about it turning into the sort of trade war that deepened the Depression during the 1930s. A trade war between America and China would be the last thing the world (particularly Australia and NZ) would want. The FT reports on the growing tension. The key moment will be whether the US labels China a 'currency manipulator'. The deadline for this is mid-April.
Wen Jiabao, Chinese premier, has warned other countries that pressing China on currency policy amounts to protectionism and insists that the renminbi was not undervalued. Mr Wen said on Sunday that China would continue to reform its currency system. But he pushed back strongly against international pressure on the level of the exchange rate, which is becoming a flashpoint in relations with the US.
Mr Wen said he understood that countries wanted to increase exports but said they should not resort to what he described as protectionism. “What I don’t understand is depreciating one’s own currency, and attempting to pressure others to appreciate, for the purpose of increasing exports. In my view, that is protectionism,” Mr Wen said.
China’s currency has been in effect pegged to the US dollar since mid-2008, which Beijing argues brought stability to the international economy during the financial crisis. However, international pressure on China to strengthen the renminbi is rising, especially from the US where the Treasury department must decide by mid-April whether to label China a “currency manipulator”.
7. Trojan Horse of Debt - This New York Times piece on the debt problems of Greek mobile phone company Wind Hellas is an interesting insight into the world of private equity. As the tide goes out many of those crazy debt-fueled deals done from 2005 to 2007 are now starting to unravel and the recriminations are starting. There's a few of these doing that here in NZ. Mediaworks and Yellow Pages (see below) are just two.
A once-healthy company that is Greece’s third-largest mobile phone operator, Wind Hellas was taken over in a 2005 buyout by two global private equity giants: Apax Partners out of London and the Texas Pacific Group, led by David Bonderman. The two firms larded Wind Hellas with debt before selling it off just two years after they bought it.
Wind Hellas filed for the British equivalent of bankruptcy protection last fall, and now some investors are trying to figure how such a promising enterprise went aground.
Bertrand des Pallières, the chief executive of SPQR Capital, a London investment firm, was one of the larger bondholders in Wind Hellas. He says the decision by Apax and T.P.G. to heap debt onto the company while simultaneously extracting so much cash from it ultimately contributed mightily to its woes.
“The private equity industry always pitches how constructive it is as an investor force to create jobs and growth,” says Mr. des Pallières. “But there are private equity funds that get rich by breaking companies and making others poor — whether they are creditors, states or employees.”
The company had little debt — 166 million euros — before the buyout and boasted shareholder’s equity of almost 500 million euros. Then Apax and T.P.G. came calling.
Major banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, financed Project Troy. Apax and T.P.G. put approximately 450 million euros into TIM Hellas as equity, but this money was returned to the firms less than a year later after the phone company issued a round of debt.
The private equity firms also received consulting fees worth 2 million euros per year, company filings show. In addition, Apax and T.P.G. received 15 million euros for “business advisory services rendered in connection with debt placement and preparation of business and strategic plans,” according to the company’s 2005 annual report.
8. Lo and behold - Along the same theme, Tim Hunter at the Sunday Star Times reports that New Zealand's own Yellow Pages is essentially in the hands of its bankers after the private equity guys that bought it off Telecom overpaid and loaded it up with too much debt. Thank goodness the retail bond issue that Yellow Pages tried to get away didn't get off the starters block. Telecom's decision to flick it looks to have been Theresa Gattung's best decision.
"It's clear the value's been so buggered they can't really recapitalise the business," said one source. A potential outcome involves the banks taking control of the business by appointing a receiver, who would try to recover money through a sale of YPG.
Losers in that scenario could be the private equity investors led by CCMP Capital Asia (now known as Unitas Capital) who include a pension fund for teachers in Ontario, and holders of about $307m of subordinated debt.
The failed (retail) bond offer left about $300m of subordinated debt in the hands of corporate financiers – a silver lining in the cloud, said one commentator. "The big positive is they got stuck with it and not the retail market."
9. Yay for the Aussies - It seems one of the few regulators not to be fooled by Lehman's Repo 105 was the Reserve Bank of Australia, according to Tyler Durden at Zerohedge, citing the Examiner's report.
One central bank, half way around the world, knew all too well what was going on at Lehman - the Reserve Bank of Australia. Which is why we nominate the RBA's chair, Glenn Stevens, to be direct supervisor of the entire ungodly and corrupt mess that is Wall Street (and to make Ben Bernanke his butler)
10. Totally irrelevant video - This is a version of the infamous Hitler rant/speech video that talks about the Wellywood. I've seen this video done so many times that I thought I wouldn't laugh. But I did. Hilarious for those who have gone through Wellington Airport.
41 Comments
#3. Is that the correct
#3. Is that the correct video?
Yes the China story...how esle
Yes the China story...how esle can they get almost 10% GDP growth with the world in recession ?? It's all a goverment play. In the end the Chinese banks will be holding the can but they will be bailed out by the goverment using their huge reserves. The story has to end somehow except we cannot predict when. But as their external surplus shrinks due to lower trade levels, their reserves shrinks until they can't afford this extravagance any longer.... then the whole world implodes.
Chinese Goverment now has to continually fuel ther property market to mantain their own balance sheet until the whole thing topple over. Case in point is the world's largest mall in Gaungzhou...still 80% empty after 2 years. The banks are absorbing the losses because the developer is the regional goverment...until they can't. But that may take a while.
Similarly in Hong Kong and Singapore, goverment has to keep the property market high because the goverment is the largest land and property owner...and Land sales and property development charges is the largest revenue source....guess what will happen if property tanks ??
And re 'their huge reserves',
And re 'their huge reserves', kin. A goodly chunk of China's last 30 years worth of savings is tied up, one way or another, in USA debt. I wonder how they would take to the value of their savings being 'inflated' away? Depreciation isn't an issue as they're tied to the dollar ( devalue the yuan if they want better value?) That's another reason I see China having an incentive to hold back global inflation with an interest rate rise.
Nicholas My apologies. Yes wrong
Nicholas
My apologies. Yes wrong video. Fixing now.
cheers
Bernard
Nicholas. Fixed now. Try again.
Nicholas.
Fixed now. Try again. My apols
cheers
Bernard
You know something kin...when you
You know something kin...when you say "... now has to continually fuel ther property market to mantain their own balance sheet until the whole thing topple over.(sic).." I think Noddyland and the banks and the govt and the RBNZ!!!!
Wall Street - fraud upon
Wall Street - fraud upon fraud, all aided by Geithner and the NYFed - has the place and it's institutions got any credibility left?
The revelations revealed by the Lehman examiner are, no doubt, just the tip of the iceberg.
Q/ Do the PTB think this is all going to go away and they can resume the looting after a handful of prosecutions?
A/ YES!
PS. changed my login to avoid confusion with the other David.
#10. Wgtn should bring back
#10. Wgtn should bring back the sign in flowers. If I was not so apathetic I would start a campaign... maybe tomorrow.
Re 6 - when there
Re 6 - when there ain't enough to go around, you have a war over it. USA is irretrievably broke, China is the pretender. Politicians deflect civic angst at a target (Red, Yellow, Terrorist or Taliban) and it's a countdown to high noon.
NZ is as good a spectator seat as they get .....
@powerdownkiwi Agreed, bring your favorite
@powerdownkiwi
Agreed, bring your favorite lawn chair and cooler of beer. The meteorite storm will be spectacular.
BTW the Lehman Brother Chapter 11 Examiner’s report is the gift that keeps on giving. I think Timmy G. will be on the shopping block soon!
I don't get the big
I don't get the big deal with lehmans - Has'nt the fed taken billions of bogus mortgage debt form US banks in exchange for cash to keep them liquid?
@ Kin, Interestingly China can
@ Kin,
Interestingly China can not use it's foreign reserves to bailout its banks. It's one of those weird sovereign accounting facts that make macroeconomics so interesting and difficult. Essentially it boils down to the fact that since China's central bank had no role in generating the reserves none of them actually belong to it. It's there as an accounting identity and is canceled out by equivalents debts on the other side of the balance sheet. This is what makes our out of balance global economy so interesting and dangerous.
@Simon, yes China can use
@Simon,
yes China can use it's reserve to bail out it's bank. No doubt the money belongs to somebody else other than the Chinese goverment, but there is nothing to stop the Chinese goverment in using this money to buy shares (Bailout) in it's banks instead of buying US Securities. In essence the foreign exchange will be monetised into local currencies. Most CB don't do this as it would increase the money base and create inflation, but if there is a deflationary impact due to bank failures, the chance of inflation is minimal.
Book wise the Central Banks owe the USD to it's local banks/exporter in form of liabilities but in form of Assets, it has shares of Local Banks. Much like what the Fed is doing with US Banks.
After Arthur Anderson in the
After Arthur Anderson in the Enron scandal is it now the turn of Ernst & Young in the Lehman scandal ? Will Dick Fuld go the way of Ken Lay ?
@Simon: I think you are
@Simon:
I think you are confusing ownership with existence.
It is quite possible that others in China may have a claim on the reserves, but China as a whole (the govt, people, coroporations - everything) really does have those reserves.
Whether they are applied to rescue banks (for example) is therefore a social / political question - not one of availability of funds.
Alan.
I should learn to refresh
I should learn to refresh before posting - sorry for repeating your points kin!
Alan.
So basically, in the last
So basically, in the last 3 decades the financial world got so clever it outsmarted itself and destroyed enormous amounts of wealth built up by people who actually produce stuff.
Luckily for us in this time of need we have elected a PM and deputy PM who are both from the financial world (and only ever been enriched by it - never impoverished) and thus lack any enthusiasm for going after all these crooks. Obama, Key, Brown, they're all as weak and myopic as each other.
@Troy and PdK i look forward to your lawn party for the coming meteorite shower. It will be spectacular but I bet we won't all walk away from it.
ps I couldn't help but notice that in Key's public utterances about mining on crown land he talks about protecting our image and tourism industry but never actually mentions protecting the environment. Interesting words from a careful speaker like Key.
He's script-written for. Very carefully.
He's script-written for. Very carefully. Apart from the 's', and you can tell when he ad-libs - the syntax go out ther window. He wasn't taught ology for nothing....
Quite right, though, Greg. No mention. Carter is running up the 'grazing in DoC land' flag now. They don't get it, do they?
If Tolstoy will excuse me - Doubling-time, all is doubling-time.
And while we're on the
And while we're on the subject on sneakiness, how about a straw poll on whether Auckland's water will be privatised as a result of the new super-council rules, whether Key is confortable with that and maybe even if that was his plan all along to let Hide introduce it so Key could deny it was his idea.
Very Kissingerian - just without the war crimes.
Their problem with that, is
Their problem with that, is that you can always nationalise things, and if the majority will be better off by doing so, they will go there.
Watch for the quashing of referenda!
Their other problem, is whether their siphoned wealth (these types don'rt do productivity or social-usefulness) still exists, post the fiat collapse. It's only a series on 1's and 0's stored electronically, when all is said and done.
Wally has the high ground re permanent wealth! :)
Greg out West Says: "And
Greg out West Says:
"And while we’re on the subject on sneakiness, how about a straw poll on whether Auckland’s water will be privatised"
It's becoming obvious that the Act outfit, far from being "Libertarian Lite", are anti democratic, corpratist and pro big government - in a word Fascists.
Hell, Hide is even starting to look like Il Dulce himself!
http://static.stuff.co.nz/1252366974/147/2844147.jpg
Farm prices collapse 40pc in
Farm prices collapse 40pc in two years - dairy sales crash 78pc - NZ HERALD
Well that has been expected, pretty dramatic all the same. Farm ownership has been a ponzi scheme for decades.
If you think rental investment is in deep outer space with a 4% ROI, how about farming with 0 to 2%.
I wonder who Olly would blame for that sort of a balls up?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=1063...
Bernard - the Hitler video
Bernard - the Hitler video is a clip from 'Downfall'... a German film released in 2005 that actually used an actor to play you know who... still, a bloody funny parody, when though there have been about 1 billion of them...
Good laugh for a Monday for sticking it to the cultural cringe factor from Wellington....
I don't make a habit
I don't make a habit of pasting up a ton of stuff but this is good and you all deserve to have a read. John Key needs to read it several times! I'm sure Bill will not mind.
The Daily Reckoning Presents:
The Patsy Revolt of 2010
by Bill Bonner
"Masked youths...attacked the head of Greece's largest trade union, who was addressing the crowd, and hurled stones at the police. GSEE union boss Yiannis Panagopoulos traded blows with the rioters before being whisked away, bloodied and with torn clothes."
The Daily Mail account put the blame for these disturbances on Germany's finance minister, who warned the Greeks that "the German government does not intend to give a cent." At least Bild, a popular German newspaper, was trying to be helpful. It suggested that Greece sell Corfu...and that Greeks get up earlier and work harder.
Meanwhile, from Iceland comes news that every voter with an IQ above air temperature has cast his ballot against a bailout plan. The Icelanders were slated to make good $5.3 billion in bank losses. But why shackle common voters to the banks' losses? The plan was so outrageous and so unpopular that Iceland's normally compliant Prime Minister called for a referendum. Given a chance to vote on it, 93% said no. The other 7% probably read it wrong.
Insurrection is in the air. In England, government employees are preparing the biggest strike since the '80s. In America, dissatisfaction with Congress is at record highs; four out of five of those polled say, "Nothing can be accomplished in Washington."
Herewith, an attempt to deconstruct the rebel yell. By way of preview, it's not the principle of the thing, we conclude; it's the money.
There are more clowns in economics than in the circus. They invented an economic model that has been very popular for more than 50 years - particularly in the US and Britain. It began with a bogus insight; John Maynard Keynes thought consumer spending was the key to prosperity; he saw savings as a threat. He had it backwards. Consumer spending is made possible by savings, investment and hard work - not the other way around. Then, William Phillips thought he saw a cause and effect relationship between inflation and employment; increase prices and you increase employment too, he said.
Jacques Rueff had already explained that the Phillips Curve was just a flimflam. Inflation surreptitiously reduced wages. It was lower wages that made it easier to hire people, not enlightened central bank management. But the scam proved attractive. The economy has been biased towards inflation ever since.
Economists enjoyed the illusion of competence; they could hold their heads up at cocktail parties and pretend to know what they were talking about. Now they were movers and shakers, not just observers. The new theories seemed to give everyone what they most wanted. Politicians could spend even more money that didn't belong to them. Consumers could enjoy a standard of living they couldn't afford. And the financial industry could earn huge fees by selling debt to people who couldn't pay it back.
Never before had so many people been so happily engaged in acts of reckless larceny and legerdemain. But as the system aged, its promises increased. Beginning in the '30s, the government took it upon itself to guarantee the essentials in life - retirement, employment, and to some extent, health care. These were expanded over the years to include minimum salary levels, unemployment compensation, disability payments, free drugs, food stamps and so forth. Households no longer needed to save.
As time wore on, more and more people lived at someone else's expense. Lobbying and lawyering became lucrative professions. Bucket shops and banks neared respectability. Every imperfection was a call for legislation. Every traffic accident was an opportunity for wealth redistribution. And every trend was fully leveraged.
If there was anyone still solvent in America or Britain in the 21st century, it was not the fault of the banks. They invented subprime loans and securitizations to profit from segments of the market that had theretofore been spared. By 2005 even jobless people could get themselves into debt. Then, the bankers found ways to hide debt...and ways to allow the public sector to borrow more heavily. Goldman Sachs did for Greece essentially what it had done for the subprime borrowers in the private sector - it helped them to go broke.
As long as people thought they were getting something for nothing, this economic model enjoyed wide support. But now that they are getting nothing for something, the masses are unhappy. Half the US states are insolvent. Nearly all of them are preparing to increase taxes. In Europe too, taxes are going up. Services are going down. And taxpayers are being asked to pay for the banks' losses...and pay interest on money spent years ago. Until now, they were borrowing money that would have to be repaid sometime in the future. But today is the tomorrow they didn't worry about yesterday. So, the patsies are in revolt.
Several countries are already past the point of no return. Even if America taxed 100% of all household wealth, it would not be enough to put its balance sheet in the black. And Professors Rogoff and Reinhart show that when external debt passes 73% of GDP or 239% of exports, the result is default, hyperinflation, or both. IMF data show the US already too far gone on both scores, with external debt at 96% of GDP and 748% of exports.
The rioters can go home, in other words. The system will collapse on its own.
Bill Bonner
for The Daily Reckoning Australia
Yellow Pages 2008 edition Wairarapa
Yellow Pages
2008 edition Wairarapa 260 pages
2009 edition Wairarapa 229 pages
It may be the shrinking economy that caused the page decline or are businesses advertising online, your guess as good as any.
Will be interesting to see how the 2010 edition stacks up.
What are the numbers for your part of the country?
Brilliant Wally. Did he nail
Brilliant Wally. Did he nail it or what!
I know where it ought
I know where it ought to be nailed PDK!
If I had a hammer
If I had a hammer
So whose been using similar
So whose been using similar Repo 105 scams here is NZ? Finance companies? On the subject of Enron, can anyone see the similarity between what Enron did in California and what Contact Energy are currently doing? Enron hiked power prices stating lack of supply and tranmission problems and EVEN faked power cuts to push up the prices. Now Contact.................hmmmmmmmm Look into that one Commerce Commission ?
A great documentary to watch regarding Enron is "smartest guys in the room"
"external debt at 96% of
"external debt at 96% of GDP and 748% of exports."
Any one got NZ's scores on this?
One for Powerdown:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx9SGI97wuU
"NZ is as good a
"NZ is as good a spectator seat as they get ….."
Indeed, how many other countries can feed themselves? and are far enough away from those that cant?
regards
@Kiwidave: I seem to recall
@Kiwidave: I seem to recall BH said 40%....so its farming land so far and not housing...but the fat lady hasnt sung yet.
@Michael: The deal with Lehman's
@Michael: The deal with Lehman's is such manipulation is illegal in the US, so they "shipped" the transaction to the UK where it is not....if nothing else its immoral....hopefully the auditors will be hung out to dry on it.
regards
Wally, Was worth a read.
Wally,
Was worth a read.
Try this:
Cherep-Spiridovitch cites an interview with the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck in 1876.
German Chancellor Otto Bon Bismark said upon President Abraham Lincoln's assassination:
"I fear that foreign bankers with their craftiness tortuous tricks will entirely control the exhuberant riches of America and use it systematically to corrupt modern civilization. They will not hesitate to plunge the whole of Christendom into wars and chaos in order that the earth should become their inheritance." "The division of the United States into federations of equal force was decided long before the Civil War by the high financial powers of Europe. These Bankers were afraid that the US, if they remained as one block, and as one nation, would attain economic and financial independence, which would upset their financial domination over the world."
Otto von Bismark chancellor of Germany late 1800s.
The Rothschild brothers of London writing to associates in New York, 1863.
"The few who understand the system will either be so interested in its profits or be so dependent upon its favours that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests."
http://www.moneyreformparty.org.uk/money/about_money/quotes.php
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=1052...
@Wally: Re; that piece.. I
@Wally: Re; that piece.. I wouldnt blame Keynes myself and I think its wrong to be in there....neo-classical economists have long "surpassed" Keynes work....until they hit the recent brick wall where upon every Govn has re-discovered him...trouble is Keynes I think does not have the answer either. The best read I have so far is Minsky via Steve Keen....and it seems he's the only one in OZ being a doom merchant...
Just reading Bill's spending plans on infrastructure, the way I read it they are bringing forward future spending....so for a few years we get roads which have at most a life of 10 years built early yippee doo.....while Mighty Power? fight tooth and nail the dumb nimbies over wind power....god why dont they spend the money on something useful...wind, tide, geo, hydro......instead we get more roads....and of course this means there wont be any infrasructure going in (ie govn spending) in a few years....so a white elephant called transmission gulley..........
regards
Steven - yes it's very
Steven - yes it's very simple, big-picture. I'm just listening to the fishing industry wanting a bigger paddock too. They're all missing the fact that their land-and-water grabs are signalling the last doubling-time possible, and (given that they don't grasp that, they won't grasp this either) therefore have to do a lubricated/energised transition while they still have the lubrication/energising.
Given the sheer momentum of the structure (I occasionally stand on the side of an arterial at 7.45 or 8.45 of a weekday morning - the energy burn-up is astounding, and I have fun trying to spot a happy face) that turn-around needs every shoulder to the wheel, and needs to be intelligently orchestrated.
Those not-happy faces are of course the folk in the piece Wally posted - and that the Rothschilds were referring to. For them to understand, needs the media to understand. For the last two years, I've been trying to nudge them, the most common result being silence. When I do get a reaction, I've had "You can't know that", and recently I even had a personal put-down.
Maybe I expect too much. All the great groundswells in this country - the food-riots to the '35 labour govt, the nuclear issue, the Springbok tour - have been driven bottom-up, despite rather than because of, the media.
Wally - I lifted that piece onto my blog, with a HT to you. Chuckled all night. Thank you.
Do you think we ought
Do you think we ought to get BH to ask BE or JK if they too have read Bonner's bit....
because I think it's time to get the nail gun out and start to fix those 2 fools to the concrete walls of the Beehive...?
That requires cognitive capacity -
That requires cognitive capacity - the reading, not the nailing.
Crucifixion has a history of creating martyrs - but it is not an unappealing thought. It would beat burning-at-the-stake, in that there would be no carbon emissions.
:)
Bernard - just wondering what
Bernard - just wondering what happened to Neville Bennett's guest articles - I found his articles utterly fascinating - a real alternative point of view.
Can we have him back please ?
@wairarapa perspective Yellow Pages for
@wairarapa perspective
Yellow Pages for Hawke's Bay
2006/2007 575 pages
2008/2009 526 pages
2010 468 pages
Over 100 pages of shrinkage!
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