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Tuesday's Top 10 with NZ Mint: Time for Germans to finally pay WWII reparations to Greeks?; China's corrupt (and rich) emigrants; Extend and Pretend again; Cartoons galore; Dilbert

Tuesday's Top 10 with NZ Mint: Time for Germans to finally pay WWII reparations to Greeks?; China's corrupt (and rich) emigrants; Extend and Pretend again; Cartoons galore; Dilbert

Here's my Top 10 links from around the Internet at 1 pm in association with NZ Mint.

I'll pop the extras into the comment stream. See all previous Top 10s here.

I welcome your additions in the comments below or via email to bernard.hickey@interest.co.nz.

Just imagine if the Greeks asked for the war reparations the Germans have yet to pay...

1. Where did all the money go? - The Times reports on a hastily withdrawn Peoples Bank of China report on how over 15,000 corrupt Chinese officials pulled US$120 billion out of China from the mid 1990s to 2008 and laundered it through various countries, including Australia.

How sure are we that the Chinese money now buying our farms and businesses and luxury houses hasn't been stolen from the Chinese government in some form?

I hope the Overseas Investment Office has the resources to do these checks...

And are our banks also doing all the necessary checks when accounts are set up here?

HT Stephen via email.

The research, whose revelations of corruption are breathtaking even by Chinese standards, estimates that between 16,000 and 18,000 officials may have fled the country with monumental hoards of ill-gotten money between the mid-1990s and 2008.

In one paragraph, the report, which had the words “internal data, store carefully” on the front page, cautioned that unchecked corruption was putting communist rule at risk. “It is a direct threat to the cleanpolitics structure of the Communist Party and harms the foundations of its power,” it said.

Large amounts of the money, along with the officials who amassed it, headed for Australia or the US.

2. Big cash call - Reuters reports Europe's banks may need to raise over 50 billion euros to comply with new tougher capital rules under Basel III. This is partly because hybrid debt known as contingent capital has been excluded by the masters of the banking regulation universe at Basel.

Bank shares hit a low for the year as lenders in France and Germany may be most in need, adding to fears their capital could be strained by losses on holdings of Greek bonds and loans to the troubled euro zone country.

"Capital will become a critical competitive issue. The race to compete for capital has begun," Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Josef Ackermann told a Reuters conference in Frankfurt on Monday. A capital surcharge of between 1 percent and 2.5 percent for the biggest systemically important banks agreed by global regulators at the weekend was in line with or slightly less than expectations.

"SIFIs (systemically important financial institutions) will in markets be perceived as very secure. We are therefore very happy to belong to the SIFIs," Ackermann said.

But the exclusion of a hybrid form of debt known as contingent capital (CoCos), which converts to equity in times of stress, to comply with the surcharge is a disappointment to many banks and investors, analysts said.

"The quid quo pro of a lower charge (than expected) appears to be the fact that CoCos cannot be used toward the surcharge -- it must be made entirely of equity capital," said Andrew Lim, analyst at Espirito Santo. Not allowing CoCos will be an unwelcome surprise for those managers and investors who had seen them as the solution to recapitalizing the sector, said Antonio Guglielmi, analyst at Mediobanca.

3, August 2 getting closer - America will default on August 2 if its debt ceiling is not increased. CNN reports there is no progress and it's getting a little tight...

CNN's Jeanne Sahadi looks at what might happen.

If Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling by Aug. 2 -- the day when the Treasury Department estimates it will no longer be able to pay all the country's bills -- any number of damaging and utterly preventable scenarios could occur. For starters, the United States would look ridiculous. The debt ceiling needs to be raised because of obligations that Congresses past and present chose to incur.

Not raising the ceiling would signal to the world that Americans are willfully choosing not to pay their bills. The message won't be "We can't pay." It will be "We could pay, but we've decided not to. Sorry."

To date, investors have been trading on the assumption -- the rock-solid belief, actually -- that there is just no way Congress would fail to raise the debt ceiling in time. If Congress dashes those expectations, no one can know exactly how the markets will react. But most think markets will react, and not well. Some bond experts expect that contrary to popular belief, Treasury rates won't rise but stocks may tank. In other words, there will be a move out of risk-based assets and a flight to safety in bonds.

4. Extend and pretend version 607 - The BBC's Robert Peston reckons there's plenty of flaws in the latest French bank plan to roll over 70% of Greek debt. It is promoted as a European version of the Brady Bonds that helped fix Latin America's debt problems in the 1980s.

But here's Peston explaining why they're a pale imitiation of Brady Bonds.

The original Brady scheme was a genuine path to recovery for countries that had borrowed far more than they could afford to repay. By contrast, the new French version is aimed at sustaining the claim - which many bankers and investors regard as a dangerous fiction - that Greece can afford to repay all the €340bn it owes.

Broadly the French scheme would do little more than extend the maturity of Greek debt. But it would do nothing to reduce the crippling burden of all that debt on Greece.

Its aim is to protect both private-sector lenders to Greece, especially the banks, and public-sector lenders to Greece, such as the European central bank and eurozone governments, from taking losses on their Greek loans.

However, most bankers and investors would say that unless and until private or public sector lenders to Greece - or both - are prepared to incur such losses, and reduce what Greece owes them, then neither Greece or the eurozone will be cured of the great financial disease afflicting them both.

5. Greek strikes - The Guardian reports on the latest Communist action in Greece and the likelihood of two days of mayhem this week as the Greek parliament votes on the austerity plan.

The vote is expected on Wednesday. Meanwhile, there are more meetings expected tonight between EU bankers and officials on how  banks might participate in any 'voluntary restructure' that must never be referred to as a default.

The word default now has the same status in these discussions as Voldemort or Macbeth.     

Upping the ante, unions have declared a 48-hour general strike starting on Tuesday – the first two-day walkout since the collapse of military rule and the return of democracy in 1974 – to coincide with parliament's debate on the measures. Mass rallies have been scheduled in 65 towns during the two days that Greek politicians will discuss the belt-tightening policies.

"It will be two days that have never seen before," said Stathis Anestis of the General Confederation of Greek Workers, the country's largest labour force.

     

6. The problem with FTAs - The Guardian reports Philip Morris is using Australia's free trade agreement with Hong Kong to sue Australia to stop it from introducing brand-free packaging plastered with pictures of rotten toes and diseased lungs.

This is another reason why an FTA with America is a bad idea.

Here's what Philip Morris is saying:

"If no mutually agreeable solution is found, then it proceeds to us seeking compensation. We estimate the damage will potentially amount to billions of Australian dollars," a spokeswoman for Philip Morris Asia told Dow Jones Newswires.

"Brands are valuable intellectual property and form the basis of consumer goods businesses like ours. If we are banned from using them, our business in Australia will become commoditised and its value will be significantly impacted.

"The Australian government does not have an unfettered right to confiscate [our] valuable intellectual property. Moreover, the government has failed to demonstrate that plain packaging will reduce smoking prevalence."

7. Lower for longer - Tom Lauricella has written an excellent piece at the Wall St Journal about how the weight of debt in developed economies is suppressing growth and interest rates for much longer than is 'normal'.

Another effect is that interest rates could stay exceptionally low for much longer than would usually be the case, says former World Bank official and author Liaquat Ahamed, whose book, Lords of Finance, examined monetary policy in the 1920s and 1930s. He notes rates have been essentially zero in Japan since 1995 and that during the Great Depression, the Federal Reserve cut the discount rate to below 2 per cent in 1934 and it held at those levels until the mid-1950s.

History shows "that when people have borrowed too much, they stop borrowing and interest rates stay very low for a very long time", he says. "So you can forget about investing in bonds."

8. Germans not so righteous - Der Spiegel warns that Germany has actually been the biggest bankrupt of the last century and is in no position to come across to the Greeks and others as holier than thou.

German economic historian Albrecht Ritschl  actually thinks that if Germany pushes too hard then countries like Greece could come back to Germany and ask for reparations unpaid after World War Two.

He's not kidding.

From 1924 to 1929, the Weimar Republic lived on credit and even borrowed the money it needed for its World War I reparations payments from America. This credit pyramid collapsed during the economic crisis of 1931. The money was gone, the damage to the United States enormous, the effect on the global economy devastating.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The situation after World War II was similar.

Ritschl: But right afterwards, America immediately took steps to ensure there wouldn't be a repeat of high reparations demands made on Germany. With only a few exceptions, all such demands were put on the backburner until Germany's future reunification. For Germany, that was a life-saving gesture, and it was the actual financial basis of the Wirtschaftswunder, or economic miracle (that began in the 1950s). But it also meant that the victims of the German occupation in Europe also had to forgo reparations, including the Greeks.

Ritschl: In the 20th century, Germany started two world wars, the second of which was conducted as a war of annihilation and extermination, and subsequently its enemies waived its reparations payments completely or to a considerable extent. No one in Greece has forgotten that Germany owes its economic prosperity to the grace of other nations.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What do you mean by that?

Ritschl: The Greeks are very well aware of the antagonistic articles in the German media. If the mood in the country turns, old claims for reparations could be raised, from other European nations as well. And if Germany ever had to honor them, we would all be taken the cleaners. Compared with that, we can be grateful that Greece is being indulgently reorganized at our expense. If we follow public opinion here with its cheap propaganda and not wanting to pay, then eventually the old bills will be presented again.

9. The Big Fat Greek Gravy Train - Arch euro-sceptic The Daily Mail has done a "special investigation into the EU-funded culture of greed, tax evasion and scandalous waste."

It starts by looking at how hardly anyone in Athens pays for their train tickets, which means the rail system collects 80 million pounds in revenues and pays out 500 million pounds in wages.

Fiddling on a Herculean scale — from the owner of the smallest shop to the most powerful figures in business and politics — has become as much a part of Greek life as ouzo and olives. Indeed, as well as not paying for their metro tickets, the people of Greece barely paid a penny of the underground’s £1.5 billion cost — a ‘sweetener’ from Brussels (and, therefore, the UK taxpayer) to help the country put on an impressive 2004 Olympics free of the city’s notorious traffic jams.

The transport perks are not confined to the customers. Incredibly, the average salary on Greece’s railways is £60,000, which includes cleaners and track workers - treble the earnings of the average private sector employee here.

Ridiculously, Greek pastry chefs, radio announcers, hairdressers and masseurs in steam baths are among more than 600 professions allowed to retire at 50 (with a state pension of 95 per cent of their last working year’s earnings) — on account of the ‘arduous and perilous’ nature of their work.

After issuing warnings last year, government officials say he is set to deploy helicopter snoopers, along with scrutiny of Google Earth satellite pictures, to show who has a swimming pool in the northern suburbs — an indicator, officials say, of the owner’s wealth.

Officially, just over 300 Kifissia residents admitted to having a pool. The true figure is believed to be 20,000. There is even a boom in sales of tarpaulins to cover pools and make them invisible to the aerial tax inspectors.

10. Totally Irrelevant Carp Attack video - You gotta see this to believe it.

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56 Comments

The Greeks are probably more morally corupt than most other western nation citizens

They need to given a spanking from Sue Bradford..

 

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I agree the greek eco is sic, but hell, a spanking from Sue Bradford is a new version of austerity.  Do you actually know what you're saying and how that would affect the rate of interest in money in the near future?  OMG LMFAO WTF.  JB007

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Why even Robert Nozick, the philosophical father of libertarianism, gave up on the movement he inspired.

http://www.slate.com/id/2297019/pagenum/all/

Between them, Von Hayek and Von Mises never seem to have held a single academic appointment that didn't involve a corporate sponsor. Even the renowned law and economics movement at the University of Chicago was, in its inception, heavily subsidized by business interests. ("Radical movements in capitalist societies," as Milton Friedman patiently explained, "have typically been supported by a few wealthy individuals.")

The idea that supernormal compensation is fit reward for supernormal talent is the ideological superglue of neoliberalism, holding firm since the 1980s. It's no wonder that in the aftermath of the housing bust, with the glue showing signs of decay—with Madoff and "Government Sachs" displacing Jobs and Buffett in the headlines—"liberty" made its comeback. When the facts go against you, resort to "values." When values go against you, resort to the mother of all values. When the mother of all values swoons, reach deep into the public purse with one hand, and with the other beat the public senseless with your dog-eared copy of Atlas Shrugged.
When Hayek insists welfare is the road is to serfdom, when Nozick insists that progressive taxation is coercion, they take liberty hostage in order to prevent a reasoned discussion about public goods from ever taking place. "According to them, any intervention of the state in economic life," a prominent conservative economist once observed of the early neoliberals, "would be likely to lead, and even lead inevitably to a completely collectivist Society, Gestapo and gas chamber included." Thus we are hectored into silence, and by the very people who purport to leave us most alone.

Thanks in no small part to that silence, we have passed through the looking glass. Large-scale, speculative risk, undertaken by already grossly overcompensated bankers, is now officially part of the framework, in the form of too-big-to-fail guarantees made, implicitly and explicitly, by the Federal Reserve. Meanwhile, the "libertarian" right moves to take the risks of unemployment, disease, and, yes, accidents of birth, and devolve them entirely onto the responsibility of the individual. It is not just sad; it is repugnant.

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.... and yet , the Russians gave up on socialism , after a decent crack at it ,.......

And the Chinese abandoned communism , after an equally disastrous period with it ...........

...... thus leaving just one orthodoxy standing , clean , pure , untrammelled by the jack-boot of bureaucratic oppressors ( Helen Clark  is in the U.N. . isn't she ! )

CAPITALS  LISSIM !!!! ......... hoooooooo , haaaaaaaa ! ... We won , you lost , eat that , Hickey !

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GBH, Russia never had socialism.....it had totalitarianism....at least past about 1920 or so...

They never gave up on it, it wasnt voluntary, it collapsed....

;]

Ditto China, they never had real communism or socialism either, what they got was a power mad mass murderer and a bunch of pretty awful psychopaths.....

Both drapped themselves in the flags of communism (or whatever) but neither made much attempt to follow those paths...

"leaving just one orthodoxy standing" really, look at the abyss "capitalism" has taken us to the edge of....its know as a depression as long as the Long Depression was in the 1870s and quite possibly worse and longer....its not won when its simply the last man standing....the wounds are still terminal...it just hasnt nose planted yet.

regards

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Quite correct Steven, just goes to show that you can't trust anyone that purports to be whatever flavour of the political spectrum. They are all out for control one way or the other.

It has been said that Western Democracies are the best system of governance we have ever had. We that is now highly doubtful.

What is more likely correct is the best form of governance is a benevolent dictator.

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Capitalism is definitely the best option...but the problem with capitalism now is the inequality of capital...yeah that's right - not inequality of income, but the inequality of capital....the problem is that the minority at the top are controlling the majority of capital, and it's kept within their families for generations via the "lucky sperm club"....it's so difficult to raise capital for a business, unless you have wealthy parents....capitalism should be set up so that our access to capital should be related to our capability, experience, talent etc...not how wealthy your parents are...

A fairer distribution of capital will ensure opportunities for everyone who wants it, and not just a select few. 

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 In modern western societies successful economic models include elements from Capitalism to Marxism.

 

http://www.ces.columbia.edu/pub/papers/EinhornLogue.pdf

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Kunst, I read your link...and not a fan of Scandinavian capitalism...it's Helen Clark all over again...I believe right wing politics is the more sensible option, which encourages self reliance - not state dependence...the ultimate combination would be right wing politics with policies that encourage a fair distribution of wealth (e.g. very high inheritance taxes & low income taxes)...it would be awesome.

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Gummy

Have the events of the last decade not shaken your faith in completely untrammeled 'free' markets not shaken your faith a little?

The more freedom the banks and multinational corporates have been given the more mess has been created.

Removing the shackles from the US investment banks and allowing the growth of the too big to fail banks has been disastrous.

 

cheers

Bernard

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Some days Gummy berleys the waters before throwing out the bait and a long line ............. caught me the big fish this morning !

..... Governments create the moral hazard , Bernard , by bailing out the " too big to fail " banks and insurance companies ......... Why are tax-payers around the world being placed on the hook to guarantee the investments of bond-holders , and the future operations of bankrupt firms  ?

 .... Why are governments removing the risk element out of the financial markets ?

And what of those banks and insurance companies who behaved prudently ..... they must be absolutely  gob-smacked  to see  the w*nkers receive a " get-out-of-gaol " card .

No one ought to wear the title , " too big to fail " , not even the All Blacks !

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FYI from The Telegraph on the 5 Biggest threats to the US economy: inflation, house prices, unemployment, the US budget deficit and Europe's debt crisis.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8601623/Five-biggest-threats-to-the-US-economy.html

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No mention of the price of oil then?

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Price Andyh?   Isn't that mixing metaphors?

Surely the problem is availability?

That must be more importabnt than price, it's real, the other is 'collectively assumed'.

Also, a lack of supply suggests a lack of ability to pay.....once they work out that loans don't come back......

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Availability may(will) influence price but it will never be a direct issue.

If suddenly oil went to $2,000 a barrell itll be the price that causes economic collapse not that those who are prepared to pay $2,000 can't get it.

As far as I've seen even you arn't advocating that the world will totally run out of oil, only that it wont be able to get out of the ground fast enough to satsify current/future demand which wont be an issue if either the price is exponentially higher and/or society has collapsed.

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Billitt - methinks you miss the point:

If all goods and services require energy (and with no in-place alternative, that's fossil fuels) then the ability to 'pay' for the energy (by producing those goods and services) depends on the supply. No energy no wealth, no wealth no pay.

The 'market' might work that out as you suggest, but for a fact: food and water (life essentials) are among the 'commodities' driven by energy. The 'poorest' will always drop out of the bidding first (they might be a little pissed that they were only out-bid by borrowers, but) but they're bidding with their lives - a fairly inelastic base-line.

As the supply decreases, so too does the ability to create 'wealth', while that inelastic base-line rises inexorably - driven by population growth, and by a reduction of agricultural energy.  Obviously, discretionary 'spends' will decrease, obviously usury will cease (driven not by demand - that'll go through the roof - but by Weimar-like devaluing of collateral, and consequent defaults) but what is being spent is still energy-underwritten.

Nope, it's ALL about supply, and methinks we count the wrong thing.

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um?

Availability will influence price and does....so Im not sure what you are trying to say with your first sentence.  You dont see rationing maybe?  personally I think its very likely.

Oil wont go to $2000, I doubt even $200 before we see another recesion/depression, the global economy simply cant stand oil at much above $120...maybe even $100USD. This suggests there is an upper limit of the cost of locating and extracting new oil at say $90 otherise oil companies simply wont take the risk....From what I can read and the real worry is we are at about that now with the new fields.....

The world will run out of oil at least in terms of where it is economic to extract it....so there will always still be oil under the ground, just it will cost too much in energy to find it, and extract it for anyone to be able or willing to pay for it..... 

Again Im not sure what you are saying on your last sentence?  Demand will certainly collapse in a recession/depresion, which means that if oil cant be sold for $100 and its costing $90 to extract new fields wont be developed, ever....will this cause a collapse? yes....we are too energy dependant and too many countries are too high price dependant to survive selling at <$50 or more likely <$80.....so once Saudi collapses into mayhem then with 10% of global supply gone we will be in very deep deep doo doo....

regards

 

 

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I guess I have more faith in markets than you two.

I think you're right that economies wont handle oil prices much over $120.  Once that point is reached it'll start dragging all economies further into recession.  Developing economies with lower incomes who have never had cars will not be convinced to buy one if theyre exhorbitant to run and theyve just lost their jobs.  Developed economies will be forced to cut back on their oil usage, up till now petrol has had an inelastic demand curve but that changes beyond a certain point once people no longer have anything left to cut out of their budgets to substitute.

I see increased prices causing a larger fall in demand for oil than there will be a fall in oil output over the same period.

There will be no need for rationing as people won't be able to afford it anyway.  Sure itll have terrible economic consequences but it won't all hit at once the way you seem to be suggesting as it will affect each person at a different pace.

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How broken America is. The chief risk officer at Lehman Bros (!) has just been appointed the Treasurer of the World Bank...

http://www.bankingtimes.co.uk/2011/06/25/ex-lehman-chief-risk-officer-appointed-world-bank-treasurer/

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You really do have a pathological hatred of  America & Americans , don'tcha , Bernard ....

..... you trained those carp to attack that boat full of kids  !

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No Gummy, I spotted that one on the Huff Post. Talk about easy fishing, no bait required...

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Fly fishing?

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Hook, line and sinker....

regards

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 ... fingers crossed he has learnt from his mistakes! I wonder how that interview started? So, ...

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 Capitalism at it’s worst - a gummy special -  real, hard working, entrepreneurial people - Gummy.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzGJ-kDC64U

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Massey University's Mike Joy calls for a cap on cow numbers at TVNZ's Breakfast.

Fed Farmers' Lachlan McKenzie is in full denial mode in response.

http://tvnz.co.nz/breakfast-news/tuesday-june-28-4267440/video?vid=4268817

And here's Claire Browning at Pundit with more detail.

http://www.pundit.co.nz/content/mike-joy-answers-the-pm-with-hard-facts

cheers

Bernard

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Great links, thanks Bernard.

Especially good summary by Claire Browning.

DOCs environmental advocacy role is being frighteningly knee-capped by this Government. 

Forest & Bird and local iwi look to be the only voices our native species have left to argue their plight in the Environment Court.  The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment should have come down very hard on John Key's statement that he could find other scientists who would argue otherwise - a classic example of political manipulation of scientific endeavour - just what the non-partisan PCE is supposed to report to Parliament and the public.

That said, I'd better check their website just in case she did say something in defence of science and I missed it!

 

 

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Kate - the end-game was always going to be ugly, exponential math is like that. They were alweays going to lash out (inevitably at the wrong target) in frustration - Hugh P and Bill English are no different in that regard.

Years ago, I realised it wasn't worth fighting rearguard-actions the way F&B do, they just come again, and they've got the money, and the paid time, and the 'expert witnesses'.

Looking around, it was obvious that mother nature herself - and sheer physics - would be the final arbiter.

So I asked myself what the king-hit would be, to a fiscal system levered to hell, and inevitably levered more than it ever had been before, at the point it took whatever the hit was.

Had to happen, was just a matter of working out what and when. No growth last forever, and all growth is driven by energy.

It was peak oil, and it's been and gone . No way back from the debt, now. No way to grow in real terms. Sure, as Jane Goodall said, there is more damage to come, and some of it will look awful, but the pace of the main event will make it the least of our worries.

Doesn't stop me labelling some folk Philistines, though.

 

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I recently asked a class of university students how many had seen a koura - and a bit less than half raised their hands - which was more than I expected.  I hope they remember that number and strive to ensure that when they're the ones lecturing tomorrows students, that the same number, if not more, can raise their hands.

I think one of the struggles someone like Mike Joy faces is that not enough parents look beyond the mall as the place to take their children on the weekend.  One has to connect with nature in order to have a desire to preserve it.  As leaders go, John Key has obviously not made this connection.

Ironically, as you point out - economic depression might actually serve to improve environmental conditions more than any amount of, as you say, rearguard action.  If only humankind could instead prove itself more mature than that, however.

 

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Nice exchange.

Kate the reason malls are socially and spiritually dead is that they are not owned by the users. They are a private place not a public place, geared solely toward the extraction of money and as such have no beneficial value. I have always hated them and now I know why. We even put up malls that fraudulently give the appearance of individual ownership, but it still doesn't work because it isn't(Botany)

What are required are streets, where the roads an footpaths are still i public ownership.

They danger we face in an economic depression is that there will be even more pressure on local resources, heck I know I am likely to be taxing the fish:) Theories abound that even maori, despite their holier than thou attitude to the natural environment, pillaged and exhauseted the food resources along the coastline to a point where they were eventually forced into agriculture toi survive.

But I hope you are right.

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Fonterra in denial as well (more than a quarter of Fonterra dairy suppliers non-compliant with effluent management).

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2491959/fonterra's-dairy-suppliers-need-to-improve-effluent-management.asx

Stilling waiting for JK to present his lacky "scientist" to refute what Joy says.

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I didn't listen to all of Corin's interview with Dr Joy, but I was impressed to finally see a member of the news media actually asking the right questions of a scientific expert who is making claim X or Y. In other words, what's your hard data? Do you have evidence that directly shows that A causes B. And prove it.

Interestingly, Dr Joy didn't specify a limit on the numbers of cows NZ should have and in response to Corin's questioning he admitted that not all the pollution of the waterways was the responsibility of or caused by dairying. Of course that won't stop the knee-jerker’s from running their gapping mouths, hysterically screaming like a gaggle of wailing banshees, dairying is destroying New Zealand's environment.

The real issue here of course is nutrient run off from farms (all types of farms including horticulture) and the harmful effects that is having on our waterways, and secondly, cow and sheep poop releasing nasty bugs into the water as well. In terms of nutrient run off, limiting the number of cows is of course one way of achieving that, but it doesn’t address run off from sheep and horticultural farms. I think other ways should be explored as well, such as improved farming practices, better grass and associated pastoral species (including GE) that don’t require such intense fertilising and the planting of trees to limit the runoff into the water ways. And before Steven and others have one of their menstrual moments, as I have already stated very clearly in here before, I consider the pollution of our waterways to be a serious problem.

But let’s not always rush to ban something. That seems to be New Zealand’s unimaginative answer to everything. It should be the last resort, not the first.

And then you wonder why y’all so poor and are forcing old people to work for longer and longer because you have no money.

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Better agricultural practices is definitely the way to go.  And part of those better practices I would think include the consideration of land suitability for certain agricultural activities.  Erosion of hill country land is to my mind probably as harmful to our waterways as nutrient runoff.  Perhaps our ETS should have included some form of credit for returning erosion prone hill country pasture to native bush, for example.

What every different values-position needs to do is stop trying to take anything they don't like to talk about off the table, so to speak.

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Gee mate you lost me with the promotion of GE. Have you got shares in Monsanto?

I don't know how you feel about the values or soundness of our current financial system, but you can't isolate GE from it. It is nothing to do with sound agricultural production, and all to do with short term profits. Sure go ahead if you only want to eat for the next 5-10 years, but what about after that?

I understand that locally there has been huge effort put into planting buffer zones along vulnerable creeks by the local council, so it is being addressed slowly. I think there is the possibility that the situation will self correct when China tanks. Beef is a poor use of the land in terms of protein production anyway, so people will move away from eventually.

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Really? who's actually being bitchy?

regards

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David B - who is 'rushing to ban'?

The RMA was a signal we'd moved on from banning - we now (in theory) mitigate or impose conditions. I guess you can argue that if the conditions can't be met, then that's a 'ban', but there are always limits, there will always be a line somewhere, and there will always be trouble-makers at the barricade.

 

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Why did tvnz put on a breakfast for cows?......helloooo

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" Why Greece should shirk it's straight jacket " : ( Financial Times ) Baron Munchausen has a decent lash at the austeirty programme being foisted upon the Greeks .

..... is this any different from the disastrous US Federal Reverse and government policies , which deepened the Great Depression !

Greece needs more money , more credit and growth , not less .

..... The EU truely is buggered , in both concept , and in reality .

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The counter to that is that the lender bears some responsibility for reckless loans. 

I think the point is that Greece can't pay.

Surely the Euro is buggered:)

I sort of don't mind the way we are borrowing also because sooner or later we won't pay either. Make the most of it I reckon:) Keep borrowing until they won't lend to us any longer.

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Which [US] Govn policies deepened the recession?  The obvious one is where Hayek convinced the Govn to slow its stimulus, that sure back fired hello double dip.........The biggest Govn policy ramping up for WW2 got the US out of the recession...which was spending.....

Which seems to be at least 2 real world examples we have forgotten.........

regards

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Steve Keen, the failure of neoclassical economics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE_ovKAzL18&feature=player_embedded

 

regards

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2. So chasing the saver? 

regards

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Philip Morris is using Australia's free trade agreement with Hong Kong to sue Australia

One would think that the Australian government would have sought legal advice before signing the FTA  (unless they were given bad advice). 

Next thing you know, we would be sued for banning dangerous pesticides, GM food maybe even signing peace treaties (impact profit of weapons manufacturers).

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There are a couple of things to keep foremost in the mind with our judicial system.

First is in an adversarial system the lawyers are always 50% wrong.

Second is, he who wins is he who tells the best story on the day.

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Obviously talking as a New Zealander - when you live in a society that has no/or little  corruption.  Who really knows how big our CASH economy really is - especially after the 15% spike.  As a New Zealander - Greek descent, I understand their lack of "faith" in Governments.  Reducing Taxes but taking it by increasing "fees" somewhere else.  Slowly the lack of faith can also happen here.  The whole of Greece is controlled economically and Politically by about 6 families.

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Controlled by 6 families, believe that and you believe anything.  Why did you choose 6, why not 3 or 24?

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Deflationary spiral that happens when no one has the money to buy. Coming soon to the place near you. Haha. 

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Yep....

regards

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Gary Shilling, on why (he thinks) China is headed for a hard landing:

Parts 1

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-27/why-china-s-heading-for-a-hard-landing-part-1-a-gary-shilling.html

and 2

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-28/shilling-why-china-s-heading-for-a-hard-landing-part-2.html

Much bigger issue than Greece in my view, especially for Aus/NZ

 

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Agreed, something has to happen in China...my job involves importing goods from China, and there is definitely an inflation issue over there - going by the price increases I'm seeing....I read your Bloomberg links, and I like the comparison with Japan, which was buying up the world on the back of a property boom ...very similar to China now

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 French finance minister Christine Lagarde named first-ever female chief of the IMF....and her qualifications in economics are...............a big fat nothing........but she's French

How appropriate. Instead of appointing a highly qualified fat Mexican, the fools appoint an unqualified Frog.

Does it really matter? Neither of them nor anyone else on the planet can make the gargantuan mountains of debt and utterly certain defaults disappear...can they!

Watch now as in the following weeks the idiot media spew out the BS that a 'debt roll over' is not a default. Like, are you going to buy piigs bonds....thought not..... How about buying some CDS where you depend on an honest accurate default declaration.....oh come on....where's the risk.....this is a business about trust afterall...you can trust them...can't you! 

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 " the Boomers have screwed Generation X".....haha

 http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article28942.html

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I can't find the article - a few years old - but essentially what happens to a society when there is a massive concentration of wealth. 

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DSB, what I suggest you do is apply some natural truths to the subject, study a bit of history and extrapolate it all out. My guess would be you will come to pretty much the same conclusion as that article did. I would also guess that such a scenario would almost inevitably end in revolution.

And to GBH, yes, you need to know what labels you are putting on political systems. And before you all go accusing me a being say a communist, let me explain my take on that word. It is something that can only work in small numbers (commune) where if there is any dissent amongst the ranks, such dissenter can either convince the rest of the group of his cause or leave. In the totalitarian states we give the misnomer of communism, dissent is dealt with somewhat differently

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