Here's my Top 10 links from around the Internet at 10 past 8 pm in association with NZ Mint.
I welcome your additions in the comments below or via email to bernard.hickey@interest.co.nz.
I'll pop the extras into the comment stream.
See all previous Top 10s here.
1. The amazing never-ending real estate crash - This piece in theendoftheamericandream.com about the housing crash in America is full of 27 juicy factoids.
Including these:
Since the real estate peak, U.S. home values have fallen by US$6.3 trillion (a third of GDP).
Deutsche Bank is projecting that 48% of all U.S. mortgages could have negative equity by the end of 2011.
According to Zillow, U.S. home prices have already fallen further during this economic downturn (26%) than they did during the Great Depression (25.9%).
As of the end of 2010, 23.1% of all U.S. homeowners with a mortgage owed more on their homes than their homes were worth.
The United States has never had such a prolonged real estate slump in the post-World War 2 era. Unfortunately, there are a whole lot of indications that the real estate crash is going to get even worse.
The rapidly rising price of oil, the horrific crisis in Japan and instability in the Middle East all threaten to plunge the world into another major economic downturn. That is really bad news for the real estate industry. Already there are not nearly enough jobs for everyone in the United States and without good jobs American workers simply cannot buy homes.
In addition, many of those that would like to buy homes are finding that they cannot get approved for home loans. Before the real estate crash, lending standards were incredibly loose, but now the pendulum has swung very far in the other direction.
2. 'We haven't fixed anything' - Satyajit Das, the author of Traders, Guns and Money (and a commentator in Inside Job) talks here with Andrew Patterson at Sunday Business on Radio Live about the Japanese earthquake and Tsunami.
He makes some interesting points about the importance of Japan in the north Asian supply chain and the problem Japan's ageing (and falling) population will have servicing its monstrous public debt.
He says the world has just kicked the can down the road for the last 3 years.
"The problem the world has is too much debt and we have really done little to fix it in the three years since the global financial crisis," he said.
He also says Australian banks raise 20-25% of their funding from Japan....
3. So why aren't they rioting? - Here's a detailed table showing that 43 million Americans are now on food stamps, up 13.1% from a year ago.
And here's a chart showing America is much less socially mobile than it has ever been.
And less socially mobile than Europe even -- the old country. They really are kidding themselves with all these myths about rags to riches and 'anyone can do it'.
4. Invade us - We have the most and best water. According to this excellent Princeton graphic, New Zealand has the third best water in the world behind Finland and Canada.
5. What happens when interest rates rise - This is the elephant in the room for those who believe the financial crisis is over and the solution of adding yet more debt rather than restructuring the debt was a long lasting one.
It's only as good as the low interest rates around at the moment.
Here Merryn Somerset Webb at Moneyweek.com asks this question of Britain's housing market as the Bank of England begins talking about putting up interest rates. Remembering of course that many Britons are now on floating rates.... Sound familiar?
According to Legal & General Investment Management, a rise in the base rate and hence in variable mortgage rates will mean that huge numbers of consumers will see "a meaningful impact to their cash flow".
Shelter goes further. The Bank of England hasn't raised rates for 25 months, but when it does, says the charity, it could push those assuming that low rates are forever into a "spiral of debt and repossession".
6. 'We'd like to increase our insurance cover...' - Journalism student Samantha Ives reports at Newswire that Wellington City Council Chief Financial Officer Peter Garty (the guy at Telecom who received THAT Telecom tipoff from his cycling mate a while ago), is about to travel to Europe and is hoping to get some more reinsurance cover for Wellington.
It may not go well, apparently. Reinsurers are a bit nervous about earthquakes in Wellington now. HT Paul and Alex.
"I want us to achieve some more cover, but I don’t think we are going to be able to get there because of price and availability,” says Mr Garty, who will travel to London and Zurich in late April to pitch to the world’s biggest insurance companies.
He would like to increase council insurance from the current $300million to $400million on its $4 billion-worth of buildings and infrastructure over the next three or four years. He is concerned they may not even get the $300million again when they seek renewal from current insurers in London, so they intend to visit one of the world’s biggest re-insurers, Swiss Re in Zurich, as well.
7. 'Nuclear Power is truly Green' - The Guardian's George Monbiot is a hero of the green left. Maybe not for much longer. Here he says the Fukushima accident has convinced him of the merits of nuclear power to help reduce global warming. Really.
Good on him.
A crappy old plant with inadequate safety features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The electricity supply failed, knocking out the cooling system. The reactors began to explode and melt down. The disaster exposed a familiar legacy of poor design and corner-cutting. Yet, as far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation.
Some greens have wildly exaggerated the dangers of radioactive pollution. For a clearer view, look at the graphic published by xkcd.com. It shows that the average total dose from the Three Mile Island disaster for someone living within 10 miles of the plant was one 625th of the maximum yearly amount permitted for US radiation workers. This, in turn, is half of the lowest one-year dose clearly linked to an increased cancer risk, which, in its turn, is one 80th of an invariably fatal exposure. I'm not proposing complacency here. I am proposing perspective.
8. Time for Ireland to default - As the size of the Irish banking black hole gets bigger, serious voices in Ireland are now talking about defaulting. Here's Daniel McConnell at the Irish Independent on Sunday.
Once again the Irish taxpayer is being called on to bail out those banks which through their own hubris and insanity during the past decade have brought this country to its knees. Let us never forget that the actions of 100 people or so at the top of Irish banks have brought this country to the point of financial ruin.
Former NTMA boss, Dr Michael Somers, said Ireland was now caught in a classic debt spiral.
"There is no way we will ever pay this stuff back, it will just be refinanced. The awful thing is that I know there are figures going around showing virtually no growth for the next three years and you ask yourself what comes after that, further tax hikes and you ask yourself how are we ever going to get out of this. We are in a downward spiral," he said.
David McWilliams, Constanin Guerdiev and former Chilean finance minister Andres Velasco argue defaulting on our bank debt is now Ireland's only viable option. Velasco said: "If you look back in history, many, many countries have defaulted including some in Europe. It is not the end of the world and can be beneficial."
It's like the old saying, if you owe the banks €40,000 they have you by the balls, if you owe them €40m, you have them by the balls. This is how Ireland needs to start dealing with the ECB.
8. 'What's so different in the west?' - Matthew Klein at the Council on Foreign Relations wonders what is so different between unemployed youth in the Middle East who are revolting and unemployed youth in America and Europe who are (yet) to revolt. Jobless rates are similar for both...
As governments across the developed world balance their budgets, I fear that the young will bear the brunt of the pain: taxes on workers will be raised and spending on education will be cut while mortgage subsidies and entitlements for the elderly are untouchable. At least the Saudis and Kuwaitis are trying to bribe their younger subjects.
The uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa are a warning for the developed world. Even if an Egyptian-style revolution breaking out in a rich democracy is unthinkable, it is easy to recognize the frustration of a generation that lacks opportunity. Indeed, the “desperate generation” in Portugal got tens of thousands of people to participate in nationwide protests on March 12. How much longer until the rest of the rich world follows their lead?
And here's a chart showing the top 1% of income earners in the United States earned nearly 60% of the capital income in 2003. It's much worse now. Riots anybody?
9. Totally wonderful pictures in a BBC trailer for a documentary on The Human Planet.
10. Totally sweet and fun animation about a shell with shoes on.
93 Comments
Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address
cheers. the problem I have with Steve Jobs is his control freakery and closed approach. i've yet to buy an apple product and just don't want to contribute to his money gobbling machine.
he's a strange fish.
eg he is not donating a single dollar of his gazillions to others (unlike Zuckerberg, Gates and others)
cheers
Good call B. It is an Irony that Apple had that Big Brother commercial back at the super bowl, considering how they behave now, for instance if they took a dislike to Interest.co.nz they could block access to it from their devices like they have done with Wikileaks, and blocking access to Pr0n etc
Here's Ambrose at The Torygraph with China's plan for cheaper, cleaner and safer nuclear reactors powered by Thorium.
If China’s dash for thorium power succeeds, it will vastly alter the global energy landscape and may avert a calamitous conflict over resources as Asia’s industrial revolutions clash head-on with the West’s entrenched consumption.
China’s Academy of Sciences said it had chosen a “thorium-based molten salt reactor system”. The liquid fuel idea was pioneered by US physicists at Oak Ridge National Lab in the 1960s, but the US has long since dropped the ball. Further evidence of Barack `Obama’s “Sputnik moment”, you could say.
US physicists in the late 1940s explored thorium fuel for power. It has a higher neutron yield than uranium, a better fission rating, longer fuel cycles, and does not require the extra cost of isotope separation.
The plans were shelved because thorium does not produce plutonium for bombs. As a happy bonus, it can burn up plutonium and toxic waste from old reactors, reducing radio-toxicity and acting as an eco-cleaner
And here's a reprint of Michael Lewis' Vanity Fair article from 1988 on how a Japanese earthquake could cause a stock market crash...
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/03/michael-lewis-japan…
cheers
Bernard
Regarding #4... CHECK THIS OUT>
"America's breadbasket" is on a collision course with the inevitable. A large percentage of the food produced in the United States is, of course, grown on farmlands irrigated from the Ogallala. For hundreds of years, it has been a source of "cheap water," making farming economically feasible and keeping food prices down. Combined with the available of cheap fossil fuels over the last century (necessary to drive the tractors that work the fields), food production has skyrocketed in North America. This has led to a population explosion, too. Where food is cheap and plentiful, populations readily expand.It only follows that when food becomes scarce or expensive (putting it out of reach of average income earners), populations will fall. There's only so much food to go around, after all. And after the Ogallala runs dry, America's food production will plummet. Starvation will become the new American landscape for those who cannot afford the sky-high prices for food.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/031658_aquifer_depletion_Ogallala.html#ixzz1HJbAzkZy
Monbiot is absolutely right. A crappy poor nuclear facility has survived a massive natural disaster
Not that nuclear would ever work for NZ (uneconomic and we have plenty of other options) -
but for Japan - a large population on a small island - its essential
If I had the opportunity of flying to Tokyo tomorrow with the possibility of landing a big commission I'd do it no hesitation. The nuclear incident has been totally overhyped
@ Matt in Auck,
you are right. I am here in Tokyo now and it's very overhyped and it's only the foreigners who are hyping it up. Pathetic really. The Japanese are very calm and going about there daily business in a very calm manner. Actually the radiation in Tokyo today is up a bit but still it annualises out to around 1.22 milli sieverts a year equivalent level. Most Adult Americans are exposed to about 6 milli sieverts a year just from regular back ground radiation, health checks etc etc. The average for most big cities around the world is 2.4 - 3 milli sieverts a year. So at most I might get 4 millisieverts this year if this carries on for a year and levels do not rise substantially. I think smoking is more harmful for you.
we'll see how it goes, of course the situation may change but for now it's fine and no cause what so ever for alarm. People are working on the situation and I'm sure they'll get it under control.
The real story in Japan is the huge natural disaster we have just experienced which is just completely mind blowing in the utter scope of it's destruction.
A crappy poor nuclear facility has survived a massive natural disaster
Survived? You've gotta be kidding - every "failsafe" system failed. I'm guessing the plant is an absolute write off - the only question remaining is who/what will it take with it to the grave.
Now I realise you can't believe everything you read but at no time during the entire crisis have Japanese officials looked at all confident and in control of the situation.
OK the facility "surviving" was a poor choice of words
what I meant was the event is likely to be contained and resolved without any serious loss of life or serious environmental degradation, hardly a disaster, and certainly far from the laughable doomsday scenarios being dreamt up by the western media
...without any serious loss of life or serious environmental degradation,
I think you must be meaning that "serious" would have been be a nuclear explosion - resulting in a bomb / mushroom cloud appearing as in WWII ilk. But I think this is an inappropriate benchmark when talking about serious in terms of NPP catastrophic failure. Radioactive material leakages such as we are seeing at Fukushima are slow killers - serious failure in an NPP isn't necessarily a spectacular, visual thing. But that doesn't make it any the less serious.
If anyone expects the truth to be told about the nuclear failure and meltdown in Japan...you have more chance of meeting Elvis...the lying is underway and millions will be spent on churning out good news stories to keep the idiot masses happy.
Next up we will be told the power is back on at all the plants and there seems to be no radiation left to worry about....and anyway a little bit will not hurt you...honest.
I agree. Apple Mac enthusiasts are simply that.
They will buy a computing machine on image alone and not think at all about performance or compatibility. They are the type that are stuck in a large city, drink starbucks, and claim they are more wealthy than those living in the beautiful provinces.
It seems there was a salt buying panic in China a few days ago...
http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/sub/news/story/0,4574,431190,00.html?
cheers
Bernard
And Paul Krugman mounts a full on sneering attack on Alan Greenspan. Fun to watch and I have to agree with Krugman...this time...
Greenspan writes in characteristic form: other people may have their models, but he’s the wise oracle who knows the deep mysteries of human behavior, who can discern patterns based on his ineffable knowledge of economic psychology and history.
Sorry, but he doesn’t get to do that any more. 2011 is not 2006. Greenspan is an ex-Maestro; his reputation is pushing up the daisies, it’s gone to meet its maker, it’s joined the choir invisible.
He’s no longer the Man Who Knows; he’s the man who presided over an economy careening to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression — and who saw no evil, heard no evil, refused to do anything about subprime, insisted that derivatives made the financial system more stable, denied not only that there was a national housing bubble but that such a bubble was even possible.
If he wants to redeem himself through hard and serious reflection about how he got it so wrong, fine — and I’d be interested in listening. If he thinks he can still lecture us from his pedestal of wisdom, he’s wasting our time.
That was a great interview with Satyajit Das on Radio Live. I didn't realise he is a "regular Sunday Business correspondent".
Bernard, any chance of teaming up with RadioLive and getting Sunday Business as a podcast on this website? (...some of us aren't up early enough on a Sunday). I'm less likely to go and hunt for it on the RadioLive website.
Das is only available for an interview every 3 or 4 months . But in between times Andrew Patterson gets some other plum interviews , such as with Niall Ferguson two weeks ago .
The Sunday Business show is brilliant listening ........ except perhaps for that gloomy guss who is the first guest on the show each week ............ he is a gloomsterisationalyser , pure and simple .
AUD > USD makes more sense when you read this:
Survived?
Something survives when its pretty much operational or can be restored economically....I could sit down and read all the news reports and put them together, but mostly I think most of those reactors are scrap, 1 to 4 for sure look like basket cases its just that they havnt actually fallen over....
regards
Great 10 at 10....
Here's a youtube piece I think is worth watching......a discusion / talk with the director of inside job....its a series but I enjoyed it.....if thats the right word.....yet more to make your blood boil..........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxtCn2GyqKc&feature=related
regards
#5. Inflation can only be contained by raising interest rates. The 80's experiment with wage and price controls was a bust until Volcker put his inflation-killing plan in play. Those nations on the perifery need to watch what happens in Japan and the UK, for an indication of trend. 2011 will be the beginning of the end of cheap borrowing for a generation. Those on floating rates are going to have the financial life squeezed out of them.
Many chickens will come home to roast (sic): Bollard's decision to cut rates, at the same time that Japanese investors are liquidating paper assets to rebuild, means an effective end to a global carry trade that made Kiwi Dollars the darling dance partner. The Masters of the Universe have been only too happy to keep forex markets stable by pumping up the New Zealand economy with an open chequebook lending policy, (on agregate a drop in the bucket) to maintain the illusion of Kiwi affluence. The Yen has been strengthened by the G7 because of the $700 billion in US treasuries held by the Japanese. Insurance companies and individuals in Japan will need to repatriate other investments to pay out claims. The West is trying to contain a wholesale dumping of US T Bills on the open market that would trigger a tsunami of selling. No amount of bond purchases by the Fed could contain a collapse of the bond market. Bernanke would be forced to print to infinity. Keeping the Japanese Yen strong will force them to begin printing. This poses a grave threat to Uridashi bonds. Who is going to soak those up?
Energy is the key to everything. The Jasmine Revolution in the Middle East and Africa is a game changer. In the Gulf of Mexico a new, huge oil slick was discovered. Energy costs are going to rise significantly for New Zealanders. This is a hidden form of inflation that will show up in transport costs and ultimately, food prices. To keep pace with costs our exporters will increase price, and as we all know it is policy to keep the domestic price of dairy and meat in line with overseas prices (as some kind of show of faith to overseas customers) . The 2011 census was cancelled precisely because it would have put a true face on the labour statistics and migratory pattern of our citizens. The National government is hoping to freeze - in time - what the nation looked like in 2007, at least until next fall's election.
In a nutshell, we are buggered.
You can only contian pull infaltion by rising rates.....ie when ppl have more money tahn goods you take the money off them in higher mortgagee charges...this is push inflation....raise rates and you hit ppl twice....so for me raising rates is suicideal for economies....
regards
"The Guardian's George Monbiot" I dont see eye to eye with this guy very often however I tend to agree, despite the political interference and general f*ck ups the plant didnt do to badly....I see this as a case of Japan is a country in the state of a financial slow meltdown....and second rate managers are prepared to gamble that something wont go wrong....Ive seen this in engineering for decades and IT in the last decade and the worst of the lot are the outsource specialist companies where profit is the over-riding factor...so the only way to fix these to my mind is good rgualtion and a reglectory system thats open so the voter can see it in action every day......
Some obvious lessons, the storage of spent fuel seems to have been as big a problem if not bigger than the reactors themselves to my mind it shouldnt have been onsite in the first place........batteries did well but should have lasted longer....
regards
Monbiot - along with Gwynne Dyer and Tim Flannery - has made a judgement call that nuclear is better than the alternatives. Underlying that, is an assumption that BAU is a goer.
They all - in my opinion! - are looking at it from a climate angle. From which it's an understandable compromise.
As far as a legacy to future generations, climate change is a guarantee, nuclear waste is a maybe - you can see where they're going.
Really, they're wasting their time. The need for energy will see all the oil and all the coal used, and without CCS. The argument to the end, will be 'economic', and 'immediate need'.
"The need for energy will see all the oil and all the coal used, and without CCS. The argument to the end, will be 'economic', and 'immediate need'."
Yep.....one comments is that there isnt enough oil and coal to send CO2 that high.....ive not read up on that yet.....but I fully expect that we will endevour to use all the oil and coal we can in desperation....so we will max the possible CO2 ppm whatever that actually is in the end. So if you look at the effects of AGW about 100~150years from now we see 4deg C rise maybe more and no society as such surviving, if we are lucky the human species might survive (there certainly wont be billions)....but Im not sure on that...
regards
Kate,
URL(s) to the claim(s) that every failsafe system failed?
Like Ive said I want to read the total report....
My understanding is that the reactors shutdown correctly ie the rods dropped as designed....the battery backup to the pumps kept going for 8 odd hours.
So "every" certianly is a blanket falsehood on the face of it.
The plant appears to have survived the earthquake quite well, and the backup generators were functioning....what seems to have been more damaging was the tsanami....
regards
Given cooling needs to happen on a 24/7 basis for a facility to remain safe - it's nonsense to claim that "backup worked" given 8/1 was all the design backup that was achieved following the event.
This is the link which I think is most useful;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/51271078/Update-3-22
Steven , I agree with you. The key problem was the backup generators being "washed out" by the tsunami. If they had been positioned in a better place we would not be having a discussion because the plant would have continued operating like the other one up the road.
Also to be fair to Monbiot , he wrote the article soon after the quake , before many of the issues developed with the plant. In hignsight the use of the word survive is unfortunate , but his main point is still valid.
As I posted yesterday there was a hydro dam in the same area demolised by the earth quake , flattening 1800 houses. They don't know the death toll yet. So there is risk in everything
This plant was a very old design and close to being closed down. Reactor 4 was already closed, the problem is with the old fuel stored at reactor 4.
The new designs work on having to put energy in to keep the reaction going, so if the power fails the reaction slows down and stops. The old designs work the other way, ie the reaction has to be held in check, so if the power fails the reaction builds up.
I cant find the reference but there was a study of people in areas with high natural background radiation that found that radiation up to a certain level appears to have a positive health effect. This makes sense because there is quite a bit of natural background radiation and over the billions of year life would have adapted to it.
Wakey wakey Alan.....time to get it up ....
"The Bank of England's Andrew Sentance today raised the pressure on his colleagues to hike interest rates by warning that inflation will rise above 5% this year. He added that failure to act now risked a 'more abrupt and destabilising rise in interest rates in the future'.
His comments came after Office for National Statistics figures today showed consumer prices index inflation running at 4.4% in February.
That was higher than expected and up from 4% in January
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=526417&in_page_id=2&ct=5
Here's some more Alan...read it with your toast and coffee
“No further accommodation is needed after June,” including by tapering the central bank’s purchases, the regional bank chief, who votes on monetary policy this year, said in a speech today in Frankfurt. “Doing so would only prolong the injustice that we have inflicted” on savers through inflation, he said".........guess who Alan?......note the bit about "injustice"
I am fighting to get through your confusing comments Westy...Most savers have little in savings and are familiar with using a bank and keep their cash on short term deposits in case they need some of it at short notice. They are unlikely to venture into any other investment given the thieving criminal behaviour in the property finance sector of late.
As for the rest of your blather....I suggest you widen your reading to gain an understanding of the truth behind the way in which the Fed in the us has rorted the public to bail out the too big to fail banks. The only result has been to fool the likes of you into believing there has been a recovery, when in fact bugger all has been done to fix the debt problems.
Tell us why savers should have to fund the bailouts of the fools who took on too much risk. Tell us why the criminals in the us banking and financial system and us govt departments are not facing a judge. Tell us what Bernanke intends doing post QE2 when it is utterly clear his printing games have failed.
We still have a world of debt. None of it has gone away. Those with savings are moving away from funding that debt. That is why Bill English is burning the candles in the Beehive trying to find a way to escape the trap.
As for your final comment...."like losing their jobs and their homes"...tell it to the Americans.
Look at the forest Westminster, not one or two trees!...the recession is ongoing...here...in America...in the piigs...in the uk....and shows no sign of ending...and the housing value decline in the usa has now exceeded that which took place in the 30s....
As for your drivel ..." it was about avoiding a repeat of the 1930's.'....no it is not....it has been about bailing out the too big to fail banks and propping up american failed govt entities that have been as criminal as Madoff was...and sweeping under the carpet all the dirty filthy bank secret losses.
The savers are the ones starting to demand a return on their capital that covers them for the 'Bernanke inflation' driving up prices....and that is why the IMF and the liar agencies are telling our slow to act govt that the time is up....
Wolly.....now you are being tin foil hat brigade material I believe.
I guess there are two lines of thought a) Yours? thats its purely bail money.... b) another that I prefer in that it was better to keep these a*holes going than allow them to fail and send them to jail becaus ethe probable result was so horrendious, ie toal anarchy. Maybe because the Govns do not want to show the voters just how much of a mess we are still in and it hasnt been solved that they have done what they have done. No matter how you look at it the promises successive Pollies have made are downright lies and if or when the voter finally see that there will be hell to pay.....the odd revolution and the odd banker / pollie hanging from the lamp post....Now I can totally agree that so called investors have leaped on that and will effectively be raping future voters pockets over this.....so there are a few more to string up.......maybe its a chicken and egg moment.
Even if you accept its was all about bailing out the banks, the simple answer is/was there was no choice. With the Lehman brothers failure the entire global financial system was set to freeze, atms etc would not have worked...we couldnt have bought food....bank runs etc....
After that huge and horrendious problem sure I can accept that the banksters then moved to make sure their asses were safe....and going forward are safe....
regards
Oh yeah I figure all that steven...but there was a full article in the market oracle about a week ago to do with this very matter....and rubbished the idea that the fed and the crooks had no other choice..seems Bush was screwed every which way ...guess who had a hand in doing that....starts with a G....! I'm sure the article is still there.
Expect a gray budget "because of the earthquake" come May. Next year we will see a Black Budget, unless a Black Swan brings one sooner.
Then we will see:
1. Retirement age raised to 67.
2. 20% across the board cuts to government spending.
3. Introduction of a Land Tax.
4. ACC sold to insurance industry.
5. Working For Families binned.
National will win the next election if Goff is the only thing they are up against. But after this one it will be a IBGYBG world (I'll Be Gone, You'll Be Gone World.) . How old will Winston be four years from now?
1 ) Retirement to 67 I dont see as bad....its the BBs anyway so they have to work longer....
2) yeah right....try a tax increase instead...
3) See 2)
4) Why sell it? and who and why would they buy it? The great thing for the private insurance companies is that with leaving ACC in place they can only take on the low risk sectors and workers....so they cherry pick from ACC leaving ACC's costs to climb while their income declines....short answer is voters get screwed over but it is not immediately apparent....
5) WFF, I doubt it but curtailed yes....too many votes are tied up in that bit of social engineering to see it really fiddled with.....
National will probably win, yes i agree....even to the extent that I might just vote National because Labour are incapable of dishing out any hard mediciene / making hard calls...not that i think National are much better.......
regards
I don't share your confidence Matt. Have a read of what one of the Chernobyl cleaners advises the Japanese people to do - "run"
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/22/chernobyl-cleanup-survivors-message-f…
-sorry, that should have gone in as a reply to Matt above about Japan nuclear accident
Here some more techno information comparing the two.
http://www.upall.org/archive/comparing_chernobyl_amp_fukushima-29411.html
I also recommend to read comments and links from link above.
..next to other dangers "Mox" in reactor 3 could become a major problem.
Considering the force of mother earth,
we just don’t know what we are doing – an industry lobby full of ignorance and arrogance destroying life. This is another clear sign of real democratic processes eaten away by secret, corrupt groups in most economic branches within nations.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/4799996/Spent-nuclear-fuel-storage-sites-are-packed
You Guys are all reading the western media hype too much. I am here now living in Tokyo and i put my faith in the numbers. Don't fall into the trap of speading mass panic. Can you imagine what things will be like if 35 million people who live around here panic. You guys have no idea at all. Calm is best. Don't stoke fears where at the moment there is no grounds for such. I have faith in the Japanese engineers at the plant. They really are heroes ! Everyone of us all over the world is exposed to background radiation every day. The current levels in Tokyo are not much higher than normal and nothing to get worked up about. They are really very small doses we are talking about. All these commentators in the US and looks like you guys in NZ too are not here so you cannot base your comments on the actual situation. What you should do is come to Japan and see for yourself. I'm staying.
How very brave of you ....are you aware of the fact the Japanese govt has extended the food ban area to the prefecture south of the initial one...ie closer to Tokyo! and extended the advisory to include all 'greens'....It's so wonderful to discover someone who believes what they are told by bureaucrats, pollies and nuclear industry pointy heads.
...my wife is Japense, from Ibaraki Prefecture. We're on the phone/email to family and freinds often. They are worried about the nucelar fallout....one friend has left to go to the west. She was so frightened she was hiding out in the house with her daughter. Then again, my wife's parents, although really worried are adopting a wait and see approach. They may be calm on the outside, but are in an awful situation with this hanging over them.
rp -
As long as the situation is critical (especially reactor 3) living especially north of Tokyo http://www.meteoblue.com/japan/fukushima_japan.html
I would rather spend some holiday out of the country by now.
Radiation doesn’t come with colour or hit you on the head.
Wolly I'm not brave nor stupid. I'm just getting on with life. When there is a real risk I'll deal with it, until then life as normal as much as possible. The Govt is right to stop food from those 4 prefectures getting into the food chain. That gives me a lot of confidence they are onto things. There are other places in Japan where veges are grown you know, not only these 4 areas.
RP, Yes Ibaraki is closer to Fukushima than Tokyo and does have higher radiation levels than Tokyo, but the levels are not dangerous at the moment. If the situation changes for the worse it may be a worry but for now you don't need to worry too much. If the sitaution goes on for a year then it wil be a worry. I have confidence teh Govt wil bring thing sunder control within the next 3 months at most.
I think the Govt here is doing a good job of keeping people informed. There are news bulletins all day long on the TV with various updates.
Guys get with the real story and that is the huge disaster up North, that is truely something to worry about. A lot more people have died up there than will ever be killed by radiation in Tokyo or on Ibaraki spinach.
"When there is a real risk I'll deal with it"....how will you know there is real risk?
As for suggesting we are somehow ignoring the destruction along the whole of the north east coastal regions...that's bullshit.
It strikes me that you think the contamination is a short term problem...go read about the Soviet experience.
Sorry Wolly, not you guys. The foreign media are focusing too much on sensationalising the Nuclear thing and tring to make out its some kind of huge apocolypse situation when it is nothing like that at all and there are just heartbreaking stories from the tsunami zone which I think are much more important than a little bit radiation in Tokyo. Like I said yestesterday it is only the foreign media going stupid about the " what if this happens, what if that happens " at the nuclear plant. The Japanese and the Japanese media are actually focussed on trying to solve and contain the problem at hand and keep people informed about the actual situation and progress and not beat up on what could happen, what might happen if ...... You know it's not really helpful to do that. Sometimes it better just to be practical and look at the job at hand and not just go on and on about what might happen. Nobody is denying there are risks involved. it's how you react to those risks that is important. Calm is good, mass hysteria is not.
Wolly, often people with high technological knowledge think it must be safe by switching off – otherwise they wouldn’t be so arrogant (human vs, nature) and build that crap.
The event in Japan could be a sign of a new phase as far as strong(er) earthquakes and its’ consequences concerns. The question is, have other countries taken (precautionary)measures and shut down some of their NPP’s at risks or is it just a stupid game - human/ profits vs. mother earth ?
Universal Concerns
. Reactor 3 suffered significant damage after the quake and the tsunami waves on March 11th;
. The roof of the building was destroyed by a powerful explosion last week caused by an accumulation of hydrogen;
. Reactor 3 raises the most concern since it runs on MOX or Mixed Oxide fuel -- a mixture of plutonium and uranium;
. MOX is far more dangerous than uranium on its own; and
. MOX is two million times more deadly than normal enriched uranium.
. Reactor 3's recent smoke appears to have originated from the building's side, where the spent nuclear fuel pool is located;
. The precise contents of the smoke and vapour at reactor 3, and other reactors, are as yet unknown;
. However, workers were evacuated from the nuclear plant after smoke appeared from reactor 3;
. No radiation spike has been detected so the common assumption is that all is fine;
. Radiation levels are NOT up after the smoke release from reactor 3 which seems to have reassured the global financial markets for the moment;
. Should the world relax if we don't as yet know the precise contents of the smoke and vapour from reactor 3?
. What if the release of elements in the smoke and vapour were not just radioactive iodine, caesium and uranium but a MOX combination including plutonium?
. This would explain why the workers were immediately evacuated given the deadly nature of plutonium;
. Plutonium is extremely difficult to detect because it emits limited gamma rays -- unlike radioactive iodine, caesium and uranium -- and it is deadly;
. Plutonium release would not show up as a radiation spike;
. Plutonium 239 is the deadliest element known to man;
. Half-life of Plutonium-239 in MOX is 24,000 years: Few milligrams of P-239 escaping in a smoke plume will contaminate soil for tens of thousands of years; and
. Plutonium comes from Pluto: god of wealth and power and also the god of hell and death.
Kunst: How does your "important " information help the situation exactly?
Shall we stick to what we actually know to be true?
Here is something not related but something to reflect on none the less:
The story in Stuff today from the kiwi search and rescue guy just back from Japan who talked about the 8 year old kid they found half way up a tree, who had climbed there to desparately try and escape from the Tsunami and who got caught anyway and drowned .....up a tree. That is sad. We don't have issues like that Kunst down here in Tokyo. We are pretty sweet in comparison as you are in NZ. Count your self lucky I say.
Living in Clover –yes - that’s relatively simple it all depends, which information’s are important to you. In accordance you will stay, temporally leave or leave for good.
I’m just using my and other’s people knowledge to inform, because I’m very critical about official statements.
Just the latest:
IAEA just released a statement smoke is coming directly from reactor building. Tepco is saying it cpuld be from the turbine building. So, again information is very confusing.
Your knowledge? so far you sound and look more like one of the headless chickens...doing lots of speculating, you may indeed be right but a lucky guess is still a lucky guess.....
Even if the reactors blow which isnt likely NZ is not going to be effected by significant radiation...and especially when you compare this and even chernobyl to all the bombs that have been let off in the last 60 years....
regards
Ditto,
well Kunst, what do any of us know, except the alarmist stuff doesn't help.
Japanese earthquake 2011 deaths to date are likely to be 20,000+ and mostly from drowning. Death from radiation exposure is 0 so far and your guess is a good as mine to what the final tally will be there, but it will not exceed the first terrible toll.
Plutonium as an alpha emitter is not especially toxic until it is ingested or inhaled. But like other heavy metals, uranium, lead or mercury..... will be biologically toxic, independent of its radioactive effects. Your skeleton is likely to have small amounts present from fall-out during the 20th century adding a little to your background radiation dose of 2-4 mSv/year. It is irradiating you as you type. The biggest risk to you is probably apoplexy or myocardial infarction due to the stress of thinking about it.
It is the familiar that is the biggest risk to all of us. In that, one is much more likely to die in a auto accident (on the way to the airport) then during the aircraft flight. Homicide is more likely to be committed by someone known to the victim than a stranger. More accidents occur at home than elsewhere (the kitchen is really dangerous)... ACC stats. ..............One is more likely to be struck by lightening (?twice) than win division one Powerball.............
Don't mix up perceived and absolute risk.
Maccader- my fundamental question is: Who controls developments in science (GE) & technology facing mother earth/ nature ? Are we listening and trusting experts too much ?
I’m wonder what else is damaged in the region affected by the tsunami officials aren’t telling.
What we experienced with the case of the earthquake in Japan, respectively tsunami - obviously one unprecedented strike of mother earth is enough to kill thousands and infrastructures regarded as safe. What’s next do we learn from it ? Are more people/ infrastructures at risk – wait and see ?
Obviously the people of New Zealand (democratic process) said no to nuclear power plants – why not hardly any other nations/ governments ?
I’m sure in case you are affected - you wanting answers.
Furthermore in the last few years damages caused by climate changes and man made disasters are becoming almost prohibitively expensive. We definitely need solutions.
So dont get in an aeroplane? your car? there is always risk....the thing to judge is the level or risk and degree of impact and familiarity can mask that process....and often does....
GE, etc, we get to choose as a society whether we want GE, buy american produce? its packed with GE, I dont....cornflour? about the biggest GE mod'd product there is I think.
NZ made a great decision to ban Nuclear, just one of the things I love about NZ, however we are also one of the heavier polluters per capita....
So we aint that great is some respects.
regards
Lol ! This event seems to have brought out all the Chicken Little's !
The smoke yesterday was machine oil catching on fire, radiation levels did not increase around the plant. Today in Tokyo the radiation levels have dropped a little.
If you need it here is a link to radiation levels monitored every hour in Tokyo in Micro Sv per hour. It's good to work out the annualized amount assuming 24hrs a day exposure at these levels to get some relativity.( and realism for the chicken little's )
http://113.35.73.180/report/report_table.do
Here is another for radiation levels in Yokohama in Nano Sv per hour.
http://www.city.yokohama.lg.jp/kankyo/saigai/
Have fun.,
Tokyo water 'unfit for babies' due to high radiation - this from the Beeb!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12825342
You have got to be kidding! But then hey, they're just kids, maybe their Mum's can feed them some of that yummy Fonterra milk from little ol' NZ...
Oh sorry, is it just the media scaremongering ???
What to do with all that information - smoke another one ?
As we read and hear more bad news from Fuck-us-shima it is interesting what people had to say here in the past with the last 10 -20 comments.
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http://therealnewsjournal.com/?p=6615
Nearly one million people around the world died from exposure to radiation released by the 1986 nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl reactor, finds a new book from the New York Academy of Sciences published today on the 24th anniversary of the meltdown at the Soviet facility.
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