In the playground of the rich, wealth flaunting is a sport

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There is an elite new rich club on the party scene in New Zealand. They are calling themselves the Fulltimer Society and, as much as I can gather, this club of young people is a hybrid of The YaYa Club, another more well-known rich society with a higher profile and membership. The Fulltimer Society was founded by 17 young men who may not all be from wealthy backgrounds but an affluent “life-style” is certainly what they are selling. As the NZ Herald reported the founders of the Fulltime Society have “created a business from partying”. Their membership includes Max Key, who happens to be the son of our millionaire PM John Key. In a piece entitled  “Auckland’s extravagant, young, elite society you need to know about,” journalist Beatrice Hazlehurst spoke to the founder of the  Fulltimer Society, Vicktor Green. She writes,

They united/were recruited if they had A) ever modelled or B) were widely connected in the nouveau-riche Auckland social scene – the latter applying to the likes of the Prime Minister’s son, Fulltimer Max Key.

Members of the Fulltimer Society get drunk in bars at Auckland’s Viaduct and pretend to be entrepreneurs (hey man, they organise events and shit) and urge young white girls holding champagne glasses to kiss each other for the camera, as if being born lesbian or bisexual is some kind of fashionable fad that gains you popularity instead of the typically more common social exclusion, discrimination and sometimes bodily harm. People who criticise their pursuits are labelled as having “tall poppy syndrome,” a term used to describe the cutting down and criticising of people of merit who, because of their talents or achievements, are elevated above the rest of us. Beatrice writes,

[Green] blames the “haters” on kind of exacerbated tall poppy syndrome – suggesting the critics are made up of those that would never be accepted into the Fulltimers ranks themselves, so they resort to taking the club down a peg – an “if you can’t join ’em beat ’em” mentality.

“Tall poppy syndrome”? Not. So. Much.

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Girls at an event hosted by the Fulltimer Society. Photo / Facebook

It is more an unbridled and growing discontent and frustration at this kind of wealth flaunting (whether perceived or real) in a country where 260,000 children are living in poverty and where upward mobility is nearly impossible to access for the growing working class – especially, for Maori and Pacific Islanders who are acutely affected by poverty. The knowledge there is plenty of wealth to go around stings: we can see it, but unfortunately this wealth is more and more concentrated in the hands of a few who will hoard and guard this money and the assets which come with it, until the day they fucking die. Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of Oxfam International, wrote earlier this year, “the combined wealth of the richest 1 percent will overtake that of the other 99 percent of people next year unless the current trend of rising inequality is checked.”

It’s just, this all feels utterly fucking unfair? Like something is really rotten at the core of this once so-called great egalitarian country that has become a vastly divided society of “haves and have nots.” It’s become a place where Max Key can D.J (just like Paris Hilton) at glittering parties for members of a club that promotes itself as some kind of elite rich-kid society (as if what clubs like these “do” has anything to do with culture), and play shitty remixes of pop-songs, then post a viral video of his luxurious holiday in Hawaii with his blue eyed, blonde haired model girlfriend hanging off his arm. While many families could not afford the rising electricity prices to run a heater during the dead-cold chills of winter and where a young child died last year due to respiratory failure that the coroner attributed, in part, to the cold, damp mould-ridden state house she was living in. This kind of disparity in regards to the quality of life people can and cannot access is palpable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lMzPWgPn3M

As the political underclass struggles daily to gain economic stability, we are told we just need to “work harder;” this statement is usually accompanied with a good dose of poverty shaming. Herein lies the myth we have been sold as truth: that somehow rich people, such as John Key, worked really hard for his millions and possess special skills and an intelligence, implying we do not. This myth is better known as the Self-Attribution Fallacy, wherein rich people credit their successes with outcomes for which they weren’t responsible. In other words: when rich people pat themselves on the back for all their successes in life they are kind of full of fucking shit. George Monbiot writes in the Guardian,

Many of those who are rich today got there because they were able to capture certain jobs. This capture owes less to talent and intelligence than to a combination of the ruthless exploitation of others and accidents of birth, as such jobs are taken disproportionately by people born in certain places and into certain classes.

Getting rich and remaining wealthy often has little to do with skill and much more to do with luck and having what it takes to break the backs of many as they stomp their way up to the top. Or like Max Key, rich young people inherit a bunch of money, and somehow think this makes them special, as if they possess superpowers we do not. When I talked to a friend who is a law student at Auckland University, he pointed out in regards to accruing wealth by luck and at the expense of others:

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Prime Minister John Key, who was a Wall Street banker, did not produce any useful good or service. He just bought and sold currencies at the right time to make a huge profit. Currency speculation is a very useless industry which leads to huge riches for some but economic chaos and uncertainty for others. For example international currency speculation helped lead to the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.

John Key was appointed the head of the Asian foreign exchange in Singapore in 1995 and during the staggering losses of the 1998 Russian financial crisis he oversaw the sacking of hundreds of employees. Key was nicknamed by co-workers as “the smiling assassin” in response to his “cheery” disposition while telling people they no longer had job.

Out of crisis and chaos there will always be an elite few who rise from the ashes of destruction by grinding their heels into the necks of others, eventually benefiting from the economic disasters around them.

One of Max Key’s stated goals in life is to turn his father’s millions into billions and, if Max has inherited his father’s ruthlessness and utter disregard for the welfare of others–evident in John Key’s overseeing of callous state welfare reforms by National MP Paula Bennett, and his cuts to public spending–no doubt Max who is studying finance, accounting and property at Auckland University, will accomplish this goal. The Key dynasty will be born.

I understand these young people who start-up these elite clubs are just responding to our times; they aren’t just some aberration.

Collectively, we have been taught money means status, and status (often defined by a ruthless exploitation of others and the acquiring of ludicrous amounts of money) means power; it so often seems that to these people, the pursuit of power and the need to “have it all” at the expense of millions of others, is far more important than building a sense of community or looking out for one another. We prize psychopathy over empathy and compassion within our dominate systems.

This is the perverse logic of neoliberalism and a constraining economic model that serves only the elite rich at the expense of our planet and the majority of people living on it.

There will always be very real, sometimes deadly, casualties in the pursuit of “personal freedom” and “choice.” Neoliberalism was the promise that once free from state “interference” our lives would become better and we would have more autonomy, and this would be a good thing. For example: once state welfare is abolished people would be forced to find work, and thus, if they can’t find jobs they will then be pushed to create new work opportunities and jobs for themselves out of necessity. The unemployed will not become unwitting victims of the “welfare-trap” because, simply, that safety net would no longer exist.

What has resulted though, is not more choice for the majority of us, nor more “freedoms,” but the illusion of choice, or what I prefer to call “constricted choice,” and therefore less [economic] freedom. When short sighted governments slash state welfare they often push people further into crippling poverty; you may avoid creating “victims” of the “welfare trap,” but instead “victims” of neoliberalism are created.

So when I read about Max Key, who benefits from neoliberal policies, going on luxurious holidays and having endless leisure time to pursue his passions such as DJing and going on holidays most of us can only dream of, I am reminded of my own “restricted choice”…  .

As a low paid service worker I can either pick one shitty, meaningless and low-paid bar job or I can pick another shitty, meaningless and low-paid bar job that may have some extra benefits such as sick pay, eventually.

A more extreme example of what “constricted choice” looks like I learned about when I told a writer friend in America who is currently working at a supermarket as a low wage earner about my ideas around the realities of “constricted choice.” He told me:

“I’m joining the military soon because I feel like I am not doing anything with my life and there is a lot of tension at home. Essentially, for me, It’s either the military or homelessness. However I am looking at the bright side: I can get paid and travel, but I could get placed somewhere shitty and if we invade some place I could end up getting shot at.”

For many people, limited options force them to consider and often take work or career paths which are not only limiting and depressing, but also dangerous, if not deadly.

Being rich doesn’t just buy you pretty things, it also buys you an abundance of choice; it buys you leisure time to pursue whatever it is that brings you joy and fulfilment, and a sense of well-being. Even if this “fulfilment” is found in organizing booze drenched parties at fancy bars geared at the upper classes, it also buys you time to spend with the people you love and care for. It buys you the time and space to develop and pursue your passions whether that be music, drawing, writing, dance, whatever; these are all things which develop and add to culture.

The cost of being poor is not just the denial of basic necessities like a heater in winter to stay warm or a dry and warm house to live in, it is also the loss of sleep because you are working some shit low paid job which means working harder and longer hours to stay afloat, thus you have less or no time to relax and rest. If you stop to catch your breath or take a day off from whatever menial job you are working, to gather yourself and catch up on sleep, it means forgoing rent (risking becoming homeless) or buying less, or no food the following week. If you are economically poor, you are typically also likely to be “time poor.”

This is the bottom line for so many people who are struggling to stay afloat in a rich world:

in a country where there is an abundance of money and resources to go around, an elite selfish and callous few are refusing to share. For a few to prosper many must suffer.

This was first posted on Chloe King’s own site Posse. You can follow her on twitter!

86 COMMENTS

  1. Prime Minister John Key, who was a Wall Street banker, did not produce any useful good or service. He just bought and sold currencies at the right time to make a huge profit. Currency speculation is a very useless industry which leads to huge riches for some but economic chaos and uncertainty for others. For example international currency speculation helped lead to the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.

    When supporters of Key/National point to Key’s reputation of a successful “businessman”, I take pains to correct them.

    Key was not a businessman.

    He was a currency speculator.

    Key has never run a business, and I doubt he could fill out a GST return – or if he’s ever seen one.

    • A currency speculator is inherently a parasite. They build nothing. They generate nothing. They suck out value from flows of capital at the expense of production.

    • Absolutely correct Frank.

      And I would add to that it has been shown that the emotions involved when one is speculating on markets such as the currency markets are exactly the same as those involved in gambling.

      And that’s what speculating on markets is, also called day trading or scalping (a bit different, but still speculation). It’s a form of gambling.

      Some people are very good at it. Once you’ve learned how to do it it’s not actually that hard. And you can make a lot of money doing it.

      But nothing useful at all is produced. Nothing. Traders do add liquidity to markets, but that’s all. They’re not actually necessary for our society to function. They produce no goods or services to consume by anyone else. They don’t add to the richness of our culture.

      It’s actually quite parasitic.

      I do it. I’m pretty good at it and getting better. I don’t have any illusions about what I’m doing though. While the game is structured thus I’ll cynically continue to do it and profit. Not in the ranks of Key for sure, but I’m still profiting.

      And that’s why I think we need to restructure how money works amongst other things. So crap like this doesn’t continue.

    • It’s a bit like being a tapeworm. You’re a parasite who thrives by exploiting your host. You don’t exist to do anything constructive. Your sole reason for being is to perpetuate your own existence.

      • So the son of a solo mum, born brought up in a state house who had the wit and self-discipline to study & work hard instead of fathering half a dozen kids and living off the dole is a parasite?

        He donates his salary to charity for goodness sake!

          • Frank, why would someone with the earning capacity of John Key return to NZ to earn a small percentage of his salary potential and suffer constant abuse from TBA and for that matter any other person with an opinion on what they think is right.

            I respect your opinion on most things but regrettably not always.

            • Frank,

              John Key is an agent of Bilderberg Group as he attends their secret meetings and of course he gets paid in other ways so his job here is not to help us kiwis but his mates at his “Club” The Bilderberg group whom are among the group of corporations who are the wealthiest in the world.

              His prise is passing TPPA for them to take all of NZ for their prize.

              That is why John Key came to NZ for a pittance and endures the hostility to complete his tasks, because otherwise he is only just another two bit currency trader but is a free agent for the global elite.

              http://twochurchesonly.com/supmat/03/most_influential/bilderberg_group/list_of_bilderberg_attendees.pdf

              Why didn’t PM tell NZ he was into Bilderberg?

              List of Bilderberg participants 4

              New Zealand

              • John Key (2011-2012), Prime Minister of New Zealand

              http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bilderberg

              No Bilderberg meeting agenda has ever been made public. “It is the epitome of low-profile dark ops, a shadow government hidden in a doorway.” According to critics and close observers, it’s agenda is to weaken all world leadership but their own. It is also, according to a U.S. law called the Logan Act, [15] illegal:

            • umm – because changing the system can have massive financial payoffs for all the business you and your associates have a stake in, and once that work is done you get given really cushy jobs to further advance your own wealth

              this weird idea that JK is doing this for us and not to advance a particular ideology is idiotic

            • When he stops being PM he will be richly rewarded by the people he is serving now.

              Plus, have you seen his photo album? Stuff money can’t buy.

        • Its my understanding that keys mom inherited a large sum of money and spent much of it on her son.
          Basically it was Jewish family money from Europe, this money gave him the leg up to get where he did in banking.
          “He donates his salary to charity for goodness sake”
          Really? Well no one has ever seen proof of this, when asked key said mmmm he’s didn’t know how much of his salary or which charity.

          • “Its my understanding that keys mom inherited a large sum of money and spent much of it on her son.”

            Cite?

          • What’s the difference between “Jewish money” and other money? Any citation, evidence of this? Or have you pulled this from your arse?

        • Which charity? “at the end if the day” that is just a smarmy line, an excuse, a lie if it cannot be backed up. Which charity has John Key donated his whole PM salary to the entire time he has been PM? Or has he forgotten?

    • True that Frank.

      Chloe,
      I cant seem to place my blog but you are right, as FJK and his ilk bow to the god of money we see the poor and disabled go starving and die early so we are on a godless slide down a slippery sloe to hell.

      Thanks to the Judas Key.

      • Decadence is what these new romans are engaging in again like before the downfall of Pompeii.

        One idea of Pompeii has dominated popular consciousness through art and literature: The cataclysmic eruption that destroyed the Vesuvian cities in A.D. 79 was a justly deserved punishment for sin—whether erotic excess, gluttony, violence, greed, or a failure to accept Christianity.

        Now these Zealots are worshiping a new God called money.

    • Frank, according to Wikipedia, John Key graduated from Canterbury University with a Batchelor of Commerce (accounting major) from Canterbury University in 1981. His first job was as an auditor for a CA firm and then he moved to a project management role with Lane Walker Rudkin. He then moved into finance, first with Elders Finance then Bankers Trust. He joined Merrill Lynch in 1995 and six years later returned to NZ and was elected to parliament as the member for Helensville in 2002.

      The comment you highlighted was that of an Auckland Law student and I suspect there would be many other students with a different view.

      • Yep, that kinda illustrates my point, Grant. Key may’ve worked for businesses – but he was not a businessman per se.

        Just as the pizza delivery person working for a business (eg; Dominoes) doesn’t make him or her a businessperson.

        Key worked for Merrill Lynch as head of Asian foreign exchange in Singapore. He was employed to do currency speculation.

        Somehow I doubt if he has much in common with real businesspeople; investing their own money; working long hours to provides goods and/or services; and adding to the growth of the economy. You may not agree, but speculation is not a productive activity in my view, and is more parasitic than productive.

        Steven Joyce, by comparison, was a businessman.

        • Whatever John Key did, it gives him, (he thinks), the experience to tell others about getting into the ‘real world.’ So wherever he’s been, whatever he’s done it’s in the real world.

          To me, when he tells teachers that, he sounds like a bumptious little prick.

    • Frank, this is total rubbish. If the test of being a businessman is being able to fill out a GST return we have reached a sorry state.

          • I could, Grant. As I wrote above at 7.14pm;

            “…real businesspeople; investing their own money; working long hours to provides goods and/or services; and adding to the growth of the economy .”

            I’ve run my own business and I have experience in such matters.

            I’ve also filled out a GST return which, at the time, was the simplest tax return ever devised in the history of the human race.

            • Thanks Frank, then we have done similar things.

              However, managing a huge business like an investment bank is not different. Rewards are performance based and failure to meet goals is rewarded accordingly.

              The Consise Oxford Dictionary describes a businessman/women as “engaged in trade or commerce”.

              • Hi Grant

                To be fair, I suspect the Concise Oxford definition may not be the same as understood by the ‘common man’. Most people would consider the term ‘business man’ applied to someone who had run a business. To the best of my knowledge, Key has not. However, and perhaps more the point, National have people in senior economic positions who have not only run businesses but have also had real life experience in the private sector. Labour, on the other hand, have a Finance spokesman who has no experience outside the Govt/NGO sector, and a leader who has had no experience outside of the union movement.

                • The problem is Lionking – if Key owned the corner dairy he would qualify as a businessman under this measurement.

                  However, the lack of practical experience within Labour is something I am not fully familiar with, but I do think some experience in the commercial world is important.

                  • Hi Grant

                    “if Key owned the corner dairy he would qualify as a businessman under this measurement.”
                    Yes, and to a certain extent I would agree with that description!

                    “but I do think some experience in the commercial world is important.”
                    Yes, it is. When David Parker was Labour’s Finance spokesman he at least had some business experience. Robertson is totally unqualified for the role, which is likely why he had to plagiarise so much of the ‘future of work’ piece he was asked to write!

            • Frank,

              This guys is clearly just another NatZ troll, fishing without coming up with anything to support his theory of the white knight morals of his leader.

              We know what FJK is not.

              Ignore the guy he gets money to troll.

              • Clean green, If that is a possibility then he should not be able to have an opinion on anything. Imagine having two sides to a debate!!

    • Excellent point. Thank you. Key was a salesman, a negotiator, a ‘wheeler/dealer’ but never a ‘businessman.’ He negotiated deals in the ‘thin air’ market.

  2. Currency speculation is of course ENTIRELY parasitic. The John Key’s “gains” in the activity must, by definition, be someone else’s losses. Worse still, these losses are often incurred by someone who legitimately NEEDED to exchange their currency (for business, travel, or immigration for e.g.). The John Key made his fortune by simple skimming, and imo the activity of “currency trading” should be banned, since it is clearly detrimental to the market.

    • Most of the losses are incurred by people jumping in thinking they’re going to get rich quick.

      Witness the proliferation online of brokers offering Forex trading accounts with minimal deposits.

      There are a helluva lot of people sitting in front of their computers doing what they think is “trading”, new to the game, and losing. Thousands.

      Most of them lose because they don’t understand the concepts of risk and money management.

      It’s sad, but to be honest they’re motivated by greed.

  3. As long as there has been wealth and inequality, there have been groups of the wealthy who have somehow thought it their duty, or right, to remind everybody else how fabulous and wealthy they are. What is different about this is that in Aotearoa/New Zealand it is a relatively new phenomenon. And social media and our celebrity obsessed media make sure that we all know about it. And so large numbers of the populace who are the victims of the neoliberal reforms have to now endure the frequent reminders from these children of privilege of how special they are compared to everybody else. The irony, lost on them, is that they have no concept of how obscene their behaviour looks to others. They are just “having fun”.

  4. it is the sworn duty of young people to party! take it from an expert rebel rouser of the hedonistic 70s and early 80s era, but back then it was a more equal society, virtually anyone that wanted to devote their life to partying, fashion, concerts, and treats from hash oil to motorcycle gang “crank” could afford to do so

    but these little shits are from a particular place in class society in an unequal alienating culture, outing them is not about “envy” it is about fairness denied to the majority by the parents of some of these darlings

    zero hours, precarious jobs, contract work where you only get minimum wage once you pay your own tax and ACC and slave jobs (internships) are worse than a lower paid job when I was young, at least we had 40 hours, award rates, holidays, sick pay and overtime pay for extra hours worked

    let them drink Bolly while the rest of us get organised to send FJK packing to Hawaii for good

    • Ah, the ’70s and (early) ’80s… they were the best of times, they were the worst of times.

      And the best parties ever; Lion Brown, Cold Duck, disco night clubs… Carmen… ‘Coromandel Green’… souped up Minis… low unemployment… strong unions and good working conditions… no weekend shopping… quirky Kiwi films… Big Norm… music that continues to live on…

      *sighs*

        • Aye, indeed it was, Grant.

          One of the funniest things that some folk complain about is that because shopping was restricted to (mainly) Monday to Fridays, that New Zealand was “closed” and “boring” in the weekends. And yet, my mates and I had the time of our lives. We took road trips to Auckland, Christchurch, or Dunedin…

          Only two tv channels, but I swear the stuff that was beamed into our homes was more interesting than what we have now.

          No cellphones or internet, but we were always in constant contact, and visited each other for face-to-face friendships.

          Damn, I’m sounding like my dad. I bet he knew this day would come… 😀

  5. Thanks for a good article Chloe. These rich kids clubs are redolent of the nineteen twenties, the world of the great Gatsby, before the 1929 crash. The recipe for social decadence is wealth without obligation alongside with poverty without hope – both sides end up deprived of a character-shaping relationship with reality.

  6. There is no insurmountable impediment to anyone in NZ getting ahead. None. NZ has a world class education system, universal access, one of the strongest economies in the world, and little if any class ceilings. Unfortunately with all of that we also have is a dearth of initiative and ambition, couple with an entitlement mentality fuelled by left wing envy like displayed in this article.

    • Such as the sense of grotesque entitlement mentioned in a recent article about Tallys?

      You really are a moron.

      Im not even going to bother saying anything more.

      • What do Talley’s feel ‘entitled’ to? The entitlement mentality I’m referring to is real and demonstrable.

  7. Bloody well said frank,

    Chloe this is strikingly similar to the last days of Pompeii, where greed, excess, decadence, sex, &corruption were rife
    Do National engage in decadence?

    It seems so when we see FJK talk of “Fiscal responsibility” and then throw money around like confetti, on boat races, flags and a plethora of grandiose design while our poor and dispossessed go starving, and the Crown debt now balloons to $102 Billions and still climbing.

    One idea of Pompeii has dominated popular consciousness through art and literature: The cataclysmic eruption that destroyed the Vesuvian cities in A.D. 79 was a justly deserved punishment for sin—whether erotic excess, gluttony, violence, greed, or a failure to accept Christianity.

    Now we see money as the new God in the eyes of these new romans.

  8. Decadence is what these new romans are engaging in again like before the downfall of Pompeii.

    Fuck JK and his ilk.

    One idea of Pompeii has dominated popular consciousness through art and literature: The cataclysmic eruption that destroyed the Vesuvian cities in A.D. 79 was a justly deserved punishment for sin—whether erotic excess, gluttony, violence, greed, or a failure to accept Christianity.

    Now these Zealots are worshiping a new God called money.

  9. Oh dear Chloe, as if we are surprised by the disconnect between the wealthy and the poor. Has this not always been the case? If there is one reasonable guide to somebodies politics and their wealth it is the happy or unhappy accident of who somebodies parents are. Not a 100% accurate but pretty close.

    It is all so Marie Antoinette, so Roman orgy. Let them enjoy it whilst they can, the sans culottes and barbarians will soon enough be at the palace gates. We have an imminent financial collapse and depression (now there’s an old fashioned word) that will highlight the gap, when welfare gets cut the wolves go outdoors. And when petrol gets too rare or expensive people throw rocks at drivers of Porsches.

    In a nutshell these things are going to happen within Max Keys lifetime. What the Left as a polity need to do is to script an alternative inclusive path through the chaos, something radical and basic that will feed, clothe, house, educate and employ all. Trying to restart the old broken version will only lead to pain. Without a new vision there is only bad news for all.

  10. i love it when people cry tall poppy – and utterly fail to spot its nothing to do with their wealth or success, but their behaviour

    theres plenty of famous NZers who dont get given grief because they dont carry on like entitled a-holes

  11. A club like this exists because they get publicity, they get to be the centres of attention – what they have always wanted. The brainless media clamour around them waiting for the next equally brainless circus stunt (where do you think Max Key learned all that?). It equates to having plenty of dollars, but few cents (sense). It functions because it operates in a mindless sensationalist vacuum but satisfies a sensationalist media who just can’t get enough of it. How sad!

  12. Brilliant Chloe! 🙂

    This process has gone to sadistic extreme lengths in the U$K. Genuinely disabled beneficiaries are having their benefits cut to unsurvivable levels and committing suicide while the rich make obscene capital gains from property. For instance the late Cilla Black had homes in Spain and the Caribbean and a virtual mansion in the UK. The current fascist government are robbing the poor right now with their crazy austerity policy that doesn’t apply to the rich who get more tax cuts. The whole disgusting process is repeating here.

    Aaron Lane: Talented musician with mental health problems took his own life after DWP ruled him fit to work
    http://guerillawire.org/disability/aaron-lane-talented-musician-with-mental-health-problems-took-his-own-life-after-dwp-ruled-him-fit-to-work/

    Liz Hurley cashes in on booming price of farmland: Actress triples her money in just 13 years as she sells nine-bedroom Cotswolds mansion for £9million
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3183499/Liz-Hurley-cashes-boom-price-farmland-selling-Cotswolds-property-9million.html

    • Aaron Lane’s life could have been saved with a tiny tiny miniscule amount of the ill gotten lucre pile Liz Hurley got on her Cotswold property.The U$K is now a cesspit of filthy greed and inequality.Plain to see for anyone who cares.

  13. ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=RBJlU4xIxBk

    In this special summer solutions episode of the Keiser Report Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert are joined by Guy Standing, co-President of the Basic Income Earth Network and author of The Precariat: The Dangerous New Class, to discuss the problem of declining incomes, automation of many jobs, and the rise of the Precariat. As a possible solution to the problem of ever fewer high paying jobs, they discuss basic incomes – the arguments for and against.

    this is a blood good interview

    we are in the age decadence where to wealthy fount there wealth history shows it ends badly

  14. ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=RBJlU4xIxBk

    In this special summer solutions episode of the Keiser Report Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert are joined by Guy Standing, co-President of the Basic Income Earth Network and author of The Precariat: The Dangerous New Class, to discuss the problem of declining incomes, automation of many jobs, and the rise of the Precariat. As a possible solution to the problem of ever fewer high paying jobs, they discuss basic incomes – the arguments for and against.

    this is a blood good interview

    we in the age decadence where to wealthy fount there wealth history shows it ends badly

  15. the max keiser interview was bloody good
    https://youtu.be/RBJlU4xIxBk

    In this special summer solutions episode of the Keiser Report Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert are joined by Guy Standing, co-President of the Basic Income Earth Network and author of The Precariat: The Dangerous New Class, to discuss the problem of declining incomes, automation of many jobs, and the rise of the Precariat. As a possible solution to the problem of ever fewer high paying jobs, they discuss basic incomes – the arguments for and against.

  16. In this special summer solutions episode of the Keiser Report Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert are joined by Guy Standing, co-President of the Basic Income Earth Network and author of The Precariat: The Dangerous New Class, to discuss the problem of declining incomes, automation of many jobs, and the rise of the Precariat. As a possible solution to the problem of ever fewer high paying jobs, they discuss basic incomes – the arguments for and against.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBJlU4xIxBk

  17. John Key is the most popular Prime Minister ever in NZ History, he has dragged NZ out of the GFC with flying colours and now we are a Rock Star Economy outpacing the rest of the world.

    We are extremely lucky to have had an individual of John Keys quality to run our country, he has saved us from financial ruin, while putting the country ahead of his own personal ambitions. He could be earning megabucks in the private sector so we are very fortunate to have him making his own personal sacrifices for the sake of Gods Own Country.

  18. C’mon you guys above. Focus . Don’t crowd out the point Chloe King makes with unnecessary and defensive chatter.
    The comments of the likes of @ Andrewo are designed specifically to cause deflection from the point and the very best thing to do here is to ignore them. The very best thing to do in public is kick them in the metaphorical balls of course and if you know he, she, it , that’s what I’d suggest .

    However, we are here and this is it for us .

    Fundamentally, the thing is, we , all of us , have a problem and we have yet to come up with a solution. The problem is we have an extremely dangerous and deviant Prime Minister who must be forced from our office. But how ?

    How to remove him from our Prime Ministership is the one and only problem we have and our good energy should focus upon that one simple thing.

    John Key must go so how do we make that happen?

    If we don’t get rid of him and his mates? Well, that future is far too horrible for this writer to countenance.

    Look at your little kids playing there? Their future in New Zealand / Aotearoa is being determined by a psychopathic lunatic and he can please himself because , as yet , we do nothing.

  19. http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2008/11/10/financial-markets/keys-house

    The timing of his elevation, in the midst of a financial crisis, may be quite prophetic. After all, Key’s rise to prominence in foreign exchange circles came after he struck a rewarding relationship at Bankers Trust with Andy Krieger, a daring New York-based trader who launched a legendary raid against the NZ dollar in 1987.

    Krieger reportedly bet more than the country’s entire money supply against the currency, forcing it down sharply and taking massive profits in what is still described as one of the finest forex plays ever completed

  20. “We are extremely lucky to have had an individual of John Keys quality to run our country”

    Crap -Are we really doing that well?

    Key had only $8 Billion crown debt as he took over and now it’s 102 $Billion, so wake up and don’t be fooled.

    • We just don’t like cheats and corporate bludgers influencing politics and not paying their fair share of tax. Also – most are now awakened to the gross sense of personal entitlement of many among the super rich and those extremely well off – those that have used Rogernomics to parasitise so many on low incomes.

      In the old days they used to call them crims. These days they get a knighthood form their fellow crims.

      • Here here, WK

        Is he thick or what,?

        Corporate welfare is everywhere globally now we see they pay only a less than 10% of what they paid on 1950’s in real terms, a US study has now confirmed so we are now being ripped off by corporate scumbags and leeches.

  21. ‘They’ go to Christ’s College, complain that their “Education” is being adversely affected by their inability to get free parking for their cars. They eventually and inevitably will then exchange one pin striped suit for another as ‘they’ move seamlessly into their other corporate (corpulent) world.

  22. You know I had a pretty big blacklash to this piece when i posted it on my own website. I had people going on and on and on and on and on about the hardships Max Key has had to battle as the PM’s son. I was told i was a gutter jounralist for daring to talk (VERY FUCKING briefly) about “The Fulltimer Club” (which just ended up being a red herring in the piece) and for checking Max Key’s privilege.

    I was called names, threatened with violence and told these kids including Max Key are off limits. The thing is my life, as someone who is poor and working class, is never off limits. I am told I am lasy over and over again. When i need welfare because Ive been fired again at short notice, I am told I am a “benefit scrouger” and made to feel worthless. Yet, these young man’s pursuits are totally off limits, huh?

  23. A “Right on the Money” (excuse the deliberate pun) posting Chloe. Don’t let the bastards grind you down.

  24. Chloe,

    You are a very brave and pure hearted lady.

    Very similar to professor Jane Kelsey, you are a very special person, and will come out on top here.

    Johnnie’s popularity is now crumbling, even within the business community though they will get some stooge to prop him up again the die is cast now.

    Don’t believe the crooked polls watch this article it will warm your pure heart again, as we know he is evil and the word is getting known now.

    https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/08/13/breaking-the-nz-police-would-like-to-have-a-word-with-me/

    ZB talkback

    Business leaders say time for Key to go
    Author

    Alicia Burrow ,

    Section

    Politics,

    Publish Date

    Thursday, 13 August 2015, 11:37AM

    (Getty Images)(Getty Images)

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    The ‘Key’ brand is over.
    The business community has spoken and say it’s time for the National party to groom a replacement.
    NZME’s fourteenth annual Mood of the Boardroom survey has shown three quarters of business leaders want a new John Key.
    The survey had 110 respondents from the Deloitte top 200 list of chief executives, company heads and heads of industry-leading businesses including the private and public sector.
    Business Editor Fran O’Sullivan said last year, two thirds of respondents felt the ‘Key’ brand was damaged and since then it’s only worsened with the pony-gate saga and failed Northland by-election.
    Respondents said their favourite replacement would be Local Government and Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett or a comeback from former National Party Justice Minister Simon Powell.
    The survey results were announced at a conference in Auckland today where the general attitude was positive despite the slowing economy.
    While 64% of executives believe the markets will slow further, those surveyed feel a larger snapshot reveals other industries are performing well.
    Performance and manufacturing is picking up, undeterred by parity with the Australian dollar. The Research and Development spend is also on the rise.
    Heated political topics discussed in the survey were housing, the Resource Management Act reforms and infrastructure, specifically regional development.

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    Pahtrisha • 2 hours ago

    Those who want Key gone are growing in number, daily. This article is no surprise. Neither it is a surprise that it is no longer available. It has been removed.

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    Barbara Anne Jones • 2 hours ago

    My god….Key ? Bridges ? Bennett ? No way !
    ABSOLUTELY all as shifty as each other !

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    tie a knot in it • 2 hours ago

    Paul Bennefitt? Hahahahahaha. ‘business leader’s? Morons.

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    jps1970 • 2 hours ago

    Paula Bennett? lolololol. A vile, spiteful woman who has nothing but contempt for average Kiwis and knows all and f*ck all.

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    Kaye Maree Brotherton • 3 hours ago

    Funnily this morning on TV1 the report was John Key was favoured by the business community of NZ, apparently we are getting crossed wires?

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    sailorbill Kaye Maree Brotherton • 31 minutes ago

    again!!!!

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    quinnjin • 3 hours ago

    Notice they want a “new John Key” presumably because his “brand has been damaged” other than that he seems to have done exactly what they wanted, so they want a new puppet to further their business as usual agenda…

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    Una Wendt • 4 hours ago

    “What do these clowns take us for?!!!

    Running NZ into foreign ownership/debtorship has always been the agenda – John Key was groomed for this … He was dropped from nowhere into the National Party/NZ politics, then BAMN he was PM! Now that our farmers are being threatened by bank foreclosures and potential sales to foreign interests/China – as has been devastating farming dynasties in Australia – suddenly “Big Business” don’t think that John’s doing a good job anymore, and he’s being excused!

    Come on New Zealand – John Key’s a “money-man” – an assassin specifically – he knows exactly what he’s been doing!!

    Key’s National Party government HAVE NOT BEEN SERVING NZ and its people – they’ve been serving themselves! Look at Judith Collins bottling and selling NZ water via Oravida to the Chinese – see her selling and shipping millions of dollars worth of NZ Swamp Kauri to the Chinese!!!!

    … John Key had knowledge about the “man-made” HAARP assault/earthquake on Christchurch (the same applied to Fukushima, Japan), and he has indebted New Zealand to foreign interests/control! WTF? People in Christchurch were killed, and have been suffering! Christchurch was devastated and will cost billions to rebuild! John Key is corrupt – he’s complicit, and he needs to be brought to account!

    This is a man, a Prime Minister who has fulfilled what’s been asked of him by Corruption, currying FAVOURS with Global Elites, and gaining SUBSTANTIAL BANK OF AMERICA PROFITS-PLUS in the process!!

    He and his party have been undermining the NZ economy for years, and they all need to be brought to account and answerable to the people in courts – particularly regarding knowledge relating to the Christchurch earthquake/s!

    Even if they don’t get jail time, NEW ZEALAND DESERVES TO SEE JOHN KEY, AND ASSOCIATED MINISTERS BROUGHT BEFORE THE PEOPLE SPECIFICALLY – CALLED TO ACCOUNT AND ANSWERABLE TO THE PEOPLE IN THE COURTS.

    P.S.

    KIWIS PLEASE BE AWARE that John Key’s initiated flag-change isn’t about cosmetics … NZ is registered as a Corporation and Key’s flag-change is an attempt to UNDERMINE AND INVALIDATE NZ’S Constitution/Treaty of Waitangi – Our Sovereignty in preparation for the TPPA and potential Corporate takeover … yes, seriously.

    John Key and senior Ministers have also been meeting with iwi behind closed doors over recent months, which is concerning Maori as well, so please be aware of what’s going on behind the scenes, and what’s in play here … KEEP NZ’S CURRENT FLAG GUYS – IT’S SAFE-GUARDING NZ’S SOVEREIGNTY…

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    sailorbill Una Wendt • 17 minutes ago

    I couldn’t agree with you more,I believe this is a criminal act, puppets to the zionist bankers and conglomerates,Hes done his work here,$100 billion in dept,money earning assets sold,privatisation,more taxes,union busting,TPPA,MSM ruled by political party,spying on the public and the most dangerous is Police and judicial system becoming swayed by political bias.

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    All New Iain • 4 hours ago

    Let’s not stop there guys it’s the entire government which needs to be removed!

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    EmmittBrownBTTF1 • 4 hours ago

    Cthulhu is clearly disappointed with Key’s performance on the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Solid Energy – a key element of the climate disruption initiative, The loss of mineral extractors – central to agricultural and aqua-cultural toxification. He thoroughly failed to promote the National Front to mainstream political status, and barely kept ACT viable.

    This is not how Cthulhu how destroys worlds, Key’s performance is definitely sub par.

    The new blasphemy law doesn’t even explicitly ban criticism of Cthulhu, perhaps the most serious omission of all. Key is clearly not the team player Cthulhu thought he was.

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    mick • 4 hours ago

    quick before he sells us all out with the TPPA

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    TracyJane • 5 hours ago

    PS also closed my business when GST went up, I was burnt out trying to cover all my costs. it was my little protest – do you think that Government noticed?

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    EyeSpy • 5 hours ago

    He lied to the Pike River families and the New Zealand public,and has watered down the Safety Reform Bill that was a recommendation from the Commission of Inquiry into the disaster, that he has to go.

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    TracyJane • 5 hours ago

    NZ has $500 billion debt atm – $100 billion of it is government debt. I thought that the banker might understand how banks create our money supply, but not the interest to pay it – so we pay our interest with our real work and real money, but there will never be enough to pay back the debt therefore we will have to sell all our assets – our land our farms our businesses our children our SOE’s our houses – and to whom? the banks who create the money in the first place – mmmm – not happy 🙁

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    sailorbill TracyJane • 14 minutes ago

    you got it to a tea there Tracy,nothing money taking assets and land

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    Realist • 5 hours ago

    Paula Benefit or Simon Bridges? Is that really the best they can drum up?

    All the sudden Cunliffe isn’t looking so bad eh?

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    All New Iain Realist • 4 hours ago

    Bridges is just another mini-Key along with JLR.

    Bennett is just a pig of a woman and has nothing but scorn for the people of NZ – that scorn appears to be a compulsory trait for this current government.

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    Lindsay Tatton • 6 hours ago

    As a small business owner, I say that he should go. The rise in GST nearly finished our small PRIMARY HALTH CLINIC. The failure to keep ACC subsidy payments in line wioth inflation.1.9% after waiting for seven years means that the public are now paying twice for this provision. Our sector is being slowly but surely removed from the provision landscape!

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    Cath Harkins • 6 hours ago

    Maybe those ‘business leaders’ could start thinking about the state of the environment and figure out how they will contribute to the survival of the human species…make that all species. We need a mindshift from the status quo. And journalists such as Fran O’Sullivan could help.

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    Tick Tock • 6 hours ago

    I as a member of the public say time for the banker to go he is a traitor and has sold Nz out to the highest bidder.

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    kiwimum Tick Tock • 5 hours ago

    He’s done his job- destabilised disemboweled and destroyed nz for his multinational club to walk in now and pick the last flesh from our bones.Rot in Hades Jkey

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    Stuart Munro • 6 hours ago

    I think the grooming could let up a bit, in favour of brainstorming a credible growth strategy. Key & English have delivered nothing but debt.

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    Que? • 8 hours ago

    I think you mean Simon Power. And pony-tail gate, not pony-gate. And has Fran O’Sullivan replaced Liam Dann as Business Editor?

    • And for those who would want a chronological listing of much of the above , …I encourage you to learn a little more about the deviousness of this John Key. And to do this , visit Hackpad : Honest John.

      It is all there for you to read in all its manipulative and infamous glory.

      And as a recap…recall that John Key was the right hand man of one Andrew Kreiger – who is known as the instigator of the biggest Foreign Exchange heists in history – against the New Zealand economy.

      It was so severe it could have destroyed this economy – so much so,… that Michael Cullen had one of his people ring New York to ‘ tell them to get the f-k of our economy ‘….

      Does it not seem strange to you that Key appeared so suddenly on the NZ political scene…and then became PM ??!!

      Not really…after Don Brash’s Orewa speech and the quip about NZ’s anti nuclear policy being ‘ gone by lunchtime’ , the Hagar book ‘Hollow Men ‘ , the disclosure of the Exclusive Brethren ‘s involvement , the leaked e- mails….they needed a ‘ softer face’…

      They found that in John Key .

      A total mercenary , a vicious anti sovereign agent given over totally to the neo liberal concept of ‘borderless ‘ nations.

      Governed by corporate’s that use ratification by govts by such mechanisms as ‘ Free Trade Deals’…

      The gross erosion of our civil rights , the darkest and most anti democratic era this country has ever known has all crystallized in this devious individual, John Key.

      This is the man you voted in , New Zealanders…it would behoove you now to do some background research into this character. What you will find should alarm you.

      Hackpad : Honest John .

      Google it.

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