Twitter in January: More people die of the flu, criticism is racist, you’re racist!
Twitter now: ‘The pandemic is coming, RUN’
2 months is a life time on Twitter.
The easiest way to create social distancing is to tell people that you are a Vegan Crossfit Cyclist who wears a MAGA hat, or that you are someone who reads the Spinoff daily.
As TDB has pointed out from the beginning, this had all the ingredients of an uncontrollable pandemic that would deeply damage the economy and create a public health nightmare.
Goodness, how much better prepared would we be if the twitter woke weren’t dominating the cacophony.
Those ingredients for uncontrollable pandemic TDB warned about, are now impossible to ignore.
Dow crashed down 3000 points, they plunged deeper while Trump was rambling at his hastily called news conference. The realisation that this narcissistic clown has got no idea what the hell to do is terrifying the traders.
Only Trump can congratulate himself for declaring a national emergency in response to his incompetent pandemic preparation.
He’s just so bewilderingly out of his fucking depth – it’s like Ronald MacDonald as the Captain of the Titanic.
Trump’s trick to slow things on Friday by announcing bullshit bought him 48 hours but the market won’t believe him today, especially after a slew of negative events.
Economic data from China shows worst results in 30yrs.
Markets are slumping globally in a new wave of stock meltdowns as public gatherings are banned.
Dow futures halted in pre trading this morning because an automatic 5% decline triggered it.
Warnings now in NZ that stretched global supply chains will snap and create shortages for medicines.
Warnings now this will be with us until next Christmas when there will hopefully be a vaccine.
Warnings now that the economic meltdown from the pandemic will be worse than 2008.
Jacinda has ratcheted up travel bans, pushed for group closures and the Reserve Bank slashed the OCR while tens of thousands of jobs are now about to be lost.
The entire capitalist system is designed on a market ‘flexibility’ that has no resilience.
We are now being told that thanks to a 30 year neoliberal experiment in underfunding health infrastructure and incredible migration over the last 5 years means we don’t have enough intensive care needs for a pandemic of this size…
…yay, what a charming legacy.
When this is over, there must be an enormous rethink of what State we want, a well funded one that has capacity for these events or a threadbare cheap one that can only create excuses.
This is going to get a lot worse before it can get better.
This is only the start of the first wave of pandemic, the second wave will be more dangerous and we aren’t sure that you even get a natural immunity from being infected.
A perfect storm of climate crisis, rotten global capitalism and a decade of growth built upon debt, snot and greed are culminating into a unique once in a generation event.
Capitalism’s Black Swans are coming home to roost.
China itself was dependant on overseas manufacturing of sunset consumer products.
In fact many commentators thought that the a significant reason for the Belt and Road, was an initiative to keep the Chinese economy going.
it is great that you continue posting Nigel Latta as it reminds people to take a breath do not panic and we will get over this .Unlike the GFC where money markets fell apart with no end in sight we know that there will be an end to this eventually.The hurt will be down to how it is handled by the governments around the World.It will be interesting how the COL pull together with the economic package today. The state services need to be turbo charged to help out those effected ASAP
Some of your commentators have critized the big 4 banks but at times like this we should be thankful they are so strong and can weather a storm without crashing. Likewise people will need to eat so our farmers will play a large part in keeping us afloat as they have before.
If airlines like Air NZ, go bankrupt, what a good time for the government to pick up the other 49% for a bargain of $1 (just like business did with our banks in the 1980’s).
Will government show any sense, get a bargain and use the crisis to pick up once sold off business for nothing and nationalise it?
Time to realise that the modern economy based on financial engineering just collapses every decade – likewise the Global financial crisis.
Remember when the democrats bailed out the banks without taking a stake and making them pay it back with big interest payments to the taxpayers to be redistributed back, Democrats lost credibility, and Trump got in!
The thing is we haven’t really had true capitalism for quite a while (as much as it might be disliked by many).
Rather we’ve had crony capitalism.
I’m not sure how old you are but I well remember the promised nirvana when the fish and chip club came to power.
Aside from all that greed is good kaka, we had the mantra of how good competition was.
What we got fed though was privatisation of natural monoplies; duopolies – sanctioned by bullshit artists in the administration; prices charged that bear no resemblance to the cost of production; co-operatives that were corrupted by masters-of-the-universe (Fonterra for example); a bullshit media – primarily fed by egotists and a culture of (frankly quite fugly) celeb.
And we still get fed shit such as how in a global market place – we have to pay international prices.
The trouble is that when those international prices fall, in theory they should also fall here. NO! What happens is that we pay the same or higher in order to keep the producers afloat.
And the sad thing is that Jacinda, as good as she is, and the best thing that’s happened in a while, and grown up and only ever experienced this sort of crap in a lifetime.
Not long ago, I learned what NZ pork producers were getting at the farm gate for pork. You could have put a bloody slaughtered pig in a limosine and delivered it to the local New World, had it embalmed with the latest sauce some international TV Star chef dreamed up and had it rolled out to the refrigerator on the shop floor for the price they were charging
There’s no magical device that will fix shit even though we are trying to use The Corona Virus to sneak past everyone all the shit we couldn’t if it had of just been Labour Greens. Just got to grind it out and swing the bat a little when we can.
Clearly disruption of imports is not bad for local businesses that actually make or sell stuff that people actually use and need in NZ.
The difference is if the government uses the money wisely for the future to renationalise former state owned assets cheaply, or just blow their chances and NZ’s future as a wealthy country by propping up polluters, retail, liquor stores, gambling, tourism, restaurants…that have become the growth industry here but have little or negative social benefits and are discretionary spending.
” Our version of capitalism is something the narcissistic writer Ayn Rand would adore but in a headlong rush to hyper-individualism, have we chosen freedom of the individual over the survival of our species…
Host Ross Ashcroft is joined by economist and author professor Steve Keen to discuss why Coronavirus has closed capitalism. ”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE-44ngyYoA&fbclid=IwAR1SComS0lS4ROQBp2WHI32BG2Ea8Kxm5-Px9IBIWcNZj10JVGvc8i77Xkw
coolmodelguy
9 hours ago
For all those people who thought socialism was evil, now it is the only thing that is going to save you. Gotta love the irony.
There are none so blind as those who cannot see. The counter to these arguments is that we haven’t applied enough neo-liberalism and to double down on it. Overall we still have less hospital beds in New Zealand than we did in the 1970’s to serve a much larger population. Some of this can be put down to some efficiencies in modern care, centralizing some services and privatizing elderly care. However much of it can be laid at the feet of tinkering with structures and cost savings. Lack of resourcing is reflected in the budget deficits being run by all DHBs. Naturally harsh economic medicine will again be applied to rein in this deficit which adds to a shocking total of well under 1% of the health budget. It is clear from the past two years that the government of the left we supposedly have does not associate the social and economic problems we have with the economic model we have followed. Thus we see it trying to deal with the symptoms in isolation of the causes or in many cases not proposing the correct solutions because of the threat of another winter of discontent from business and MSM. So maybe it is Realpolitik? It is to be hoped this crisis may prompt a reevaluation of where we are in NZ in terms of overseas dependence and returning to a more self sufficient economy that provides a better spread of positive outcomes to more of the population in general.
Yeah but the real and alarming problem is, is that we don’t have a government. We haven’t had a government since the 1970’s. Perhaps longer… !
We have the pretences of a government but what we’ve been having aint no government by the people, for the people.
It’s all about the banks. We are effectively ‘employed’ by the banks to earn them their revenue. When you have a mortgage on a house and you renovate you add value to their investment. Sure, you can argue that it is your investment too, but you take the risk and you do the work. And when it gets fucking ugly, as it’s starting to right now, it is you who lose and the banks who get to keep your property and cash savings.
We, the people are merely employees to foreign owned and operated international money launderers.
Look at our social welfare system as an example.
People rendered, for what ever reason, unable to adequately provide for themselves, are NEVER given enough to rise above their suffering. Ever. They’re given just enough to avoid starvation while living in dire poverty. That, is part of banker logic when applied to social systems.
“ You must work harder! “ Is the first part of the message and “ So, you’re down and out ! ? Then you are a good example of what happens when you don’t work hard enough.” Is the second part.
Then… The banks by their liberal use of logical fallacies ratchet up the work to borrow tempo.
Good bye 40 hr week. So long higher top tax rates. Hello homelessness, poverty, social dysfunction, drug addictions, alcoholism and suicide then, hopefully, death because for the bankster, that’s a win-win situation.
Let me go back to what pretends to be our government.
Take a look at it? What do you see?
Do you see our politicians? Do they look like people like you and me? Driving a twenty year old car but at least they own it outright? Do they look work worn and unsettled? Do they look anxious and unable to genuinely relax?
Our politicians are three things at the very least.
They’re very well paid.
They’re very well connected.
They’re very much identical across party lines.
Given the first two points is the third point such a surprise?
I don’t think so. Is a Labour Party member really going to fuck some Natzo up? Nope, would be my guess.
Are the Natzo’s really going to be forced to come clean about agriculture and admit they, and their traitor , white collar farmer cronies have been bleeding out our economy once having debt-enslaved our farmers stretching back over generations?
I don’t think so, do you?
Does Adern have plans to nationalise our banking and purge us off those off-shore parasites who’ve been living high on your money?
Yeeeeeaaaah…..? Nope. Doubt it.
Let me ask? What do you think might happen if AO/NZ turned off the news and shut down the foreign owned banking infrastructure?
I imagine there’d be an instantaneous and record breaking use of toilet paper, but then what?
Our farmers make enough foods for 40 million people, so I read here. I’m surprised it’s not 4x’s that figure.
We have LPG. It’s our own. We have forestry. We have fishes, ( Although you’d think fishes were a figment of fiction if you looked into the freezers at the Balclutha New World Supermarket. You can, and I know you can because I’ve done it. Stand on the roof of your truck parked in the car park of NW in Balclutha and see the ocean. It’s right there.
While inside? In the tiniest little segment of the freezer, beside the dubiously pink snouts and entrails sausages, (Recycled, spent dairy cows. Serious.) you can buy a sliver of farmed salmon for $8.90. What the fuck is that about? )
We have beautiful, arable lands everywhere in AO/NZ.
I dug 16 pile holes recently down to clay. There’s 60 centimetres of beautiful smelling, organic, naturally nitrogen rich soils in each hole. Outside? I grew broccoli so fresh and huge and healthy that I took pictures. I know! Vegetable porn. But wait? Do you know how hard it was to grow those vegetables?
I toiled and toiled away for days and days.
No. I didn’t.
I bought a tray of seedlings at a shop and planted them directly into the ground. No fucking about with fancy Doo-dads nor what nots. None of that. Just a wee hole, in they went and they shot up like weeds. Of course there were weeds too but I like weeding. Is very therapeutic and I get to bond with me birdies.
People? We have no governance because nothing, about AO/NZ makes common sense
We have the greed of banksters.
Would we really miss the banksters is they just fucked off, then withered and died?
Now? Today? We need a government by us, for us.
Those be-suited fuckers and bow legged designer frock wearers in our arse massaging BMW car seats are done. We should be banging on the front door or OUR parliament buildings to give then one day to clear their shit out because; They’re fired!
But don’t despair politician? Make an appointment with WINZ. Don’t forget your ID, your earnings for the past year, your IRD number, a bank statement and be prepared to talk about your now pathetic selves without privacy in front of roaming private security thugs who’ll eye you up like you were a criminal.
Oh wait? But you are! Ba haha a !
Now? Now that you have your few dollars for mince and white bread. Off you go. Go home to the outside and pull up a gutter.
Imagine? If all the countries we know are out there but for Aotearoa/New Zealand were to suddenly vanish from the face of the earth?
What would happen, aside from the obvious, of course?
What would happen?
How would we cope?
We five million well educated, highly skilled, creative thinkers on two main islands which are bigger in land area than the UK? And with all that agreeable climate, fresh water, rich soils and bountiful oceans?
How would we cope without our politicians selling us out, generation by generation, to the tyranny of the foreign bankster? ( And the bankster deep state deviants who own them. We must remember that. Foreign Banksters are a collaboration of very, very dangerous and powerful people.
I know! ? Let’s ask ANZ jonky? He’s so full of shit, he’d make great fertiliser once dried out and ground up, wouldn’t he?
I just don’t know quite where to start… every sentence, every paragraph, every piece of graphic imagery and every colourful phrase,.. says it all.
Do bears, wolves, elephants, gorillas , mice and pelicans need a Federal Reserve ? a Rothchild, a J P Morgan or even a Richard Branson? Or a collection of foreign banks to suck literally BILLIONS out of our economy each and EVERY year?
So ask yourselves… why do we?
It’s not just banks. It’s also multinational corporations. All modern Western nations are effectively “Corporatocracies”:
a society or system that is governed or controlled by corporations.
“in this age of corporatocracies, the money goes not to the inventor, but to the company”
Sounds about right. Especially egregious is when we pander to corporations in exchange for mere bones from the table. Foreign banks obviously form a significant part, but they are not the only problem.
We need to take back control of our country and resources FROM the Government that has clearly shown in the last few decades that they have no interest in utilising these things for the benefit of the people, but rather are shamelessly exploiting them for the benefit of faceless (and often foreign) giant corporations.
“Government of the people, by the people, for the people”, has now become “Government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations”.
@ Nitrium.
Yep? Narp.
I disagree with you. How about that? So there. Nya, nya with a raspberry.
Firstly, it IS the banks. They are the inbred bastard spawn behind every corporation and unlike you and me, corporations don’t need pass ports to enter a country under the cover of greed to profitably fuck things up, as we can see has happened here. IRD? Right? Westpac. What the fuck?, springs to mind.
Westpac owns our police too.
Banks ARE The Corporation. Think Octopus? Think Octopus tentacles? ( Or is it testicles? I nearly lost my boots and trousers to an Octopus once! Long story.I panicked. Was funny/ugly.)
At the end of every bankster’s tentacles there’s a corporate leach covered in hooks and on the end of each dreaded hook is we. Us lot.
There. I’ve just described banking’s relationships to corporations to fuck you for your money and your precious time on this beautiful biosphere.
A symbiotic arrangement between two parasites and one might wonder? Do we really need parasites? Perhaps we do? But when the parasites take over the host, everything becomes fucked.
Look around? It aint pretty, right?
You write: “We need to take back control of our country and resources FROM the Government ”
No. We don’t. We need to take back control of our government. Not ‘our country and its resource’s. What would we do with them. Privatise them? Because that was the neoliberal mantra back in the day and look where that got us? Fucked! Springs to mind. And not the good one with the kissing and the cigarette at the end.
Ol’ neoliberalism aye? “The gubbimint is clearly inefficient and untrustworthy therefore privatise! That’ll fix things right up.”
Well, it didn’t. Never would have. Never could have.
Look? Democratic governments are never meant to make profits? What, about that, is difficult to comprehend?
Health care? Right? Is never meant to return a $-profit. If it were? We’d constantly be deliberately and profitably infected daily!
” You’re infectious, weeping sore was brought to you by The Warehouse! Where everyone gets a bargain? ” Yay.
To educate our kids? And make a profit? What? What fuckwit popped that answer out their unique arsehole, the one that only allows brain farts to escape from?
Making money from educating our kids? Say that slowly. Keep saying it?
What, an abhorrence. A special kind of self-harming madness. But makes a dollar, right? Jesus Christ almighty. Are some people soooo fucking stupid as to swallow that shit?
Our government is fucking ours. Lets be clear on that. [It] is OUR government. We are it, and it is us.
The problem is, it’s been parasitised by cunning narcissistic Scunthorpe’s ( Actual place.Make of it, what you will. x ) and we are rightly confused and alarmed.
Ask yourself? What’s our government without the collective ‘us’?
Why, it’s a few fat wankers sitting in a building being arseholes to each other for a laugh while pulling in $ix figure$ plu$ entitlement$ and expence$
What the fuck kind of governmental service is that??? A pretty shit one, if you ask me.
Government people? Are you listening?
You, are in fucking trouble. There are no signs of it yet and there are no outward indications but like cancer, it’s there and it’s going to come and get you. But in a nice way. We’re not you. Don’t you worry. You’ll be labouring for the rest of your days and your CV will look less like a CV and more like a dull comic strip in a shit newspaper no one reads, because, private education.
Yep SaveNZ – perhaps a good opportunity to take back public assets that were flogged off over the years.
Watch the opportunists though try in on. Already I noticed a couple of supermarket items creep up in price yet again (such as that pre-packaged salad mix stuff off the top of my head).
And also watch the blame game get worse – Anjum Rahman (apologies to her – I keep getting her name wrong conflating her with another brave person) alerting us to the rise in white supremacy and racism.
Earth is a Dance of Life.
“When this is over, there must be an enormous rethink of what State we want……”
Nothing will and can really “be over”.
Human (over-)populations are increasingly experiencing the Earth’s attempt of global and local re-balancing the ecological systems as many of these are exploited and destroyed by capitalistic modes of production and consumption.
Change this and natural systems will more easily re-configure.
What do you want to wait for?
System Change. NOW.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlmTLvHMg-g
There are some great comments here, truly good ideas with a sprinkling of hope that some corrections will be forthcoming due to the coming economic crisis. It’s too much to hope for IMHO. Nothing will change the Neo-lib mantra, the same shit will keep happening. Not one single politician will stand against the world order. Ol Bernies having a crack but he will probably go down in flames. I’m not holding my breath that’s for sure, although I will enjoy watching many a crap business burn.
Ring-A-Ring-O’-Roses- Activity Song with Singalong Lyrics
https://youtu.be/uRsuanAdmsg?t=1
Is Ring Around the Rosie about death?
The fatalism of the rhyme is brutal: the roses are a euphemism for deadly rashes, the posies a supposed preventative measure; the a-tishoos pertain to sneezing symptoms, and the implication of everyone falling down is, well, death.
Nice.
Must be why all the suits usually used to wear carnations in their breast pockets,.. these days its a fake paper ‘ flower’ or even a pocket protector…
A – tishhoo !
Excuse me.
Sci-fi comes to life as we are tested, profiled and canned like muzak
I’m just hoping that the economic stimulus package has something in it for sub contractors…
Yeah, nah… nothing.
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