Remember people, this is your government (really a corporation) that just lost $200 million of your hard earned Kiwisaver funds to a collapsed Portuguese ‘fail safe’ bank! Do you really still trust them! EnvirowatchRangitikei
Bernard Hickey says the quiet removal of the guarantee for Kiwibank savers should remind all savers about the lack of a deposit guarantee and prompt regulators and the industry to run a public education campaign about NZ”s lack of a deposit guarantee.
Did you know that your money in a term deposit in a bank is not guaranteed by the Government?
Those in the know are aware that there is no Government guarantee, but it turns out most regular people, and certainly most term depositors, either still think there’s a guarantee, or think there’s always has been one.
New Zealand briefly had a government guarantee for retail bank deposits from October 2008 to December 2011. It was introduced at the worst point in the Global Financial Crisis to stop a run of deposits across the Tasman to the banks’ parents in Australia, where the Kevin Rudd Government offered a guarantee for depositors there.
It was quietly dropped once global markets had settled down and was replaced by a system called ‘Open Bank Resolution’. This means there is no Government guarantee and if a bank was to fail, the Reserve Bank would shut it down and manage a capital restructure overnight so that it could re-open the next day. One way a bank’s capital could be restructured by the Reserve Bank is through a ‘hair-cut’ for depositors. Essentially, the Reserve Bank would slice a certain percentage – say 10% – off the value of term deposits to allow the bank to re-open with enough capital to survive.
When our PM was elected, well pre election particularly, he was the smiling new guy on the block who took the young Maori girl to Waitangi that year – a great publicity stunt, currying favour with Maori. I’ve read recently the young woman who accompanied him to Waitangi now sees clearly through his motive. With regrets perhaps? We’ve seen now how much he really respects indigenous interests – they don’t go down to well in the corporate world & Key is a banker. Then we’ve all heard the rumour put out that he donates some/all (?) of his PM salary away because of his wealth from his banking career – turns out that is likely myth not fact as no concrete proof has been forthcoming yet. People have asked. Were it factual he could give it to the school lunch cause, and he’s made it clear that’s not going to happen. Anyway there were many clearly sucked in by his smiling clean image who are now severely disillusioned. The image he promoted was ‘working for NZ’ which couldn’t be farther from the truth. Here in this article that thought is teased out a bit with the claim he is working for the 1%.
The wealthy. All escaping the carnage they’ve created abroad, John’s happy for them to hide out here with their wealth, offering great corporate tax breaks, the new Switzerland, whilst our own smaller biz people go the harder route. Of course this behaviour’s all old hat now the TPPA deal’s been signed by yours truly who also says he’s forging ahead regardless, ratified or not, definitely borne out by the fascist tactics employed in his recent roadshow ‘hearing’ what the people think aka telling us what they plan to do, the familiar tune we’re hearing up and down the country these days. We are asked our opinion after the fact, given two ticky boxes to choose from and expected to believe we’ve ‘had a say’! (I feel a Tui ad coming on). By all accounts folks who tried to raise meaningful discussion were talked down.
The article’s from the Standard and cites Fran O’Sullivan’s thoughts on the matter, clearly confirming whom our PM is working for.
Last month Key was named by National Business Review’s 2008 Rich List as one of New Zealand’s richest men, with a personal worth of $50m.
Key lives in an $8m Auckland mansion with wife Bronagh and their children Stephie and Max. He also owns property in Wellington and Omaha, a London apartment and a $4.5m holiday home in Hawaii.Stuff.co.nz 10/08/08
EnvirowatchRangitikei
[PHOTO Credit – header: The Green Party]
Key wants to turn New Zealand into a haven for the 1%
There was an interesting article by Fran O’Sullivan in last weekend’s Herald about John Key’s ambitions for New Zealand. O’Sullivan may not be liked by some lefties but she writes perceptively and provides insight into National Party thinking that no other journalist does.
The headline suggests that Key wants to make New Zealand the Switzerland of the South but a closer reading shows that he does not want to make it a place where everyone is prosperous, educated and healthy. Rather he wants to make New Zealand a bolt hole for the overseas rich.
“John Key is positioning New Zealand as an Asia-Pacific “Switzerland” – a beautiful and wealthy bolthole for high net-worthers seeking to escape from an unstable world.
Key believes that free-flowing terrorism is here to stay. To the Prime Minister, this simply makes New Zealand more attractive and will result in more high net-worth consumers wanting to come here – a theme he is developing in business briefings.
There is another strand to this developing Key mantra.
He is frankly unapologetic about the massive increase in Auckland residential property values, which has resulted in many established Aucklanders becoming relatively rich, but younger people being locked out of the market. It is a trend which is not going to stop anytime soon, given the immigration figures.”
So Key wants to attract more wealthy people to New Zealand as the rest of the world implodes.
These two families, the Rothschilds and Rockefellers, hang in the background and manipulate from behind the scenes. We’ve known (some of us at least) that they have also fomented wars for profit for eons, all about garnering profits for their own empire/s, and at the expense of all of us. Young lives lost in their profiteering wars, sent off, as were my father and four uncles, as pure cannon fodder as it were. And all the while these men, cherished and held dear by their loved ones at home, either died in combat, or came home traumatized forever, thinking it was for ‘King and country’.
All the while it was for these two evil families’ bank accounts. The story is so ‘out there’ it’s close to unbelievable. A morning’s research however will tell you it’s all quite true, it’s just that the information has been purposely kept from you … by those who also control and manipulate the media. So here we have an admirable advocate for you, turning the spotlight he was given, off of himself and onto these two murdering entities and making the most of the opportunity to give you a big hint about who is still manipulating world events….
Read on…
Jean-Claude Van Damme calls out Rothschild and Rockefeller on live TV
Van Damme was invited on the French show to speak about the US elections and commented on Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Vladimir Putin.
However, he quickly hijacked the narrative and went on to explain how the Rothschild and Rockefeller families control the politicians and run the world from behind the scenes…
thefreethoughtproject.com Matt Agorist
After opening a trust company in Reno, Nev., Rothschild & Co. began ushering the massive fortunes of the world’s most wealthy individuals out of typical tax havens, and into the Rothschild run U.S. trusts, which are exempt from the international reporting requirements.
The Rothschild banking dynasty is a family line that has been accused of pulling the political strings of many different governments through their control of various economic systems throughout the world.
Historically, there is ample evidence to show that the family has used insider trading to bilk money from both private and public funds.
During the Battle of Waterloo in the Napoleonic wars, Nathan Rothschild was responsible for one of the oldest cases of “insider trading,” which led to the Rothschild family robbing a whole nation blind. In 1815 when the battle of Waterloo took place, there were no quick methods of communication like we have today so messengers were used for communication in times of war. The Rothschild’s took advantage of this by having spies on the frontlines of the battle who would return information to the family faster than the messengers used by the military…
During the Battle of Waterloo in the Napoleonic wars, Nathan Rothschild was responsible for one of the oldest cases of “insider trading,” which led to the Rothschild family robbing a whole nation blind…. [Photo Credit: Wikipedia]
I seem to have gained quite a few new readers since the last elections. For this I am very grateful!I thought I would celebrate this with a repost of two animation videos which taught me a great deal about our money system.
Max Keiser, the other day, stated: We don’t live in a Capitalist system which is based on savings and investing those savings in wealth producing enterprises (his version of Capitalism). We live in a Debtism system, a system based on fiat money creation leveraged and re-hypothicated time time and again and used to buy up real world wealth transferring that wealth from the 99% to the 1%.
You might think that this is just some far fetched conspiracy theory but here is what the bank of England has to say about it’s money creation process:
Whenever a bank makes a loan, it simultaneously creates a matching deposit in…
A few posts back we had a video of John Key speaking briefly on his Bank of America shares. Here is the extended version of that video in which we see public watchdog Penny Bright of Auckland questioning the Prime Minister in 2011 following a no response from her Official Information request. Speaking to a Grey Power public meeting in Papatoetoe in 2011 the Prime Minister had just explained that NZers (mums and dads, businesses, farms etc., not the NZ government/corporation) were in debt and 85 percent of that debt is owed to foreigners. He adds that no OECD country borrows a big percentage of their money from foreigners. Penny then asked him specifically to tell her exactly to whom NZ has become indebted since National came to power in 2008. Especially she asked, whether or not NZ has become indebted to the Bank of America or any institutions in connection with that bank. His body language clearly conveys that he has clearly been caught on the hop by these very pointed questions, especially given he hadn’t answered her OI request.
Do watch this, it’s quite short and very enlightening!
Further we have an article here by Rolling Stone, “Bank of America: Too Crooked to Fail” cited by Evelyn Gilbert of NZ’s aotearoaawiderperspective blog. Some very pertinent facts there about the Bank.
“The problem most people have in judging John Key and his role here in New Zealand and why he is doing what he is doing leaves a lot of people, even those who vote National, bewildered and confused and angry is that they don’t know about the way money is created, how he gained his wealth and what he has to do to keep it so I thought I’d give a couple of examples.
Here is number 1: John Key has most of his paper wealth in Bank of America which is by insiders considered the most corrupt banking entity in the world and that alone gives him a huge conflict of interest!
And this is what Matt Taibbi from Rolling Stone Magazine has to say about the Bank:
At least Bank of America got its name right. The ultimate Too Big to Fail bank really is America, a hypergluttonous ward of the state whose limitless fraud and criminal conspiracies we’ll all be paying for until the end of time. Did you hear about the plot to rig global interest rates? The $137 million fine for bilking needy schools and cities? The ingenious plan to suck multiple fees out of the unemployment checks of jobless workers? Take your eyes off them for 10 seconds and guaranteed, they’ll be into some shit again: This bank is like the world’s worst-behaved teenager, taking your car and running over kittens and fire hydrants on the way to Vegas for the weekend, maxing out your credit cards in the three days you spend at your aunt’s funeral…”
Here Vinny Eastwood speaks with Penny Bright, Evelyn Gilbert (aotearoaawiderperspective blogger) and Iain Parker, Financial Systems Researcher.
Vinny Eastwood “This is by the far the most important interview to watch BEFORE the New Zealand election., The truth about John Key will make your jaw drop!
“It is simply unacceptable that the poorest half of the world population owns no more than a small group of the global super-rich—so few, you could fit them all on a single coach” … Mark Goldring, Oxfam Great Britain
This is absolute truth. Something is seriously wrong with our world when this is the state of affairs. Follow the money trail couldn’t be truer in this instance … follow the trail of the fraudulent banking industry. Your home you are paying off you will pay, it’s said, something like twice over when you tally up the interest these sharks charge you.
A Kiwi borrower buying a median-priced $416,000 home with a 20 per cent deposit on a floating 6 per cent interest rate would pay $717,965 over the life of a 30-year loan, according to Sorted’s mortgage calculator … NZ Herald
And to add insult to that injury the money they lend you is created on a computer screen, digital, and not solid gold or its equivalent in a vault out back. For more info on that visit our Money pages and/or watch the following short NZ clip (Kiwisin case you thought it was a problem ‘over there’ not here… as we do at times living down under).
Our histories and our money system are not what they seem. As the rich get richer and the poor, poorer, the cracks in this corrupt industry become more evident and obvious.
See here who owns the banks of the world (well most of them anyway) … the family infamous for this reasonably well known quote:
“Give me control over a nations currency, and I care not who makes its laws” – Baron M.A. Rothschild
The same family that boasted of funding both sides of wars to make money. The theme of the above quote by the way, is reiterated by many other notable people throughout history who cottoned on to the fraudulent activities of this group… for instance:
“Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States” — Sen. Barry Goldwater (Rep. AR)
ROTHSCHILD OWNED & CONTROLLED BANKS (165 of them):
Afghanistan: Bank of Afghanistan
Albania: Bank of Albania
Algeria: Bank of Algeria
Argentina: Central Bank of Argentina
Armenia: Central Bank of Armenia
Aruba: Central Bank of Aruba
Australia: Reserve Bank of Australia
Austria: Austrian National Bank
Azerbaijan: Central Bank of Azerbaijan Republic
Bahamas: Central Bank of The Bahamas
Bahrain: Central Bank of Bahrain
Bangladesh: Bangladesh Bank
Barbados: Central Bank of Barbados
Belarus: National Bank of the Republic of Belarus
Belgium: National Bank of Belgium
Belize: Central Bank of Belize ….
Here is an article then that will tell you who owns the wealth … now that you know more about how they got it …
62 Richest People on Earth Own the Same Wealth as Half the World’s Population
From ecowatch.com:
“A mere 62 people own the same amount of wealth as the world’s poorest 3.6 billion people, according to an Oxfam report published on Monday. This number has fallen dramatically from 388 as recently as 2010 and 80 last year.
The report, An Economy for the 1 Percent, found that the wealth of the poorest half of the world’s population has fallen by a trillion dollars since 2010.
“This 41 percent drop has occurred despite the global population increasing by around 400 million people during that period,” Oxfam said. “Meanwhile the wealth of the richest 62 has increased by more than half a trillion dollars to $1.76 trillion.”
“It is simply unacceptable that the poorest half of the world population owns no more than a small group of the global super-rich—so few, you could fit them all on a single coach,” Mark Goldring, Oxfam Great Britain chief executive, said…..
Here is an insightful overview of our world histories, a video presentation by Abby Martin (SOURCE). It tellingly reveals just who is running our world. Historical overviews are particularly useful when joining dots … we can so easily get bogged down in detail that we don’t see the whole scope of events. As with the elephant analogy, we are like a person with a blindfold, trying to decipher just what the ‘beast’
Identifying the ‘beast’
is … feeling the tail, the legs, the trunk … wondering ‘what we have here’? Step back however, remove the blindfold, view the whole animal and ‘voila! An elephant.
So here, Martin reveals the ‘small’ and surprising detail about the number of military bases there are world wide and the true nature of the many military interventions we’ve witnessed … the carefully crafted ‘news’ that interpreted these world events for us (courtesy of our long time whore media) … identifying for us the ‘villains’ and the ‘heroes’ … all revealing a somewhat different story than what we thought about who is really running the show.
Who is really running the show?
The Empire Files
The creator of this video asks that you watch it on Youtube at their channel TheRealNews.
“Abby Martin debuts teleSUR’s The Empire Files exploring the U.S. Empire and its rise to world hegemony.
Further food for thought … ‘War is a Racket’ by Major General Smedley Butler
Listen to Major General Smedley Butler’s now well known speech on war, cited in Abby Martin’s video. This is a short 9 minute version. Or watch the full version (which is a full summary of his book, info below) at this link.
INFORMATION from the longer video posted on Miguel Ferreira‘s Youtube channel.
“Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940) was a United
‘War is a racket’ Major General Smedley Butler
States Marine Corps major general, the highest rank authorized at that time, and at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history.
During his 34-year career as a Marine, he participated in military actions in the Philippines, China, in Central America and the Caribbean during the Banana Wars, and France in World War I. Butler is well known for having later become an outspoken critic of U.S. wars and their consequences, as well as exposing the Business Plot, an alleged plan to overthrow the U.S. government.
By the end of his career, Butler had received 16 medals, five for heroism. He is one of 19 men to receive the Medal of Honor twice, one of three to be awarded both the Marine Corps Brevet Medal and the Medal of Honor, and the only Marine to be awarded the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions.
In 1933, he became involved in a controversy known as the Business Plot, when he told a congressional committee that a group of wealthy industrialists were planning a military coup to overthrow Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Butler selected to lead a march of veterans to become dictator, similar to other Fascist regimes at that time. The individuals involved all denied the existence of a plot and the media ridiculed the allegations. A final report by a special House of Representatives Committee confirmed some of Butler’s testimony.
In 1935, Butler wrote a book entitled War Is a Racket, where he described and criticized the workings of the United States in its foreign actions and wars, such as those he was a part of, including the American corporations and other imperialist motivations behind them. After retiring from service, he became a popular activist, speaking at meetings organized by veterans, pacifists, and church groups in the 1930s.
“This documentary will bring you to the backdoor of your favorite brand names – those that make some of us shopaholics.
Nation-State is just an illusion. We don’t belong to a race. We are all subservient to Corporations. If the slave yesterday was housed and fed, a more complex arrangement is implemented today wherein the slave can house and fed himself creating a perception of independence. Yet the control mechanism is still there by the amount of take-home pay he is receiving which is barely enough to stay alive to work for another day. He can’t afford to set long term goals…”
An enlightening three minute clip from the Positive Money YT channel on why we have inequality. It’s a mythical illusion that all can succeed under capitalism and a short review of the literature on that, looking beyond all the spin, will prove it. The documentation of the proponents of this monetary system tell us quite clearly that scarcity and the inability for all to succeed is what’s required for it to run successfully… for those at the top of the pyramid that is.
1. The current money system distributes money from the bottom 90% to the top 10%
Because 97% of the money in the UK is created by banks, someone must pay interest on nearly every pound in the circulation. This interest redistributes money from the bottom 90% of the population to the very top 10%. The bottom 90% of the UK pays more interest to banks that they ever receive from them, which results in a redistribution of income from the bottom 90% of the population to the top 10%. Collectively we pay £165m every day in interest on personal loans alone (not including mortgages), and a total of £213bn a year in interest on all our debts.
2. It transfers money from the real economy to the banks
Businesses are also in a similar situation. The ‘real’ (non-financial), productive economy needs money to function, but because all money is created as debt, that sector also has to pay interest to the banks in order to function. This means that the real-economy businesses – shops, offices, factories etc — end up subsidising the banking sector.
3. It transfers money from the rest of the UK to the City of London
Banks pay their staff out of their profits, which in large part comes from the interest they charge on loans. Because most of the high earning bank staff work in the City of London, this results in a geographic transfer of wealth from the UK to those working in the City of London.
4. The instability that the system causes means that temporary and low-paid jobs are insecure
When banks cause a financial crisis it leads to unemployment. It tends to be low-paid and temporary contract workers who are the first to get made redundant first, so that instability in the economy has a bigger effect on those on low incomes with insecure jobs.
5. High house prices increase inequality
When house prices are pushed up by banks creating money, those on low incomes suffer the most. People on low incomes often can’t get a mortgage big enough to buy a house, so they don’t benefit from the rise in house prices. Meanwhile, those who can get access to mortgages can buy multiple houses for buy-to-let and benefit from artificial inflation in house prices. Younger people also lose out, as the cost of buying their first house swallows an ever larger amount of their income, while older and retired people who own houses benefit. This all increases inequality across different income groups and between the young and old.
Our pretend government aka corporation is borrowing $27 mill a day to keep us afloat, and has spent $6.2 mill on a house that is double the value of surrounding houses. It’s not a house it’s a mansion fit for a king. Our corporation is also flogging off our state housing, whilst many Kiwis are homeless and doesn’t give a toss about kids in poverty. Here then is a blatant example of ‘let them eat cake’. Something has gone terribly wrong with this country that once stamped out poverty and homelessness. Our CEO is a banker folks, he’s not a leader. He simply poses as one.
In case you missed it, the corporatization of our nation & its former government departments has led to a bottom line of maximizing profits. People no longer matter.
“Would you like to own a $6.2 million house in Hawaii? Good news – you already do. But bad news – the Government has bought the place for a diplomat.
It has inspired Story to start up a brand new segment called Silly Spending.
One of the many real estate ads for the home describes it as “ultimate modern luxury”.
“The crystal chandeliers are a great touch. The whole effect is one of a jewel box.”
It is 570 square metres of exceptional floor plan. It’s about four times bigger than your house, if you live in an average New Zealand home.
It’s got a pool and spa deck and it’s one block from the beach. The house is almost twice the average price of houses around it.
We bought the pad last year for diplomat Rob Kaiwai. He’s New Zealand’s first-ever Consul-General in Hawaii. We set up that posting last year to help out the 14 diplomatic postings we already had across the United States.
If you’re thinking he might need his house for high-powered meetings, that’s what the office in downtown Honolulu is for.”
From Stuff.co.nz by Richard Meadows : “A banking insider says some New Zealand banks made up to $1.5 million a day manipulating inter-bank interest rates.
The anonymous source says there was widespread rigging of the benchmark inter-bank BKBM rate, mirroring Europe’s Libor (London Inter-bank Offered Rate) scandal that rocked markets worldwide.
He says he wanted to blow the whistle on what he claimed may be the biggest and longest-running financial scam in New Zealand history.
Sources claim manipulation in New Zealand dated from the 1990s…
A spokesman for a New Zealand banking industry body said no misconduct issues had ever been identified, but declined to explain why the system has now been reformed…
The whistleblower claimed the behaviour was endemic in several banks during the 2000s, and had only been reined-in during recent years…
Who’s responsible?
Banks have self-regulated through NZFMA, an industry body that oversees BKBM.
Reforms were carried out in 2007, but the group has declined Fairfax Media requests to explain why.
No regulators have ever investigated, although the FMA says it did a “temperature check” on recent data…”
“The suicide rate in rural Waikato tripled as international dairy prices halved, and numbers are expected to rise further.
Six Waikato farmers appear to have taken their own lives in the year ending June 30, 2015, figures released by the Ministry of Justice under the Official Information Act show.
Fraser Farm Finance director Don Fraser was not surprised by the number of suicides, and expected to see more this financial year.
“The drop of income and the sheer weight of debt will probably see that rise over the next 12 months. It is the debt burden that makes them do it. It’s that sinking feeling you get when you get up every day and work for the bank….”
At the mercy of fickle markets this is the sad outcome. People lose hope with the ruin that comes with disasters like flooding and subsequent debt. We were told long ago by men in governments that economic recessions are man made. The banking industry is one that has the ability to enslave and ruin people, caring little for its victims. Witness the foreclosures we see now world wide.
Will Allen is a former professional athlete who played basketball throughout college at the University of Miami and post-college in Belgium. Though he has also held jobs in corporate America, Allen has spent the last 21 years in a completely different profession: urban farmer. http://www.cornucopia.org/2015/05/meet-will-allen-the-urban-farmer-starting-his-own-revolution/ #farmer #food #urbanfarmer
A 3 minute clip here of Will speaking about urban gardening
People have been separated from the land planet wide, the root of many of our ills. Less than 15 pc have ever owned the land. This is a crime/injustice that’s been covered up. Read Kevin Cahill’s ‘Who Owns the Planet’ or watch videos of his lectures. Very revealing. The Queen owns one sixth on her own. And has been well active in confiscating lands for eons. Indigenous peoples were frequently made to work for the colonizer by introducing taxes only payable in the colonizer’s currency … presto. Off the land, off traditional means of survival, growing food. Now today paupers on their previously owned lands and growing food for agribusiness. This is why the so called ‘third world’ starves. For an expose on that read Susan George’s ‘How the Other Half Dies’.
In summary, our spiritual connection with the land has been severed, along with our ability to properly nourish our bodies with fresh living food …. and the roots of this state of affairs can be found largely in capitalism and greed for profits … where earth’s land, peoples and resources have all been co-opted for that purpose.
The feature image is from Taihape’s (NZ) Vanessa’s blog here. She is also on our page here along with more info on Ron Finley (also on Youtube) who is quoted as saying ” Growing your own food is like printing your own money”.
From the Daily Blog … a look at how capitalism works and why the rich are getting richer on the backs of everybody else:
By Douglas Renwick
“There is a standard view of how capitalism is supposed to work given by the media. It goes something like this; capitalism is a system where people come together to freely exchange goods and services, including labour. Businesses compete competitively to give the most efficient outcome, and the profit motive gives incentive for innovation. People who become rich do so because they work hard to offer the market what it wants while the poor do not, so this wealth inequality is to a large extent the natural workings of the market. This is an imperfect but the best possible system.
That is I think the standard view given in the media, and I think most of it can be debunked while the rest can be turned on its head. I’ll be critiquing this view, but also give my own view of how I think Global Capitalism works. I’ll give what I think are realistic and viable solutions to the faults of Global capitalism at the end.
Capitalism is always seeking to make profit, and it was able to make profits in the period from 1945-1971 in the productive sector of the economy, and under this system there was high economic growth which was relatively egalitarian
the productive sector reached a certain capacity in the 1970’s, increasing productivity became less profitable … profits went into the FIRE economy … finance, insurance, real estate
the banking sector became wealthier and got turned into an institution that gambles rather than investing in productive things
the economy is now a system that is normally stagnant, and only grows when it is driven by speculative bubbles which eventually crash
real wages stagnate, as they have in New Zealand since 1984, while corporate profits go way up ……”
A 13 minute clip that explains the money system. Many notable people have referred to the banking fraternity’s control over the planet … one was Reginald McKenna, who had served as Chancellor of England’s Exchequer. In 1924 he said:
“I am afraid that the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can and do create money, and they who control the credit of a nation direct the policy of the governments and hold in the hollow of their hands, the destiny of the people”
“All facts in this movie have been independently confirmed. Sources are documented athttp://thrivemovement.comHistory will repeat itself as long as these bankers and their corrupt politicians are in charge…” (Source)
Give me control over a nation’s economy, and I care not who writes its laws
From the Daily Blog in NZ, a thought provoking look at the world of economics where policy fallout on human populations is of no particular importance. Discussing also the incentives (are there any?) for mothers to leave their babies in day care and take up paid employment. Many are apparently worse off for working full time.
Capitalism is not about free competitive choices among people who are reasonably equal in their buying and selling of economic power, it is about concentrating capital, concentrating economic power in very few hands using that power to trash everyone who gets in their way. (David Korten)
Economists after economist pontificated on whether interest rates and exchange rates are going up or down and why and the virtues of quantitative easing that didn’t happen soon enough, apparently, except in the US. Never a mention of fiscal policy, except the bad effects of increase in GST in Japan…
…of course, there was no mention by the economists of high rates of poverty, , casualisation, low pay and uncertain hours, rampant speculative activity in real estate and growing inequality, even though the IMF and the OECD are regularly warning of the dangers…
When the inevitable downturn produces higher unemployment, more foodbank demand, foreclosures and widespread mental illness, who asks or cares whether the economic system works for low and middle income people and their children?”
.
JP Morgan and other Western mega-banks have already begun stealing depositors’ money, according to sources at the Asian Development Bank and an American millionaire who reported his own funds were stolen.
Here is some enlightening weekend viewing. Learn why our respective nations have undergone such radical changes in recent decades. The oldies among us will tell you this. Things are not as they were.
New Zealand has changed dramatically since the late ’80s when the new neo liberal economic policies called Rogernomics set in. We are now the reapers of that earlier Government’s folly, and paying a price. Where once we had full employment and no debt, we are now in debt … big time (climbing $27 million per day) and subject to the control of big business. Borrowing millions per week to stay afloat? Our grandparents must be turning in their graves. That was the unfortunate ‘NZ Experiment’ that sold us down the river, and with our assets now going … going … gone, we no longer enjoy the sovereignty we once had. They sold off our family silver as it were under the fancy name of ‘privatization’. (A new term, note, that gives a professional air and shifts the focus off what is really happening). We were told it was to pay our national debt but we are now more in debt than ever … it clearly hasn’t worked. Our country is now a corporation registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and our government departments likewise. There is your clue. Corporations have one bottom line: PROFITS.
As an early NZ settler of colonial times stated:
The whole and entire object of everyone here is making money, the big fishes eating the little ones (‘The Rich List’, G Hunt p 29)
So ‘filthy lucre’ if you like was uppermost back then as well … the driving motive for expansion to other shores was not as we’ve been led to believe … to bring civilization and Christianity … these were merely by-products.
With this corporatisation everything began to operate on a business model, and instead of people with related background experience matching the kind of government department they served, we saw people appointed with purely business skills. Their focus became figures and profitability, not people, so social service and health departments were required to predict their costs in advance based on historical data. Quite a feat when dealing for instance with child abuse. Government departments were subjected to restructuring (the new catch word given to the changes … known also in other countries by other names like ‘structural adjustment’) and told it was so they could all work smarter. In fact, where I worked at the time, I likened it to musical chairs. When the music stopped there were less bums on seats in the office. And the music kept playing, and the seats kept disappearing. The folks on the ground inherited more work from their now absent colleagues, and the CEOs inherited fatter salaries to ensure (I suspect) the new status quo remained. It was a classic case of smoke and mirrors and happened across the board. Friends of mine in other professions complained of being buried in mountains of new paper requirements, the face of their jobs completely changing, and leaving less time for people.
So now we see evidence of this business model everywhere, with their whole raison d’etre being profits, while the memory of a caring welfare state is becoming more and more elusive by the year. In rural communities it still sticks out like a sore toe because it clashes with their longtime ethic of community and caring.
On that note, as you ponder on the origins of our (and many other countries’) demise into the debt abyss … grasp an overview of the root cause of these problems in ‘The Biggest Bank Heist Ever’. It is all about making money, the big fishes eating the little fishes. Remember, it is a mythical illusion that all can succeed under capitalism. Wakefield himself of the NZ Company openly stated that they would keep the price of land high enough so that not all could own any (1).
References
(1) Miller J (Early Victorian New Zealand) p 4
Video Description
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IsuruFoundation® highly recommends this great film to anyone who wants to know why we the public are paying with our lives for the treacherous shenanigans of the filthy rich and the powerful.”
This article from Stuff.co.nz illustrates that our elderly are staying in bed to keep warm and avoid turning on heaters, citing some bills of $500! The article here does explore possible reasons for escalating power bills and offers assistance and advice for those who are struggling. As a matter of interest however, smart meters are known to escalate power bills so if any of your loved ones are suffering in this way, you could be a little proactive on their behalf and check out if this is the reason. I know of a pensioner in a tiny one b/r flat who barely has her oil heater on, who is getting $300 power bills! (Mine is $200, same scenario, with heater on most days in winter … no smart meter, I got it removed when some power companies were removing them). Another person I know, their bill, AFTER the SM installation (nothing else changed re consumption, appliances or anything) … escalated from $400 to $1000, I kid you not. The Take Back Your Power website documents all this kind of info, and locally to NZ, the stopsmartmeters nz. website. Just saying as this is often the cause of higher bills although power companies deny it. If you get the chip removed from them (you may need to find a power company that will do it, shop around) the bills could go down or at least you’ll have eliminated that ticky box. I know that sometimes it is just high usage, but in some cases it is the meter.
I do feel for the elderly, this is not right they are cold in winter because of predatory power companies. Contact Energy in the year to June 30, produced a 17.6 per cent increase in net profit of $234 million. They appear to be doing fine, however we should be looking after our old people not ripping them off. These are the ones who did the hard yards in their younger years … so we should be looking after them in their older years. They built the society we have today that is quickly disappearing thanks to corporate sell outs. Vis a vis the current disappearance of our State Housing stock.
“A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.”
~ Mahatma Ghandi
To check if Smart Meters are the cause of high electricity costs, for further info on Smart Meters in NZ and for other links go to: https://envirowatchrangitikei.wordpress.com/smart-meters/ It’s recommended you watch Take Back Your Power, the award winning documentary by Josh del Sol. You can watch it at their website, or I have a copy available for loan to folks in the Rangitikei. Believe me, all you need to know about Smart Meters is in this documentary.
Since it’s Queen’s Birthday this weekend (not her official birthday which is 21st April) here are a few pertinent facts you may like to ponder:
Queen Elizabeth is the largest landowner on earth; she has legal ownership of over one sixth of the planet’s surface. The Commonwealth, including Britain, occupies 9,900 mill acres of the earth’s 36,000 mill acres.
in the UK the Queen is the sole legal owner of all land. Everyone else has either of the following forms of tenure: (a) freehold defined as ‘an interest in an estate in land, in fee simple.’ (a medieval term for the sum paid to represent the fact that freehold was actually a tenancy and that the monarch was the ultimate landowner). (b) Leasehold, an interest in an estate in land, in fee simple, for a term of years’.
The corporation called ‘NZ’ (your country Kiwis) is registered as owned by the Queen, on the Securities & Exchange Commission’s (SEC) website, Washington DC.
During WW2 11 million acres of land was seized by the British Govt., with minimal and in some cases no compensation paid.
In the UK, Australia, Canada, NZ and anywhere else there are Crown lands, the relevant Govts can seize land without compensation, acting in the Queen’s name … they can also use the Royal Prerogative (feudal powers) to do the same, beyond the reach of parliaments.
The Queen owns as a private person, about 637,000 acres with a value of over $9,200 million.
For nearly 10,000 years of known history, those claiming ownership of land on the planet has been between 0.2% and 3% of the population, whilst the remaining 97-99% owned nothing. The land owners exclude the majority from owning any by crafting their own land laws and perpetuating the fallacy that land is scarce because there are too many people on the planet.
If all the land on the planet was divvied up equally to all (this calculates roughly to one tenth of an urban acre or two of rural) poverty could be eliminated.
From ‘Who Owns the World’ by Kevin Cahill and Rob McMahon
This signals a warning to folks with money in the bank. Banks are not averse to trimming your accounts as they already did in Greece. That was the Open Bank Resolution (OBR). When their poor practices fail it is you the customer who tends to be paying for their mistakes. Educate yourself and be warned. Here your savings will be taxed.
“The new compulsory control is provided in the 2015 Australian budget, so that everyone who has any savings must pay taxes on their savings. The measure is expected to serve as a global test balloon for Europe and North America, who will watch for the outcome in Australia. If there is no massive resistance of Australian savers, the rest of the world should expect this outright confiscation very rapidly…”
Oct 19, 2014 Bernard Hickey from the NZ Herald writes here on the ‘unseen risks of a fiscal haircut’. Most New Zealanders are not aware of the Open Bank Resolution….
Do you think the money you have in a bank term deposit is Government guaranteed? If so, you’re wrong, but you’re not alone.
A survey for the Financial Markets Authority by Colmar Brunton and published during Money Week found 52 per cent believed the money in a bank term deposit was guaranteed.
To be fair, during the global financial crisis, these deposits were guaranteed, from October 2008 to December 2011. Banks paid for the privilege, but that scheme is over now. So what would happen if a bank fell over? Would the taxpayers of New Zealand make sure you got all your money back?
Those in the know are aware that there is no Government guarantee, but it turns out most regular people, and certainly most term depositors, either still think there’s a guarantee, or think there’s always has been one.
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