….let’s not trivialise the election……
While the political leaders of the United States grapple with the biggest threat to the world economy for a very long time, what are New Zealand’s political leaders doing? They’re arguing over debating formats!
The destabilisation of the world financial system is a complex and serious issue. New Zealand is not immune from the effects. This should be at the top of the list of election issues.
Yet the whole election is being trivialised by the idiocy around televised debates. These debates serve little purpose. The leaders just say their prepared lines, leaving little space for genuine “debate”. It’s really about ratings for the TV company and what sort of advertising revenue it can make out of the “show”. It’s about justifying their repetitive polling and turning their reporters into TV stars.
In the lead up to the election, the only thing even more of a charade than the televised debates is discussions about forming a government before the election, even though this is another popular media pastime. Some political parties are much worse at this than others – they are the same ones who think they’ve won this election already.
It might surprise some of my fellow politicians and some media outlets to learn that the election is about people. The people will decide how and where they want political debate, not the TV stations. And the people will decide who will form the next Government on November 8th, not the politicians in sly back room deals ahead of the event.
NZ First is happy to publicly discuss the real issues facing the country at any time any place. This election is about protecting and saving our economy, our assets, our jobs, our homes, our families, our communities and our senior citizens. And we’re happy to be judged on our policies and our record on Election Day.
October 2nd, 2008 at 12:04 pm
The cause of the economic mess was largely lightweight paper trading..lending money on another margin. The polls have Key in front but noones looked at his so called financial nouse…what he set up and profited from isfalling over big time!!
Go NZ First..hit us with more policy for the people.
October 2nd, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Will NZFirst still advocate areduction of GST back to 10%?
Winston says: Absolutely.
October 2nd, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Another fallacy - John Key was acurrency trader, not a mortgage broker. Please get our facts right.
October 2nd, 2008 at 9:45 pm
It doesn’t matter what colour you paint the donky, he is still a money changer, we only have to watch what is happening in the U. S. of A. Bankers and money changers control the money supply, using fractional reserve banking every bank in U S is allowed to loan out ten times more money than they actualy have. And have done so of and on ever since The Boston Tea Party. The National Monetary Commission was set up at Jekyll Island and the federal reserve act was passed in 1913. giving the privately owned Federal Reserve control of the money supply, the population has been duped into believing that it is “The business cycle” when money is made scarce and a depression is deliberately activated.
” The hand that gives is above the hand tht takes, money has no motherland . Financiers are without patriotism and without decency: thier sole object is gain.”
Napoleon Bonaparte.
October 4th, 2008 at 7:42 am
If two candidates get the same number of votes what happens?
Winston says: If, after careful scrutiny of all votes cast, two candidates were deadlocked, there would surely need to be a by-election.
October 6th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Congress was actualy in recess when The Federal Reserve Act (the Aldrich Bill) was passed by a few powerful congressmen.
How does the (privately owned) Federal Reserve create money out of nothing?
Step 1/ The Federal Open Market Committee approves the purchase of US Bonds. Bonds are simply promises to pay. people buy bonds to get a secure rate of interest, at the end of the term of the bond the government repays the bond with interest and the bond is destroyed.
There are about 3.6 trillion dollars of these loans and bonds at present.
2/ Bonds are purchased from whoever is offering them for sale.
3/The Fed pays for the bonds with electronic credits to the seller’s bank and credited to the sellers bank account, the credits are based on nothing.
4/ The banks use these dedosits as reserves. They can loan out over ten times the amount of their reserves to new borrowers, all at interest.
In this way a Fed purchase of say $1million worth of bonds is turned into over $10 million of bank accounts, the Fed in effect creates 10% of this totaly new money and the banks create the other 90%. To reduce the amount of money in the economy the proccess is just reversed, the Fed sells bonds to the public and the money flows out of the purchaser’s local bank, loans must be reduced by ten times the amount of the sale so a Fed sale of $1million in bonds result in $10million less money in the economy
October 8th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Hi there Winston, again this is a really good post. I also get sick of the media trivialising the election and I think it’s wonderful that Winston is talking about the real issues for New Zealanders.
When can I read the press releases that Winston has put out on saving New Zealand from the international financial crisis that John Key is responsible for?
Winston says: I talked about this in my address at the campaign launch - http://www.nzfirst.org.nz/content/display_item.php?t=1&i=2860 . There’s more to come…. and our policy document is now up on this site.
October 9th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
What i would like to know is why we passed legislation on carbon emissions trading scheme when the fundamental principle of New Zealand First is exactly that.
Why is it so important to lead the world imposing significant costs on new zealanders and business when in fact it is unwise to progress any faster than our main trading partners on the issue. New Zealand First has sold out to Labour on this issue which should have been a no go area.
Winston says: This is not true. There used to be consensus in New Zealand politics around our response to climate change when the Kyoto Protocol was adopted. Sadly, National refused to show any leadership skills and walked away from that consensus. NZ First was left with a choice - be like National and abrogate our duty to the New Zealand public or work with the Government to design the best response to climate change we could. NZ First worked very hard to develop an ETS that imposes the least cost on the general public. That is, a scheme that places the burden on those most responsible for our greenhouse gas emissions and at the same time protects the most vulnerable members of our society, from trade-exposed businesses to low-income households. We are proud of the concessions New Zealand First won in that regard. We’re also proud we managed to put many checks and balances around the ETS so that Parliament must review each stage of implementation over the next decade.