Marx, Pakeha, Debt, History, Property and... crash?
Lucyna, at Sir Humphry's observed:
----------------------------------
NZ Pakeha Govt: incompetent and racist
COMMENT: Pakeha government, in negotiating with Waitangi Treaty claimants, has constantly pleaded poverty. Yet, as shown below, it has no problem enriching its Pakeha capitalist class and funding a huge overseas debt for the benefit of its (mainly) Pakeha constituency.
Marxist speak. So far no link with the Maori Party that I can find. There's heaps more just like this on the website I've linked to.
----------------------------------
It's like the cold war never ended with some people. Their assumptions about race and our history and therefore our current problems deserve scrutiny. To that end, Lucyna:
They mentioned "class." Obviously raving Marxists! The problem is that they are correct.
Our system operates along economic class lines despite there not being any deep antipathy and some fluidity between economic classes. If the government operates a policy to benefit home owners above owners of other capital, or vice versa then this can be seen in class terms. Whether Cullen is even aware of this (despite his doctorate) given every Finance Minister's reliance on policy from Treasury is moot. Or maybe he acknowledges that he now operates the state for the sake of the state rather than for any class - which means he operates it for whatever the status quo was before him. Given the Cullen fund I think he is doing exactly that. Great for the government, rude for everyone else not already creaming it from or through or by the state. Like a... socialist... corporatist... Technocrat.
But if you're not shy of analysis:
Our current account deficit is what? $10 billion in the red. Been in the red since the UK told us to bugger off and stop leaching. Our government debt has been higher than the asset backing since one of the many speculator-capitalists (Vogel in this example, but any one of those of his class) nationalised responsible local governance, viz: the Provinces, so the Crown could directly fund massive debts through huge borrowing to benefit his class primarily. Have those precious railways ever been in the black??? They weren't then, they aren't now, they are not projected to be in the future... Whose the sucker?
Maori land "acquisition" was the original basis for the entire speculative pyramid premised on permanent immigration. The Treaty is evidence of that. We've just had the last vestigages of Maori property claims stripped away by the Crown (oh Maori will get 20% of the aquaculture area so they only lost a miserly, insignificant 80% total and reduced in status to supplicants) so the crown can sell it off, so the cycle is coming to an end. Problem is the end of any speculative binge or pyramid scheme is always a crash. To prevent the crash the Crown must find new revenue streams like 115,000 international students last year, 30,000+ immigrants each year minimum, user pays for everything including "free" schools, tolling, increasing taxes or selling it's remaining assets.
Why does the Reserve bank admit that our currency is the 11th most traded in the world (sorry no link, tried to find it). Why do we have the highest interest rates in the developed world?
Is this alarming you or do you think it's sweet as?
Almost our entire banking system is foreign owned and we are going about attracting foreign capital because we don't have any. Cullen is "investing" 92% of the Super fund (supposed to be over $100b at peak) off-shore - why? Why did he pump more money into the RB's reserves? I don't want to bring on a crash any sooner than necessary but speculators know that Cullen/Crown must preserve it's Triple A Sovereirgn debt rating or the charade is over. If they take the money out what will we pay them with? If they liquidate their holdings suddenly we will have to go to the RB's reserves and then the Cullen fund. Is the govt. prepared to prop up the dollar by even higher interest rates? Sale of more assets? If we owned the banks it would not nearly be so bad - Switzerland may be a case study of prudential wisdom through a high exchange rate/volume rather than us.
The govt. claims the Crown will move into a net asset situation next year for the first time since the speculators needed railways to make their dodgy land "acquisitions" turn a quick profit. Really? What they mean is the Cullen fund will prop our exchange rate up so the valuations look good so they can claim we have no net debt. If someone on Wall street twigs that Bollard's signature isn't even on the 20s yet, after 3 years, and the RB is thus holding massive stocks of currency because they rationally predict inflation, then we are in big trouble. If Cullen liquidated the fund and repatriated it would it really amount to what they say it does? If we have to prove it, how short will we fall? Buying in now when we are strong seems prudent though - I can't work out whether this strategy is genious or madness. Such are the machinations of economists. I don't trust the bastards: lock into the Euro now.
But to answer the question: does the pakeha capitalist class benefit from high overseas debts? The simple answer is: there sure isn't any capital gains tax so obviously they benefit directly in that sense.
Who is this class: White people (and immigrants) who own productive, ie. revenue generating and asset increasing property. So, shares, businesses, investment property and I would say their own domestic house also if they buy it with an expectation of significant increase and sale therefter. (You see now how this links in with my earlier comments about "locals") So, almost all Pakeha are part of this class by that definition. Remember to some Pakeha (one of you guys on this blog I think) something isn't even "property" as such unless it can be sold to someone else. So Maori don't constitute Pakeha, and obviously because their predominant form of capital is not for sale, ie. land, and some of that does not even produce revenue. Very broad brush here but I see what they are saying and asset/productivity differences between Maori and Pakeha would probably bear that out.
What constitutes a benefit? Increase in capital value and/or increase in revenue.
Does the means or process of "funding high overseas debts" create that benefit?: Well the Crown borrows money to pay for things in NZ. What is the Pakeha/Maori split on that payment? It also lets foreigners/Pakeha in to own things formerly owned by the Crown when it comes to pay the debts off. It increases tax revenue and rates, but any good accountant - purley the agents of this class - will be able to minimise it whilst everyone else cops the full amount (fair enough!)
I have to give this last part of the question more thought as it is pivotal. But, I think the introduction of immigrants as a short-term fix that operates on a long-term basis is the real problem. Because it feeds the speculation that lets the "Pakeha capitalist class" become wealthier (through large increases in property prices) whilst Maori who are outside that capital system to begin with are locked out as prices rise beyond their ability to produce revenue to enter the speculation - and with more people in the country the situation becomes more extreme. Pakeha who occupy some of the most productive and therefore expensive land such as Waikato, Taranaki and Bay of Plenty are on land stolen off Maori by the Crown and any remedy to that situation (no matter where you stand on the issue) is ever more acute as the value of the loss and the ability to rectify things on an "at market valuation" principle becomes ever more difficult.
posted by Bomber @ 3:18 pm
2 comments
2 Comments:
Prophet,
Alot I repeat ALOT of BOP land was confiscated by your forebearers. Yes some was sold by the various hapu. But alot was confiscated - and almost all of the flat, economically productive parts. The parts that weren't directly confiscated were turned into freehold land so it could be easily alienated despite the owners not wanting to do that (ones that weren't killed).
As for the swamp - they grabbed that because they knew it would be valuable too. It is expensive land now because they poured in immigrants to get the prices up and keep feeding them in to keep them up. It's all pretty basic stuff. There exists an abandoned railway line that snakes it's way into the swamp area where our dodgy forebears "acquired" land without it going to tender and made the Crown ie. debt, ie the future NZ, pay for it all to put a short term quid in their pockets. Most of those venal bastards ended up suiciding anyway after bankruptcy. The immigrant population that came in between 1870 and 1880 was the size of the entire Maori population. That is how they create value - increase demand. As for $$ and time: Maori were doing fine in the new system until they said what I am saying and they became a threat to the pyramid scheme and were intimidated, excluded and confiscated out of the game. Just read the lists of things the Crown forces looted before you insinuate that Maori were not economically successful for the time.
160 years... People like you were saying that at year 1. Get over it it was last year. Get over it it was a couple of years ago. Get over it it was three years ago... Well the Foreshore and Seabed was last year - should we all forget about that? Why is it that the people who have the shortest history tell the people who have the longest history to forget everything? Do Jews not persue their family's property confiscated by Nazis? Or are they wrong as well?
You people don't seem to understand the danger of what you are preaching. If the principle is Govt. wrongs simply go away after a while then logically the govt. can keep doing wrong things because they will become right over time, eg. F&S. Therefore Maori can use the state to take things off Pakeha and although wrong at the time will become acceptable with the passage of time. Are Pakeha going to be happy with this, or should they just accept it? The might is right game gets no-one anywhere. How can anyone "get over it" if it has not been overcome? The land does not become less stolen over time. Indeed it may become even worse due to our economic model as I have talked about in the post above. These issues have been dealt with in dishonourable ways by the Crown to this day, with prospects looming of even more shame if the current crop of major parties get their way.
I think you touch on a pertinent point when you say "most people that live here want to live in a peaceful land and are happy to pay for it (Waitangi claims etc)." Waitangi claims to date are small beer. People think a token annual sum to try to shut people up is preferable to being upfront and aiming for a durable, global, systematic settlement. Some Pakeha, psychologically prefer to keep a grievence industry going to protect their myths (like Maori need hand-outs, We have to limit their expectations etc.) and keep Maori struggling, fighting amongst themselves and in almost constant litigation to squeeze out a few drops here and there - and woe betide them if they actually win anything reasonable and non-token in court - they get it confiscated and forbidden from going to the court again! 160 years of putting up with this crap and the attitude of people like yourself is too long. You are the one that is going to have to give it up - not me. But of course you don't want a history lesson because that is "racial claptrap"?
And then you start your ritual incantation of Pakeha mythology as so many of your people do, and usually right after telling Maori that you don't think history matters anymore:
"Maori were not living in nivarna prior to the next set of colonists arriving. It was a stone age culture. Life was hard and short. Starvation was a real possibility most of the year. I fully admit mistakes were made by various goverments over the years but hindsight is a wonderful thing."
Let's break it down:
Not nirvana - So where was there ever, industrial Europe? That statement is entirely redundant.
Next set of colonists - Maoris are just immigrants like everyone else. So what? See my post above to my view on that chestnut.
Stone Age culture - So? And? Many parts of Britains great Empire, like Ireland, were not far removed from that state either. What great culture and civilization has not been through that stage including literacy nad technology.
Life was hard and short - Where wasn't it?
Starvation was a real possibility - Bullshit. How can you starve with fish and birds all over the place, fern root everywhere? What do you think those huge pits held that are all over the place on Pa sites? Plastic bloody tikis!? I think you are confused with the first European settlers.
Mistakes made - Understatement.
Hindsight - This is perhaps the most outrageous of your comments. No. They were disputed and remarked upon and protested against and litigated against from day one. The Crown knew what it was doing. A cursory trawl through the archives will show that in abundance from the letter of the law itself to official correspondence and orders. These aren't accidents and confusion. Because you choose to pretend history is irrelevant you now have to claim that your own ignorance being corrected is "hindsight." Let's be crystal clear now: To pass the Foreshore and Seabed Bill the Crown was forced to make up a phoney baloney story about how things should have been in the past to effect the confiscation. It's called the "white man's touch." That is their stated mechanism of legitimate alienation. Each law they pass to validate the wrongs of the past is wrong NOW.
"Racial crap" - You are the one spinning all the way out stories in this discussion. Sure, they are bandied about by Pakeha like so many confiscated hectares (to paraphrase one of the Sir Humphery mob), and are sadly "normal," but they most certainly are prejudiced and ill-informed.
As for being positive: Do you think I need to deunderstand history - to chose to be ignorant - to be positive? To accept the ocean of lies, on an overinflated and highly precarious lilo of presumptions upon which the complacent float? Positive? Any move towards honesty is positive.
We should be honest how we feel. I know how you feel now. Then we must move on to accurate information and principles. We are about up to this stage now. And then with all of that out of the way, and the myths and misconceptions on both sides opened up then we can move forward to durable and just solutions. That is what I am interested in.
What does each side want? Certainty. How do we get that? Consultation. Then comes the details and specifics and timelines. We haven't had those sorts of discussions in a proper format as a country let alone as questions the Crown has ever asked itself - we know their answer - it is what we have now.
I don't seek to "constantly divide" per se. When you mention "your" forebearers etc. that is what you are doing and I only repeated it in the first paragraph for effect. I am divisive in the same way you are when you insist on your view prevailing over the other.
Prophet,
Basically yes, with a few exceptions, you are wrong. And here's why, point by point:
"You have no idea of my ethnic makeup you conceited little shit so don't make assumptions about me." - I was responding to what you were stating, but I take your point. We should not make any ethnic assumptions. I will try to avoid that in future as it does detract from the points made. But when someone slips into "your" and "our" and "we" etc. it is difficult. Nevertheless that's not an excuse. I'm working my way up to be certain enough to be "conceited" - I don't think I'm really there yet because I still argue and use examples rather than just make a lump of slogans as if it were an argument.
"This is the whole problem. Possiblly some points in your reply have some merit but most of it is exactly reguritating what you have just accused me of." - I disagree with the regurgitation suggestion and assume you are talking of trenchant terseness and ethnic/background assumptions here.
"So history started with your forebearers did it Tim?" - (It's forebears BTW) I don't know. I guess human history in this land goes back before anyone really knows for certain. You are also making assumptions here.
"Where do your stories of pre Euro times come from Tim?" - All over the place. Mostly written material and things I have heard.
"Do any of the people telling you those stories have an agenda or bias of their own Tim?" - Almost everyone does. The best material is the first hand stuff from people at the time who are writing, or are recorded by some impartial party. Journals, letters, statistics etc. are great. But it all comes down to calls about credibility, cross-referencing and checking etc.
"Living up the coast from Opotiki a year or so ago I watched as an elder lied LIED openly to the children at the kura about event's that formed the basis of the Whakatohea claim." - Wonderful place, great people. Pity about the lies. You have to provide some details as the person telling me this might have their own agenda or bias. What's their name? I might even have met them.
"Those kids went away thinking something was history that NEVER happened." - OK one example only, but that's good enough for me. More details please. The Crown material around the confiscation issue is really quite damning without even having to get the Whakatohea side of things.
"I have seen it with my own eyes Tim.
Heard it with my own ears." - OK at this point I'm picturing Fraser from Dad's Army with his wild eyes, Scots brogue, in a trance-like state jabbing his finger at me.
"I didn't learn mine in the hallowed halls of AU." - The institution is correct but it was politics and philosophy for me, not history - not a single paper.
"One Country One People Tim" - Now, I wouldn't be so conceited as to put myself right after country and people like you have. That's all a bit Ein Reich, Ein Volk isn't it? What does that slogan really mean? Why do people like Pauline Hanson and Winston Peters use that slogan? Who would it appeal to?
"not" - That could mean anything and completely modifies either statement either side, so... OK.
"We should get stuff because of something that happened along time ago.In the meantime we'll just pursue our apartheid agenda." - It was the Rugby Union and Govt. that supported apartheid for many years so are you talking about Pakeha now? Pakeha are "getting stuff" because of the injustices of the past obviously, they have made an absolute fortune out of it. I'm not sure Pakeha now have such an overt apartheid concept as a philosophy, it's more like the Israeli type in practise where they get everything they can through intimidation and violence and the legal system and then go for a settlement to lock in all their gains. Sort of like the "barrier" - change the facts on the ground in advance of any settlement and keep shifting the goal posts, pretending to be engaged in a real dialogue whilst setting the talks up to fail and then blaming the other side. It's all classic, text book stuff. I do think the Maori seats and wards are designed to keep Maori separate and to limit their numbers however. I wouldn't be surprised if that is why the Labour Party put that one through. What Maori is ever going to be elected in a non-Maori ie. Pakeha seat with that gerrymander? Almost impossible?
"And lastly tell me Tim when did you first hear about the foreshore and seabed claim Tim." - Do you mean the Whakatohea claim, or the original Ngati Apa claim?
I have heard of cases before that (not 90 Mile Beach though). There was the Ahuriri harbour claim in Napier which failed back in the 70s? 80s? maybe even before that. That would have been the first one that I have knowledge of. I remember many years ago driving around a mangrove area and some idiot saying that the Crown owns it or nobody owns it or something to that effect and I immediately retorted that the local Maori own it. This came as quite a novel concept to the asserter. But as for the current F&S fiasco, like everyone else I think I saw it on TV first. The government hurridly rolled out a consultation farce and I sent my submission in and it was even quoted in the discussion document issued afterwards. It said what I have always said: Every citizen should have the "right of traverse" to cross on foot any unfenced or otherwise unenclosed foreshore and seabed regardless of the title status of the land. The part about who actually owns the disputed area should be put out to another, longer, properly organised process as the issues were important and should not be rushed. Then came the farce of a select committee where the Auckland days were cut short and they refused to hear me, the Hikoi, the last minute changes to the bill, the vote passing under urgency, "seditious" incidents, my email and fax petition campaign to the Governor-General, being charged by the police, the aquaculture bill going through to give Pakeha up to 80% of the area, foreign companies taking out licences to mine the shit out of half the North Island's West Coast and then when I was down in Opotiki in January I met Claude Edwards who told me he was going to take a customary rights case to the court. I thought the whole "white man's touch rule" would be beyond humiliating to argue in court, but he seemed to think that by way of precedents Whakatohea could establish some form of guardianship over their coast. So I wished him all the best of luck. Does that answer your question.
"Just be honest no need to lie." - You know I'm not a liar, so why be so churlish? If you are not insinuating I am a liar then what on Earth are you insinuating!?
Post a Comment
<< Home