#22Feb2011 anniversary: accountability for #CTV, #Christchurch city #earthquake losses #EQNZ deficit

Condolences and thoughts for those deep in grief and hurt still, ten years on. E nga mate. Haere, haere, haere. Rest In Peace.

When the right starts mobbing you know there is stink afoot.

Apologist for idiocy, David Farrar stepped in to moderate Mike Yardley’s Christchurch City Council piece: “ill advised, but not malicious” was Melania Coker opining “Christchurch was woefully under insured when the earthquakes hit” thanks to Bob Parker’s leadership, not “some councillors place a greater premium on political recriminations than exercising basic decency” judgement – Councillor attacks former Mayor who has had a stroke, Kiwiblog, 2 February 2021. But this is just a whiff of the vile rightside smoke-screening still tainting our air. Mike Yardley: Councillor Melanie Coker’s comments on Sir Bob Parker repulsive, NZ Herald, 1 February 2021. Paid publisher propaganda.

Note, the honorific “Sir Bob” has not been endorsed here because it was bestowed by then-prime minister John Key in covering up all the Canterbury veiled criminality the two had sponsored.[1]

In short, Parker jumped to once total disaster struck central Canterbury on 22 February 2011. … Where he could have acted and had responsibility to immediately after 4 September 2010 – as building consent authority for the known hazardous CTV building and by cordoning off damaged-brick-balustrade-ridden Colombo Street etc. sections – he did nothing! Well, not quite nothing.. With Central City Business Association manager Paul Lonsdale, Parker launched into the Boxing Day Sale fiasco – to draw scared shoppers back into town where they were soon dispersed by a large aftershock / foreshock (of 22Feb2011) – SHAME!! [2] …

Aggrieved CTV families still cry out for justice:
Nation pauses to remember 185 who died in Christchurch quake, 10 years ago today, One News, 22 February 2021.

As it happened: Ten-year earthquake anniversary memorial service from Christchurch, Newshub, 22 February 2021.

Christchurch earthquake: 10 years on, RadioNZ, 22 February 2021.

Canterbury earthquake building failure, Royal Commission of Inquiry, DIA – state whitewash? …

Had former Key propagandists Farrar or Yardley the integrity to ask real questions, to not crudely feign moral pique for more audience, they’d start asking real questions of Coker: e.g. why has she concerned herself just with Christchurch city insurance failings and not the deadly ineptitude outlined above?[3] Part of the false alternative to Key’s Canterbury junta, Coker’s lack of honesty is evidenced in the public community board record falsified to benefit her in 2015 by ‘neutral’ city manager Mary Richardson. The CCC rot is no less deep and deadly today, apologists all deny.

[1] Dave Henderson properties, anyone? – Rate-payer subsidised ‘bargains’. … Canterbury water, anyone? – Free for the taking, if you have the rough and ready, sheer unscrupulous power.

[2] Boxing Day earthquake aftershock Christchurch.mpg video, YouTube, 27 December 2010; Boxing Day Christchurch quake claims near 7000, NZ Herald, 14 January 2011.

[3] Proof of David Farrar’s deception: my own experience of Dirty Politics, Dr Jarrod Gilbert, 24 September 2014.

[To be cont’d… Watch for updates.]

Economic restructure with #Covid19 slump: sustainable safety vs #crisis in #oil over-production

“US crude oil futures collapsed below $0 on Monday for the first time in history, amid a coronavirus-induced supply glut, ending the day at a stunning minus $US37.63 a barrel as desperate traders paid to get rid of oil. Brent crude, the international benchmark, also slumped, but that contract was nowhere near as weak because more storage is available worldwide” – Reuters via ODT, 21 April 2020 – But “a record 160 million barrels is sitting in tankers around the world”, as storage is quickly running out. Little will be available beyond May, Al Jazeera reported just before this news. – see Reuters.[1] This expresses the classic crisis of over-production,[2] in which the impacts can only compound and intensify. We have 1918 and 1929 rolled into one.

Oil production “cuts will come too slowly to offset rising inventories, which hit 518.6 million barrels in the US last week, just 3 percent off an all-time record, the Energy Department said. ‘If storage continues to increase at the end of the day, which seems likely considering all these Saudi barrels knocking at the door, then we are going to get to maximum storage sometime in the not so distant future,’ said Bob Yawger, director of futures at Mizuho in New York.”

US oil storage January 2017 to April 2020 – Bloomberg

Source: Brent and US oil rebound after two days of historic losses, Al Jazeera, 23 April 2020.

Two days after dip, medium-term WTI and Brent oil TradingEconomics.com ‘recovery’ graphs:

WTI year to 23 Apr 2020

Brent year to 23 Apr 2020

What will happen next?

It is easy to forecast another crude oil price collapse as April closes, to below $10 a barrel, trading through May to hold the $16 latest low line if possible when all the stream spare storage capacity fills up. Output cannot be curtailed by enough producers in time to stop this lengthy return to medium to long term base value lows.

The logic of the market is to settle in at single digit barrels for the duration, while the costliest North American production is demolished. Such is the damage to demand and employment now locked in by pandemic shut-down response and unleashed technological upgrades. This is the beginning of the third Great Depression. Problematic war in the Middle East is the only potential diversion of this course, and the slump’s most likely remedy – under traditional mechanisms.

We have entered a vastly different world, with a deadly pandemic unparalleled since 1918. So will we, the people, shape the new world coming? ‘Recovery must be inclusive for the social contract to survive’, the Inside Story panel concluded, in “Why did US oil prices hit negative territory?”, Al Jazeera, 22 April 2020. Also regard Earth Day: Coronavirus crisis offers big green opportunity and ask Is civil disobedience enough or do we need a climate revolution?, 23 April 2020. The young generation know their future is imperilled and precisely by what: aged infrastructure/maintainers.

Nothing is guaranteed, except that the level of comfort so many knew before Covid is now gone – Goldman: Don’t Expect U.S. Oil Prices To Recover Soon, OilPrice.com, 21 April 2020. So much of financial sector credit is based upon appreciating energy industry shares, almost ‘too big to fail’ but not quite. It is the critical modern resource, the lifeblood of industrial economy, the core carrier of growth: too little or too much energy cost, both inhibit prosperity. The long answer is we have to move on from utter dependency on fossil fuel burning.

Competing large national oil interests – North American, Russian, Middle East – are all pitched against each other, on a currently shrinking transport market with no recovery in near sight. Smaller producer countries – in Africa, Asia and South America – face at this time the same and thus proportionately larger challenges of internal cohesion – resulting from this loss of revenue, profit, reinvestment and jobs.

The March surge of Saudi oil has been shunned by the US administration so will divert to Europe and Asia, flooding the markets there, viz Rising calls to block Saudi crude shipments to US, Al Jazeera, 23 April 2020. China is stockpiling the cheapened flow as fast as it can, as the world’s biggest oil consumer.[3] Contrast to North America’s accelerating market chaos.[4]

“A slow recovery that keeps oil prices down below $20 would mean heightened risk of political instability throughout the oil-producing world. It would strain cooperation in OPEC because the members would not see the benefit of their cutbacks” – Crude carnage: ‘There’s pain everywhere’ says analyst, Al Jazeera, 22 April 2020.

It is essential to recreate trade as sustainable, now and for the future, with whole new food, energy and distribution dynamics and underpinnings. The health framework can then improve for everyone too.

Current values under watch:
tradingeconomics.com/commodity/brent-crude-oil or oilprice.com/oil-price-charts/45 WTI + Brent.

The estimated 12 to 18 month recovery time expected while awaiting a globally available Covid19 vaccine is reinforced by this being the expected time to clear the mounting glut, to effect enough oil/shale well shut-in to start lifting values. A very slow and expensive process, especially in jobs.

This will be a protracted, increasingly painful slump; most like 1929’s. The stark choice of ways out of, it is high time to discuss.[5]

[1] “Stocks are likely to be growing by 10% per month… the entire supply chain is likely to be completely full within 2-4 months. … At the end of January [industry storage] was a mere 200 million barrels below the record high of 3.1 billion barrels – reported in July 2016, shortly after the end of the previous oil price slump. … As the petroleum market moves into massive surplus, storage has become the most scarce commodity in the industry.” – Global oil storage to fill rapidly as consumption plunges, Reuters, 28 March, & “The US Energy Information Administration last week reported a record 19.3 million-barrel crude stock build. There is currently a remaining 21 million barrels of storage available at the Cushing hub in Cushing, Oklahoma. But that will fill up to the brim by mid-to-late May, Rystad Energy predicts”, U.S. crude oil storage is filling rapidly, 18 April 2020.

The World Is Running Out of Places to Store Its Oil, New York Times, 26 March 2020.

“Goldman Sachs … estimates that the world has around 1 billion barrels of spare storage capacity, but much of that will never be accessed ‘as the velocity of the current shock will breach transportation networks’ … ‘With demand collapsing but supply rising after OPEC and non-affiliated Russia failed to reach a production cut agreement in early March, global inventories could reach their maximum capacity within weeks,’ analysts at Eurasia Group said … ‘Industry participants are saying it is virtually impossible to find conventional onshore tanks. Even if OPEC and other producers start restricting their output again soon, the supply overhang from the global lockdown is so big that storage capacity will likely hit its limit by midyear. Already, ports and refiners are turning away oil tankers. This will put even more downward pressure on prices and pose an existential threat to many companies,’ Eurasia Group said. Analysts at Energy Aspects expect the ongoing oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia will keep production elevated until the end of the year. This means the world will run out of crude storage capacity early in the third quarter of the year, they added, with product containment arriving earlier” Oil prices could soon turn negative as the world runs out of places to store crude, analysts warn, CNBC, 1 April 2020.

The Surprising Winners And Losers Of The Global Oil Glut, yahoo finance, 20 April 2020.

A hunt for any storage space turns urgent as oil glut grows, Reuters, 21 April 2020.

“Oil prices were already weighed down by oversupply going into 2020 … ‘Market prices are showing that oil is all but worthless now. It’s going to take a long time to draw down the huge supply overhang'” – Crash! US crude futures turn negative for first time in history, Al Jazeera, 21 April 2020.

“OPEC+ coalition… agreed to slash production by about 10 million barrels a day earlier this month, but the cuts won’t kick in until May. Even then, they won’t be enough to balance out the demand destruction from the virus in the short term, which could be as high as 30 million barrels a day… Inventories at the biggest U.S. storage hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, are at the highest since 2017 and are expected to rise further. The industry-funded American Petroleum Institute reported that nationwide crude stockpiles rose 13.2 million barrels last week… Meanwhile, Indian fuel tanks are now 95% full, according to officials at three state-owned refiners” – Brent nears a 21-year low under demand and storage pressure, WorldOil, 22 April 2020.

[2] More e.g.: Overproduction, Wikipedia; The Marxist Theory of Overaccumulation and Crisis, Simon Clarke; Will coronavirus signal the end of capitalism?, Al Jazeera, 3 April 2020.

[3] “Rather than cutting back on imports, China pushed crude oil into storage tanks at almost double the rate in the first quarter of this year than it did in the same period in 2019 as the new coronavirus hit domestic consumption … Other major crude importing countries lack the ability to simply divert oil into storage on the scale that China can, meaning they will have to lower the amount of crude being imported. Even countries with large commercial and strategic storages, such as the United States, will find that the volume of crude available is so much that it will overwhelm available tank space within weeks, rather that months … by itself it’s nowhere near enough to compensate for the loss of an estimated 30 million bpd of global consumption” – China doubled crude oil storage inflows during coronavirus demand hit, Reuters, 20 April 2020.

[4] “an acute state of oversupply in North America … ‘This inflection will play out in a matter of weeks, not months, with the market likely forced to balance before June,’ Goldman analysts warned. In other words, the U.S. oil industry could lose several million barrels per day in the next few weeks in what Goldman analysts called a ‘violent rebalancing.'” The Worst Is Yet To Come For Oil Prices, OilPrice.com, 21 April + Oil Prices Hit $15 For The First Time In 21 Years 19 April + “Canada, Venezuela, Iraq, Brazil, Libya, Ecuador and even the U.S. are seeing forced shut-ins due to storage constraints, COVID-19 and low prices” A Massive Wave Of Shut-Ins Fails To Halt Oil Price Crash 21 April + $1 Oil: Saudi Arabia’s Attempt To Crush U.S. Shale 1 April + “fewest number of active rigs since January 2017.. EIA’s estimate is that the United States still produced 13 million barrels of oil per day on average this week, just 100,000 bpd off the all-time high” The Largest Rig Count Collapse In 5 Years 3 April + “only if the United States joins the cuts” Russia To Cut 1 Million Barrels Per Day, But Under One Condition + The World’s Biggest Oil Deal Can’t Save Crude Prices 6 April + Oil Prices Hit $1 Following A 90% Crash, 20 April + How Oil Prices Could Go To $100 + In Rare Development, Oil Majors Are Forced To Cut Output Under OPEC Deal viz British Petroleum-led project in Azerbaijan, 23 April + “According to Goldman Sachs, global oil storage could be completely full within the next three weeks, and another dramatic crash could follow” Oil Prices Crash 24% As Storage Fears Mount + “unprecedented situation in global energy markets has provided traditional producers with an opportunity to displace incumbents in primarily the U.S. The price war Saudi Arabia started after Russia refused to reduce output in early March has decimated budgets of energy-dependent countries and oil companies. Riyadh and Moscow are playing with fire.. Riyadh is also upping the ante in Asia where Aramco has cut prices by $3 to $5 per barrel, which is the second drastic cut in two months.. energy industry seems to be heading full speed towards a cliff, exporters in Russia and Saudi Arabia prefer to maintain their market share instead of saving the industry. Only time will tell where this strategy will lead to” Saudi Arabia And Russia Fight Bitter Market Share Battle As Oil Prices Collapse, 27 April + “UBS, a Swiss financial firm, sees oil prices rising by as much as 115 percent by the end of the year. ‘While the oil market is heavily oversupplied this quarter, we expect it to move toward balance next quarter and become under-supplied in 4Q this year as lockdown restrictions are eased and oil demand picks up,’ Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management, explained. OPEC, which is preparing to roll out its joint plan to cut global oil production by 9.7 million barrels per day, is even more hopeful, predicting a recovery by the second half of the year. Mohamed Arkab, Energy Minister of OPEC’s rotating president Algeria, noted, ‘the global economy is not going to stay paralyzed,’ adding that he predicts the price of the Brent benchmark could reach $40 by the beginning of the third quarter” Are Oil Prices Heading Back Into Negative Territory? + “’this is a never-before-seen level of national economic calamity; history doesn’t get bigger than this’.. Most people, policy makers and economists are energy blind and cannot, therefore, fully grasp the gravity or the consequences of what is happening.. Oil production and prices are unlikely to regain late 2018 levels. Renewable sources will fall behind along with efforts to mitigate climate change. It’s Really Bad.. Gross domestic product (GDP) is proportional to oil consumption.. because oil is the economy. Every aspect of production and use of goods and services requires burning fossil energy. There are approximately 4.5 years of human labor in a barrel of oil. No other energy source comes close to that level of energy density.. Large segments of the U.S. oil industry will have to be nationalized before the year is over.. productivity multiplier will be essential if the U.S. economy is to avoid collapse or for it to recover if collapse is unavoidable.. foolish practice of draining America first since the beginning of tight oil production a decade ago.. The game is over for oil. We should place all of our attention on saving the economy.. a chance to simplify and to learn to be satisfied with no more than what we need. It is unlikely that we will have much choice” The Death Of U.S. Oil, 28 April + The World’s Largest Oil Fund Is Sitting On $725 Million In Unrealized Losses re United States Oil Fund, 29 April + Venezuela Oil Exports Climb As OPEC Agreement Kicks In, 4 May 2020.

[5] By the late 1920s in the United States, “the huge oversupply of crude totally disrupted the market and rational planning, thus creating sudden price collapses.” The October 1930 opening of the East Texas Black Giant, a well reservoir so vast it dwarfed everything previously known in America, caused the $1.85 per barrel price of 1926 – that had dropped to $1 by 1930 – to fall to 15, 6 or even 2 cents at times, by May 1931. – The Prize, Daniel Yergin, 1991, pp.223, 247.

[DRAFT #5 – more to be added.]

“Oil companies are some of the most important payers of dividends across financial market worldwide, providing vital income streams to pension funds and millions of smaller investors. ..fears about the ability of oil companies to maintain dividend payments beyond 2020 are unlikely to subside until a vaccine for Covid-19 is discovered” Oil prices on a slippery slope, Financial Times, 24 April 2020.
“There are about 3.2 billion barrels of crude oil already in global inventories, according to Orbital Insight, a record high. The majority of land-based oil storage is in the form of Floating Roof Tanks (FRT). Overall, Orbital Insight says the world’s FRT storage is at 55.6% capacity, so the firm sees about 2 billion more barrels of storage capacity available. Beyond FRT storage are alternatives, such as fixed roof tanks, salt caverns, or even more expensive floating storage like tankers at sea. Ursa said recent estimates put sea-based tanker storage at about 160 million barrels. Essentially, the lower price of oil drops, the more oil producers look to expensive types of storage capacity as viable. Storage capacity options have an inverse relationship to production methods, as more expensive methods of extracting oil become viable as the price rises. ‘There’s still places to put oil. It’s been diminished because volumes have increased because of the amount that’s been leased out. But they’re going to keep searching out for more and more tanks to fill,’ [Ursa Space Systems analyst Geoffrey] Craig said. ‘If this continues, there’s going to be another phase where you would have to have another shift down in price,’ Craig added. June contracts for WTI crude traded at $16.54 a barrel on Friday, down more than 9% this week. Brent crude traded at $21.22 a barrel, down more than 20% this week. Hall noted that the recent panicked sell-off was largely focused on storage capacity running out in Cushing, Oklahoma. He pointed out that storage facilities in West Texas are below 50% capacity, with Europe and the Middle East each at 60% capacity as well. ‘Throughout the rest of the U.S., in Canada and then across the rest of the world, there’s still a lot of capacity out there for storage,’ [Kayrros market strategist Ted] Hall said. ‘Tanks are relatively full and have been filling, but there’s still a lot of a lot of room to grow globally.’ So long as major production cuts don’t happen while capacity remains, the price of oil will remain tied significantly to how much storage is left. ‘Based on what’s gone on the past week, there’s certainly a chance that we’ll see more breakdowns based on really unique financial moments related to the financial contracts in crude,’ Hall added.” Oil prices could remain under pressure, according to satellite imagery analysis, CNBC, 24 April 2020.

“With a sizable contraction anticipated, the current consensus expectation is for a negative 4% reading. Economists at ING are more pessimistic, looking at the destruction in retail as they forecast a 6% dive in productivity. Retail activity outside of groceries has practically collapsed and manufacturing surveys have reported plummeting activity. Given this situation, we look for the economy to have contracted 6% annualised in Q1 with much worse to come in 2Q.” The Dow Is Eerily Calm – But Next Week Could Be Menacingly Volatile, CCN, 24 April 2020.
“product that the state-run Bank of China dubbed Yuan You Bao, or Crude Oil Treasure.. branches posted ads on Wechat.. ‘Crude oil is cheaper than water’.. The physical settlement for the benchmark WTI takes place at Cushing, Oklahoma. When storage tanks there fill up, the price on the expiring contract can plunge and become disconnected from the global market. With demand evaporating, inventories at Cushing were soaring. In March and April, they climbed 60% to just under 60 million barrels, out of a total working capacity of 76 million – and analysts reckon much of the remaining space is already earmarked.. ‘The trading at settlement mechanism failed. It shows the fragility of the WTI market, which is not as big as people think’.. Prices in the U.S. physical market, set by reference to the WTI settlement, also plunged, with some refiners and pipeline companies posting prices to their suppliers as low as minus $54 a barrel.. The bank had a total position of about 1.4 million barrels of oil, or 1,400 contracts, according to a person familiar with the matter. It wound up having to pay about 400 million yuan ($56 million) to settle the contracts.. a new wave of selling that swept across oil markets. On Tuesday, the June WTI contract plunged by 68% to a low of just $6.50. And this time it was not limited to U.S. contracts: Brent futures also plunged, hitting a 20-year low of $15.98 on Wednesday, driving the price of Russian, Middle Eastern and West African oil that is priced relative to it to levels near zero.. ‘suspicion of market manipulation or a flawed new computer model’.. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.. exploring.. whether the storage capacity data posted by the U.S. Energy Information Administration accurately reflected the actual availability of space.. CME [Group Inc, which owns the oil-futures exchange] argues.. market working efficiently.. ‘We witnessed history’.. brokerage PVM. ‘For the sake of oil-market stability,” this “should not be allowed to happen again'” The 20 Minutes That Broke the U.S. Oil Market, Bloomberg, 25 April + Icahn Bought Cheap Oil in Monday’s Plummet to Historic Lows, 24 April Ref. Icahn Enterprises Wikipedia + What’s Next for Global Oil Prices?: The Industry May Shut Down , Bloomberg, 26 April 2020.
“The implosion of crude oil markets in the past week holds a mirror to the broader distress in the U.S. and global economy. Social distancing measures imposed on consumers and business shutdowns enforced to combat the spread of the coronavirus pandemic have led to a collapse in international trade and travel. Gasoline and jet fuel prices have sunk as a result leading to crude oil inventories rapidly filling the available storage space. The lockdowns have also led to a slump in business revenues and consumer spending, causing mass unemployment in the U.S. not seen since the 1930s, at least temporarily. The issue for business earnings, economic growth and stock market values is that the U.S. is more dependent on consumer spending than some other economies.. ‘It shows us that the reality of demand destruction in the economy is more dire than what other risk asset prices, particularly U.S. equity prices, reflect’.. The stock market may have shrugged off the oil slump though in part because the direct hit from low oil prices is limited for Wall Street. The overall share of the energy sector in U.S. equity and even in corporate bond markets is minimal, and many fund managers have steered clear of the industry due to the challenging economics of crude production and the growing adoption of more carbon-friendly investment approaches in the U.S. and abroad. Energy represents less than 3% of the overall S&P 500 index, and around 12% of the index for sub investment-grade corporate bonds.. ” Could the crude oil market bust spell trouble for high-flying U.S. stocks?, MarketWatch, 25 April.
“The price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures expiring in May plunged 321%, to -$40.32 a barrel, the lowest level ever recorded” Oil plunges 321% into negative territory for the first time ever as demand evaporates, Markets Insider, 20 April 2020 – WTI:
Date, Closing Price, Open, Daily High, Daily Low
05/04/2020 20.39 19.11 21.42 18.05
05/01/2020 19.78 19.04 20.48 18.07
04/30/2020 18.84 15.64 19.44 15.45
04/29/2020 15.06 13.35 16.78 12.67
04/28/2020 12.34 12.96 13.69 10.07
04/27/2020 12.78 16.84 16.98 11.88
04/24/2020 16.94 16.78 17.97 15.64
04/23/2020 16.50 14.20 18.26 13.35
04/22/2020 13.78 16.18 10.26
04/21/2020 10.01 -14.00 13.86 -16.74
04/20/2020 -37.63 17.73 17.85 -40.32
04/17/2020 18.27 20.00 20.22 17.31
‘There is no reason to be bailing out Middle Eastern overproduction’: Analysts break down how to prevent further oil price volatility, Markets Insider, 25 April 2020 – Brent:
Date, Closing Price, Open, Daily High, Daily Low
05/05/2020 30.97 28.10 32.06 27.77
05/04/2020 27.20 26.10 28.08 25.50
05/01/2020 26.44 26.95 27.88 25.76
04/30/2020 25.27 22.87 25.76 22.87
04/29/2020 22.54 20.66 23.88 20.53
04/29/2020 22.54 20.66 23.88 20.53
04/28/2020 20.46 19.90 21.29 18.73
04/27/2020 19.99 21.55 21.91 19.11
04/24/2020 21.44 21.93 22.70 20.50
04/23/2020 21.33 20.89 23.22 20.07
04/22/2020 20.37 20.23 22.45 15.98
04/21/2020 19.33 26.33 26.50 17.51
04/20/2020 25.57 28.05 28.25 25.37
“Brent crude oil is at its lowest level in 17 years.. The US exports roughly 4 million barrels of oil per day, but much of that outflow will fade as Saudi Arabia and Russia undercut US pricing. Mizuho [Securities]’s analysis pegs the US’s spare capacity at 273 million barrels and estimates the tanks could top out in as soon as four months.. negative prices could become a reality if the US can’t build new storage at the pace of its inventory buildup.. The oil-price war kicked off March 6, when Russia declined to lower production. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries had hoped to curb supply as the coronavirus outbreak pummeled oil demand around the world. Russia’s move prompted retaliation from Saudi Arabia in the form of massive price cuts, igniting a race to claw more market share” The oil market’s threats combine 9/11 with the financial crisis – and could turn prices negative, analyst says, Markets Insider, 18 March 2020.
“U.S. market history points to a final bottom in August” Stocks will revisit their coronavirus crash low, and here’s when to expect it, MarketWatch, 11 April 2020.
“We have clearly gone to full scale day-to-day market management crisis, and as we said when we first called for negative prices, the physical reality of oil is that it is difficult to handle, volatile, potentially polluting, and actually useless without a refinery. If you had a stinking barrel of oil in your backyard, would you pay someone $100/bbl to take it away? Yes, and you would probably be relieved you were not charged $300/bbl,” Oil could hit negative $100 per barrel next month, according to one analyst, Markets Insider, 22 April 2020.
“The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported last Wednesday that U.S. crude inventories rose 15 million barrels for the week ended April 17 to 518.6 million barrels. That marked a 13th straight weekly climb and followed a record weekly increase of 19.2 million barrels a week earlier.. January 2021 CLG21 contract trading near $29.37 on Monday or still well below the $54 per barrel levels of mid-February that already were viewed as a threat to the viability of some weaker players” Here’s why oil majors may struggle to find bargains in the shale patch, MarketWatch, 27 April 2020.
“The United States Oil Fund (USO) that was responsible for last Monday’s oil crash into negative territory is once again shaking up oil markets, and WTI is now down more than 21% on the day. The USO Fund’s administration, USCF, announced on Monday that it intends to sell off all of its WTI contracts for June delivery—that’s all its front-month contracts that the fund was designed to invest in. Instead, the fund will now focus on futures contracts that are further out. The USO’s breakdown will now be comprised of 30% in the July contract, 15% each in the August, September, October, and December contracts, and 10% in the June 2021 contract. The June 2020 contract fell $3.85 on Monday to $13.09 by 3:52 p.m. EDT. Meanwhile, the July contract is trading $5 higher, and the August contract $8 higher at $21.47. The last time the USO fund shook up the oil market was one week ago today, the last day before the May 2020 futures contract for WTI expired. What set the disastrous events in motion was traders wishing to exit their positions before the contract expired. The USO, which would be unable to accept delivery of physical barrels of oil, headed for the exit, but found few willing buyers. This time around, the USO fund is pulling out of all its near-term contracts over the course of the next few days, sending oil prices reeling once again. The shift away from front-month contracts will amount to dumping 20% of its $3.6 billion portfolio over the next few days, Financial Times reports, citing a regulatory filing by USO.” World’s Largest Oil Fund Is Once Again Crashing Crude Markets, OilPrice.com, 27 April 2020.

Generation Zero is about right. Dishonest prejudice, New Zealand Labour Party disguise corrupt. #NZLabour #climate #GenZero #nzpol #NewZealand #NZ

If the Labour Party is not elected to govern New Zealand today, it is because people want something different. ‘National light’ does not suffice. Those supporting National, or not supporting Labour, pay attention to ‘alternative facts’ and political spin. Bending the truth is significant about power, and Labour knows it. They have rebutted it, in the tax debate of September 2017, shining the torch away from their own record. Labour claimed much success, in the local elections of 2016, as evidence of a strong party ready to rise. From this they have gone on to pose as water-quality champions, by eliminating competition in that field. So let’s take a look at what they now propose to build upon in this area, veracity-wise.

Generation Zero rorting of polls in support of Labour-backed candidates is seen more and more every election, as economic crisis deepens, exemplified by the voter-defrauding chart produced here:

From GenZero’s http://www.localelections.nz/christchurch/environment-canterbury/ of 2016. – How is B+A=A higher than A+A=A, except as intentional lying? – ECan-paid contractor Pham then promoted candidate Pauling and split the vote for fourth place in Christchurch, allowing another already on the ECan payroll – Lowndes, zone committee chair – to secure it and become councillor. Lowndes broke election law by using an ECan logo on his campaign website, unrestrained. These were the Labour-backed candidates, professionally squeezing out grass-roots representation, slipping eyes past Labour’s high-pollution record and thoroughly foul conflicts of interest.

This was payback for 2007, when Save Our Water helped expose a Labour ECan councillor being paid to facilitate meetings for Central Plains Water, who then lost his seat. Ngai Tahu Iwi – intending corporate irrigator – lost its Labour seat at the same time (until National put it back, in May 2010).

The same kind of dodgy rort by the same group was seen three years earlier, when they rated the Labour-based mayoral candidate, Lianne Dalziel, higher for carbon-friendly policies despite these being practically identical to at least one other candidate at the time. This was to completely ignore (and hide) Dalziel’s role in Helen Clark’s Labour government, that had heavily developed dairying, irrigation and greenhouse gas emissions in Canterbury during its decade in power. Generation Zero are thus exposed as intellectual and methodological frauds, ingratiating to relative power. Generation Zero are thus, in effect, corruptly right-wing too – just like the ‘me first’ Labour significant cult of the leader.

Generation Zero – Christchurch mayoral candidate evaluations – October 2013

Dig into the Generation Zero fraud and what you find is, it is about attempting bigger fraud – that (consumer) transport emissions are ‘more important’ than industrial (agriculture, in New Zealand) emissions, that urban issues outweigh rural, that Auckland perspective will dominate the south. Of course Labour would want its apologists to say this, that (Auckland) city transport issues outweigh rural production – it is about shifting blame (and complete in-electability on this issue) off of Labour!

Generation Zero are understood and defined as a “public transport lobby group” by national news media (One News e.g.) out of Auckland influence – subordinating southern regional politics (of agricultural emissions reduction) to their own concern (urban transport planning). In 2017, new Labour then falsely took ownership of the water quality movement, with questionable policy proposals (tax water takes to fund river clean-up work, rather than transform the entire industry).

The ‘Generation Zero’ claim to be concerned for emissions reduction, to halt climate change, is belied by their actions. Totally. When they have the chance to stand against the National government, by endorsing the battle Save Our Water has brought to them since 2007, they walk away; they side with National’s decision to cut environmental democracy, that Save Our Water had represented for voters to Environment Canterbury (ECan). Instead, as the 2016 candidate rating chart shows, the Zeros back an ECan-paid consultant (staff) to replace public representation as somehow more suitable democratic voice – http://www.workingwaterstrust.org/who-are-we-.html director Pham. Professional resource-grabs – never public wishes – are what the Zeros are about. Their intervention is to eliminate emission-reduction proposals that Save Our Water has worked a decade for, from all decision debate. Generation Zero thus, by inter-dependency with reactionary Labour candidates, take climate action backwards!

Generation Fraud is what this is all really about: removing options and debate about resource conservation for the future generations, boiling everything down into the corporate one-or-two party choice; selling out the options of their own generation, by covering up Labour’s misuse of power, in reality. That is a offensively corrupt.

Right-wing frauds. If you are going to vote support for any of these people in September 2017, do so with your eyes wide open! The public elects representation on its own terms, not those of master manipulators.

View at Medium.com

Confirmed as divisive nonsense, through cover-ups by Labour Party adjuncts to corruptly nose them ahead in New Zealand elections, is that different generations of humans have separate material interests. Nothing could be more false. By fostering dishonesty, after their own style and career interests, New Zealand Labour does youth a massive disservice and so urgently needs to be exposed – to reduce the harm done by Labour influence immediately. Recruiting to their model corrupts and derails youth, against their own best interest, feeding the mental health crises. Over-emphasis on identity politics (anything for an extra vote) does this – distortion.

From this exposure of Labour deceit, political education can then progress, freed of the obfuscating market sleights imposed over decades by generations of corrupted Labour bureaucrats – for the sake of power.

The central, repetitive pitch of Labour leader Jacinda Adern in the TV1 main party leaders’ debate of 31-08-17, was that her generation lacked access to housing – given its inflated price relative to wages. While thin on detail over how they’d actual change this, and hiding the fact that years of Labour administration had only increased the disparity (from which multiple-home-owning Labour politicians always profit), housing security is an issue for every generation now. Vague dog-whistling, to gather attention for shifting power, is not an actual solution.

The destructive influence of Labour on youth wellbeing at community level has been further documented here:

https://riktindall.wordpress.com/2016/03/06/christchurch-south-youth-community-resilience-role-ccc-chch-preparedness-nz/ September 29, 2016 – Labour community board members killed off the proposal of a local youth council, to place Labour Youth members in charge of a dubious ‘Youth Community Board’ instead:
a. How totally corrupt!
b. What a sheer waste of wider democratic opportunity, for youth to become active in good local governance.

https://riktindall.wordpress.com/2016/10/14/nz-labour-just-lost-the-2017-election-nzlabour-christchurch-ecan-newzealand-water-nzpol-knzb-ccc/ October 14, 2016 – Labour lost the 2017 election one year earlier

The very worst of it is – beyond Labour’s corruption of aspiring youth to its evil gangster methods – is Labour corruption of local government staff in cementing its influence. They even go so far as having these staff falsify public records – community board minutes – to boost the optics of Labour effectiveness to the maximum level possible.

A Corrupt City Council, being CCC, is the shocking result: that the public can no longer trust its paid ‘servants’, under Labour instruction.

Labour in governance will do nothing except what enhances their power and status – one toxic, self-congratulating, self-promoting machine.

‘Dirty politics’ are not something different because they are Labour’s. A lot of warping effort, to disguise their record, for claiming agency over water quality standards. Theirs has been as great a contribution to pollution when in power, so they habitually lie to obscure this.

Substance before style, wins the day.
24.09.17 – The touted youthquake did not eventuate because, with opaque Labour self-interest, youth are neither silly nor blind: they knew they were being manipulated and not so many complied.

Jesinda at work? – source: Darrien Fenton facebook

Democracy, warts and all. Backwards is worse. Explore ways to improve it. Have the vision – what is the route to survival for all? DJTrump/KJIll are rolling out the opposite direction … Frightening. So, what is the all-inclusive, sustainable development solution? Find it. Sell it. Win hearts to progress. (100% support would be the miracle)

[page under edit]

Invasion of the robot workers “Why aren’t the young in revolt? Why aren’t they out on the street biffing things? Perhaps they are about to.” July 12 2017
https://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/94580089/invasion-of-the-robot-workers

Vernon Small: Labour may have tacked too close to National to spark voter ardour
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/94641918/vernon-small-labour-may-have-tacked-too-close-to-national-to-spark-voter-ardour July 13 2017

“New ways of utilising our land for economic gain that also have lower environmental footprints need to be found and adopted if we are to meet the vision New Zealanders have for their fresh waters.” http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/91418638/top-scientist-fixing-freshwater-issues-an-enormous-challenge

NZ election 2017: Going beyond environmental slogans
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/95984894/nz-election-2017-going-beyond-environmental-slogans August 28 2017

Editorial: Water issues have boiled over
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/97044279/editorial-water-issues-have-boiled-over September 21 2017

POLITICAL ROUNDUP, Dr Bryce Edwards: Get ready for a Labour-NZ First government
https://www.nbr.co.nz/opinion/get-ready-labour-nz-first-government September 25 2017

https://www.facebook.com/rik.tindall/posts/10214991416085885 “The left, including New Zealand’s, can make no progress until it starts to understand that Labour is a right-wing party…” September 25 2017

Those deep in religion do not #understand #religion. Let me explain. Friendly #science. Towards #peace.

1. We all mean well, at least initially, and struggle to express this, struggling to exist with others.

2. As an intensely competitive species, with social context from the start, our struggle can employ critical thought, interactive dialogue and peaceful techniques, or default to violence (habituated from hunting meat).

3. We want and need to work together, the question is how.

4. Compassionate, affinity and spiritual emotions seek more than second place.

5. Agreement on anything is amongst our greatest challenges, words always fail us.

6. Religion emerged in human history to forge large-scale agreements, especially in law for peace.

7. Agreement, truth and belief are related within culture, that scientific method tests into known facts.

8. Belief and faith were culturally-sanctioned agreements pre-dating science and survive subjectively.

9. Religion was not only the law we had, before we developed secular, rights-based law.

10. Religion was also the science we had, before we developed science.

11. Religion was the medicine we had, before we developed medicine.

12. Religion was the politics we had, before we developed politics.

13. Religion was the arts form we had, before we re-liberated the arts.

14. Other forms of all these things existed before we developed religion.

15. Religion filled many gaps for many years, before we improved the knowledge and expertise.

16. Religion made systematic a compassionate choice for the earliest organised societies, for good.

17. Religion was the original statecraft, and as such is inapplicable and unavailable, locally today.

18. Hope for a better world that conforms with derived belief has many still clinging to religion.

19. The world and universe do not conform with belief, human or supernatural, being composed of discernible material facts, from the atom up (not from ‘heaven’ down – metaphysics are illusory).

20. The material world (in human form) makes belief possible, not the other way around – no super-human being made the world, to suit itself, or actually exists to ‘create’ belief.

21. The growth of religion has been primarily the growth of human unity of purpose, always needed, through common points of belief.

22. Religious study teaches us things about human unity that nothing else can, our major driver.

23. Religion is easily misunderstood, undervalued and dismissed, as a social fact, to our detriment.

24. Religion has always been exploited to justify evil killing, not killing evil, which needs to cease.

25. Our tribal nature explains most about religion and transcendence it can bring.

26. What makes a god real in one culture is the same for every god in every other culture.

27. Faith as a unifying mechanism merges many gods into one god, logically and historically.

28. From many gods (polytheism, superstitious causation theory) came one god (monotheism, politically unified superstitious causation, enabling unified-market economic prosperity).

29. Superstitious belief held science, markets and industrial transformation back, unsuccessfully in western Europe – until the Reformation (battles for diversity of belief).

30. Amongst the nastiest people you are ever likely to meet can be those professing a religious faith, when it comes to competitiveness on the material plane. Viz. global bloodshed: insincere.

[Fourth draft – more to come – thanks for visiting]

Trends:

Losing our religion: Kiwis losing the faith in record numbers – Newshub, 6 Feb 2017.

#NZ #Labour just lost the 2017 election. #NZLabour #Christchurch #ECan #NewZealand #water #NZpol #KNZB

The New Zealand Labour Party just showed voting is not about democracy but their bureaucratic privilege, not about principle but only corporate power.

The 2016 local elections confirmed Labour corruption as the greatest non-natural hazard to New Zealand communities – the adjunct reflection of Tory corruption, bogus presentation of empty alternative. This truth makes them unelectable, ever again, and explains declining voter turnout and resident disengagement: Labour deviously monopolises community politics for any and all available wins to their spirit-crushing machine.

Communities will not find ways forward – out of increasing corporate control, unaffordable housing, loss of natural environment and growing natural hazards – except through electorally smashing the NZLP then starting over again in communities’ interests instead. 2017 is almost soon enough for this essential project.

Various fake lefts tell you otherwise, to try choosing Labour again to displace National, but let us look at facts.

The Christchurch public has only quietly been informed that their new Papanui ward councillor is actually the returning mayor’s son-in-law.[1] So you have to ask whether proper prior knowledge of this would have affected the outcome: Mike “Davidson said he did not believe his family relationship with Dalziel would change how he operated as a councillor”[2] – yeah, right? Davidson is now part of a highly dominant, dynastic centrist bloc.
[1] http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/84403451/Mike-Yardley-Apathy-rules-in-Christchurch-elections
[2] http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/85129112/five-new-christchurch-councillors-join-the-ranks-while-another-is-ousted
Hasty Press update http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/85307289/new-christchurch-city-councillor-mike-davidson-breaks-family-curse 16-Oct-2016

Labour-rort government only gets worse the harder you look at it.

Another example here, where a campaigning Karolin Potter, Spreydon-Heathcote Community Board chair, demonstrates dishonest hypocrisy for People’s Choice at a Keep New Zealand Beautiful local clean-up event:

Addington Times October 2016 p1, Karolin Potter in bottom left picture in blue

Potter’s Labour-dominated board had withdrawn all support for KNZB in 2015, to spitefully and corruptly prevent one Board member from ever working with it. This officially appointed SHCB KNZB rep had to pay their own way to the national KNZB conference in Christchurch that year, with zero Board support. By comparison, Potter claimed an all-expenses, disability-enabled long weekend hotel trip to Waitangi, Bay of Islands, for the LGNZ conference in 2014 – a privilege of high office with Labour. The SHCB KNZB rep was the only SHCB member who attended every one of the SHCB 2013-2016 term meetings, working diligently.

The corrupt ouster and takeover of all SHCB seats in 2016, using paid council staff to reinforce Labour local power, is already part-documented here: riktindall.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/corporate-fascism-at-ccc-sampson-to-resign-christchurch-city-council-nzlabour-nzpol-newzealand-politics/. An update is here.

So to the Environment Canterbury (ECan) part-election of 2016.

The first things people need to know are:
a) How much ECan money has Working Waters Trust ever received – by date and amount?
b) What ECan staff are or have been a part of Working Waters Trust?

If there are material answers to these questions then electoral fraud has just been conducted by the NZ Labour Party. Because the director of Working Waters Trust, Lan Pham, has just been elected to ECan councillor on Labour’s behalf – perhaps using rate-payer resource. We need to know. Is this council staff or contractors determining public representation?! A shocking corporate turn of events.

Pham’s fraud is well-documented in “the People’s Choice” campaign statements, where ‘defending democracy’ was the last of their core policy trio: clean water, better public transport, “a democratic ECan”. Having had the opportunity to choose solidarity against National’s unwarranted deposing of the 2007-elected ECan council, to support one representative of that council in running again, Pham chose not to. Instead Pham took personal advantage of National’s coup. But not only that, Pham directed voters AWAY from solidarity with the elected ECan council representative, in crooked Labour team- and self-serving manner:

Lan Pham Facebook campaign screenshot 170816

ECan candidate handbook, electoral offences, extract p.31

Pham’s call here, over which four ECan candidates voters should choose – to NOT support representation from the deposed ECan council – advantaged her Labour-backed team by splitting the vote such that all three People’s Choice candidates then gained election. And, it was highly illegal to have influenced voters in this way.

Pham’s electoral offence is described at left here, from ECan candidate handbook p.31.

Graphic extract source: ecan.govt.nz/publications/Council/LGE2016_CandidateHandbook_ECan_v10.pdf

Lan Pham is therefore a false democrat, undeserving of an elected public role, at the least for this published prejudice. Pham’s campaign action, on behalf of ‘the firm’, shows precisely why Environment Canterbury is so disliked and so distrusted by so many people. e.g. “Cattle in Christchurch river were on Canterbury regional council’s land”, 12 October 2016 – stuff.co.nz/environment/85202980/cattle-in-christchurch-river-were-on-canterbury-regional-councils-land – The many false democrats who have ‘liked’ this electoral offence is equally revealing.

Labour’s dirty tactics, in replacing community reps with council staff or contractors, is to achieve one thing only: corporate monopoly at local political level. Never to listen and share or to innovate, never to allow a community voice. Always to dictate. In the ECan case it is to dishonestly claim back leadership in clean-water activism where they had lost it, quite rightly, in 2007. Labour is fully responsible for irrigation and intensive farming development in Canterbury and its polluting effects. And they know it. Rotten fouls like this, like Lan Pham’s here, are futile attempts to recover the Labour reputation and to overtly cover their highly polluting tracks.

So how did the Labour ECan campaign appearances roll? Lan Pham never appeared, except by remote video, at any candidate forum: she wasn’t in the South Island until Ocober 1st. A swathe of scientific helpers, likers and supporters pushed Pham to online/media victory. This dragged the rest of her team forward, regardless of what little they knew or had to say. Cynthia Roberts decried the Canterbury Water Management Strategy work (of the previous elected council). Steve Lowndes repeated John Key’s lie, that the previous elected council was ‘quagmired with 7:7 drawn votes’ (there was only one 7:7 vote during the 2007-2010 ECan term and that was still a decision, for the status quo). Lowndes extended Labour’s election fraud by campaigning with the ECan corporate logo very prominently on his website (unless the ECan logo design copyright belongs to him?) …

Steve Lowndes ECan campaign screenshot, June to October 2016

ECan candidate handbook, electoral offences, extract p.17

Lowndes’ electoral offence is described at left here, from ECan candidate handbook p.17.

Confirming that Labour now conveniently sings from the Tory songbook, in its criticism of the 2007-2010 elected council that echoes National’s lies, Rod Cullinane, for Fish & Game (the farmers of the rivers and lakes) claims “the internal disarray was untenable” at ECan in this interview: stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/84590193/the-issues-what-do-the-ecan-candidates-think.

The Press had picked the four 2016 ECan winners at the very outset of campaigning. Using a two-day ultimatum for comment to publish, here they cemented their gatekeeper choice in. The Press is yet to be honest and add what was sent to them on the third day: https://communityvoice.nz/2016/09/25/the-press-interview-23-9-16/

From this identified basis of bias, misrepresentation and outright lying, we can understand exactly what the minority local vote of 2016 represents. No one else, with an honest brain, believes in the local governance. Myth-makers rule. 38.29% of eligible voters had a say on ECan and 38.34% on the Christchurch City candidates.

Thus, having understood the Christchurch 2016 vote in detail – what it represents and what largely drove it – we know precisely what governs our day-to-day lives. We, the people, strongly need local ethical upgrade and the ability to contribute, for moving forward.

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201819311/labour’s-local-government-success-a-springboard-for-2017 – clearly Not.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/85144199/chris-trotter-democracys-disappearing-hand is Labour local hegemony.

#NZLabour community fraud #Christchurch #NewZealand #Labour #CCC #Chch #NZ

‘Spreydon-Heathcote Youth Community Board’ 260716

An opportunity to bring constructive resilience to our local communities and youth has been lost, rudely hijacked. The ‘Spreydon-Heathcote Youth Community Board’ has turned out to be a community fraud, an in-house training exercise for Labour Youth. What a shocking waste.

When I suggested last December to bring representatives from all local school councils in the ward together, it was for a broad and deliberative democratic improvement, not a mirror-replica of Labour-dominated local politics. Diversity, depth and breadth of representation and goals were intended, with a Christchurch South youth community resilience role.

Instead my initiative, for a Spreydon-Heathcote Youth Council – for active engagement between local youth, residents’ groups and Civil Defence etc. – was headed off and greatly limited, by Labour politicians using the already-laden Christchurch Youth Council. The corruption of this process is highly pronounced.

What a disgusting insider-substitute for real inclusive agency around resilience and greater good:

the Spreydon-Heathcote Youth Community Fraud just sails away, a mockery of succession planning.

—
Graphic source, Wigram MP Megan Woods’ facebook post “The most excellent Spreydon Heathcote Youth Community Board – making sure their bit of Christchurch has a strong youth voice! Keep up the great work!”

Council bullies residents, Dalziel-Edwards dictate? #Christchurch Adventure Park #CCC local #democracy #Chch #NewZealand #NZ

When Christchurch City Council Senior Project Manager Lee Sampson opposed his local residents’ association, over an intersection upgrade that most in the area want, he backed the powerful against the weak and breached vital governance lines unacceptably. He should know better than to throw local government weight around like this and allow his neighbours to have their say duly heard.

The Hoon Hay/Cashmere/Worsleys Road intersection is scheduled for upgrade to traffic lights in the council Long Term Plan. But construction and opening of a cycling Adventure Park off Worsleys Road in 2016 concerns Cracroft residents especially that congestion delays increase unmitigated.

The Cracroft, Westmorland, Hoon Hay, Lower Cashmere and Cashmere residents’ associations have all agreed that the lights are needed now, to safely manage the increasing Cashmere Road traffic flow. Council has heard the call and is considering an accelerated upgrade this year. So when council staff start attacking the position of the residents it looks very suspicious indeed.[1]

Is this a determination by council authorities to neutralise the organised voice of the residents? Apparently so. Sampson next wants to claim a community board seat off the residents and campaigns now to that effect.[2]

What does this make the Dalziel-Edwards-run council look like? A rates appropriation of power that refuses local direction, steam-rolling commercial development through and homogenising ‘representation’.

Democracy is much better than this and needs to say so in October. Kia ora.

Southern View 26Apr16 p5

[1] Southern View letters, 26 April 2016

Cashmere HoonHay Worsleys Road Intersection upgrade

The Hoon Hay/Cashmere/Worsleys Road intersection design in the new District Plan, that most residents want brought forward – before large Adventure Park events cause traffic chaos this summer.

[2] “Health board boss says Princess Margaret Hospital campaign ‘misleading’ residents“ 19Jul16 stuff.co.nz/national/health/82232610/princess-margaret-hospital-closure-making-life-hard-for-elderly-residents

#CCC shake-up due 2016 #Christchurch #Brexit #Labour #NZ

CCC Elections 2016 – Candidates’ Information Evenings

Democracy needs friends at Christchurch City Council and in local government. Dirty deals to close shop are rife, with council staff put up to prevent the ‘outside’ rate-paying public from ever representing themselves. This is blatant, obscene corruption, that must end.

No wonder revolution is in the air, viz Brexit: when Labour – people’s supposed alternative – is implicated in what is so badly wrong, people despair! Self-anointed “People’s Choice”, Labour technocrats would steal elections and displace rate-payers from their own governance role, from having real choice, as a career option. Labour competes with the public itself! This is electoral crime that voters have power to reject, and to cut self-perpetuating waste within council at the same time: too many councillors and committees shows incompetence.

Already documented is CCC staff member and People’s Choice candidate Lee Sampson’s case – corporate-fascism-at-ccc-sampson-to-resign-christchurch-city-council – where Sampson poses as community member to advance city council planning objectives: stuff.co.nz/national/health/80065995/residents-fight-to-keep-services-at-christchurchs-princess-margaret-hospital. For this imposture, CEO Karleen Edwards should be sacking Sampson, or she endorses underhand Labour hegemony over communities. Dr Edwards, sack Sampson now!

Add to Sampson’s subterfuge those of ECan project managers who – also for People’s Choice – also would seize public representation roles: “In 2016 we have funding from.. Environment Canterbury” – workingwaterstrust.org/who-are-we. With a Zone Committee chair foisted into the democracy breach too at ECan, technocracy, not the rate or tax payer, is to rule under Labour! stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/81225366/three-regional-council-candidates-to-focus-on-change Oh that’s right, there is precedent, when a People’s Choice regional councillor did private consulting for Central Plains Water irrigation company in the 2004-2007 term. Disgusting betrayal of rate-payers and democratic principle, as outright self-service.

That central government endorses what is so wrong with Christchurch City democracy can be seen in this simple fact: in 2010, Key and Co. sacked the Environment Canterbury council for a single 7:7 drawn vote; but when the City Council has one it passes without comment – stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/80893686/catholic-church-told-it-must-pay-150000-development-fee

Will the Mayor’s welfare-assisting capacity continue with Labour power over Christchurch? –
stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/81358306/christchurch-earthquake-fund-closes-after-donating-82m

And will the city’s public assets adequately be protected? –
stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/81468439/sale-delay-for-christchurch-city-councils-maintenance-company-city-care

Go along to the CCC candidates’ information evenings advertised above, to learn how to help and participate in better democracy and better outcomes for Christchurch.

Kia ora

Hints:
stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/columnists/80874905/democracy-doesnt-come-with-optional-extras
hbr.org/2016/03/the-most-important-leadership-competencies-according-to-leaders-around-the-world

Corporate fascism at #CCC: Sampson to resign #Christchurch City Council #NZLabour #nzpol #NewZealand #politics #Chch

New Zealand’s Labour Party are not trusted to govern. Such is Labour-bureaucrat hunger for power, wealth and influence that meaningful difference from the dominant National Party is long lost. Labour has cast principle of purpose aside and the public know it, distrusting evasive professional politicians. Action to rein in the runaway corporate salaries, corruption and control is what collapsing economies most need but instead Labour promotes these and obstructs any genuine opposition. Fixated upon parliamentary power in Wellington, at community level Labour’s lousy monopolist method is most readily exposed for overdue challenge.

So to the 2016 local elections.

From the Labour point of view (dishonestly branded “People’s Choice” in Christchurch) there are only two permissible actors: staff of the corporate council (that Labour battles head-on for control) and themselves. All other community voice – and actual democracy – Labour extinguishes in pursuit of absolute power. These politicians generate few ideas for solutions and specialise in obstructing other people’s (the public’s) ideas for solutions, or hijacking them sometimes instead. A monopoly of ideas works like that: primarily Labour must silence all visible alternative, by any desperate means that they can; corruption included (like National’s).

The mostly Labour people’s choice for the new south city ward has just been announced, as illustrated here:

Labour deceived people’s choices, 2016

These are all sitting representatives of the current Spreydon-Heathcote Community Board that the Labour-led council has just destroyed, stripping it of suburbs, history, and connection to the commercial inner city, but with one exception: Labour has decided to stand a senior council staff member for one of the public representative seats.

That’s right. Unbelievable but true – here in black and white print – Lee Sampson is a Senior Project Manager in Social Housing at Christchurch City Council and is proposed, by Labour, for election to a public representative decision-making seat!

Clearly Sampson cannot perform both roles, for that would be terrible conflict of interest: Sampson cannot represent both the council and its rate-paying public at the same time, or else this is pure dictatorship. Therefore Sampson must resign his council service role in order to be able to perform public representation. Sampson should do this immediately, if he has integrity, to make his loyalties and intentions clear to the public he now claims to represent!

That members Clearwater, Potter, Mautner and Coker should stand by, endorse and disguise such an appalling conflict of interest shows how far principle has fallen for each of them individually, in pursuit of outright power. And how ruthlessly desperate Labour always is to win, at any cost, to very clear detriment of democracy. The worst of it is the stupid arrogance that Labour selection seems to imbue its anointed local candidates with – all reason and listening is lost. Theirs are the only opinions brought to bear, thereafter.

Democracy is thus shown to have eroding value under Labour, which is why public decisions have also been going backwards with Labour monopoly of so-called ‘opposition’. Genuine public voice, Labour does not allow. Theirs is pretence, that political ‘left’ does not mean ‘right’ for them. Labour are professional frauds.

This explains why, under a Labour / “People’s Choice”-led council, where their party policy is ‘against’ public asset sales, corporatisation of City Care outdoor maintenance and council Social Housing have still proceeded.

New Zealand is unable to elect a different choice of government until it has thoroughly understood the so-called ‘Labour Party’, demolished it as a force and then swept it into the dustbin of history. Only then will Aotearoa-New Zealand society be able to progress past the rotten ravages of corporate fascism it now suffers systematically.

Kia ora

Ref. Southern View, 31-05-16, issuu.com/the.star/docs/116152ob, p.3.

Postscript – Fiddling while Rome burns

“#BREAKING: The Risingholme Community Centre in Chch has been destroyed by fire tonight. @NewstalkZB @nzherald” – twitter.com/lynchinnz/status/739748940900245504

“Second flare up at Christchurch’s historic Risingholme Community Centre” –
stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/80789078/fire-at-christchurch-community-centre

A horrible indictment of Labour-dominated community board, which was long-warned of this high risk to heritage but did nothing – except throw Opawa out of the ward area to advance their own career ambitions 😦 Awful loss.

FYI, re technologised work in ‘the brave new world’ – radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/queensbirthday/audio/201803432/how-to-fix-the-digital-economy-douglas-rushkoff

N.B. Post followed up here: riktindall.wordpress.com/2016/07/24/council-bullies-residents-dalziel-edwards-dictate-christchurch-adventure-park-ccc-local-democracy-chch-newzealand-nz/

Faces of Social-Fascism #NZLabour #CCC #NewZealand #Labour #water history #Christchurch #nzpol

Beginning as conscientious-objector, anti-conscription, trade-union federalists in 1916, only to become conscripting and strike-breaking war leaders a generation later, the New Zealand Labour Party (NZLP) emerged masters of political somersault as government from 1935. Their Federation of Labour of 1937, under waterfront heavy Fintan Patrick Walsh, became gangster enforcers of the Left through war effort, and, confronting Stalinist groups, crushed diversity out of New Zealand alternative politics for decades to come.[1] Labour hegemony, over the politics of opposing capital, maintains the same hard and devious tactics to this day, betraying and subordinating worker interests to capital. The NZLP functional role is to actively dissolve any real opposition to capital. This applies right down to community level, wherever obliged. This post is a study of the underhand methods by which Labour-aligned bureaucrats keep themselves in power, through dirty stranglehold on communities, to constitute a corrupting influence upon Christchurch City Council (CCC) local government.

The socialist reforms that swept social-democrats to power in the 1930s have long since degraded with descent into social-fascism, such that ‘reforms’ are now typically, in the economic sense, mostly negative for working people and favour the corporate elite (that includes Labour).[2] Examples are state asset privatisation, real wage erosion and housing turned into an inflated market commodity, all under NZLP rule. (Labour has capitalised through multiple home ownerships bought via parliamentary careers; steady money has corrupted them collectively, thus creating a classic gang).

Which brings them to today’s water politics. The NZLP response to the rural downturn and lost subsidies of the 1970s and 80s was Helen Clark, from a Waikato dairy farm background, and mass dairy farm conversion with creation of Fonterra milk corporate co-op. With Clark as Prime Minister, new export industry required new sources of supply and in Canterbury – the country’s largest region with the bulk of its available freshwater resource – transformation began. Water demand expanded until it exhausted all usable supply from rivers, streams and wells. Then new irrigation, for pasture on difficult dry land, would require water storage and new publicly-funded supply schemes. Enter the Canterbury Water Management Strategy, when environmental impacts and strong public protest against them had all begun to hit home too. But a change to National government in 2008 allowed it to claim the landscape conversion was not fast enough, nor the mitigation effort. So National replaced the Labour-balanced regional council with appointed business commissioners, lacking much originality. What could the NZLP then do?

Labour, also lacking originality, has picked up National’s refrain: that city-dwellers should be concerned first and foremost with urban river water quality and not rural – ‘they are to blame’ after all. So Labour wants all the credit and publicity for this diversionary work, turning it into a new propaganda industry to keep itself in the news and somehow relevant. Of course Labour agrees with National – that the public is to have no real choice.

In our local neighbourhood, Labour have begun the Opawaho-Heathcote River Network, with themselves in exclusive charge. They will decide which community groups can participate, so the one I am part of – the Cashmere Residents’ Association – has been shut out; because it is independent of Labour, and, mostly, of the Labour-run city council. Residents will be stopped from voluntarily coordinating their own river-bank clean-up work, to subordinate it to Labour’s, and council staff will be drawn in to muzzle them and force them to advertise a ‘river network’ that they have been actively excluded from. What?! The consistency of this dictation machine is very anti-democratic and scary: it compromises staff ethics of impartiality, atrociously.

Labour’s social-fascist method is to hijack community initiative, to gain publicity and credit for other people’s work. They will hijack community newsletters to get their message out, to increase their influence at community expense. Council staff will help make this happen. What?!

Social-fascists (Labour) are not interested in community; they are interested in controlling communities. The social-fascist interest is directed over communities, through attaining positions of power. They maintain highly effective electoral machines, to elevate their members into positions of authority over the communities that they exploit parasitically. Social-fascists act to disorganise communities, to neutralise them as potential competitors to the Labour Party apparatus, and to substitute their social-fascist voice, opinions and decisions, for the community itself. They do this through targeting and monopolising local positions of council power, especially.

The Opawaho-Heathcote River Network is linked to the Avon Heathcote Estuary Ihutai Trust, recipient of significant council funds. But residents’ groups have the option of subscribing to the long-standing Christchurch Estuary Association, as an alternative; they are not obliged to simply follow the council-sponsored Trust. They can embark on water issue campaigns voluntarily, even their own, autonomously… in theory. In reality, the Labour-run council removes choice (like National does at regional level).

When the (ex-Labour) Christchurch Mayor asked recently for community views on proposed further research into the possible flood-control value of a tidal barrier for the Estuary, to supplement potential stop-bank work, she claimed ‘both the Estuary trusts rejected it’ as one reason for turning it down. This was a lie. Just the council-sponsored Trust opposed further study, whereas the public volunteer-run Estuary Association supported it. The Mayor’s office had asked for the association’s opinion but she herself did not read it or report it correctly.

Public choice, and effective democracy, demands quite a clean-up of the Christchurch City Council. Bullies, out!

[1] nzhistory.net.nz/people/fintan-patrick-walsh

[2] Social-fascism, from the social democracy era, is what defeated overt fascism for the imperialist West in the 1940s – a ‘softer, kinder’ variety of fascism that chose a different and ultimately victorious side in the Middle East oil politics, for rebuilding depression- and war-ravaged capitalism (e.g. the Roosevelt US, that had its own internment camps – for Japanese). Born of militarised societies, social-fascism remains a bulwark of capitalist imperialism, elected to government periodically on the democratic cycle. Out of the fascist era, only variants could compete and survive the state struggle for existence, then to now. This explains the violent growth of Stalinism, that matched attacks upon Russia and China on their own terms, producing stable national entities for the post-fascist era. ‘Social-fascism’ also describes these dictator states, as non-democratic but from degenerated communism. tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/162780/roosevelt-japanese-internment

Social-fascists, from a century of party machine development and many decades experience of governmental power, have a fanatical sense of entitlement. As the established second choice to wealthy nationalists, they know that top office has for generations been within ready reach, with patience and careful plotting. They simply must be the alternative to the nationalists and need not be substantively different (but meet the political pull of the media-created ‘centre’). This has warped social-democrats into mini-nationalists who are unprincipled, unethical and untrustworthy in all their political actions. Social-fascists have corrupt psychopathology that renders them incapable of recognising the betrayal and damage they do to communities, while propelling themselves on to assumed power. There is no way forward for struggling communities but to demolish and rebuild social-democrat (social-fascist) impetus, from the ground up. Waimarie.

Update 23-05-16
That the Opawaho-Heathcote River Clean-up is primarily for propaganda purposes is underscored by the fact that one week later it was being repeated, in part, by a different group:

Southern View, 17-05-2016, p.5