tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post1465798714604502087..comments2024-03-29T03:41:12.499+13:00Comments on Bowalley Road: "PANDEMIC - The Movie" Has Only Just Begun.Chris Trotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09081613281183460899noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-67557301851677868512020-04-23T08:22:20.098+12:002020-04-23T08:22:20.098+12:00https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/how-new-global-fa...https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/how-new-global-fault-lines-will-usher-in-the-most-profound-worldwide-changes-since-world-war-ii/<br />An interesting take on post the Covid world – although they seem a trifle over certain for my taste. But some very interesting points about manufacturing for a start. And more about shifting power blocs. I'm not necessarily convinced but still interesting.Guerilla Surgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03427876447124021423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-24782732609809870632020-04-23T04:38:39.724+12:002020-04-23T04:38:39.724+12:00But will Jacinda and Grant have ministerial collea...But will Jacinda and Grant have ministerial colleagues of adequate competence to deliver on the economic vision Grant appears to be supporting? Given the record to date, that is not a given. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-62740084270285792592020-04-22T23:04:21.404+12:002020-04-22T23:04:21.404+12:00How can we go on with this appropriate govt interv...How can we go on with this appropriate govt intervention for climate change? The Clarkites are about the limits of the possible and now it's clear open. We rested to our cost in the early 2000s. Backward steps now will kill our children and grandchildren. Jacinda has been brilliant but what can we do? Or does Jacinda now know? Course? <br /><br />Well, I think m'self, this is our last chance. This shit is just shots over our head for our benefit.<br /><br />No other species has had to fight about going over their final cliff, so we're buggered. sumsuchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03133092096534660472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-72465417060389022282020-04-22T13:17:34.669+12:002020-04-22T13:17:34.669+12:00Geoff, there is a perfectly acceptable graph from ...<br />Geoff, there is a perfectly acceptable graph from which I took the figures, which you can add in any country you wish. You may well have seen it.<br />I wasn't making any particular point except that we seem to be doing better than the USA where the whole thing is chaotic, and Sweden and the UK who have chosen a different tack to us.<br />I wasn't actually out to prove anything, just to suggest. All the countries I compared are developed Western ones. And therefore roughly equivalent to us. There's no point in me including countries from South America or Africa or much of Asia, because they don't seem to produce statistics. At least not accurate ones.Guerilla Surgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03427876447124021423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-55812147881824612882020-04-22T10:08:21.785+12:002020-04-22T10:08:21.785+12:00...it is also curious (and disappointing) to see t......it is also curious (and disappointing) to see the omission of Australia from the list. The same happens in The Australian in comparative lists...NZ is excluded.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16801369330776740852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-65436750712659842452020-04-22T10:05:54.708+12:002020-04-22T10:05:54.708+12:00It is curious (and disappointing) that there is no...It is curious (and disappointing) that there is no inclusion of Australian stats. The same lack of courtesy happens when NZ stats are excluded from Oz comparative lists...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-30164110200320934352020-04-22T10:03:42.807+12:002020-04-22T10:03:42.807+12:00Why no stat for Australia? Same happens to Noz sta...Why no stat for Australia? Same happens to Noz stats in Oz.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-39429496765480722292020-04-21T15:59:43.232+12:002020-04-21T15:59:43.232+12:00In reply to Guerilla Surgeon:
Many states are repo...In reply to Guerilla Surgeon:<br />Many states are reporting less than 2 deaths per million of population. For example Singapore, Japan and Korea while many others whose statistics may be less reliable report death rates of less than 1 per million of population.<br />You prove nothing by selecting a set of six nations which are reporting higher death rates than New Zealand and then showing New Zealand at the bottom of a table of seven.<br />New Zealand turned the corner when Jacinda stopped following Boris and started listening to New Zealand's epidemiologists. That is the reality. Faked or contrived statistics are no help to those of us who want to deal in objective facts.Geoff Fischerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00509885628971898371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-84269286939051405612020-04-21T10:26:46.245+12:002020-04-21T10:26:46.245+12:00Exactly Grey, nice Biblical quote. Now that's ...Exactly Grey, nice Biblical quote. Now that's the virus recedes I suspect that their will be great need. Mass unemployment and the Biblical quotes will come from Calvanistic types, the parable of the slothful servant, "to those that have will be given, to those that have not even that they do not have will be taken". United to fight the virus we may be, now watch us fracture over who gets to bite on the cake. Nick Jnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-6834459678978132272020-04-21T09:52:54.438+12:002020-04-21T09:52:54.438+12:00Politics as Hollywood is all very well. It may be...Politics as Hollywood is all very well. It may be nail biting entertainment. But it won't easily cope with real world problems and it may be nothing more than escapism. Jacinda may be able to eliminate the virus and save New Zealand capitalism but she may also fail in one object or the other - possibly in both. <br />She has made some good decisions, some bad ones, and some that seem to walk on the knife edge that separate the prudent from the reckless. As you say, so far so good.<br />The problem with Hollywood politics (which over the past fifty years has become the standard for modern western liberal democracy) is that it reduces the people to the role of a passive audience - notwithstanding that they get some very limited choice in the matter of who stars in the next blockbuster.<br />This is unreal politics, with inherent weaknesses on both sides of the silver screen.<br />I wish Jacinda well because no matter how well positioned we may be we have absolutely no interest in seeing the rest of the country collapse around us.<br />Still my advice is "Do not sit at home as a passive observer. Join in community and act in the real world. Your future does not depend on what happens in the bunker of the Beehive. It will come out of your own choices and actions" <br />Geoff Fischerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00509885628971898371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-33090451457074958562020-04-21T08:43:27.710+12:002020-04-21T08:43:27.710+12:00So Greg Clydesdale was right?
https://www.nzherald...So Greg Clydesdale was right?<br />https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10512269<br /><br />[4:30]<br />https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018743435/coronavirus-contact-tracing-not-the-reason-for-lockdown-extension-ardernJohn Hurleynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-33882788152245096732020-04-21T07:50:23.151+12:002020-04-21T07:50:23.151+12:00"Trump actually moved quicker than our govern..."Trump actually moved quicker than our government by shutting down travel from China and Europe, to howls of "racism""<br /><br />Actually, if you compare the timelines of government reactions in New Zealand and the US we don't come out of it too badly.<br /><br />Korea's response was not so much isolation as testing and tracing – they have a public service which hasn't been gutted by successive neoliberal governments, so they could do this instantly. Didn't hurt that they'd had the SARS epidemic to practice on.<br />Most other countries didn't have a show of doing this to the extent that Korea could. Including us – well probably especially us given our underfunded health service.<br />They also brought in mass surveillance. I can just imagine the howls from the opposition parties we had done this.<br /><br />The public in Korea trust the government to help a lot more than many Western democracies. But they also hold them responsible. So you don't get people insisting on going to church services, congregating on beaches, or generally disobeying the rules imposed in the emergency. Because even if Trump did react swiftly, which is debatable, he is now encouraging people to get out in protest at the rules. Meet and mingle, shake hands, hug each other, (don't let your AR 15 get in the way) and go to huge churches and forget about social distancing there.<br /><br />It's too early to see if Australia's strategy is better than ours. Certainly if you look at Sweden – they had a similar strategy to Norway at the beginning, but as soon as they diverged with Sweden avoiding a lockdown, their cases of coronavirus shot up and Norway's didn't.<br />Flattening the curve essentially means meddling with the timing of when people die. Hopefully to gain time for a vaccine, but also to avoid hospitals being overwhelmed, so that they not only can't treat coronavirus victims, but also the day-to-day illnesses that they would be treating without it.<br />Finally, even if we do get our economy back together, we still have to wait until our major trading partners come online and start buying stuff. We have no control over that.<br /><br />Guerilla Surgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03427876447124021423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-58074347168578134262020-04-21T06:24:50.330+12:002020-04-21T06:24:50.330+12:00To: Greywarbler (responding to Guerilla Surgeon)
...To: Greywarbler (responding to Guerilla Surgeon)<br /><br />+1Chris Trotterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09081613281183460899noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-12597931882584863472020-04-20T16:16:58.904+12:002020-04-20T16:16:58.904+12:00You cannot compare the situation of New Zealand, p...You cannot compare the situation of New Zealand, population 5 million, with the United States, population 330 million. We have an essentially unitary state (not counting Hone's militia in the North), they have a federal system. Trump actually moved quicker than our government by shutting down travel from China and Europe, to howls of "racism". We failed to move in a timely manner to properly control our borders with medical testing and quarantine. That delay has cost us dearly requiring the draconian imposition of a state of emergency and a total lockdown. If we had been smart we could have followed Taiwan's successful strategy or even Australia's. The crisis has also exposed the degraded state of the public service. Yes, Ashley has done a good job against the odds. But the Ministry of Health has no idea where PPE stocks are and the DHBs have been a tower of Babel. MBIE issues absurd and contradictory edicts to businesses. The Reserve Bank is seriously out to lunch maintaining the OCR. So I don't share your confidence. We are facing a catastrophe that could have been largely avoided.Trev1https://www.blogger.com/profile/00271717267778957672noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-72934907965111399372020-04-20T13:11:50.013+12:002020-04-20T13:11:50.013+12:00The greatest economic anxiety for people will be h...The greatest economic anxiety for people will be how will they pay their rent or their mortgages. I understand that during the Great Depression 2nd mortgages were wiped. Now is the time for a debt jubilee when all debt is wiped by say 50% and all interest payments wiped for say three years. A sovereign country,which is what New Zealand is, issues it own currency. The Government could issue a UBI to everybody of working age so that their reduced rent could be paid. Remember the landlords mortgage debt is halved. There will be a lot of job losses but there is such a lot that could be done to alleviate the hardship of all people.Patriciahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01509686441858091630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-81792457970817764142020-04-20T12:47:48.084+12:002020-04-20T12:47:48.084+12:00New York State 933 deaths per million population
U...New York State 933 deaths per million population<br />UK 237 deaths per million population<br />Sweden 152 deaths per million population<br />USA 122 deaths per million population<br />Canada 42 deaths per million population<br />NZ 2 deaths per million population<br />2020/04/19<br /><br />Hopefully this means were on the right track.Guerilla Surgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03427876447124021423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-1901984241726164242020-04-20T11:35:08.359+12:002020-04-20T11:35:08.359+12:00Nick J at 8.29
Exactly - the barest minimum is bei...Nick J at 8.29<br />Exactly - the barest minimum is being offered. 'Ware - quote from bible coming up - the good part!<br /><br /><i>Luke 11:11<br />“If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?”</i> <br /><br />(Include daughters and mothers here - that was then, this is now, when women are expected to be as responsible as men.)greywarblernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-68974682798205065572020-04-20T11:29:16.121+12:002020-04-20T11:29:16.121+12:00Guerilla Surgeon
Cut your way through all those zo...Guerilla Surgeon<br />Cut your way through all those zombie millenials - fight on and live! We need your type of intelligent pragmatism with a topping of idealism. <br />Cheers.greywarblernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-14562604421262784902020-04-19T21:07:26.203+12:002020-04-19T21:07:26.203+12:00Labour and National (and Green and Dunne and Rubbe...Labour and National (and Green and Dunne and Rubber Winston) got us into this mess. Migrants work in tourism (buses everywhere - up your leg, in your ear, up your nose) and now plugged in and with a claim to our country and it's welfare system. Residency for Chinese tour guides is rubber stamped. NZr's who worked in Japan were given work visas but on the understanding that they would leave when they weren't needed. The Japan government looks after Japanese, New Zealand PM's are missionary nationalists, seeking fame <i>on the world stage</i>. John Hurleynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-69793387740087209972020-04-19T20:57:34.316+12:002020-04-19T20:57:34.316+12:00"The boys" will be wanting to kick start..."The boys" will be wanting to kick start immigration<br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhKKEIv4SqI&t=46sJohn Hurleynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-71631426558317750752020-04-19T15:27:55.078+12:002020-04-19T15:27:55.078+12:00A study out of Stanford University tested Californ...A study out of Stanford University tested California residents and found that the Covid-19 infection rate is likely far higher than has been reported, but the virus could also be less deadly than commonly believed.<br /><br />World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has previously mentioned 3.4 percent. This would translate into over 300 deaths per every 10,000 infected persons. Stanford’s study would lower the mortality rate to .14 percent or less, meaning 14 deaths or less per 10,000 people infected.<br /><br />The study concludes that Covid-19’s mortality rate among infected people would be on par with, or even less, than the seasonal flu.Brewerstroupehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05961925625093884594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-899386450984408932020-04-19T14:45:59.793+12:002020-04-19T14:45:59.793+12:00isn't one outcome of this film plot that Jacin...isn't one outcome of this film plot that Jacinda and Grant will be martyred?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-58978099251571298692020-04-19T13:46:40.737+12:002020-04-19T13:46:40.737+12:00Call me cynical – and you probably will – but I th...Call me cynical – and you probably will – but I think that after this crisis is over we will go back to the same old same old. Partly because human beings aren't particularly good at thinking long-term, and partly because the neoliberal pill has been well and truly swallowed by just about every politician in the land. I would however really, really like to be wrong. I live in hope, and hopefully a little bit longer than some millennials would seem to like.Guerilla Surgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03427876447124021423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-75844048674680316842020-04-19T12:16:40.661+12:002020-04-19T12:16:40.661+12:00Debate is essential and I am sure we will have a l...Debate is essential and I am sure we will have a lot of it in the coming months but in the end it must come down to trust. That is why this election is as much a tipping point for the future of New Zealand as the pandemic itself. Do we trust Jacinda Ardern and a Labour led govt to carry on and succeed in "uniting the rich and the poor in a common struggle to rebuild a collapsing economy" or do we ditch her for Simon Bridges lot.<br /><br />Something to think about during Level 3, but ten seconds should be enough. Katnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-56331261123415246652020-04-19T10:43:14.212+12:002020-04-19T10:43:14.212+12:00Excellent post ChrisExcellent post ChrisJanMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11427849619290293011noreply@blogger.com