Saturday 29 March 2014

Cummings and Goings in Palmerston North.




Michael Cummings.

Why is Michael Cummings the editor of Australian owned Fairfax Manawatu Standard daily news paper scared of Kim Dotcom and the Internet Party? 

We know he is pro-Key, pro-National, pro-Judith Crusher Collins; this is so very obvious by the fact that he keeps them off the front page unless the news is good.

His latest editorial [Saturday the 29th of March 2014] is not simply an opinion piece but is clearly a rant against ‘entrepreneur’ Kim Dotcom because he dares to challenge John Key by starting a political party. And Cummings leaps onto the National band-wagon of muck raking and smear campaign into the legitimate investment behaviour of Kim Dotcom via of his ownership of a signed copy of Mein Kampf…

This is doubly strange when you consider that owning a copy of Mein Kampf is not illegal and in fact our own parliamentary library has a copy available to all members of Parliament…I can picture Judith Collins and Paula Bennett deeply studying Mein Kampf to find new ways to solve the worsening state of our welfare and justice systems. There are maybe hints in there about dealing with Communist Chinese milk companies owned by friends…who knows.

But why is Michael Cummings taking part in a ‘synchronized journalistic denigration and outright character assassination’ of Kim Dotcom?

Is he [Michael] just another media purchased link in the chain of leaked CIA info about the one guy the US and Hollywood wants to jail or imprison without trial as they are legally allowed to do? We must never forget that John Key broke the law in an attempt to allow the US to totally ignore our laws with impunity. He was found out, and then put his own guy in charge of the GCSB, changed the law and said ‘What a good boy I am’. And our little small city editor thinks that was heroic! No editorial was penned about how undemocratic Key’s and the GCSB, SIS and Police behavior was. Yet Cummings states, no doubt with tongue in cheek, that “We hold our political leaders to very high standards”, really, has the Manawatu Standard run any in depth stories on how John Key made his money, ripped off NZ’s foreign currency exchange rules, and took that money off to a tax haven, made a mint out of the collapse and the defrauding of US housing and international loan markets by the various companies to whom he sold his services.

Looking at the History of John Key in relation to his financial abilities here are some facts and figures regarding his major employer Merrill Lynch and their general performance…

Key's first job was in 1982, as an auditor at McCulloch Menzies, and he then moved to be a project manager at Christchurch-based clothing manufacturer Lane Walker Rudkin for two years.
Key began working as a foreign exchange dealer at Elders Finance in Wellington, and rose to the position of head foreign exchange trader two years later, then moved to Auckland-based Bankers Trust in 1988.
In 1995, he joined Merrill Lynch as head of Asian foreign exchange in Singapore. That same year he was promoted to Merrill's global head of foreign exchange, based in London, where he may have earned around US$2.25 million a year including bonuses, which is about NZ$5 million at 2001 exchange rates. Some co-workers called him "the smiling assassin" for maintaining his usual cheerfulness while sacking dozens (some say hundreds) of staff after heavy losses from the 1998 Russian financial crisis. He was a member of the Foreign Exchange Committee of the New York Federal Reserve Bank from 1999 to 2001.

In 2001, he headed back to New Zealand to fulfill a long held ambition to stand for Parliament for the National Party.
It was fortunate that he did because Merrill Lynch went into free-fall:

In 2002, Merrill Lynch settled for a fine of $100 million for publishing misleading research. As part of the agreement with the New York attorney general and other state securities regulators, Merrill Lynch agreed to increase research disclosure and work to decouple research from investment banking. A well known analyst at Merrill Lynch named Henry Blodget wrote in company e-mails in which Blodget gave assessments about stocks which conflicted with what was publicly published by Merrill. In 2003, he was charged with civil securities fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He settled without admitting or denying the allegations and was subsequently barred from the securities industry for life. He paid a $2 million fine and $2 million disgorgement. The CEO at that time, David Komansky, said, "I want...to publicly apologize to our clients, our shareholders, and our employees," for the company falling short of its professional standards in research.

In 2004 convictions of Merrill executives marked the only instance in the Enron investigation where the government criminally charged any officials from the banks and securities firms that allegedly helped the energy giant execute its accounting fraud. The case revolved around a 1999 transaction involving Merrill, Enron and the sale of some electricity-producing barges off the coast of Nigeria. The charges surrounded the 1999 sale of an interest in Nigerian energy barges by an Enron entity to Merrill Lynch was a sham that allowed Enron to illegally book about $12 million in pretax profit, when in fact there was no real sale and no real profit. Four former Merrill top executives and two former midlevel Enron officials faced conspiracy and fraud charges. Merrill cut its own deal, firing bankers and agreeing to the outside oversight of its structured-finance transactions. It also settled civil fraud charges brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, without admitting or denying fault.

In 2002 Merrill Lynch settled for 10 million civil penalties as a result of improper activities that took place out of the firm's Fort Lee New Jersey office. Three financial advisors, and a fourth who was involved to a lesser degree, placed 12,457 trades for a client Millennium Partners in at least 521 mutual funds and 63 mutual fund sub-accounts of at least 40 variable annuities. Millennium made profits in over half of the funds and fund sub-accounts. In those funds where Millennium made profits, its gains totaled about $60 million. Merrill Lynch failed to reasonably supervise these financial advisers, whose market timing siphoned short-term profits out of mutual funds and harmed long-term investors.

More recent Controversies with Key as PM were:

Michael's hero: John Key.
During the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, Key was a proponent of Hosni Mubarak's government, citing his support of Israel and refusing to call for his resignation. When asked if Mubarak should step down, he said "no".
In 2011, Key was caught up in a controversy over the purchase of government limousines which he denied knowledge of initially but later reports surfaced his office was aware. He was accused of being dishonest and eventually apologised, calling the deal sloppy.
In October 2011, Key made a statement where he claimed Standard and Poor's had said at a meeting in the prior month that "if there was a change of Government, that downgrade would be much more likely", this claim was contradicted by S&P after Key's credibility had been called into question. His untruths about the Dot Com mansion raid, the statement that he had never heard to Dotcom when he lived in his electorate. And his shady appointing of his school friend to the 400 thousand dollar job as the boss of the GCSB by breaking all the standard appointment processes.  

“We hold our political leaders to very high standards” said our small town editor…yeah right. What he really meant was, ‘He holds some political leaders to very high standards…mainly if the are Labour, Green, NZ First, Mana and now Internet Party…National, Act and United Future are all OK why because Key says so…

I see little difference between John Key and Kim Dotcom, both bought their political positions, Key has never door knocked, he brought a safe seat by tossing out a sitting member, politics for him is a hobby, he doesn’t give a hoot about the voters, and yet our small town editor fawns over him like he was the Queen. When the Manawatu Standard editor publishes the real story of the rise of John Key rather than the Public Relations doctored version. Only then should we listen to, read or believe his election campaign speeches or ravings on behalf of his National Party heroes.

Thursday 27 March 2014

Collins calls the PMs bluff...over Mediators



Collins ‘Arms Mediators’ to solve family problems:
In line with her successful and dynamic approach to selling milk on the Chinese market Justice and ACC  Minister Judith Collins has just released her new approach to handling problems relating to the family court.

She decided on this specific process because after a quick discussion over a class of milk, or was it a cup of tea? she realised how far advanced and more economical the Communist system of solving family disputes was over that ‘practiced’ here in New Zealand.

After a brief but instructive session with Assistance Courts Minister Whanganui ex Police Officer Chester Borrows and getting the Prime Minister John [She’ll-be-right] Key on board with the plan she launched the plan.

At a public press release yesterday she stated, “That firstly Mediators will spend no more than three hours mediating the problem”, that’s any amount of time, and since Lawyers are so really-really bloody expensive, we’ll stop using lawyers and use Gang Members instead, that will give them [the Gang Members] good interpersonal skills training skills. It will also have the extra benefits for the families because their cases will be heard by people of a similar social standing and who may have had lots of practice at enforcing discipline, and since most families in trouble are coloured folk and most gang members are also coloured then the one law for all crowd should be happy. [Rich white families don’t have problems, they simply go and live in Hawaii or some such place added the Justice Minister]

She went on to say “that should they fail to bring about resolution then the Gang Members will be armed and will be allow after serious consideration be allowed to select which members of the family will be ‘taken out’, this will only be done after deep and meaningful discussions with a team of male policemen and prison officers has taken place, up to two days would be allowed for this process.

The execution process has yet to be agreed as it is still being negotiated between ‘Yong Fu Lee’ [China Ltd] the execution and body part sales arm of the Chinese Government. Justice Minister Collins assured all those present that the legality of such behaviour will be agreed to as a part of the TPPA and the China Free Trade Agreement signed by the PM during his last visit to China.

The various media at the meeting pressed the Minister that it was 'unfair' to ship off human beings to China for execution without a fair trial… But once they were informed that the PM feels happy and has no worries about the process a large number of the media, like the Auckland Herald, Fairfax, Talk back radio hosts, Seven Sharp, Paul Henry, bloggers Whale Oil and even David Farrar back from his bike trip down south and looking like he’d lost a few inches all relaxed after that assurance from Judith Collins and after she tapped them on their heads and said what ‘Good boys they were’.

Fairfax had this to say [condensed]

The overhaul of the system - the centrepiece of which will be the introduction of family dispute resolution providers, or specialised family mediators - promises to give mediation far more of a central role in settling many of the 26,000 cases which otherwise would wind their way through the court.

Justice Minister Judith Collins has described it as the biggest change to the family justice system.

In the new system, mediation will become compulsory for most families who are in dispute over the children.

Most importantly, parents are left in control of their situations, with the help of a mediator to help them reach agreements.

Why? Because mediation helps reduce complicated matters down to manageable components, which in turn helps people to reach their own conclusions of what's good for their families.

The Family Dispute Resolution Act 2013 defines them as family dispute resolution providers, charged with assisting parties to a family dispute to resolve the dispute without having to pursue court proceedings, as well as ensuring that the parties' first and paramount consideration in reaching resolution "is the welfare and best interests of the children". They are a small group of specialists who will be doing this work throughout the country.

Friday 21 March 2014

Tricky Key practices old skills says Eavesdropper.



Latest Eavesdropper... Key and China

Wheeler’s Corner’s deeply embedded whistle blowing GCSB SIS agent ‘Eavesdropper’ who is touring China with the PM says “that this story from the Herald is simply crap of the highest order”. 



This from the NZ Herald…National’s Auckland advertising media…

“The Prime Minister's office is demanding a Chinese immigration agency remove a picture of John Key from its website, which appears to show he endorses the organisation.
The China-based agency's website said it had been working in New Zealand immigration for 10 years and claimed to have helped with 20,000 applications.
It prominently featured a large picture of Mr Key, his signature, and the words "recommended to you with sincerity by John Key".
Several other images of Mr Key with Chinese officials were on the site. The agency said it had a "fast government channel to reach New Zealand directly" and a strategic partnership with the New Zealand Government. "We promise you can to get your visa 100 per cent for certain," the website says. "We are the only authorised immigration agency in China that works only on New Zealand applications."
But New Zealand officials said the claims on the website were false.
A spokeswoman for Mr Key said he was not aware of the use of his picture.
"It is a completely unacceptable use of the Prime Minister's image and we will be writing to the website hosts insisting they remove this content."
The website's administrators, based in Shenzhen, did not respond to questions about the use of Mr Key's picture. Officials did not know how long it had been on the site. It is understood that it's not the first time Chinese websites have falsely claimed connections to Mr Key.
The agency claimed visa applications for New Zealand took just 60 days and that 100 per cent of them were successful. They went on to say…

“He has featured on the front page of the People's Daily and in articles by the state Xinhua News Agency, Beijing News and Shanghai Times.
Endorsement by high-ranking officials and individuals is extremely important to Chinese business”.
Herald report ends:

Wheeler’s Corner’s deeply embedded whistle blowing GCSB SIS agent ‘Eavesdropper’ who is touring China with the PM says “that this story from the Herald is simply crap of the highest order”.

Eavesdropper states that he was with the PM when he was asked to endorse various Chinese organisations. He, Key that is, was only too willing to allow his name to be used so long as certain commitments were given. Firstly that he could and would deny that he had given permission, and secondly that all donations to both he and Judith Collins be channeled through a specific trust being set up via his London account via the Royal Bank of Scotland, after his bonus had been removed this money would be transferred to a National Party account in the Cook Islands and from there to NZ.

Eavesdropper pointed out in his secret and coded report that Judith Collins very-very-very good friend Mr. Stone Shi, Oravida’s owner and John Keys good golfing buddy did all the donkey work in setting up the roundabout route of getting money from China to NZ and the new arrangement for converting Chinese cash in to NZ dollars that has been agreed between the PM and the Chinese communist dictatorship will help this process.

The other secret that is still to hit the media is that John Key is setting up a educational facility know as the ‘Chinese Communist Capitalist institution’ initially in Auckland and later in the Cayman Islands, whose major objective is to encourage as many Kiwi capitalists as possible to make an effort to understand just how good ‘communism as practiced by the Chinese’ is for budding capitalists. It has created a new a better pathway to super wealth. The latest rich list in both Russia and China proves beyond doubt that the manipulation of money from the people to individuals is a route to a growing number of multi-millionaires. And John Key should know because the Russian financial collapse and sell out experience led directly to his gathering of his private wealth.

Eavesdropper also issued a warning to all those who see The Chinese Communist route a pathway to wealth, the Dictatorship in China in the case of financial failure simply arrest and shoot those who fail and in their place simply pop in another so-called owner. In China the government owns all businesses, and Key supposedly believes in private enterprise…what key is actually doing in China is the exact opposite. Key has only one guideline, personal wealth…gained at others expense.     


Friday 14 March 2014

Wee Judith will not be accompaning Key to China,

Step Daughter Judith C screams 'blue' murder because she wants grandad to take her with him on his upcoming trip to china later in the year... like he promised he would.

After all the subject of his visit is milk, and milk is her favorite drink especially one particular brand that grandad has said she is not allowed to talk about...which she doesn't understand because her uncle 'Stone' Shi paid more than fifty-five thousand big ones to grandad and his mob to help get him elected...and grandad is not short of a bob or two himself.

Uncle Cameron Slater, the mighty big oily whale, has promised to speak on her behalf now that she has had her facebook and Twitter page cancelled and can only use her 'I pad' under very close supervision by her Nanny.


Granddad has booked her into the [National Party] Charter School in Auckland known as the "Rags to Riches", for spoilt brats, its a specially designed self-disciplining educational centre and it specialises in developing punishments that don't actually punish programmes for the kids of the rich.
 

Wednesday 12 March 2014

Amy joins Judith as rip-off artist...




Is, Amy Adams yet another National Party Cabinet member who is ripping off the system and manipulating the law to suit her business interests? Judith [Crusher] Collins appears to have used her position as Justice Minister to push her husbands business based in NZ and China, Bill English used his position to pay himself for living in his own house and was forced to refund thousands of dollars. We all know about Key’s dear friend John Banks who fibbed about campaign donations and falsified his returns. We know that at present 14 or 15 present members of the National government are not standing this year and we need to ask the simple question, why. Judith Collins has now been pressured by John Key to come clean and tell the truth and unless she does Key will have no option but to sack her…
The case against Amy Adams is clearly explained below by the ‘No right turn’ blog site. It makes interesting reading and shows to what extent some will go to make a few more dollars…what makes this case more galling is that Amy Adams is the Minister charged with protecting our water from misuse by the money hungry dairy industry who seem to not care a hoot about our environment or the state of our rivers and especially those in Canterbury.  

Over at Rebuilding Christchurch, James Dann has done some digging into Environment Minister Amy Adams and the ECan dictatorship. Adams owns several farms, worth millions of dollars. Those farms are in the irrigation area of Central Plains Water (a company Adams' farm owns shares in), meaning they are likely to increase substantially in value. As a backbench MP, Adams voted to overturn Canterbury's elected regional council and replace it with unelected dictators - a move subsequently revealed to have been all about giving water rights to companies like CPW, and for the 2011 Budget which assigned $400 million to an Irrigation Acceleration Fund intended to fund such companies. And as a Minister, she fronted Cabinet's decision to extend the ECan dictatorship - a decision which will make it easier for CPW to gain the water and funding it needs. Which seems to be a fairly significant conflict of interest, as Dann says,
The Central Plains Water scheme would not have been viable if the National government had not passed the ECan bill in 2010. The value of land with access to water for irrigation is greater than land which does not. Adams owns a large amount of land which is within the CPW water scheme, and also owns shares in the scheme itself. It is difficult not to conclude that the actions of this government, including Adams and Carter, have benefitted their farming portfolios.
The Cabinet Manual agrees that this would be a conflict of interest:
Pecuniary interests are financial interests such as assets, debts, and gifts. A pecuniary conflict of interest may arise if a Minister could reasonably be perceived as standing to gain or lose financially from decisions or acts for which he or she is responsible, or from information to which he or she has access. A pecuniary conflict of interest could, for example, relate to the value of land or shares that a Minister owns, or the turnover of a business in which a Minister has an ownership interest.
[Emphasis added]

I think its clear that Adams could reasonably be perceived as standing to gain from broad decisions around ECan and irrigation in Canterbury. So did she declare those conflicts? Not as an MP - she spoke on the Canterbury dictatorship bill, but made no declaration (though her farm - but not its shareholding in CPW - was listed in the Register of Pecuniary Interests). As for the Ministerial decisions, she became a Minister in December 2011, and declared a number of conflicts [p. 7], including a pecuniary interest in "potential decisions in respect of a particular company" (responsibility for which was transferred to Bill English, then Gerry Brownlee), and a personal interest in "potential decisions as Minister for the Environment in respect of a particular company" (responsibility for which was transferred to David Carter). Unfortunately the Cabinet Office won't say what those companies are (or even whether its one company or two), but we can guess that one was her farm, and one may have been CPW. The question is how broadly those declarations were interpreted, both by the Cabinet Office and by Adams. Did Adams behave ethically, and recluse herself from discussion about extending the Canterbury dictatorship, a governance regime which protects and increases the value of her investments? I think she owes us some answers on that.
Posted by Idiot/Savant at 3/12/2014 11:36:00 AM

Note: You'd think that with the money she already has dear Amy would be happy with what she's got....
 


Friday 7 March 2014

Donations bring rewards for some.



No Right Turn wrote this wee blog, the words may be few but the impact is absolutely devastating from a democratic perspective.

Something I missed: back in December, John Key appointed former Wellington city councillor Chris Parkin to the Tourism Board. Parkin is an ACT hack, but had been in the hotel industry, so he could be considered qualified, except for this: he's a big donor to the National Party. In 2011, he gave them $55,000 (the Herald can't count, and only reported $53,000); in 2012, he gave them another $16,850. 2013 returns aren't out yet, but they may make interesting reading too. While Parkin might be qualified, giving a government job to someone who has given your party over $70,000 looks unseemly at best - and outright corrupt at worst.
Posted by Idiot/Savant at 3/07/2014 12:21:00 AM. But wait there is more...

Do you remember a National Party MP named Nancy Wong? She was sacked because she had used government funding to push her husbands business interests while on an official visit to China. Well it just happens that Judith [Crusher] Collins a want-to-be National Party leader, friend and user of Cameron Slater’s ‘Whale-Oil’ blog site is also married to a business guy with a Chinese connections and Judith just like Nancy went off to China as a guest of the Chinese communist dictator and just happened to visit her husbands business and gave a glowing report on the product he pushes. Her trip was funded by the NZ Government led by, wait for it, Anti-communist freedom fighter John Key. ‘No right turn’ looked at this bit of skullduggery and here is what he wrote:

Back in 2008 when he was running for Prime Minister, John Key promised us "a higher standard of government". When tested, that promise has been shown to be hot air - and Judith Collins' conflict of interest over endorsing her husband's company (which is also a major donor to the National Party) is no exception. As predicted, he's refusing to turn over the "advice" from the Cabinet Office saying that its all OK - which means that we cannot see if that advice stacks up, or even if its real. And then there's this bit:
"We have a set of rules which are always just a guideline anyway."

"Just a guideline": this is how Key treats our constitution (and the Cabinet Manual is part of our constitution, setting out the processes and norms of Cabinet governance). "A higher standard of government… I think not.
Posted by Idiot/Savant at 3/07/2014 12:57:00 PM.


Cabinet rules clearly state:
That when accepting an invitation, a minister should inform the organisation that it may not use any photos taken of the minister at the event in a way that could be perceived as an endorsement by the minister."
Mark Hotchin.
Now ‘Orvadia's’ founder and chairman is Deyi Shi. He has played golf with Prime Minister John Key and goes by his English name, of Stone. He owns Auckland's most expensive house, the former Mark Hotchin [of Hanover finance fame and a con man of the highest order] mansion on Paritai Dr.

But Oravida's links with National go further. In 2011, it donated $56,000 towards the party's election war chest. Ms Collins says she did not know anything about that… Yeah Right.

So should we believe anything the PM or Judith Collins says about their dealings with a business named Oravida? The answer is no: One because one of its board members is the husband of Judith Collins and secondly because its owner is a golfing mate of one of the biggest financial rip-off artists still free in NZ. Oh a bit player by world standards but well up there in the Mark Hotchin range here in good old Hobbit land. And thirdly because they’ve gifted the National Party with tens of thousands of dollars, and they didn’t do that just because they were feeling kindly…they wanted something in return and they got it…and you and I are paying for it, after all Key has never spent his own money, he only spends others hard earned cash…after all that’s how you become rich.