The NZ Herald recently highlighted the suicide of a young self-employed butcher who saw his life’s work go down the drain by the utterly insane edict that meat could only be purchased at supermarkets.
The farcical rule was subsequently wiped but here’s the question. Who made up all of these unnecessary and often mind-blowingly inane dictates? Let’s not forget them. Remember the golf club greenkeepers sitting on tractors in hundreds of acres, banned for fear of spreading the virus, presumably to passing seagulls. Or the preposterous no swimming or sunbathing alone on a beach, or, you may walk or cycle for exercise in your confined neighborhood but do not cycle or walk in adjacent locales, and on and on, all constraints you can be sure the PM or Ashley didn’t write.
Instead a half-witted Health Department lackey knocked them up and they were accepted unthinkingly by the PM and her puppet-master Ashley who was handed dictatorial powers far in excess of those in wartime. All of this in a purported democracy. Even in wartime the Generals were subservient to the elected leaders.
Here’s the question that needs to be put to the Director General of Health and de facto New Zealand dictator of recent months.
“Given your position you were surely aware of the numerous existing studies of the effect of economic recessions on people, specifically despair and suicides. How much consideration did you give to those in the economy-destroying actions you demanded?”
After 3 weeks lockdown in Australia a government study showed 60% of women were suffering from depression and 50% of men.
A doctor told me recently he’s never prescribed as much Prozac in his career as he’s done over the last month.
The coming economic collapse is totally a man-made disaster. When the dust is settled we need an independent enquiry or even a Royal Commission, to study the idiotic decisions made in order to prevent a future reoccurrence.
For make no mistake. Such epidemics will strike again. An enquiry will hopefully produce a better way of handling them.
As the brilliant Evelyn Waugh wrote in 1959, describing the ill-thought and enormously costly Kenyan groundnut fiasco by the post-war Labour government, “the fault was pride; the hubris which leads elected persons to believe that a majority at the polls endues them with inordinate abilities”! Ring a bell?
So we’re about to have a 1930s scale depression, instead of a recession. The daily toll of new mass lay-offs already dominate our newspapers, themselves on death’s door.
Their demise has been hastened by the ill-judged lockdown, namely in lost advertising. But it will get worse. Such hard times see advertising virtually disappear as companies cost-cut for survival.
The initial fellow-travelling newspaper support for the wonderfulness of the PM makes them partly architects of their own demise. Almost alone, of folk with a large audience, only Mike Hosking questioned the idiotic decisions being made. In my eyes his efforts were heroic and history will acknowledge that.
A big tick to Damien Grant on this front as well but his audience was confined to the Sunday Times readership.
New Zealand will now and for 3-4 years bear the brunt of the ill-considered so called hard and quick approach.
96 Comments
Mental health is of no consequence to the architects of the insane diktats under Covid. Their heartlessness is only exceeded by their stupidity.
It’s curious how often I have seen this accusation thrown around on both sides of the fence.
Clearly someone is pressuring the NZ police to suppress any reference to suicides. Australia is openly acknowledging a crisis with a report estimating suicides will eventually outnumber Covid deaths by four to one. Morrison has appointed a new Asst Dir Gen of Health specifically for mental health.
Here frontline cops have been threatened with severe consequences for any public confirmation of attending a suicide coded job.
And of course the “fellow-travellers” in the print media won’t risk offending Our Dear Leader by pursuing the facts. I mean, does it matter?
I have tried and it’s impossible to find suicide rates in NZ for the last 2 months, I wonder why
https://coronialservices.justice.govt.nz/suicide/annual-suicide-statistics-since-2011/
Suicide is not officially suicide until the Coroner says so. There is only anecdotal evidence of recent suicides nothing official. Appears they are only published on an annual basis.
Without wanting to seem uncaring.
What happened to the right wing notion of herd immunity , we can afford to sacrifice a few elderly , survival of the fittest and Darwins theory.
Mental health falls outside that argument or doesn’t fit my latest argument ?
Why is herd immunity a right wing notion? What about Sweden?
The left wing never want to appear uncaring. Far from it, they want to be portrayed as saints or saviors.
This is what happens when you implement a left wing policy, of flattening the curve, which turned into eradication, and now IMO is more about control. This has been accepted without question by the compliant herd journalist media. The rhetoric surrounding the lock down decision, we were told, was based on sound scientific advise. Scientific advise which clealy indicated the high risk group being the over 70’s, with pre existing conditions. Surely, some consideration must have been taken on the effect of a lock down, prior to implementing it. We had the Wuhan, Italy, and Spain examples to learn from? The decision must have been made. We can afford to sacrifice some suicides, businesses, domestic violence, crime, medical procedures.
Survival of the weak, venerable, at any cost, according to Jacinda’s theory.
Interestingly, this is much the same from a right wing British government.
Check out the suicide statistics page. Reading: “the data in this indicator is no longer being updated”. Why would that be? Three weeks ago it was 61, compared with 10 at the same time last year. Three times the number of Covid deaths and likely none of them octo- and nanogenerians. Did this rate a mention on our news. No. Apparently unimportant.
The code is as follows: reference to sudden death + the police saying “there are no suspicious circumstances” or that they are “not looking for anyone else” + reference to the matter being referred to the Coroner. Not hard to figure out the code.
And for once the media are quite correct to be circumspect: it’s not officially suicide until the Coroner says so.
Sadly this is the reality we Kiwis face – led off a cliff by a virulent communist disgused as a caring prime minister. I’m disgusted, not only with her behaviours but those of our populous – my neighbour’s, friends, colleagues – and even my wife. The world has changed for the worst, as it always inevitably does under a left government.
Agree thank you
i don’t think that people can really process the possibility that not just our country, but the whole world is being lied to. It doesn’t fit into our heads. People will wake up – the ‘truth will out’. And hopefully heads will roll. Watch the High Wire News with Del Bigtree and run in to 1 hour 20, to his interview with world leading immunologist Prof Dolores Cahill, who is starting legal action against her government, the health advisors and members of the media for crimes against humanity: enforcing a lockdown with no thought for the social consequences.
You got it right when you said ….”unthinkingly by the PM and her Puppet Master”….herein the nub of the problem! These people are elected to MANAGE but sadly their background not appropriate or able to help them do so in these circumstances.
Though, consider the lock down ramifications,
– $1 billion every day of shutdown.
– Massive unemployment. (In addition to tourism etc).
– Business failures.
– Crime.
– Poverty.
– Mental health.
– Mortgage foreclosures.
– Complications from deferred/ elective medical treatment.
None, the less, the questions we NOW need to face.
Was health of the venerable group worth the cost, the youth will now pay?
How many will die because of the lock down? Are they Covid-19 victims?
Few of the younger generation will understand the concept of no job or future to return to.
Any way, we digress, let’s get back to what’s important; Teddy bears, Easter bunnies, Trump hating, and Jacinda lovin.
Bit confused. One or two days ago your column said unlikely house prices tank in Auckland and agents , bankers in for good year with mortgages. Today you say a depression. Without studying history woukdnt a depression by default stop house sales dead and correspondingly reduce average sale prices of any one having to sell. ?
I think he expected only a short term drop.
The Government and the news media continue to act hystericaly, All for a illness that will have a 98% recovery rate !! The recovery rate having nothing to do with the Governments actions.
Another half-witted decision was to stop predator control- because there were suppposedly going to be masses of accidents out in the bush involving predator trappers (therefore tying up the emergency services), and now we hear of Kiwi deaths. But hey don’t worry, the Government has just tossed a few $million to DOC for ….predator control!! ??
Included in the enquiry should be the most basic health plan that we missed- why weren’t there separate areas in hospitals set up for Covid-only patients, with covid-only staff, and those staff to be housed in isolated areas etc etc. Speaking to a friend who works in health in South Australia, she was stunned that we didn’t have that protocol- she said over there they had hotels booked for the covid-handling staff to be isolated from their families and everybody else. And NO WAY would those staff set foot in another area of the hospital.. This has been a HUGE stuff-up by our health advisers, and seemingly this aspect has been a decision left to each DHB??!!!
That’s the best piece of journalism I’ve read for years It’s quite clear and obvious ,that we didn’t need to go into this extreme level 4 ,as Australia went level 3 in two states and equivalent level 2 in the others,and has slightly less cases and deaths than we do
The cost of this horrendous mistake ,is many billions of dollars,that will have encumbered us now, for at a decade To make a mistake out of panic like this , in anything out of government, would be calls for resignation The pain and shame of unemployment, will be with some of us for many years There needs to be a reckoning, and I pray that’s what will happen ,at the election later this year
Todd Muller would absolutely ensue a national victory at election time, but I fear poor Simeon is too unpleasant, for the swing voter
Thank you.
Nailed it.
This is not a Covid death. It is a death that most likely would not have happened if Jacinda and Ashley did not close butchers. We need people to be held to account.
Who made these ridiculous regulations. The Bloomfield set made them. The Bloomfield elit who don’t have to and won’t live with the consequences. The masters graduate type. That’s who made these ridiculous rules.
The claim to be following the science was a gross lie as evidenced by the bans on outdoor activities and internal travel with their known non-existent risks. Instead it was all about control – both physical and psychological while at the same failing to protect the most vulnerable and those caring for them having previously failed to protect the borders.
You are right. There needs to be a holding to account and the spineless acquiescence of most of the media should be part of that.
Fair enough Alan, a great wee essay on UnHerd: The danger of safetyism.
Excerpt: “The pandemic has revealed a growing affinity between Western institutional players and the authoritarian Chinese regime. It is easy to forget that the CCP was once a highly ideological organisation. Today it is basically a crime syndicate that looks upon the norms of “the international community” the way the Sinaloa Cartel might look upon the Girl Scouts.
So the question is, will our ruling apparatus follow a similar trajectory as the pandemic gives them a taste of extended emergency power? At what point do the ceremonies of political correctness become a mere façade, a set of dogmas that nobody actually believes, but which make a useful instrument of social control?”
https://unherd.com/2020/05/the-hypocrisy-of-safetyism/
Who made these ridiculous regulations. The Bloomfield set made them. The Bloomfield elit who don’t have to and won’t live with the consequences. The masters graduate type. That’s who made these ridiculous rules.
Sir Bob, Madness? Surely not!
NZ Herald (online) 26th April Apart from 3 stories, & stats regarding Covid-19.
The Top local NZ Herald NEWS Headlines of the day:
– Importance of Women in front line.
– Lesbian Couple Find way to Wed.
– First time dad watched Zoom birth.
– All black’s wife announces pregnancy.
– Helping Kids through massive change.
– KFC ranks woman’s home made recipe.
– Beauty Salon owner picks up second job to save her employee’s jobs.
– Rural women deliver 1700 essential meals.
– Kylie Jenner new $60m home.
Shame on the NZ herald for turning into little more than a man shaming, woman’s rag.
This all at a time when, if ever, we needed journalist to ask the tough questions to our politicians.
Because hey, NZ were all in this together! Be kind! Let’s do this! Team of 5 million!
That media deserves to go broke. They suck up to Jacinda to keep their job and their business. The sooner they are liquidated the better. We can then find Chanel’s like this for real information
Yes. The demise of the nation’s magazines is a sad loss but it occurred to me that we don’t need the Women’s Weekly anymore anyway, not that I ever did, because our PM and Co are providing all the fodder they used and the dailies are regurging it all instead.
Amen
Wishful thinking that someone will be held to account for this economic catastrophe that masquerades as a health victory. Statistics simply do not support the level of control this government has over us. I blame Winston Peters given it was he who put these socialist idealists with no real world experience into power. I see this as an act of treason committed by Winston. Comrade Jacinda’s obsession with the health outcome and blind spot about the economic fallout is galling. Her cheerleaders claim she has saved us, “look at New York”. The difference between NY and NZ is population density, mass public transport use and most importantly NZ is an isolated island. In 2009 twenty people died of swine flu in New Zealand with 3175 cases reported. Sounds similar to 2020, except for the billions of dollars of economic destruction now inflicted by this Labour-NZ First Government. Even Treasury in their budget forecasts for the NZ economy are way too optimistic. The Reserve Bank lifting their money printing to $60 billion the day before the budget so these hapless government ministers can later dream up ways to waste it is disgraceful. Jacinda instilled a fear in the public “treat everyone as though they are infected with Covid”. This terror has resulted in the moronic public now thinking that only the government can save them using kindness and other peoples’ money. This will see Labour easily voted back into power. Even serious economic pain before September’s election date won’t be enough to sway the simpletons to vote to punish this very dangerous government. Jacinda’s calm, smiling manner when delivering her usual polished performance announcing Level 2 terrified me. There was not an ounce of fear in her about the impending economic tsunami. I don’t think this was ignorance on her part, but, more joy about this new found level of state control over peoples’ lives. It frightened me. If you are not scared, I remind you of who essentially now control the billions of dollars of borrowed money. Remember, these people have never been in business for themselves, never employed any staff, never risked their own capital, probably aren’t worth that much money and are now earning a salary way more than they could ever hope for in the private sector. To finish the point here’s the list of names which should alarm the few remaining NZ patriots; Kelvin Davis, Phil Twyford, Chris Hipkins, Megan “ban oil exploration” Woods, Carmel Sepuloni, Andrew Little, David Clark, David Parker, Nanaia Mahuta, Stuart Nash, Ian Lees-Galloway, Jenny Salesa.
Recent unprecedented decisions by Labour have wiped billions from NZ’s GDP and taken NZ’s debt to GDP ratio from 19% to 55%. Covid did not do this, Labour’s decision making did this and Labour are predicted to sleepwalk to victory in the coming election. NZ’s growing underclass who vote for this rabble deserve everything they get.
I enjoy your writing Sir Bob. Anger at the lockdown resulted in me becoming a daily reader of your blog.
Actually Winston is the only one moderating the dictators power so we should be thankful
And that is the sadist thing ever written
For those who do not understand that means that nutter Winston does moderate the very nutter Jacinda to a very limited extent
Ardern will still probably have to be propped up by Peters. If he doesn’t get over the line it could be interesting.
Brings to mind the term “intellectual yet idiot” by Nassim Taleb
Another phrase he uses is ..”Skin in the Game”
https://medium.com/incerto/the-intellectual-yet-idiot-13211e2d0577
Also…here is an interesting article by a scottish doctor , which alludes to the corruption that results from IYI … IYI , who dont have “skin in the game”,trying to get the “right” results. ( from their point of view).
eg. Hospital capacity, research statistics more important than protecting staff…etc
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/05/11/how-to-make-a-crisis-far-far-worse/
Yes, but you should be interested to see Taleb’s actual positions on this topic then.
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b68a4e4a2772c2a206180a1/t/5e2efaa2ff2cf27efbe8fc91/1580137123173/Systemic_Risk_of_Pandemic_via_Novel_Path.pdf
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXp0jmSXYAIQIdc?format=jpg&name=small
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/25/uk-coronavirus-policy-scientific-dominic-cummings
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-pandemic-isnt-a-black-swan-but-a-portent-of-a-more-fragile-global-system
https://medium.com/incerto/corporate-socialism-the-government-is-bailing-out-investors-managers-not-you-3b31a67bff4a
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2004.08658.pdf
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/04/24/coronavirus-systemic-risks-black-swan-squawk-box.html
https://twitter.com/nntaleb?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Fractal (Multi-scale) Localism: https://www.academia.edu/38433249/Principia_Politica
Skin-in-the-game is often confused, it’s about the filtering mechanism of consequences tied to accountable decision making.
The filtering mechanism part being the key, and the part that tends to be left out.
Roelof I have witnessed this myself on a regular basis.
Ron Pol needs take heed.
We were placing a building on the ground at the Cawthron Research Institute in Nelson.
We were packing it to level.
White coated “scientist” came out and asked why we were not just putting it down level on the ground.
To him the ground was flat , but to us it was on a slope!
We didn’t like to embarrass him by responding .
We were just truck drivers.
I have seen a fairly compelling argument that supermarket work forces are largely unionised and butcher’s are not, hence Labour’s preference for giving large financial advantages to the supermarkets.
Matt , you add butchers and you have to add market gardeners , green grocers , people selling eggs at the gate , you see where I’m going with this ?
Yes, remember all this in September
I remember during one of the level 4 press conferences, or what they should really be called “Jacinda Party Rallies”, one of or hapless journalists asked something like, “what would you say to those who say the economic toll is worth a few lives” or similar, to which our incredibly naive PM’s aggressive response was, “I’d say go and tell that to the families of those who have died”. As if every life was infinitely valuable to society rather to themselves, and their families. The job of politics is understanding the difference and that their job is making hard choices to minimise the total harm within a set amount of resources.
I remember thinking at the time; what are you going to say to the hundreds, if not thousands, of kids whose parents will off themselves due to your lockdown? It’s about time we start asking the questions; what dis Jacinda Ardern say to Roy Green’s kids, why does our cabinet seem completely incapable of understanding secondary and tertiary effects which are now rapidly snowballing globally, and how can we ensure this never happens again?
None of our journalists asked any questions like that
All their questions were pre written by the PMO And if they asked any other questions they automatically lost their jobs
Did she tell the families of the suicide victims that the economic tool was worth it? No, she said 10 people can attend the funeral. Was she kind? No Did she admit responsibility for contributing to the suicide? No
The German people were responsible for supporting Hitler. Please tell me the NZ people do not support this
You ain’t gonna like this our revered pugilist Knight, but the butcher’s business was being screwed by the supermarkets well before the CV-19 scare let the gummint hand the corporates a monopoly in booze as well as food. (Except for good old west Auckland – now that licencing outlier had the Remuera scotch addicts nervously steering their BMW tractors around the long haired black leather clad fine upstanding Westies).
However, it’s medium to long term depression that wears down our men not merely a short sharp pandemic-caused business failure totally outside the butcher’s control.
And I have experience with depression. It is sheer luck that The Black Dog didn’t take me to the same place as the butcher. It was a near thing involving a walk on the beach, with my twelve gauge, but happily without the will to execute my plan (pun initially accidental but recognised and persisted with anyway – while I’m indulging in a little black humour I may as well add that the pompous psych nurse admitting me to his ward was not at all amused when I looked out of my hospital room window and remarked “Look at all of those ducks – hell I should have brought my shotgun”).
Anyway the support of a typically loving “middle class” family – and in this godzone land all middle class means is mostly able to pay the bills when they fall due – means I’m a survivor. But it is clearly depression that is the primary cause of our shameful male suicide statistics because without it there’s no way I or any otherwise sane male would ever contemplate such an end.
So why is depression such a killer for we NZ males? Well I reckon it is the underlying issues – we now live in a world where being able to shear a sheep at pace and swing a shovel all day are no longer enough to earn you a decent living. So we have a significant proportion of us that can’t make ends meet without two or more jobs. And we have the old school colonial mentality stiff-upper-lip real-Kiwi-joker hard-man-rugby-playing-thug-is-good big-boys-don’t-cry way in which most of we Aotearoa lads have been raised. Add in women rightly standing up and wanting their hard work and ability being recognised and it’s clear we are not making a good fist of coping with that. Add in for our Maori that they can’t shear that sheep or swing that shovel on their own land – because in most cases the land your people have worked and nurtured for generations was unlawfully “aquired” and that all too often by missionaries purporting to be acting in your best interests.
Put all this together along with the fact that while women wisely discuss their emotional problems and find tears the blessed relief they should be, we men don’t talk about this shit and dare not cry because it ain’t manly, and it’s clear CV-19 at worst can only be a straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of blame for the butchers death.
And don’t, Sir Robert, come back and call me a bleeding heart certifed unsound of mind liberal pussy. Unless you make it really funny (and I know you’re up that task if you set your mind to it) in which case please, please do! Honk honk!
But yeah, I agree it was absolute madness to gift a food and alcohol monopoly to two corporatse, a six week monopoly on the essential supplies required to keep Kiwi households sane (and insane, violent, depressed, and suicidal). Absolute madness to keep corporate business’ coffers full when they were clearly in the tiny minority of businesses well funded to weather the CV-19 storm relatively unscathed.
Although yeah, I do understand some of the reasoning behind letting the big food/booze barns stay open but it was nuts to let good perishable food go to waste while the poor go hungry.
The butcher apparently had a pretty decent turnover (92000) and ought to have survived
Apparently the commerce commission cannot survive Jacinda dictate
Billy, you may disagree with my view, but you really have totally missed my point.
And who has made public his turnover?
Totally agree. There has been an absolute absence of any kind of discussion about the unnecessary lockdown by the mainstream media. Garner and Richardson of the AM show though have also questioned the Jacinda approach. Cameron Bagrie has also provided useful commentary.
Unfortunately Ardern and Robertson are just going to drip feed extensions to the wage subsidy which will take them up to the election so their voters don’t feel any pain. Expect to see a lot of student bribes coming out of that slush fund nearer to September.
I also feel Bridges is going to be accused of bullying with any criticism whatsoever of Jacindas ham fisted approach to this crisis. The Nz newspaper media wants to champion an early 40s woman who managed to have a baby as well. It fits their narrative.
Great analysis. The role of the media,almost in it’s entirety, with the exception of Mike Hosking, should not be ignored. TV 1 was particularly egregious, 24/7 spewing of fear,couched in the “we’re all in this together” patronising claptrap.
The sad lack of any semblance of the traditional fourth estate being a questioning counter to the fear propaganda, is appalling.
Thanks,Sir Bob for being a rare exception, a man able and willing,to think for himself.
I drove down the north Auckland motorway reading stay calm be kind Covid 19
How is that a safety message placed by transport professionals?
It is meaningless and destracting and should not be there
It is propaganda placed by the PMO
(Wish I had a job there)
Yes our fawning brain dead media and their fellow travellers the so called social media influencers who are probably the only ones who can stand and ape sycophantic twits like Campbell are in fact the willing authors of their own demise .Regretably for them those that fly with the crows get shot with them eventually unless of course they realise that the man that carves the Buddha never worships it and perhaps like Hosking start doing their job.
As for the small minded petty little pricks dreaming up the assorted rules in the various Govt Depts a decent dose of scrutiny and unemployment is in order.
Great analysis.
I think I need to point out that only halal butchers were allowed to open their shops up after Muslim protest – why them and not all butchers, heaven knows. Originally all butcher shops were going to be allowed to remain open before the govt dictated supermarkets only Butchers were then allowed to do contactless deliveries but that hardly made up for the revenue lost and only now under Level 2 are they open to public.
I agree with everything you say. The damage wrought to our economy is almost irreparable. The devastation to physical and mental health will result in many deaths. Unfortunately we have a supine, sycophantic media who daily express adoration for the dictator and we have a nation of sheep who lap this up without question.
At the start of wars the media typically parrot/amply the official narrative. So, elected leaders everywhere naturally conjured up the war/patriotism analogy, and right on cue even the most obvious nonsense was repeated breathlessly without question (and still is by most NZ media). They also blithely accepted the Govt solution, despite several alternatives that would almost certainly have delivered much better health and economic outcomes. Even now, NZ’s “Hotel California lockdown”, ie the unimaginative and plainly flawed lockdown as the strategy indefinitely until a vaccine is available (2021-2022, maybe) also remains unquestioned, despite clearly better alternatives for health (both in terms of fewer Covid deaths and fewer consequential deaths such as suicides etc) and better for the economy (several alternatives would allow lockdowns in practical terms to end completely), but the media still doesn’t explore these. Instead it salivates over petty things like the change to L2. That said, on a few of those lesser issues like some of the nonsense around testing, fudged numbers, PPE, etc, Newshub reporters did at least test the narrative (Michael Morrah, Tova O’Brien), while most of their colleagues unthinkingly regurgitated even that pap they were fed. I have great respect for most journalists, but this episode should haunt many of them in future years. Especially those young butchers, farmers, etc that can’t take it any more, and all those without jobs and businesses, and by year end all those without homes – a big proportion of that harm could have been avoided if the democratic institutions of the media and opposition asked serious questions, forcing government to consider alternatives and make better decisions.
Better to ‘overkill’ than not when there is doubt. We didn’t know f… all about this virus at the beginning and the rules that were instigated undoubtedly saved many lives. I praise those in charge for all their efforts.
Hear hear Sir Bob your words of sense tempered with much experience and well read wisdom always explain without embellishment the stupidity of all this nonsense. I certainly agree that tv news, newspapers, etc have merely parroted the official line without any journalistic comment at all except MH and by podcast the forever right of Attila the Hun Leighton Smith. The others are merely socialist lackeys. We are in trouble. The Covid response Act has started the removal of civil liberties, the covid response budget was merely the first social engineering project and the conniving journalists are merely completing the message to ensure any criticism is stamped on mercilessly by the adoring and uneducated masses. A not so faint mirror image of how things started in Germany last century on the other side of the political spectrum and we know what came next.
It’s fascinating to observe all the difference in narratives between here and overseas.
Who is doing well, who is doing poorly etc. short term/long term, bubbles, green zones/red zones.
It’s also very frustrating (without touching on all the institutional incompetence and farcical rules about the outdoors).
To quote Balaji
‘1) Some understand economics but not biology
E.g. “lockdown for just-the-flu is crashing our economy”
2) Some understand biology but not economics
E.g. “stay at home forever, cargo cult lockdown + no plan”
Neither of these viewpoints will be treated well by history. Both issues are real.’
Some also understand neither e.g. the ‘hoax’ types.
This question of blame seems a strange to me. It depends on where one delineates between virus or response to the virus I suppose. Unless it is itself man-made, the virus is the first mover. But human responsibility is only tool we have.
Better to think about first order and second order distinctions.
The virus then, causing a pandemic (and humans responding with fear and uncertainty) is what’s sparking the deflationary spiral.
Below is some data I’ve seen indicating that economies are tanking in measure as a bottom-up process.
Certainly some share of blame goes to the media.
And of course being a hyper-connected globalised society.
Taiwan has had 6 deaths and no lockdowns. Yet is like everyone else
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXppXF9UEAMAL96?format=png&name=900×900
https://www.barrons.com/articles/taiwan-never-needed-shutdowns-to-control-covid-19-its-economy-is-stalling-anyway-51588854001
In the States:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXijqv3WkAA0qHr?format=jpg&name=medium
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/07/upshot/pandemic-economy-government-orders.html#click=https://t.co/Z2QTq7zFWM
Further: “State responses didn’t cause the economy to collapse. Fear of the virus did.“
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EYEebzJWkAIqahJ?format=jpg&name=900×900
https://t.co/y6pFrK8ARv?amp=1
Some further quick sources:
https://www.hs.fi/talous/art-2000006507958.html – Finland
https://quillette.com/2020/05/08/enough-with-the-phoney-lockdown-debate/
But similarly some people are getting bored with lockdown/desperate.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXm0mseXYAUCXpM?format=png&name=large
This is where the question of virus severity comes in.
As for solutions:
A vaccine is not guaranteed.
But so called ‘herd immunity’ may not be either (immunity not lasting being but one reason) and the virus becomes endemic.
That may be where we end up by default, but at that point we can’t save the vulnerable.
Even if you thought it’s ‘just-the-flu’ then we have two.
Humanity becomes stuck with another fellow traveler.
Everyone’s life expectancy goes down.
And as has been said before, an event like this will happen again.
This also means what is happening now isn’t unexpected from a structural perspective.
Lots of mess still to come.
Nice.
The politicisation of masks is baffling, especially given the 180’s on the issue.
Most non Anglo-sphere countries have adopted masks.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EYF1fr1XkAAyBpz?format=jpg&name=large
It’s basic common sense.
More people wearing them multiplies the effectiveness.
Some of people claiming to be Libertarians seem to be the most imbecilic.
The non-aggression principle COMMANDS mask-wearing under the SILVER RULE.
Do not do unto to others…
But I suppose they don’t like that language.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EW4AXgbWsAEAovl?format=jpg&name=medium
What’s cheaper? Endless lockdowns? Or everyone wearing masks?
I suspect as a not badly CV-19 afflicted country we weren’t first in the global queue to be supplied with vast quantities of masks and test kits and this has been important in the gummints response … seems to me we should be back to normal now with a statistically valid testing regime but do we have enough test kits?
I was told (validity uncertain) that we sent a heap of PEP gear overseas early in the CV-19 pandemic and if true that could have contributed to our limited options to manage the virus in NZ…
Does anyone have any confirmed detailed info on this?
Google Prof Dolores Cahill (one of the world’s top immunologists) for info on the effectiveness of masks: the only viruses that are spread by social proximity are Ebola, TB and smallpox. Our doing so for a coronavirus is farcical. Prof Cahill was interviewed by Del Bigtree of the High Wire news last week. Actual facts. What a breath of fresh air.
Quit peddling your sheepish conspiracy bullshit Penny.
You want actual nuance – listen to the long-form discussions of these biology professors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6-xwaHU4f4
Best I have seen by far.
So Professor Dolores Cahill, one of the world’s top immunologists and molecular geneticists is quoting conspiracy bullshit? Poor her. All those years at university and working in vaccine labs for naught.
“How much consideration did you give to those in the economy-destroying actions you demanded?”
Zero consideration, of course.
Since the aim of the game was to drive up debt.
Those who spread the Covid wanted governments to spend wildly, and they did.
The wilder the spending the better, since it makes the debt so much harder to pay back.
The interest pours in for so much longer.
And you cannot get much wilder than paying everyone to do nothing.
This has been true for centuries but people are oblivious.
Haven’t you ever noticed, the banks (and their masters) don’t care who is in power as long as the debt increases. The banks (and their masters) have always owned both sides.
Compassionate Labour gives stacks to the poor, the debt goes up.
Heartless National gives tax cuts to the rich, the debt goes up.
Of course, if the rabble refuse to comply, there is always war, or a plague or two.
War is my personal favorite.
Huge loans to both sides. Economies totally destroyed.
Oh sure there is collateral damage, a million or two die, but that’s business.
http://www.preearth.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1174
You think Labour people have a heart? They have vanity. The desire to feel like mother Teresa. They are even more sickening than apathetic National people.
“How much consideration did you give to those in the economy-destroying actions you demanded?”
Zero consideration, of course.
Since the aim of the game was to drive up debt.
Those who spread the Covid wanted governments to spend wildly, and they did.
The wilder the spending the better, since it makes the debt so much harder to pay back.
The interest pours in for so much longer.
And you cannot get much wilder than paying everyone to do nothing.
This has been true for centuries but people are oblivious.
Haven’t you ever noticed, the banks (and their masters) don’t care who is in power as long as the debt increases. The banks (and their masters) have always owned both sides.
Compassionate Labour gives stacks to the poor, the debt goes up.
Heartless National gives tax cuts to the rich, the debt goes up.
Of course, if the rabble refuse to comply, there is always war, or a plague or two.
War is my personal favorite.
Huge loans to both sides. Economies totally destroyed.
Oh sure there is collateral damage, a million or two die, but that’s business.
http://www.preearth.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1174&sid
John goes to JJohn? Mate, did you get jilted? By that bloody Julie again huh? You poor bugger…
Yes, totally overacted response to this scamdemic which will ultimately cost dear lives of hard working kiwis. Our only hope now is we vote these criminals out of parliament!
Bob, undeniably you’ve now changed your forecast of a 1930s economic depression from lasting a minimum 5 years to 3-4 years in one week. Why?
This government’s response to Combine can be summarised down to three words.
1. Procrastination.
2. Panic
3. SNAFU
Sounds like Just in Time business management.
Huge uncertainties in everything to do with CV-19 mean a measure of these three things is unavoidable.
Unthinkably accepted by the PM. W her did she start thinking?
I don’t know where to start really , to try and address all these comments.
People listen to yourselves ! ffs !
A few voices of understanding and moderation but too many conspiracy theorists and voices of doom .
If you claim we got it all wrong , try going to live in the US or being over the age of 65 in Sweden.
This isn’t over globally just because NZ has kicked the virus in the ass!
These claims of increases in suicide and a few butchers going broke are largely just cherry picked anecdotal “evidence”.
While mistakes may have been made , if you think it is all about a power trip and control and a master plan to crash the economy , then I despair.
Instead of crying into your beer or writing letters to the editor or rallying behind Bob’s latest fearmongering epistle , how about getting out and enjoying our great country sans tourists and backpackers and freedom campers and supporting your local green grocer , butcher , corner store , cafe , pub , and restaurant.
Buy local , or at least NZ made , if you can and support your community institutions that you value , like I will with the Isaac Theatre Royal , that looks like it is in trouble.
For pities sake , what’s done is done.
Let’s look forward , not back !
Have your say in September.
By then the picture will be clearer.
You can “fill yer boots” then !
“We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties”.James Madison.4th President of United States,1809-1817.
“Fellow travelling newspapers.” Nice
Let’s encourage the normal journos trapped in their Trotsky dominated backstabbing newsrooms to break free of their editorial tyrants. There is definitely a disturbance in the news. Break free! Or submit to Jacinda, who cries with kindness as she tortures.
Indeed Bob, the mind boggling stupidity of Jacinda & the team will leave a long tail of damage. The lunatic rules, meekly accepted by the terrified populace, were nutty as a fruitcake. Very sadly the damage is done, there is going to have to be a lot of “being kind to each other” for years to come … It’s a flu. Not much worse than the usual. Jacinda was stupid enough to be conned. So were other governments. As with all respiratory tract flus, it will burn out. But because of the self isolation forced upon us, perhaps not for a while yet.
Jacinda was not conned. She is marching to the globalist agenda and performing fabulously – we will hear all the international accolades from her global co-conspirators start to come in soon. Who else has managed to strip civil and human rights overnight with barely a bleat from their populace? I sent her the science (“it’s just a flu”, and “lockdown is extremely dangerous”) as clearly presented in “Del Bigtree’s High Wire news broadcast ‘the battle of agendas’ nearly two months ago. I know others who have sent similar information from world experts. She knows the virus is a farce, she knows lockdown is unnecessary from a health perspective and highly damaging. That issue of the High Wire featured an economist talking for 20 minutes about the negative, and known, social consequences of lockdown. This week’s High Wire broadcast featured an interview with top immunologist Prof Dolores Cahill, who is taking the Irish government, health advisors and media decisionmakers to court for crimes against humanity because of their decisions around Covid-19.
This lockdown would have been very difficult to achieve if we had all heard the other side of the story, from people such as the Swedish experts, right from the beginning. We did not. The media failed us and our independent inquiry failed us.
What we see is how powerfully mass-society assumes that authorities are right, once they never hear the counter-arguments from equal or superior authorities. In fact when this happens, they assume the other side of the argument does not even exist.
Moral of the story? NEVER let free speech be undermined. When people don’t know what they don’t know, and were never allowed to find out, they can and will lock-step believe ANYTHING.
I have a Polynesian friend in Sweden who had symptoms and was told she would not be tested but must act as though she was infected. I am sure this is fact.
For how long must she stay out of scoiety? Until a vaccine is developed? Until the Sweeden has immunity? I wonder…
This would also seem to indicate any stats we see coming out of Sweden are a huge understatement of the infection and the CV-19 deaths there.
I wouldn’t be surprised goose.
Watching their figures , things are starting to look a little suspect.
They are caught between a rock and a hard place now if their aim is herd immunity.
Theories say it requires over or around 60% have to have contracted it and recovered or already be immune to it somehow to get that successful outcome.
If they are also using personal distancing protocols , even if in a more relaxed form , surely that means the virus will just keep bubbling away quietly in the community for an inordinate amount of time.
In reality that means they are waiting for a vaccine as well or they can’t eliminate it.
Imagine ending up as the pariahs of the world.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52628283
I though this was interesting
Is anyone not curious why Nobel Prize seeking Jacinda has not invited that 17-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg to join a panel of experts discussing Covid-19 as CNN did?
Similarity? Maybe, as the record shows that Thunberg has Aspergers, something she has embraced as her “superpower”. The equivalence is obvious. People with Asperger syndrome can display behaviour, interests, activities that are restricted and repetitive and are sometimes abnormally intense or focused. They may stick to inflexible routines, or engage in compulsive behaviours. With pursuit of specific and narrow areas of interest is one of the most striking among possible features of individuals.
Having let people fly into NZ for a prolonged period from infected countries for weeks, without any control, allowing the virus a stronghold, panic took hold, allowing only three chaotic days to lockdown. Drama queen personified. Total mismanagement by the naturally stupid Health Minister, David Clark. Why o why is he still engaged by Jacinda.
Original comment by Bob on the sorrowing suicide of a young butcher, and the decision by our “leader”, ring-nosed by the disabilities of the health dept, in their effort to prove their inculpabilities, I say, shame, shame, shame. What was the difference between the supermarket food – as in veges and fruit, handling packets, and the butchers. Can someone tell me?
One Supermarket is the equivalent of multiple butchers , greengrocers , bakeries etc
It is all about minimising and controlling the number of points of contact and hence managing the risk of potential community spread.
Your logic is simply irrational. If you look at what you are saying, dairy’s should have been shut, where supermarkets exist. Why was every petrol brand deemed essential? You could have deemed Z tier 1 essential, then nominated for example Mobil / BP if no Z service available?
Dairies were left open to take some pressure off the Supermarkets.
I think that was successful.
I have no doubt that it was a considered decision on that .
Fuel distribution was critical to essential services and trucking , logistics operation.
It made sense to open all you mention so we weren’t all lined up outside of the big supermarkets just to get some meat .. or bread.. I found myself lined up for 45 mins to get some milk and cheese!
Seriously ! Walk down to the corner , you could buy your milk and cheese at the Dairy.
And you were supporting your local store owner !
Brilliant !
Oh and by the way, I could have bought that milk and cheese from my local Mad Butcher… who just happened to be the Pukekohe one!!! So so sad and such a total waste.
Ah … the Mad Butcher was our local supplier. No “Dairy” closer. We don’t all live in the same situations GWHA. One size definitely does not fit all.
I take on board your unique situation seriously1313 .
But given that there are only about 23 Mad Butcher outlets in the country and over 4000 corner dairies I think most people are covered.
Excluding your self of course.
NEWS FLASH NEWS FLASH….WONDERFUL JOCINDA AND GIMP GayFord REFUSED COFFEE ….OMG !!!!! …
…in other news, country’s economy collapsing and dire effects for working people….thank god the majority are too stupid to realize whats going on.
NEWS FLASH Terb.
The people in the news don’t usually write the news.
Really good article thanks
How is it that during the years of world War one and two we were quite happy to send off soldiers in great numbers that we knew would die.
The was a sacrifice Deemed worth paying for the freedoms of our society .
My point here is that these men were in their 20s and 30s and in the prime of their lives, look at the Coverd response which in my view should’ve been protect the vulnerable, And everyone else carry on .if we did lose a few aged persons in the 70 to 80 years old bracket what’s the difference ? compare to the men who lost their lives in war at least this group of at risk elderly had lived a life . The young men who died on the battlefields hadn’t even got to enjoy the best of life and yet our society deemed their deaths the price of freedom.
Just another testament to the absolute lack of any balls and guts in the modern age we live in.
juan ferandoes
Spot on Juan.
Way to go Juan. As soon as possible, I expect you’ll emigrate to Sweden.
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