Thursday, March 26, 2009

Shes Gone, only the devil can replace her

Thursday Mar 26, 2009

With Helen Clark's imminent appointment to 3rd banana at the UN I am reminded of an incident that happened at the UN building a few years ago.

After having a 5 star dinner at the UN Council buildings in New York, UN delegates from unpronouncable countries in Africa and Eastern Europe ate off the best china, used fine linen and shoveled it all down with the finest in silver cutlery.

The only problem was that 10s of thousands of dollars of those utensils were pinched by those same delegates.

Lets not even mention Serbia, Iraq, Darfur and Zimbawe.

Clark will be in the company of like minds and I am being very generous when I say that.

We all know what she has been up to over the last 9 years.

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North Shore Council Lawyers pay a Visit

Further to email correspondence from Andrew Williams yesterday it appear that he is wasting yet more council money in asking lawyers to have a look at the article written below (it includes said email) to presumably try and take some action to shut me up.

The Law firm, Burton & Co, don't come cheap so there goes another grand or two of ratepayer money:

New Zealand
mis.burtonco.co.nz (203.97.83.106) [Label IP Address]
darrenrickard.blogspot.com/2009/03/my-correspondance-with-andrew-williams.html
darrenrickard.blogspot.com/2009/03/my-correspondance-with-andrew-williams.html
www.whaleoil.co.nz/?q=content/mad-mayor-jussht-keepsh-digging

Well, it isn't his money so I guess it is OK?

mmm.

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Wednesday, March 25, 2009

My Correspondence with Andrew Williams

I will give Andrew Williams, the Mayor of the North Shore of Auckland this, he does reply to his correspondence and you cant say that about many politicians.

He really needs some anger management though, as you will see at the end of this post.

I initially emailed him on Monday about a piece I wrote on Political Animal about his shenanigans with ratepayer money, principally his use of NZ$1342 to buy wine for his political allies to popularise his opposition to John Banks and his great idea for one Auckland, one mayor.

My initial email:

-----Original Message-----
From: Darren Rickard
Sent: Monday, 23 March 2009 9:05 p.m.
To: mayor@northshorecity.govt.nz
Subject: Article in Political Animal on Andrew Williams

Dear Mr Andrews,

please see the article below that was published on Monday 23 March. I attach
it as a courtesy to you and hope you take it on board...

Regards,  Darren Rickard.

The Mayor's reply:

date Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 1:21 AM
subject RE: Article in Political Animal on Andrew Williams
mailed-bynorthshorecity.govt.nz


Hi Darren

Thanks for emailing me this info. Much appreciated. The media love to sensationalise trivia but ignore all the positive work I am doing, and the results of my council.

Regards 

Andrew Williams Mayor Andrew Williams


He thought I was supporting him which would have been bizarre because the content of Monday's Political Animal post wasn't exactly complimentary. It is clear that both the emailer(me) and the writer were the same.

I tried once again with a similar reply.

I then emailed this last night to finally get my point across:

-----Original Message-----
From: Darren Rickard

Sent: Tuesday, 24 March 2009 10:43 p.m.
To: Mayor Andrew Williams
Subject: Re: Article in Political Animal on Andrew Williams

Hi Andrew,

I do NOT support you. Your arrogant, money wasting, rude and sometimes
downright nutty antics as Mayor led me to write this.

Regards, Darren Rickard.

To be sure the content of this email might seem a little strong and my article was even stronger but they are facts as I see them and they are shared my a large majority of people who live on the North Shore of Auckland and the Mayor has been, well , nutty.

Here is Andrew's unedited reply, 

from Mayor Andrew Williams
to Darren Rickard

date Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 8:51 AM
subject RE: Article in Political Animal on Andrew Williams
mailed-bynorthshorecity.govt.nz


You selfish, selfish, selfish nasty person. How dare you email me in such a mannerwith total ignorance of the facts.

I work long hours day, night and at weekends helping people and groups all over the Shore. Every day people ask me for help with issues and I assist them. And I also have taken leadership with my council to sort out big problems such as PAK n SAVE, Birkenhead Library, TAKAPUNAkiosk, Albany high school, Long Bay Great Park, Whenuapai airport., Chelsea heritage park. And the list goes on.

I have revised budgets and expenditure to reduce rate increases from 8.4% to 5.9%. Efficiencies have been found across council spending.

And yes 15 yr old filthy shabby couches have been replaced. As they should be for important VIP guests to NZ's 4th latgest city. And for 20 years and before that there has been a civic events budget, including wine. This council has had the lowest wine use I am told. We didn't even have wine at our swearing in function.

The bridge at Campbells Bay has been a 10 year community project. To provide safe access across an all too often sizeable tide of water. To provide safe access to the toilets and playground. Council officers have however over engineered it, OSH rules have added cost. We will deliver this community project at lower cost.

So, don't email me with uninformed slaggings. You should be grateful that this Mayor is a hands-on Mayor who gets on with the business, takes a 'can do' attitude, and is leading this city strongly...to get the best outcomes for our city.

What have you ever done for anyone else but yourself?. And what have you done for our city? ANYTHING APART FROM MOAN AND SLAG OFF AT THE MAYOR???

Andrew Wiliams
Mayor

My only conclusion is that Andrew thinks it is OK to waste ratepayers money on expensive bottles of wine for political reasons and that his record rate rise because of his wasteful spending is hunky dory as well.

Interesting the kind of people that we vote to represent ourselves huh?


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Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Dead Cats and Vicious Bears

If you are a short termer in the stockmarket of late you would have done well over the last week or so depending on the stock that you purchased.

I am thinking you might want to cut and run soon.

Stocks like Fletcher Building [FBU.NZ] are up more than 20% on recent lows, Mainfreight [MFT.NZ] up by nearly 20%, Sky City Entertainment [SKC.NZ], Goodman Fielder [GFF.NZ], Briscoe Group [BGR.NZ], Hallenstein Glasson [HLG.NZ] and Ryman Healthcare [RYM.NZ] all up over 10%.

The NZX is up nearly 200 points, 43 of them today.

Markets around the world are up dizzying amounts over the last week and a half, the DOW alone leaping around 1000 points off 13 year lows. It gained nearly 500 points today in the third highest ever percentage gain in the indexes history.

Dizzying stats huh?

What does all this upwards activity really mean though?

In my not so humble opinion it means very little at all.

The impetus for all this upwards frenzy is Barack Obama and his manufacturing money supply in the trillions, just over the last few weeks alone to "ease the credit crises". Apparently it is a positive move.

People investing back into the stockmarket now think this is all over so they send the DOW 500 points higher?

Have we all forgotten the reality that the world is in a deep recession?

I believe moves made by Obama over the last few days mean caution flags should be raised in investors minds. His moves will make things worse in the long term.

The market should have gone down.

Once the detail of this is digested, the market will wake up to reality and continue to fall.

It is a sucker Dead Cat rally and it ain't the kind of pussycat one wants to take home.

Disclosure: I own all the shares mentioned in this article.


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