combination of the two...

What have the Pike River Coal Mine Disaster and the 2008 global financial crisis have in common?

The answer is quite simple.

Ronald Regan was elected to the presidency of the United States on a plank that the government was incompetent and useless.s

One of his first acts a president was to pick a fight with the Air Traffic Controllers which he won but it should be noted that he never in a million years contemplated privatising the National Transport Safety Board.

He didn't trust airlines to self regulate their safety practices but everything else was up for grabs including Wall Street.

The noted economist John Kenneth Galbraith was invited to speak at a weekend gathering of republicans during Reagan's presidency and he saw that most of the participants were wearing t-shirts with an image of Adam Smith on the front.

He conducted his own survey and found that none of the wearers had actually read the book.

So it was just an article of faith designed so that nit wits could get their hands on anything the government owned or regulated.

We can do it better was the mantra but the question was never asked about what these people had ever done if anything.

The same thing happened in New Zealand. 

All the governments regulatory agencies, including the department of mines  were gutted and restaffed with mouthpieces to spout the party line and slice the budget and we have ended up with a public service that has been emasculated and infantilised.

and a Prime Minister who thinks he is a real one!

And the Unions aren't much better. They all fell over to save jobs when they should have been attacking with all their strength.

They too got rid of anybody who knew anything and were  repositories of the institutional memory and swapped them for smart arsed lard asses on hardly davisons.

blechhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

anyway.

let Caesar look after those things which belong to Caesar.

Played one DVD from the Summer Of Love box set last night.

nine hundred days.

the time that Janis Joplin was with Big Brother and the Holding Company.

The fact is Big Brother were all untutored musicians but their music is something else!

like musical dude!

James Gurley was pulling sound out of his guitar and not just notes.

fantastic!

Combination of the Two has to be one of the greatest songs ever performed for sheer verve and energy.

I have never heard anything any better.

Suicide Redux
More guff in the rag this morning about suicide.
Much gnashing of teeth and debate on setting up an agency and the budget
(don't forget the budget)
What the mouthpieces don't seem to realise is that they may want to play ambulance driver but the real problem is a social distress syndrome and until this is investigated then they are just pissing into the wind.
a favourite kiwi pastime.