Guardian Issue 60

The Guardian Political Review Produced by the New Zealand Democratic Party for social credit Inc. Issue No.60

Winter 2011

ISSN1176-614X

Diamond Anniversary Issue Don't let the pirates plunder Christchurch An economy to benefit everyone The hogs have taken over the farm Politics, big business and human health

PLUS NEWS, REVIEWS, FEATURES & MORE

The Guardian Political Review

Issue 60, Winter 2011

Produced by Guardian Publishing on behalf of the N.Z. Democratic Party for social credit, PO Box 5164, Waikiwi, Invercargill 9843 Tel/Fax: 07 829 5157. Email: democrats@democrats.org.nz

Website: www.democrats.org.nz

Editor: Tony Cardy, 26 Warren Street, Oamaru 9400. Tel/Fax: 03 434 5523. E-mail: editor@guardian.org.nz Web: www.guardian.org.nz

EDITORIAL A sparkling occasion

This is our Diamond Anniversary issue ‐ No.60 in its present format.

Twenty‐three years ago, the Party’s Guardian publication was changed from a newspaper‐style broadsheet into the more compact A4 size Guardian Bulletin. This was at the instigation of Don Bethune, who edited the first issue in February 1988. In November 1988 the editorial baton was passed to the current editor. Five years later, the Bulletin suffix was dropped and in 2004 its changing style was reflected by the use of the present name.

The Guardian Political Review covers a wide spectrum of political material from New Zealand and overseas. In this issue we highlight the problems in Christchurch – and the solutions. Katherine Ransom shows how “Christchurch can be rebuilt without impoverishing the rest of us.”

Overseas, US President Barack Obama expresses concern about the level of US debt and declares: “doing nothing is not an option”.

Meanwhile, New Zealand continues to borrow and hope, and there are “clearly vast gaps in Prime Minister John Key’s experience” to deal with the situation.

John Pemberton hits the nail on the head: “Tried and tired Budgets such as Bill English presented shore up a global financial system that is no longer sustainable.”

But there is good news.

DSC leader Stephnie de Ruyter calls for a programme of new economics that would benefit everyone. “The debt crisis will be averted, we will be free to determine our own destiny, and our nation’s sovereignty will be secured.”

The Guardian Political Review is available on-line at www.guardian.org.nz Visitors to the site will be able to browse through this and previous issues of our frontline publication. Your feedback on presentation, ease of navigation and functionality is invited.

NOTE: The DSC Annual Conference will be held this year in Dunedin from 28th to 30th October. Details will be circulated to members.

CONTENTS 1 - Front Cover

15 - Report from Blackball

2 - Editorial

16 - Reviews (1)

3 - Leader's Message

17 - Reviews (2)

4 - John Pemberton + Executive List 4

10

11

5 - Katherine Ransom - Help Christchurch

18 - Adrian Bayly + Obituary 12

19 - Foreign Affairs + Helge Nome

6 - DSC News

20 - Media

7 - David Tranter

21 - World News

8 - Letters

22 - Whitmill's World (1)

9 - Don't let the pirates plunder Christchurch

19

23 - Whitmill's World (2)

10 - President Obama

24 - Colin Whitmill + Don Brash

11 - John Key

25 - News Bites (1)

12 - Eco-nomics + Carolyn McKenzie

26 - News Bites (2)

13 - The Savage Legacy (1)

27 - News Bites (3)

14 - The Savage Legacy (2) + Save Rail

Guardian Political Review, Issue 60, 2011 - Page 2

24

28 - Back cover

An economy to benefit everyone

By Stephnie de Ruyter Leader, Democrats for Social Credit

Draconian austerity measures introduced to fend off has risen dramatically with the New Zealand Debt economic collapse in heavily indebted Britain, Ireland, Management Office (NZDMO) alone issuing $20 billion of Greece, Portugal, and Spain, and the imminent debt this June financial year: that’s another $4,500 per introduction of the similar measures in many other person.

European countries could well be coming to a town near It is clear that this programme of excessive borrowing you, and sooner than you expect. is an unsustainable consequence of the banking system’s The murmurings of reassurance almost unlimited ability to uttered by our Prime Minister and We will be free to determine our increase cash in circulation by echoed by his Minister of Finance producing more interest‐bearing own destiny, and our nation’s debt. Debt servicing can, and amount to little more than a sovereignty will be secured paternal pat on the head to does, cripple national economies protect us from the hard truth. It and individual households alike. is after all election year, and New Zealanders have been And New Zealand is no exception. lulled carefully into a false sense of security.

It is equally clear that the present Government and New Zealand is heavily in debt and continues to the Opposition parties are bereft of any realistic plan for borrow vast sums. The weekly debt tally varies in line a genuine economic recovery. Instead, recent with requirements but can be anywhere between $350 announcements indicate the prospect of savage cuts to million per week, as it was for most weeks earlier this social spending, asset sales, retrenchment, and all the year, and $950 million per week. Borrowing on such a human misery those draconian measures produce. massive scale is not a formula for a secure future, no There is some good news though. The Democrats for matter how reassuringly the Minister of Finance Social Credit programme of new economics would presents his case. Debts must be repaid, with interest, jettison the present Government’s failing bank‐centred over a very long time. monetarism policies in favour of a social credit economy Alongside our debt, overseas investor demand remains designed to benefit everyone, not just the privileged strong: a record $2.8 billion was raised in March alone. few.

Foreign interests are viewing New Zealand assets with The cornerstone of our programme is to vest in an hungry eyes. Rumour has it that the China Investment independent authority which is answerable to Corporation may be intending to invest about $6 billion parliament, on behalf of the people, the authority to of its substantial foreign exchange reserves in New create, issue and cancel money the same way banks do, Zealand assets. Even our massive $16 billion deficit has instead of borrowing it from them. There is no reason failed to deter overseas interest in New Zealand bond why the government cannot finance itself to invest in issues and New Zealand assets, leaving us uncomfortably domestic production within the physical economy. Direct dependent on foreign borrowings and foreign government funding to build, repair, and maintain public investment to prop up an ailing, failing economy. infrastructure makes good sense as it would eliminate Fortunately, public concern is mounting over the level the need for tax or debt based funding ‐ a measure of Government borrowing and the growing burden of which is essential for the Christchurch rebuild. ever‐deepening public, private and household debt. It’s When New Zealanders control their own money no wonder people are worried: the average debt for supply the debt crisis will be averted, we will be free to each man, woman, and child in New Zealand was determine our own destiny, and our nation’s sovereignty calculated as at June 2010 to be $102,923. That figure will be secured.

Guardian Political Review - Issue 60, 2011 - Page 3

Budget 2011 - tried and tired

By John Pemberton (Deputy leader Democrats for Social Credit)

Yet another New Zealand Finance Minister, Bill English, has produced a Budget based on the misguided belief that problems can be solved by the same thinking used to create them. What is needed is a new form of economy monetary reform.

Democrats for Social Credit (DSC) monetary reform will address the deep problems caused by inequality of income, neglect of the environment and the debt slavery that characterises the present unsustainable economic paradigm. Bill English’s budget will have little effect on any of these issues other than making them worse.

Core to monetary reform is the New Zealand Monetary Authority (NZMA) that can provide and manage money as a public utility, for the economic, social and environmental benefit of New Zealand and its people. The current inefficient and expensive source of money borrowed from huge banking cartels will be replaced by an extremely efficient source ‐ the NZMA. The burden of compounding debt will be relieved through public ownership and control of the money supply. A DSC economy will be stable, equitable and prosperous, without damaging our environment or exhausting precious finite resources.

Monetary reform will deliver the wealth created by people’s work back into the community. New Zealand’s current real economy suffers from a lack of affordable capital. The 2008 recession was merely a symptom of the problem, as any capital available is directed to commercial banks and speculators, while business opportunities are lost, social services are cut, and people lose their jobs and homes.

The current tax system is unwieldy and unjust and should be reformed by progressively introducing a Financial Transactions Tax and a Foreign Transactions Surcharge. These will gather revenue more fairly, with the added benefit of repressing damaging speculative financial activity.

DSC will support business, promote community, relieve poverty and provide adequate incomes for all residents. We will reduce crime through better living standards, reduce pollution through sustainable innovation, and reduce the gap between rich and poor through enlightened economic policy.

A DSC reformed monetary system will recognise what is essential for a society to function successfully, and invest accordingly, in the public utilities of health care, education, energy, public transport, communications, the environment and most importantly, the money supply.

Existing assets will not need to be sold off to fund new infrastructure ‐ no more profits need be sent off overseas.

Tried and tired Budgets such as Bill English has presented shore up a global financial system that is no longer sustainable. With DSC monetary reform, we can have a country that is financially independent, socially cohesive and environmentally sound.

Democrats for Social Credit Executive Contacts Leadership: Leader Stephnie de Ruyter PO Box 5164, Waikiwi, Invercargill 9843 Ph/Fax; 03 215 7170 Mobile 027 442 4434 Email: democrats@democrats.org.nz Email: stephnie.deruyter@democrats.org.nz Deputy Leader John Pemberton PO Box 402, Matamata 3440 Ph 07 888 8564 Mobile 021 716 895 Email: iohn.pemberton@democrats.orq.nz Email: pemberi@slinqshot.co.nz Website: http://www.iohnpemberton.co.nz Biog: http://monetarviustice.blogspot.com Executive:

Auckland Region Neville Aitchison PO Box 113126, Newmarket, Auckland 1149 Mobile: 021 987 338 Email: neville.aitchison@democrats.orq.nz Waikato Region Les Port, c/o 19 Argyle St, Claudelands,Hamilton 3216 Mobile 021 725 791 Email: les.port@democrats.org.nz Email: dscwaikato@yahoo.co.nz Eastern Region Barry Pulford 17 Caernarvon Drive, Flaxmere, Hastings 4120 Ph 06 879 9497 Mobile 027 288 5658 Email: barry.pulford@democrats.org.nz Email: brp51@xtra.co.nz

Party President David Wilson PO Box 60, Paparoa 0543, Northland Ph 09 431 7004 Fax 09 431 8615 Mobile: 027 494 7862 Email: david.wilson@democrats.org.nz

Western Region Heather M. Smith 14 Broughton St, Wanganui East 4500 Ph/Fax 06 343 3038 Email: heather.smith@democrats.org. nz Email: heathermsmith@slingshot.co.nz

Vice-president Katherine Ransom PO Box 402, Matamata 3440 Ph 07 888 8564 Mobile 027 471 6891 Email: katherine.ransom@democrats.orq.nz Email: katransom@siinqshot.co.nz Blog: http://katherineransom.bioqspot.com

Wellington Region Mary Weddell 57 Shakespeare Ave, Upper Hutt 5018 Ph 04 971 7143 Fax 04 914 2405 Mobile 021 701 598 Email: mary.weddell@dernocrats,org.nz Email: weddell@paradise.net.nz

Northern & North Shore Regions John Rawson Lookout Hill, No. 8 R.D., Whangarei 0178 Ph 09 438 9265 Emafi: iohn.rawson@democrats.org.nz Email: iohngrawson@hotmail.com

Canterbury/West Coast-Tasman Regions Bob Fox 14 Charles St, Rangiora 7400 Ph 03 313 6774 Email: bob.fox@democrats.org.nz Email: foxhole@clear.net.nz

Guardian Political Review, Issue 60, 2011 - Page 4

Southern Region Bob Warren 1 Highcliff Rd, Andersons Bay, Dunedin 9013 Ph 03 454 3235 Email: bob.warren@democrats.org..nz Email: pabo@paradise.net.nz Party Secretary Peter Ferguson 21 Okoroire Street, Tirau 3410 Mobile 027 243 7365 Email: peter_ferquson@xtra.co.nz Ex Officio Positions: 'Guardian Political Review' Editor Tony Cardy 26 Warren Street, Oamaru 9400 Ph/Fax: 03 434 5523 Email: editor@guardian.org.nz Email: cardy@callsouth.net.nz Website: http://www.guardian.org.nz Secretarial Support Margaret Hook 393 Marychurch Rd, No. 4 R.D., Hamilton 3284 Ph 07 829 5157 Email: nzdp.inc@xtra.co.nz Committee Convenors: Finance Committee Ken Goodhue PO Box 6028, Otaika, Whangarei 0147 Ph: 09 430 3826 Email: kenandvalerie@xtra.co.nz Policy Committee Allen Cookson 230 Glentui-Bennetts Rd, Oxford 7471 Ph 03 312 4057 Email: asimco@farmside.co.nz Constitution Committee Neville Aitchison (refer Auckland Region entry)

Help Christchurch - and ourselves

By Katherine Ransom,

H

Vice-president, Democrats for social credit

owever you look at it, the damage to Christchurch is a tragic

boomers to save on future super payments may deepen poverty levels, and yet not claw in nearly enough to rebuild Christchurch.

disaster that will continue to affect all of us for a long time, and in many ways. Inevitably, economics raises its ugly head ‐ the cost of

Which begs the question: won’t squeezing the living standards of

rebuilding, the slowing of the economy due to so many businesses

middle and lower income households also ‘slow the economy’?

unable to trade, and the ways we are all going to have to pay.

Money was invented to facilitate trade. Anything that needs doing

Before the latest big quake hit, the Prime Minister had raised the

for the public good, where there are people and materials sufficient

issue of asset sales. Now, asset sales are one avenue the Govern‐

for the work, should not be held back for lack of money. DSC members and other monetary reformers know this. If we can find

ment will consider to pay for rebuilding Christchurch, along with raising the earthquake levy and trimming social programmes such as

the physical resources and manpower needed to rebuild Christchurch

Working for Families. Rejected was the suggestion that last year's tax

and care for its people, money can and should be available to make

cuts should be reversed, cuts that put the most money into the

it happen.

pockets of those on higher incomes, including our Prime Minister. This move, it was claimed, would tend to 'slow the

Christchurch can be rebuilt without impoverishing the rest of us

economy'.

Many of us recall with dismay the asset sales of the previous century, an orgy of fire sales that gutted our railroad system, turned our publicly owned postal and telephone service into a lolly scramble monopoly for the benefit of wealthy overseas shareholders, and threw a spanner of confusion into our once reliable and cost‐ effective electricity supply. The earlier attempt to privatise ACC attracted both an insurance company feeding frenzy and a public outcry that the Government of the day could not ignore.

No doubt the current Government intends making smaller moves towards flogging off our assets, to give us all time to get used to increasing economic colonisation. We hear grim warnings of Government debt, and happy references to ‘Mum and Dad' investors owning shares, but the truths are these: 'Publicly owned assets' means we the people already own them, and Mum and Dad shouldn't need to buy shares.

People with spare money to invest are dwindling in number anyway.

Selling even part of an income‐earning utility company means less income for the Government.

Government debt may be slightly reduced by selling assets, but private and corporate debt, already unsustainably high, will increase.

Wherever the debt lies, we all pay for it through the prices of goods and services, which keep going up.

Those few who have invested will soon be pressured to sell out to large overseas corporations, for lack of local buyers (think Crayfer Farms).

Before long, all assets, resources and essential services will be foreign owned, and corporate colonisation will be complete. We will be tenants in our own country.

Meanwhile, the paring of early childhood funding, the squeezing of solo parents and beneficiaries and the demonising of the baby

Guardian Political Review, Issue 60, 2011 - Page 5

As yet, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand is still in public hands. As it shored up the commercial banks during the 2008 credit crunch, the RBNZ has the

capability to issue credit lines and even debtfree funding for the emergency in Christchurch. In fact, the RBNZ creates and issues money already, in the form of notes and coins. An electronic version of this money creation could be issued, not to onsell to commercial banks, but to the Treasury in aid of Christchurch.

This sort of cash injection has a number of beneficial effects: There is no increase in debt levels.

Jobs are created and more people employed.

More employment has better health outcomes for families.

The Government takes more in revenue, and pays less in welfare costs.

More spending power benefits small and medium businesses, which in turn can employ more staff (see points 2 and 4).

Christchurch can be rebuilt without impoverishing the rest of us.

It is a shame that the tragedy of Christchurch, instead of inspiring the Government to visionary leadership and creative solutions, is being used as an excuse to levy more tax, bring in draconian austerity measures and sell off our lucrative utility businesses to multinational corporations.

For further information on Emoney, go to: http://sustento.org.nz/wp‐content/uploads/2007/05/A‐New‐Financial‐Deal‐for‐ Christchurch1.pdf

NEWS Chris Leitch ‐ New Life Member During her visit to Whangarei in February, Leader Stephnie de Ruyter took the opportunity to confer on Chris Leitch the well‐deserved award of DSC Life Member.

In the early days of the (then) Social Credit Political League, activity in Auckland was minimal but in 1963 Chris' father, John Leitch achieved a four‐figure vote with just one assistant, Bill Bicknell, by knocking on the door of most of the houses in the Electorate. Chris also remembers helping his father run the Newmarket “Housie” sessions from the age of about ten onwards.

Like some other prominent early second generation Party supporters, as a teenager he tried to find fault with his parents beliefs and found himself unable to do so. This process was invaluable for dealing with difficult questions later as a Candidate.

From 1972 he became an active worker for the Party in Whangarei, where his family then resided. He was active in running the Housie there from about 1974 on, usually as a caller.

Chris went overseas to the UK in 1979 and returned in 1980, in which year he assisted our Candidate Joe Toia in the Northern Maori byelection following Matt Rata’s resignation from the Labour Party.

In 1981 he became President of the Whangarei Branch and then Candidate for the 1984 and 1987 campaign efforts. A high point in 1984 was a parade of about seventy supporters’ cars through the city with many carrying large signs on frames designed and built by member Frank Weck. Chris polled well, but, as in so many other areas, never passed beyond third place in the results. In 1984 he was one of the executive members of “Polex”, the official political wing of the party under Bruce Beetham.

In 1988 Chris switched to the administrative side of the Party, becoming President of the Northland/North Shore Division. The next year, while still living in Whangarei he became national President of the Party, carrying out that duty until he became Alliance Candidate for the Tamaki byelection in 1992, after the Party joined that organisation in 1991 and after he had moved to Auckland. In that election he polled a good second.

During his term of office, several momentous events occurred.

With Harry and Heather Smith, he organised a detailed and powerful presentation that was taken to almost every local Council in the country promoting better means of funding for them from Reserve Bank loans. A visit was organised for Bob Blain from Illinois and Prof.

John Hotson from Ontario, both noted monetary reformers. Chris also acted as the outside liaison person and organiser for Garry Knapp’s “sit‐in” in Parliament.

During the same period he was actively working at Housie events three times a week in different parts of Auckland.

Stephnie de Ruyter congratulating Chris after awarding him DSC Life Membership

Chris opposed the gradual transformation of an innovative alliance of parties to just another top‐dominated old‐style political party. In a speech, later printed in the Guardian, he demanded that the party had the right to express its monetary reform policies. He stated that, if all other constituent parties could actively promulgate their specialities but we could not, perhaps the Democrats had no place in the Alliance.

In 1993 he became Deputy Leader of the Party under John Wright for one term, and thereafter concentrated on his business supplying and servicing copiers in Auckland, maintaining his Membership of the Party but otherwise staying in the background.

In 2006 he returned to Whangarei with his second wife Anne, where they run the Instep Dance Studio, serving Whangarei and other centres in the North. They have recently moved into a new building “downtown” and have put in a large sprung floor, using tawa timber from the central North Island.

Chris became active in the 2008 campaign in Whangarei. He printed leaflets that would have cost thousands of dollars if done professionally, and he took turns accompanying Candidate Ken Goodhue, who called on most small or medium sized businesses in the Electorate. (See separate report in this issue).

We in the North congratulate him on the long‐overdue recognition of his massive efforts for this Party.

J.G.Rawson

Left: Whilst in Whangarei, Stephnie de Ruyter met the Acting Mayor of Whangarei District Council Forum North, Phil Halse. They discussed alternative funding options for local authorities - about money borrowed from RBNZ being cheaper than other sources - the impact of interestbearing debt on ratepayers' pockets, and the economic necessity of building, maintaining and upgrading essential infrastructure.

Right: Round (tea) table discussion, l.to.r: Alan McGladdery, Stephnie de Ruyter and John Rawson (DSC Northern Region president) All photos by Ken Goodhue

Guardian Political Review, Issue 60, 2011 - Page 6

Politics, Big Business and Human Health

By David Tranter

B.Ed.(Oxon),B.A. (Canty), DSC Health Spokesperson

I

’m currently reading Bill Bryson’s delightful book, 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' which, as the title suggests, is a rapid journey through the entire history of the planet. Apart from the remarkable range of information given I’m finding that it prompts all sorts of philosophical thoughts about why and how we (the human race) come to be here ‐ and of how many dangers lurk along the way. Add such recent calamities in just our part of the world ranging from the Australian fires, floods and cyclones, to the Pike River disaster and on‐going earthquake tragedy in Christchurch and the uncertainties of life seem particularly prevalent at present.

But what has especially struck me in Bryson’s book so far is that quite apart from the sort of tragedies mentioned above, there has always existed an alarming tendency for politicians and big business to connive in perpetrating horrendous acts on people in order to make profits ‐ by fair means or foul.

Bill Bryson Yes, I know it’s nothing new to say that ‐ but it’s the lengths to which those criminal ‐ and I use the word advisedly ‐ acts were, and still are, being perpetrated which horrifies me anew.

Consider just one such agenda, the long‐term political and big‐business cover‐up concerning the effects of lead in the atmosphere resulting from its use in petrol. In the U.S. studies of the effects of lead were funded for many decades exclusively by the manufacturers of lead additives. Bogus studies repeatedly gave lead a clean bill of health. Eventually a scientist, Clair Patterson, found from studying ice cores that prior to 1923 there was almost no lead in the atmosphere but that after this date lead levels escalated dangerously with 90 percent of it coming from car exhausts. Subsequently, Patterson's research funding disappeared with both the American Petroleum Institute and the Government Health Service cancelling his research contracts. Despite all this and other pressures to discredit Patterson he persisted and in Bryson’s words, “his efforts led to the introduction of the Clean Air Act of 1970 and finally to the removal from sale of all leaded petrol in Dangerous the U.S. in 1986. lead levels Almost immediately lead levels in the blood of Americans fell by 80 percent. But because lead is for ever, Americans alive today have about 625 times more lead in their blood than people did a century

Guardian Political Review, Issue 60, 2011 - Page 7

ago“. Remarkably the Ethyl Corporation, one of the long‐term deceivers in this matter, continued as late as 2001, ”to contend that David Tranter research has failed to show that leaded gasoline poses a threat to human health or the environment”.

For lead in petrol read fluoride in water supplies, 1080 in water catchment areas ‐ or whatever dirty political/business deal comes to mind. Right now there is huge anger amongst Australian rural communities whose land is being invaded by the coal gas extraction industry which, with licence from government, can simply walk onto land and start their exploratory wells involving a process called “fracking” whereby

"Fracking"

vast quantities of water, sand and chemicals are injected into coal seams under high pressure resulting in huge quantities of contaminated water having to be disposed of and, in Australia, posing an unknown risk to that most crucial of natural assets here, the Great Artesian Basin. It gets worse ‐ figures for the number of wells proposed vary from a staggering 40,000 to 60,000 and according to a recent ABC Television investigation not one of the 23 chemicals being used has been assessed against Australian standards while the mining companies are refusing to say what the chemicals are.

And the only significant opposition is coming ‐ of course ‐ from un‐funded communities faced with the immediate threat to their livelihoods including their vital artesian water supplies.

I conclude by repeating one of the concerns I have always had about the notion that if the financial system is fixed ‐ everything will be fine and dandy. Fixing the ethical standards of big business and politics is a hugely greater task than merely fixing the economic system. And we all need to participate.

WE HAVE MAIL IF EVER THERE WAS A TIME I am currently on a break in Italy. The earthquake happened just the day before I left and was very shocking news.

Of course I am thinking, now as the imme‐ diate event has happened and work is still under way in the aftermath, as I'm sure are many of you, of the enormous rebuilding programme that faces the people of Christchurch.

If ever there was a time for no‐interest Reserve Bank loans this surely is it! I can't imagine how the people are feeling as it is, let alone facing the physical effort and the cost involved in restoring their broken lives.

I shall be interested if any effort can be made to persuade whoever to consider this type of help.

Eugenie Round‐Turner, London

CREATION OF CURRENCY I enclose a copy of the third draft of the proposed Bank of England (Creation of Currency) Bill, hot off the press.

Anything you can do to raise its profile would be most appreciated.

Alistair McConnachie, U.K. (See item on News page 25)

BEN DYSON I enjoy your website now, as well as the excellent hard copy you so generously sent.

Do you know about the work of Ben Dyson: http://www.positivemoneyu.org.uk/?

He recently held a student conference and it was fully booked well before the day on which it was held.

Best wishes for your excellent editorial work in 2011.

Barbara Panvel, U.K.

SUSTAINABILITY Just because some political parties claim to have sustainable environmental policies does not mean they have sustainable financial poli‐ cies to match.

Since hearing Greens leader, Russell Norman, on radio's "Morning Report" I am now doubly certain that only Democrats for Social Credit offers the NZ voter an ethical, legal and practical financial system which does not need to sacrifice our natural re‐ sources to service debt.

Mr Norman not only advocated a tax rise but assured listeners that the capital markets will be willing to make loans for rebuilding Christchurch. As an MP surely he knows that there is legislation in place right now whereby we could call on Reserve Bank credit‐lines at 1% or less for funding reconstruction. That's sustainable. Mr Nor‐ man's "solutions" are not!

Harry Alchin‐Smith, Gisborne

FORESHORE AND SEABED The foreshore and seabed is the birthright and common heritage of all New Zealanders equally, and as such should be held in Crown ownership in perpetuity. John Key's failure to keep his promise that this Bill would not Guardian Political Review, Issue 60, 2011 - Page 8

proceed if the public did not support it again demonstrates politicians' trickery and self‐in‐ terest as well as highlighting what many New Zealanders feel about another policy bitterly opposed by those who see through its deceptions.

Equally reprehensible are National MPs who displayed utter cowardice by privately admitting they did not support the Bill while publicly turning their backs on their constitu‐ ents to vote for it. Clearly, they are under the misapprehension that they are there to rep‐ resent government to the people rather than vice versa.

The immediate battle has been lost but there are those who believe this legislation can be ‐ and will be ‐ repealed via a Citizens Initiated Referendum. It is clearly time that binding referenda were introduced in New Zealand as have worked so successfully in Switzerland.

David Tranter, Queensland

COASTAL CONCERN I understand that the New Zealand Demo‐ cratic Party is very concerned about the en‐ croaching foreign control of New Zealand.

We would like to bring to your attention the Government's Marine and Coastal Areas Bill, which will take the entire coast and seabed out of public ownership.

We hope that your Party will oppose this massive handover of public resources. A book on the subject, The Gathering Storm, has been written by Dr Hugh Barr*.

John McLean, Wellington (*Available from trosspublishing@hotmail.co.nz)

OUT OF TUNE There is not one human being on this planet who can ‘save’ daylight. Changing the clock is just another ‘con’ and falsehood in the system. Cooked up by politicians in the city, forcing families to get up in the fog and frost, then burn in the midday sun. Mad dogs for sure. What quality of life is there being out of tune? Daylight ‘Saving’ must go!

Peter Clark, Hawarden

IF If government chooses the austerity route as was done in the Great Depression and is being repeated around the world, there will be massive unemployment, mortgage fore‐ closures and business failures. In short the economy will perform below its physical capacity.

If government were to reduce incomes, existing contracts, and debts by overriding legislation, those problems would be avoided, but the present generation would bear all the cost of the crisis.

If government borrowed without interest by using its power to create money via the Reserve Bank (the idea of Social Credit and a few reputable economists), people would pay by inflation, if the created money were spent on running costs, but less than by borrowing with the extra cost of interest.

If it were spent on investment (e.g. energy infrastructure, human capital ‐ education, etc.) there would be inflation for a time, then increased real wealth, including lower real prices as benefits from the investments flowed into the community. Insofar as the created money were spent on imports, there would be the possibility of inflationary depre‐ ciation of the currency, but that tendency is greater with the government's present policy of borrowing at interest.

Allen Cookson, Oxford

THE YEAR FOR ACTION I found this photo among my family records and thought you would be interested.

My aunt Clare and George Geddes convinced me about social credit.

I feel this is the year for action for Demo‐ crats for Social Credit. On radio talk‐back people ring in dissatisfied with the present situation.

Ivan Geddes, Oamaru

THE FOURTH OPTION Sincere thanks for continuing to send me The Guardian Political Review. I am still talking and writing about government created money and the benefits of it. My latest effort is 'The Fourth Option' (extract follows): There must be people working to earn money to buy products, needed services, own homes and pay necessary taxes. Sales and income taxes, along with real estate taxes are the life blood that supports states and local governments.

To generate the millions of jobs needed, I propose a massive infrastructure program be‐ cause it is needed throughout the country.

The federal government can fund this pro‐ gram by creating the money, debt free and interest free.

In 1999, I wrote the draft of a bill intro‐ duced in the U.S. House of Representatives, to have Congress create the money to fund an identical program as suggested above but for "interest free loans" rather than "grants".

This proposal can definitely be put into action.

Ken Bohnsack, Freeport, IL., USA

Mrs C.C. Geddes being awarded a long service medal by Social Credit Political League president, Mr Stefan Lipa, who said that for 50 years since joining the Oamaru branch when it was formed in 1933 Mrs Geddes has worked for the party of her choice. (Oamaru Mail 1983) Letters or emails should be sent to The Guardian Political Review, 26 Warren Street, Oamaru 9400, NZ. Tel/Fax: 03 434 5523. E-mail: editor@guardian.org.nz The editor reserves the right to edit or abridge. The views expressed are not necessarily those of the editor or the NZ Democratic Party for Social Credit.

Don't let the pirates plunder Christchurch

By Colin J Whitmill

Having been in Christchurch for the 7.1 September quake, the dreadful events of 22 February easily renewed in me the stress and fears I had felt then. Anxiety for those I know there came to the fore.

After the time for grief, loss, and bewilderment for individuals, and the hope that the land will settle and no longer bring spasms of terror each time it moves, there will come a time for planning and reconstruction.

Regrettably at this time of vulnerability, financial pirates are planning to plunder what assets remain for Cantabrians.

Christchurch City Council, on behalf of the people, owns various commercial enterprises and utilities whose activities reduce the financial burden on ratepayers by 15%.

Now the Business Roundtable is urging Christchurch City Council to sell off its shareholdings to private groups to raise money for the necessary reconstruction of the city.

status‐quo that any positive proposal they may have is doomed to failure.

Their co‐leader, Russell Norman even expressed on radio's Morning Report an expression of confidence in the willingness of the capital markets to offer loans for Christchurch.

Loans? Loans from capital markets? Is Mr Norman proposing that the financial looters should have a free hand in devastated Christchurch?

There is another way. A way so obvious, so positive, so forward‐ looking that Cantabrians could explore the ideas of rebuilding their homes, their businesses, their schools, their churches and their cultural buildings without the fear of the monetary curse enslaving them.

This is nothing less than financial piracy. Looting the city of its assets to make gains for themselves, these pirates see a good killing at a time of despair for many.

Mr Norman and all the other status‐quo financial system adherents have yet to realise that the way to get the money to rebuild Christchurch doesn't have to be by taxing people, borrowing money from the banking system and paying their interest or by selling vital public assets or utilities to line the pockets of the wealthy.

To suggest the proposal is based on "sound public policy analysis" is a ludicrous rationalising of its planned activities. Have these people no shame?

By changing New Zealand's money and credit creation system, our financial system could be used to benefit us all, not just a few speculators and finance industry insiders wherever they live.

While the Green Party has made a proposal to add further tax to those who are fortunate to have a job to pay for reconstruction, rather than the greedy approach of looting, this response shows just how tied to the status‐quo financial system that group is. It is incapable of thinking "outside the box" and is so wedded to the

If we can plan it, if we can build it, if we have the materials, if we have the time, and if we have the skilled people, we can pay for it ‐ without the curse and burden of seemingly endless interest charges.

It's not an ever rising mountain of debt we want to build, but a new vibrant wonderful Christchurch!

So where is the problem? By Dennis Dorney New Zealand has surplus labour (the unemployed) and yet we claim to have insufficient money to do the job, unless we increase taxes. How can this be? All work, goods and services can be measured by their labour costs — that's what wages mean — so where is the money that the labour has created? Gone to the banks to drawn down debt, of course. And where did the debt come from?

Our money was created as debt by the banks, so is it surprising that we have a shortage?

It has been pointed out several times in the Otago Daily Times by

Guardian Political Review, Issue 60 - Page 9

Bob Warren, regional spokesman of Democrats for Social Credit, that the Reserve Bank can create money to meet our capital needs. The regeneration of Christchurch would surely be at the top of any imaginable capital works programme and the work generated would give New Zealand's economy the boost it needs to avoid sinking into recession again.

So where is the problem?

Published in the Otago Daily Times 1/3/11 (extract) Dennis Dorney is DSC candidate for Dunedin South

From The White House

Remarks by the President on Fiscal Policy George Washington University From our first days as a nation, we have put our faith in free markets and free enterprise as the engine of America's wealth and prosperity.

But as far back as the 1980s, America started amassing debt at alarming levels, and our leaders began to realize that a larger challenge was on the horizon.

America had to start borrowing less and saving more.

We incre a se d spending dramatically for two wars and an expensive prescription drug program. But we didn't pay for any of this new spending.

Instead, we made the problem worse with trillions of dollars in tax cuts that went to every millionaire and billionaire in the country; tax cuts that will force us to borrow an average of $500 billion every year over the next decade.

Now, ultimately, all this rising debt will cost us jobs and damage our economy. It will prevent us from making the investments we need to win the future. We won't be able to afford good schools, new research, or the repair of roads — ail the things that create new jobs and businesses here in America. Businesses will be less likely to invest and open shop in a country that seems unwilling or unable to balance its books. And if our creditors start worrying that we may be unable to pay back our debts, that could drive up in‐ terest rates for every‐ body who borrows money ‐‐ making it harder for businesses to expand and hire, or families to take out a mortgage It paints a vision of our future that is deeply pessimistic. It’s a vision that says if our roads crumble and our bridges collapse, we can’t afford to fix them.

It's a vision that says that 10 years from We found ourselves now, if you're a 65‐ deeply in debt and un‐ year‐old who's eligible prepared for a Baby f o r Medicare, you Boom retirement that should have to pay is now starting to take nearly $6,400 more place. than you would today.

When I took office, It says, instead of guar‐ our projected deficit, anteed health care, you annually, was more will get a voucher. And The interest that we owe on our debt could rise to nearly $1 trillion. than $1 trillion. On if that voucher isn't Think about that. That's the interest ‐ just the interest payments top of that, we faced worth enough to buy a terrible financial crisis and a recession that led us to borrow even the insurance that's available in the open marketplace, well, tough more. luck — you're on your own.

Our government will spend more money than it takes in through‐ out this decade and beyond. That means we'll have to keep borrow‐ ing more from countries like China. That means more of your tax dollars each year will go towards paying off the interest on all the loans that we keep taking out.

And worst of all, this is a vision that says even though Americans can't afford to invest in education at current levels, or clean energy, even though we can't afford to maintain our commitment on Medi‐ care and Medicaid, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy. Think about that.

By the end of this decade, the interest that we owe on our debt could rise to nearly $1 trillion.

In the last decade, the average income of the bottom 90 percent of all working Americans actually declined. Meanwhile, the top 1 percent saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each.

Think about that. That's the interest ‐ just the interest payments.

The situation will get even worse. By 2025, the amount of taxes we currently pay will only be enough to finance our health care programs ‐ Medicare and Medicaid ‐ Social Security, and the interest we owe on our debt. That's it. Every other national priority — education, transportation, even our national security — will have to be paid for with borrowed money.

Guardian Political Review, Issue 60, 2011 - Page 10

But doing nothing on the deficit is just not an option. Our debt has grown so large that we could do real damage to the economy if we don't begin a process now to get our fiscal house in order.

Extract from The White House Press Secretary release April 13, 2011

John Key - the Smiling Assassin?

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key joined Merrill Lynch in London in 1995 as global head of foreign exchange. 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.

(Wikipedia)

selling the New Zealand dollar heavily.

Once the currency had found what he Special report on National leader John Key 3/02/08 believed to be a floor, he bought again at a much lower price, making a profit John Key used to work hand in glove on the transaction. The bet was said to with the foreign bankers who led raids be more than the entire money supply on the New Zealand dollar. Now a man of New Zealand. Krieger's outrageous who has spent most of his career out of bet made hundreds of millions of dollars the public gaze wants to run the for Bankers Trust, economy. In a special report, London's Financial Times and the Sunday But Key managed to make Star‐Times shed new light on “I think I'm fundamentally a nice guy, himself appear relatively Key's former life as a London inoffensive to the widest possible but have to follow instructions" currency trader. number of people. Perhaps this makes him bland, indeed, one former currency raids. The monetary rewards 20 years ago, he worked closely with trader describes him as "a bit of a a famed currency trader who mounted a were immense. Yearly bonus payments clone". He is likely, too, to have gained for top traders are worth many times brutal speculative attack on the Kiwi an extra layer of blankness from his the base salary. In London Key would dollar. The attack, which has entered training as a trader. Traders must learn have been earning $US2.25 million a forex (foreign exchange) trading legend the art of the poker face, to show no year. for its scale, audacity and profitability, prompted Reserve Bank alarm that the He formed what was to be a lucrative emotion even in extreme situations, and to guard their inner self. currency would collapse. relationship with 32‐year‐old currency Bankers don't always take a broad trader Andy Krieger, based at Bankers It was a world in which Key moved view of things. They focus on money, Trust in New York, who began putting easily, swimming with the financial and are not necessarily rewarded for sharks. And while every other contender hundreds of millions of dollars of taking a long view. There are clearly vast business through Key's dealing room. for the job of prime minister in New gaps in Key's own experience, too.

Zealand has lived their life on the public Krieger was the man who a few months earlier had entered forex legend with a stage, either as a politician or on the Quote: margins of public life, Key's pivotal adult massive speculative raid on the kiwi. As “I think I'm fundamentally a nice guy, Krieger later explained in his book The years have been entirely offstage.

Money Bazaar, he believed the kiwi was but have to follow instructions."

But what did this bland and amicable (www.scoop.co.nz) overvalued, and began betting on a fall, fellow really do during his wonderful career? What were his values? And what does it tell us about his ability to lead the country?

The 46‐year‐old glosses over his past as a money trader before he entered parliament in 2002. Instead he talks vaguely about having had "some pretty senior managerial jobs here and overseas". No mention there of daring

Tremain, Otago Daily Times

Guardian Political Review, Issue 60 - Page 11

COMMENT

Extract from a paper supplied by DSC member Mr P. C. Clark (Canterbury)

Since the world‐wide banking system overwhelmingly functions on the usury (interest) system, this can bring into focus what types of money exist. Real or unreal.

The French word 'mortgage' actually translates as 'death by choking' Quran says "Trade is permitted, usury is forbidden".

The usury system relies on time‐restricted loan repayments which usually pressure the grower or producer into the cheap‐skate junk food treadmill of chemical fertiliser, hormones, drugs and pesticides, etc., for quick short‐term profit to repay their bank at the expense of the environment For example, an organic grower will treasure post‐harvest grain stubbles to incorporate back into the earth as humus, fertiliser, worm and microbial food, etc, whereas a non‐organic grower will usually conduct a dirty burn‐off polluting the sky, consuming massive amounts of oxygen, incinerating beneficial insects, disrupting the ecological web and eroding soil fertility for future generations. In order to hurry up and get the next crop in to pay back the bank interest payment deadline.

If Mankind considered Time to be a precious resource like Earth, Air and Water, there would be less haste, waste and rush to destruction.

Organic growers and producers know full well the importance of Time in their budgets and calculations. Organic culture is real‐world

production combining ECO plus NOMICS, whereas the non‐organic grower usually relies on NOMICS (numbers) only in the usury monetary system.

Quran not only allows and promotes organics but prohibits non‐organics. There are many other examples that refer to rainfall, fruit and vegetables, soil science, etc.

The use of sodium fluoroacetate (1080) as a method of wild animal control would be outlawed because of the suffering death it causes to its victims.

In Islam there is a long list of prohibited food additives and/or preservatives. The main problem with the current food additive and preservative regime is how does the average person know what E455 actually is on their plate? Without having a Degree or Diploma in Food Technology how do we know? The current numbers‐system code should be made to include the chemical formula (in words) of what the additive actually is. There should also be a minimum size of print, so that labels can be easily read. This would be an honest system behind which manufacturers would not be able to hide.

Where can we go from here? A great leap forward would occur if the organic certification and auditing process was funded by the Department of Health. This would enable organic producers to lower their shelf prices. That, in turn, would allow a new segment of population into organic

purchases. It would also stimulate and encourage new growers and new organic conversions.

The introduction and expansion of existing gardens in schools, colleges and universities would help young people have the choice of 'green fingers'. At the end of the day you can't eat your books or computer printouts!

What's the use of your education if you don't know how to grow your own food?

Future planning by District Councils needs to include land set aside for allotments or community gardens that are so successful elsewhere in the world, Establishment of International and Islam Green Bank (IGB) to fund true ECO projects that should NOT be subject to normal lending criteria. IMG's can function at a concrete 1% interest rate (cover charge) to supply infrastructure and administration costs.

This would be a great step forward for the purity and health of Mankind, plus the planet on which we all live.

How did education become a business?

As I watch the bright‐faced little ones heading off to school I am reminded that each child represents a universe of possibilities and the responsibility is ours that none slips past without their potential being fully explored.

I look to our leaders, most of whom received a fully funded tertiary education and compla‐ cently demonise today's youth for the $60,000 of student debt they must incur for their education, I look at young families who discover a $2000 "voluntary contribution" at primary school level must be met or their child is excluded from class Carolyn McKenzie activities.

This comes hard on top of uniforms which often are priced as high as $700 for a complete outfit and must have the school insignia inside (no cheap remakes or recycled from another school with the same colours). If you have four children, all this becomes a stiff bill to pay.

My question is this: how did education become a business that needs to pay for itself plus show a profit?

Which of you politicians are ready to take the challenge and provide

Guardian Political Review, Issue 60 - Page 12

By Carolyn McKenzie

for the next generation what was so generously provided for you: a fully funded education.

(Above published in the Waikato Times 10/2/11)

I recently watched with interest the Prime Minister's response to a question as to what could be done for the poor; those on the limited income of government benefits or unemployment. His comment was..."When being a beneficiary is your lifestyle choice, you will learn to live within your budget' I wondered about what choices an individual might make, when the financial power brokers ruptured the global economy and bankrupted 55 thousand New Zealanders last year. I am guessing that if one has significant investments in those international banks (who form part of the "traditional sources" from which one's government borrows considerable amounts of money) the greater the country's debt; the larger one's personal wealth would become!

Then also, if being unaccountable is your lifestyle choice, you will learn that being Prime Minister comes easy.

Carolyn McKenzie is DSC Education Spokesperson, Arts & Culture Spokes‐ person, and Hamilton East Electorate Candidate. (See item on News p.26)

The Savage Legacy A challenge to the New Zealand Labour Party to discard the blinkers which have blinded it to the greatness of the first Labour Administration (1935 to 1940).

By Harry Alchin‐Smith

T

he economic state of New Zealand in the 1930’s was in a similar position to that in which we now find ourselves. The nation was facing massive national indebtedness and untenable unemployment.

Michael Joseph Savage in his first major speech to Parliament as leader of the opposition in 1933, surprised listeners as he covered the relationship between Labour and Social Credit. He noted that there were differences between the two, albiet minor differences, rather than fundamentals, but he believed that:

markets and the great money steal that is with us all the time under modern monetary policy, it makes one almost favour gaol as a happy alternative”.

Athough not academically trained (fortunately) in economics, Savage under‐ stood perfectly what is, in economic jargon, the production function i.e. production is a function of demand; and employment (of labour and resources) is a function of production. Social Creditors have always understood and advocated this axiom.

In December 1936 the first state house contracts were advertised. New Zealand materials were to be used as far as possible and quality was to be a paramount consideration. Despite the reservations of Walter Nash, Treasury and the Reserve Bank, Savage insisted that low interest Reserve Bank credit was to be used to finance State Houses. £5 million was made available at an interest rate of 1% initially. In the following four years Labour built 6459 State Houses and let contracts for a further 3894.

The National Party opposition was astonished by the use of Reserve Bank credit for housing which disregarded traditional principles of budget finance.

“the real issue of this election was monetary reform”

“The Douglas Credit people want to control the credit and currency of New Zealand. They say that credit and currency belong to the people. They say that the people should benefit to the full extent of what they produce. We say that too”.

Both argued that our banking system should be controlled by the New Zealand government on behalf of the people and not by private banks on behalf of overseas owners.

Any suggestion that Savage was naive in his understanding of money matters is easily dispelled. He was extremely well read on economics. After his death it was revealed that amongst his substantial library were more than forty books on economics, from authors of all political persuasions from Karl Marx to Irving Fisher and John Maynard Keynes.

There has been no New Zealand Premier before or since with a greater understanding of money matters than Michael Joseph Savage.

Throughout his political life he reiterated what was his basic economic theme as he expounded in his 1933 debate speech: “I’m going to admit right away that cheap money is an essential element in recovery, but I am not going to say it is the most important element in recovery ... We want money in the hands of the people who have to buy things, for, unless it gets there it is useless... I want it to reach the wage earners now. It is not a question of more production, it is a question of consumption”.

In a letter to his niece in Australia he wrote: “When one thinks about the rigging of the

Guardian Political Review, Issue 60 - Page 13

The most exciting aspect of the type of financial system envisaged by Savage is the effect on production inputs and outputs.

American economist, Richard C. Cook has written recently “social credit is a public good.”

Believing that only the “big things” mattered and unwilling to waste time and energy in playing traditional parliamentary games, Savage decided that Labour M.P’s would take no part in any debates unless they were concerned with specific proposals to relieve the Depression, preferably by accepting his suggestion to reverse deflationary policies by carefully using the public credit (social credit).

During his 1935 election campaign, Savage and other Labour speakers stressed that “the real issue of this election was monetary reform” (social credit). Sufficient money should be made available, he argued ‘for everyone to exchange goods and services with each other without paying tribute to a third party’ (the banks).

Gordon Coates, former prime minister and cabinet minister in the defeated government, bewailing Labour’s victory in 1935, argued that: “The first and most important factor” was the influence of monetary reform,, especially Social Credit ideas. Coates believed Social Credit had swayed the votes of up to 200,000 people because ‐ “the belief of those supporting Social Credit is fervent and secular in its appeal. It is the most difficult movement to counter that I can imagine ... this by far the greatest factor in the recent election”.

Former Prime Minister Forbes admitted to Downey Stewart, his minister of finance: “This places them (the government) in a unique position, the houses after erection carry non capital cost, and for instance a £1,000 house can be let for five shillings a week and be a financial success... The millennium has seemed to have arrived and it makes one wonder why we had to struggle in the bog when there was such an easy way out of our troubles. Houses after being built with the highest paid workers in the world, at the lowest cost heard of, makes our policies of orthodox finance seem almost pre‐ historic.

The building of houses was just one part of the country’s re‐construction. Using the same financial mechanism, more than £8,000,000 was immediately designated to infrastructure development.

Sir Tom Skinner of the Federation of Labour, during the 1960’s and 1970’s, recalls in his biography, “Man to Man”: “I was with Joe Savage on one occasion when he began to chat about the ramifica‐ tions of the government State Housing scheme... how the construction of these houses created assets in a productive way.

The government created the money through the Reserve Bank at moderate interest rates to cover the contract price, which paid for materials, tradesmens wages, the purchase and development of the land and all other essential items to finish the house. On completion the house was transfered from (Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous page)

the Public Works Dept to the State Advances Corp....

“The philosophy ... was that the money was created for productive purposes ...meanwhile, during construction, tradesmen had been paid wages which had been paid wages which had been spent and absorbed into the economy. But it was solid money backed by the creation of assets.

“I suddenly began to grasp the Labour philosophy related to the creation of credit ... figuratively speaking, they could rub a state house debt out of the books because a building stood in its place. But money created by the banks in order to create profits in the form of interest. is the other side of the coin, which is unproductive, and inflationary.

“I have read and believe that money mis‐ management is the greatest evil of our time.

Governments should take the necessary steps to reform the monetary system. ... unfortunately, in this area politicians seem to be abysmally ignorant of elementary financial and economic truths”.

In 1977, speaking to the Catholic University of Louvain, Alan Greenspan former Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States of America; on “Central Banking and global finance” said: “Where there is confidence in the integrity of Government, monetary authorities can issue unlimited claims denominated in their own currencies or stand the obligations of private issuers as they see fit. Central Banks can issue currency as a non‐interest bearing claim on the government, effectively without limit.”

Throughout the world there is as growing resurgence of academic support for the kind of economic reform advocated by Social

Credit and the first Labour Administration.

So what happened within the Labour Party that led to the abandonment of Labour’s reforming zeal and its reform of the whole banking system? Its decline in the use of Reserve Bank money creation?

Firstly, the rift between John A. Lee, Nash, Fraser and Savage.

Secondly, the deteriorating health of the Prime Minister.

Thirdly, the inability of a divided caucus to deal with the growing conservatism of Nash and Fraser, especially during Savage’s final months of life when the whole Labour caucus was badly divided.

In 1938 Savage clearly wanted Nash to return from England as soon as possible to relieve him of his financial portfolio. He cabled Nash to that effect on 26th June.

Nash replied that he had serious problems to be resolved preventing his return before August. Nash finally returned via the United States on September 5th.

Savage died on 27th March 1940 at the height of his popularity. He had become a legend in his lifetime and the public as a whole never accepted the claims of Lee, Fraser and Nash, together with a minority of detractors, that the legend was a myth.

On April 4th 1940, Fraser was elected to succeed Savage as Labour’s leader. At the next meeting, Nash was elected deputy leader. Thus began Labour’s deviation from its reforming zeal.

Fraser was in practice a much more authoritarian personality than Savage.

Although he hated the Communist Party, his views were very similar to Lenin’s concept of democratic centralism within a communist party. He revealed a few months after becoming Prime Minister, that he had

authorized the police to search the homes of Social Creditors, pacifists and party dissidents. His view was: “Better a small party that knows its mind and is prepared to work united for its purpose, whether as Government or in Opposition, than a conglomeration of diversified and quarrelling factions”.

There was to be no room in the Fraser Government for the consideration let alone acceptance, of alternative ideas to to those of Peter Fraser and Walter Nash.

Labour under Savage was not a Socialist Party but a “Social Welfare and Financial Reform Party”. The great humanitarian legislation it instituted during its first six years cannot be but celebrated as an ideal that most people of the time could only dream of.

To Social Creditors, Labour, (under Fraser and Nash) turning their back on the financial reform policies, after the proven effective‐ ness of their initial implementation, was unforgivable.

In 1954, the Social Credit Political League was formed. After a great effort covering years, Social Credit, in the 1981 general election won 21.5% of the popular vote.

After fifty seven years, Social Credit is alive and well now named Democrats for Social Credit.

HA‐S, Gisborne, June 2011 References: FIRTH, CEDRIC : State Housing in New Zealand (Ministry of Works,New Zealand 1949) GREENSPAN, ALAN : “What Central Banks Can Do” ‐ Speech to Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium Jan. 1997 GUSTAFSON, BARRY : “From the Cradle to the Grave” (Reed Methuen‐1986) SKINNER, TOM : “Man to Man” (Whitcoull's, 1980)

Save Rail

By J.G. Rawson B.Sc. (NZ), Dip.For. (Aus.), MNZIF, Forester (Ret. Consultant.)

President Northern Region Democrats for Social Credit

Extract from a submission to the Chairman and councillors, Northland Regional Council On behalf of our Party, may I present our views on why we feel that your Council should oppose strongly any suggestion of closure of the Northland railway line (North Auckland Main Trunk).

total national production amounts to about twenty million tones. Pinus radiata timber grown in the North is denser, therefore stronger, than that grown further south.

A large proportion of timber produced, Every point of our Party’s policies is based There is now even better reason why Reserve Bank credit on our fundamental belief that systems, be money should be used for funding infrastructure, as was probably about seventy percent, consists of logs for export at Whangarei Port, where they governmental, financial or lesser ones done so successfully by the first Labour Government there is hinterland provided for much such as rail, exist to serve people. People do not exist to fit into systems. Where idle resources are available to do needed greater quantities than this. Had the rail link to the Port been in use now, jobs, it is irresponsible to let an artificial shortage of money preclude their and had KiwiRail provided economic means of transfer from truck to wagon, a very big proportion of this material could have been taken on part of its accomplishment. journey by rail.

We believe that only in exceptional situations do rail systems overseas show profit in themselves. More widely, they are regarded as necessary public utilities for the benefit of the general communities.

There is no excuse for destroying an asset when resources of product and manpower are waiting, idle, to be used.

The Port of Whangarei is the most suitable container freight port in this country, possibly in Australasia. It is relatively earthquake‐safe. It will be needed for this purpose in future; rail will be needed to service it. Therefore closing the rail line now would be an extremely unintelligent move.

This year, mainly in the summer, approximately three to three and a half million tones of logs will be taken out of forests. To put this into context, Guardian Political Review, Issue 60 - Page 14

Funding: It is not only Socred doctrine that, at times of recession, it is sensible for Government to increase spending, not to decrease it. Economist Lord Keynes promoted the same argument, and his guidance gave the world the prosperity that followed World War II. It is later monetarist theories that have compounded our present problems. The inevitable result of present policies can be nothing but world‐ wide slump if continued.

There is now even better reason why Reserve Bank credit money should be used for funding infrastructure, as was done so successfully by the first Labour Government.

Report from Blackball May Day 2011

By Colin Weatherall

Blackball mine

I have been a member of the DSC Party for 45 years. I have been representing the Miilton Locked‐out Workers’ Group at the Blackball May Day celebrations for 15 years and have been given the honour of a “National Treasure of the Trade Union Movement” by the Blackball Museum of the Working Class History Trust.

This year being election year I made a speech on behalf of the DSC Party leader Stephnie de Ruyter (see below). I have been spreading the social credit message whenever an opportunity arises It was a pity that another meeting clashed with this weekend as I am certain that Stephnie would have made a favourable impression there amongst the politicians, Union officials, workers and locals.

There was a forum held on election strategy from the perspective of the Left. When Damien O’Connor ‐ whose grandfather was a Social Crediter ‐ brought up GST, I showed the Union newspaper Blackball that said “the NDU would campaign to get rid of GST and replace it with a Transfer Tax.” I told him that the DSC was the only Party to have this as policy and maybe the Union movement should get behind us. I asked what Labour was going to do about it as they had had nine years to get rid of GST. Later author Brian Wood said to me he thought I had O’Connor “ducking for cover”.

Speech delivered by Colin Weatherall on behalf of the DSC Party leader, Stephnie de Ruyter, at the Blackball May Day celebration.

Any political party can have policies that benefit all law‐abiding people but unless they have the financial policy right those policies will remain words on paper.

The Democrats for social credit are the only Party with an alternative to the failed debt system we have now.

The snowballing of debt is grinding the system to a halt. The U.S. government debt now exceeds $13 trillion. In the ‘Union Express’ newspaper, the National Distribution Union General Secretary Robert Reid says “the NDU will oppose the increase in GST and, in the long‐ term, campaign to get rid of GST and replace it with a financial transaction tax that will target the money men, not the ordinary workers”.

I have to say that the Democrats for Social Credit Party has had a financial transactions tax as policy for a number of years now and it is the only political Party that has. Maybe it is time for the Union movement to get behind the Democrats for Social Credit.

Last May Day I visited the Museum of Working Class History. On the wall at the end of one section was written “Do you know what caused this recession? If you do, write it down and let us know.” mine I found that answer. It was in a newspaper interview about the film “Inside Job” under the headline “Economic Crisis Exposed”. It said the meltdown of 2008 was not an accident but the result of an out‐of‐control finance industry that took unethical advantage of decades of deregulation.

Certainly the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance are not telling us the way it really is. Years ago the Democrats for Social Credit could see the situation the world is in now and have continually warned of it happening. They were laughed at and their solutions were called “funny money”.

Now that the chickens have come home to roost, it is certainly no laughing matter.

The strike that finally ended New Zealand’s reputation as the ‘country without strikes’ broke out in 1908 in the West Coast mining town of Blackball. In the Blackball mine, miners had only 15 minutes to eat their ‘crib’ or lunch – and their manager wanted to increase the working day to 10 hours. The union decided to challenge the arbitration system by striking for a longer crib time and an eight‐hour day. In February 1908 one of the union leaders, Pat Hickey, refused to finish his pie at lunchtime when the manager told him his 15 minutes were up. Hickey and six of his supporters were fired. The rest of the Blackball Miners Union went on strike in protest.

During the 1908 Blackball strike, the Arbitration Court held a hearing in nearby Greymouth and fined the Blackball miners 75 pounds. When the men refused to pay, their personal possessions were seized and auctioned to raise money for the fine. The striking miners then warned local people not to bid for the goods, so the auction raised pennies instead of pounds.

For three months the miners resisted every effort to force them back to work. Finally the mining company gave in, gave the sacked men their jobs back and agreed to their demands.

Guardian Political Review, Issue 60 - Page 15

REVIEWS

The Shock Doctrine The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

By Naomi Klein Published by Penguin (2007). Price $US28.00.

Reviewed for the Guardian Political Review by John G Rawson other international organizations such as the World Trade Organisation.

“The best time to invest is when there is still blood on the ground”.

This is a frighteningly well‐ documented account of the looting of nations’ assets by multinational big business, justified by the theories of Milton Friedman and his Chicago School of Economics.

It explains how catastrophes, natural or contrived, have been used to force nations to privatise their assets and impoverish weaker sections of their communities, in connivance with the IMF and World Bank, plus

It starts with ruthless dictatorships in South America and passes on to Poland, Russia and China. Among other scenes, it shows how “aid” for tsunami damage in Sri Lanka was perverted to this process, removing people from their coastal villages and preparing the ground for building corporate luxury hotels.

While the facts presented appear impeccable, the author presents few constructive alternatives. She writes from a narrow “left wing” perspective and therefore ignores the financial forces behind the action. She sees post‐world‐war‐ two Marshal Aid as simply a

benevolent plan to assist recovery in Europe, rather than a very necessary means of preventing collapse of the war‐ oriented USA economy. She quotes the high debt levels of communist Poland and Russia without the obvious corollary that they were financed by western financial interests.

When dealing with the few nations that adopted “new right” economics without being pushed she ignores New Zealand, possibly because it was a Labour government here that betrayed this nation. She simply suggests return to failed lukewarm socialism rather than reform of the basic cause, our dishonest and outdated debt financial system.

Anyone who doubts her basic

argument should watch what happens to Pakistan during the next few months and years. If she is right, that country will be given very little true aid and many expensive loans that it can never repay. And after a few years, it will be accused of borrowing too much, “living beyond its means” and forced to privatise whatever assets it has left. Paradoxically, water may well be one of these!

This book should be compulsory reading in educational institutions, and for complacent people who still think big business is responsible, the world is a kindly place ruled by compassionate people; possibly even that mankind can survive without a vast change in outlook.

The Case Against Fluoride How Hazardous Waste Ended Up in Our Drinking Water and the Bad Science and Powerful Politics That Keep It There

by Paul Connett PHd, James Beck MD and Spedding Micklem DPhil Reviewed by C Vyvyan Howardd, University of Ulster, Coleraine, UK. (Extract from the International Society for Fluoride Research publication, September 2010).

If you are interested in the fluoride debate you should read this book. However, more importantly, if you are disinterested in the fluoridation of drinking water or are strongly pro‐fluoridation, you must also read this book.

The authors have produced a well‐researched, cogently argued, and very readable text that summarises historical, political, ethical, toxicological, and epidemiological scientific data behind drinking water fluoridation. The authors stress

that they are not arguing about the use of fluoride, for example in dentifrices, mouthwashes, etc., but about the intentional addition of fluoride to the drinking water supplies of populations.

idea that a ‘one dose fits all’ can be applied to a whole population makes a mockery of all that is currently happening in medicine, where tailoring therapies to the individual is a major thrust of research.

cancer in teenage boys, increased incidence of bone fractures, and thyroid gland dysfunction ‐ are likely, then the argument for adopting a precautionary stance becomes overwhelming.

If we were to accept that those responsible for the introduction water fluoridation were acting in the genuine belief they were contributing positively to public health and wellbeing, what should we think now, over 50 years later, in the light of the evidence in this book? There are several aspects to any response.

The ethical basis for exposing a whole population to a therapeutic agent without informed consent has to be called into question in the 21st century. We live in a far less paternalistic society now. The

The admission that infants being fed formula milk made up with fluoridated tap water are being overdosed is a key example of the failure of the approach. We now know that fluoride acts topically on dental enamel, not systemically, which is another good reason for not administering it by ingestion.

The margin of safety of fluoride is much lower than was originally envisaged. If any of the toxicological sequelae highlighted in the book ‐ lowering of IQ in children, increased incidence of bone

After reading this book, one is left with the strong impression that water fluoridation is an idea that is well past its ‘sell by date’ and that it should be rapidly phased out. What is now clear is that, if proposed today, fluoridation of drinking water to prevent tooth decay would stand virtually no chance of being adopted, given the current status of scientific knowledge then many thousands would benefit.

Guardian Political Review, Issue 60, 2011 - Page 16

(Published by Chelsea Green Publishing $US24.95. Available in New Zealand from www..fannz.co.nz)

New Zealand without God?

By George Bryant Published by DayStar Books, PO Box 7031, Maungatapu, Tauranga. www.daystarbooks.org george@daystarbooks.org Price $27.95

In this unique book George Bryant mokes a plea for a renewed, better societyt based on a set of six core values, values with which all social groups could agree. They provide the key to developing a 'good society'. What we need is the collective will to implement them.

George Bryant's six core values:

1. Love and compassion is the key value for a good society. A community which loves will care for the vulnerable and the poor.

It will be a forgiving community.

It will practise the golden rule. It will support the family, promote good deeds, practise hospitality and work for justice.

2 We need to respect the dignity of each human being if the common good is to be advanced. Every person is a unique individual within the universe. Policies should be introduced to ensure each person is able to develop his/her gifts and talents to their full potential,

exploitative one.

for the benefit of society.

Exploitation of any sort is to be deplored and equality between genders and cultures fostered.

4 A good society needs people

Respect for life stems from this value. It will mean robust debate on issues such as abortion, euthanasia and the treatment of animals.

3 We need to be peacemakers,

who are humble, willing to serve others, giving of themselves and their resources generously. There is no place in a good society for arrogant, miserly people. True humility builds strong, honest character.

5

For a good society to flourish we need the quality of commitment ‐ to each other, the family, our community and our work. This involves the values of loyalty, responsibility, a team approach and hard work.

conflict solvers, doing whatever we can to promote harmonious relations and reconcile differences between people and groups. This involves practising non‐violence and steadfastly refusing to do harm to others. It also means a caring, conserva‐ tional approach to our environment rather than an

6 Finally a good society works together as a community.

Wholesome community values will help people to feel wanted and provide a feeling of belonging, so important in a post‐modern society in which so many experience loneliness and disorientation.

Well, that's my list ‐ love and compassion, respect for life, respect for human dignity, peacemaking, humility, commitment, individual freedom and a sense of community.

Following such values will not necessarily lead to Utopia, because of the human factor, but will contribute to a better society and quality of life for everyone ‐ providing they are practised as widely as possible.

George Bryant M.A.(Hons.), Dip.Ed. has a long association with social credit. He was the convenor of the Social Credit Party production committee which was responsible for the Party publication 'You and Your Environment' in 1973 ‐ called "the finest environmental book produced" He holds an MA degree and a number of educational, theological and management qualifications. George is a former high school principal, ordained minister, national and local body politician, chairman of numerous social organisations and an active Rotarian. He is listed in the 1991 and 2001 New Zealand Who's Who. In 2006 his autobiography was published: 'George — the secrets of an ordinary Kiwi'. He chairs New Zealand's only non‐denominational Christian monthly magazine, 'Daystar'. He is an avid reader and acute observer of the New Zealand political scene.

George Bryantt

2012 and Beyond

By Diana Cooper Published by Findhorn Press www.windhornpress.com Price $NZ16.64

In the chapter entitled 'The World Economy', she says: For a long time the world has been like a rotten log. When those sitting on it fell off, they tried to scramble back onto the same crumbling log instead of seeking a new sound one.

Mayan and other prophesies indicate that the year 2012 will be a time of change.

In 2007 the banking and credit crisis started, with banks collapsing and businesses going bankrupt.

Diana Cooper says it will offer the greatest opportunity for spiritual growth that there has ever been.

The whole system based on greed, gambling, corruption and trampling on the poor could not continue.

Guardian Political Review, Issue 60, 2011 - Page 17

Exactly in accordance with the time line predicted in the Mayan calendar, the economic structure all started to collapse.

spiritually and the cogs of old and new are no longer in synch.

The principle of rich and poor will be unimaginable. There will be no banks or financial institutions.

collapse and evolve until an economic structure based on fairness and integrity is in place.

Then this too will dissolve as money ceases to have relevance after 2030.

In order for them to synchronize, the world economy Within twenty years the must move at a faster frequency, concept of lending non‐existent in other words with more money and charging interest on it honour, openness. honesty and will be considered breathtakingly fairness. arrogant and corrupt.

The system will continue to

The economies are collapsing because the frequency of the planet has moved up a gear

Food for thought indeed!

The Diary of Adrian Bayly Nelson-based Adrian Bayly keeps a close eye on the political scene in New Zealand and overseas.

19 January 2011 ‐ Obscene salaries

The four big banks in NZ (ANZ, BNZ, National, Westpak) have made record profits over the past year – appearing to defy the economic recession. Westpak bank of NZ staff are copping flak from customers over the $5 million‐plus salary of its CEO George Frazis. It’s just not justified: these Boards granting their CEOs these obscene salary rises. Sir Ralph Norris – CEO of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, gets a 75% jump to A$16.1 million p.a. No wonder our system is in trouble.

27 January 2011 ‐ Nothing new The ‘State of the Nation’ addresses by Labour leader Phil Goff and National leader John Key have just been delivered.

National are into selling portions of state assets to get investment money, while Labour are looking at tax changes and more debt spending. They have nothing new to offer in what is an election year. They would be better to adopt the DSC financial policy of Community Credit from the Reserve Bank and a Financial Transaction Tax – rather than borrow and issue Reserve Bank bonds.

If the borrowing and debt‐spending keeps going this country will be in deficit like the USA, UK, Greece, Latin America and Ireland.

1 February 2011 ‐ Quantitive Easing ‘Quantitive Easing’ (QE1) was to bail out the banks but QE2 is about the US Federal

Reserve Bank printing money or creating it to fund the US Government – virtually interest‐free – allowing the Government to do what it wants to do without driving up the interest bill on Federal debt. Doesn’t this sound like Social Credit policy?

28 February 2011 ‐ Military intervention?

The US is heavily into debt with China.

Now it is facing military rivalry with China in the Pacific‐Asia area. The US has started to create a “Super Base” on its Pacific island of Guam to counter the Chinese military built‐ up. The Chinese don’t want the USA intervening militarily in any future conflict over Taiwan. China also wants to secure the sea lanes from the Mid‐East, as she will be importing 80% of her oil needs by 2035.

28 March 2011 ‐ Nobody owns it The Government has just passed into law the Marine and Coastal Area Bill. The Bill ends Crown ownership, creating a “Common Marine and coastal area” – meaning that nobody owns the foreshore and seabed. The Maori Party was restricted by the previous Act in seeking customary title in the Courts.

This new Bill lets them do it.

28 March 2011 ‐ A better way The Government is planning to rein in expenditure. On one hand the Government wants to cut its State Sector spending but on the other it is borrowing $300 million a week to cover project spending. They would be

better to create credit through the Reserve Bank, issued interest‐free.

14 April 2011 ‐ Staggering An interesting address on fiscal policy was given by US President Barack Obama to the George Washington University (see separate feature in this issue). The US national debt has reached a staggering $14 trillion.

16 April 2011 ‐ A Liability New Zealand is becoming a favourite place for overseas investors in NZ Government Bonds, issued through the Treasury Department's Debt Management Office.

The DMO is now raising $660 million a week. $2.8 billion was raised in March alone. They plan to raise $15 billion in the year to June ‐ probably more.

But the DMO has to realise that the Bonds are a liability. Overseas investors will expect an interest return of at least 5.5% p.a. And they can withdraw their money at any time. Treasury could find it difficult to repay the huge amounts involved.

17 May 2011 ‐ Nothing new The Labour Party is circulating a petition card "Stop Asset Sales". Well, Labour can't talk because in the 1980s they sold off state assets and converted many to State Owned Enterprises. They introduced GST but have given no indication of reducing it if elected this year. National and Labour have nothing new to offer ‐ but the DSC does!

OBITUARY George William Goddard Extract from an obituary in the Otago Daily Times 18/12/10

Mr Goddard, who died last November aged 92, was known for his strong Social Credit political views and served on the Port Chalmers Borough Council for nine years.

dedicated" to the party's message.

He attended meetings and regional conferences until he went into a rest‐home and was greatly respected and thought of fondly by younger members of the party, she said.

A quiet‐spoken individual, he was passionate about his beliefs, especially in the political party Social Credit Mr Goddard was very proud of being made a "Utterly and totally dedicated" life member at the end of the 1990s and it was and what it stood for.

He was 19 when he first became interested in the party after a through the party he met his second wife, Patricia Fitzsimmons, in staunch Labour Party upbringing. He was a political animal and truly 1981. He married her in 1984. believed in Social Credit. He still believed in it and died believing in "He was good man, a good father, husband and grandfather, a it. good gardener and a good human being," Mrs Goddard said.

In 1960, 1963 and 1990, he was selected as the NZ Social Credit Political League candidate for North Dunedin. He was president of the North Dunedin branch of the Social Credit Political League in 1960 and vice‐president of its Otago regional council.

Democrats for Social Credit, as the league is now known, leader Stephnie de Ruyter said Mr Goddard was "utterly and totally Guardian Political Review, Issue 60, 2011 - Page 18

He also served on the Port Chalmers Borough Council for three terms from 1961 and was on the harbour and ratepayers' associations for Sawyers Bay. Mr Goddard is survived by wife Patricia and children Betty Davis, Stephen, Ray and Diane Fewtrell.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement ‐ make it public!

By John Ring, Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Democrats for Social Credit list candidate Democrats for Social Credit urge those negotiating the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement between New Zealand, Australia, the USA, Singapore, Chile, Brunei, Vietnam and Malaysia to make the documents available to the general public.

In 2006 the World Trade Organisation decided that none of its documents should be confidential, and there is no reason why other trade talks should not follow the same principle.

The US trade representatives are talking about 'a treaty for the 21st century', but the US usually insists on conditions that deprive countries of the flexibility to deal with the type of issues that actually arise in modern times.

For example, they normally require that movements of capital between the countries be conducted 'freely and without delay1, which would probably rule out Financial Transaction taxes, Foreign Transaction surcharges, and the type of capital controls that Malaysia used to shield itself from the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990.

The recent financial crisis should have made it clear to everyone that the US financial sector is dysfunctional, so we should not enter any agreement that ties our economy to it. It is also unclear whether they are asking for investors to be able to sue governments in international tribunals or not. Like many congressmen, US President Obama appears to be opposed to that, but many influential people in the US administration favour it. Part of the argument for that is to avoid corruption, but New Zealand and Singaporean courts have a very high reputation for being free of corruption. International tribunals would have a greater risk of corruption.

Pharmac is almost certain to be undermined, so medicines become unaffordable for many.

Copyright laws could dramatically change.

COMMENT

John Ring

The only products the USA has significant protection on are sugar, dairy products, footwear and clothing so there is nothing in the deal for NZ if it doesn't include dairy, and the US Congress won't approve that anyway.

The Democrats for Social Credit are members of NZ Not For Sale, a coalition opposing the treaty. In 2008 the Party made a submission to MFAT opposing the treaty.

New Zealand must avoid the mistakes of Europe The Transpacific nations must also avoid the mistakes of Europe.

Many European countries are getting into difficulties because they have signed international treaties that limit what economic policies they may follow.

Both France and Germany considered adopting a financial transactions tax, but the European Commission told them they couldn't, because of a treaty provision that says that transfers of money between European Union countries must be conducted 'freely and without delay'. The same provision also appears in all the United States' trade agreements.

The countries negotiating the Transpacific Partnership Agreement continue to maintain an unnecessary level of secrecy.

Apart from a leaked New Zealand text on intellectual property; no texts have been made available to the general public, although it is known that a document on financial services was discussed about a year ago, and United States negotiators have said that New Zealand negotiators have agreed to Investor ‐ State Dispute Settlement, which allows companies to sue countries for following policies that breach treaties.

The New Zealand Democrats for Social Credit urge the negotiators to follow the example of the World Trade Organisation and make the texts public. johncharlesring@gmail.com

The hogs have taken over the farm

By Helge Nome

Some of you may have watched the Academy Awards where what is deemed to be outstanding achievement in the movie industry is recognized.

This show has a huge audience world wide and featured an unusual and, no doubt, unscheduled statement by one of the on‐stage participants who told the world that the wealth of the American people had been stolen by a group of Wall Street bankers who had walked away with the loot and had incurred no penalties.

It is safe to predict that said individual will not be offered a place in the spotlight again. What is behind this statement? Economists and politicians are telling us that we are sailing into the good times, once again, so why not let dead dogs rest?

That, unfortunately, is wishful thinking as perceptive people have noticed that the “dead” dogs are beginning to blink their eyelids. In a nutshell, this is what has happened: The credit crisis that came to a head in 2008 spooked the public into believing that the civilized world would come to an end if the large banks that were mired in debt were not rescued by taxpayers.

Grabbing the opportunity, government advisers with deep roots in the finance industry persuaded legislators to “rescue” their benefactors by bailing out the troubled institutions with public

Guardian Political Review, Issue 60, 2011 - Page 19

money, which translates into public debt. Some two years later the net result has been a decrease in disposable incomes for middle class people and a huge loss of income producing jobs.

And what has infuriated the general public is that those who are directly responsible for bringing about this situation, have given themselves increased bonuses for a task successfully completed. They have continued to draw money out of the real economy and use it for even more gambling in the great casino economy. It’s 1984 all over again.

A bunch of pigs sitting around the kitchen table playing poker while the farm goes to rack and ruin outside the closed farmstead door. It’s no wonder that people are angry.

The problem with the prediction of a recovering economy is that an awful lot of people have been deprived of the money that is needed to make that happen: The “middle class” is dead. So, while all the numbers are looking good, they are reflecting more on what happens in the speculative economy than the real one. If you produce a lot of stuff, there needs to be consumers around with money to use and consume all that stuff, and they aren’t there, except in the high end of the market.

The hogs have taken over the farm.

Helge Nome is a Canadian current affairs commentator. His weekly email 'Pen meets Paper' is available on request to helgenome@hotmail.com

MEDIA The Nelson Mail 9/2/11

Debt solutions At the opening of Parliament on Tuesday, ACT leader Rodney Hide reported that New Zealand was "broke" and the National Government was borrowing $300 million a week - $200 a week for every person in the country - and that debt would triple over the next years.

Prime Minister John Key is now ready to part-sell public assets to generate income to cover National's debts. Rodney Hide pointed out that if they don't stop the debt spending, then New Zealand will end up like Britain, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Greece and the USA - facing financial bankruptcy and having to introduce austerity measures.

The National Party governments over the past 30 years have not changed in their privatisation and wealthy mentality, their debt spending and sale of public assets.

They have announced the election date as November 26. If you, the voting public, are looking for a political party with solutions to debt finance, then contact Democrats for Social Credit, PO Box 5164, Invercargill 9843 or democrats.org.nz.

Adrian Bayly, Nelson Farmers Weekly 6/2/11

Ireland Ireland was deliberately set up as an advertisement for “New Right” policies. Money from the EU was poured into Eire; for example, when we were there in 2001, every landowner was being given £100 per year for every cow on his property.

How its economy went from then on is not known to me, but probably it suffered less than New Zealand did under the ravages of the Lange/Douglas Labour government here in the 80s.

But the country’s latest problems have nothing to do with its general economy. Its privately owned banks lent unwisely, probably with insufficient securities taken, and also in speculation.

When caught by the credit crisis, they demanded a bailout from Government, apparently involving massive amounts almost comparable with the same situation in the USA. This appears to have been an overnight panic deal, presented as a fait accompli to their Parliament the next day.

A wise government might have allowed the banks to fail; and spent lesser sums recompensing depositors for their losses. Since it

would have involved nothing more than replacing existing money lost, it could have been done from central bank funds without any inflationary effect whatever. Or the central “bankers’ bank” could have saved them without involving taxpayers.

Instead, it is reported that the country is now faced with an officer from each of the EU and the IMF sitting in on its Caucus decisions to ensure they “spend their money wisely”. Undoubtedly this will involve stripping the nation of its assets.

John G. Rawson, Whangarei Otago Daily Times 10/2/11

Asset sales The prime minister says the Government wants to acquire new assets including schools and operating theatres. To pay for these he wants to sell the income-generating power stations. Even if "mum and dad" investors take up the offer to buy shares, they will soon fall into overseas investors' hands when they offer a higher price.

The overseas investors are not interested in owning schools or operating theatres. They have their eyes on income-generating assets like power and water-supply companies.

If the prime minister wants advice on how to pay for these new assets, instead of asking Treasury, he should consult the Democrats for Social Credit as it is the only party that has viable alternative funding policies to the debt money system we have now.

Colin Weatherall, Milton Wanganui Chronicle 1/3/11

Inconvenient truth So we have "the opportunity to make a real lasting change to our welfare system to break the cycle of dependency" comments Hon. Paula Bennett. Time to tell her just who the real dependents are on our public revenues.

It is implied that the $47 billion spent on benefits is virtually flushed into the sewerage system.

Surely they have advisers with at least Economics 101 training to explain that state benefits are transfers spent within New Zealand, not outflows like the millions claimed each day by the private investors, money managers and CEOs heavily dependent on owning government and local body securities. Rated as nearly risk free by Moodys and Standard and Poors, no wonder such debt is eagerly grasped as safe and lucrative.

Yet, as soon as this inconven-

Guardian Political Review, Issue 60, 2011 - Page 20

ient truth manages to see the light of day, our political, civic and ecclesiatical leaders run for cover.

Seems their compassion puts the welfare of the wealthy before that of the ill and impoverished.

Heather Marion Smith Democrats for Social Credit, Wanganui.

Horowhenua Chronicle 22/10/10

No to fluoride After reading the Horowhenua Chronicle story "Dental disaster zone" it seems that the old fluoride chestnut has raised its head again.

I hope our councillors are intelligent enough not to be sucked into treating an effect instead of a cause.

If fluorides are so abundant in natural water and food as the article claims and is added to all toothpastes then it is patently obvious to see that this chemical is neither the problem nor the solution.

While the supposed benefits were mentioned in the story it seems odd to me that I've never read an educated account by any leading nutritionist expounding on the benefits of fluoride in the human diet.

In any case, any physical advantage from ingesting fluorides can very easily be lost through poor diets, sugar consumption, excess alcohol and smoking.

Which brings us to the real causes. I hate to think what my own teeth would be like if I sucked lollies and drank carbonated drinks all day.

So let's not be stupid enough to rub liniment on a socio-economic problem by adding a useless chemical to our water at great expense.

I think perhaps the fluoride fiasco is fuelled more by marketing strategies than any genuine concern for the state of the nation's teeth.

James Larsen, Levin Ashburton Guardian 12/2/11

Economics The National Party loves to target the welfare state. One of the party’s policies is to place further pressure on to domestic, sickness and invalid beneficiaries.

These people must now “work” or starve.

This particular National Party policy is rooted in a flawed economic philosophy, which fails to understand that an efficient and advanced economic system exists to deliver goods and services as,

when and where necessary with a minimum input of human labour.

An industrial economy does not exist merely to provide or create paid jobs. If any moral argument can be made otherwise, why is it New Zealand does not have an economy that can offer enjoyable, well-paid jobs at no more than 30 hours a week for anyone who wishes or needs to work for an income?

New Zealand politicians, in my opinion – especially National Party MPs – display quite poor analytical thought in matters of technoeconomic realism.

For example, it is said the great distinguishing feature of man is his use of tools – resulting in today’s use of machine tools and other forms of automata.

Scientists and engineers are now telling us we are on the threshold of advanced artificial intelligence technology and its application in the fields of man/ machine interface and robotics.

Coming through the pipeline are new advances in bio-engineering, bioenergetics, metamaterials, and nanotechnolgy.

What does it mean?

Think about it. Even with the science and invention of today, industrialised countries can produce goods with a diminishing amount of labour.

For many workers, all that is left for the most part are relatively low-paid primary sector labouring jobs, and servile employment in retail and the hospitality industries – and, of course, old age care.

These jobs, however, rarely generate enough income for an individual to buy decent housing or to “get ahead”.

Will the prime minister work for $13.60 an hour cleaning public toilets?

At any rate, John Key ought to ponder the following excerpt from a recent New Internationalist magazine article: "But the logic of growth means we produce more stuff with more efficient technology and less labour. So why not share those productivity gains in the form of less work ...?"

J. Price, Ashburton

DSC Party Tenets

(extract)

The proper purpose of industry is the production of goods and not the provision of employment. The proper purpose of production is consumption. The opportunity for self-development and the enjoyment of leisure is the true purpose of labour-saving inventions.

WORLD NEWS

State budgets are now in serious trouble.

Enforcing austerity programs, selling off public assets and slashing services are the order of the day, just when social services are most needed due to the economic downturn. Cutting services won't fix the problem, which arose not from too much government spending but from a credit crunch on Wall Street; and budget cutting can't be taken much further.

The people have been pushed to the point of open revolt in Wisconsin, and other states are tinderboxes waiting to be lit.

Opposing political parties are fighting over a dwindling pie. The solution is to expand the pie by getting credit back into local economies.

The Public Banking Institute was formed in January 2011, and in the four months since then, seven states have introduced bills for state‐owned banks (OR, WA, MA, MD, AZ, CA and VT), bringing the total to eleven (along with IL, VA, HI and LA). Adding North Dakota, that makes twelve ‐ nearly a quarter of the states.

State revenues and assets are now largely

deposited and invested in Wall Street banks, which leverage them into a Ellen Brown giant credit machine that invests abroad and puts the squeeze on the very states that provided the funds.

If we want to achieve economic sovereignty, we need to get our state revenues back in the state, working for us rather than for the large money center banks that now get all the perks and are riding high at our expense.

Ellen Brown, Public Banking Institute 20/4/11

Irish 'government of national sabotage'

By Gabriel Donohoe (extract) The Irish Government has recently passed the harshest budget in the history of the State with further austerity promised for the next three years and perhaps for decades.

Prime Minister Brian Cowen and Finance Minister Brian Lenihan have steered Ireland from the booming prosperity of a Celtic Tiger to a ruined shell of a country where unemployment, poverty, emigration, and despair are proceeding to destroy a once proud, industrious people.

Cowen and Lenihan also bear the ignominy of having brought in the International Monetary Fund who, along with EU bankers, are now dictating Irish fiscal policy. The IMF has long had a vulturish reputation for plundering weaker countries.

The first piece was the nation's €20 billion pension fund, the life savings of working people.

'Economic treason' was a term used by the leader of the Labour Party to describe Cowen and Lenihan's blanket guarantee to

the banks. And, incredibly, even the country's ostensibly non‐partisan police association, the GRA, accused the govern‐ ment of 'treachery' and denounced it as a 'government of national sabotage'.

Cowen and Lenihan decided that the Government would guarantee all the liabilities of six Irish banks ‐ not just customer and interbank deposits but also the full exposure of all bondholders! This amounted to some 450 billion euro, an astronomical figure which, if ever called upon, would destroy the country. With the stroke of a pen Cowen and Lenihan shifted hundreds of billions of private debt and dumped it onto the backs of the Irish people. They forced crippling debt upon the Irish people for many years to come.

Actions that should be taken as a matter of urgency: • End Fractional Reserve Banking.

• The Government issue debt‐free, interest‐

free money for the benefit of all the people.

Brian Lenihan Spend this debt‐free money on hospitals, education, sustainable green energy, ports & harbours, transportation, roads, and infrastructure such as the 100+ year old water and sewage systems that are about to collapse.

• Pay a monthly dividend, or basic income, to every adult and child, such as that described in Social Credit or as explained in 'The Cook Plan' by Richard C Cook.

If a new Irish government implements the actions listed above, the country will quickly achieve unrivalled prosperity and contentment and could well become a guiding light for momentous reform in other nations of the world.

Pecttnia, si uti scis, ancilla est; si nescis, domina: If you know how to use money, money is your slave; if you don't, money is your master.

(Item supplied by John Rawson)

European Parliament backs 'Robin Hood' tax

By Conor Pope, Strasbourg (extract) The European Parliament has given its overwhelming backing to a “Robin Hood” tax on financial transactions which, it said, could lead to banks paying as much as €200 billion a year in reparations for damage they have caused to the European economy.

While the declaration of support for what is commonly known as the Tobin Tax – after James Tobin, the US economist who developed the theory in the 1970s – is non‐ binding, it will put pressure on the European Commission to draft legislation hitting the banking sector hard.

Guardian Political Review, Issue 60, 2011 - Page 21

The parliament backed the proposals by 529 to 127 votes. “We want to send out an institutional signal saying that the private sector bears its part of the responsibility for the crisis,” MEP Martin Schulz said.

generate €200 billion a year in the EU alone and over three times that if it was introduced at a global level.

The resolution calls on the EU to support the introduction of a global transactions tax but, “failing that, [it] should implement a financial transactions tax at the European level as a first step,” it says.

The resolution was drafted by MEP Anni Podimata, who called on the commission to now act: “Citizens have been hit hard by the financial crisis and face growing unemployment,” she said. “At the same time, the financial sector remains largely under‐taxed and has this year enjoyed profits and bonuses at pre‐crisis levels.”

The resolution said a tax on transactions including derivatives would target speculators and reduce public deficits. It estimated that a 0.05 per cent tax would

Anni Podimata

(Item supplied by John Ring)

Whitmill's World Colin J Whitmill reports from the U.K.

Asking questions can prove embarrassing. Why not try it ?

What has happened, in ways that our ordinary dealings with money prevent us from realising, is the divorce of money from anything we normally understand by the way the real world functions. Only occasionally, when something goes wrong, do we find ourselves asking fundamental questions, and feeling as we are doing so that we are sounding foolish.

At a meeting held to enable people to consider the implications of the loss by the church commissioners of some £800 million through unsuccessful investment in property, those present were all given a careful explanation of the course of events that had led up to the loss.

The explanations sounded clear and coherent enough, until someone in the audience, with what was almost a note of apology for asking a foolish question, asked "if they have lost 800 million pounds, who's got it?"

Carefully, the answer was explained: it was not like that; it was as if a house you owned and thought worth a certain sum turned out to be worth several thousand pounds less. You were poorer, but nobody else actually had the money.

failed attempt in 1997 to have compulsory superannuation imposed on all, this constant brainwashing technique by those seeking to have a permanent inflow of cash into the stock market gambling arena seems to have worked.

Isn't anybody asking serious questions?

Their decisions affect your financial health Rating agencies, like Standard and Poors and others, make their assessments of the possible risk of lending money to a country by the international money market. Their markings of AA or AAA or AB etc determines how much interest those countries must pay to borrow for their financial needs.

These agencies are not public bodies, but inventions of the financial establishment. The whole world ‐ well those financiers who run it ‐ and governments world‐wide always await with trepidation the rulings of these great bodies.

The credibility of such agencies was brought into focus by a City of London financial analyst on the BBC's early morning business programme on 18 August 2010. He reminded listeners that three years previously ratings agencies had given their finest low risk rating of AAA to ‐ 20,000 collateralised debt obligations.

This prompted me to raise the question then, and now with far more urgency, "suppose instead of losing that money they had gained it; first of all, we would not be holding this meeting because we wouldn't be worried about it; but secondly, would we think of asking the question,"if they've gained the money, who's lost it?"

And if you don't know what part CDO's played in the international financial collapse, then you may not have had the opportunity of reading previous issues of the Guardian Political Review.

(Extract from the book Grace and Mortgage by former Bishop of Worcester, Peter Selby)

From her website, Ellen Brown, in an article, quoted:

Jeremy Clarkson ‐ brainwashed like many others?

In his London Sunday Times weekly column of 15 August 2010, Jeremy Clarkson wrote:‐ There seems to be some talk that the retirement age will soon have to rise to 98 for men and 114 for women. And that since the country can no longer afford to pay a state pension, everyone will be expected to finish their last shift by getting a carriage clock and then jumping into one of the machines at work.

Even in jest, the propaganda that there is no money to pay for a pension has embedded itself into the mind set of what one assumes is a basically intelligent person.

When John Key wants to revive the NZ First Guardian Political Review, Issue 60, 2011 - Page 22

Banks should be a public utility

Leo Panitch, Canada Research Chair in comparative political economy at York University, wrote in The Leo Panitch Globe and Mail in December 2009 that “there has long been a strong case for turning the banks into a public utility, given that they can’t exist in complex modern society without states guaranteeing their deposits and central banks constantly acting as lenders of last resort.”

[The DSC does not advocate turning banks into public utilities. It advocates that the creation of money should not be a function of private companies such as the banks, but

should be the purpose of a specific public utility]

American Federal Reserve Bank ‐ owned by the banks for the banks From her website, Ellen Brown, in an article explaining why local and state authorities do not receive financial help while banks and big corporations do, said The Federal Reserve Act was drafted by bankers to create a bankers' bank that would serve their interests. No others need apply.

The Federal Reserve is the bankers’ own private club, and its legal structure keeps all non‐members out.

Where a publicly owned bank has helped society is said to be in North Dakota. Ellen Brown advises that in North Dakota, the publicly owned Bank of North Dakota (BND) acts as a “mini‐Fed” for the state. Like the Federal Reserve of the 1930s and 1940s, the BND makes loans to local businesses and participates in loans made by local banks.

The BND has helped North Dakota escape the credit crisis. In 2009, when other states were teetering on bankruptcy, North Dakota sported the largest surplus it had ever had.

Other states, prompted by their own budget crises to explore alternatives, are now looking to North Dakota for inspiration.

For informative articles on the American monetary disaster, visit webofdebt.com

Britain's Banks ‐Too Big To Save?

On 18 January 2011, BBC television broadcast a programme about banks in Britain, many of which are foreign owned, and the following is a preview of it as appeared in the London Sunday Times [16/1/11].

One of the things that helped cause the recent financial meltdown was a type of security known as a CDO (collateralised debt obligations). These can be squared, cubed or even synthetic, and if you think they sound like bunkum, then that is precisely (presenter) Robert Peston's point in this interesting and alarming documentary. He suggests nothing has changed to prevent another catastrophe in the overcomplicated, under‐regulated world of banking. The only difference: there is no money left for a bailout.

Unelected "dictators" proliferate This refers to the vast number of lawmakers appointed to the House of Lords lauding it over the hoi poloi ‐ the people in Britain ‐ and appointed to rule with no reference to (continued on next page)

(Whitmill's World continued)

their subjects. Not only have some of them been involved in ripping off the British taxpayers with their expenses, extreme and, in some cases, falsified like the activity of some ordinary criminal, but others have not paid taxes because of their non‐dom status‐ as previously reported in the GPR. Ten years ago there were 693 of these people and now there are 850 of them.

Thank goodness a special committee is looking at ways of reducing the number ‐ probably because there are too many of them trying to get into the taxpayer subsidised dining room.

The committee is looking at the possibility of buying off some of these lords and letting them retire. One of its conclusions is reported to be that reducing the membership of the House of Lords would cut the cost to the taxpayer in the long run.

Can you believe it? It takes a well‐financed committee of peers to reach such a conclusion. My advice to the government would have cost less than $1 ‐ the price of a stamp, an envelope and a sheet of paper.

But getting rid of this anachronism is hardly like to find favour ‐ after all current politicians want to end up there so they can continue to ride on the gravy train.

National Dividend or an attempt to buy off dissent?

The London Sunday Times [23‐1‐11] reported that Kuwait's Emir announced on Monday that every citizen would be granted 1,000 Kuwaiti dinars [$4,600]

Bank of England money printing not inflationary Economics commentator David Smith in his weekly column in the London Sunday Times [23‐1‐11] in discussing the problem of rising inflation in Britain wrote sharp eyed readers will notice I have not blamed the Bank for its £200 billion of quantitative easing. Though it would be easy to blame "printing money" for high inflation, there is no evidence to support this.

For that quantatitive easing would have had to either boost the money supply significantly or contribute to a further acute weakening of the pound. Neither has occurred. Sterling's big fall happened before the Bank embarked on its easing policy.

how toxic a measure Private Finance Initiatives ‐ PFI ‐ are for ordinary people.

They are a mechanism whereby ordinary people are taxed to fill the pockets of others who become obscenely rich as a result.

provisions for the needy reduced, and school patrol safety people sacked (how many children have to die?).

The London Daily Telegraph ran a series of investigations into the activities of these schemes ‐ initiated in Britain by the Labour Party, it seems, as a sop towards their wealthy financial institutional friends.

Oh well, as usual the bankers win, the people lose.

You can be a rarity!

One of these PFI groups was said to be a company called Innisfree. The company has 14 employees, but owns, or co‐owns, 28 National Health Service Hospitals, 269 schools, a Scottish motorway, a Welsh prison and the Ministry of Defence Headquarters in London.

It owns 80% of a PFI school in Clacton, Essex. For this, the heavily taxed British residents are contracted to pay this company $2,500,000 a year until the year 2035. This is despite the school having been closed for some time.

The hospitals it owns, or co‐owns, have a capital value of $9,840,000,000 of which Innisfree's share is $4,510,000,000 or 45.83%.

The actual amount put in by Innisfree investors was $770,800,000 or 17% of the capital value. The rest was borrowed presumably from financial institutions.

[London Daily Telegraph 28‐1‐11] Had Labour borrowed the money from a line of credit at the Bank of England, interest free, the savings to the taxpayer would have been enormous and there would have been no inter‐generational debt burden imposed.

As it is, this transfer of financial wealth from the poor to the rich has enabled the chairman of this company to take home a salary of nearly $29,000,000. The Daily Telegraph was unable to ascertain whether the chairman paid British tax or not.

If he were like one English footballer on $512,500 a week ‐ yes, a week ‐ which equates to $26,720,000 a year, he would be paying only 2%. The basic rate for ordinary folk is 20% on an average annual salary of $53,000.

The banks always win The Chief Executive of Barclays Bank, who "earns" $19,000,000 a year before bonuses, has advised a Labour MP that the company made a pre tax profit of $24,360,000,000 in 2009.

Private Finance Initiatives ‐ a scheme to favour the "finance industry"

Corporation tax in Britain is just 28% which should have required Barclays to pay $4,875,000,000 in tax. But banks being what they are, and probably using high powered lawyers and tax specialists in what ordinary folk might describe as jiggery pokery manoeuvres, Barclays found they need pay only $237,000,000.

In previous issues of the Guardian Political Review and on the DSC web site ‐ www.democrats.org.nz ‐ several references have been made and examples given of just

This $4,368,000,000 shortfall in Treasury income explains why thousands of nurses, police and other front line social service staff are to be dismissed, care homes closed, care

Guardian Political Review, Issue 60 - Page 23

In the meantime Barclays are paying $7,800,000,000 in bonuses to their staff.

How? You can gain wisdom and knowledge by reading the Guardian Political Review ‐ or visiting the web site www.democrats.org.nz .

In a book review [London Sunday Times 6/2/11] about former US President Reagan and Soviet Union President Gorbachev and the Cold War, David E Hoffman comments we live in an information‐saturated society, but knowledge and wisdom remain rarities.

Why can't we be like China?

Rupert Foster, manager of the Matrix Asia Fund, (no, I don't know who he is either) said Unlike the West, this [China] is a country with no debt, just assets. The Chinese government owns 50% of all Chinese equities and 50% of undeveloped land. [London Daily Telegraph 19‐2‐11]

It's not always best with shorts The London Sunday Times [20‐2‐11] reported that a New York based hedge fund is estimated to lose about $NZ52 million on a shorts bet. Blue Ridge Capital bet that shares in the UK Ocado online grocery company would fall. They borrowed 20 and 30 million shares when the price was 130 pence a share.

The shares, which Blue Ridge did not own of course, were sold in the hope that their value would fall. With a fall in the price, the shares needed to return the borrowed ones ‐ now sold elsewhere ‐ could have been bought and returned giving the company a handsome profit ‐ for no productive effort whatsoever.

Unfortunately for Blue Ridge, the Ocado share price, as at 18 February 2011, had risen to 259 pence a share. As long as the share price continues to rise, Blue Ridge will lose more. However, before passing the hat round to help Blue Ridge, remember it manages about $8,500,000,000 of funds and pays its staff well.

(END)

Too easy an option Comment by Colin Whitmill

Recently,while waiting for a friend to have completed out‐patient treatment at Nelson Hospital, I browsed through pamphlets extorting people to improve their health.

The one that informed me most was published by the Ministry of Health in 2002 and reprinted in 2005 about Dental Health and Fluoride. Its front cover depicted in cartoon form a family around a table pouring out water from a jug into a drinking tumbler held by a girl.

A benefit of having fluoride added to the water supply was described. Once teeth have come through the gums, fluoride in food, drinks, and saliva continually washes over the teeth to help protect them.

In an article in the NZ Listener [18‐9‐10] Linley Boniface commented that although it

used to be assumed that children and teenagers had the most tooth decay, new studies suggest the average rate of decay is one tooth surface each year throughout adulthood. Elderly people have a greater rate of decay than teenagers. Apparently this is because elderly people may not have the money to see a dentist.

The Ministry of Health pamphlet observed that the people who benefit most from fluoridation are the disadvantaged in the community and may not have toothpaste and brushes or be able to afford dental care.

So now we know why people have to drink tap water laced with the poison fluoride. It is because after years and years of all sorts of amended and varied social welfare benefits and superannuation schemes, National and Labour have not allowed for those not financially fortunate to be helped to buy toothpaste and toothbrushes.

People might be able to afford fizzy drinks, sweets, chippies, burgers, fries, chocolate, and anything else that attacks the

teeth, but not toothpaste and toothbrushes To overcome this deficiency a lot of people in areas with fluoridated water have to keep drinking litres and litres of the stuff ‐ even having it in their showers and baths, flushing their loos, watering their gardens and washing their cars with it.

To keep your teeth as you get older, Professor Murray Thomson, professor of dental epidemiology and public health at Otago University suggests brushing twice a day with fluoride toothpaste, flossing daily, giving up sugar in tea and coffee and seeing a dentist regularly.

So if we had a social welfare benefit for dental health, we needn't pay so much to medicate the water supply with fluoride.

But that comes back to the question which started the dilemma for New Zealand's establishment ‐ what do we do with the poisonous residue from the aluminum smelter?

Surely, bung it in the water supply was too easy an option.

Brash is back

By Anthony Hubbard, Sunday Star‐Times 1/5/11 (extract)

Don Brash used to be known as the non‐politician politician who would blurt out what he thought, rather than fudge things, even if it got him into trouble.

He might have the manners of a banker and the manner of an old coot, but…one of the things that brought him down in 2006 was his ties with the Exclusive Brethren.

Nicky Hager's book The Hollow Men revealed he had been aware of their campaign to get National re‐elected, and had met with them, and that church leaders had emailed him their plan to spend $1 million to get National re‐elected.

Brash was also embarrassed in 2005 when Labour leaked details of a meeting he had with Lockwood Smith and six US congressmen, where he made his famous "if National becomes government, the nuclear ban will be gone by lunchtime" statement. Clearly this was not something Brash would have blurted out publicly.

Brash is also remembered for promoting his policies as "mainstream", implying that other parties' policies weren't.

Hager's book reveals that idea came from Richard Allen, a right‐ wing American campaigner who helped Ronald Reagan win the presidency in 1980.

Allen held meetings with Brash and helped arrange visits during a trip to Washington but wanted that kept secret, as Brash's strategist and speechwriter, Peter Keenan, said, "this guy is seen as a neo‐con‐

Guardian Political Review, Issue 60 - Page 24

ultra even in the US ... and he wouldn't want any word to leak for Don's sake".

Brash's infamous 2004 Orewa speech charged that Maori got race‐based privileges, causing a storm and restoring National as a contender.

But the evidence was non‐existent, and some in his own inner circle had doubts, including Keenan, who largely wrote the speech.

One advantage of Brash leading Act, rather than National, is that he will no longer have to downplay his real economic beliefs.

Brash is back.

Footnote: Don Brash first stood for Parliament in 1980 as National's candidate in the East Coast Bays by‐election. He was soundly beaten

by Social Credit's Garry Knapp. Brash stood against Garry Knapp in the 1981 general election ‐ and lost again!

NEWS BITES - hunting through the media jungle!

DISCREDITED John Key says if we don't pursue an asset‐ selling regime, Standard & Poor's may downgrade our credit rating and make it harder for the Government to borrow finance from overseas. But according to Wikipedia: "Credit rating agencies are now under scrutiny for giving investment‐grade, 'money safe' ratings to securitisation transactions based on subprime mortgage loans. These high ratings encouraged a flow of global investor funds into these securities, funding the housing bubble in the US." Why is Key paying so much attention to the opinion of such discredited organisations?

Jenny Snadden, NZ Listener 26/2/11 (edited extract)

THE ODD FACT The odd fact is that the Libyan rebels took time out from their rebellion to create their own central bank – this before they even had a government. At a meeting on March 19, the supposed revolutionaries announced the “designation of the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and appointment of a Governor to the Central Bank of Libya with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi.” Libya not only has oil but, according to the IMF, its central bank has nearly 144 tons of gold in its vaults. If the Qaddafi government goes down, it will be interesting to watch whether the new central bank joins the Bank of International Settlements, whether the nationalized oil industry gets sold off to investors and whether education and healthcare continue to be free.

Ellen Brown, Truthout 13/4/11 Footnote: Libya’s rebel leadership said they hoped to receive up to US$3 billion from the US, France and Italy. The loan would be secured against Libya’s overseas wealth generated by its oil revenues, currently frozen under sanctions and thought to be in excess of US$165 billion Associated Press 5/5/11

$1.1 OCTILLION Much private wealth goes into speculation on foreign exchange, the stock exchange and financial 'derivatives' ‐ all forms of gambling, extracting wealth from the producers of it. The Bank of International Settlements estimates the global total for derivatives at $1.1 Octillion ... nearly twenty times the product of the planet.

Sustainable Economics, April 2011

DRUMBEAT The chairman of pharmaceutical‐buying agency Pharmac says he is aware the "drumbeat" of the United States pharmaceutical lobby has intensified because of free trade talks between the United States and New Zealand. Stuart McLauchlan said increased lobbying from the "huge" pharmaceuti‐ cal industry was due to the opportunity presented by the Transpacific Partnership Agreement to loosen trade and commerce barriers. He said it was up to the Government what it was prepared to "trade away" to gain other advantages.

Otago Daily Times 6/5/11

Guardian Political Review, Issue 60, 2011 - Page 25

WEIRD WASTELAND The Budget was grey, like so much else about John Key's government. It is neither slash‐and‐bum nor borrow‐and‐hope, but a weird sort of waste‐ land in between. We will have another year of nothing‐very‐much. Key's reign of greyness, then, might continue for another year. The voters have grown used to rotten levels of growth, substantial unemployment, and a general dreariness.

Sunday Star‐Times editorial 22/5/11

HOT OFF THE PRESS

HONOURED

The third draft of the Bank of England (Creation of Currency) Bill is now available, hot off the press. It is a proposed Bill to provide the Bank of England with the exclusive right to create and issue all currency; to protect fully the content of customer transaction accounts held with authorised deposit taking institutions; and for connected purposes. It is the proposition of 'Positive Money', a UK not‐ for‐profit organisation that campaigns for fundamental reform of money and banking. www.PositiveMoney.org.uk/act alistairmcc140906@fsmail.net

GAGGLED Labour List MP Damien O'Connor probably secured himself the West Coast‐Tasman seat with his one‐liner on the Labour Party list selections being swayed by "a gaggle of gays and self‐serving unionists". At least until he made the mistake of apologising.

Joanne Black, NZ Listener 23/4/11

SPECULATING FOOD Robber barons, gold bugs, and financiers of every stripe had long dreamed of controlling all of something everybody needed or desired, then holding back the supply as demand drove up prices. A July 2010 article called “How Goldman Sachs Gambled on Starving the World’s Poor – And Won” observed that index fund speculation jumped from $13 billion to $260 billion from 2003 to 2008. Not surprisingly, food prices rose in tandem. It was estimated that 64 percent of all wheat contracts were held by speculators with no interest whatever in real wheat. They owned it solely in anticipation of price inflation and resale.

George Soros said it was “just like secretly hoarding food during a hunger crisis in order to make profits from increasing prices.”

Ellen Brown 3/2/11 www.EllenBrown.com

LET THERE BE LIGHT

A new award has been established in honour of the late Dr Robert Anderson.

The Robert Anderson Memorial Award for commitment to social justice, peace and human rights has been established

by Amnesty International, Tauranga. Dr Anderson authored books on a wide range of scientific subjects, including finance, fluoridation and amalgam, irradiated foods, genetic engineering, electromagnetic radiation, vaccination, cheap oil and nanotechnology.

Note: several of Dr Anderson’s publications have been reviewed in the Guardian Political Review.

OPEN MINDED? The influence of prominent New Zealand journalists has been revealed in a leaked cable from Wellington’s American embassy, including an admission that their “open‐mindedness” secured them free trips to the United States. TVNZ’s political editor Guyon Espiner, Radio New Zealand National Nine to Noon host Kathryn Ryan, TVNZ’s One News boss Cliff Joiner and Garth Bray, and 3 News’ chief‐of‐staff Justine Short and reporter Ali Ikram all went.

Sunday Star‐Times 12/12/10

BUYING GOOD PRESS? The government has thrown a $43.3 million lifeline to private media company MediaWorks, which owns TV3 and Four, and quite a number of radio stations. The abjectly cynical might wonder just how much good press a government can buy for $43.3m.

Sunday Star‐Times 13/3/11

OUTRAGEOUS Although some misguided Australians use a small amount of 1080 on this vast continent (albeit hotly opposed by thinking people) whenever I tell anyone that tiny New Zealand uses over 90 percent of world 1080 production they are speechless. When viewed from afar, New Zealand's use of 1080 seems even more outrageous, even criminal.

Russian clocks will go forward to summer time as usual this spring, but they will not change back to winter time in the autumn. President Dmitry Medvedev argues that changing the clocks twice a year causes "stress and illness" among Russians.

"It's just irritating. People either oversleep or wake up early and don't know what to do with the hour." For many years the issue of time changes in Russia has been a hot topic. When Medvedev mooted the idea during one of his first major political addresses, it got a louder ovation than any other policy. The move has won support among Russian doctors, who claim the clock changes disrupt natural body rhythms.

The Government’s plan to pay for much of the Christchurch earthquake rebuild via overseas loans will sting the country $25 million a year in interest alone. Finance Minister Bill English said it had no option other than to take out loans.

NZ Herald 11/2/11

Sunday Star‐Times 20/3/11

David Tranter, Queensland (Hokitika Guardian 14/4/11)

NO OTHER OPTION?

"DISTURBING THE PEACE" It's against Council rules to comment from the gallery, unless invited. But I make no apology for "disturbing the peace" at the last Wanganui Council Finance Committee meeting. This was when there Heather Marion Smith was unanimous approval for $6.4 million to be paid out of the coming budget as finance costs to the private owners of council debt. Add on next year's $7.2 million in finance costs and the $7.6 million for the following year (see 10‐year Plan) and we wonder why we cannot afford to roof the velodrome! And why I had to stand up and challenge our councillors to question the figures and to whom these sums were owed.

Now we learn of another weak decision; this time to defer essential capital works to the tune of $200,000 in order "to retire debt." May not seem much compared with the total gross debt to date of $80 million (that's the amount on which we pay interest). But $200,000 represents lost economic activity in our district. It means non‐ employment of local labour and resources just when entities like NZTA are shifting elsewhere.

Thankfully Mayor Annette has bravely agreed to pursue the sustainable (and lawful) option of Reserve Bank funding for local bodies, during question time at a large Grey Power meeting. She deserves support from other councillors, especially those who campaigned for office on their concerns about our debt.

Wanganui Chronicle 21/3/11 (Heather Marion Smith is DSC Western Region president & Whanganui electorte candidate).

RESPONDING TO QUESTIONS Annette Main, the new mayor of Wanganui District, assured a large Grey Power audience that she would raise the subject of Reserve Bank funding at the next Zone 3 meeting (for local bodies in the western and central area). She was responding to questions from the floor concerned with the level of the WDC debt and interest costs.

One question stemmed from observing members of the WDC finance committee unanimously approve funding costs of just under $6.5 million for this coming year ($7 million estimated for next year).

Wanganui Chronicle 16/3/11.

SPEAKING OUT Carolyn McKenzie has been an activist since her teenage years and currently works hard with Health Freedom — speaking out against water privatisation and the environmental threat of 1080 drops. She is an advocate for robust food safety regulations and GE controls.

"I think we have only one chance to protect our future generations." she said. "I subscribe to the view that things happen because one lets them or because one makes them. We in the Democrats for Social Credit believe we need to make them. We need an anti‐corruption watchdog in place to oversee all foreign investment and procurement processes. All aspects of society including government have embraced corporate values."

"We need to protect ourselves from rapacious exploitive practices that have brought the world to its knees. We would be wise to abandon the ETS as it is a neat financial product for a privileged few."

"Successive Labour and National governments have never really addressed our financial system and, although some aspects of social credit are being used — like quantitative easing, we could have recovered quicker under total social credit reforms."

Hamilton News, 22/12/10

NATIONAL DIVIDEND Conor English, chief executive of Federated Farmers said; “There is no such thing as a free lunch”. He states that governments only have three ways to get money: “Taxing or charging others who have earned it; selling assets or by borrowing” But the present banking and economic system was devised by man and can be changed.

Machines cannot buy the production they make. Incomes paid by industry and commerce are not sufficient to purchase total prices generated by modern businesses. There is a gap between total incomes and total prices.

A real cure is available. The economic fault is that insufficient incomes are released for consumption from each cycle of production. A supplementary income needs to be paid regardless of other income. Every individual should be entitled to receive a “National Dividend”.

Society needs to print some society‐owned debt‐free money that has no interest and no debt to repay. The Government should establish a State Money Authority independent of both bankers and politicians. This would be the main source of money for financing government spending.

Result: a better “Way of Life” for everybody.

Henry Raynel, Manurewa (edited extract)

(Carolyn McKenzie is DSC Hamilton East Candidate).

NONE SO BLIND...

United States anti‐fluoride campaigner, Emeritus Professor Paul Connett, recently visited New Zealand. An environmental chemist of St. Lawrence University, New York, he outlined the case against fluoride at well‐attended public meetings. Prof Connett said recent studies suggested fluoride was implicated in reducing IQ levels among young people, and raised concerns about potentially adverse effects on brain and bone health. New Zealand was one of only eight countries in the developed world where more than 50% of the public water supply was fluoridated.

NZ Ministry of Health officials said they "saw no evidence requiring any change to water fluoridation policy."

Source: Otago Daily Times, 15/4/11 Prof .Connett is director of the International Fluoride Action Network (see www.fannz.org.nz)

YOUR OBEDIENT SERVANT? For many years I have queried the huge expansion in bureaucracy and the evasion which enquirers regularly encounter when seeking to convey concerns or to question agendas, particularly in the health sector. My father once recalled receiving letters from public servants signed "Your obedient servant". While that may be over the top for these less formal times it would be a great improvement if today's public servants were mindful that they are funded by the same taxpayers they so often treat with evasion and distortion.

David Tranter. Greymouth Star 2/5/11

YOUNG AT HEART

Hone Harawira’s new Mana Party plans to dump GST and introduce a 'Robin Hood' style tax of 1% for all financial transactions. It will be called the Hone Heke tax.

Maudie Wilson ‐ believed to be New Zealand’s oldest resident ‐ recently celebrated her 108th birthday. Mrs Wilson, the grandmother of DSC leader Stephnie de Ruyter, is also the oldest DSC member, having just renewed her membership of the Party for another year. When asked how she felt about her age, Mrs Wilson said “I don’t even think about it. I feel quite young”.

SEEING THE FUTURE

Slane, NZ Listener

Referendums could play a part in Waikato District Council decision‐making in the future, if Waitaki Mayor Alex Familton has his way. “I can see, in the future, that if we have a big project it may pay to go to the community and ask if they support it,” he said.

Otago Daily Times 8/12/10

Guardian Political Review, Issue 60 - Page 26

PECULIAR GOOD

CRISIS INTO OPPORTUNITY

Tremain Otago Daily Times

The Robin Hood Tax would be the most popular tax in history. A tiny tax of 0.05% from interna‐ tional bankers' transactions could generate hundreds of billions of pounds every year to stop cuts in crucial public services in the UK and help fight global poverty and climate change. And it shouldn't cost the public a penny. Turning a crisis for the banks into an opportunity for the world.

American economist, Paul Samuelson, once described education as a "peculiar good". It has societal effects which cannot be quantified in dollar terms. Democrats for Social Credit maintain, therefore, that our public education system must be funded adequately from our sovereign central bank, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand.

www.robinhoodtax.org.uk

Submission on the (Board of Trustees) Freedom Amendment Bill by DSC Western Region 22.9.10

BRITAIN’S BIGGEST INDUSTRY

The news that the country's major local bodies are going to wear most of the $500 million blowout in Rugby World Cup funding should come as no surprise. After all, we have had thousands of years to learn not to trust Greeks bearing gifts and have always missed the point. A bunch of sports executives in suits promising "legacies and economic benefits" from the sporting events they promote should have inspired the same level of caution and alarm as a wooden horse full of soldiers left on the front porch.

Hamish Keith, NZ Listener 21/5/11

The European Parliament voted on March 8 to impose a financial transaction on every single trade conducted by European banks. When implemented, the effect of this tax on the UK will be massively disproportionate, given that around 80 percent of all European hedge fund transac‐ tions take place in London. Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, told the Parliament; "Britain will lose its biggest single industry!"

The Philadelphia Trumpet, May 2011

STAGE MANAGING VICTORY? The National Party seems intent on trying to stage manage its way to electoral victory on November 26, judging from the secrecy surrounding the party's Mainland conference. The media was banned from most of the sessions. It is obvious the only message New Zealand voters will hear from National this year will be carefully crafted and come from either the Prime Minister or Mr English. No dissent will be allowed.

Otago Daily Times 23/5/11

THE EMBARRASSING TRUTH

SOUTHERN ACTION

At a symposium titled Mental Health: are we on the Right Track?, held at the University of Otago, Professor Dee Mangin said negative side‐ effects of drugs were concealed by drug companies. Knowing that doctors were likely to acquiesce to the demands of patients, they were now marketing illnesses because they needed more people to “have” the condition, so they could sell more drugs. Professor Mangin said companies had successfully “marketed” madness as requiring chemical fixes: “They take what we think is science and turn it into spin.”

A 650‐page report by a bipartisan US senate subcommittee gives "a panoramic portrait of a bubble era that produced the most destructive crime spree in our history". With its "details of gross, bald‐faced fraud", the report "stands as the most important symbol of Wall Street's aristocratic impunity and prosecutorial immunity produced since the crash of 2008". Given the evidence not just of fraud, but of lying to Congress, criminal charges must surely follow: "If Goldman Sachs skates without so much as a trial ‐ it will confirm once and for all the embarrassing truth:that the law in America is subjective, and crime is defined not by what you did, but by who you are."

Dunedin electorates have completed their DSC candidate selection and are pleased to announce three very fine and capable people: Jeremy Noble (Dunedin North), Dennis Dorney (Dunedin South) and Warren Voight (List candidate Dunedin). An effective campaign is being planned with at least two pamphlet drops in each electorate, advertising statements and comments in all papers, along with photos. There will be over 150 fence sign bill‐ boards plus larger billboards in Council designated areas, and mobile campaign signs on trailers. The Book Exchange/Information Centre/Regional Office will be in operation at 239 Moray Place.

Otago Daily Times 27/9/10

Toby Manhire, NZ Listener 28/5/11

Bob Warren, DSC Southern Region president.

MARKETING MADNESS

COLONIAL SCRIP "In the Colonies, we issue our own paper money. It is called 'Colonial Scrip.' We issue it in proper proportion to make the goods and pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power and we have no interest to pay to anyone. You see, a legitimate government can both spend and lend money into Circulation, while banks can only lend significant amounts of their promissory bank notes, for they can neither give away nor spend but a tiny fraction of the money the people need. Thus, when your bankers here in England place money in circulation, there is always a debt principal to be returned and usury to be paid. The result is that you have always too little credit [money] in circulation to give the workers full employment. You do not have too many workers, you have too little money in circulation, and that which circulates, all bears the endless burden of unpayable debt and usury."

Benjamin Franklin Autobiography, 1757 (Reproduced from Sustainable Economics 2/09)

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Guardian Political Review, Issue 60, 2011 - Page 27

Democrats for Social Credit www.democrats.org.nz

courage to change We stand for social, economic and environmental justice.

At the heart of out vision for New Zealand is a fundamental reform of the money system.

We offer policies to strengthen communities, reward enterprise & safeguard the environment.