Im just reminding myself that regardless of who is at the helm, things aren't going to get better in the next 3 years. NZ has lacked decades of investment and so small that we are at the wim of Aus, Europe, China and US. National may give our country a bit of strength, but it won't be stronger people and I doubt they will be looking ahead.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Rolling back environmental policies and landlord tax will be pretty bad for all of us. I don't think strength is anything we require. Nobody is worried of an armed New Zealand.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Clarification - economic strength, (business) investment, population and tech. Soft power, not hard power, but saying that I'm in Defense studies and the asia-pacific region is having significant concerns with hard power and we have a massive EEZ. Moot point though, back to mine.

Our country needs significant financial investment - we love this country but we are soo far behind in soo many ways. Labour has tried to offset things like cost of living, housing, health but there is soo much to do.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Business in my opinion. My very very controversial opinion. Business is a cancer. It's the worst thing to happen to humanity since money was invented.

Business looks to squeeze everything to profit the few. Maybe stop looking to greed and start getting the basics. Housing food security.

You can rape pillage and destroy the planet for profit. Won't help.yhe majority though.

But that's just my incorrect opinion

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yep, totally agree. Business is concerned with profit for shareholders. Infinite growth. Don't worry about externalities like pollution, ecosystem collapse and gross inequality. Those are for society to deal with, or ignore. Business doesn't care.

The fact that billionaires exist, and are idolised, is incomprehensible to me.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

10 years ago I would agree with you. The changes of the last 10 years (and my non-youtube education) is giving me some hope. Any business is bound by societys ethics, norms and expectations (including the law) - we just have to demand our ethics and norm are followed.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hard disagree. The ethics is bound by how much they can get away. Banks are constantly getting fined for breaching their own rules. Big multi conglomerates run on how much they can get away with. Looking at America's deficit of a trillion. No way to pay it back. Money is worthless. Fed can print more at any point and banks can magic it out of nowhere.

We have no sat over Exxon we have no say over how most multi billion dollars operate. We can't even push back against planet killing policies.

You are naive to think the public have much power. We are given the illusion of democracy but a two party system that can change policies on a whim, with zero accountability.

No country is holding up their population. They don't care. That is the issue. The closer we get to annihilation the more they won't even pretend about the pure creed.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hard disagree. The ethics is bound by how much they can get away.

I think we are agreeing, just differ in method and application. These companies have strength because our ethics give them strength - ill use ExxonMobil as the example. They just brought a massive competitor, but we can still use public transportation, walk, bike or EV. ICE cars are what our society is built around and the easiest, but we can say no and we can make the harder choices.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes and no. We can decide to use other means but that doesn't change their power to lobby our government and create pressure on food and medicine and military.

They aren't just fuel. They own a magnitude of companies and the means of productivity. They are our infrastructure.

Our GDP is tourism agriculture and probably building of some sort.

All require a heavy dose of Fossil fuels. Fertilizer fuel and building supplies.

Cats are a very small part of it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Fossil fuels are the current status quo and where the investment was. Our agriculture needed alot of modernisation (and unis are cutting the courses), tourism is very low gdp, building carries massive logistics costs and heavy equipment which can be electrified.

They can petition government and armed forces all they want, but we vote both of those in (hmm, topical)