Meningitis negativity ‘so destructive’
I am disappointed at your reporting on the meningitis outbreak suggesting there is some sort of coverup by the microbiology department at Whanga¯rei Hospital.
As a local GP, I have the utmost respect for Dr Hammer and his clinical acumen. He is always accessible to us for advice and works hard to provide a great service.
As medical staff, we all work exceptionally hard with our patients’ best interests at heart and would all be devastated should significant illness or death befall any of our patients. We already take this personally and self criticise.
Why do we have to report this as if there has been some wrong-doing? This negativity is so destructive and would be so disappointing to someone working hard to keep so many in the region safe. Why can we not ko¯rero awhi?
Social Credit bank policy
John Key’s call for stricter regulations for banks is a cynical and carefully planned pre-emptive strike on behalf of the ANZ and other banks ahead of the release of a report from the Financial Markets Authority and Reserve Bank.
As ANZ’s New Zealand chairman and a member of the Australian ANZ board he hopes to be able to argue that “all is well, we have already put in place measures that will address the issues the Australian Royal Commission and this inquiry has raised”, and, as he has already attempted to portray, “NZ banks don’t operate the same as the Australian banks”.
But if there isn’t a problem, then why call for stricter regulations?
The strategy is designed to try to avoid a more detailed investigation into banks operating in New Zealand, and deflect attention from the enormous $2000 million profit that ANZ has made in the last year.
Ninety-seven per cent of that profit, more than $400 for every person in the country, was pulled out of New Zealand and shipped off to ANZ’s overseas owners, depleting our economy of much-needed capital.
Most of the profit was made by the bank lending money it doesn’t have and then charging interest on those loans.
The idea that banks lend out money people deposit with them is a myth, a fact confirmed by the 1955 Royal Commission on Money and Banking in New Zealand.
Bernard Hickey put it succinctly recently: “They invent money out of nothing whenever they lend. The only thing stopping them from going completely berserk is central banks force them to keep some of their capital aside whenever they make a loan. So that’s the dirty little secret of international finance.”
Social Credit would make banks keep a much larger percentage of their capital on deposit with the central bank (Reserve Bank) which would restrict their debtcreating activities and reduce their profit.
The Reserve Bank would be tasked with replacing that private bank lending with funds for the Government and local bodies to invest in health, education, housing and infrastructure projects, and for lowinterest loans for first-home buyers,
saving taxpayers, ratepayers and first-home buyers enormous sums of interest.
We would also provide Kiwibank with the capacity to reduce its interest rates and its fees, which would introduce some real homegrown competition for the big four Aussie banks.