Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (39107)	8/20/2002 11:22:35 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 281500

<You guys almost went under with the Socialists in the '80s. I was so bad you were able to get a simi-libertarian Government in. Unfortunately, when things got better after installing Free Trade and dumping your Socialist programs, the voters went back to the "something for nothing" Politicians, and you are back in the old mess. > Lindy, the nice thing about NZ is that it's small enough that it's easy to make things happen [if there's public support]. The New Zealand Party which got sufficient votes to deliver electoral victory to David Lange started when a friend and I were sitting on some grass after a game of badminton and he was moaning about Muldoon and the clawback tax, directed at kiwifruit farmers. My friend was a developer of kiwifruit syndicates. He had a friend/lawyer Bill Taylor, who acted for Graham [my friend] who was also rankled. As were many people. They were wanting to foment rebellion in the National Party, but they had no leverage. I suggested they start a freedom type party and make it appealing to the broad public by calling it something like The New Zealand Party. Well, he liked the idea and went to see Bill who knew Bob Jones who had a load of money and loved stuff like that and a good punchup and The New Zealand Party was born. Muldoon nicknamed it "The Bob Jones Party" and reasonably accurately too, because it was Bob Jones' popular appeal which hooked the votes, which amounted to 12%. That was the end of Muldoon, the huge state restrictions and the beginning of financial freedom. It lasted until the crash of 1987, which is another story in itself and reminiscent of the Nasdaq Y2K crunch. David Lange wanted a cut of tea on the reforms and they lost the next election. Ruth Richardson tried to continue the process, but the public misunderstood the economic mayhem as having resulted from the reform process. From then on, it was downhill again. But, I'm working on change and Act New Zealand got 23% of the vote in Epsom in 1996 and enough overall in the new MMP environment to become a serious force. The game is never over and freedom is optional. The sheople of NZ being 98.2% chimp DNA, with the other 1.8% used for playing rugby and drinking beer, it's a hard row to hoe, but I'm every hopeful. From the sidelines, Mqurice