PLEASE don't ruin my plan B country. When the Bernie and Warren types ruin this country, those with the means to escape will need options.
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@DRS Not to worry, there's not too much need for Sanders or Warren reforms in New Zealand. New Zealand already has a primarily public funded system for delivering healthcare that delivers superior results to the US at about half the cost.
From the tenor of your comment, I doubt you'd be happy in New Zealand, think more like Texas.
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We have had leaders who were guided by compassion such as Abraham Lincoln,and Franklin Roosevelt. It did not make them or are country weak. They sought to unite us in response to catastrophe. Being kind,civil,and compassionate does not necessarily make you weak,rather it might make you stronger
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Please, Ardern is a sly Labour pawn try to look good in media only. She knows how to use shallowness of media intellectualism and media preference of portrayal, esp. American's hollywood sensationalist medias. Her real motto is "image making first, competence 2nd". It has only shown nowadays of her true capacity-party scandals, rising prices, low business confidence, and missconfirmation of economic fundamentals-, a 3rd after Trudeau and Pedro Sanchez who themselves are experts of political image making but low quality administrator and statesman.
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@Aotearoa Prime Minister Ardern has inherited an economy that includes a huge housing speculation bubble, fueled by massive, unsustainable amounts of private debt. This bubble was largely the result of a deliberately engineered immigration scheme by former Prime Minister John Key and his government, that flooded the country with low skill immigrants in conjunction with permitting foreigners to speculate in real estate. This housing bubble goosed aggregate GDP, so Key could claim his leadership resulted in growth. It was as cynical as it was imprudent. Auckland, the epicenter of this housing bubble and population increase is now scrambling to fund the infrastructure necessary to support it and young New Zealanders can't afford to live there. John Key, ever with an eye for the main chance abruptly resigned December 2016, before most voters fully understood the con he'd perped on Aotearoa/New Zealand. He now sits on the board of Australia New Zealand bank, one of the institutions that profited most handsomely from lending into the housing bubble.
So hey, when you describe "shallowness", "image making first, and competence 2nd", you've got the correct descriptives, but you're applying them to the wrong figure in New Zealand's politics.
Try again.
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I wish Ms. Ardern and New Zealand all the best, but the often synthetic "excitement" she generates is often a media and activist driven fiction, focusing on youth, charisma and motherhood. All well and good, I suppose, but when you're the national leader of your country at some point that window dressing and "aww" stuff falls to second place when you still have to make the tough decisions - and that applies whether one is a male or female.
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@George S All good and well, so how to you rank Trump according to the criteria you cite?
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@John L
Pretty dismal, too...what’s your point?
I was just addressing this article, with the “global sensation” headline...sensation for actually DOING what? That’s my point. TV star, mogul, had a baby...all well and good, but those do not make one a good leader of a country is all I’m saying.
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@George S Fair enough George, but our previous Prime Minister's claim to fame was as a big swinging D in the finance industry, and he engineered a huge housing bubble financed by unprecedented private debt that'll take NZ decades to get out from under. So in the media age, all leaders have some sort of cultivated persona. The Business Round Table always sulks when their mates don't have the levers of power. Let's see how the lives and fortunes of all Kiwis fare with some Jacinda, it's only been a year and bit since her election. Kia ora
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Another politician with more style than substance, ideology than action. But she’s a media darling so the perception becomes the reality.
6
Ms. Ardern seems a refreshing alternative to what we have here. All politicians experience challenges and difficulties when attempting to implement policies they believe in. Her more gentile approach bespeaks true "genuineness", not the artifice of that quality aggressively promulgated by Mr. Trump and his supporters.
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@John Figliozzi I Agree. Yet its amazing after watching 11/9 that we cant as a country just enjoy the moment of this womans female approach to goverment. She has to be torn down with doubts of her ability. So USA ends up with trumpism ruling this country
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