Five questions for Washington insider Scot Faulkner

The newly installed Trump Administration continues to catch New Zealand officialdom by surprise. So MSC Newswire asked Washington insider Scot Faulkner (above) what Wellington’s response should in fact be? Mr Faulkner was elected the first Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives. His reforms became a model for the operation of national parliaments around the world.

The New Zealand Foreign Ministry has set up a special focus group solely for the purpose of identifying early warning of new policies promulgated by President Trump, the ones which will have an impact on this country. Can you short circuit this by helpfully forecasting any of these pending surprise policies?

The New Zealand Foreign Ministry’s Trump Task Force will only be of value if it discards long held assumptions and embrace a totally new way of thinking and acting. Trying to predict Trump through traditional means, such as monitoring after-the-fact media, is like using ouija boards, tarot cards, and horoscopes.

The Ministry’s primary objective should be to move at “Trump speed” and navigate in Trump’s world. Non traditional sources, non traditional methods will be keys to success. Thinking like a visionary risk-taking entrepreneur instead of a politician is the first step into this new reality.

Trump is unique. No one like him has ever been the President of the United States. While a few Presidents had business experience, their main credentials were either the military or government. America usually faced political or military crises. The 2007-2008 economic collapse convinced most Americans that something radical was necessary. So they rallied around a businessman who was known to most as a reality television star. As Trump stated, “everyone else has failed you – what do you have to lose? Try me.”

Trump’s unique background means unique thought patterns and processes. President Trump gets his ideas, news, and validation from places never before involved in governing. He is fearless, non linear. He embraces chaos, acts on intuition, moves quickly, and uses surprise as a strategic weapon. Sometimes only he knows the ultimate objective. He is a student of military history, especially Sun Tzu. That is what gave him the winning edge in business, the Republican primaries, and the 2016 general election.

Trump’s new Administration is already being tested by China, Russia, and a variety of other nations. President Trump’s responses will indicate many things: how fast he responds, how he responds, how he views the challenge and the challenger, how he frames the challenge within his existing world view, how willing is he to vary from stated positions to address a unique situation, how willing is he to escalate, whose advice does he value, who he collaborates with, and who, how, and what does he communicate regarding the challenge to Congress, the American public, and other nations.

New Zealand needs to understand that the next four to eight years has a very different global player. Trump’s approach will be very personal, intimate, intuitive, immediate, chaotic, and against all conventional wisdom, very successful.

All the indications are that the New Zealand diplomatic apparatus in New York and Washington was wrong footed by the Trump ascendancy. This led to falling in line with the Obama era last moment positioning of New Zealand as co-endorser of the UN anti-Israel resolution. Does New Zealand need to backtrack here?

New Zealand should always be wary of being pulled into American politics. Obama’s last minute swipe at Israel during his waning days as President should have been avoided at all costs. Obama’s behind the scenes orchestration of the resolution, which was being delayed until the new Administration, was ill-advised and dilatory. It undermined decades of America being a positive force in the region.

President Trump is a great friend of Israel. He and his team believe that, historically, enemies of America have funded the radical elements of the Palestinian cause.

Trump is committed, heart & soul, to destroying radical Islam and reining-in Iran. His priority is working with those nations that share his view. He sees Israel, and the moderate Arab governments, like Egypt and Jordan, as allies in eradicating ISIS, Hezbollah, Hamas, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and their regional and tribal affiliates throughout the Arab world, Asia, and Africa.Trump and his foreign policy team fundamentally differ from the Neo-conservatives who surrounded President George W. Bush. They adhere more to the Reagan-Thatcher/John-Paul II approach of destroying tyranny, but not trying to second guess centuries of local custom through nation building. America’s role is to inspire, not intervene, in a nation’s journey toward a freer society.Israeli settlements are far more complex than the media portrays. Palestinian contractors and workers build Israeli settlements. West Bank unemployment soars whenever Israel slows or suspends new settlements. The chasm between peaceful, free, and democratic Israel and violent, oppressive, Islamic failed states in the region is stark. Land for Peace has been a chimera for Israel. De-radicalizing Palestinian leaders and their movement would go further in creating lasting peace than continuing to place the onus on Israel.

The Anti-Israel Resolution validated Trump’s view that the United Nations is currently there to promote radical anti-Western policies while wasting vast sums of money. It further proves his wisdom of pursuing America’s interests through bilateral, not multilateral, arrangements.

New Zealand has supported in spirit the US-EU trade embargo against Russia called up by President Obama. Is there a defined timetable to conclude this embargo?

There is no defined timetable for ending or modifying the trade embargo against Russia.

President Trump and his inner circle have a non-ideological practical “America first” world view. It harkens back to the 17th/18th Centuries. During that era, Western nations united to stop the expansion of the Ottoman Empire then competed, sometimes violently, to dominate world trade.

President Trump wants to build relationships with Russia and China for ridding the world of rogue players – radical Islam, Iran, and North Korea. This is why he picked Rex Tillerson, who has strong relationships with Russia as his Secretary of State, and Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, who is friends with President Xi Jinping, as Ambassador to China. This is also why Trump picked a skilled fighter, James Mattis, as his Secretary of Defense.

Trump’s trade and business team is equally ready to help America win in world commerce. Wilbur Ross, Steve Mnuckin, and Robert Lighthizer will aggressively negotiate favorable trade agreements and rebuild U.S. competitiveness.

Russia remains problematic as its adventurism in Ukraine and intimidation of the Baltic States complicates Trump’s desire to be “frenemies”. Tillerson will be challenged to craft the right mix of incentives and punishments to refocus Russo-American relations. The current US-EU trade embargo will be assessed within this context.

The Transpacific Partnership Agreement signed in Auckland last year was No 1 on President Trump’s hit list. Looking at the longer term where do you see the advantages/disadvantages in this?

President Trump is all about building one-on-one personal relationships with world leaders. Bi-lateral relationships were his strong suit in business and will serve him well as President. They allow him more flexibility and agility. He has little interest in multi-lateral agreements or entities.

This is why TPP was in his cross hairs as a candidate and now as President. New Zealand and other TPP nations need to offer their best “value proposition” for trade relationships that will benefit the U.S. as much as themselves. These are the kinds of agreements that will get Trump’s attention and become his priority.

Trump prides himself on the foreign investments in America he has facilitated or promoted. He wants American companies to “come home” to America, and foreign companies to settle in America. Trump’s goal is to bring the best of the world to America to rebuild infrastructure and generate lasting employment opportunities. There is a new world of opportunity for New Zealand investment and partnering in America.

Given the available evidence it is hard not to conclude that officials here have only a threadbare understanding of what is going on in the relevant circles of United States policymaking. Where should they be looking? Who should they be talking to now?

Trump’s tweets remain the best original source. Trump won the nomination and the general election by going directly to the public. Over 50 million Americans follow Trump on Twitter and Facebook. The Washington-New York media have become completely irrelevant to the Trump Administration and to Trump’s America.

President Trump has revolutionized the way policy is created, promoted, and implemented. The establishments within the Federal Government, Congress, media, academia, and policy forums, still do not have a clue about what is happening before their eyes.

America’s post-Cold War drift through four failed Presidents has come to an end.

Reagan won the Cold War by using skills he developed in movies and television to command the world stage. Those skills destroyed the Soviet Empire, relaunched the U.S. economy, and redefined the role of government. Trump is using his business and reality television skills to command the world stage for himself and the United States. Like Reagan, Trump is seeking to defeat tyranny, in this case radical Islam, relaunch the U.S. economy, and not just redefine, but completely reinvent government. The establishment dismissed Reagan until he succeeded. The establishment is dismissing Trump, and will be just as embarrassed should he succeed.

Conservative talk radio speaks for Trump and puts his actions and tweets into context. They aggressively expose the liberal media and the Democrats when they promote fake news and conspiracies about Trump. Trump watches Fox news, listens & calls into conservative talk radio, and avidly follows their social media posts. Each validates the other. The most articulate and insightful conservative commentators are Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levine, and Chris Plante. Washington-based WMAL radio hosts all three.

Broom to Boardroom Career Path Praised & Recommended for Public Sector Take up .

The MSC Newswire service sector panel again this year highly commended the New Zealand service sector for the way in which it consistently presented a cheerful and helpful approach to customers. The retail sector was singled out for special praise.

Panelists singled out the way in which the grocery and hardware multiples especially infused their staff work with a sense of promotion scope and therefore opportunity.

The multiples were also praised for their staff selection procedures which at the outset and regardless of age or formal qualifications obviously identified two key personal elements---aptitude and attitude.

In the technical category of proficiencies observed the panel included inventory/re-stocking, along with IT and credit and cash-handling skills, and also product knowledge.

Also singled out was what the panel described as a “broom to boardroom” career path, meaning that staff were presented at the start with the opportunity of a through career path starting with everyday chores and culminating at top management.

The multiples were praised for blending their own mix of on-the-job training with targeted tertiary academic study.

The panel considered that the multiples had struck the optimum balance between applied and theoretical induction and training.

In this survey the panel evaluated both New Zealand and foreign-owned multiples.

Also singled out for mention was the way in which the multiples had integrated staff of all ages.

The panel identified employment selection based on age as elsewhere a continuing New Zealand personnel problem.

The panel made special note of the way in which the multiples offered opportunities to mothers returning to the work force.

The survey was empirical and based on impressions gained nationwide.

The panel suggested an official and formal study of the way in which the multiples had successfully solved the problem of blending basic operating technical skills with people skills. Elements could and should be implemented in the public sector, the panel advised.

| From the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  ||  Monday 13 February, 2017  ||

Uninitiated can wreck their public service careers by mishandling them

Jargon in its politically correct form it is now being actively promoted and thus its adoption officially encouraged.Instead of relying on jarring clunky acronyms or neologisms, made-up new words, the new jargon is dangerous in that it is comprised of everyday words that have become re-purposed.

Peter Isaac is the author of The Definitive Bureaucrats’ Survival Guide to Workplace Jargon and also The New Gobbledygook. This selection cites the face-value innocuous words that in recent years, months even, have suddenly become perilous to their unindoctrinated users.

Community Now refers only to pressure groups or voters especially in the gender and sexual orientation category. No longer now used to describe and locations or places such as villages, towns, or settlement.

Equity Refers now to opportunities available to, or being currently enjoyed by, minority categories, even if the minority is in fact a majority. Usually refers to women, ethnics, and other groups considered to be disadvantaged. It does not encompass the aged. It was once applied as “social” equity. But the short form has now become standard. It has nothing to do with investment stocks & shares.

ConversationNow substitutes for word discussion. Or sometimes, dialogue. Its application is to avoid conveying any hint at all that one side in the exchange is superior in any way to the other. Or that the exchange might contain any implied threat as in saying “I will talk to him about what he did.” Indicates equality, or “equity.”

He, she, him her, Mr, Mrs Specific gender definitions have turned lethal. This is an area of intense rawness and all the more so because it is mostly unrecognised. If you are referring to an individual simply identify them by using their first and last names. Unless you happen to be demonstrably female yourself, do not use the term Ms because it is considered condescending. In this gender value judgment context you must deliberately sidestep conventional bureaucratic formality and protocol.

Wellness Health has taken on taboo status and fitness now refers to athletes or to business managers and their schemes. Health has been abandoned because it is considered to refer to ill-health, and to convey a biblical image of the halt and the lame. This may be the reason why when the word is actually spoken broadcasting officials pronounce it as ”halph.” Health is also shunned because of its association with health spas and luxury resorts, i.e. not equitable. Wellness is a rare example in the politically correct glossary of concocted jargon instead of the more usual changed meaning .

Evidence Actually now means research. Used as replacement for proof, as in evidence-based. It avoids implying anything pejorative or suspect. It conveys opinion-neutrality. Rarely now refers to anything legal.

|  From the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |  Thursday 9 February 2017  ||

Exporters Must Persuade Government to Start Backtracking.

Russia’s ban on importing New Zealand beef on the grounds of discovering additives in it has in fact all the characteristics of a reprisal for participating in the United States-invoked embargo.

New Zealand is viewed as an easy target as the Russians now start retaliating against those nations which supported the blockade.

The embargo mainly involved the United States and the EU. But anxious to appease the United States New Zealand deliberately demonstrated “solidarity” with the US, in the words of former premier John Key.

In return for this New Zealand took pole position in the now defunct Trans Pacific Partnership Treaty and as a special reward Auckland was chosen as the venue for participants to sign it.

There are indications that Russia will use several hygiene scares in recent years to choke off supplies of New Zealand dairy products.

At one time Russia was considered as New Zealand’s prime emerging market. But since the 1980s Russia has been supplanted by Asia.

It is here though that the US embargo on Russia did its most serious damage to New Zealand trade.

This occurred when France was prevented from sending its milk to Russia, along with milk exports from several other EU nations.

The result was the EU milk surplus now found its way to China, severely depressing demand for New Zealand milk.

New Zealand’s position in the US-led blockade of Russia will remain a problem for some years to come even though the embargo itself has now become moot under President Donald Trump.

Commodity exporters are trying to cool the ardour of New Zealand legislators in the matter of supporting the embargo.

This will allow them to mend fences with the Russians.

One advantage here will be the resignation at the end of last year of New Zealand premier John Key, known to be an ardent supporter of former United States president Barack Obama.

The public and indeed New Zealand’s legislators in the matter of the long-running embargo have something in common in that they have both been unaware of the consequences of participating in the blockade.

In France, in contrast, the consequences are well understood. Russia’s president Putin (pictured) deliberately called up well-publicised bulldozings of French produce found to have entered Russia via bills of ladings sourced in its old African colonies.

France, under pressure from the United States, was forced to abandon its showpiece advanced technology export which was its Mistral Class vessel for Russia’s navy.

Combined with the loss of its Russia disposal market for milk products the embargo is one of the factors behind the elimination of France’s ruling Socialist Party from any contention in this year’s presidential election.

|  From the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |  Wednesday 8 February 2017  ||

Lesson on Danger of Issuing Unenforceable Edicts

New Zealand’s sponsorship of the United Nations resolution condemning Israeli house construction on its occupied territories has had a result opposite to the one intended.

Israel has now launched the construction of sufficient housing in these territories to accommodate the equivalent of a New Zealand city i.e. more than 20,000 people.

In the event New Zealand as a temporary member of the security council was the instrument of a long incubated policy, now turned punitive, of former US president Barack Obama.

President Obama had long been determined to persuade Israel to cease new buildings on the occupied territories—for however brief a period of time.

In 2010 then president Obama promised a bounty of incentives including a flight of the latest fighter aircraft if Israel would cease these new buildings. Also vouched was an undertaking to scotch any moves in the UN to issue any resolution of the type to which New Zealand was co-sponsor at the end of last year.

In the event Israel’s long-running premier Benjamin Netanyahu (pictured), fearful of his coalition crumbling held fast to his construction scheme even though a three month freeze would have been enough to mollify president Obama, under pressure from his liberal wing.

The former president was now on the war path and determined to punish Israel with a condemnatory resolution at United Nations.

To make it remotely effective he had to have among the sponsors a christian anglo saxon nation.

Enter now New Zealand with its modest Jewish lobby and, even if there was any outcry, a pc media reluctant to give any pick up to it.

The New Zealand New York-Washington diplomatic presence meanwhile was listening to the politico-media-entertainment class.

The legations had become convinced that Hillary Clinton was the next president.

By sponsoring the resolution they were assured, they would build points with the incoming president.

They understood that as a ruling family the Clintons remained acutely aware of those who render favours, and those who do not.

Even so, if the New Zealand diplomatic stations had maintained contacts with the FBI, they would have had access to quite a different opinion.

The FBI with its field offices in the United States hinterland was receiving consistent reports of the dissatisfaction with the status quo in general and with the Clinton ascendancy in particular.

In any administrative staff college treatment of any kind of governance whatsoever there is usually one outstanding caution.

It is the danger of issuing an edict that cannot be enforced and that therefore will be flouted.

Worse still, if it is seen to be obviously being ignored, as with the no-building resolution.

|  From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk  |  Monday 6 February 2017  ||

Under fire for misguided hand-outs, government dithered instead of issuing instant public health warning

When Muhammad Ali visited New Zealand even boxing aficionados failed to recognise his traveling companion Jimmy Ellis (pictured) the former champ. Ellis shrunken in size and bent over we know now was then in the grip of dementia pugilistica.

Muhammad Ali was shortly afterward himself to start succumbing to the effects of his pugilistic career.

The willingness at the end of last year for government cabinet members even to entertain the notion of public funds being devoted to a professional boxing spectacle in Auckland implicitly supported the promoters.

It gave tacit encouragement to an activity dedicated to causing human injury and so also creating an unnecessary drain on public health funds.

It was announced that the Joseph Parker heavyweight boxing match was “borderline” for government funding according to economic development minister Steven Joyce ..

The National Government is under constant assault from the well-funded whistle-blower Taxpayers Union for unnecessary or frivolous spending.

Boxing spectacles obviously fall into this category. This should have been stated at the outset.

Boxing is the only permitted activity in which one participant deliberately seeks to inflict injury upon the other.

Frank Bruno another former champ and suffering from the effects of repeated blows to his head has had this said of himself:-

“Bruno was known for his excellent punching power: he won 40 of his 45 bouts and 38 by knockout, giving him a 95% knockout rate from the fights he won; his overall knockout percentage is 84.44%.”

These “knockouts” amount to an impact paralysis and seizure of the brain, the body’s most delicate component, and which in a free state cannot support its own weight.

The failure of the government to swiftly state that no public funds under any circumstances would be devoted to this activity only added to an increasing suspicion that the government is unable to say no to anyone on anything at all.

A government events panel assessed the boxing spectacle donation.

This involved a group of ministers, including Mr Joyce, sports minister Dr Jonathan Coleman and arts minister Maggie Barry.

Jonathan Coleman is a medical doctor.

The promoters had said they needed a decision in a few weeks. Normally the Government would take a couple of months to assess an application, but it had moved more quickly in a couple of cases, Mr Joyce obligingly indicated.

With its immense public relations apparatus at its disposal none of these appears to have weighed up the pros and cons of some supporting materials for the benefit of the public at large.

A background communique could have said for example that the American Association of Neurological Surgeons claims that 90 percent of boxers suffer some kind of brain injury while boxing.

Because of these brain injuries, the surgeons claim, boxers are more prone to mental deterioration during their later years that can lead to Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s.

This was an opportunity for the government to issue a cigarette packet style of warning

Instead the burden of the government’s argument against dedicating public money to the boxing spectacle was that it was a private enterprise corporate promotion and therefore run for profit and therefore did not qualify for a hand-out.

Petrified into silence for fear of being seen as remotely anti sport, the mainstream media stood aside from deliberations.

The episode again starkly reveals the need for a samizdat boom-lowering voice such as that of the Taxpayers’ Union, an organisation whose disclosures consistently stand up, unrefuted.

|  From the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  |  Thursday 2 February 2017  ||

US bungling must not be repeated

A National Front victory in the pending presidential/general election in France shows every sign of wrong-footing the New Zealand government in the same way that the United States presidential outcome did, writes our European correspondent.

Now rated as the front-runner a National Front victory will also see France quit the EU which in turn will signal the end of the entire EU project.

The New Zealand Foreign Ministry must now forcibly and unambiguously direct its officials to now actively consider a National Front victory in the elections in France---and to adjust their own forecasts around this possibility.

On Wednesday, 25 January 2017 MSC Newswire forecast:-France’s Marine Le Pen is Looking Increasingly Presidential—Likely to pick up Socialist Party Votes in Runoff.

Since then the main challenger to the National Front, the Republican Party’s Francois Fillon has become enmeshed in a high profile corruption case in which his wife appeared to receive a substantial public salary for doing work that has still to be defined.

New Zealand’s foreign service officials should now receive a directive to the effect that they must contemplate an outcome that they passionately and personally abhor - - a National Front electoral victory.

On this occasion the closed-loop elitist nature of foreign service practitioners, far removed from the cares and fears of ordinary people, must be prevented from igniting the same partisanship that unreservedly forecast a victory for Hillary Clinton.

These saw New Zealand taxpayers enmeshed in the Clinton fund, and in taking at the United Nations an unnecessary stance on Israel designed to put New Zealand in an unfavourable light with the unanticipated incoming administration.

The directive to officials should accommodate the understanding that, yes, they may have to reveal their misgivings about the National Front.

But that in operational terms they must be prepared on this occasion for an outcome that horrifies they and the people they professionally associate with.

In short, foreign service officials who tend to be cut from the same rather exquisite cloth, must recall in the words of the French saying that though they talk to the captains “it is the crew that does the voting.”

The outcome of the recent primaries of France’s ruling Socialist Party have been more of an upset than most had imagined.

Manuel Valls, until recently France’s young and tough prime minister was swept out of any party presidential flag bearing role by a much lesser-known outsider Benoit Hamon (pictured) advocating a 32 hour week and a capitation tax on robots.

Wellington, on this occasion, must make it clear to its foreign service and trade representatives that it wants facts rather than hopes.

| From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk  |  Wednesday 1 February 2017  ||

Le Pen article

Isolation imposed time lag continues as New Zealand characteristic

The delivery of the earthquake struck coastal township of Kaikoura with the second syllable pronounced as in “cow” has become the signal shibboleth or password designed to reveal the utterer, and the organisation that employs them, as being politically correct.

Kai- COW – ra has now replaced as the dominant pc call sign the previous place-name pronunciation which was KIDDY –KIDDY for the far northern township of Kerikeri.

Both these hallmark pronunciations had their genesis in New Zealand’s government broadcasting operation.

This was in spite of the state broadcasting corporation’s late doyen of the Maori language Bill Kerikeri always pronouncing his own name with the two rs firmly sounded.

The continuing trend for New Zealand official commentators – broadcasters to dolly up the delivery of longstanding Maori names continues to demonstrate the way in which the fashionable delivery of targeted place names especially remains such an encoded hallmark of modish conformity.

Other Maori-derivation place names continue to be pronounced with the kou syllable pronounced in the traditional way as coo.

Some officials continue to go counter-stream meanwhile. For example the ubiquitous cabinet member Steven Joyce MP continues to use the koo rendition of Kaikoura.

The flourishing of the state-broadcasting engendered movement to put a smooth modernist emollient spin on strong Maori word pronunciation is another indicator that New Zealand remains in its customary time-lag in regard to international societal trends.

This in turn continues to support the belief that communications globalisation is no substitute for geographical isolation, the tyranny of distance.

Another indicator of this was the broadcasting use of the term happy festivity as a substitute for happy christmas thus sidestepping the invocation of any christianity.

Meanwhile in order of frequency of usage these were the other modish substitutes that have become standardised in the government broadcasting system.

Conversation         DiscussionBirthing                  Maternity...(nothing to do with ships)Choices                   Decisions/options/ alternativesEarly childhood    KindergartenFamily                    now refers to staff/employees/ previously “team”Interventions        Social welfare involvementIssues                     ProblemsParenting               this gerund replaces the old “bringing up” of children (“raising” in the US)Procedure              Surgical operationResilient                SustainableSecurity                 Supply of something, as in food “security.”Wellness               HealthFishers                  FishermenMedical event      Usuallly refers to coronary or stroke

|  From the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |  Monday 30 January, 2017  ||

Fuss about citizenship reminiscent of Takaro Lodge Flap.

Midas Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel backed Facebook, Paypal, and Xero. But his founding of crime and insurgency systems developer Palantir currently valued at $20 billion can be considered less than helpful to floundering New Zealand law-and-order systems producer Wynyard Group.

On Wednesday, 02 November 2016 in:-  Wynyard Class Action Must Identify Litigation TargetsMSC Newswire reported: “Wynyard for example walked into this kind of Silicon Valley deep-pocket storm when it found itself confronted with sometime New Zealand resident and Tolkien buff Peter Thiel’s Palantir crime product.”

Underpinning Mr Thiel’s right to New Zealand citizenship is his passion for Tolkien.

The name Palantir comes from the Lord of the Rings in which the Palantir was a magical seeing stone that let you see what was happening in lands far off.

Mr Thiel’s skill has been to see what is about to happen in the rather closer internet era once described by Bill Gates as representing the epoch of “disintermediation” in which people dealt directly with the people and services they required.

Mr Thiel’s strong and highly visible support for the election of President Donald Trump can itself be seen now quite clearly.It was based on an understanding that the new President could communicate directly with voters rather than having to deal with them via the intermediary of the established media.

Mr Thiel’s activist support for President Trump can also be viewed as triggering pique from New Zealand’s Labour Party Opposition to the bestowing upon him of New Zealand citizenship.

Otherwise Mr Thiel is a photofit personified of all New Zealand’s activist yearnings.

He supports openly all major societal alternative and libertarian thrusts, notably the right for people to live on man-made islands beyond legal jurisdictions in a concept known as “seasteading.”

He is an ardent proponent of peoples’ right to privacy and put the pervasive celebrity tittle-tattle internet site Gawker out of business by financing the legal action against the site on grounds of intrusion by showman Hulk Hogan.

He is the leader of the second generation of California innovators who sprang up in the footsteps of Bill Gates and Steven Jobs.

This set is sometimes described as the Paypal Mafia, the network of former employees and co-founders that includes SpaceX’s Eion Musk and LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman.

Mr Thiel now stands identified as the jewel in the crown of the New Zealand government’s campaign to see installed here information technology disruptive-scale investors to seed development in the home-grown industry.

One of the reasons that the government is evasive about this whole daring strategy is that it also encompassed Kim Dotcom.

Like Mr Thiel who emigrated with his parents to the United States, Kim Dotcom was also born in Germany.

It is likely that the government will now informally approach Mr Thiel with a view to his outlining investments other than Xero that can be said to be in the national interest.

Mr Thiel, for example, is said to be actively engaged in life sciences, notably in the field of postponing or even eliminating death.

In some ways the fuss about Mr Thiel’s New Zealand citizenship resonates with the campaign in the 1970s against United States oilman Stockton Rush.

Mr Rush and his family moved to New Zealand to create Takaro Lodge, a hunting and fishing retreat with an emphasis on conservation and located coincidentally in the same Wanaka lakes region favoured by Mr Thiel.

However and all those years ago it became known that Takaro Lodge had been fitted in whole or part with gold plated plumbing fitments.

These gold taps now became a class warfare icon.

Bill Rowling was the first New Zealand Labour Party prime minister from a privileged background.

Newly installed he was determined to publicly demonstrate his working class credentials which now took the form of a campaign against Mr Rush and his lodge and of course his taps.

Meanwhile, out-of-pocket and patriotic New Zealand investors in the until quite recently NZX listed Wynyard Group will find themselves cherishing a singular and not unreasonable hope.

It is that Mr Thiel can be persuaded to put his shoulder to the wheel in restoring their forensic systems producer to solvency.

Mr Thiel is considered the major holder of Palantir.

Wynyard Group had its beginnings in Christchurch with the Jade organisation which in the 1970s invented one of the world’s first programming compilers, i.e. a programme that generated other programmes.

The Wynyard Group investor class action group is currently evaluating its options in regard to the now insolvent onetime NZX main board company.

On their agenda at their forthcoming meeting might now be a motion calling for a formal approach to their newly revealed fellow citizen, Peter Thiel.

|  From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk  |  Thursday 26 January 2017  ||

More reading:  Wynyard Class Action Must Identify Litigation Targets

France’s Political Class Blind to PS votes going to FN

The breaking of France’s presidential glass ceiling by Marine Le Pen promises to be more shattering than any fall-out connected with the now broken presidential hopes of Hillary Clinton.

This is because the fall-out will be a compound one blended from the glass ceiling effect and the upset triumph of President Donald Trump.

The French political class which is far more pervasive than anything their English-speaking counterparts can put forward is only just realising the truth that has been hiding in plain sight.

It is that Marine Le Pen and her Front National Party have a very good chance of winning the pending presidential general election.

As with their English-speaking counterparts the French political classes only in the last few weeks have understood that she is short circuiting the sectors that customarily act as middlemen between politicians and voters.

We are talking here of once-admired categories such as academics, think tank intellectuals, and of course journalists.

Marine Le Pen channeled Donald Trump before Donald Trump started running for President.

The most recent milestone on her own presidential route is the embarrassing back tracking of academics, think tankers, and journalists on the outcome of the primary within the Republican Party for its presidential candidate.

France’s commentators, much more esteemed than their counterparts in the English-speaking zone, had stated that the winner would be the more liberal of the two conservative party front-runners, Alain Juppe.

In the event the party plumped for the more right-leaning Francois Fillon.

As a result of this France’s biggest circulation daily Le Parisien did something that its English-speaking zone counterparts have still signally failed to do.

This was to acknowledge that its employees’ wishes manifested as fact and that opinion now had to be separated from news.

It banned from its pages all tendentious reporting and, more importantly still, opinion polls.

Even so, the French intellectual class, traditionally cherished in a way that its English-zone counterpart is decidedly not now radiates a fresh formula.

This holds that, yes, Marine Le Pen may perhaps be head-to-head with Francois Fillon in the first stage of the presidential elections.

But that she will be washed out in the second stage or run-off procedure in which French voters are required to unambiguously list their preference.

As with their US and British counterparts the commentariat cannot bring itself to ask itself from which sectors Marine Le Pen will draw her votes in this head-to-head or sudden-death challenge.

These votes are increasingly being seen as being drawn from the current ruling party the Socialist Party which has become so unpopular that its chances of regaining the Elysee are not even being considered.

Marine Le Pen has promised to close the book on political correctness and all that it contains. This means globalisation (think EU) and multi-culturalism (think the religiously affiliated version.)

This is music to the ears of provincial France where local products are being swamped by lower-cost competition from the rest of the EU.

She would seek détente with Russia which since the US and EU led embargo has ceased to take France’s surplus farm output.

She will stem the tide of immigrants who are viewed by this same sector (think “deplorables”) as lowering wage rates and putting pressure on accommodation and social services.

Meanwhile Marine Le Pen while keep the emphasis on France’s imperial world-power yearnings, notably in Oceania, where she has long had a soft spot for New Caledonia.

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