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Yep… capitalists are liars and cheats and crooks and scumbags alright

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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« on: September 25, 2015, 11:03:10 am »


from the Los Angeles Times....

Lesson of VW scandal: Be wary of business executives like Fiorina and Trump

By DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM - Thursday, September 24, 2015



VOLKSWAGEN's chief executive officer, Martin Winterkorn, resigned on Wednesday, the first — but not likely the last — to take a fall in the wake of the revelation that VW built cheating software into 11 million of their so-called “clean diesel” cars. The scandal ought to cause Republicans to question their blind faith in the virtue and competence of the business class and should be a warning to all voters to think twice before believing a CEO is eminently qualified to be president of the United States.

So far, it is unclear who concocted the scheme to install software that would hide how much pollution VW's diesel vehicles were pumping into the air. Winterkorn says he was clueless, but to rig the game in such a sophisticated way, a lot more people than a few rogue programmers in the design shop had to be involved. At some higher level, this was a management decision. Why do it? Because it is easier to meet tough emission standards by masking the truth than by paying for the costly research and development necessary to honestly cut emissions.

It obviously worked pretty well for quite awhile. Volkswagen started doing this in 2009, and the company's diesel cars became very popular. Low emissions and high performance — what a winning combination! Then people started noticing the discrepancy between the advertised emissions claims and actual experience on the road. European regulators finally brought in an American research company to run tests on the cars and discovered emissions were 15 to 30 times higher than the cheating software was showing.

Now, VW stock has driven off a cliff and the reputation of the world’s biggest automobile manufacturer has been demolished. It would be nice to think this will be an object lesson that other businesses will take to heart, but we all know that will not happen. In the business world, greed rules and it takes a person with an exceptionally strong sense of right and wrong to resist the imperative of making a profit by any means.

This does not always involve breaking the law, of course. There was another example of obscene greed this week that was perfectly legal. Martin Shkreli, a 32-year-old CEO of a pharmaceutical company, caused an uproar when he raised the price of Daraprim, a drug that has been around for 62 years, from $13.50 per pill to $750. Before backing down under pressure, Shkreli insisted the 5,500% increase was justified because his company needed to jack up its profits. The fact that people who rely on his drug face life-threatening diseases is irrelevant, he said. He saw no reason his product should be treated any differently than any other consumer item. That qualifies either as stupidity or heartless amorality — or both.

Then there's the case of a CEO named Carly Fiorina. You may have heard of her; she's running for president. According to a report by Michael Daly in the Daily Beast, when Fiorina was in charge at Hewlett-Packard, she lobbied Congress and the administration of George W. Bush to get a tax holiday passed into law. The special treatment would allow big corporations like hers that had been sheltering profits offshore to bring that money back into the country without paying any taxes. The legislation was sold on the promise that it would stimulate economic growth and create lots of new jobs.

According to Daly, Fiorina's company saved itself $4.3 billion by pushing the bill through, but the money did not go toward any new workers. Instead, 14,500 employees got laid off while $4 billion went to stockholders, including Fiorina and other HP executives.

So, be careful when candidates like Fiorina or Donald Trump come asking for your vote and claim they can do for the country what they did for their businesses. As you might do now with a Volkswagen, check under the hood.


http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-vw-scandal-fiorina-and-trump-20150923-story.html
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« Reply #1 on: September 25, 2015, 12:13:21 pm »

yup...bet the American taxpayers dont pay for unemployables to be in state owned rail job schemes losing hundreds of millions of dollars each year like we have in NZ Tongue
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« Reply #2 on: September 25, 2015, 12:27:47 pm »


Do I detect a dose of ENVY? 



Anyway, throughout my entire working life, I'm taking considerably less money in the form of wages and other perks than what your hero John Key has wasted on his flag wankfest.

He may as well have simply shovelled it into an incinerator.

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« Reply #3 on: September 25, 2015, 01:22:05 pm »


from The Washington Post…

More Volkswagen fallout likely; BMW denies cheating on emissions tests




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« Reply #4 on: September 25, 2015, 03:32:54 pm »


Hitler supported
VOLKSWAGEN

Ha ha ha using this lame stupid story to do a hit on Trump
the  CIA controlled media must be getting desperate

Crazy train commies want to steal and control other people's things and efforts, they want a free ride and a free lunch
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Are you sick of the bullshit from the sewer stream media spewed out from the usual Ken and Barby dickless talking point look a likes.

If you want to know what's going on in the real world...
And the many things that will personally effect you.
Go to
http://www.infowars.com/

AND WAKE THE F_ _K UP
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« Reply #5 on: September 25, 2015, 03:57:41 pm »

kj..."Do I detect a dose of ENVY?"

...do you mean would i like to become a blood sucking bludger like you, stealing money from all of the hard working honest kiwis.... Roll Eyes

..thanks.. but no thanks...made it this far while avoiding the gutter..i'll just stand on my own 2 feet as I always have done Wink

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« Reply #6 on: October 28, 2015, 08:00:12 am »

Ruling that hacked files used for book are property means charges possible

Dirty Politics author Nicky Hager may face criminal charges over accepting the hacked material used to write the bombshell book, according to documents obtained by the Herald.

Police will not say whether the investigative journalist is again a suspect, instead of simply a witness, after a pivotal Supreme Court decision which ruled computer files were property.

Documents show the new definition from the court puts Hager back in the frame over the computer files he was given by a hacker which he used as the basis for his book.

An Official Information Act response to Hager's lawyers in June saw police lawyer Carolyn Richardson explain there had been a decision - apparently just before the journalist's house was searched - to treat him as an "unco-operative witness as opposed to a suspect". It was based on legal advice over an earlier Court of Appeal decision which said computer files weren't property, she said.


But she said his status could change depending on the Supreme Court's view of computer files as property. "It may be that the judgment will have some bearing on whether or not [Hager] has himself committed an offence as well as Rawshark."

The letter supports an affidavit from Detective Inspector Dave Lynch, quoted in submissions from Hager's lawyers in a current court challenge over a search warrant executed on his home. It described the lead officer in the Rawshark inquiry as holding the same views, with Hager's lawyer saying it "suggests Mr Hager may yet be charged depending on the outcome" of the Supreme Court decision.

Crown submissions stated Hager was a witness but "had it become apparent that he had committed an offence, then of course consideration would have had to have been given to charging him".

Otago University law professor Andrew Geddis said the Supreme Court decision was focused on one small part of the Crimes Act. But he said the logic behind the court's decision would likely "follow through" to the way the courts handled other parts of the law - including receiving stolen goods.

"Rawshark will have obtained property in breach of [the law]. If Rawshark obtained property it's hard to see those files are not still property when they get passed on to Mr Hager."

Any shift in Hager's status as a suspect or a witness could also impact the decision on his High Court challenge to the search warrant executed on his home in October 2014. Hager's lawyers had insisted there was a higher hurdle to get a search warrant against somebody who was a witness - as Hager was on the day of the search - than for a suspect.

Hager was a "suspect" at the time detectives sought bank records from Westpac without a legal order, police said yesterday.

A police spokeswoman said the bank could do so under a "letter of agreement" with the NZ Bankers' Association. There is nothing in the letter of agreement which deals with the Privacy Act, customers' information or disclosing personal details to police.

Meanwhile, Westpac yesterday announced it had changed its internal policy for handing over customer information to police without a legal order - but has not said how it has done so.

• David Fisher gave evidence as an "expert witness" in the Hager v Police case under High Court rules that require an "overriding duty to assist the court impartially on relevant matters".

- NZ Herald
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« Reply #7 on: November 03, 2015, 07:53:01 pm »


from The Dominion Post....

Volkswagen disaster comes as no surprise

By DAMIAN RUTH | 5:00AM - Tuesday, 03 November 2015

The Volkswagen logo at a power plant in Wolfsburg, Germany. — Photograph: Axel Schmidt.
The Volkswagen logo at a power plant in Wolfsburg, Germany. — Photograph: Axel Schmidt.

VOLKSWAGEN has done wrong. Should we be surprised? Not at all. It is to be expected. The evidence that it is predictable has been available for decades.

In 1991 Jerry Mander (in In the Absence of the Sacred) using the evidence of the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal, India, the Exxon Valdez crash in Alaska and other instance of corporate malfeasance identified corporate schizophrenia and the inherent rules of corporate behaviour which indicate that we should abandon the idea that corporations can reform themselves.

Or that executive managers can be re-educated, and most importantly, that the corporate structure is neutral. Corporations and the people in them are not subject to moral behaviour but a systemic logic. Form is content.

In 1995 David Korten published When Corporations Rule the World, which Archbishop Desmond Tutu called “a searing indictment of an unjust international economic order”.

Over hundreds of pages, Korten offers a scrupulous indictment of “a nightmarish system out of control”, “the disastrous betrayal of common people and future generations… by corporations, government, and multilateral banks” and evidence of how “the world system is not working for most people”.

In 2000 Naomi Klein documented the diminution of public space and citizenship, and degradation of working lives all over the world in No Logo.

In 2003 Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbot made the movie The Corporation, which diagnosed the corporation as a social psychopath.

This year (2015) Steve Tombs, Professor of Criminology at the Open University and David Whyte, Professor of Socio-legal studies at the University of Liverpool published The Corporate Criminal.  Again, pages of evidence showing “that the private, profit-making corporation is a habitual and routine offender… constructed through law and politics in ways that impel them to cause harm to people and the environment”. Criminality is part of the DNA of the modern corporation. Their legal and political privileges should be abolished.

And also in this year, 2015, it is discovered that Volkswagen is guilty of malfeasance. No surprise. Roll out the script. The corporate head rolls.

(But dry your tears — Martin Winterkorn, CEO, has enjoyed an annual salary of nearly €18 million and leaves Volkswagen with a €32million pension; banks may have organised disasters for their own benefit, but that didn't stop the bonuses.)

The blame game begins; it was the other company/the subsidiary/an errant manager/a rogue trader/a maverick group — choose your scapegoat. The apologies come thick and fast.

The promises are made, but very carefully, and the PR companies are called in.

Damage control is activated (we are talking of damage to the company, not to people, the communities or the environment).

Shock and horror all round. Again.

Just like the last decade and the one before that and the one before that and the one before that.

We could go back for almost half a century to Susan George's How the other half dies: The Real Reasons for World Hunger published in 1976.

Ah, you might say, times have changed.

Yes, in some respects, and not in others.

Abraham Lincoln warned in 1864 that, “as a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavour to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed”.

There are lakes of evidence and mountains of argument.

And the arguments are coming not only from Left-wing extremists.

Joseph Stiglitz (The price of inequality, 2013) is hardly a hysterical Leftie.

Michael Sandel, who published What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets in 2012, is a professor of government at Harvard.

We cannot, he points out, reduce our lives to economic rationales.

Our government is now working with other governments, who are all working with corporations on a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which aims to create a regional free trade agreement involving 12 Asia-Pacific countries.

Who will be the major beneficiaries, and major losers? Do we have to wonder?

Well, what does the evidence indicate? Sixteen years ago George Monbiot drew up a Fat Cats Directory which was published in chapter five of his 2001 book Captive State: the Corporate Takeover of Britain showing how the corporate elite mesh with the government elite in the UK.

In 2008 the film Inside Job exposed “a Wall Street Government” in the US.

Tombs and Whyte offer an update on current corporate-state collusion on crime on an international scale.

We should not be working out how to survive in a corporate world; we should be working out how our world can do without the kind of corporates we have.


Dr Damian Ruth is a senior lecturer at Massey University's School of Management and School of Business.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/73588117
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« Reply #8 on: November 03, 2015, 07:55:38 pm »


You can purchase ALL of the books mentioned in that article really cheaply via AbeBooks.com (click on the links provided throughout the article) and educate yourself about how corporations and capitalists are traitors to the human race and generally dishonest, lying scumbags.
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« Reply #9 on: November 04, 2015, 06:04:49 am »

kj.."...generally dishonest, lying scumbags..."

...hang on..are you describing yourself..ahhhhhaha

...being a convicted compulsive liar yourself...
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« Reply #10 on: November 04, 2015, 10:52:37 am »


Face facts....corporations and capitalists are basically “scum of the earth” who would sell their own grandmothers if they thought they could get away with it.

The fact that you worship (and make excuses for) such “human trash” tells us all we need to know about your total lack of morals, MAGGOT.
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« Reply #11 on: November 04, 2015, 11:32:24 am »

..mm..this is interesting..

..could you please describe what you see as a capitalist?

..and what do you call yourself....and the difference between that and a capitalist Roll Eyes
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« Reply #12 on: November 04, 2015, 09:11:23 pm »



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« Reply #13 on: November 05, 2015, 06:06:46 am »

..looks like Tremain has been sacked at some stage of his socialist life...perhaps for under performing  Wink
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« Reply #14 on: November 19, 2015, 12:04:48 pm »

..mmm..capitalism is bad..the only thing worse would be socialism and/or communism Roll Eyes


TROTTER SAYS CAPITALISM KILLS BUT IT HAS NOTHING ON COMMUNISM/SOCIALISM
by Cameron Slater on November 19, 2015 at 1:00pm

Skulls of the victims of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot

Chris Trotter has gone nuts again…but his friends at The Standard think he is on fire…this is why:
 
Capitalism kills. It has done so from its earliest beginnings, and it does so still. The only distinction between the history of capitalism and the history of the Mexican drug cartels, is that the cartels have never pretended to be advancing the progress of humankind.

He even tried to lay the blame of deaths in Russia at capitalists feet.

Notwithstanding its logical absurdity, it is the condemnation one hears most often from the Right: that the Left, in the shape of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, or the Communist Party of China, is responsible for upwards of 100 million deaths.


They forget, of course, that the vast majority of those killed were individuals who refused to accept the right of either of these parties to impose their will on the people in whose name they had accomplished the overthrow of the old oppressors. Whether it be the rebellious Russian sailors at Kronstadt in 1921, or workers and peasants across the whole of China from 1949 to the present day, whoever, in the name of justice and equity, takes a stand against an oppressive system of domination, coercion and exploitation is, by definition, a leftist.


Once again Trotter blurs and mangles his history.

Let’s help him out then with a little history lesson about the left and how many they’ve killed or condemned to misery.

Let’s start with what Karl Marx had to say about communism…the founding father essentially…the reason leftists are called Marxists.

Marx states in the Manifesto of the Communist Party:

You must, therefore, confess that by “individual” you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible. (Published by Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1973 edition, page 66)

Of course his adherents took that literally, and killed millions to sweep them out of the way. Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Guevara, Chavez…all killers.

Now we can start looking at the numbers. Helpfully there is some research into this and a handy infographic of the major causes of death for humanity.

According to a disturbingly pleasant graphic from Information is Beautiful entitled simply 20th Century Death, communism was the leading ideological cause of death between 1900 and 2000. The 94 million that perished in China, the Soviet Union, North Korea, Afghanistan, and Eastern Europe easily (and tragically) trump the 28 million that died under fascist regimes during the same period.

During the century measured, more people died as a result of communism than from homicide (58 million) and genocide (30 million) put together. The combined death tolls of WWI (37 million) and WWII (66 million) exceed communism’s total by only 9 million.

It gets worse when you look at the lower right of the chart—The Natural World—which includes animals (7 million), natural disasters (24 million), and famine (101 million). Curiously, all of the world’s worst famines during the 20th century were in communist countries: China (twice!), the Soviet Union, and North Korea.

Communism is a killer.
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« Reply #15 on: November 19, 2015, 12:19:28 pm »


The decision by the Employment Court on the dispute between AFFCO in Wairoa and the workers at that plant shows up the capitalist scumbags who own AFFCO (the Talley family) for the GREEDY, SELFISH pieces of shit they really are. Good job that the court has slapped them down, and I hope the workers sue the crap out of those Talley scumbags.

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« Reply #16 on: November 19, 2015, 12:23:40 pm »

..yes..I agree...and it will be especially good if the increased costs dont cause it to be uneconomic and have to close...then the workers will still have jobs as well..a great result Tongue
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« Reply #17 on: November 23, 2015, 03:31:23 am »

...dole bludgers should be finding a job...not travelling overseas at the taxpayers expense Shocked


31,000 lose benefits for not telling Winz of foreign trips

5:00 AM Monday Nov 23, 2015

Ministry of Social Development figures show 31,714 people had benefits cut for going overseas without telling Work and Income - down on the previous year's 35,565.

More than 30,000 New Zealanders had their benefits cut last financial year for travelling overseas without letting officials know.

Ministry of Social Development figures show 31,714 people had benefits cut for going overseas without telling Work and Income - down on the previous year's 35,565.

Benefits related to jobseeker support were those most often cut.

Whangarei Citizens Advice Bureau co-ordinator Moea Armstrong said some people received a "nasty surprise" if they went away for a week then came back and realised they had no benefit.

She thought the main reason people failed to tell Work and Income about their travel was that they were unaware they had to.

Tauranga Budget Advisory Service manager Diane Bruin advised any beneficiaries travelling to tell Work and Income how long they would be away, the reason and how the travel had been funded.

Hastings Citizens Advice Bureau manager Ani Tylee said beneficiaries needed to ensure they were getting what they were entitled to.

Wairarapa Advocate Services manager Trevor Mackiewicz suggested people ask for a review if their benefit was cut and they believed they'd notified the ministry about their travel.

Ministry of Social Development service delivery deputy chief executive Carl Crafar said all beneficiaries were now required to tell Work and Income about their travel intentions or their benefits were stopped on departure.

He said the rules still allowed for overseas travel on compassionate or health grounds in certain cases.

The ministry had enhanced the information-matching systems it had with New Zealand Customs.

If people hadn't told Work and Income about their intention to travel and an automatic information match was made, their benefit would be suspended and they would receive notification.

- NZ Herald
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« Reply #18 on: December 02, 2015, 07:31:02 pm »


Mark Morford

Your awesomely meaningless life, in one simple chart

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist | 5:09PM PST - Tuesday, December 01, 2015

See? You ARE special!
See? You ARE special!

DO YOU KNOW how valuable you are? How much you contribute to the collective bungee jump that is human existence, how much you mean to the world, your loved ones, the planet, this insane madhouse swirl of cosmic consciousness we call life?

About fifty grand, give or take. Maybe a little more.

I mean, it depends, right? On your age, your career choice, your gender, your nationality, your spurious taste in fine cheeses and wine and sex toys and how much unsettling debt you furiously incurred on Cyber Monday. Obviously.

But mostly your value depends on just one thing: your appreciable economic contribution.

Which is to say: It's important this holiday season to remember to measure your life, your value the way a stiff British banker (or, for that matter, a capitalist country) does — in terms of how much you produce, and therefore help subsidize the free market over the brief blip of your sad and rather pathetic existence. What, you have a better way? Something about love, happiness, children, spiritual devotion, kindness? Don't be daft.

Behold, this fantastically bleak annual report from the fantastically unlikable honchos at British banking prisonhouse HSBC, informing everyone how how weird, how crazy, how totally “unprecedented” the upcoming generation will be, in every way possible, but particularly economically. Gosh, really, gentlemen? You mean 2056 won’t be the same as 1956? You mean the world is getting crazier and busier and hotter? Give yourselves a raise, geniuses.

But never mind that now. What’s most fun is to do what Slate and Business Insider did, and zero in on one particularly fun-filled HSBC chart, Graph #6, which measures your unique value, your overall contribution to the economic whole. Behold!




See? It's you! Reduced to how much economic value you provide to the pretty hate machine of capitalism over the span of your life.

Fun, right? You begin to be of meager in your 20s. You gain speed and traction — if you’re not a hippie or a journalist or a slacker, that is — in your 30s, right around the time depression, anxiety, bloat and a vague, nauseating sense of existential distress kick in. Welcome to hell, kiddo! Here, have a Xanax.

Your contribution to the Vortex of Fiscal Horror “peaks” around 50, when you finally hit your maximum income/spending levels but you've yet to enjoy your first stroke (Burden! Subtract 100 points and go back three squares), your second spouse has yet to split with the house, and the kids are finally getting off the family dole and beginning to do their part to keep the engines of socioeconomic heaven purring like a bloody Ferrari. With guns.

Unless you're a female. In which case not only have you made less money all the way through than your male equals, it's also likely that, once you hit 40, you will likely earn exactly zero more raises. Sorry! What's that? You also want kids? Unlimited maternity leave? What are you, Mark Zuckerberg? Your net contribution officially zeroes out. Thanks for nothing.

And after 50? That's easy: It's all a fast downward slide into retirement, old age, complete invisibility and being of no use to anyone at all, except Big Pharma and the people who make those creepy robotic adjustable beds.

Heartening, no? To see your life mapped out so so clearly? To be reduced to your real sociocultural value: a short, jagged line of economic fury, signifying nothing? Don't let the bank door hit you on the way out.

It all dovetails perfectly with the holidays in America, I find, a time when every other news story is gushing solely about… shopping. This time of year, the nation's health is measured not by peace, or lack of gun violence, or random acts of kindness and philanthropy, but solely by consumer sales, retail, the glut. Translation: Don't you dare call yourself happy unless Walmart's Black Friday hell-a-thon set a new record for wailing bloodshed. Sales, I mean sales.

Did you read that Cyber Monday raked in more than $3 billion this year? And that something like $800 million of that came from people shopping via mobile device? Do you know what that means?

That's right: Nothing. Or rather, everything, in so far that the economy is chugging along splendidly, lots of people bought a lot of stuff and therefore the terrorists lose again, Americans are “producing” like they should and God finally loves you. Except not really. Thanks for contributing!


Email: Mark Morford

Mark Morford on Twitter and Facebook.

http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2015/12/01/your-awesomely-meaningless-life-in-one-simple-chart
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« Reply #19 on: December 03, 2015, 06:14:07 pm »

...good to see capitalism paying the bills for charity Tongue

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg to give 99 per cent of his shares to charity

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and his wife are to give away 99 per cent of their fortune in Facebook stock to a new charity that the couple are creating.

The couple also announced the birth of their first child on Wednesday (NZT).

"Priscilla and I are so happy to welcome our daughter Max into this world," Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post.


In an open letter on Facebook to his new daughter, Zuckerberg - at 31, one of the richest men in the world - said he and Chan felt "a great responsibility to leave the world a better place for you and all children".

"As you begin the next generation of the Chan Zuckerberg family, we also begin the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to join people across the world to advance human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation.

"Our initial areas of focus will be personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities."

"We will give 99% of our Facebook shares - currently about US$45 billion ($67.4 billion) - during our lives to advance this mission. We know this is a small contribution compared to all the resources and talents of those already working on these issues. But we want to do what we can, working alongside many others."

The plan mirrors a move by other high-profile billionaires like Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates, who have pledged and set up foundations to give away their fortunes to charity.

READ MORE:
* Zuckerbergs give millions to fight Ebola
* Bill Gates reigns supreme as richest man in tech
* Mark Zuckerberg shares miscarriage pain

Many of the greatest opportunities would come from giving everyone access to the internet, Zuckerberg said - something that was denied to more than half the world's population at present.

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"People often think of the internet as just for entertainment or communication. But for the majority of people in the world, the internet can be a lifeline.

"It provides education if you don't live near a good school. It provides health information on how to avoid diseases or raise healthy children if you don't live near a doctor. It provides financial services if you don't live near a bank. It provides access to jobs and opportunities if you don't live in a good economy.

"The internet is so important that for every 10 people who gain internet access, about one person is lifted out of poverty and about one new job is created."

He also acknowledged that technology was not the only answer.

"Building a better world starts with building strong and healthy communities.

"Children have the best opportunities when they can learn. And they learn best when they're healthy.

"Health starts early -- with loving family, good nutrition and a safe, stable environment.

"Children who face traumatic experiences early in life often develop less healthy minds and bodies. Studies show physical changes in brain development leading to lower cognitive ability.

"If you have to wonder whether you'll have food or rent, or worry about abuse or crime, then it's difficult to reach your full potential."

Max Chan Zuckerberg was born early last week — though Facebook did not specify her birth date — and weighed 7 lbs 8 ounces at birth. Last month, Zuckerberg announced he would take two months of paternity leave after the birth of his daughter.

Chan and Zuckerberg have so far committed US$1.6b to their philanthropy. They have given several donations this year, including to public schools, initiatives to bring better wireless internet access and to San Francisco General Hospital, where Chan works as a pediatrician.

When Zuckerberg was 26, he signed the Giving Pledge, under which the world's wealthiest individuals and families commit to give more than half of their wealth to philanthropy or charitable causes over their lifetime or in their will.

Zuckerberg said he still plans to remain CEO of Facebook for "many, many years to come," and Facebook said Zuckerberg is expected to be the controlling stockholder of the company for the foreseeable future. He has committed to give away up to US$1b of Facebook stock each year for the next three years, the company said.

Zuckerberg and Chan said they will share more details when they return from their maternity and paternity leaves.

* Comments on this story have now closed.


 - Reuters
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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« Reply #20 on: December 03, 2015, 08:36:38 pm »



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If you aren't living life on the edge, you're taking up too much space! 
Crusader
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« Reply #21 on: December 05, 2015, 11:41:05 am »

...dole bludgers should be finding a job...not travelling overseas at the taxpayers expense Shocked


31,000 lose benefits for not telling Winz of foreign trips

5:00 AM Monday Nov 23, 2015

Ministry of Social Development figures show 31,714 people had benefits cut for going overseas without telling Work and Income - down on the previous year's 35,565.

More than 30,000 New Zealanders had their benefits cut last financial year for travelling overseas without letting officials know.

Ministry of Social Development figures show 31,714 people had benefits cut for going overseas without telling Work and Income - down on the previous year's 35,565.

Benefits related to jobseeker support were those most often cut.

Whangarei Citizens Advice Bureau co-ordinator Moea Armstrong said some people received a "nasty surprise" if they went away for a week then came back and realised they had no benefit.

She thought the main reason people failed to tell Work and Income about their travel was that they were unaware they had to.

Tauranga Budget Advisory Service manager Diane Bruin advised any beneficiaries travelling to tell Work and Income how long they would be away, the reason and how the travel had been funded.

Hastings Citizens Advice Bureau manager Ani Tylee said beneficiaries needed to ensure they were getting what they were entitled to.

Wairarapa Advocate Services manager Trevor Mackiewicz suggested people ask for a review if their benefit was cut and they believed they'd notified the ministry about their travel.

Ministry of Social Development service delivery deputy chief executive Carl Crafar said all beneficiaries were now required to tell Work and Income about their travel intentions or their benefits were stopped on departure.

He said the rules still allowed for overseas travel on compassionate or health grounds in certain cases.

The ministry had enhanced the information-matching systems it had with New Zealand Customs.

If people hadn't told Work and Income about their intention to travel and an automatic information match was made, their benefit would be suspended and they would receive notification.

- NZ Herald

Using your logic, can you please provide evidence on how many where just holiday trips vs no notice family emergencies where talking to WINZ would most likely be the last thing on their mind?
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reality
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« Reply #22 on: December 05, 2015, 12:12:37 pm »

If you are bound by an agreement to give notice ..you either do what the agreement says..or not enter the agreement..

..surely anybody else who was employed or a business person would have to make other people aware of the situation...not just disappear off the face of the planet overnight

"..."where talking to WINZ would most likely be the last thing on their mind"

......yeah right..would take at least 30 seconds to send an email...even if a close relative dies..you still need to take care of things Roll Eyes

..I have been in that situation more than once..it aint rocket science...its respect Roll Eyes
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Alicat
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« Reply #23 on: December 05, 2015, 01:06:36 pm »

People react differently in family emergencies. We can all forget to do things when we're under extreme pressure or very worried about a loved one.
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Crusader
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« Reply #24 on: December 05, 2015, 01:43:38 pm »

If you are bound by an agreement to give notice ..you either do what the agreement says..or not enter the agreement..

..surely anybody else who was employed or a business person would have to make other people aware of the situation...not just disappear off the face of the planet overnight

"..."where talking to WINZ would most likely be the last thing on their mind"

......yeah right..would take at least 30 seconds to send an email...even if a close relative dies..you still need to take care of things Roll Eyes

..I have been in that situation more than once..it aint rocket science...its respect Roll Eyes

Good on you for being able to think so logically and calmly in a time of stress. However not everyone is able to do so. It is not the end of the world if they didn't inform WINZ so don't make it out that it is.
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