By: Larry Williams | Wednesday, September 19, 2012 4:37 PM

The opposition parties spent most of their time banging away at the PM about John Banks today.

I have said before that I think the jury is already out on Mr Banks and that the public will have already formed their own views on his so called 'anonymous' donations.

However, at the end of the day the police did not prosecute, so the attacks, unless there is new information that comes to hand, are pretty much pointless.

But we had another sideshow today.

Kim Dotcom turned up at Parliament like he was some sort of super star.

Dotcom said all of New Zealand could see that "unethical things" have gone on.

He's unbelievable this guy.

He's also up for extradition on some rather serious charges himself like money laundering and copyright, not to mention his own criminal past.

As I said - he's a sideshow.

 

Fisher and Paykel

 

The Chinese takeover of F&P Appliances looks pretty much a formality. The Chinese will certainly gain control of the company. They have 40 percent in the bag. I think institutions and retail investors will be quick to cash in. That is just the way it is.

It's all very well for Labour to say that the Ministers should make the call on this and not the OIO. That's just making it a political decision and that suits Labour. But the fact is there is nothing that prohibits a Chinese company taking over F&P. Nothing. Just like there's nothing to stop NZ investing in China. Indeed, the Super Fund has around $200m invested on the Chinese stock market.

It was Haier who bailed out F&P in 2009 to the tune of $82m. Not a whisper from Labour then.

Investors have long memories and it wasn't that long ago when Labour screwed investors in Auckland Airport.

It seems to me that if we want to keep majority ownership of these so called iconic NZ firms and the IP that's associated with them, the best way is not through the likes of the Super Fund, and Kiwisaver funds.

 

The Dollar

 

Winston Peters' members' Bill to amend the Reserve Bank Act has predictably been defeated.

Mr Peters' idea was to devalue the dollar through policy settings which would take the focus of just inflation.

The thing about this is not the debate over monetary policy, that is good, but the conviction of those proposing ways to lower the dollar. Its becoming fanatical. Its their way or the highway. They are right, others are just plain wrong.

Who knows they might be right, but until there theories are backed up by solid evidence supported by expert economists rather than one stock market analyst - for that reason I'm out.

Both Labour and Peters ( who was actually a Treasury Minister at one point) failed to do anything when they had the chance.

 

Mitt Romney

 

Romney's campaign for President is kind of looking in tatters at this particular point.

If you piss off nearly half of the country by telling them they are losers and bludgers and don't pay tax - you don't do yourself any favours.

Romney has probably handed Obama the election but to be fair the polls have never favoured Romney anyway.

I take little out of the news reports coming out of America. Most of the columnists are Obamarites.

Anything written by the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Boston Globe, the Independent or the Guardian -- you know how the narrative will go.

A TV3 report this morning had a far left anti Republican from Newsweek - so of course she was going to say "oh this looks very bad for Romney". What a surprise.

My gut feeling about Romney has always been that he was the wrong choice from the get go. There is something about him that just doesn't sit right. Like he's just not human.

Photo: Getty Images

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