A time for euphemism

It's not demolition; it's deconstruction. It's not a loan, it's a deferred payment system.

It works like this. Mediaworks is a private company which owns huge chunks of the media landscape. It can do this because we don't have controls on media ownership here in New Zealand; no sir, that sort of thing hinders free enterprise. Unfortunately, Mediaworks has become a non-profit organisation. Fortunately, New Zealand has a government which is very generous towards people and organisations that fail in the making of money, so Mediaworks received a deferred payment system. This is an appropriate business model, given that the owners of Mediaworks include Goldman Sachs and the Royal Bank of Scotland - financial organisations that failed at finance but were helped by their governments with vast amounts of public money.

So, thanks to us, Mediaworks can continue to produce media of a quality which we have come to expect, untroubled by threats of bankruptcy or purchase. Meanwhile, the government - which also been very helpful to Sky Television - has decided to stop funding our remaining public television channel.

Still wondering how capitalism works? Well, here is a film which might help: we needed weenies; Mr Brown had weenies - it's as simple as that.