Bought a battery from Mr. Positive (online NZ battery store) for a UE Boombox BT speaker.

While dispatch was pretty quick and orderly, With in a week of receiving it, the battery regularly stopped accepting a charge and then failed completely some weeks later. Looks like a “thermistor” fault / short circuit.

After sending it back and a bit of chasing up over a month. Got a refund on the order. However, I feel this is way too long for redress.

(Noticed the product in question is now showing 1 in stock. It is genuinely hoped they didn’t simply put it back on the shelf to sell to the next customer…!)

Auckland CBD from Kauri point reserve (North shore)

In other news and views, Financial markets I feel have long disconnected from fundamentals. Market Interventionalism and Financial Engineering appear to be the name of the game at the moment – A whiff of fear? Lets simply “magic” some more money out of thin air! This indirectly supports the asset owners and transfers / socializes both the losses and costs on to the ordinary working class through earning dilution / wage lag.

I’m of the opinion that we need to expect this to paradigm to continue. So brace for more strikes, decline in public services (privatization by stealth), escalating frequency of protest action, increasing episodes of civil unrest, increase in further populist politics, etc.

I’m continuing to monitor and respond in ways I deem best fit accordingly. There’s frankly bugger all I can do as as an individual to impact the tidal shift. I will continue to civically engage, but knowing full well it’s all in vain and at the same time focusing on mitigation strategies accordingly to lessen the impact of these shifting winds.