Posted by Kelvin Davies on Feb 18, 2018

 

This week we were privileged to hear fro Professor Bill Hodge an eminent law scholar and close friend of President Dave who shares a common interest in Marathon running. He has run across the United States of America.

Our very own Past President Blair Wingfield, who no doubt enjoyed catching up with Club Members, introduced the Professor.

Bill Hodge has degrees from Harvard and Stanford Universities, is now a resident in Auckland lecturing at University of Auckland since 1972. He is a very active in mediation and associated employment matters and collective bargaining.

Currently he is teaching Employment Law courses at University of Auckland.

Bill divided his talk into tow parts:

The Man.

Bill compared his background with that of Trump who came from a privileged background and was able to escape the draft due to so called bone spurs, whilst Bill served 4 years conscription in the US Army. He was critical of the way Trump has treated some veterans e.g. Senator McCain, Captain Khan who was killed in Iraq and Sgt. La David Johnson who died in Niger.

Trump’s tax dodging also received some comment from Bill on the basis that Trump has not disclosed his returns. The big issue for Bill was what were the sources of money that went into the Trump buildings.

Trump has been involved in a series of bankruptcies relating to various casino projects and also the Trump University, which recently settled fraud case. In these bankruptcies the Banks were usually paid out as preferred creditors and the contractors employees and shareholders did not.

Bill highlighted the Trump Constitutional concerns with attacks on US Federal Judges, District Court Judges, the FBI and other key people in the US Administration. The First Amendment has also come under fire. The campaigns against fake news stories continue today. Bill has offered to revisit the Club and update the US developments.