One normally doesn’t speculate too wildly about things such as a commercial entity’s financial condition. It has a tendency to be self prophesying. However the Whale Oil Blog has speculated plenty on the financial condition of others. There have been a number of indications lately to the effect that things are getting a bit tight and this is confirmed in a post today from “Moderator” Pete Belt.
December and January have been lean, and the buffer we had built last year has been used up. ….the truth is that were (sic) tight last month, and things are now close to becoming a problem. …to be blunt, there is a serious cashflow problem now.
Slater’s management of money hasn’t demonstrated he is any kind of financial wizard. His security company allegedly went broke, and he was then on an insurance company funded benefit for five years until the company withdrew claiming Slater did not qualify.
Then he conducted an inexplicable personal vendetta against Matthew Bloomfield which has seen him in court for breaching privacy.
It doesn’t cost a lot to run a blog unless you’re employing people, and apparently Pete Belt is a bit of a drain on resources. Frankly I don’t know why Slater employs this buffoon, who claims credit for raising the hit count at the site, but I think it only increased because of outside factors like election fever and a few scandals Whale Oil broke and/or the Hager “Dirty Politics” book.
I’ve called Pete Belt a lying coward before for his completely false claims that I upvoted my own comments on his site. Comments that were generally opposing Slater’s pro- same sex marriage stance. I think these comments received support because the opposition to same sex marriage was far greater than the political classes (including Slater) wanted to acknowledge.
Whatever, the smears that Pete Belt initiated against me right across the NZ internet were the work of a cowardly liar, and I shall never forgive him for those lies. If Whale Oil is indeed feeling the pinch the first thing I would do is fire Belt and ask for volunteers to run the site. Assuming Slater is too busy with various legal matters to do it himself.
And while we’re talking about it, what’s happened to Whale Oil’s promise to spill the dirt on who was really behind the Hagar book, and what’s happening with Freed. Things seem to have gone ominously quiet on both these issues.
TrueblueNZ 
5 responses to “Whale Oil on the skids financially?”
The paid jobs seem to not be as plentiful, Pete Belt is draconian and humourless. WO has become a cut/paste repeating of Sideswipe/Reddit and more lately “the Lad Bible” with little to no content.
Roosters coming home to roost.
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I think there needs to be a loud voice opposing the MSM. WO seemed to be going OK at it until PB got involved. Poster Travis recently quit the site ostensibly because of dissatisfaction with its management. I’d be sorry to see WO go down but ultimately, where does the responsibility for any such collapse lie?
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Was a supporter of Whaleoil right up until my comments started disappearing. Then when I complained, just dumped no explanation no nothing just banned.
Then I found out that many of the posts were paid by vested interests and Whale oil, who by his own public admission was a dirty disgusting person, did not acknowledging that it was paid content.
He lost the plot when he started drinking his own coolaid.
Pete and Travis were both a waste of space.
It does not cost that much to run a simple blog I suspect that the snouts are at the trough. Post dirty tricks the revenue has probably dried up.
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It’s his hypocrisy and self-deceit that irks me. Is Slater really one to go on about fatties and bludgers? Has he never seen a mirror?
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Well its also his allegiance to the National Party that he frequently denies, but the truth is he suppressed stories prior to the election that he thought might damage National’s vote. He admitted it. Then you have the payola situation. Stories with a view that is slanted to support whoever paid for them.
So you don’t know if what you’re reading there is filtered by these two considerations or not. Its not reliable, and if you take anything on board from Whaleoil, you may be being played for a fool.
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