More interesting facts from the Standard

Tane at the Standard presents a useful update on how the Labour government increased the largely unproductive sector (state sector - given you have to be forced to pay for it) from 1999 to 2008, whereas the previous National governments and the reformist Labour government cut it back tremendously (and of course unemployment also dropped from the mid 1990s).

Presumably the Standard intends to scare you into thinking that somehow you got a 50% added value from the 50% additional bureaucrats Labour hired over National.

Do you think you got your money's worth? Tane of course doesn't really consider it has been YOUR money that paid for it.

It's a pretty useful guide as to the bare minimum cuts the government should be implementing surely.

A car race not an arms race

The Guardian notes (hat top North Korea Economy Watch) that the ambassadors of North and South Korea in London both have equally flash limousines. Though I'd add that while the number plate of the South Korean ambassador's car (ROK1) makes sense, the number plate of the North Korean ambassador's car (PRK1D) is far too close to Prick 1 for he to have been given useful advice of English colloquialisms.

Remembering Nicky Hager

Given Idiot Savant has linked to far leftwing activist and "investigative journalist" Nicky Hager, I thought it was worthwhile to link to Trevor Loudon's useful bio on Mr Hager.

It is, after all, in the interests of transparency and fairness that people know Mr Hager is anything but an independently minded truth seeker, but has a long standing serious leftwing agenda that puts him to the left of the Green Party.

Rudman smarter than McClay

Yes, I'm astonished! I agree with Brian Rudman. In the NZ Herald he says "the simple solution does seem to be to remove all restrictions and be done with it."

Quite! It is symbolic of the disgusting interfering nature of New Zealand political culture that the ban on opening retail outlets on specific days, because some people hold them to have significance because of ghosts they worship, continues to exist and gets enforced by the most joyless set of government goons.

I blogged about this quite satisfactorily a year ago, saying Easter Sunday is for individuals not politicians, responding to Sue Bradford's own mindless press release.

It is simply fascist to tell business owners when they can and cannot trade - it is such a clear example of a victimless crime that it is beyond a joke that it remains. However, as Rudman says that "both major parties too chicken to stand up to the high priests of Christianity and organised labour on this". Indeed it is true.

Christians who wont mind their own business (because they want to mind everyone else's) and unions who want workers to all follow in unison (!) like a lumpen proletariat.

National's latest gutless MP - Todd McClay (yes you know his dad), has a bill that would NOT do away with this vile law, which should be seen as contrary to the philosophy of the National Party. No. McClay, who has no media releases on his page on the National Party website, is going to let councils decide.

Instead of embracing the freedom of businesses to decide for themselves, he has embraced a new power for local authorities to decide for them. He has done nothing more than proposing the devolution of an authoritarian law from the Labour Department to local authorities. He talks the collectivist claptrap of letting "communities decide", as if it is right that the majority decide whether a business opens or not.

Well Mr McClay, you've proven that you, and the National Party, remain gutless failures in defending the fundamental right of any business to decide when it should trade.

It's time for ACT to propose that the Bill simply remove all restrictions on shop trading hours. It is what Libertarianz would do.

UPDATE: Andrei at NZ Conservative suggests that the Labour Department be prosecuted for having its "workers" "working" on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Lucyna at the same blog disagrees, just to show that Christian conservatives are not all of one opinion on this.

Isn't the Standard funny?

with this. (and I don't support the cycleway at all)

So how about this?

Kiwirail

Time: 9.5 months
Jobs created: 0
Additional freight and passengers carried: 0
Cost thus far: $1.07 billion (purchase plus capital injection)
Wealth created from purchase: -$242 million (Treasury rightdown in November, to be conservative.)
Money saved on road maintenance minus road user charges revenue lost: 0
Enrichment of foreign investors from the New Zealand taxpayers' pockets: $206 million (difference in what Toll paid and what Dr Cullen paid using your money to buy the same thing).