Remember I posted that 2 degrees started with an advantage over Telecom and Vodafone? Well it’s becoming more clear that 2 degrees isn’t interested in competing on a level playing field. No. It wants the government to make life easier for it by forcing its competitors to charge less than they are willing to access their networks. According to NZPA it has a "Drop the Rate, Mate" campaign, which isn't as friendly as it sounds - it wants the government to use force to help its business out.
It wants mobile termination rates (which Vodafone never had regulated in the 17 years it has competed with Telecom) to be regulated because it thinks the cost is too high. Not that it would know since it isn’t interested in building much of a parallel network to the two major players, it never has been. 2 degrees, like Vodafone (when it was owned by BellSouth in the beginning) has few customers, so as a result it pays other mobile phone operators more than it receives in kind.
In fact I recall not long after BellSouth entered the New Zealand market, the CEO of Bellsouth (USA) visited New Zealand, and demanded from the then Minister of Communications (Maurice Williamson) that he regulate Telecom so BellSouth could get a fair share of the market. Williamson told him politely that New Zealand is not the United States, you can’t get politicians to do your bidding in New Zealand as easily as he thought, that BellSouth knew the regulatory environment when it invested and so should actually get out there and compete on its merits. Within a couple of years BellSouth, having underinvested in the network, and done little to attract new customers sold the business to Vodafone, which has been a roaring success.
However, after nearly 9 years of Labour intervening and regulating in the telecommunications sector, 2 degrees isn’t interested in competing on merit, but using the state to give it a hand up – again.
It has former blogger and centre-left (well he is now) journalist Matthew Hooton to do its PR. Moreso it has an interesting ragtag mob of supporters. Consumer New Zealand has always supported regulating producers, so no surprise there. TUANZ is pretty much the same, always using never producing. NZUSA has long been a platform for socialism and the Federation of Maori Authorities has a corporate interest, as it owns the frequencies (thanks to the last Labour government) that 2 degrees uses. However, Federated Farmers is an odd one. I am sure in the interests of fairness, Federated Farmers might agree to the prices of all of its commodities to be reduced so that consumers can pay less for food and woollen items.
Steven Joyce should tell them the same as Maurice Williamson. Go away and compete. 2 degrees already has an advantage in that it didn’t pay a market price for its frequencies, it already doesn’t need to build the infrastructure of Vodafone and Telecom because it is reselling their capacity (by voluntary agreement). Grow up and move on. The last Labour government agreed, it should be a swift dismissal by Joyce.
"Mr Hooton said the new minister would face "ferocious corporate lobbying"." with apparently a large campaign, which wont be cheap, spent on lobbying - money presumably that could be used to build more of a network so less termination charges could be paid.
So, it is pretty clear 2 degrees is NOT a normal private enterprise, but one that seeks to make money through government favours. It would rather waste money engaging in currying favour with government than to build a network so it would need to pay less to its competitors (or indeed to negotiate with its competitors for better rates).
It's a company that believes in using force to get its own way, a company that I don't believe is moral to support.
11 August 2009
10 August 2009
Helen Clark and UNDP sycophancy
If there is one thing that keeps me in the UK and which frustrates and angers me the most about the idea of returning to New Zealand (or even to Australia), it is how journalism almost does not exist in the mainstream media. At least with the Times, the Observer, the Telegraph, FT or even (cough) the Guardian, there are journalists – people not afraid to research a topic and ask hard questions, to be a devil’s advocate for the opposing point of view. Sadly, it appears that metaphorically sticking your tongue up the arse of your subject is de rigueur among New Zealand reporters
The most recent example is the sycophancy dressed as journalism being trotted out by Tracy Watkins in the Dominion Post, who has written two articles profiling how Helen Clark is getting on leading the UN Development Programme. Watkins could just as well have been working for the Labour Party to produce such inane twaddle. The first article would be better seen in the NZ Woman's Weekly or the like. I do love how the talk of scandals was brushed to one side though, "disgruntled staff" you see. Because, presumably, you only listen to disgruntled staff when they work for the private sector, not the altruistic people loving United Nations.
You can of course read the latest instalment here, which goes on about five crisis that have ravaged the world in the past year (food, financial, fuel, swine flu and climate change), though you might ask some hard questions about how many of these are real and how many still exist (food and fuel disappeared as financial came).
Watkins could have asked what have been the achievements of the UNDP, how many countries it has weaned off of aid since it was formed in 1965? The answer of course is none.
Watkins could have talked to critics of aid, especially UN based aid operations. Funnily enough she didn’t.
Watkins could have asked how much of the NZ$5 billion budget of the UNDP goes on administration, how much the average UNDP employee receives in income (tax free) and the UNDP’s travel budget? In other words she could have discussed why UN employees are some of the best paid (and least hard working) “public sector” workers in the world.
So the article is essentially an interview with Clark. Nice for Watkins to get her jaunt to New York of course, but that could have been done over the phone. Watkins could instead have used her trip to meet with different groups who have differing views of the UNDP or the UN, but that might have upset Clark – and you can’t do that can you?
She finishes with a so-called “factbox”, which says precious little.
It talks about New Zealand’s aid, ignoring aid raised through private charities and distributed through such charities, like World Vision (who I do NOT endorse). For example, talk about the aid given by the US ignores that around 80% again is given and distributed privately. In short, aid doesn’t have to involve force.
So what could Watkins have done? Well maybe she could have looked at the long list of scandals involving the UNDP and asked Clark what she’d be doing about it on her NZ$500,000 tax free salary. Scandals? You mean the New Zealand MSM hasn’t been doing its job to find out what the UNDP is about? You betcha! Watch this space.
The most recent example is the sycophancy dressed as journalism being trotted out by Tracy Watkins in the Dominion Post, who has written two articles profiling how Helen Clark is getting on leading the UN Development Programme. Watkins could just as well have been working for the Labour Party to produce such inane twaddle. The first article would be better seen in the NZ Woman's Weekly or the like. I do love how the talk of scandals was brushed to one side though, "disgruntled staff" you see. Because, presumably, you only listen to disgruntled staff when they work for the private sector, not the altruistic people loving United Nations.
You can of course read the latest instalment here, which goes on about five crisis that have ravaged the world in the past year (food, financial, fuel, swine flu and climate change), though you might ask some hard questions about how many of these are real and how many still exist (food and fuel disappeared as financial came).
Watkins could have asked what have been the achievements of the UNDP, how many countries it has weaned off of aid since it was formed in 1965? The answer of course is none.
Watkins could have talked to critics of aid, especially UN based aid operations. Funnily enough she didn’t.
Watkins could have asked how much of the NZ$5 billion budget of the UNDP goes on administration, how much the average UNDP employee receives in income (tax free) and the UNDP’s travel budget? In other words she could have discussed why UN employees are some of the best paid (and least hard working) “public sector” workers in the world.
So the article is essentially an interview with Clark. Nice for Watkins to get her jaunt to New York of course, but that could have been done over the phone. Watkins could instead have used her trip to meet with different groups who have differing views of the UNDP or the UN, but that might have upset Clark – and you can’t do that can you?
She finishes with a so-called “factbox”, which says precious little.
It talks about New Zealand’s aid, ignoring aid raised through private charities and distributed through such charities, like World Vision (who I do NOT endorse). For example, talk about the aid given by the US ignores that around 80% again is given and distributed privately. In short, aid doesn’t have to involve force.
So what could Watkins have done? Well maybe she could have looked at the long list of scandals involving the UNDP and asked Clark what she’d be doing about it on her NZ$500,000 tax free salary. Scandals? You mean the New Zealand MSM hasn’t been doing its job to find out what the UNDP is about? You betcha! Watch this space.
08 August 2009
Daily Telegraph odds and ends
Greek woman sets fire to British sexual assaulter: After resisting his advances, after pouring Sambuca on him to cool him down, the guy wouldn’t stop. So the woman set fire to the man, to the cheer of onlookers – gave herself to the Police claiming self defence. The young man’s dad said “He's not the kind of lad that gets himself in trouble – he's a kind-hearted, generous boy”. He now has second degree burns for being a drunken fool.
HIV genome decoded: Scientists at the University of North Carolina claim to have decoded the entire HIV genome, raising hopes of new treatments to neutralise the virus. Given that drug therapy in recent years has significantly extended the life expectancy of HIV carriers, this may well be the next chance for a breakthrough.
Beetroot juice increases stamina: The University of Exeter's School of Sport and Health Sciences has found that a glass a day of beetroot juice can help men work out for 16% longer.
Woman who drink two glasses of red wine a day have better sex lives: You might expect the University of Florence to undertake THIS study. Overall, women who drank two glasses a day scored an average of 27.3 points (sexual arousal points), compared to 25.9 for those who drank one glass and 24.4 for the non-drinkers. Whether this continues to rise with each glass is a moot point, but it no doubt makes the drink feel like it is better! No doubt it also improves the sex lives of the men (and even women) they meet too.
BBC move to cost over £800 million: Whilst businesses sometimes shift from London to the regions to save money, the BBC’s move of the sports department and Radio 5 to Manchester is going to cost money. Proving once again, how unaccountable government organizations can be when the money they have to spent was taken by force by people who may not want its services anyway.
Iran executes 24 drug traffickers in mass execution: The second biggest (known) executor of prisoners continues form (I say known, because there are more than one or two governments that do this rather informally and privately). 219 people are known to have been executed in Iran since the start of the year. The total last year was 246. Of course many don't sympathise with drug traffickers, assuming of course the said individuals had a fair trial, that they were violent and forcing drugs on people or supplying children, hmmm. Oh and Iran has a horrendous drug addiction problem, demonstrating how effective a deterrent this is!
Sonia Sotomayer confirmed as latest US Supreme Court judge: True to those who value what is skindeep over character, most of the publicity about this is that she is a Hispanic woman. That is a first for the US Supreme Court. However, this is also a woman who once said "a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life”. Objective is she? The Cato Institute thinks she wouldn’t be in the running if she were not Hispanic.
HIV genome decoded: Scientists at the University of North Carolina claim to have decoded the entire HIV genome, raising hopes of new treatments to neutralise the virus. Given that drug therapy in recent years has significantly extended the life expectancy of HIV carriers, this may well be the next chance for a breakthrough.
Beetroot juice increases stamina: The University of Exeter's School of Sport and Health Sciences has found that a glass a day of beetroot juice can help men work out for 16% longer.
Woman who drink two glasses of red wine a day have better sex lives: You might expect the University of Florence to undertake THIS study. Overall, women who drank two glasses a day scored an average of 27.3 points (sexual arousal points), compared to 25.9 for those who drank one glass and 24.4 for the non-drinkers. Whether this continues to rise with each glass is a moot point, but it no doubt makes the drink feel like it is better! No doubt it also improves the sex lives of the men (and even women) they meet too.
BBC move to cost over £800 million: Whilst businesses sometimes shift from London to the regions to save money, the BBC’s move of the sports department and Radio 5 to Manchester is going to cost money. Proving once again, how unaccountable government organizations can be when the money they have to spent was taken by force by people who may not want its services anyway.
Iran executes 24 drug traffickers in mass execution: The second biggest (known) executor of prisoners continues form (I say known, because there are more than one or two governments that do this rather informally and privately). 219 people are known to have been executed in Iran since the start of the year. The total last year was 246. Of course many don't sympathise with drug traffickers, assuming of course the said individuals had a fair trial, that they were violent and forcing drugs on people or supplying children, hmmm. Oh and Iran has a horrendous drug addiction problem, demonstrating how effective a deterrent this is!
Sonia Sotomayer confirmed as latest US Supreme Court judge: True to those who value what is skindeep over character, most of the publicity about this is that she is a Hispanic woman. That is a first for the US Supreme Court. However, this is also a woman who once said "a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life”. Objective is she? The Cato Institute thinks she wouldn’t be in the running if she were not Hispanic.
07 August 2009
Gather thee all at the altar of the train
Idiot Savant once again swallows hook line and sinker the totem of railways always good in supporting the unaffordably ambitious plan to build a bespoke high speed railway network in the UK. The existing network of lines that sustain speeds of 200 km/h not being truly high speed in the European context.
Let's see where he makes mistakes and avoids facts:
1. No high speed rail network could eliminate short haul flights in the UK. All plans are largely to connect London with one corridor going to Birmingham, Manchester and Scotland. I wont be pinning hopes on people flying between Aberdeen and Norwich, Inverness and London or Southampton to Manchester getting trains. Many who use domestic flights connect at Heathrow for long haul flights, which is less convenient if done by rail then air. Indeed, whilst many air routes have competition, rail services curiously don't - but funnily enough when it involves trains, those on the left don't seem to care about competition.
2. He blames the lack of high speed rail on privatisation. How odd. Privatisation of rail in the UK started in 1994. The first TGV line in France opened in 1981. The first Spanish AVE line in 1992. The first German ICE trains in 1991. The first Italian high speed line in 1977. So get the picture? What stopped it happening in the UK when it was state owned? The nationalised British Rail was a bastion of disastrous investment decisions, like the high speed APT train, that was abandoned with the technology sold onto Fiat, which has since made a commercial success of it (so that it made the trains now used for the UK's West Coast Main Line between London and Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow). Indeed, getting new rail lines built in the UK is partly a problem of a planning process that is glacial due to prolific NIMBYism. The truth is that British Rail took passengers for granted, and subsidies, and just let its market share of domestic travel erode over decades. Funny how rail patronage since privatisation is now at its highest level since 1956.
3. He claims this will tackle climate change, but this buys into the myth that a subsidised railway with half empty trains most of the day is better for the environment that privately owned commercially operated flights. Airports are privately run and commercially operated. Airlines equally so. A high speed railway in the UK would be government funded, commercially run and carry considerable subsidies. Its major users would be business people, those willing to pay for fast travel. Why should their movements be subsidised? Is it not better that all users of transport pay for whatever the market charges, regardless of how high it is?
4. To top it off he says "its something we should start thinking about now" . By we he means the New Zealand Government, he wont be setting up a private company, seeking investors and borrowing money to do it (how absurd!), he wants to force you to pay some consultants to start thinking about it. A high speed railway in New Zealand, where most lines are already unprofitable and unviable, and where the highest speeds achievable at the moment are 105 km/h on short segments(whereas the UK reaches 200 km/h on it's NON-high speed lines), and with a topography that is obviously unsuited to long straight and flat pieces of infrastructure, is utter nonsense.
However, when you drink from the religion of the railway, then all spending is an "investment", all new lines are "great ideas", and everyone should be made to pay, whether they use it or not! The cost of this idea for the UK is conservatively put at £30 billion, but is likely to be far higher. The government's own Eddington Report criticised the idea of building high speed railways as poor value. He said:
"Given that domestic aviation accounts for 1.2 per cent of the UK’s carbon
emissions, it is unlikely that building a high-cost, energy-intensive very
high-speed train network is going to be a sensible way to reduce UK
emissions." and
"However, new high-speed rail networks in the UK would not significantly change the level of economic connectivity between most parts of the UK, given existing aviation and rail links. Even if a transformation in connectivity could be achieved, the evidence is very quiet on the scale of resulting economic benefit, and in France business use of the high speed train network is low."
You see the faster the train, the higher the carbon footprint, and building very long new strips of bespoke infrastructure in itself is a very carbon intensive activity. However, my argument is more simple. If the private sector wont invest in it, why should taxpayers be forced to?
At a time when the Labour government has squandered hundreds of billions of future taxpayers' money on growing the state and unnecessarily nationalising banks that should have been left to fail, this is just more wishful thinking by a government keen to bribe voters with the taxes of others - before it gets consigned to history in the 2010 election.
Meanwhile, the economically and environmentally illiterate rail junkies will cheer on pillaging other people's pockets to pay for their pet projects, not letting facts get in the way of their excitement. Much like what has already been happening on rail in Auckland.
UPDATE: It seems all three main UK political parties are ignoring quality advice and choosing to support this cargo cult of high speed rail. One consultant has already noted that 49% of UK domestic flights are to other islands or to destinations like Aberdeen and Inverness which couldn't conceivably have a high speed rail link. The Conservatives are stupidly claiming that cutting this small number of flights will remove the need for a third runway at Heathrow. Another case of flaky Labour lite?
An aviation lobby group fisks the idea further, and points out the hypocrisy of a Liberal Democrat MP flying instead of going by rail, because of speed. The Lib Dems are like the Green-lite party of the UK.
Even rail expert and enthusiast Christian Wolmar is sceptical, and this is in the traditionally socialist (and pro-Labour) Guardian. So is this the Transmission Gully of the UK? A massively expensive project that politicians get overly excited about, make wild claims about the benefits it will bring, but the truth is that it is largely an illusion?
Let's see where he makes mistakes and avoids facts:
1. No high speed rail network could eliminate short haul flights in the UK. All plans are largely to connect London with one corridor going to Birmingham, Manchester and Scotland. I wont be pinning hopes on people flying between Aberdeen and Norwich, Inverness and London or Southampton to Manchester getting trains. Many who use domestic flights connect at Heathrow for long haul flights, which is less convenient if done by rail then air. Indeed, whilst many air routes have competition, rail services curiously don't - but funnily enough when it involves trains, those on the left don't seem to care about competition.
2. He blames the lack of high speed rail on privatisation. How odd. Privatisation of rail in the UK started in 1994. The first TGV line in France opened in 1981. The first Spanish AVE line in 1992. The first German ICE trains in 1991. The first Italian high speed line in 1977. So get the picture? What stopped it happening in the UK when it was state owned? The nationalised British Rail was a bastion of disastrous investment decisions, like the high speed APT train, that was abandoned with the technology sold onto Fiat, which has since made a commercial success of it (so that it made the trains now used for the UK's West Coast Main Line between London and Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow). Indeed, getting new rail lines built in the UK is partly a problem of a planning process that is glacial due to prolific NIMBYism. The truth is that British Rail took passengers for granted, and subsidies, and just let its market share of domestic travel erode over decades. Funny how rail patronage since privatisation is now at its highest level since 1956.
3. He claims this will tackle climate change, but this buys into the myth that a subsidised railway with half empty trains most of the day is better for the environment that privately owned commercially operated flights. Airports are privately run and commercially operated. Airlines equally so. A high speed railway in the UK would be government funded, commercially run and carry considerable subsidies. Its major users would be business people, those willing to pay for fast travel. Why should their movements be subsidised? Is it not better that all users of transport pay for whatever the market charges, regardless of how high it is?
4. To top it off he says "its something we should start thinking about now" . By we he means the New Zealand Government, he wont be setting up a private company, seeking investors and borrowing money to do it (how absurd!), he wants to force you to pay some consultants to start thinking about it. A high speed railway in New Zealand, where most lines are already unprofitable and unviable, and where the highest speeds achievable at the moment are 105 km/h on short segments(whereas the UK reaches 200 km/h on it's NON-high speed lines), and with a topography that is obviously unsuited to long straight and flat pieces of infrastructure, is utter nonsense.
However, when you drink from the religion of the railway, then all spending is an "investment", all new lines are "great ideas", and everyone should be made to pay, whether they use it or not! The cost of this idea for the UK is conservatively put at £30 billion, but is likely to be far higher. The government's own Eddington Report criticised the idea of building high speed railways as poor value. He said:
"Given that domestic aviation accounts for 1.2 per cent of the UK’s carbon
emissions, it is unlikely that building a high-cost, energy-intensive very
high-speed train network is going to be a sensible way to reduce UK
emissions." and
"However, new high-speed rail networks in the UK would not significantly change the level of economic connectivity between most parts of the UK, given existing aviation and rail links. Even if a transformation in connectivity could be achieved, the evidence is very quiet on the scale of resulting economic benefit, and in France business use of the high speed train network is low."
You see the faster the train, the higher the carbon footprint, and building very long new strips of bespoke infrastructure in itself is a very carbon intensive activity. However, my argument is more simple. If the private sector wont invest in it, why should taxpayers be forced to?
At a time when the Labour government has squandered hundreds of billions of future taxpayers' money on growing the state and unnecessarily nationalising banks that should have been left to fail, this is just more wishful thinking by a government keen to bribe voters with the taxes of others - before it gets consigned to history in the 2010 election.
Meanwhile, the economically and environmentally illiterate rail junkies will cheer on pillaging other people's pockets to pay for their pet projects, not letting facts get in the way of their excitement. Much like what has already been happening on rail in Auckland.
UPDATE: It seems all three main UK political parties are ignoring quality advice and choosing to support this cargo cult of high speed rail. One consultant has already noted that 49% of UK domestic flights are to other islands or to destinations like Aberdeen and Inverness which couldn't conceivably have a high speed rail link. The Conservatives are stupidly claiming that cutting this small number of flights will remove the need for a third runway at Heathrow. Another case of flaky Labour lite?
An aviation lobby group fisks the idea further, and points out the hypocrisy of a Liberal Democrat MP flying instead of going by rail, because of speed. The Lib Dems are like the Green-lite party of the UK.
Even rail expert and enthusiast Christian Wolmar is sceptical, and this is in the traditionally socialist (and pro-Labour) Guardian. So is this the Transmission Gully of the UK? A massively expensive project that politicians get overly excited about, make wild claims about the benefits it will bring, but the truth is that it is largely an illusion?
Don't hit girls but...
All sounds good that. Apparently a national strategy on domestic violence includes teaching primary school kids that hitting girls or women is wrong, according to this Daily Telegraph report. Of course it's wrong, initiating force IS wrong.
However there are two rather important issues with this.
1. Why just girls? Isn’t a message that you shouldn’t hit girls going to imply you should hit boys? Or is the quite right agenda against domestic violence, led by a feminist blindness to boys or men being victims of violence? Young men are the most likely victims of assault. Why not simply say it is wrong to first hit anyone?
2. What of self-defence? In some cases it IS appropriate to hit, that is if someone ignore the rule in the first place. Flight or fight are legitimate approaches, but children need to know that if they are hit, they should be able to retaliate appropriately.
So wouldn’t it preferably just to say kids that using force to get your own way with someone else is wrong? Get them to find examples of when that is done. In fact, get them to find cases where people want to use force to get their own way, or get others to use force for them. Most political parties do, for example.
However there are two rather important issues with this.
1. Why just girls? Isn’t a message that you shouldn’t hit girls going to imply you should hit boys? Or is the quite right agenda against domestic violence, led by a feminist blindness to boys or men being victims of violence? Young men are the most likely victims of assault. Why not simply say it is wrong to first hit anyone?
2. What of self-defence? In some cases it IS appropriate to hit, that is if someone ignore the rule in the first place. Flight or fight are legitimate approaches, but children need to know that if they are hit, they should be able to retaliate appropriately.
So wouldn’t it preferably just to say kids that using force to get your own way with someone else is wrong? Get them to find examples of when that is done. In fact, get them to find cases where people want to use force to get their own way, or get others to use force for them. Most political parties do, for example.
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