What has National become?
A party with the testicular fortitude of a eunuch doormouse that is terrified of even engaging in the debate on this issue (among many many others).
The snivelling, quivering backdown essentially begging:
- Oh believe us, we're no different from Labour on this;
- Don't believe the guy who we want to be next Finance Minister, he has ideas, but he "doesn't choose his words wisely", just to give you confidence in how we want him to spend a good deal of your money in the next three years;
- Please don't discuss this anymore, it's a bit like discussing sex in front of our parents, it embarrasses us to be reminded that we once had a different policy;
- After all that you'll still vote for us right? Labour is worse remember.
It’s very simple, there are solid strong arguments for privatisation. Arguments that have held sway with governments throughout the world, of both sides of the political mainstream.
There have been very successful privatisations in New Zealand that have gone without a peep. The following were easily successes:
- Auckland International Airport;
- BNZ (after a disastrous bailout following the 1990 election);
- Contact Energy;
- NZ Steel;
- Postbank (despite the wasteful emergence of Kiwibank);
- Rural Bank;
- State Insurance (yes the name remains but it hasn’t been “State” for a while);
- Works Infrastructure (yes the old Ministry of Works);
- Wellington International Airport.
Who would argue any of these haven’t worked, that these haven’t become successes, with new investment and better run outside the state? Well the Greens and various socialist retards of course, but otherwise no. Privatisation has worked in many cases, with little evidence to the contrary.
The ones most subject to criticism are largely criticised on flawed grounds (Air NZ, NZ Rail, Telecom).
Take Air NZ. After privatisation it was hamstrung by two actions, both of governments. It saw expansion as necessary in an increasingly competitive market, and wanted to enter the high cost Australian domestic market, but the Australian government prevented it, so it bought 50% of Ansett, with many government terms and conditions stopping it from making serious efficiency improvements to that airlines. Its second and most fatal problem was that the NZ government effectively vetoed by delay the investment of capital by a willing investor – Singapore Airlines – which had it been allowed, would have avoided the government bailout.
The current Labour government let Air New Zealand fail so it could nationalise it and do a deal to part privatise it again with Qantas – which also failed.
Telecom was privatised at a time when technology in telecommunications was starting to move a lot faster than it had in the previous couple of decades. The market was opened up to competition and Telecom simply required on privatisation to allow interconnection with competitors’ networks.
Privatising Telecom brought in enormous new capital, significant efficiencies, technological innovation and responsiveness to competition. For example, $5 unlimited national weekend phone calls were a Telecom innovation which broke the back of years of complicated expensive tariffs for long distance toll calls. Whilst arguments may be made about the levels of investment, there is little doubt that Telecom was sold for a price well above expectations and needed serious capital. In addition it provided an opportunity for thousands of New Zealanders to own shares in a fairly stable growing sector.
Then there is TranzRail. A great myth around that privatisation is that it was pillaged and stripped, and great profits were carved out of it with nothing left behind. This myth is peddled by the rail religious, when the truth is quite different. There was substantial investment in wagons, including on passenger services during most of the 1990s, and a big drive for efficiency, customer service and logistics. In other words meeting the needs of freight customers not politicians. Now some of the customers had a few issues when Tranz Rail wanted it to invest in wagons, and some lines had come to the end of their useful lives (worth running into the ground, but not worth replacing the wornout lines), but that was it. The anti-privatisation story doesn’t really bear close examination.
But what do the public think? Do they believe Air New Zealand failed because it was privately owned? If so, how do they account for so many privately owned airlines in the world, or do they not think any further?
Do they believe Telecom has failed as a private company? They honestly think broadband would be cheaper and faster if government provided? Well clearly the government and Nats thinks so.
And railways? Do they really think railway lines that they have barely ever seen a train on it would be any better under government ownership? Do they really think railways will do anything more than they have done for years – move containers and bulk freight long distances, besides commuter services in Wellington?
So why is National afraid? Is the fear of privatisation about foreigners? The brainless xenophobia of Winston Peters and the Greens? Is it about capitalism, businesses run as businesses, efficiently and to attract customers, being bad? Is it nostalgia that somehow some businesses that are no longer viable should be propped up?
What has gone so wrong with privatisation that politicians, except those in ACT and Libertarianz, wont engage on it?
06 August 2008
05 August 2008
Why not sell Kiwibank?
National opposed it being set up.
It wasn't even Labour policy it was Alliance policy (when Jim Ol' Son led the Alliance).
So what's changed? It has 550,000 customers? Great, it is worth selling. It isn't core business to postal services.
Why should the government own a bank? There are other NZ privately owned banks and building societies, so hardly any xenophobic excuse (of the sort the Greens pander to).
So why are the Nats obfuscating? Why not simply say, yes we will consider selling Kiwibank if we get a very good offer - we'd be stupid if we turned one down.
No, they look like what so many voters think they are - lying, deceptive, covering up, pretending black is white, and now having to backtrack, gutless and without any principle. Terrified that if there was a policy to actually take things back to where they were in 1999, that the public would say nooooooo. Terrified they couldn't say for certain what would happen to a privatised Kiwibank, when Jim Anderton embarks on a xenophobic scaremongering campaign that big foreign banks will rip off timid little kiwi battlers. Because of course, nothing is certain in an open market, other than poor performance creates opportunities.
So National has the worst of both worlds, a policy that is gutless and wrong, the taint of lies and deception, and the patent inability to argue for the right policy, even though it was what National had as policy in 1999.
So what party makes politics seem unprincipled?
It wasn't even Labour policy it was Alliance policy (when Jim Ol' Son led the Alliance).
So what's changed? It has 550,000 customers? Great, it is worth selling. It isn't core business to postal services.
Why should the government own a bank? There are other NZ privately owned banks and building societies, so hardly any xenophobic excuse (of the sort the Greens pander to).
So why are the Nats obfuscating? Why not simply say, yes we will consider selling Kiwibank if we get a very good offer - we'd be stupid if we turned one down.
No, they look like what so many voters think they are - lying, deceptive, covering up, pretending black is white, and now having to backtrack, gutless and without any principle. Terrified that if there was a policy to actually take things back to where they were in 1999, that the public would say nooooooo. Terrified they couldn't say for certain what would happen to a privatised Kiwibank, when Jim Anderton embarks on a xenophobic scaremongering campaign that big foreign banks will rip off timid little kiwi battlers. Because of course, nothing is certain in an open market, other than poor performance creates opportunities.
So National has the worst of both worlds, a policy that is gutless and wrong, the taint of lies and deception, and the patent inability to argue for the right policy, even though it was what National had as policy in 1999.
So what party makes politics seem unprincipled?
Mobile phones on planes nooooooooo
Yes the beginning of the end of peace.
Emirates is quietly allowing this invasion of tranquility according to ABTN.
Its new Boeing 777-300ER aircraft are equipped to handle text messaging and phone calls, but the Airbus A340s and A330s are being equipped as well. So now you know what airline to choose/avoid for the long haul if you don't want Mr, Mrs or Miss Twat next to you with their inept "beep beep... one second pause.... beep beep" texting notification, or babbling on about "yes I'm on the plane" nonsense.
Emirates Vice President Patrick Brannelly has said that "One worry was passengers would keep other passengers awake during the night, but ... this has not happened." Of course in scum class you'd already be awake with the extra narrow seats on the 777 as it squeezes in 10 abreast when Air NZ, Singapore Airlines and BA all fit nine.
So, do you want to make mobile phone calls? Should it only be allowed in a specific compartment on the plane? Or should people just accept that the world doesn't come to a stop just because they are in the air?
Emirates is quietly allowing this invasion of tranquility according to ABTN.
Its new Boeing 777-300ER aircraft are equipped to handle text messaging and phone calls, but the Airbus A340s and A330s are being equipped as well. So now you know what airline to choose/avoid for the long haul if you don't want Mr, Mrs or Miss Twat next to you with their inept "beep beep... one second pause.... beep beep" texting notification, or babbling on about "yes I'm on the plane" nonsense.
Emirates Vice President Patrick Brannelly has said that "One worry was passengers would keep other passengers awake during the night, but ... this has not happened." Of course in scum class you'd already be awake with the extra narrow seats on the 777 as it squeezes in 10 abreast when Air NZ, Singapore Airlines and BA all fit nine.
So, do you want to make mobile phone calls? Should it only be allowed in a specific compartment on the plane? Or should people just accept that the world doesn't come to a stop just because they are in the air?
National's blueprint for a teensy bit of change
OK, now I have come to this with no prejudice, I simply want to judge John Key on what he said, so here we go, and you know my expectations are low, but I’ll judge him on whether he:
a) At least re-implements National policies of the 1990s; and
b) Makes a positive step forward to reduce the role of the state where need be, and
c) Is consistent with National’s stated principles.
- There will be an ongoing programme of tax cuts. OK well good, though the first will be Labour’s and there are no details. I’ll be generous and say 3.
- National will be disciplined about government spending. Again, sounds good, though as vague as can be. Appreciating the problem is at least something, so I’ll be super generous and say 3 again, though methinks the later points will betray this.
- National will stop the growth in the public sector. Hmmm it talks of reprioritisation, so at best it is barely better than Labour. No reversal of past growth means a 1.
- National will launch a full-frontal attack on gangs and the "P" trade they support. Um ok, it also includes “Fresh Start” programmes which could be positive. However, I also know this means giving the Police the sort of surveillance powers that are somewhat frightening, and it is about fighting the “war on drugs” which has failed everywhere else in the world. There would be a point for the attitude to youth crime, but one taken away for the attitude to surveillance. I feel generous giving them 0.
- Within the first 100 days of our first term, National will introduce to Parliament a bill to reform the Resource Management Act. Well yes, but it is all about making it easier for the state to build things, and very little about you. Yes I fully expect it will make a modest difference, but anything that enables the state to run roughshod over private property rights wont get my support. Again I’m being generous giving it a 1.
- National will tap into our communities and our private enterprises to rebuild the ladder of opportunity for every single New Zealander. Get past the waffle it means allowing the private sector to provide services funded by the state, like prisons, maybe even healthcare and education. If I’m optimistic about it, it could be a step forward so gets a 3. If, of course, it means contracting the private sector on a regular basis. It might finally convince the public that the private sector can do health and education rather well.
- We will set national standards in literacy and numeracy for all primary school pupil Well ok, but nothing new to see here either. Hardly more accountability for schools, no more choice for parents. What happens if schools and teacher don’t perform? Again a generous 1.
- As we cut taxes and grow average after-tax wages, we will progressively increase the amount of super paid to senior citizens. So MORE state dependency, more of a PAYE taxpayer funded burden that is unsustainable. Great. A big leap backwards. Let’s be generous again and say it is only a minus 4. Policy on superannuation since the late 1980s has been about “how can we encourage retirement savings” now the Nats have said “how can we spend more of current taxes on the elderly”.
- we will repeal the Electoral Finance Act. And once it's gone from the statute books we will reach out to all the parties in our Parliament to reach a genuine consensus about proper, workable, legislation that can replace it. You know if it was just the first sentence it would be a 5. However, National wants to reach “consensus” in a Parliament full of parties that peddle envy, statism and control. It also wants to ignore parties outside Parliament. I’m generous again in saying it loses only 2 points from the 5 for that, so it’s 3.
- a binding referendum on MMP by no later than 2011 You know, frankly I couldn’t care less. If it means this National Party being able to govern alone it means nothing to me. 1 point for being willing to have the debate.
Solzhenitsyn passes away
The Gulag Archipelago, the harrowing tale of life in one of Stalin's notorious Siberian death camps is what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn will be known best for, and he passed away on 3 August aged 89, but it started with One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich essentially his story of life in the gulag.
Both should be essential reading for historians and give a flavour of the heartless inhumanity at the heart of Marxism-Leninism, a murderous cruelty that run roughshod over human beings for the pursuit of the socialist dream of equality. Equality in that you all sacrificed yourselves to the great "other", whether your bones were crushed or not, you all feared they would be, if you were smart.
Solzhenitsyn had a brief flourish with freedom and fame in the USSR under Khrushchev who used him to point at the brutality of Stalinism, before the Stalinists took Khrushchev himself, and crushed him and Solzhenitsyn again under the slow long death of Brezhnev.
No, he was no great supporter of capitalism, he was a devout Orthodox Christian and he was saddened that his books were more often read outside Russia than within. He saw the growing kleptocracy of post-Soviet Russia as disappointing, as smart men pillaged the state for what was worthwhile, and bought the government and the law at the same time as generations were left in a drunken stupor, without any spirit, as the great experiment of lies and crushing equality collapsed.
He bravely told the tale that tens of millions would never survive to do so -a tale that is still less well known than the Holocaust, yet cost more lives. Less well known perhaps because for so long the Soviet state couldn't really reveal what it was all about - it was, after all, still locking up and executing dissidents until the late 1980s - and after perhaps a decade of respite, has returned somewhat to its old ways.
He damned the view that Stalin was the root of the evil in the USSR, pointing out that Lenin started the executions and the secret police (Cheka). He rejected the evils of the communist system and ideology and embraced Western determination to fight them, but he also had little time for much Western popular culture (head banging caterwauling methinks). He was lauded by Vladimir Putin as a staunch Russian nationalist, which, along with his Orthodox Christianity, no doubt blinded him enough to describe NATO as no better than Hitler when it bombed Serbia in retaliation for its brutality in Kosovo.
Perhaps he didn't know quite what was best after communism, but he suffered and paid heavily for recording for us all about what was worst. It is also worth remembering some of those who miss the Soviet Union, glossing over the inhumanity of it all. Yes, that's you too Chris Trotter.
Both should be essential reading for historians and give a flavour of the heartless inhumanity at the heart of Marxism-Leninism, a murderous cruelty that run roughshod over human beings for the pursuit of the socialist dream of equality. Equality in that you all sacrificed yourselves to the great "other", whether your bones were crushed or not, you all feared they would be, if you were smart.
Solzhenitsyn had a brief flourish with freedom and fame in the USSR under Khrushchev who used him to point at the brutality of Stalinism, before the Stalinists took Khrushchev himself, and crushed him and Solzhenitsyn again under the slow long death of Brezhnev.
No, he was no great supporter of capitalism, he was a devout Orthodox Christian and he was saddened that his books were more often read outside Russia than within. He saw the growing kleptocracy of post-Soviet Russia as disappointing, as smart men pillaged the state for what was worthwhile, and bought the government and the law at the same time as generations were left in a drunken stupor, without any spirit, as the great experiment of lies and crushing equality collapsed.
He bravely told the tale that tens of millions would never survive to do so -a tale that is still less well known than the Holocaust, yet cost more lives. Less well known perhaps because for so long the Soviet state couldn't really reveal what it was all about - it was, after all, still locking up and executing dissidents until the late 1980s - and after perhaps a decade of respite, has returned somewhat to its old ways.
He damned the view that Stalin was the root of the evil in the USSR, pointing out that Lenin started the executions and the secret police (Cheka). He rejected the evils of the communist system and ideology and embraced Western determination to fight them, but he also had little time for much Western popular culture (head banging caterwauling methinks). He was lauded by Vladimir Putin as a staunch Russian nationalist, which, along with his Orthodox Christianity, no doubt blinded him enough to describe NATO as no better than Hitler when it bombed Serbia in retaliation for its brutality in Kosovo.
Perhaps he didn't know quite what was best after communism, but he suffered and paid heavily for recording for us all about what was worst. It is also worth remembering some of those who miss the Soviet Union, glossing over the inhumanity of it all. Yes, that's you too Chris Trotter.
04 August 2008
AA doing good work, hopefully
That's my reaction to this NZ Herald story.
The AA has written to the Minister of Transport Annette King, and the Chair of the ARC, Mike Lee, concerned that the ARC is going to implement a new regional fuel tax of 1c/l (increased to 3c/l in 2010) without public consultation.
Mike Lee, who is a hardened socialist convinced of the Auckland rail boondoggle, is upset he might have to actually consult about the tax (though he says it was consulted on, before it was legally able to be introduced - you see, this is another Labour tax). The AA says it is only reasonable that those having to pay for the rail electrification project - motorists - should be consulted when they are to be levied a new tax.
Mike Lee of course wont answer the single most important question - what does the average Auckland motorist get for this fuel tax increase? What are the travel time savings and reductions in fuel consumption from (presumably) reduced congestion from electrifying rail? Why wont anyone advocating it give the figures?
The AA has written to the Minister of Transport Annette King, and the Chair of the ARC, Mike Lee, concerned that the ARC is going to implement a new regional fuel tax of 1c/l (increased to 3c/l in 2010) without public consultation.
Mike Lee, who is a hardened socialist convinced of the Auckland rail boondoggle, is upset he might have to actually consult about the tax (though he says it was consulted on, before it was legally able to be introduced - you see, this is another Labour tax). The AA says it is only reasonable that those having to pay for the rail electrification project - motorists - should be consulted when they are to be levied a new tax.
Mike Lee of course wont answer the single most important question - what does the average Auckland motorist get for this fuel tax increase? What are the travel time savings and reductions in fuel consumption from (presumably) reduced congestion from electrifying rail? Why wont anyone advocating it give the figures?
One year
Since my birth mum passed, it saved her from the agony of the cancer inadequately treated and misdiagnosed, it was relatively quick and she was 56. It is death that challenges my atheism, that makes me wish more than anything that I'll see her again, but I have joy of the time we did have and the memories that will be with me till my final breath. Nine wonderful years for which I will always be grateful.
National's fundamental problem
Now as regular readers to this blog will know, I'm fairly merciless against the National Party. The reasons being fairly clear:
- Most of its policies are at best a limp-wristed one step better than Labour's;
- Most of its policies are more leftwing than what National implemented when it was last in government in the 1990s, even when it was in coalition with NZ First;
- It obfuscates when asked perfectly reasonable questions such as "how can you fund more spending in some areas of government and bigger tax cuts without cutting government spending in others?".
The response of some of my readers is simple. They essentially believe that what matters is that Labour is ousted from power as it is worse, and when National is in power then the more politically difficult issues can be confronted, such as what spending to cut. Some think National MUST be better, and given their loathing of Labour they see National as the only credible alternative government. Within all of this is a more fundamental political and cultural problem in New Zealand, and this needs to be conquered and fought more than the Labour party.
So when National rejects privatisation, why is that? Is it a belt of xenophobia of the kind both Winston Peters and Jim Anderton built their snivelling little envy milking careers on? Well in part. New Zealanders don't reject foreign investment, but it would be fair to say a majority have the feeling (and it is feelings not thoughts) that a foreign company buying what was once a New Zealand operation is somehow "taking something away", that it will "rip you off" or underinvest. It is no more or less true than a NZ company doing so, and more importantly no more or less true than the state doing so. The state has taking over a billion dollars from taxpayers for the railways and you've seen next to nothing for it. It's just taken another NZ$690 million to buy it back, and most New Zealanders don't really mind.
Why do NZers buy the Labour view that Air NZ's renationalisation was due to it being badly run by the private sector, rather than the more honest truth that Labour stopped Singapore Airlines from bailing it out? It's because National finds the argument too complicated, and because the mainstream media prefers simplicity. The argument requires effort and National doesn't want to take the effort.
Let's go further. Why do NZers prefer that the government tax $1.5 billion of their taxes to spend on telecommunications rather than get out of the way of the private sector to roll it out? Why wont the Nats point to how Vodafone transformed BellSouth into being a mobile phone network to easily rival Telecom, without ANY government involvement? Why wont the Nats points to how under their administration, TelstraClear rolled out a new broadband network to virtually all of residential Christchurch and Wellington/Hutt Valley, again without any government involvement? Why wont they point out that a main reason why this didn't happen in Auckland is because Auckland City Council used the RMA to stop extra cables being strung along overhead poles, and subsequently the change of government saw Labour let Telstra Clear use Telecom's network - then complained Telecom wasn't investing enough in its network.
Again, the Nats wont make the "complicated" argument, easier to say "we'll spend your money".
New Zealanders WANT the government to take charge, take money off them and pick winners - even though the evidence of doing this well is pretty appalling. Most of you may have forgotten than Jim Anderton set up an organisation now known as NZ Trade and Enterprise to subsidy businesses - pick winners. Noticed which of them has taken off and been a roaring success thanks to you being forced to pay for them? No.
So the Nats wont argue for capitalism, for private enterprise, they aren't prepared to say - look it worked before, we just need to get out of the way with lower taxes and abolishing the RMA, because Labour will talk of the "failed policies of the 1990s". What about the "failed policies since 1999"? Instead the Nats will argue for government spending, government ownership, government plans. They want to be seen to be doing something, instead of reiterating the simple truth that was learnt (and forgotten) from the 1980s and 1990s, that the government isn't smart enough to do anything well, often enough to risk taxpayers' money being diverted to those risks.
What incentives do the Nats have to get it right? The same Jim Anderton has had. He has had nine years of spending around $100 million a year and nothing much to show for it - why don't the Nats point THAT out?
No, apparently simpler to say spend money instead of giving it back to you. Yes, really.
Let's not even talk about roads. It's become the new pork for government, when at one time New Zealand governments proudly had moved away from picking winners on roads too - when once the Nats led ground breaking policy that essentially said roads should be run like businesses - not as political porkbarrel games.
So what about social policy? Again, the Nats can't even join the political mainstream of UK and US politics that have seen centre-LEFT governments (Labour and Clinton) reform welfare, and be tough on it. They have embraced the middle class welfare of "Working for Families", unwilling to put together a tax cut package that would be as good as or better for most recipients, and argue that government shouldn't be about welfare. However, they wont say welfare will be tougher.
Then health care. Could the Nats ever argue that it would be better to choose an option based on insurance rather like Australia and Germany, that means you pay more if you live an unhealthy lifestyle? No, if they said "insurance" or "private sector", the rabid left would say "Americanisation" and "Profit" and most New Zealanders would ignore the failure of the state run system, and the Nats just wont argue.
I could go on, but it is something endemic to the New Zealand psyche. It was seen in 2002 when Laila Harre was talking on TV with the "worm" and the "worm" rose when she talked about the government spending a lot more on health and education, and dropped when she talked about higher taxes.
You see people expect government to do things well, and can't accept that it can't do many things that well. People go through a state education system and can't think that it is that bad. The vested interests in state health, education and welfare are loud in their protestations that everything is ok, but there isn't enough money. The railways once said the same, as did the post office, and the Ministry of Energy, farmers argued for more subsidies, once. The truth is that those running and providing government services have little incentive to radically change them so they are under more pressure to perform and deliver what consumers want, rather than what they think is good for them.
That's the fundamental point. New Zealanders trust government too much. They trust it to spend their money, to tell them what to do, to buy their health and education, to buy their pensions and protect them in the event of accident. They damn governments when this doesn't meet their expectations, but can't connect that sometimes governments CAN'T meet their expectations, that government can make things worse, government forces people to pay for poor service, and people get paid for poor service.
That, is basically, why the National Party doesn't offer anything new. That, and its inherent lack of courage and conservatism. That is inexcusable that it wont argue for part privatisation of power companies to attract new capital and investment, it wont argue for funding roads on the basis of best quality of spend, not ones of "national importance", it wont argue that competition for the ACC employer account was good when it was in power and is good now, and it wont argue that the top tax rate was bad in 2000 so is bad now. That gutlessness to not even roll back what Labour has done to National policy in 1999 is an abysmal success for mediocrity.
However if the majority of the population didn't like that mediocrity, wasn't happy with a change in people rather than policies, the Nats wouldn't be doing well in the polls now would they? AND do you really believe after three years of government National will have radically improved health and education, cut people on welfare, cut crime and grown the economy beyond the mediocre 2-3% NZ is used to? You'll be happy that your taxes will have been cut down so there is virtually no waste?
- Most of its policies are at best a limp-wristed one step better than Labour's;
- Most of its policies are more leftwing than what National implemented when it was last in government in the 1990s, even when it was in coalition with NZ First;
- It obfuscates when asked perfectly reasonable questions such as "how can you fund more spending in some areas of government and bigger tax cuts without cutting government spending in others?".
The response of some of my readers is simple. They essentially believe that what matters is that Labour is ousted from power as it is worse, and when National is in power then the more politically difficult issues can be confronted, such as what spending to cut. Some think National MUST be better, and given their loathing of Labour they see National as the only credible alternative government. Within all of this is a more fundamental political and cultural problem in New Zealand, and this needs to be conquered and fought more than the Labour party.
So when National rejects privatisation, why is that? Is it a belt of xenophobia of the kind both Winston Peters and Jim Anderton built their snivelling little envy milking careers on? Well in part. New Zealanders don't reject foreign investment, but it would be fair to say a majority have the feeling (and it is feelings not thoughts) that a foreign company buying what was once a New Zealand operation is somehow "taking something away", that it will "rip you off" or underinvest. It is no more or less true than a NZ company doing so, and more importantly no more or less true than the state doing so. The state has taking over a billion dollars from taxpayers for the railways and you've seen next to nothing for it. It's just taken another NZ$690 million to buy it back, and most New Zealanders don't really mind.
Why do NZers buy the Labour view that Air NZ's renationalisation was due to it being badly run by the private sector, rather than the more honest truth that Labour stopped Singapore Airlines from bailing it out? It's because National finds the argument too complicated, and because the mainstream media prefers simplicity. The argument requires effort and National doesn't want to take the effort.
Let's go further. Why do NZers prefer that the government tax $1.5 billion of their taxes to spend on telecommunications rather than get out of the way of the private sector to roll it out? Why wont the Nats point to how Vodafone transformed BellSouth into being a mobile phone network to easily rival Telecom, without ANY government involvement? Why wont the Nats points to how under their administration, TelstraClear rolled out a new broadband network to virtually all of residential Christchurch and Wellington/Hutt Valley, again without any government involvement? Why wont they point out that a main reason why this didn't happen in Auckland is because Auckland City Council used the RMA to stop extra cables being strung along overhead poles, and subsequently the change of government saw Labour let Telstra Clear use Telecom's network - then complained Telecom wasn't investing enough in its network.
Again, the Nats wont make the "complicated" argument, easier to say "we'll spend your money".
New Zealanders WANT the government to take charge, take money off them and pick winners - even though the evidence of doing this well is pretty appalling. Most of you may have forgotten than Jim Anderton set up an organisation now known as NZ Trade and Enterprise to subsidy businesses - pick winners. Noticed which of them has taken off and been a roaring success thanks to you being forced to pay for them? No.
So the Nats wont argue for capitalism, for private enterprise, they aren't prepared to say - look it worked before, we just need to get out of the way with lower taxes and abolishing the RMA, because Labour will talk of the "failed policies of the 1990s". What about the "failed policies since 1999"? Instead the Nats will argue for government spending, government ownership, government plans. They want to be seen to be doing something, instead of reiterating the simple truth that was learnt (and forgotten) from the 1980s and 1990s, that the government isn't smart enough to do anything well, often enough to risk taxpayers' money being diverted to those risks.
What incentives do the Nats have to get it right? The same Jim Anderton has had. He has had nine years of spending around $100 million a year and nothing much to show for it - why don't the Nats point THAT out?
No, apparently simpler to say spend money instead of giving it back to you. Yes, really.
Let's not even talk about roads. It's become the new pork for government, when at one time New Zealand governments proudly had moved away from picking winners on roads too - when once the Nats led ground breaking policy that essentially said roads should be run like businesses - not as political porkbarrel games.
So what about social policy? Again, the Nats can't even join the political mainstream of UK and US politics that have seen centre-LEFT governments (Labour and Clinton) reform welfare, and be tough on it. They have embraced the middle class welfare of "Working for Families", unwilling to put together a tax cut package that would be as good as or better for most recipients, and argue that government shouldn't be about welfare. However, they wont say welfare will be tougher.
Then health care. Could the Nats ever argue that it would be better to choose an option based on insurance rather like Australia and Germany, that means you pay more if you live an unhealthy lifestyle? No, if they said "insurance" or "private sector", the rabid left would say "Americanisation" and "Profit" and most New Zealanders would ignore the failure of the state run system, and the Nats just wont argue.
I could go on, but it is something endemic to the New Zealand psyche. It was seen in 2002 when Laila Harre was talking on TV with the "worm" and the "worm" rose when she talked about the government spending a lot more on health and education, and dropped when she talked about higher taxes.
You see people expect government to do things well, and can't accept that it can't do many things that well. People go through a state education system and can't think that it is that bad. The vested interests in state health, education and welfare are loud in their protestations that everything is ok, but there isn't enough money. The railways once said the same, as did the post office, and the Ministry of Energy, farmers argued for more subsidies, once. The truth is that those running and providing government services have little incentive to radically change them so they are under more pressure to perform and deliver what consumers want, rather than what they think is good for them.
That's the fundamental point. New Zealanders trust government too much. They trust it to spend their money, to tell them what to do, to buy their health and education, to buy their pensions and protect them in the event of accident. They damn governments when this doesn't meet their expectations, but can't connect that sometimes governments CAN'T meet their expectations, that government can make things worse, government forces people to pay for poor service, and people get paid for poor service.
That, is basically, why the National Party doesn't offer anything new. That, and its inherent lack of courage and conservatism. That is inexcusable that it wont argue for part privatisation of power companies to attract new capital and investment, it wont argue for funding roads on the basis of best quality of spend, not ones of "national importance", it wont argue that competition for the ACC employer account was good when it was in power and is good now, and it wont argue that the top tax rate was bad in 2000 so is bad now. That gutlessness to not even roll back what Labour has done to National policy in 1999 is an abysmal success for mediocrity.
However if the majority of the population didn't like that mediocrity, wasn't happy with a change in people rather than policies, the Nats wouldn't be doing well in the polls now would they? AND do you really believe after three years of government National will have radically improved health and education, cut people on welfare, cut crime and grown the economy beyond the mediocre 2-3% NZ is used to? You'll be happy that your taxes will have been cut down so there is virtually no waste?
National looks to Muldoon and Pork
John Key announced yesterday National's "infrastructure policy" something which, in the past, has never really existed. I'm absolutely appalled. Two statements describe what this policy is a mix of:
- Think Big;
- Porkbarrel spending.
So what's so wrong with it? Well let's see what John Key said:
"This deficit spans from our roading network through to our energy supply. Nor is it a problem limited to central government. Over the next decade, local government will face an infrastructure deficit of some $30 billion."
Well ok, he recognises there is a problem, although he doesn't really explain why (after all Labour's spending record amounts on roads at the moment), and doesn't explain why it is a government problem. This is the start of his error.
"our infrastructure policy will be comprehensive and bold. This will require leadership. National will appoint a Minister of Infrastructure to reshape, co-ordinate and then oversee the Government’s infrastructure objectives. It will be spelt out in our National Infrastructure Plan."
Rob Muldoon will be proud, Bill Birch will wonder if anything has been learnt. OK, so...
- Wellington's Overseas Passenger Terminal, for ships, opened in the late 1960s for passenger liner traffic a few years before they all ceased;
- The Post Office rewiring Wellington's northern suburbs telecommunications networks for triple twisted copper wire, non standard, because it was the "new state of the art" idea in the 1970s. However it was completely incompatible with xDSL for high speed internet service, of course nobody knew of the internet in the 1970s;
- The Post Office/Telecom instituting card phones in the late 1980s that proved to be Y2K non-compliant;
- The Railways Department opening large shunting yards in the 1960s and buying new shunting locomotives in the 1980s, when freight trains were moving towards direct point to point services, not shunting individual sets of wagons between trains;
- The Railways Department introducing the Silverstar overnight luxury sleeper trains for the Wellington to Auckland run in 1971, three years after NAC had introduced Boeing 737s, putting the final nail in the coffin for long distance rail as a transport for business travellers;
- The Railways Department electrifying the North Island Main Trunk railway at the same time as the government allowed trucks to haul freight further than 150km, taking away the capacity pressure from the line, and at the same time as US consultants advised that far more would be gained by restructuring the operations of the railway to be more efficient;
- The government subsidising a new Wellington-Lyttelton ferry in the 1970s, as the Railways introduced a fourth Picton Ferry and NAC bought more Boeing 737s;
- Wellington hospital getting a multi-million dollar electricity generation plant in the 1970s with 2.5x the capacity of the requirements of Wellington Hospital which cost more to run and maintain than buying power from the national grid, and more than having backup generators;
- Invercargill City Council paying for international arrival and departure facilities, even though there have been no scheduled services from a foreign country to and from Invercargill, ever.
Let alone, what government department predicted the internet? What government department predicted international air travel would literally "take off"? What government department predicted mobile phones would start supplanting landlines? Don't worry, John Key and the National Party know the future - like they knew it in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when a fortune of "infrastructure investments" had their debt written off.
Anyway...
"Changes like the growing price of oil and the need for public transport and roading networks that reflect that. Changes like growing connectivity between countries and people and the need for telecommunications networks that make the most of this."
Actually John, oil dropped in the last few weeks, so well done. Do tell how you can plan public transport and roads to meet this, in fact one of the biggest "public transport" industries is the airline sector, have you predicted what ones will fail and what will succeed John? Oh and do tell what's wrong with NZ's international telecommunications links, since they have been growing in capacity for ages without government involvement- actually Southern Cross Cable happened when the Nats weren't in power.
"our National Infrastructure Plan will include up to $1.5 billion in Crown investment for an ultra-fast broadband network connecting 75% of New Zealanders. And that’s why we will double the Broadband Challenge Fund and refocus it on rural communities"
Crown = money taken from taxpayers John. Don't hid that. You'll focus on rural communities, because of course, it's not enough they are already required to be cross subsidised by urban telecommunications users. Yes, but I hope urban property owners can get big land plots and their parking free of charge in exchange for this bit of pork. Yes, the pork has begun.
"Our National Infrastructure Plan will also include a new category of state highway. We will call these Roads of National Significance. These Roads of National Significance will be singled out as essential roads that require priority treatment. This would include, for example, State Highway 1, the essential backbone of New Zealand’s roading network."
What an appalling idea. This is pork in the worst possible form. State Highway 1 is an essential backbone apparently. So those segments of SH1 where traffic volumes are a tenth of those of SH16 in Auckland or a quarter of SH2 linking Wellington and the Hutt, or a third of SH29 linking Tauranga and Hamilton, are more important than those roads. Forget efficiency, safety and congestion reduction, name the pork barrel road and goldplate it, right John? So presumably Wellington can get a second Mt Victoria Tunnel because that's the "Road of National Significance", but forget widening Dominion Road in Auckland. Presumably SH1 from Invercargill to Bluff is more important than SH2 east of Auckland which has an appalling accident rate.
Forget rating road spending on the basis of objective criteria and getting value for money, getting quality spending like you harp on about with local government. No, name a road one of "national significance" and the money can be diverted to tart it up in any way you can think of. Meanwhile the roads which actually ARE congested, or actually DO have an appalling accident rate, are neglected, but John Key might have opened the new four-lane section of the Desert Road, or the unnecessarily exhorbitant Huntly Bypass or Transmission gully motorway.
Then he avoids fixing the RMA...
"National’s new Priority Consenting process will streamline consents for major national infrastructure. These will not go through the local council but instead will be called in and determined nationally."
Ah get it? So YOU wont get relief from local authorities and the RMA eroding your private property rights, but the state will in building its big grandiose projects. Rob Muldoon tried the very same thing of course.
He wants to borrow from you too...
"First, we will introduce infrastructure bonds. Secondly, we will make greater use of public-private partnerships. These new financing and asset management techniques will open up infrastructure to a wide range of financial investors. This will include Kiwi mums and dads through their super funds and Kiwisaver accounts."
Or he could just privatise the three remaining power companies, resell the railways, sell Air NZ, require councils to commercialise and privatise water, commercialise and privatise the state highways. None of this is unknown around the world, but no. John Key is scared of privatisation, even though his party did it in electricity with no ill effects, even though it has been a success in addressing infrastructure backlogs in the UK with water. He's gutless, unable to make the argument - but willing to be the 21st century's Rob Muldoon.
John, if you want to go on about financing techniques used elsewhere, all the countries you list have embraced privatisation and haven't turned back. In the USA whole highways have effectively been privatised, with the government leasing the roads to private concerns for 99 year periods.
However National ISN'T embracing the future, it is calling for a fortune of taxpayers' money to be used to subsidise the telecommunications sector. That's socialism. It is calling for 20 year plans for central and local government infrastructure. That's Muldoonism. It is calling for infrastructure bonds, like Michael Cullen. That's Labour "me tooism". It is calling for private public partnerships, that MIGHT work in a handful of cases but best works when government gets almost entirely out of the way. It is calling for politically designating roads as "important" implying money spent on those roads is more important than money on others, even if others have worst congestion or safety problems, even if others return more bang for the buck in investment. That's pork barrel funding.
National's infrastructure policy is looking back, back to the age of Rob Muldoon and central planning, with taxpayers paying for a selection of follies and winners. It looks like the sort of pork barrel promises seen in US politics, when "strategic importance" overrides reason and analysis. Most of all it pushes out the private sector. It tells power, gas and telecommunications companies that they should avoid taking risks, the government will do it for them, and it keeps transport stagnated in the politically driven supply side government planning of the past. What's most disgusting is that when National was in power in the 1990s, it rejected most of this nonsense for good reason - now it's trying to buy your votes with your future taxes, and those of your kids.
Don't be fooled. This is virtually indistinguishable from Labour.
- Think Big;
- Porkbarrel spending.
So what's so wrong with it? Well let's see what John Key said:
"This deficit spans from our roading network through to our energy supply. Nor is it a problem limited to central government. Over the next decade, local government will face an infrastructure deficit of some $30 billion."
Well ok, he recognises there is a problem, although he doesn't really explain why (after all Labour's spending record amounts on roads at the moment), and doesn't explain why it is a government problem. This is the start of his error.
"our infrastructure policy will be comprehensive and bold. This will require leadership. National will appoint a Minister of Infrastructure to reshape, co-ordinate and then oversee the Government’s infrastructure objectives. It will be spelt out in our National Infrastructure Plan."
Rob Muldoon will be proud, Bill Birch will wonder if anything has been learnt. OK, so...
"This 20-year plan will be developed in conjunction with local government. It will set a clear direction for vital national infrastructure investment, including top priority projects. The plan will set out the intended local and central government infrastructure investment in roads, public transport, electricity, telecommunications, and water."
20 years!! Now this WILL be fun, predicting what is needed in the next 20 years. Let's give some examples of how THAT has been screwed up in the past:- Wellington's Overseas Passenger Terminal, for ships, opened in the late 1960s for passenger liner traffic a few years before they all ceased;
- The Post Office rewiring Wellington's northern suburbs telecommunications networks for triple twisted copper wire, non standard, because it was the "new state of the art" idea in the 1970s. However it was completely incompatible with xDSL for high speed internet service, of course nobody knew of the internet in the 1970s;
- The Post Office/Telecom instituting card phones in the late 1980s that proved to be Y2K non-compliant;
- The Railways Department opening large shunting yards in the 1960s and buying new shunting locomotives in the 1980s, when freight trains were moving towards direct point to point services, not shunting individual sets of wagons between trains;
- The Railways Department introducing the Silverstar overnight luxury sleeper trains for the Wellington to Auckland run in 1971, three years after NAC had introduced Boeing 737s, putting the final nail in the coffin for long distance rail as a transport for business travellers;
- The Railways Department electrifying the North Island Main Trunk railway at the same time as the government allowed trucks to haul freight further than 150km, taking away the capacity pressure from the line, and at the same time as US consultants advised that far more would be gained by restructuring the operations of the railway to be more efficient;
- The government subsidising a new Wellington-Lyttelton ferry in the 1970s, as the Railways introduced a fourth Picton Ferry and NAC bought more Boeing 737s;
- Wellington hospital getting a multi-million dollar electricity generation plant in the 1970s with 2.5x the capacity of the requirements of Wellington Hospital which cost more to run and maintain than buying power from the national grid, and more than having backup generators;
- Invercargill City Council paying for international arrival and departure facilities, even though there have been no scheduled services from a foreign country to and from Invercargill, ever.
Let alone, what government department predicted the internet? What government department predicted international air travel would literally "take off"? What government department predicted mobile phones would start supplanting landlines? Don't worry, John Key and the National Party know the future - like they knew it in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when a fortune of "infrastructure investments" had their debt written off.
Anyway...
"Changes like the growing price of oil and the need for public transport and roading networks that reflect that. Changes like growing connectivity between countries and people and the need for telecommunications networks that make the most of this."
Actually John, oil dropped in the last few weeks, so well done. Do tell how you can plan public transport and roads to meet this, in fact one of the biggest "public transport" industries is the airline sector, have you predicted what ones will fail and what will succeed John? Oh and do tell what's wrong with NZ's international telecommunications links, since they have been growing in capacity for ages without government involvement- actually Southern Cross Cable happened when the Nats weren't in power.
"our National Infrastructure Plan will include up to $1.5 billion in Crown investment for an ultra-fast broadband network connecting 75% of New Zealanders. And that’s why we will double the Broadband Challenge Fund and refocus it on rural communities"
Crown = money taken from taxpayers John. Don't hid that. You'll focus on rural communities, because of course, it's not enough they are already required to be cross subsidised by urban telecommunications users. Yes, but I hope urban property owners can get big land plots and their parking free of charge in exchange for this bit of pork. Yes, the pork has begun.
"Our National Infrastructure Plan will also include a new category of state highway. We will call these Roads of National Significance. These Roads of National Significance will be singled out as essential roads that require priority treatment. This would include, for example, State Highway 1, the essential backbone of New Zealand’s roading network."
What an appalling idea. This is pork in the worst possible form. State Highway 1 is an essential backbone apparently. So those segments of SH1 where traffic volumes are a tenth of those of SH16 in Auckland or a quarter of SH2 linking Wellington and the Hutt, or a third of SH29 linking Tauranga and Hamilton, are more important than those roads. Forget efficiency, safety and congestion reduction, name the pork barrel road and goldplate it, right John? So presumably Wellington can get a second Mt Victoria Tunnel because that's the "Road of National Significance", but forget widening Dominion Road in Auckland. Presumably SH1 from Invercargill to Bluff is more important than SH2 east of Auckland which has an appalling accident rate.
Forget rating road spending on the basis of objective criteria and getting value for money, getting quality spending like you harp on about with local government. No, name a road one of "national significance" and the money can be diverted to tart it up in any way you can think of. Meanwhile the roads which actually ARE congested, or actually DO have an appalling accident rate, are neglected, but John Key might have opened the new four-lane section of the Desert Road, or the unnecessarily exhorbitant Huntly Bypass or Transmission gully motorway.
Then he avoids fixing the RMA...
"National’s new Priority Consenting process will streamline consents for major national infrastructure. These will not go through the local council but instead will be called in and determined nationally."
Ah get it? So YOU wont get relief from local authorities and the RMA eroding your private property rights, but the state will in building its big grandiose projects. Rob Muldoon tried the very same thing of course.
He wants to borrow from you too...
"First, we will introduce infrastructure bonds. Secondly, we will make greater use of public-private partnerships. These new financing and asset management techniques will open up infrastructure to a wide range of financial investors. This will include Kiwi mums and dads through their super funds and Kiwisaver accounts."
Or he could just privatise the three remaining power companies, resell the railways, sell Air NZ, require councils to commercialise and privatise water, commercialise and privatise the state highways. None of this is unknown around the world, but no. John Key is scared of privatisation, even though his party did it in electricity with no ill effects, even though it has been a success in addressing infrastructure backlogs in the UK with water. He's gutless, unable to make the argument - but willing to be the 21st century's Rob Muldoon.
John, if you want to go on about financing techniques used elsewhere, all the countries you list have embraced privatisation and haven't turned back. In the USA whole highways have effectively been privatised, with the government leasing the roads to private concerns for 99 year periods.
However National ISN'T embracing the future, it is calling for a fortune of taxpayers' money to be used to subsidise the telecommunications sector. That's socialism. It is calling for 20 year plans for central and local government infrastructure. That's Muldoonism. It is calling for infrastructure bonds, like Michael Cullen. That's Labour "me tooism". It is calling for private public partnerships, that MIGHT work in a handful of cases but best works when government gets almost entirely out of the way. It is calling for politically designating roads as "important" implying money spent on those roads is more important than money on others, even if others have worst congestion or safety problems, even if others return more bang for the buck in investment. That's pork barrel funding.
National's infrastructure policy is looking back, back to the age of Rob Muldoon and central planning, with taxpayers paying for a selection of follies and winners. It looks like the sort of pork barrel promises seen in US politics, when "strategic importance" overrides reason and analysis. Most of all it pushes out the private sector. It tells power, gas and telecommunications companies that they should avoid taking risks, the government will do it for them, and it keeps transport stagnated in the politically driven supply side government planning of the past. What's most disgusting is that when National was in power in the 1990s, it rejected most of this nonsense for good reason - now it's trying to buy your votes with your future taxes, and those of your kids.
Don't be fooled. This is virtually indistinguishable from Labour.
01 August 2008
I'd have no difficulties being locked up
Nobody does of course, which makes it unusual that Lesley Caudwell does, which is why after being drunk and killing another woman while driving, she is only getting 12 months home detention and losing her driving licence for four years, according to the NZ Herald.
Yes she plead guilty and yes she is looking after her cancer stricken mother, though another woman is now dead - and Lesley Caudwell appears to be an alcoholic from the story. She was driving at 100 km/h when she went through an urban intersection killing 36-year-old Tara Groenestein.
So that's nice, Lesley Caudwell fears prison, has panic attacks and bipolar disorder. She should at least have a life ban from driving, but no she has a chance, and Tara Groenestein doesn't. She can be rehabilitated, and go do it again, and Tara wont. Lesley gets a year at home, and four years getting driven around by others or catching the bus - life's hard when you recklessly take someone else's life isn't it?
Yes she plead guilty and yes she is looking after her cancer stricken mother, though another woman is now dead - and Lesley Caudwell appears to be an alcoholic from the story. She was driving at 100 km/h when she went through an urban intersection killing 36-year-old Tara Groenestein.
So that's nice, Lesley Caudwell fears prison, has panic attacks and bipolar disorder. She should at least have a life ban from driving, but no she has a chance, and Tara Groenestein doesn't. She can be rehabilitated, and go do it again, and Tara wont. Lesley gets a year at home, and four years getting driven around by others or catching the bus - life's hard when you recklessly take someone else's life isn't it?
Wanna bet?
NZ Herald reports "National is brushing off suggestions it is not very different from Labour and promises voters that coming policy releases on tax, health, education, energy and law and order will clearly differentiate it from its rival."
So it's going to eliminate the top income tax rate or declare a tax free threshold?
So it's going to announce full tax deductibility for private health insurance?
So it's going to announce all education funding follows the child?
So it's going to announce National will advance new electricity generation by selling up to 49% of the government's three power companies by issuing new capital?
So it's going to announce that recidivist violent and sexual criminals will be denied welfare and custody of children?
Just a few ideas... none of them radical at all.
Then Key has the audacity to say "National believed in greater freedom, smaller government and less interference". Which is seen where John? Nice words but why are your policies involving LESS freedom, MORE government and MORE interference compared with the last time National was in power? In other words, Labour increases the role of the state and National basically rolls over and maybe throws a few crumbs, but doesn't roll things back to at least what they were like when National last governed?
Dr Cullen is more optimistic than me though - well in the sense that National will be a change. he says that National would lead the country down a fundamentally different path with "creeping privatisation of health and education". Well if you consider the path to privatisation to be as long as from here to the Moon and National's creeping at the pace of a snail.
Don't fret about the speed wobbles Michael.
So it's going to eliminate the top income tax rate or declare a tax free threshold?
So it's going to announce full tax deductibility for private health insurance?
So it's going to announce all education funding follows the child?
So it's going to announce National will advance new electricity generation by selling up to 49% of the government's three power companies by issuing new capital?
So it's going to announce that recidivist violent and sexual criminals will be denied welfare and custody of children?
Just a few ideas... none of them radical at all.
Then Key has the audacity to say "National believed in greater freedom, smaller government and less interference". Which is seen where John? Nice words but why are your policies involving LESS freedom, MORE government and MORE interference compared with the last time National was in power? In other words, Labour increases the role of the state and National basically rolls over and maybe throws a few crumbs, but doesn't roll things back to at least what they were like when National last governed?
Dr Cullen is more optimistic than me though - well in the sense that National will be a change. he says that National would lead the country down a fundamentally different path with "creeping privatisation of health and education". Well if you consider the path to privatisation to be as long as from here to the Moon and National's creeping at the pace of a snail.
Don't fret about the speed wobbles Michael.
The left and the Greens cheers the end of Doha
Charming isn't it? The left cheers the end of the Doha WTO trade talks, preferring powerful economies negotiating bilateral preferential trade arrangements than a multilateral agreement to open up trade in primary products (primarily in Europe, Japan and the USA), manufactured goods (primarily in the richer developing countries) and services (also developing countries).
The benefits Doha could have brought to the world have been estimated in a range from US$84 billion a year to US$574 billion. It could have helped ease world food prices by freeing up the production and sale of food across the globe, and eliminating distorting subsidies, tariffs and non tariff barriers that hurt farmers in countries from Argentina to Gabon to Thailand to New Zealand.
Idiot Savant cheers on the collapse because, as usual, anyone rich is to blame and the "poor" countries (most with far bigger economies than New Zealand) were the "victims". He supports India and China holding things up, even though what both countries wanted was to restrict imports of agricultural goods whilst demanding the US and Europe open up, and to essentially inflate the price of food for their own people.
He then quotes George Monbiot, as if he is an authority on trade and agriculture, whose article says Mugabe is right in "democratising ownership of agricultural ownership", of course Monbiot didn't say Mugabe did it right because "He has failed to support the new settlements with credit or expertise, with the result that farming in Zimbabwe has collapsed." that's right. So after stealing the land, the fact the expertise went with the former owners who left, and that credit can't be printed is irrelevant to Monbiot the imbecile. He argues that we would all be better off with smaller farmers and that governments should intervene to require this. You see to the left free trade strangely means subsidised agriculture - a distortion Sue Kedgley perversely argues.
Speaking of which, the Greens are quietly cheering the failure of negotiations that could have given the New Zealand economy a boost - because after all, producers of wealth are really beside the point for the Greens. The Greens BLAME NEW ZEALAND, for treating services as being commodities bought and sold (which they are) rather than the "integral public infrastructure", which implies not that the Greens want the services delivered the best means possible, but that it must fit the socialist ideology of nationalised services that are effectively subsidised. The WTO of course doesn't require that anything be privatised.
The Greens give cop-outs for the EU, USA, India and China. You see WE were pushing things too fast, because funnily enough demanding that trade in agriculture be at least as liberalised as trade in manufactured goods (which was substantially liberalised through the 50s-70s) is "lacking credibility". The only good chance New Zealand has at influencing global trade collapses and it is New Zealand's fault.
Well we know where the Greens stand -they wanted it to fail, supported our trade enemies and rivals against agricultural liberalisation. Lied or is just plain stupid about free trade, when New Zealand's position was even shared by the UN Secretary General. The Greens prefer that Europeans, Americans, Asians grow their own food, even with heavy subsidies and can dump their products on foreign markets and shut out imports, and New Zealand can go to hell because, after all, that's "democracy and community".
The Green view of "community" is of course not people choosing what they want to buy at market prices, but the state "protecting" consumers from imports, protecting domestic producers, and taking from taxpayers to support who they think is good for the community. When in fact the best representation of the "community" are people making their own choices, not the state taxing, subsidising, banning or compelling them to do so.
The Greens call for an alternative. However what does that mean? There is only one alternative to a gradual process of liberalising global trade, irreversibly, and that is state intervention. The case for liberalisation is clear, it allows the most efficient producers of products consumers want to buy to thrive, whilst those who are expensive, inefficient (that means wasting resources, something the Greens claim to care about) and produce products that consumers would not otherwise choose to fail or choose to invest in other goods and services. Trade barriers put up prices for consumers, they hinder the growth and prosperity of producers, and often involve taxpayers being forced to pay for goods and services they may not consume - meaning overproduction of that which people don't want.
The Greens are happy New Zealand's GDP will grow by 1-2% less thanks to the failure of the Doha round. At best they are confused on trade, at worst they are traitors to the New Zealand economy who speak approvingly of the French position, which more than any other has undermined the EU dismantling its obscene Common Agricultural Policy. I expect they will cheer the status quo and the creation of more privileged trading agreements that shut out New Zealand - and hope that the mainstream media might actually quiz the Greens as to why they don't want New Zealand goods to have open access to foreign markets.
The benefits Doha could have brought to the world have been estimated in a range from US$84 billion a year to US$574 billion. It could have helped ease world food prices by freeing up the production and sale of food across the globe, and eliminating distorting subsidies, tariffs and non tariff barriers that hurt farmers in countries from Argentina to Gabon to Thailand to New Zealand.
Idiot Savant cheers on the collapse because, as usual, anyone rich is to blame and the "poor" countries (most with far bigger economies than New Zealand) were the "victims". He supports India and China holding things up, even though what both countries wanted was to restrict imports of agricultural goods whilst demanding the US and Europe open up, and to essentially inflate the price of food for their own people.
He then quotes George Monbiot, as if he is an authority on trade and agriculture, whose article says Mugabe is right in "democratising ownership of agricultural ownership", of course Monbiot didn't say Mugabe did it right because "He has failed to support the new settlements with credit or expertise, with the result that farming in Zimbabwe has collapsed." that's right. So after stealing the land, the fact the expertise went with the former owners who left, and that credit can't be printed is irrelevant to Monbiot the imbecile. He argues that we would all be better off with smaller farmers and that governments should intervene to require this. You see to the left free trade strangely means subsidised agriculture - a distortion Sue Kedgley perversely argues.
Speaking of which, the Greens are quietly cheering the failure of negotiations that could have given the New Zealand economy a boost - because after all, producers of wealth are really beside the point for the Greens. The Greens BLAME NEW ZEALAND, for treating services as being commodities bought and sold (which they are) rather than the "integral public infrastructure", which implies not that the Greens want the services delivered the best means possible, but that it must fit the socialist ideology of nationalised services that are effectively subsidised. The WTO of course doesn't require that anything be privatised.
The Greens give cop-outs for the EU, USA, India and China. You see WE were pushing things too fast, because funnily enough demanding that trade in agriculture be at least as liberalised as trade in manufactured goods (which was substantially liberalised through the 50s-70s) is "lacking credibility". The only good chance New Zealand has at influencing global trade collapses and it is New Zealand's fault.
Well we know where the Greens stand -they wanted it to fail, supported our trade enemies and rivals against agricultural liberalisation. Lied or is just plain stupid about free trade, when New Zealand's position was even shared by the UN Secretary General. The Greens prefer that Europeans, Americans, Asians grow their own food, even with heavy subsidies and can dump their products on foreign markets and shut out imports, and New Zealand can go to hell because, after all, that's "democracy and community".
The Green view of "community" is of course not people choosing what they want to buy at market prices, but the state "protecting" consumers from imports, protecting domestic producers, and taking from taxpayers to support who they think is good for the community. When in fact the best representation of the "community" are people making their own choices, not the state taxing, subsidising, banning or compelling them to do so.
The Greens call for an alternative. However what does that mean? There is only one alternative to a gradual process of liberalising global trade, irreversibly, and that is state intervention. The case for liberalisation is clear, it allows the most efficient producers of products consumers want to buy to thrive, whilst those who are expensive, inefficient (that means wasting resources, something the Greens claim to care about) and produce products that consumers would not otherwise choose to fail or choose to invest in other goods and services. Trade barriers put up prices for consumers, they hinder the growth and prosperity of producers, and often involve taxpayers being forced to pay for goods and services they may not consume - meaning overproduction of that which people don't want.
The Greens are happy New Zealand's GDP will grow by 1-2% less thanks to the failure of the Doha round. At best they are confused on trade, at worst they are traitors to the New Zealand economy who speak approvingly of the French position, which more than any other has undermined the EU dismantling its obscene Common Agricultural Policy. I expect they will cheer the status quo and the creation of more privileged trading agreements that shut out New Zealand - and hope that the mainstream media might actually quiz the Greens as to why they don't want New Zealand goods to have open access to foreign markets.
31 July 2008
Why I don't give to Amnesty anymore
Idiot Savant blogs about "Freedom week" when Amnesty International seeks to raise money for its campaigns.
I wont be giving, even though Amnesty has done much good work in the past. Why?
1. Amnesty doesn't pay any attention to terrorists, organisations engaging in bombings in Iraq, Israel, Turkey, Spain, the UK or anywhere else. Its concern about governments is right and appropriate, but ignores how militia like Hamas, Al Qaeda and the like effectively take over, run and oppress whole areas of countries, and more importantly, wage war on others.
2. Despite the mountains of evidence of young children and pregnant women being enslaved by the state in gulags, execution of political prisoners en masse, starvation as a tool of political oppression, medical experimentation on political prisoners, chemical weapon tests on political prisoners, all in North Korea - Amnesty International spends mountains more effort on Islamists in Guantanamo Bay. The worst human rights abuses carried out by any government today are stark and plain in North Korea - Amnesty knows this, comments on it, but does not lead a major campaign against it. This is at best negligent, at worst deliberately evasive.
Its biggest campaigns are to control arms (which in some cases has caused more deaths than it has saved, e.g. Bosnia Hercegovina), concern about civil liberties eroded by what it calls the "so-called "war on terror"", implying terrorism isn't a problem, and to stop violence against women (which is often neglected and which I fully support).
It's about time that its biggest campaigns included eliminating political imprisonment. For that is, after all, what the organisation was once focused on. Until its voice is as loud on North Korea as any of the other issues, I'd rather give to organisations that fight for those in the most oppressed prison state there is.
I wont be giving, even though Amnesty has done much good work in the past. Why?
1. Amnesty doesn't pay any attention to terrorists, organisations engaging in bombings in Iraq, Israel, Turkey, Spain, the UK or anywhere else. Its concern about governments is right and appropriate, but ignores how militia like Hamas, Al Qaeda and the like effectively take over, run and oppress whole areas of countries, and more importantly, wage war on others.
2. Despite the mountains of evidence of young children and pregnant women being enslaved by the state in gulags, execution of political prisoners en masse, starvation as a tool of political oppression, medical experimentation on political prisoners, chemical weapon tests on political prisoners, all in North Korea - Amnesty International spends mountains more effort on Islamists in Guantanamo Bay. The worst human rights abuses carried out by any government today are stark and plain in North Korea - Amnesty knows this, comments on it, but does not lead a major campaign against it. This is at best negligent, at worst deliberately evasive.
Its biggest campaigns are to control arms (which in some cases has caused more deaths than it has saved, e.g. Bosnia Hercegovina), concern about civil liberties eroded by what it calls the "so-called "war on terror"", implying terrorism isn't a problem, and to stop violence against women (which is often neglected and which I fully support).
It's about time that its biggest campaigns included eliminating political imprisonment. For that is, after all, what the organisation was once focused on. Until its voice is as loud on North Korea as any of the other issues, I'd rather give to organisations that fight for those in the most oppressed prison state there is.
As oil prices settle back
Will the Greens end their armageddon like cheerleading about "Peak Oil" which is simultaneously seen as disaster, and a wonderful opportunity?
Will the ease in the price, inevitable as the high price was choking off demand, mean the Greens will see it as a victory, but a disaster now? Of course!! Lower oil prices will be seen as "no reason to be complacent", and "fueling climate change" and "we still need to worship subsidised collectivised transport that isn't necessary more environmentally friendly than cars and trucks".
Will the ease in the price, inevitable as the high price was choking off demand, mean the Greens will see it as a victory, but a disaster now? Of course!! Lower oil prices will be seen as "no reason to be complacent", and "fueling climate change" and "we still need to worship subsidised collectivised transport that isn't necessary more environmentally friendly than cars and trucks".
Winston's four legged friends?
Well, Dr. Michael Bassett has certainly thrown something new into the mix - NZ First's largely unknown support base from the racing industry, which appears to have done well through its "investment" in Labour's critical support partner. The Sunday Star Times journalist Tony Wall has made allegations of NZ First getting substantial financial support from the industry and meanwhile benefiting from many policies of the current government peculiar to racing.
If true, this surely has to hurt, except of course, the truth that easily 5% of voters are dumb enough to believe anything this snake oil merchant has to say. He'll claim the SST is a paper of foreign big business, and is out to get him - and people will believe it.
(Hat Tip: No Minister)
Zimbabwe sadly slips further
Well it had to happen,
Of course given that it may be rather hard to print the money given the end of the contract with the German suppliers of banknote paper. Meanwhile, the two-faced friend of murderers, Thabo Mbeki continues to meet Morgan Tsvangirai with the attempt to create a government of national unity, for foreign consumption, because - of course - it wont really mean a difference. It will be like how Joshua Nkomo was cauterised by Mugabe in the early 1980s, after Mugabe's goons butchered their way through his "allies".
I did note one point of unintended humour when the report has the phrase "Mbeki's spokesman Mukoni Ratshitanga" conveniently named because Mbeki is a master of ratshit.
MDC isn't relenting though, insisting that Tsvangirai lead a new government. ZANU-PF is insisting that the "election win" be respected.
It's very simple - if MDC compromises with ZANU-PF it will cease to be a credible or moral force in Zimbabwe. Compromise with evil is concession to evil - and conceding to those who would murder you means you lose.
Thabo Mbeki is part of that evil, the South African government and the ANC is part of that evil - and the so-called peace and human rights movement is turning a blind eye.
MDC isn't relenting though, insisting that Tsvangirai lead a new government. ZANU-PF is insisting that the "election win" be respected.
It's very simple - if MDC compromises with ZANU-PF it will cease to be a credible or moral force in Zimbabwe. Compromise with evil is concession to evil - and conceding to those who would murder you means you lose.
Thabo Mbeki is part of that evil, the South African government and the ANC is part of that evil - and the so-called peace and human rights movement is turning a blind eye.
30 July 2008
Your taxes to feed child torturers
Yes Winston has announced NZ$500,000 to go to food aid in North Korea. Not a lot of your taxes, but your taxes anyway. It is to go to the UN's World Food Programme, known for being apolitical, you can be sure that North Korea will take the aid and ration it out as a totalitarian state does - with the army and the elite having their fair share, followed by essential workers.
Oh and if you think "well they are poor, we can't let them starve" then check one thing. Who is letting them starve? Let me show you where they live:
Meanwhile, here is part of the gulag with the clearly marked school for child prisoners under age 12.
Yes - you can be sure that New Zealand isn't to blame for the suffering of North Koreans.
Oh and if you think "well they are poor, we can't let them starve" then check one thing. Who is letting them starve? Let me show you where they live:
Meanwhile, here is part of the gulag with the clearly marked school for child prisoners under age 12.
Yes - you can be sure that New Zealand isn't to blame for the suffering of North Koreans.
Nats want to give local government more "tools"
Whilst central government is clearly the growing leviathan in our lives, one should never forget the petty fascists in local government. The ones that use the RMA, bylaws and your rates (if you're a property owner, sorry tenants you don't pay rates, your landlord does). Rates rise most years in many councils, and do so faster than inflation and faster than tax. Remember that these rates are nominal on TOP of years of increasing property prices. You might wonder why councils have to spend money at an ever increasing rate, and why your vote every three years makes little difference.
I put it down to many of those who stand for local government, they are busybody do-gooders who think if they have some statist power to regulate, tax and spend, they can do their little bit to "make the world a better place" rather than just leave peaceful people alone. Comparatively few people who want less government stand for local government - partly because they are concentrating on their own lives, jobs, businesses and families, but also because the ability to do much about constraining local government is relatively low. The recently elected Auckland City Council has started to be more frugal in some respects, but still there hasn't been a wholesale rollback of local government since central government reforms of the late 80s, early 90s.
Labour whilst in power reformed local government to give it more powers - specifically known as "the power of general competence", allowing it to do as it wishes on any area of activity, excluding a tiny handful reserved for central government. In other words, local government could provide welfare benefits, healthcare, schools, run restaurants, railways, racecourses, radio stations, whatever it wishes. So it is no wonder local government has continued to grow.
So you might think National could reverse that and at least limit local government to core "public goods". Well this is what John Key had to say to Local Government New Zealand...
"We want to give local government a broader range of tools that can be used to address the needs of local communities. These options could involve increased use of partnerships, charging arrangements, and longer-term financing."
OK so a generous view would be allowing private investment in infrastructure. Well fine, forget Public Private Partnerships and go for privatisation. However charging arrangements? What does that mean? Does he mean new taxes? Why not simply cut what local government does John? Get it out of the provision of services that can be done privately.
Then he says, not only will he provide new tools but:
"We will also look at more appropriate ways to ensure that local government knows what central funding and other support it would receive for undertaking new responsibilities. A National Government will not be looking for a free ride at the expense of ratepayers"
He wants local government to do more and charge taxpayers everywhere to do it!
Now he also said "we need to ensure that taxpayers’ money and ratepayers’ money is being used effectively and efficiently." This implies some central government oversight of local authority spending, which may be a rather bureaucratic way of saying "no".
However, there is a point where in his speech you think he MIGHT get it:
I put it down to many of those who stand for local government, they are busybody do-gooders who think if they have some statist power to regulate, tax and spend, they can do their little bit to "make the world a better place" rather than just leave peaceful people alone. Comparatively few people who want less government stand for local government - partly because they are concentrating on their own lives, jobs, businesses and families, but also because the ability to do much about constraining local government is relatively low. The recently elected Auckland City Council has started to be more frugal in some respects, but still there hasn't been a wholesale rollback of local government since central government reforms of the late 80s, early 90s.
Labour whilst in power reformed local government to give it more powers - specifically known as "the power of general competence", allowing it to do as it wishes on any area of activity, excluding a tiny handful reserved for central government. In other words, local government could provide welfare benefits, healthcare, schools, run restaurants, railways, racecourses, radio stations, whatever it wishes. So it is no wonder local government has continued to grow.
So you might think National could reverse that and at least limit local government to core "public goods". Well this is what John Key had to say to Local Government New Zealand...
"We want to give local government a broader range of tools that can be used to address the needs of local communities. These options could involve increased use of partnerships, charging arrangements, and longer-term financing."
OK so a generous view would be allowing private investment in infrastructure. Well fine, forget Public Private Partnerships and go for privatisation. However charging arrangements? What does that mean? Does he mean new taxes? Why not simply cut what local government does John? Get it out of the provision of services that can be done privately.
Then he says, not only will he provide new tools but:
"We will also look at more appropriate ways to ensure that local government knows what central funding and other support it would receive for undertaking new responsibilities. A National Government will not be looking for a free ride at the expense of ratepayers"
He wants local government to do more and charge taxpayers everywhere to do it!
Now he also said "we need to ensure that taxpayers’ money and ratepayers’ money is being used effectively and efficiently." This implies some central government oversight of local authority spending, which may be a rather bureaucratic way of saying "no".
However, there is a point where in his speech you think he MIGHT get it:
"People are struggling with rising costs and an economy that is going backwards. Households are tightening their belts, and in turn they expect that central government and local government – which take money off them through taxes and rates – should be tightening their belts as well, and should be striving to deliver them value for money."
but NOOOOO. He doesn't....
but NOOOOO. He doesn't....
"This environment puts real pressure on politicians, both local and central. But it also gives us an opportunity to look at how we can most effectively provide the services that people expect from us. Over the next few years we will need to concentrate on the basics – on providing good services where people want them, and at a reasonable cost."
Concentrate on the basics MIGHT imply what I said earlier, so maybe he'll be honest with us - the ratepayers and say he wants to cut the size of local government.
What do you reckon? Does he record suggest anything will change? Here are some pointers about what SHOULD change.Cullen has a point
You have to laugh at the Scoop website's Maoist depiction of John Key, and the inevitable press release from the government that "Key admits support for communism".
Dr Cullen said of Key:
Come on John - the truth is you can't face voters and tell some of them you'll give them their taxes back but not any more!
Dr Cullen concludes:
Now John, either give evidence that Dr Cullen has misrepresented you, renounce the policy on Working for Families or grab the red flag and fly it high!
Dr Cullen said of Key:
“He attacked Working for Families as ‘communism by stealth’ and a ‘costly welfare monster’, then yesterday he said it was important support for families and affordable, and then said today that it was in fact ‘communism by stealth’ again.
Which really is bizarre. It IS a costly welfare monster, and it is, if you take it to its logical end, communism by stealth. However it is also important support?Come on John - the truth is you can't face voters and tell some of them you'll give them their taxes back but not any more!
Dr Cullen concludes:
“How can anyone take anything this man says seriously? When you change your mind this often, you can always change it back again.”
Which is, of course, an occasion when I can wholeheartedly agree with Dr. Cullen. There are umpteen reasons why I disagree with him on many things, but one thing he is - someone who believes in what he says and what he does.Now John, either give evidence that Dr Cullen has misrepresented you, renounce the policy on Working for Families or grab the red flag and fly it high!
29 July 2008
What do the Greens fear?
So the Greens have blogged about nuclear energy, typically using "we" phrases as if the Green Party speaks for what everyone thinks and does.
Its statement below is one I don't necessary disagree with in part, except it rather inanely draws a conclusion that means the opposite of what is Green policy.
"Given that it is easy, even here in NZ, to get private finance to line up and support renewable energy projects, without a penny of government subsidy, one has to wonder why we continue to buy into the hype that nuclear is the way to go. The economic rational simply does not exist. With peak oil and climate change breathing down our necks, it is time to take decisive action. Action that can stand the test of time, sustainably." (sic) (can't this lot use English properly?)
Well if the economic rationale for nuclear doesn't exist, then there shouldn't be any legal impediment to nuclear energy being developed in New Zealand should there? If the argument against nuclear is economic, then set that argument free to be tested.
Secondly. If "renewable" energy apparently is economically viable as the statement implies, why take action at all?
Of course the truth is that the RMA stymies the development of the most viable and renewable electricity source - hydro.
Its statement below is one I don't necessary disagree with in part, except it rather inanely draws a conclusion that means the opposite of what is Green policy.
"Given that it is easy, even here in NZ, to get private finance to line up and support renewable energy projects, without a penny of government subsidy, one has to wonder why we continue to buy into the hype that nuclear is the way to go. The economic rational simply does not exist. With peak oil and climate change breathing down our necks, it is time to take decisive action. Action that can stand the test of time, sustainably." (sic) (can't this lot use English properly?)
Well if the economic rationale for nuclear doesn't exist, then there shouldn't be any legal impediment to nuclear energy being developed in New Zealand should there? If the argument against nuclear is economic, then set that argument free to be tested.
Secondly. If "renewable" energy apparently is economically viable as the statement implies, why take action at all?
Of course the truth is that the RMA stymies the development of the most viable and renewable electricity source - hydro.
So what are you voting for?
Do you want a change because of the Electoral Finance Act? It is probably the single biggest reasons to remove Labour, but what comes in its place isn't promising or clear.
Do you want tax cuts? Well yes fine, but so far tax cuts are only clearly announced by Libertarianz, ACT and NZ First.
Do you want a radical change in how health care is delivered so that it becomes consumer centric? Well yes fine, but again only looks like Libertarianz and maybe ACT could deliver that.
Do you want education for your kids based on what you want them to learn, based upon you choosing where they go and funding following your kids? Again looks like Libertarianz, and ACT could offer that.
Do you want the welfare state downsized and reformed so that only those who are truly unable to earn their own way get some assistance, and others are incentivised to buy their own insurance and protection against misfortune? Again, Libertarianz and to some extent ACT offer that.
Do you want private property rights protected? Only looks like Libertarianz from here, ACT is not that clear on this one.
Do you want less government? Libertarianz are clear on this, ACT appears to want to at least stop things getting worse and at best cut government's portion of GDP to Australia's.
So why are you supporting National? Do you just like Labour's policies but fed up with Helen Clark and Michael Cullen? You see, that's pretty much what it looks like you'll be getting.
So your choices:
Labour or Labour Lite (Helen Key and John Clark, whatever).
Libertarianz or Libertarianz Lite (truly)
Nationalists for Winston First (and stop those bloody Asians ruining our country you know?)
Green socialists (and stop those evil foreign drinkers of childrens' blood ruining our country you know?)
Maori Nationalists for socialism first, well we think (and stop both of them)
Dunne and Anderton one-man bands (build Transmission Gully and renationalise what you can and put the word "Kiwi" in front of it).
Methinks half of you just are fed up with politicians, Clark and Cullen especially - but don't really want change. After all, if you did, surely Rodney Hide and Roger Douglas would be able to command the sorts of support Winston once did, such as 10-12%. However they're not. Neither of course are Libertarianz.
So you do like big government don't you? You like how politicians and bureaucrats ration health care for you, decide what your kids will learn and whether to pay failing schools more, you like governments buying airlines, railways and building telecommunications networks, you like more welfare for the middle classes, you like being forced to pay for leftwing TV and radio, you like separate race based seats and laws, you like environmentalism and the way local authorities can run roughshod over your property rights.
Don't you? That's what this is telling me.
Do you want tax cuts? Well yes fine, but so far tax cuts are only clearly announced by Libertarianz, ACT and NZ First.
Do you want a radical change in how health care is delivered so that it becomes consumer centric? Well yes fine, but again only looks like Libertarianz and maybe ACT could deliver that.
Do you want education for your kids based on what you want them to learn, based upon you choosing where they go and funding following your kids? Again looks like Libertarianz, and ACT could offer that.
Do you want the welfare state downsized and reformed so that only those who are truly unable to earn their own way get some assistance, and others are incentivised to buy their own insurance and protection against misfortune? Again, Libertarianz and to some extent ACT offer that.
Do you want private property rights protected? Only looks like Libertarianz from here, ACT is not that clear on this one.
Do you want less government? Libertarianz are clear on this, ACT appears to want to at least stop things getting worse and at best cut government's portion of GDP to Australia's.
So why are you supporting National? Do you just like Labour's policies but fed up with Helen Clark and Michael Cullen? You see, that's pretty much what it looks like you'll be getting.
So your choices:
Labour or Labour Lite (Helen Key and John Clark, whatever).
Libertarianz or Libertarianz Lite (truly)
Nationalists for Winston First (and stop those bloody Asians ruining our country you know?)
Green socialists (and stop those evil foreign drinkers of childrens' blood ruining our country you know?)
Maori Nationalists for socialism first, well we think (and stop both of them)
Dunne and Anderton one-man bands (build Transmission Gully and renationalise what you can and put the word "Kiwi" in front of it).
Methinks half of you just are fed up with politicians, Clark and Cullen especially - but don't really want change. After all, if you did, surely Rodney Hide and Roger Douglas would be able to command the sorts of support Winston once did, such as 10-12%. However they're not. Neither of course are Libertarianz.
So you do like big government don't you? You like how politicians and bureaucrats ration health care for you, decide what your kids will learn and whether to pay failing schools more, you like governments buying airlines, railways and building telecommunications networks, you like more welfare for the middle classes, you like being forced to pay for leftwing TV and radio, you like separate race based seats and laws, you like environmentalism and the way local authorities can run roughshod over your property rights.
Don't you? That's what this is telling me.
China and India helping to derail world trade talks
Associated Press is reporting that China and India are calling for INCREASES in agricultural protectionism, wanting the powers to increase tariffs if there is a significant increase in imports. They ironically have been seeking higher cuts in subsidies and protection from the EU and the US, whilst not wanting to reciprocate in opening up their own markets for agricultural or manufactured goods sufficiently.
WTO Chief Pascal Lamy has been trying to negotiate a deal that would include significant reductions in limits of EU and US spending on agricultural subsidies, while developing countries would cut manufactured goods tariffs by 20-25%.
Meanwhile, the French, Italians and Irish farmers, piggies supping at the trough of the EU Common Agricultural Policy are objecting to the modest compromise proposals.
If ever there was a time when the world needed to open up trade, and get rid of inefficient cost-plus subsidies and barriers to trade, it is now. European farmers have lived long enough off the back of the European taxpayers and consumers. Export subsidies should end immediately, quotas and other barriers to imports should also end, and existing subsidies phased out in a three year transition. Then, and only then, can European farmers deserve to not be called bludgers.
WTO Chief Pascal Lamy has been trying to negotiate a deal that would include significant reductions in limits of EU and US spending on agricultural subsidies, while developing countries would cut manufactured goods tariffs by 20-25%.
Meanwhile, the French, Italians and Irish farmers, piggies supping at the trough of the EU Common Agricultural Policy are objecting to the modest compromise proposals.
If ever there was a time when the world needed to open up trade, and get rid of inefficient cost-plus subsidies and barriers to trade, it is now. European farmers have lived long enough off the back of the European taxpayers and consumers. Export subsidies should end immediately, quotas and other barriers to imports should also end, and existing subsidies phased out in a three year transition. Then, and only then, can European farmers deserve to not be called bludgers.
German power company promoting a stereotype
Yes N-Power wants kids to become "climate cops".
Tim Blair calls it Baby Stasi, which is a bit strong, but really how keen are you for your kids to be telling you off for "destroying the world" or "shrinking the home of polar bears" as it is depicted.
At least it is a private initiative, and I don't use N-Power. However, it is curious how a big bad electricity company is encouraging people to not use the commodity that it is selling and encouraging children to do the job for them.
Tim Blair calls it Baby Stasi, which is a bit strong, but really how keen are you for your kids to be telling you off for "destroying the world" or "shrinking the home of polar bears" as it is depicted.
At least it is a private initiative, and I don't use N-Power. However, it is curious how a big bad electricity company is encouraging people to not use the commodity that it is selling and encouraging children to do the job for them.
The state discovers the obvious
Lindsay Mitchell blogs on a Ministry of Social Development report that denies that colonisation is responsible for domestic violence among Maori families.
The truth is more a matter of inter-generational violence (children grow up being abused or seeing abuse, so are psychologically normalised to tolerate or use violence) and economic stress increasing the propensity for violence to be unleashed.
However, neither is an excuse. It is time for the welfare state to be tough against those who commit violent offences. It is time for those convicted of serious violent and sexual offences to be denied welfare, to be denied custody of children and to not be allowed to live in the same home as children under the age of 16. Tough? Yes. How else are we to stop vile scum who beat up their partners and kids from perpetuating this disgusting cycle of wasting lives? We can't save most of those who perpetuate it - but we can stop paying for them, and we can stop them from living in the homes of children.
Meanwhile, the collectivists who pine for the golden age of pre-colonial, pre-written language, stoneage civilisation can continue to do so, and contemplate whether their myth of a violence free blessed existence can have as much credibility as the claims that European society was the same.
The truth is more a matter of inter-generational violence (children grow up being abused or seeing abuse, so are psychologically normalised to tolerate or use violence) and economic stress increasing the propensity for violence to be unleashed.
However, neither is an excuse. It is time for the welfare state to be tough against those who commit violent offences. It is time for those convicted of serious violent and sexual offences to be denied welfare, to be denied custody of children and to not be allowed to live in the same home as children under the age of 16. Tough? Yes. How else are we to stop vile scum who beat up their partners and kids from perpetuating this disgusting cycle of wasting lives? We can't save most of those who perpetuate it - but we can stop paying for them, and we can stop them from living in the homes of children.
Meanwhile, the collectivists who pine for the golden age of pre-colonial, pre-written language, stoneage civilisation can continue to do so, and contemplate whether their myth of a violence free blessed existence can have as much credibility as the claims that European society was the same.
UK government locked up typhoid sufferers in asylum
The BBC reports that women who were chronic carriers of typhoid were locked up in a mental asylum from 1907 to as late as the 1990s. They were locked up as a risk to public health (note it was women, not men). The hospital - LongGrove - closed in 1992. In 1956 there were 26 and it was reported they were "deteriorated mentally". Unsurprising as they were physically sick, locked up as if they were mentally ill and dangerous. Almost all were incarcerated and died there. By 1972, most surviving had been cured and were relocated in non-isolation wards in the same institution.
The women effectively had life imprisonment, and isolated in a mental institution, even though they were simply infectious, not with any psychiatric condition. In the TV report on Newsnight, one nurse said it was prison like, the patients were seen as "objects" and life was not good. She talked of the women she looked after, saying most were not mentally ill. The tragedy of this case is that the women are dead. Moreso, the UK Department of Health denies that there was any such policy, although there remain powers to incarcerate carriers of disease. The state, meaning good for the masses, destroyed the lives of a minority - not by isolating them in a medical facility but imprisoning them out of sight and out of mind. Nobody will ever be accountable.
The women effectively had life imprisonment, and isolated in a mental institution, even though they were simply infectious, not with any psychiatric condition. In the TV report on Newsnight, one nurse said it was prison like, the patients were seen as "objects" and life was not good. She talked of the women she looked after, saying most were not mentally ill. The tragedy of this case is that the women are dead. Moreso, the UK Department of Health denies that there was any such policy, although there remain powers to incarcerate carriers of disease. The state, meaning good for the masses, destroyed the lives of a minority - not by isolating them in a medical facility but imprisoning them out of sight and out of mind. Nobody will ever be accountable.
Congrats to David Farrar
Well it is slightly late, but still well worthwhile giving David Farrar a cyber slap on the back for five years of good work and being the number one political blog in NZ.
Yes I know he's a Nat, but he is generally a more liberal one.
Yes I know he's a hardline leftwing statist on telecommunications policy, he'll see the light one day and stop wanting to thieve from everyone else eventually.
Yes I know the comments on his blog are a mix of conservatives, some bigoted, and socialists, some more bigoted.
However, Farrar is an astute political pundit and is no mere lapdog of the National Party. His blog isn't funded by the taxpayer, and is probably the most reliable place online for commentary on New Zealand politics.
My only serious criticism would be one shared by Not PC. It comes from his latest comment on Chris Trotter.
Trotter said:
So go on David, what ARE your core beliefs. Whether it be from religion/atheism, to individualism, the role of the state, and what drives you philosophically and politically? If that's too hard, describe what you DON'T belief in - it ought to be a long list.
Yes I know he's a Nat, but he is generally a more liberal one.
Yes I know he's a hardline leftwing statist on telecommunications policy, he'll see the light one day and stop wanting to thieve from everyone else eventually.
Yes I know the comments on his blog are a mix of conservatives, some bigoted, and socialists, some more bigoted.
However, Farrar is an astute political pundit and is no mere lapdog of the National Party. His blog isn't funded by the taxpayer, and is probably the most reliable place online for commentary on New Zealand politics.
My only serious criticism would be one shared by Not PC. It comes from his latest comment on Chris Trotter.
Trotter said:
Those charged with governing our country, hold in trust the resources – both natural and social – that are the common property of all our people.
Farrar said: "Can’t disagree with that."
Oh dear me. If there was one thing I'd really like David to post on it would be a statement of his own political philosophy and beliefs. It may lay him bare to criticism that he and the Nats are not exactly in sync, but he appears to be a man who thinks a great deal and has some degree of consistency in his philosophy (with major lapses).So go on David, what ARE your core beliefs. Whether it be from religion/atheism, to individualism, the role of the state, and what drives you philosophically and politically? If that's too hard, describe what you DON'T belief in - it ought to be a long list.
Flying on a Boeing 747 is still remarkable and safe
While investigators continue to examine why the Qantas 747-400 from Hong Kong to Melbourne had to divert due to a hole in its fuselage, it's worth noting how remarkable and how safe the Boeing 747 really is.
ABTN notes that three rather remarkable transport engineering achievements were unveiled in 1969. The QE2 was the largest, and it is about to be retired in September. The Concorde prototype was the fastest, and none of the 20 made have flown in five years. The 747 was meant to be a large military transport, then a cargo plane - and was built to be tough enough to handle those missions. Its life as a passenger jet design was expected to be short, as the Concorde (and the long defunct Boeing 2707 supersonic transport) were meant to be the future. Unfortunately for British, French and US taxpayers, they were wrong. Fortunately for Boeing, the 747 proved to be revolutionary.
Over 1,400 have been built. The QE2 by contrast was a one off, and instead of being the hallmark of a new generation of ocean liners, it became a cruise ship. A leisure vessel rather than transport, as the age of trans-oceanic travel came to an end in the 1970s. It wasn't the future, but the last gasp of the past.
Concorde whilst a remarkable technological achievement was more a national showcase than a commercial success. Whilst funded by taxpayers, it was politicians around the world, particularly in the USA and India, that stymied Concorde all because of - the environment. The sonic boom was hated by those living near airports where planes are half the noise today than they were in the 1970s. With supersonic flight banned over the continental USA (except, of course, for US military aircraft) and over India, most of the market for Concorde was kneecapped - with no chance of flights between Europe and the US West Coast, or with Asia at full supersonic speed. Its final years were profitable because BA got the debt for them written off, and could charge £13,000 (yes pounds) for a return trans-atlantic flight by Concorde.
So the 747, slow, and not altogether majestic, would be what would change travel. It carries 2.5 times what its predecessors carried, the Boeing 707 and DC-8. It would do it as fast as most subsonic airliners, would carry enormous loads of cargo, be two-thirds wider, and start making inflight movies (on the big screen for many years) easy for all. Most of all, it created most of the new capacity in economy class, and airlines had to fill these enormous planes, and the price of long haul air travel dropped - dropped not because of governments, not because of price control, but because airlines and a plane maker took risks, and it worked.
Consider the original 747 was designed in the 1960s:
"Some 4,500 people were involved in the original design with most of the work carried out on huge elephant-size drawing boards, not the amazing 3D CAD computers available today"
You see things have changed a lot, it's not just a longer upper deck, but engines have evolved, interiors have changed significantly, with entertainment systems, more luxurious seats in the front (and more in front), and less legroom in the back. However, bear in mind what the 747 represents. In less than a lifetime humanity went from the Wright Brothers to an airliner that can lift off with a maximum weight of nearly 334,000 kg (now 397,000), could fly non-stop up to 9,800 km with a full load (now 13,450 km), cruising at 895 km/h (now 913 km/h) with a maximum speed of 945 km/h (now 977 km/h).
Yes you take it for granted now, but consider that it was not long ago that the notion you could be sitting at 11km above the earth, breathing normally, eating a 3 course meal, able to choose between a couple of hundred movies to watch, travelling at just below the speed of sound for the price of anything of between 2-5% of the average annual income of a Western country, would be seen as fantasy. Now it is the norm.
The Boeing 747 wasn't the first plane, it wasn't the first jetliner, but it was the one that moved jet airline travel from being a luxury service to being a mass market service. 747s are built strong and the number of incidents as a result of aircraft failure have all, to date, been attributed to poor maintenance and in one instance flying with too little fuel. In the coming months the last of the second generation of 747s (a 747-400F freighter) will roll out of the factory, and the third generation (747-8) will emerge to ensure that the 747 will still be in our skies for another 15-20 years (albeit in passenger service less and less).
In recent years the airlines flying 747s into New Zealand have reduced to be only Air NZ and Qantas today, with Cathay Pacific occasionally dabbling with them. I don't doubt that within 5 years they will be the exception in NZ skies for passenger use, as smaller longer range more fuel efficient planes are better suited to the NZ market.
However, a winner it has been - and while Concordes and the QE2 both gather more attention, it is the 747 that has been the revolutionary, the strong, enormous workhorse of the skies. Qantas passengers on flight QF30 are alive today not because of luck, but because of a strong, robust design of 39 years (adapted and updated in the 1990s) that changed the world.
28 July 2008
Killing for religion is ok
So says almost a third of Muslim university students in the UK, according to a Yougov poll for the Sunday Times.
That in itself should give pause for thought. Pause to think about how the institutions that at best don't discourage and at worst catalyse such thoughts should be treated by the state.
The flipside is that "55% of nonMuslim students thought Islam was incompatible with democracy. Nearly one in 10 had “little respect” for Muslims."
Furthermore "Homophobia was rife, with 25% saying they had little or no respect for gays. The figure was higher (32%) for male Muslim students. Among nonMuslims, the figure was only 4%."
The obvious tension is clear. Whilst a significant minority of Muslims hold and express values that are contrary with those of Western civilisation, and fundamental British laws, serious questions will be raised about how much tolerance there should be towards those promoting such hatred and violence.
The UK has long been tolerant of Muslims and those of other (and no) religion, and rightfully so. It is a core liberal concept that people should be able to live their lives in peace regardless of what they do or don't believe in. This of course also includes racists, communists, Christian fundamentalists and the like. You shouldn't be stopped about going about your daily life, as long as your prejudices, desire for violence and the like remain expressed within your own four walls.
However, the state shouldn't be subsidising organisations or locations where you and your warped friends meet to share your malignant beliefs. Moreover if you and your friends plan to do violence or threaten as part of your collectivised irrationality, then expect that to be drawn to the attention of the state.
So what to do? Well first, non-private universities shouldn't be funding or supplying space for students of any religion to worship or meet. Religion and state should be separate, so the state shouldn't facilitate Islam. Secondly there is immigration. The UK ridiculously hands migrants rights to welfare, healthcare, education and housing. This simply should end. If you wish to migrate you should be responsible for paying your own way. Finally there is the most important point of all - it is the promotion of what liberal democratic capitalist British society is all about.
It is about respecting the rights of adults to make their own decisions about their lives and property.
It is about respecting the rights of adults to have freedom of speech, but not demand that others provide the means to express it.
It is about separating the right of people to hold their views, beliefs, lifestyles, as long as they respect the rights of others to hold different ones, AND CRITICISE YOURS.
It means the right to say Islam is evil, Christianity is evil, Communism is evil and Capitalism is evil - and to condemn those who hold these views, or no views.
Muslim students who believe in violence should be damned for the evil that they are, their stone age views should be criticised without fear, as the similar views of fringe fundamentalist Christians should be, as should Marxist-Leninists and neo-Nazis. Meanwhile, taxpayers shouldn't be providing places or funding for these views to be spread, they should be funding intelligence services to be watching and monitoring those who do.
That in itself should give pause for thought. Pause to think about how the institutions that at best don't discourage and at worst catalyse such thoughts should be treated by the state.
The flipside is that "55% of nonMuslim students thought Islam was incompatible with democracy. Nearly one in 10 had “little respect” for Muslims."
Furthermore "Homophobia was rife, with 25% saying they had little or no respect for gays. The figure was higher (32%) for male Muslim students. Among nonMuslims, the figure was only 4%."
The obvious tension is clear. Whilst a significant minority of Muslims hold and express values that are contrary with those of Western civilisation, and fundamental British laws, serious questions will be raised about how much tolerance there should be towards those promoting such hatred and violence.
The UK has long been tolerant of Muslims and those of other (and no) religion, and rightfully so. It is a core liberal concept that people should be able to live their lives in peace regardless of what they do or don't believe in. This of course also includes racists, communists, Christian fundamentalists and the like. You shouldn't be stopped about going about your daily life, as long as your prejudices, desire for violence and the like remain expressed within your own four walls.
However, the state shouldn't be subsidising organisations or locations where you and your warped friends meet to share your malignant beliefs. Moreover if you and your friends plan to do violence or threaten as part of your collectivised irrationality, then expect that to be drawn to the attention of the state.
So what to do? Well first, non-private universities shouldn't be funding or supplying space for students of any religion to worship or meet. Religion and state should be separate, so the state shouldn't facilitate Islam. Secondly there is immigration. The UK ridiculously hands migrants rights to welfare, healthcare, education and housing. This simply should end. If you wish to migrate you should be responsible for paying your own way. Finally there is the most important point of all - it is the promotion of what liberal democratic capitalist British society is all about.
It is about respecting the rights of adults to make their own decisions about their lives and property.
It is about respecting the rights of adults to have freedom of speech, but not demand that others provide the means to express it.
It is about separating the right of people to hold their views, beliefs, lifestyles, as long as they respect the rights of others to hold different ones, AND CRITICISE YOURS.
It means the right to say Islam is evil, Christianity is evil, Communism is evil and Capitalism is evil - and to condemn those who hold these views, or no views.
Muslim students who believe in violence should be damned for the evil that they are, their stone age views should be criticised without fear, as the similar views of fringe fundamentalist Christians should be, as should Marxist-Leninists and neo-Nazis. Meanwhile, taxpayers shouldn't be providing places or funding for these views to be spread, they should be funding intelligence services to be watching and monitoring those who do.
27 July 2008
National's latest policy is Labour's - again...
Newstalk ZB reports "The National Party has moved to defuse fears it will dismantle the Working for Families scheme if it wins the election. Party leader John Key told this morning's TV One Agenda programme he is planning no changes to the system. He says a careful look at the way the scheme functions has shown it is not worthwhile changing it. Mr Key says it is important to offer people certainty during tough economic times."
Just think, you can vote Labour and get the same policy with different people - nice to have choice isn't it? Then whichever way the election goes you win - unless you think Working for Families is middle-class welfare thieved from middle to upper income taxpayers that encourages the majority of families to be dependent on the state, rather than granting them higher tax cuts. Given it didn't exist when National was last in power, it need not exist now. Or should National just concede that "a lot that Labour did when it was in power is worth keeping".
(Hat tip: Lindsay Mitchell)
26 July 2008
Iran going to murder some more
AFP reports Iran is going to murder some citizens in a mass execution:
So having illegal relationships and showing up drunk in public are reasons to be executed? Or are they murderers who also did such things?
Nevermind, AFP also reports:
"It said 20 of those on death row were convicted drug traffickers. The remaining 10, identified as "murderer thugs" were also convicted of "disturbing public security and disorder, beating up people, repeated robberies, having illegal relationships and showing up drunk in public"."
So having illegal relationships and showing up drunk in public are reasons to be executed? Or are they murderers who also did such things?
Nevermind, AFP also reports:
"Capital offences in the Islamic republic include murder, rape, armed robbery, drug trafficking and adultery. Earlier this month, it emerged that the Iranian parliament was considering a bill which could see the death penalty also used for those deemed to promote corruption, prostitution and apostasy on the Internet. Last week, an Iranian rights group, Volunteer Lawyers' Network, said that Iran planned to stone eight women and one man sentenced for adultery despite a moratorium on such executions."
Still, don't exactly expect the so-called peace movement, or those who call for the impeachment of Condoleeza Rice to protest the Iranian embassy or call for it to be expelled. No - Iranians aren't entitled to individual rights when they are opposing the great Satan USA.24 July 2008
The price of freedom over the price of peace
Rick Barker, Minister of Veteran Affairs, is making a speech this Sunday, to commemorate the 55th anniversary of the armistice that ended the Korean War.
Now this is all very well and good. He talks briefly about the war, describing it as "a military peace enforcement intervention". It was, in fact, an action to repel the North Koreans from South Korea as invaders who were committed to abolishing the Republic of Korea government. "Peace enforcement" undermines what it was, a brutal war on the front line of the Cold War battling one of the first attempts by the communist bloc for expansionism (as North Korea had been given the nod by the USSR to invade).
He will commemorate the veterans, rightly so. Does some minor politicking which is probably inevitable. However what gets me is that he doesn't grasp the moral imperative of this war - this was a battle against tyranny. He calls it "the price of peace", I call it the price of freedom.
North Korea was already at the time a communist dictatorship in the mould of Stalin, China had fallen communist the year before and was threatening to overrun Taiwan. The strategy was simple, the weak (though authoritarian) South Korea government would be quickly overwhelmed (South Korea was largely a poor peasant country at the time, North Korea the well developed industrial centre) defeated and then Japan would be surrounded on three sides by communist influences.
North Korea was thwarted by the US and its allies because Douglas Macarthur landed at Inchon, cutting off the North Korean troops which had invaded almost all of South Korea, and so they were rolled back to the 38th parallel, and then the war went from being simply rolling back the invasion, to destroying the North Korean menace. This saw US/UN forces go as far as the Yalu River, but the topography and weather were against them, and Mao feared the US would invade China. So China poured in hundreds of thousands of troops to defend North Korea. China rolled back the UN forces to the 38th parallel once more.
So the war lasted two years moving the frontline a few miles back and forth.
New Zealand contributed bravely to defending South Korea from the evil Stalinist dictatorship to the North. There were two choices facing NZ (and the US and the other UN countries that participated in the Police Action):
- You could choose peace (which would literally mean just letting Korea go communist and then deter an attack on Japan, hopefully!); or
- You could choose freedom (which means ensuring North Korea does not take South Korea).
Had peace been chosen, the Republic of Korea may not exist today. Also to those who say the Syngman Rhee regime in Seoul wasn't free, they are right, but compared to Kim Il Sung, it was significantly more open and liberal -and since the late 1980s South Korea has been a thriving open liberal democracy, which puts the North Korean prison state in stark contrast. New Zealand veterans from the Korean War helped ensure that would be, and deterred the risk of an attack on Japan.
So while Rick Barker is doing the right thing remembering and celebrating the veterans of the Korean War, they were not fighting for peace first and foremost, although the end of the war was certainly a goal. That goal was meaningless without it being a fight against communism and for the more free alternative at the time. Had the primary objective not been to contain and keep South Korea free from Stalinism, then peace would've been easy - simply surrender.
Now this is all very well and good. He talks briefly about the war, describing it as "a military peace enforcement intervention". It was, in fact, an action to repel the North Koreans from South Korea as invaders who were committed to abolishing the Republic of Korea government. "Peace enforcement" undermines what it was, a brutal war on the front line of the Cold War battling one of the first attempts by the communist bloc for expansionism (as North Korea had been given the nod by the USSR to invade).
He will commemorate the veterans, rightly so. Does some minor politicking which is probably inevitable. However what gets me is that he doesn't grasp the moral imperative of this war - this was a battle against tyranny. He calls it "the price of peace", I call it the price of freedom.
North Korea was already at the time a communist dictatorship in the mould of Stalin, China had fallen communist the year before and was threatening to overrun Taiwan. The strategy was simple, the weak (though authoritarian) South Korea government would be quickly overwhelmed (South Korea was largely a poor peasant country at the time, North Korea the well developed industrial centre) defeated and then Japan would be surrounded on three sides by communist influences.
North Korea was thwarted by the US and its allies because Douglas Macarthur landed at Inchon, cutting off the North Korean troops which had invaded almost all of South Korea, and so they were rolled back to the 38th parallel, and then the war went from being simply rolling back the invasion, to destroying the North Korean menace. This saw US/UN forces go as far as the Yalu River, but the topography and weather were against them, and Mao feared the US would invade China. So China poured in hundreds of thousands of troops to defend North Korea. China rolled back the UN forces to the 38th parallel once more.
So the war lasted two years moving the frontline a few miles back and forth.
New Zealand contributed bravely to defending South Korea from the evil Stalinist dictatorship to the North. There were two choices facing NZ (and the US and the other UN countries that participated in the Police Action):
- You could choose peace (which would literally mean just letting Korea go communist and then deter an attack on Japan, hopefully!); or
- You could choose freedom (which means ensuring North Korea does not take South Korea).
Had peace been chosen, the Republic of Korea may not exist today. Also to those who say the Syngman Rhee regime in Seoul wasn't free, they are right, but compared to Kim Il Sung, it was significantly more open and liberal -and since the late 1980s South Korea has been a thriving open liberal democracy, which puts the North Korean prison state in stark contrast. New Zealand veterans from the Korean War helped ensure that would be, and deterred the risk of an attack on Japan.
So while Rick Barker is doing the right thing remembering and celebrating the veterans of the Korean War, they were not fighting for peace first and foremost, although the end of the war was certainly a goal. That goal was meaningless without it being a fight against communism and for the more free alternative at the time. Had the primary objective not been to contain and keep South Korea free from Stalinism, then peace would've been easy - simply surrender.
You're named what?
The Taranaki Daily News (yep world class journalism here), has published an article that talks about "parents being branded abusers because of what they name their kids".
This is because of a single case of a couple naming their daughter "Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii". Now clearly they are mad, but really that's about it surely? No, the Family Court judge apparently "was so disturbed at the effect on the nine-year-old that he ordered her temporarily placed under court guardianship so a suitable name could be chosen".
Nice to see the criminal justice system protecting kids from - being teased. I mean, surely any boy named Richard Short could claim the same, indeed I am sure you can think of a few people you know whose names you're glad you DON'T have (and besides adults can change names anyway).
However what was actually somewhat incorrect about the article was that it listed a bunch of strange New Zealand registered names, ignoring the possibility that some of these may have been chosen by adults:
Fish
Chips (twin sibling of Fish)
Masport
Mower (twin sibling of Masport)
Yeah Detroit
Spiral Cicada
Kaos
Stallion
Hitler
Cinderella Beauty Blossom
Twisty Poi
Keenan Got Lucky
Sex Fruit (which a commentator on the Stuff website says is actually "Count Lawrence Cinnamon Sex Fruit and he changed his name by deed poll as an adult")
Of course this ignores the fact that being named Helen Clark would be a problem for some, the name Lolita has been unusable since the 1950s, George Bush can't be entirely uncommon, let alone Gordon Brown, and let's not forget the endless number of trashy names around which imply "you're a bogun, you'll grow up to be a drug dealer or a stripper etc etc".
UPDATE: Well apparently the story is largely nonsense according to DIA (Hat Tip Not PC)
This is because of a single case of a couple naming their daughter "Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii". Now clearly they are mad, but really that's about it surely? No, the Family Court judge apparently "was so disturbed at the effect on the nine-year-old that he ordered her temporarily placed under court guardianship so a suitable name could be chosen".
Nice to see the criminal justice system protecting kids from - being teased. I mean, surely any boy named Richard Short could claim the same, indeed I am sure you can think of a few people you know whose names you're glad you DON'T have (and besides adults can change names anyway).
However what was actually somewhat incorrect about the article was that it listed a bunch of strange New Zealand registered names, ignoring the possibility that some of these may have been chosen by adults:
Fish
Chips (twin sibling of Fish)
Masport
Mower (twin sibling of Masport)
Yeah Detroit
Spiral Cicada
Kaos
Stallion
Hitler
Cinderella Beauty Blossom
Twisty Poi
Keenan Got Lucky
Sex Fruit (which a commentator on the Stuff website says is actually "Count Lawrence Cinnamon Sex Fruit and he changed his name by deed poll as an adult")
Of course this ignores the fact that being named Helen Clark would be a problem for some, the name Lolita has been unusable since the 1950s, George Bush can't be entirely uncommon, let alone Gordon Brown, and let's not forget the endless number of trashy names around which imply "you're a bogun, you'll grow up to be a drug dealer or a stripper etc etc".
UPDATE: Well apparently the story is largely nonsense according to DIA (Hat Tip Not PC)
Weaning New Zealand off welfare
Check out Libz TV for Libertarianz welfare policy - and no it's not simply abolish all benefits tomorrow, but a practical and compassionate way to phase out welfare first from those who least need it, whilst retaining transitional provisions for those who are least able to make provision for themselves (e.g. Superannuitants, Invalid Beneficiaries).
Now imagine if National needed to negotiate a confidence and supply agreement with Libertarianz to govern.
(Hat Tip - Vigesimal Pundit)
Now imagine if National needed to negotiate a confidence and supply agreement with Libertarianz to govern.
(Hat Tip - Vigesimal Pundit)
Shower inflight?
Following Singapore Airlines introducing "Suites" as First Class on board its Airbus A380s (with real beds that aren't a conversion of the seat), according to ABTN Emirates have announced showers will be available in First Class on board its Airbus A380s.
A tonne of water is needed to supply the showers, hopefully this will be sufficient for the maximum load of 14 in First Class. For an airline that a few days ago was talking about eliminating inflight magazines and safety cards to save weight for fuel, it sounds more like saving weight for water!
Still a shower on board would be an experience, especially if the shower included the curious feature Lufthansa includes in bathrooms on many of its long haul jets - windows that aren't frosted!
I also wonder, as ABTN does, what happens during turbulence, you don't want to fall and hurt yourself in the shower on a flight due to a bump, and you can't exactly suddenly return to your seat when you're stark naked.
Of course it also offers a new opportunity for a couple to be playful, but then the UAE isn't too friendly on this sort of thing.
Anyway, Emirates will almost certainly be the first airline to fly the A380 regularly to New Zealand from early next year, so New Zealanders with around NZ$2500 to spare to fly First Class across the Tasman at least (not that much money for long haul First Class of that distance by world standards) could shower themselves mid flight. Me, well I'm happy to use decent lounges at either end, but it would be nice to have the option - and frankly I doubt airlines that are more fuel conscious than Emirates appears to be, will bother with this gimmick.
Oh and don't be fooled, many Emirates A380s WONT have this, because a whole lot wont have first class - they will be literally AirBUSes to ferry large numbers of cheap workers from South Asia to the Middle East.
A tonne of water is needed to supply the showers, hopefully this will be sufficient for the maximum load of 14 in First Class. For an airline that a few days ago was talking about eliminating inflight magazines and safety cards to save weight for fuel, it sounds more like saving weight for water!
Still a shower on board would be an experience, especially if the shower included the curious feature Lufthansa includes in bathrooms on many of its long haul jets - windows that aren't frosted!
I also wonder, as ABTN does, what happens during turbulence, you don't want to fall and hurt yourself in the shower on a flight due to a bump, and you can't exactly suddenly return to your seat when you're stark naked.
Of course it also offers a new opportunity for a couple to be playful, but then the UAE isn't too friendly on this sort of thing.
Anyway, Emirates will almost certainly be the first airline to fly the A380 regularly to New Zealand from early next year, so New Zealanders with around NZ$2500 to spare to fly First Class across the Tasman at least (not that much money for long haul First Class of that distance by world standards) could shower themselves mid flight. Me, well I'm happy to use decent lounges at either end, but it would be nice to have the option - and frankly I doubt airlines that are more fuel conscious than Emirates appears to be, will bother with this gimmick.
Oh and don't be fooled, many Emirates A380s WONT have this, because a whole lot wont have first class - they will be literally AirBUSes to ferry large numbers of cheap workers from South Asia to the Middle East.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)