I haven’t been to Shanghai. Have you been on every single flight between Shanghai and Auckland or are you making assumptions about the people who travel on these flights? might I mention that you’re implying their flights need to be subsidised by low-wage labour due to the relative lack of income of the inhabitants of Shanghai, not I… Bit patronising there, chief…

I’m not sure how you’ll qualify Nationalisation as theft – if the Government purchases, at a market rate, the remaining stake of Air New Zealand, they will have achieved this. It’s no different to a corporate takeover, but the buyer is different. So you’re pretty much saying the free market and capitalism is also theft. Hey – we almost agree!

except it is hardly an anathema. My main point is people have to make choices either to stay, leave or renegotiate their pay and conditions. In this respect I don’t disagree.

Except it is, libertyscott – the libertarian response to someone in poor working conditions is “they chose to work there. It’s their problem”. That’s what you said yourself. This ignores reality, paints a black-and-white picture, while pretending to dress up as an ethos of ‘personal choice’. Abhorrent.

You seem to discount the possility of improving working conditions. Unless there are favourable conditions, such as very low unemployment, the workers are at an inherent disadvantage given the problems of leaving work. This is wheremany on the left see that a government or state should step in – gently, with subtle employment law, or forcefully if the situation demands it. If the worker is not at any disadvantage, you don’t hear calls for intervention.

Your idea of public sale might sound nice and warm in theory, but it demands perfect information for every consumer, and an ability to predict what every other actor will do. If it is in NZ’s best interests to publicly own a resource, for this to happen every New Zealander would need to buy an equal stake and be confident that every other New Zealander would do the same. No practical relevance whatsoever.

Giving the shares to the public is equally useless – without everyone having perfect information it can’t work. You may think it sounds elegant, but reality dictates otherwise.

1) Who should own the invention: the inventor who toiled to make the discovery or the public who did nothing?

2) Who should own the production of the invention: the investor who risks his money or the public who risks nothing?

One can only hope they took their “reshuffling” well – it being a natural outcome of the market and all…

Interestingly enough, the shelf behind my desk right now includes a copy of ‘Atlas Shrugged’ which was left behind by a colleague in the last office-reshuffle… with a glowing endorsement like that from Tane, I might just have to hunker down with a coffee and see what all the fuss is about.

Matthew – so people in Shanghai are desperate peasants? Ever been there, or have you some rather patronising attitude about China that says Chinese people are mostly peasants? Funnily enough I DO believe people can improve themselves and seek it, and leaving your job is one way to do it.

I don’t disagree with “I’ve always wondered how people with these beliefs manage to entirely discount the human incentive to improve their condition – maybe your shitty job is just that but why not aim to improve it? You might leave some day – wouldn’t it be good if it was better for your replacement? And you get to have a better time while you’re there. This is of course anathema to libertarians, but i’d like to think it’s part of human nature.” except it is hardly an anathema. My main point is people have to make choices either to stay, leave or renegotiate their pay and conditions. In this respect I don’t disagree.

I have a kneejerk opposition to nationalisation on one simple basis – it is theft. Privatisation of existing state owned enterprises can be done more delicately, and is about trading off price, ownership structures and how it is done. Giving shares to the public would be to me, a particularly good way of creating genuine public ownership.

Then people can choose whether they want public ownership or not, would’t that be interesting? Does everyone want to own shares in a coal mining company? I suspect plenty of environmentalists would rather not, unless they saw value in buying up shares and shutting it down perhaps. Imagine – people using their own choices rather than the state to change things!

My previous point was this:
- The Air NZ routes from Auckland to Shanghai and Beijing are low yield routes that would not be profitable if all crew operating them were on NZ salaries. Therefore without Chinese crew at good Chinese wages, the routes would not exist given fares that Chinese tourists (who form 90% of the passengers) pay (Air NZ pulled out of South Korea because it couldn’t compete with Korean Air on fares).
- If Air NZ pulls out, a Chinese airline is likely to fill the gap since they pay less than Air NZ, so Air NZ loses.

In other words if you want Air NZ to operate the routes to China then this is what must happen, otherwise it becomes a Chinese airline route.

Weasel Words.

Matt, yes, as a libertarian (I assume you’re consistent Mike) he believes everything but police and the military (the means by which property owners shield their wealth from the masses) should be privatised. And tax should be zero because anything else is theft.

Honestly, this shit makes no sense whatsoever until you read Ayn Rand’s fantasy novels and discover that socialism is about hatred of the good and dragging the ubermenschen down to everyone else’s level. Apparently it’s great stuff if you’re into that kind of thing.

If this is the case, anyway, I assume that you advocate full devolution of the public sector into private entities as soon as possible; if any form of nationalisation is socialism, surely any public entity is representative of this monster, and is likely to turn us into East Germany? Roads, hospitals, schools, power infrastructure and generation – lose them all, before those NewCops become the StasiCops…

Not neccesarily Stalinism, but definately socialism by any definition.

I’m very interested as to the reasons why Tane would want to nationalise teh warehouse however.

Tane, would you care to explain.

As a side note, my captcha phrase is: “$100,000 snipers”

I guess you could look forward to the Super Great leap Forward and Smashing A Few More Olds policies, they’re equally likely.

I’ve always wondered how people with these beliefs manage to entirely discount the human incentive to improve their condition – maybe your shitty job is just that but why not aim to improve it? You might leave some day – wouldn’t it be good if it was better for your replacement? And you get to have a better time while you’re there. This is of course anathema to libertarians, but i’d like to think it’s part of human nature.

Nice to see you and Matthew conveniently ignored the facts of the situation. Either the route is operated by Chinese crew hired by Air NZ or it is flown by a Chinese airline.

No ignoring facts there – I haven’t said that the crew isn’t Chinese anywhere. In fact, on numerous occastions, I made mention of Chinese employees and so on. Perhaps you need to re-state that point…