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notices and features - Date published:
5:30 pm, August 24th, 2023 - 36 comments
Categories: Daily review -
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The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.
ACT wants more people in prison.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/08/election-2023-prison-numbers-will-balloon-if-act-elected-at-cost-of-1-billion-david-seymour-says.html
I guess cracking down on spending doesn't apply to throwing more Maori in jails.
They're already there.
The Land Transport Management (Regulation of Public Transport) Amendment Bill replaces the Public Transport Operating Model (PTOM) 2011.
Simeon Brown responded as it he had not read the 2020 report and said
The former requirement of councils to prefer the lower tender, drove down wages and conditions and left cities without bus services – failure to deliver on the contract.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/08/parliament-passes-bus-driver-pay-legislation-under-urgency.html
Evidence clearly shows the cost savings and better services from privitisation are imaginary.
Similarly, in 2007, Roland Zullo found in his research that governments gained no immediate or long-term economic benefit from contracted bus services. This finding was substantiated in 2009 by Suzanne Leland and Olga Smirnova who found that privately owned and managed transit systems are not more efficient or more effective than government owned agencies.
https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/High-Costs-of-Privatization.pdf
Some of the explained real life results can be explained thus:
Their study suggests that under private production, incentives exist to reduce costs at the expense of quality. Under this framework, incentives work as follows:
1.With private ownership, the manager has incentives to reduce costs through quality deterioration. The manager does not need authorization from the government, which will bear the political costs of quality reduction. To give the manager incentives to innovate to increase quality, the manager would need to negotiate price increases with the government to ensure compensation for his investment. Most likely, this negotiation will not result in a full appropriation of benefits from the innovation, which reduces the manager’s incentives to innovate.
2.Under government ownership, incentives work in the opposite direction. Because the manager is government-employed, he will take into account potential quality erosion when considering the implementation of cost-reducing innovations. In addition, the public manager will need government permission for any innovation he wants to undertake (either quality improvement or cost reduction). In the absence of a pay-for-performance scheme, the public manager will not fully benefit from the results of innovation.
Overall, private ownership offers more incentives for cost reduction, but these incentives can induce quality erosion. Ensuring quality under privatization requires increased oversight, which can blur the line between public and private ownership (Guttman, 2000; Bozeman, 1987). As the difference between public and private ownership disappears, the potential for cost savings from private ownership may disappear as well.
https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/High-Costs-of-Privatization.pdf
So there was evidence to show that the 2011 approach was wrong and they did it anyway …
Gets even worse for water. Note our semi-privatised power companies have been doing the same thing here – taking on debt to pay dividends to share holders.
And let us not forget
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/gattung-admits-telcos-not-being-straight/CVL6FXSNGGNID32ZGUPGWPQHTE/
Telecom's public image may take another hit as an audio clip of Theresa Gattung circulating on the internet has the chief executive admitting to the company "not being straight up" with customers.
"Think about pricing. What has every telco in the world done in the past? It's used confusion as its chief marketing tool. And that's fine," said Gattung in a speech recorded on March 20.
"You could argue that that's how all of us keep calling prices up and get those revenues, high-margin businesses, keep them going for a lot longer than would have been the case.
There has been 30 years of experimentation and research now which shows it is a failure in most cases.
https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/21097/20/21097%20YEARWOOD_The_Privatised_Water_Industry_in_the_UK_2018.pdf
The Privatised Water Industry in the UK. An ATM for investors.
This paper aims to critically evaluate the privatised water & sewage industry in England. We find that the public-owned sector in Scotland delivers the service just as efficiently, albeit at a lower cost to consumers. Our econometric analysis suggests that the 40% increase in real household bills since privatisation was mainly driven by continuously growing interest payments on debt, contrary to the regulator attributing them to growing costs and investments. Finally, we show that the accelerating debt levels are primarily the result of disproportionate dividend pay-outs, which exceeded the privatised companies’ cash balances in all but one year since 1989. We conclude that the way the industry operates may no longer be sustainable and seems to disadvantage consumers greatly without their knowledge, as there is a fog of misleading statements by the companies and the regulator.
But, but, but…….neo-lib is all good isn't it even when it is not, so why listen to reason or read objective results? /:sarc
Neo-lib wormed it's way into many unseen to the general public areas in public institutions/life that it really needs to have detailed investigations when aspects come up for renewal/review as well as an all out approach on the areas we as consumers are aware of.
(She checks notes to find the aspect she is always banging on about…..)
Energy costs review of the Bradford changes…..
Did they really need expensive consultants to demonstrate the obvious? Extraction of passive income by the owners/shareholders of the new private entities tends to produce one of two outcomes – lower quality (bus services) or higher prices (private hospitals). Sometimes it leads to both.
If we weren't in the middle of an election campaign with multiple policy launches per day, the $1.1 billion deal from government to Auckland to buy out properties and remediate a whole regions worth of civil infrastructure would be surely worthy of note.
"A cost-sharing agreement between the Government and Auckland Council will see the Crown contribute $877 million towards Auckland’s recovery following the Anniversary Day floods and Cyclone Gabrielle, earlier this year.
In addition to the $877 million which will come from the National Resilience Plan, Auckland Council has submitted an application for further recovery funding which is being reviewed by Waka Kotahi. Auckland Council estimates it will receive about $200 million from this process to help restore the transport network. This would bring the total Crown funding Auckland may receive to up to $1.1 billion."
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA2308/S00159/government-and-auckland-council-agree-cost-sharing-arrangements.htm
I'm presuming that Auckland Council will approximately match that with its own contribution.
We can now see how much it is going to cost New Zealand taxpayers and ratepayers to continue to prop up this country through massive storm after massive storm event.
That's before the walls start to really break on South Dunedin, or the flood+surge overtops Westport's defences, or a direct cyclone wipes Gisborne off the map.
It's not being catastrophist to now expect more disasters.
I sincerely hope that the buyouts will be capped.
As a ratepayer (and taxpayer for that matter), I don't really want to be paying for 10 million dollar clifftop properties – buying out owners who have recklessly over-developed a fragile site
I'd like to see a straightforward land swap (if you had a 600 m2 site which is red-stickered (or whatever the new category is) – you get a 600m2 site elsewhere in a managed retreat spec'd development. It's up to you and your insurance company to either rebuild or relocate your existing house. If you don't want to live there – you can sell the new site – and buy wherever you please.
I'm all for helping out people in need. Much less keen on helping out millionaires.
Plan now or pay later.
Councils begin the task of assessing the cost of the expected rise in sea/river outlet levels on their infrastructure replacement.
https://www.thepress.co.nz/a/nz-news/350058087/more-3b-worth-christchurchs-public-assets-risk-due-climate-change?utm_source=stuff_website&utm_medium=stuff_referral&utm_campaign=stuff_skybox&utm_id=stuff_skybox
Too late we're paying now.
Our safest city for seismic+climate risk is Hamilton.
Every other city has very high risks now that are near impossible to plan out of.
Yes. We’ve had 30-35 years to work this out. The pandemic is one thing. But to be making this up on the fly is inexcusable.
Rewriggling a stream in the south of England to restore natural flow and reduce the risk of flooding.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/24/rewriggle-room-lewes-river-channel-project-new-wetland-cockshut-chalk-stream-flood-risk
Thread.
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@drsimonwilliams
Our MAJOR new @royalsociety report out TODAY Evidence shows COVID measures together = EFFECTIVE
Key findings:
Distancing/lockdowns=MOST EFFECTIVE measure
FACEMASKS consistently found to be EFFECTIVE
Strong evidence for contact tracing apps
https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/impact-non-pharmaceutical-interventions-on-covid-19-transmission/
https://twitter.com/drsimonwilliams/status/1694484949666038044
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1694484949666038044.html
Not what they seem ?
[You seem like a typical troll trying to derail a comment with a lazy illegible YT link and an equally intelligible comment. This is your warning – Incognito]
So Weston you are commenting by linking to a shouty You Tube video that I had to click away from as it just seemed to be saying '3.4%' all the time (& an enigmatic comment of Not what they seem?) with a scientific study from the Royal Society and Dr Simon Williams.
I find this positioning concerning as if they are some how considered to be peers?
What does your comment mean and can you summarise the YT vid so we don't need to be subjected to this stuck record commentary of '3.4%'?. I have my suspicions that the link may be anti all sensible measures placed around Covid transmission.
My take on the vid/link Weston posted.
The mainstream media talking heads were claiming the death rate from the virus was 3.4% while Trump was claiming it was under 1%. Leading to the talking heads claiming Trump was touting mis/disinformation. Yet (as shown in the vid/link) it turned out the WHO and the talking heads were wrong and it was under 1%.
So (as shown in the vid/link) it seems the talking heads and the WHO were the ones spreading mis/disinformation.
[please provide evidence for your claims here. No, you can’t use that video as a source. I want credible sources (imo you will need multiple sources), and explanations from you on each point, short quotes to back that up, and links. I’m not willing to accept video/audio as I want to limit my time on this and your claims should be easily backed up in text.
You will also need to explain what you mean by ‘death rate from the virus’ as well as the time periods you are referring to.
If you can’t do that then retract your claims.
The claims are:
Mod note. Because I warned you recently about not treating TS like FB and I had to use my own time to fact check your claims, if you waste my time on this again I will ban you until well after the election. We have an expectation here of a high level of debate and evidence.
You are in premod and none of your comments will appear on the front end until you attend to this.
Seeing as you won’t take the vid/link as evidence, I can’t be bothered so I will retract.
[that’s not a retraction. A retraction would be something like “I made claims I am unable to back up, so I will retract them”. Further, you seem to not understand why evidence matters.
That and saying you can’t be bothered tells me that you have little respect for debate here. This is the third time you have been warned about this and wasting moderator time in the past week or so. You seem to have no intention of changing how you comment here.
You are banned for six months. – weka]
ban extended to 1 year, after follow up comment in Trash and looking at moderation history. You patently don't respect moderation here, repeatedly waste moderator time, and you've had plenty of warnings.
Weka that vid i posted came from a piece by Matt Taibbi called " Mashup the covid lie that started it all "
Esentialy MT is piggy backing on an article by Matt Orfalea called "Memory Hole : the original covid lie "
Both articles [ behind a paywall ] refer to an original estimate by the WHO in early 2020 that the death count from covid was likely to be 3.4 % when in fact as established down the track it was less than 1% which was what Trump claimed back then which in turn was what pretty much ALL the MSM used to beat him up with .!! Trump was correct and the media sock puppets were wrong .
If you read the original article weka you will see all of Orfaleas info is credible and well documented .
Incidentaly The Chairman made no "claims " he merely interpreted the vid as in "my take " [ did you miss his first two words ?? ]
Even if you did mis read what he actually said are you suggesting its some kind of HEROSY that someone question a so called " expert or experts " seems to me there's not an expert on the planet who doesnt get something wrong at some stage .
For heavens sake weka how can you expect reasonable discussion on a subject if you're gonna come down on someone like a ton of bricks you sounded to me like some sort of censorship police unfortunate cause i thought you were the fairest .
[please supply the two links you are referring to and read the mod note below. – weka]
Mod note:
Please read the bolded note in your comment and respond to that before commenting again.
Please also read this post before commenting again, and let me know when you have read it and that you understand it.
https://thestandard.org.nz/moderation-notes-in-election-year/
You are in premod until I see those two things completed. This means your comments won't appear in the front end until this is sorted.
weka : the two links respectively are : taibbi@substack.com and http://www.censorednews.substack.com I have read and understood your moderation post .
thank-you. Can you please provide the correct URL for your first link. What you have given is an email address.
Dunno about a URL but you'll find Matt Taibbi's stuff under Racket News
Mod note: it’s not my job to look for links you claim back up your argument. It’s your job. It’s like you didn’t understand anything I have explained to you about moderation. Or you don’t care. Either way, banned two weeks for wasting moderator time.
as to your criticisms of moderation, you don't seem to understand why and how we moderate, so I will explain.
1. your comment here https://thestandard.org.nz/daily-review-24-08-2023/#comment-1965724
this is a youtube link with zero explanation. We have long said this isn't ok. What we need is an explanation by the commenter of two things: what the video is about, and what the commenter thinks about it.
When you put up a link with no useful comment it lowers the quality of debate because we can't see what the video is about and most people aren't going to watch it.
As Shanreagh pointed out, the video is constructed in such a way as to put most people off.
We are also resisting letting TS be turned into FB. We're here for the political debate, not memery.
If instead, you had written an explanation like you have today, the debate would have gone much differently.
You also need to link if you are going to reference articles, it doesn't matter if they are behind a paywall.
We require debate here to be robust and evidence based. Everything I am writing here is about that, none of it is about the content of what your comments. By that I mean, if you put the effort into explaining your position and doing basic things like linking, then you won't get moderated.
2. The Chairman has a history of making misleading statements in his comments. He's been warning about this multiple times. He's copped a ban for wasting moderator time (again, read my link above).
In addition, he made the same mistake as you whereby his comment didn't explain anything for others.
He did indeed make the same claims as in the video and could have provide back up for those claims but refused to and instead doubled down.
He also has a history of litigating moderation, and I'm not willing to waste my time on that any more.
3. You said,
No-one has been censored here. TS lets people say most things so long as they can do so within the boundaries of robust debate. The Policy (written long before I was a mod),
https://thestandard.org.nz/policy/
You have both been given the opportunity to meet the debate standards of the blog. If you can't do that, then stop making the claims of fact. If you are unclear on what evidence is required, then ask.
Please take the time to understand that the problem here is lack of debate etiquette.
Please also understand that taking up moderator time is the quickest way to a ban. It's taken me 25 mins to do all the various things around moderating your comment today, and I am not going to do that again.
But The Chariman the report of the Royal Society and Dr Simon Williams were about non pharmaceutical interventions such as mask wearing, distancing etc. I feel that as anything about so called % rates was not mentioned in the reports
So not sure why the topic was raised by Weston, well I do, to derail any learning about effective measures especially those that were top of the anti-vaxx hit list. Such as mask wearing and distancing…why I do not know.
They were measures to help the individual as well as the people they came into contact with. I've never understood why, even if you felt you were unlikely to spread or catch covid you would not mask or distance to help others. Seems quite selfish to me.
mod note: please be more careful with your grammar and formatting. Your second sentence is hard to understand and then you presumably put your own words in quotation.
The quote was directly from the Dr Williams report (para 17).
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1694484949666038044.html
[ok, but you didn’t provide a link at the time you quoted. Three day ban for yet again quoting without linking and for thus wasting moderator time – weka]
mod note.
Mod note
What is it about pigs like Orfela that appeals to soft-headed pricks like yourself?
(Orfela's content nsfw)
@receiptmaven
Matt Orfalea made the most offensive video about Martin Luther King, Jr. I have EVER seen. It's vile. Repugnant. Racist.
@BernieSanders just hired him as a member of his video team. MLK's famous "I Have a Wet Dream" speech
https://twitter.com/receiptmaven/status/1183455116827021316/photo/1
https://twitter.com/receiptmaven/status/1183448789333532673
@receiptmaven
·
Oct 16, 2019
These are just some of the pictures Matt Orf used on his videos about Hillary Clinton:
https://twitter.com/receiptmaven/status/1184085027199602688
Joe90 I am amazed looking back that antis were able to make people doubt the efficacy of commonsense provisions around the transmission of a virus.
That several measures taken together were effective shows that the Swiss Cheese Model of prevention had much going for it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/health/coronavirus-swiss-cheese-infection-mackay.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/health/coronavirus-swiss-cheese-infection-mackay.html