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notices and features - Date published:
6:00 am, December 4th, 2010 - 38 comments
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It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.
Comment on whatever takes your fancy.
The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner).
Step right up to the mike…
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. ...
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Unite Union and Matt McCarten are nothing but thieves knowing the financial problems they were facing, Matt proceeded to stand in Mana and use up more Union funds. He has lost all credibility how can he now preach to Businesses to lift their game?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/4418030/Union-asked-to-explain-36k-debt
Oh Piss off Doug, you just want UNITE to shut down so you can treat your supermarket workers like shit and pay them below minium wage and they have no-where to go for help.
Its people like you who are holding wages and conditions down and force workers to live in their cars.
http://www.unite.org.nz/node/165
Thanks for reminding me Doug.
UNITE does have a website with a button for accepting donations. (I know these are hard times for many – just mention it for anyone who wants to help this way and can afford to).
You can also join the union at the site, or sign up for the UNITE e-newsletter.
A cautionary note from a historian about the latest Wikileaks …
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/opinion/03Schroeder.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a212
Ah, no. The purpose of a democracy is that the people are making an informed choice and not being dictated to. This guy just sounds like an apologist for the oppression that the US and other countries are perpetrating.
WikiLeaks cables reveal how US manipulated climate accord
Being open about the negotiations may hold some danger but being secretive holds a hell of a lot more.
http://www.truth-out.org/why-wikileaks-good-democracy65549
From what I’ve seen so far the Wikileaks releases have only done good as governments get held to account.
Douglas was on RNZ yesterday. Was very glad of the airtime. (Have to ask who arranged it because he bemoaned the fact that minor parties have difficulty getting exposure.)
And of course he poured out all of his bigotry in the available time.
One point he laboured was educational failure and in particular class sizes/teacher ratios. He reckons it is a Pinocchio story. And I guess that’s what you would expect from someone who left the classroom in the 1950’s, and if he doesn’t understand this simple maths what credence can he be given on other aspects of life.
The most effective teaching time is on a one-to-one basis.
On a class size of 25 and a given of 25 hours contact time, that is 1 hour per child per week or 12 minutes per day. Halve the class size and you double the interaction time.
Now if the country was really serious about improving productivity and outcomes in the education system, we would have four times or more teachers in primary schools.
But, of course, while we have “financial wizards” running the show…
Yes. I heard Douglas talk on the RNZ Focus on Politics 6:30 Friday night and what a load of cobblers he spoke. The smaller class sizes may not be much help unless the big class process of teaching is modified to take advantage of smaller classes. Douglas is a sad figure really.
http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/fop/fop-20101203-1837-Focus_on_Politics_for_3_December_2010-048.mp3
Perhaps Secondary practice is a whole class model.
The blame for the tail is being leveled at Primary schools.
Have a teacher/pupil ratio of 1:10 or smaller and you are really beginning to have an impact on outcomes.
Secondly, Boards of Trustees could stand at the school gate and check that their families are delivering well rested and cared for children to the school prepared to learn. They could do the negotiation with Social Services to provide support for those who are not and leave the schools to get on with delivering the curricula and teachers wouldn’t have to spend time being social workers and managing behaviour.
And in the meantime we have Douglas’ leader assuming the portfolio of Special Education. He wants totally integrated mainstreaming – and of course that will be fully funded.
Was that one of Douglas’ pigs escaping from his farm that flew past the window just then…?
Douglas is living proof that modern education is of low standard. Look where he got to, how much money he has. Everyone who comes out of education these days should be able to achieve the same as he has if they work hard and are wise in their money making decisions. After all having lots of money and having things and gathering in lots of salary is all important in life and all that counts. Roger Douglas has achieved these and is therefore an example for all of us to emulate. That we don’t is the fault of the education system, with lack of leadership, sloppy productivity and laziness on the part of parents (and any other negative cliches that come to your mind).
Douglas is living proof of the saying. “Children who can believe in several totally conflicting things at once, appear to me to have a great future in politics”.
On Comparitive advantage.
“Economist Ha-Joon Chang criticized the comparative advantage principle, contending that it may have helped developed countries maintain relatively advanced technology and industry compared to developing countries. In his book Kicking Away the Ladder, Chang argued that all major developed countries, including the United States and United Kingdom, used interventionist, protectionist economic policies in order to get rich and then tried to forbid other countries from doing the same. For example, according to the comparative advantage principle, developing countries with a comparative advantage in agriculture should continue to specialize in agriculture and import high-technology widgits from developed countries with a comparative advantage in high technology. In the long run, developing countries would lag behind developed countries, and polarization of wealth would set in. Chang asserts that premature free trade has been one of the fundamental obstacles to the alleviation of poverty in the developing world. Recently, Asian countries such as South Korea, Japan and China have utilized protectionist economic policies in their economic development.[13]”.
Source Wikipedia.
Yeah, there is no such thing as “Comparative Advantage” between countries. Factories can be built that have the same efficiency and high tech skills can be learnt by the population removing all advantage of importing, well, anything really. In fact, importing would have the disadvantage of the extra costs of distance.
Comparative Advantage.
Lopping off the thumbs of Indian weavers while making any manufacturing of cotton products in India illegal. Exporting the raw cotton to Paisley and Manchester and setting up factory production of Indian cotton there. Ripping up the rice paddy’s in India to pant opium for export to China…
Free trade is always one sided and always pushed by dominant economic powers and always backed up by violence or the threat thereof.
Importing lamb carcasses and dairy products from NZ and South America while refusing to import any manufactured goods from the same countries.
US companies more recently telling China that if China allowed Unions and toughened Labour protection laws they would relocate to cheaper countries.
Not to mention invading Iraq to make it safe for Halliburton and Exon.
Closer to home. Supporting a ruthless corrupt totalitarian Dictatorship in Indonesia to ensure US access to their markets.
I’d be interested if you have a link for this. You know how well the Chinese leadership respond to western pressure.
Anyhows, China already has an eye on climbing up the economic value chain, it is clear that it does not want to be America’s sweatshop for much longer.
See if I can find the links. I have several thousand on Green energy alone so may take a while.
Anyway Foxconn are talking of moving out of China according to the tech blogs. Employees getting too many rights.
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/06/foxconn-closing-china-factories/
Dumbest part of trade internationalisation, that. (Bad) employers try to turn everything into a race to the bottom.
Ha-Joon’s book.
http://www.fishpond.co.nz/Books/Business/Economics/General/9781905211371/
Has some interesting insights about privatisation and protectionism.
I especially like the health warning at the start
Woops I thought that was going to be kicking away the ladder. Good to know hes got a new one, cheers
The quote above was from “Kicking away the Ladder”.
His latest is just as insightful.
Ha-Joon has pretty comprehensibly debunked Globalisation.
Yeah thats a good book, well worth reading.
http://wikileaks.ch/
for a currently functioning site
for how long who knows?
Copenhagen. Wikileaks. US aid tied to countries accepting their Copenhagen proposals. Cancun. Japan not supporting an extension of Kyoto. Join the dots
It’s a war on science and it’s being led by the likes of James Inhofe, a fundamental christian with ties to the Dominionist movement.
Inhofe thinks that all this science stuff is just a hoax orchestrated by the United Nations to trick the US into ceding sovereignty to a New World Order with, naturally, the UN in charge.
Inhofe boasts, “Nothing is going to happen in Cancun at the UN Climate party and everyone knows it.”
I agree there’s a concerted effort to discredit the science. But I think that’s secondary…a tactic by those in power.
The principle problem for us is that those in power want to preserve their power. Which means preserving the market they derive power from. So we are blind sided, confounded and smoke screened while being offered market based solutions to climate collapse. We are not to cast a querying eye on the blindingly obvious, which just happens to be that very thing elite power relies on; the market and the industrial activity that it determines.
http://liberation.typepad.com/liberation/2010/12/pansy-wongs-dubious-solicitation-of-political-funding.html#more
The header says it all. “Pansy wong’s dubious solicitation of political fundraising”.
Great work from the ever-diligent Edwards.
In summing up, Mr Edwards says that there are numerous ways that money can be donated, including buying goods and services like buying John Key’s tie for $50,000. Thus it is a sale not a donation. Such things are murky but not necessarily illegal.
It seems strange to me that Parliament,the highest court in the land, writes law that must be clear and unambiguous, yet year after year cannot write law which is clear and unambiguous about its own funding! Vested interest perhaps?
Go the Phoenix!!
heh. Old man McCain gets slapped around the chops by the SecDef and the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff…
http://www.newshoggers.com/blog/2010/12/mccain-challenges-gates-mullen-on-dadt.html
Just heard a talk about rubbish, plastic in the oceans, something called ghost nets too. And an area north of Hawaii where there is a convergence. It would be good if the seemingly numerous people who live on yachts came together to help the ocean where they live. They could trawl for some each day which would start reducing the quantity and there would be disposal units in ports that would measure quantities put in so stats could be kept. And of course put next to nothing over the side themselves. An encouragement would be sponsorship from alcohol or boat gear companies that would give discounts or special offers to those bearing receipts for disposed rubbish.
It would be a bit like what Surf Aid have for countries with their favourite surfing spots. A response that is human thinking at a high level. The organisation could be called Sea Clear or something.
The plastic gyre you refer to is made from plastic that has broken down into tiny irretrievable bits. Can’t even see most of it with the naked eye. It’s like a soup. There is one in the Atlantic too.
On the bright side, there are no red bits of plastic. They get cleaned out while still quite sizeable by sea birds mistaking them for food. On the downside, the birds die with a gut full of plastic. On the upside, a lot of them die on land….maybe.
For those sport lovers who have been watching the Ashes.
Put some money on Alistair Cook batting on each of the 5 days.
Boycott has done it before. Could be worth a few bob.
What’d’ya reckon Bill?
Wonder what constitutes ‘false accounting’ in relation to an MP claiming a housing allowance? Could this be a rare occasion where I’d be quite happy for NZ to follow ‘mother England’?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/mp-faces-prison-after-admitting-expenses-fraud-2151107.html
Has Matt paid his workers’ tax bill yet ?
[lprent: Have you managed to read the post yet? You haven’t responded to anything in it. Not to mention that your dogwhistle is inaccurate – in fact I’d call it a lie from an idiot. It is Unite that owes the IRD. Unite doesn’t owe their workers.
But this is a straight diversion troll, completely off-topic – sending to OpenMike. If I see another troll that is so blatant I’m going to give you a early long holiday. ]