Are you a bargain hunter? A connoisseur of crap? A Sally Store shark?
Apparently, a new netflix show ‘Tidying up with Marie Kwondo’ has inspired many Kiwis to declutter lately. This has resulted in windfall hauls for various charity organisations.
So the message is, there’s bargains to be found for those wanting them.
I recommend blenders for fresh smoothies. Old books for learning from. Old clothes for a hipster disguise. I’m in the midst of a declutter myself though – out with the old in with the (not so) new? Change is good.
I loved punk for a similar reason to hipster fashion, go to op shop, rip stuff, pin stuff, add badges, wardrobe done. With the hipster look just find something hideous and wear it with confidence. Job done.
This short film, offered yesterday here on TS by some kind soul, is a great watch and on the topic of de-cluttering – in this instance, shedding an entire herd of cattle! I enjoyed it very much and thought how paltry my own de-cluttering challenge when compared to the subject of “73 cows”. https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2018/10/09/73-cows/
I really enjoyed that film and it did challenge my stance (a little). I will never condone factory farming or the concept of eating meat daily. I do however subscribe to dietary science and find after a week of dining from my garden I’m still a bit hungry. I eat meat weekly, or slightly less, when my body asks for it.
This is likely a lack of fats as much as protein, though I fared poorly growing beans this year so there is that missing.
I eat a range of herbs and veg every day.
I am open to suggestions as to what this ‘missing ingredient’ in my diet can be replaced with. If you start trying to push soy on me don’t bother, I’ll never eat that GE crap they’re destroying the Gulf of Mexico to farm for y’all.
You thought I might “start trying to push soy ” on you?
Nah!
Cricket-flour patties, WTP; they’re the buzz 🙂
If the cow farmer could only hook up with Charles Dowding…
On another topic…do we humans ever willingly accept less comfort than we have grown accustomed to? Has anyone real examples of voluntary change to less comfort? I’m thinking/remembering what it was like sleeping on sand. Every time you turn, even slightly, sand fills in behind you, preventing you from turning back; is comfort like that?
Cor, the deep questions so early in the day? I’m floundering. Must be some good reason why no bed of sand has entered the market. Nor have I ever heard of home-made examples. Perhaps we need to turn so frequently during the night that the sand effect you describe creates resistance. That would make it a non-user-friendly design.
Just in case you haven’t already noticed: “A new poll reveals a large majority of New Zealanders would support legalising recreational cannabis use in the Government’s 2020 referendum.” Forget decriminalisation! The public wants to go all the way!
Here’s evidence that the boomers are the mostly closet-fascists and closet-stalinists, dead-keen to suppress the rights of others:
Two thirds of all the younger generations are now rejecting prohibition! I’d better take back my oft-expressed dismissal of their collective intelligence. Those over 65 are two thirds in support of continuing prohibition. It’s a huge difference!
We judge people on their actions, and their attitudes. These rightist and leftist turkeys who pretend to support democracy while trying to get away with denying others their civil rights have never been anything other than scum.
You may think it stupid, but that’s obviously because you ain’t no real kiwi male. We call a spade a spade. Get with the program if you want to belong here.
I have fond memories from my student days in mid 70’s of being lectured on the perils of drugs by my stepmother while she had a gin in one hand and a tailormade in the other.
@Psycho Milt, What are you talking about? if you are 70 today, that would make you 20 yo in 1969, I know for a fact that there was plenty of pot smoking going in certain circles in NZ in ’69, just the same as today.
While it was smoked in certain circles in the 60s it was not smoked in most circles like the 80s. My parents had no idea what it smelt like. I used to mix it with drum tobacco and smoke it right under their noses. Once my father walked through the kitchen while i had a couple of big buds drying in the oven and he didn’t notice.
@solkta, that’s funny, because during the 1980’s there was pot pretty much everywhere I went…in one form or another.
I would say it would have been without doubt the most widely used recreational drug used in NZ during that time, after alcohol of course.
I turned 20 that year, and can report that I was still sceptical and too cautious. Not till March ’71 that I first tried it (to little apparent effect) due to feeling like I finally ought to jump on the bandwagon because the world was leaving me behind. I was a strange mix of radical and conservative, still am. But unlike what you say, I wasn’t hostile to users then. I recall viewing them with envy, in fact. Oh to be so adventurous! Casting your fate to the winds. Nah, too much of a challenge at the time so I wimped out…
A friend of mine, refugee from California, is still going strong in his late seventies. I think any correlation between cannabis users & early death would be established by now if real. I’ve never even heard of it being suggested.
Yeah, like fast drivers. Eliminate them due to the damage done. Easy. Just pass a law making it illegal to sell a car that drives faster than the speed limit. Industry can spin on a dime. Often does so. No problem.
So why don’t rightist govts do that? Freedom of choice. Milton Friedman. Neoliberal ideology. People want to be free to choose to break the law, speed when they want to. Same logic for cannabis. But Gabby, you know this already. Cruise control on cars has been there since the nineties. The tech exists to eliminate speeding. It’s really just that the right are full of shit. Go on, be honest, admit it.
Yes, pot does have adverse health effects, but so do a lot of other substances. We don’t lock someone up for smoking a cigarette, or drinking a beer. Even during the age of Prohibition in the USA, it was still not illegal for people to drink alcohol in their own home (they just couldn’t possess, sell, buy or transport it).
Old people are certainly not my favorites despite approaching membership. In uni it was the old farts who’d fight for the status quo and question those who questioned them. A bunch of oil aficionados.
But the young adults… They’d come to study group and we’d rant long and loud on alternative energy, agricultural diversification and more.
I still remember my first Jay Day at Uni. We had a biology lecture and almost the entire class showed up baked (we’d been having spots in the quad). The lecturer knew what was up immediately but didn’t know how to change tack.
I did some adult-reading recovery tutoring in a drug rehabilitation unit before, I think, Labour in Ruth Dyson’s time closed them down.
Talking to the chap I was helping, he told me that part of the steps he had to achieve towards wellness was to read a certain book on drug taking and write a summary of what he had learned. He found that he could read a whole page, know the words as he read them, but not be able to retain enough joined-up ideas and meaning by the end of the page to summarise what he had just read. Consequently the counsellors thought he wasn’t trying. I related the problem to them. They had not realised the brain function ‘numbing’ that the recovering people could be experiencing.
I understand that the brain does recover but the traces of cannabis regularly used, get into some tissues and take months of absistence before being drawn out to leave the brain which then can function better.
So that’s your secret you cunning person. Rosemary is more than just a pretty flower, smell and taste. Maybe you’ve come across the Elixir we have all been hoping for. I’ll definitely try it.
Have you ever done a detox? System cleansing is sometimes necessary due to the polluting effects of chemical food additives, micro-organisms, heavy metals. Rosemary is merely a system-maintenance agent. In my herbal tea mix, there’s around a dozen such.
There are only 2 ‘boomer’ cohorts in that list…and one one them is well in favour.
Generalisations/stereotypes are notoriously of little use…..about as accurate as ‘average’
That probably means you’re younger than me and are sufficiently pragmatic/ broadminded to accept the extended definition of boomer & take it more seriously. I’m bang in the middle of the group only in 30% approval, and untypical (nonconformist). In the counter-culture we’d grown to 1% of the whole generation, which seemed impressive growth at the time!
I kept tracking it & vaguely recall it trending around 5% at the end of the seventies. Just my estimation. Values polling is only an approximate indicator. I still saw them as trendy establishment liberals pretending to be radical. I wouldn’t have trusted them to support legalisation so never even checked if they did or not. Suit-wearers.
on the contrary …I dont take the labelling of generations seriously at all (except in the the misuse of its relevance)….folk are folk regardless and the curious thing is most of them age.
Pat
That might be wishful thinking. I think more of older retired folk around here anyway, in Nelson, are National supporters. They display similar characteristics – there is the birds of a feather thing as a general point. Refusal to understand this would mean that you would be less able to make personal predictions that would achieve accuracy when considering voting patterns etc.
im sure you are not suggesting that someone who is an empathetic open minded thoughtful individual receives a personality transplant for their 65th birthday GWS
Pat
There has been a trend observed that peiople become more conservative in old age. Also that older people tend to support the status quo when it is in a place that is positive for them.
There has indeed been such a trend observed, conservative in that they less inclined to change i.e. maintain the views they have developed, so if you were of the view that drug reform was not a good idea when you were 30 odds are you will maintain that view at 40, 50 or 60 etc. This may be attributed to the predominant views/influences in the formative years ….and we also know that politics follow public opinion rather than lead it.
How this reduced appetite for risk is reflected in voting patterns is a topic of much debate.
As to the assertion that ‘older people tend to support the status quo when it is in a place that is positive for them’ a more accurate statement would be ‘people tend to support the status quo when it is in a place that is positive for them’…..age is not key.
Shouldn’t the government stop all these temporary work visas being issued under false pretences of work (and a hefty fee to the middleman) taking up accommodation in shortages?
The best thing the government could do, is prosecute the recruitment company and make them pay the Chinese workers money back and then Close the scam.
No wonder tradespeople are complaining their wages haven’t moved in 20 years while the cost of construction is skyrocketing as are all the defects. Time construction was not some immigration scam, but people with the right paperwork and the right NZ training or equivalent who speak and read English so can be safe on site and follow the plans or they really are skilled and paid $100k plus that high skills should be getting in NZ. Kiwis are expected to pay $30k for a degree to become a builder and take 3 or 4 years but being undercut by non/poor English speakers often bought in by migrants as a work scam or to be cheap labour, who will work for virtually nothing.
The government should be thinking of Kiwi welfare, rights and safety first instead they seem to be able to do anything for a foreigner with a problem, but somehow seems indifferent to the massive queues at the foodbanks for working Kiwis who can no longer survive on wages.
I saw a lot of indentured labour in Kuwait (even supervised some) and it still gnaws at my insides. It’s horrifying and disgusting that we’re now allowing it to happen here, and I’d like my elected representatives to do something about it – I’m looking at you, Iain Less-Galloway, you’re my MP as well as the relevant Minister. If we’ve signed FTAs that require us to allow this, please get on with reviewing and renegotiating or withdrawing from those FTAs, because they should never have been agreed to in the first place.
This is the standard method of running indentured labour:
1. In countries with lots of desperate people in poverty, you get local contractors to hire labour for you.
2. Those contractors sell the right to work for you to desperate locals. They can’t pay the amount the contractor is demanding, so the contractor ‘lends’ them the money on the basis they’ll soon be able to pay it back again once they’re earning allegedly big bucks working for you.
3. You have your staff pick the labourers up from the airport, take their passports off them and shoehorn them into run-down accommodation fit for a small fraction of the number of people.
4. These people are now effectively your slaves. They can’t go and work for anyone else because you have their passports. You can pay them whatever and whenever you feel like, and if anyone wants to make trouble about that you hold the threat of withdrawing sponsorship and putting them on the next plane home with nothing but a debt to the local contractor that will make them a slave to that contractor, who’s probably worse even than you.
Is this seriously what we want happening here? Because various incidents have demonstrated that it already is.
It most certainly is what some want, and you are correct to ask the question of ILG because the response to the exposure of its prevalence has been non existent….why?
It is also putting the better businesses out of work, who can not compete with the low tenders from companies with workers working at below market rates. Race to the bottom. Also it impacts on everyone as often when those firms get in cheap labour it backfires and a decade later you find out that the materials were also sub standard as is the work and currently the rate payers seem to be paying to fix it while the council blithely adds more liability to our books as well as the poor home owner who then finds out that they need to poor in $100k+ remedial work and actually might not even be able to live there anymore.
Capitalism will always shift to slavery of some form or another. People being free to leave work and get another job on the same day for better pay or even just better conditions minimises the capitalists profits.
And so they work to make sure that freedom is not available. They cut the welfare state by saying that people getting welfare are being paid too much, put in degrading conditions for getting welfare and put in place so many hoops for getting it as well.
And the whole lot is for the purpose of removing people’s freedom.
Out in place a UBI and watch as the poor/bad employers scream.
“People being free to leave work and get another job on the same day for better pay or even just better conditions minimises the capitalists profits.”
Not for the employer who the employee shifts to, or they wouldn’t offer better terms. That is capitalism at work, the freedom of the worker to negotiate better terms. Do you really not understand that?
You miss the point that workers are, presently, not free to leave their present employment.
I know you’re going to say that they are but they really aren’t.
First off, if they leave they have no income for 13 weeks. That’s a cost.
Because of the governments failure to run a full employment policy they can’t just walk to another job. Which means that they could be out of work for weeks or even months.
That is capitalism at work, the freedom of the worker to negotiate better terms. Do you really not understand that?
I understand it. Do you not understand that a high unemployment rate removes the ability of workers to negotiate? That they can only take what’s offered?
This is why the government keeps unemployment high. To actually prevent the workers from negotiating better terms and wages.
“You miss the point that workers are, presently, not free to leave their present employment.”
Of course they are. It’s called ‘resigning’.
“First off, if they leave they have no income for 13 weeks. ”
Wrong. They leave their old employer with potential outstanding leave entitlements, and start earning the very next day with their new employer. There are plenty of jobs.
“Do you not understand that a high unemployment rate removes the ability of workers to negotiate? ”
And a low unemployment rate increases the ability to negotiate. Thus the market provides the freedoms that workers don’t have under the dictates of socialism.
“This is why the government keeps unemployment high.”
The government wants low unemployment, because it increases it’s revenues and reduces it’s costs. If you seriously believe the government wants to keep unemployment high, you must think the current government is doing a pretty poor job!
@Psycho Milt +1, come to the Hawkes Bay if you want to see imported labour from impoverished pacific Island being used cynically to suppress wages and conditions. I brought this up with A. Little when I got the chance once, he blurted out some meaningless bullshit for an answer, which was really disappointing as I have always quite Little.
The problem with Little is the same problem with Labour NZ, ie. they seem to in their hearts, still really believe free market capitalism will answer all our problems, they really are liberal ideologues, this whole pragmatism bullshit that Ardern bangs on about is nothing more than a smoke screen for more of the same.
Same in Marlborough. I was in Blenheim for Christmas and found there’s now a big ugly barracks on the edge of town for the labourers imported from Vanuatu to work in the vineyards. I’ve seen better-looking prisons.
The police and immigration also seem also more willing politically to prosecute Pacific Islanders for ‘trafficking’ but less so for other nationals also in on the same wicket! Maybe not keen to displease Asian dual nationals who apparently bring in good political donations for politicians…
Evidence? That doesn’t sound correct. Are there any stats?
Asians? From where? You mean China don’t you or do you have an ethnicity breakdown to put up.
There have been 4 trafficking cases prosecuted in NZ, as far as I am aware it always concentrates on Pacific Island horticulture workers, while it seems that other types of rampant human trafficking aka among the massive 150k temp work permits per year last year on top of the 129,000 migrants coming. That is under Labour. To give an idea they were talking about 15,000 when they won the election. So that promise has defiantly not be kept.
For years now we have constant stories of workers paying for the work permits etc up front and then finding out there is no work and it is not all what is promised but they don’t get their money back. As far as I am concerned it falls under trafficking. Should people even be allowed to sell temporary work permits and internments to foreign people and profit from it?
if people were paying to come into NZ in a boat they would be called human traffickers. Instead they do some shady stuff, and are bringing people to NZ who pay for the privilege just like the people traffickers but because they are on bogus permits it is apparently ok to lie and cheat people and then rely on NZ taxpayers to bail everyone out and turn a blind eye to the process because they are too incompetent to close it down.
There is a marriage of words that some people are wrongly divorcing.
The term for what we need is ‘pragmatic idealism’.
Here pragmatic is an adjective qualifying the idealism that we need to drive us forward as a nation to some good goals. This will prevent a fast gallop headlong down the road signposted with fluffy feel-good names of destinations for Labour. Or for National the roads marked off with little spots of gold that only the first person to reach them gathers and pockets, leaving the later phalanx lost, confused and searching for a leader.
So that is the recipe, ‘pragmatic idealism’. Pragamatism as a noun will just turn the nation to an empty dust bowl with huge barrack-like prisons placed strategically apart.
This. On the nail; a very accurate post that reflects exactly what I’ve seen elsewhere. I’ve seen this exploitation up front and in person on one big overseas project; it’s ugly, ugly.
This is a story about desperate people living in over-populated countries where there is intense local competition for opportunity. Of course the intense desire to better oneself gets exploited in these circumstances.
Yes we can take action here in NZ to minimise the egregious abuse; but the root causes lie elsewhere. It reinforces yet again; no single nation state is able to address the big global scale challenges facing us.
It reinforces yet again; no single nation state is able to address the big global scale challenges facing us.
Does it?
Or does it show that the government is willing to accept these types of things in the name of trade?
As a nation we do have the choice of not trading with nations that allow this, to make sure that such exploitation doesn’t happen in our nation and that anyone of our nation who does support this in anyway ends up in jail. And we can even point to the UDHR to say why we’re not doing it.
Of course, that does mean dropping out of FTAs that breach the UDHR like the one with China. And not signing up to ones with nations like Saudi Arabia.
Sure, it’s not a global solution until everyone does it but it’s a step on the right path. And once we’ve done it we can apply pressure to others in the UN to do it. Somehow I think that some of the most exploited nations may actually be the first to step up.
It seems very clear now that the Chinese Government is behind dumping all these workers onto us here as the Chinese economy enters a slow down now.
“Shouldn’t the government stop all these temporary work visas being issued under false pretenses of work (and a hefty fee to the middleman) taking up accommodation in shortages?
The best thing the government could do, is prosecute the recruitment company and make them pay the Chinese workers money back and then Close the scam.”
“Shouldn’t the government stop all these temporary work visas being issued UNDER FALSE PRETENCES OF WORK (and a hefty fee to the middleman) taking up accommodation in shortages?”
And shouldn’t they stop tying any type of visa to a specific employer rather than to an employment sector or specific project? It’s a recipe for exploitation – but unfortunately it’s all working as designed
AND
“The best thing the government could do, is prosecute the recruitment company and make them pay the Chinese workers money back and then Close the scam.”
Since you’ll usually find cosy little relationships between hire companies (and others such as shitty tertiary education providers and charlatan Immigration Advisors that have not been properly monitored – as opposed to professionals with a proven record of ethical behaviour and subject to sanctions of the legal profession), YES, the best thing would be to prosecute and compensate their victims. And where they only possess PR, rescind it and deport. And where they have dual citizenship, we should seriously consider giving them a choice of which country they wish to retain their citizenship
AND
“The government should be thinking of Kiwi welfare, rights and safety first………….”
The government should be thinking of the welfare, rights and safety of ANYBODY that’s in the country regardless of their circumstances without favour
The government should close down any temporary work permit being issued unless the person has a job that is proved that can not be done by a New Zealander and is paying well above market rates (because at present employers get around it by for example offering pay rates that are unliveable or the same as 20 years ago, like horticulture workers or people being recruited through numerous third parties all taking a profit and so the end worker gets under minimum wages (ak Chorus subcontractors and construction workers). They should also have to provide accommodation and prove that it is not taking accomodation away from other people aka the job has to supply it in high shortage areas like Auckland, Hawkes bay, Wellington).
There should also be a limit to work permits per year like 15,000 of temporary work permits. A bottom line will automatically change the dynamic and the traffickers will be out of business, because at present the numbers of temp workers are limitless.
Foreign people who study in NZ should not be allowed to work as that has become a way to enter NZ and then use it later to find a fake job and get residency.
So many people are profiting off what is essentially NZ visas and citizenship and that is why we have ridiculous levels like 150,000 work permits last year alone, while jobseeker benefits are up and 129,000 new migrants when apparently Labour, Greens and NZ First were supposed to close the loopholes. There are more migrants than under the Natz, because the government and their officials have such ineffectual controls, so many lawyers are profiting off the scams with litigation as the laws here are not fit for purpose or being exploited, allowing people who pay little to no taxes here for most of their lives to retire here and criminal exploiters to live in NZ and scam here.
Agree with that every year we go the Red Cross Bookfair held in Hamilton. We use it as a giant lending library. Always come away with a large load of books, all sorts of reading material. When we have read the ones we do not need to keep we return them to the Red Cross for the next book fair We have picked up some great books there like Peter Wrights SpyCatcher and Neville Shute’s Slide Rule and they are nearly always in good condition.
Book fairs. what a great way to spend a day, book fair and brunch, my favorite. I’ve attended the Hamilton book fair a couple years ago and got ‘The Reader’s Digest Do It Yourself Manual (1965)’ – a 500 page hardcover book on building – from furniture and shelves etc through to houses, log cabins… All with hand tools. What a Treasure! BBQ areas, ponds, pagolas, retaining walls, paths, terraces…. amazing book.
My difficulty with book fairs is meeting people there. What’s the protocol; nod and keep searching? A quick howdy-do and … keep searching, or stop for a catch-up and watch your almost-treasures walk out the door with someone else? I love talking. I love foraging at book fairs; what to do, what to do?
Learning about – books plus. On Radio NZ this a.m. interesting, informative, leading to understanding, hopeful.
8.35 Erin Rhoads: A zero-waste quest
Erin Rhoads runs the Australian eco-lifestyle website The Rogue Ginger, and has written the book Waste Not, which gives suggestions for reducing consumption and waste – particularly of plastic – in every area of life, and every room in the house. She has been attempting to come as close to “zero waste” as possible since 2013. She also consults with businesses on waste reduction.
09:05 Dov Alfon: Stories from inside Israel’s military
Dov Alfon is an Israeli investigative journalist and former editor of the newspaper Haaretz, to which he still contributes from his home in Paris. Dov was formerly an intelligence officer in Unit 8200, the most secretive arm of the Israeli military,
and –
in his first work of fiction, A Long Night in Paris, he lays bare Israel’s secretive world of intelligence gathering. He received a Peace Through Media prize in 2011.
10:05 Anthony Cabraal: Tackling a broken culture of work
Anthony Cabraal is a member of Enspiral, a collective of businesses and freelancers that aims to support people who want to spend their lives changing the world. He is co-editor of the book Better Work Together, which discusses harnessing the “power of community” to transform businesses. He is interested in helping communities of people approach governance of companies, profits, leadership, staff retention, and other structural issues that make workplaces dysfunctional, in new and innovative ways.
10:35 John Cryan: How your gut affects your brain
Dr John Cryan, a neuropharmacologist and microbiome expert from the University College Cork, researches the interactions between the brain and the collection of microbes in the gut, and how that relationship affects stress, psychiatric health, and immune-related disorders. In his latest book, The Psychobiotic Revolution, Professor Cryan and colleague Ted Dinan write about research showing that beneficial microbes can improve mood.
Someone could put up audio when its through if they have time. I want to be on the Earth March, and want to be in two places at once, so I am a bit stretched!
And Halfcrown – this Israeli book may be special; there isn’t that much sane thinking available to us from there. (I like Nevil Shute – great humane, storyteller with interesting technical stuff too. I guess Slide Rule is about him personally?)
Polytoxicity: The Wild World of Chemical Exposure
26 March 15, 2017
toxic chemicals in hand sanitizer
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
There are about 85,000 chemicals registered under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), but even the EPA is largely in the dark about what that actually means for people’s health and the environment
Combining chemicals often magnifies their toxic effects; in the case of bisphenol-A (BPA), using hand sanitizer prior to handling a BPA-containing receipt may increase skin absorption 100-fold
About 1 in 11 public schools in the U.S. are located within 500 feet of highways, truck routes and other roads with heavy traffic, leaving millions of school kids breathing polluted air
By Dr. Mercola
Have you ever wondered how many chemicals you’re exposed to on any given day? How about your kids? It’s really anyone’s guess. The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) requires that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) compile and keep a current list of chemical substances manufactured or processed in the U.S.
That list includes about 85,000 chemicals,1 but even the EPA is largely in the dark about what that actually means for people’s health and the environment.
As noted in Chemical & Engineering News, “The agency is struggling to get a handle on which of those chemicals are in the marketplace today and how they are actually being used.”2
Very few chemicals on the market are tested for safety, but even those that are, are not necessarily safe. Part of this is because safety testing is typically done on just one chemical at a time, and under laboratory conditions.
The way you’re actually exposed to chemicals — in combination and under countless different real-world scenarios — may increase their toxicity exponentially.
The Toxic Reality of Using Hand Sanitizer, Eating and Holding a Receipt
A revealing example of just how toxic our world has become is the bisphenol-A (BPA) used in thermal paper (the type many receipts are made out of).
BPA is an endocrine-disrupting chemical linked to a number of health concerns, particularly in pregnant women, fetuses and young children, but also in adults, including high blood pressure, heart disease,3 obesity, fertility problems and more.
BPA is most often associated with plastics, personal care products and canned goods but, according to a 2014 study published in PLOS One, “Free BPA is applied to the outer layer of thermal receipt paper present in very high (∼20 mg BPA/g paper) quantities as a print developer.”4
This in itself is unsettling, considering very few people think twice about handling receipts (or handing one to a child). However, the study revealed that a very common scenario — using hand sanitizer prior to handling a receipt — maximizes the risk.
“Studies are revealing how variations and changes in the composition of the gut microbiota influence normal physiology and contribute to diseases ranging from inflammation to obesity. Accumulating data now indicate that the gut microbiota also communicates with the [Central Nervous System (CNS)]–possibly through neural, endocrine and immune pathways–and thereby influences brain function and behaviour. Studies … suggest a role for the gut microbiota in the regulation of anxiety, mood, cognition and pain. Thus, the emerging concept of a microbiota-gut-brain axis suggests that modulation of the gut microbiota may be a tractable strategy for developing novel therapeutics for complex CNS disorders.
and, published 2010:
Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia by Jean … https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/613283.Princess
Rating: 4 – 26,738 votes
Start by marking “Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia” as Want to Read: … The true story of one of the princesses of the royal house of Al Saud in Saudi Arabia is told in a fashion that is both charming and riveting. The veil that guards the women of …
Yes it is. Nevil Shutes full name is Nevil Shute Norway. He explains why he only used Nevil Shute as his writing name (shit I am surprised no one picked up my typo) He was a mathematician working on the R101 Airship, Gives an insight into his political thinking and why he ended up in Australia writing novels about Australia and aircraft. A great engineer predicted metal fatigue long before it was understood what metal fatigue really was (No Highway). As I have said before I don’t recommend books as we all have our different tastes but it is a good read all about the British Aircraft industry in the ’20s and ’30s with great characters who he worked with like Alan Cobham and Geoffrey De Haviland.
“this Israeli book may be special; there isn’t that much sane thinking available to us from there.”
Oh I don’t know Grey I found Dr Yuval Noah Harari’s book “Sapiens” extremely good and he’s Jewish and lectures at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
but your recommendation has been noted and added to the list. Thanks
Yes, an essential perspective. The effect of social niche is often not factored into evaluation. Context is everything. As I’ve pointed out here before, all meaning is relative to context.
“humans are herd animals. If that herd happens to go from Stanford straight into the product manager program at Google, that’s what you do. There are a lot of people who were just on the assembly line from Stanford to Google to some little startup they sold for $50 million and that’s it. That track was just laid out for them, they just got on the treadmill and went down the assembly line and I don’t think most people understand how that works.”
The point is to learn how the culture of capitalism both forms and replicates. It replicates itself via the endeavour of the individuals it forms. Context produces matrix – recall the formative role of that being the feature of the movie. It created the social reality of the world. Only the minority rebels saw through it to the deeper reality in which it was embedded.
The paper concludes that fifty percent of the world’s billionaire wealth is non-meritocratic owing to either inheritance or a high presumption of cronyism. Another 15 percent is not meritocratic owing to presumption of monopoly. All of it is non-meritocratic owing to globalization. By contrast, crime and technology are found to be negligible sources of extreme wealth.
Is there a place for difference in earning?
Yes, yes there is.
But there should still be no unearned income and no one is worth more than, say, 30% more than the average wage.
Who defines ‘unearned income’? You or me? Or some unaccountable Central Committee of Comrades?
And who defines your 30% ratio? Same committee?
Take my own life for example … the annualised income ratio between my first job as an after-school bottle washer in a chemist shop, and the one I’m doing now is (in real terms) probably in the order of 1200% or more. Why do you think the version of me that’s 50 yrs older is being paid so much more? And how exactly do you think this should be regulated?
I think that DTB’s idea of having some proportionality from bottom to top is right. We have gone up on the Bell curve? and I would prefer not to see it rushing down the other side. Why not ease up a little so the gradient won’t be so steep? Forget percentages – they are just indicators that have too many variables to be tossed into an argument.
Say though the minimum wage is just getting by level at $20 an hour, and with thousing play being the game du jour for the irresponsible economists that is a basic, then what would 5 times be like, $100 an hour, $4,000 a 40 hour week making approx $200,000 per annum. Stop the competition for housing from immigrants by reducing immigration numbers, and refuse to sell our land and housing infrastructure to overseas hot-pants money off-loaders and pay at the highest $500,00 p.a. Half a million would give a very nice lifestyle and housing could settle down to being necessary infrastructure at more reasonable prices.
If people didn’t like it they could take their money and go elsewhere. We would not be worse off in the long run. If we were short of top talent we could pay some big bucks on a short term basis and buy it in. We could afford that.
This is one of those questions that has no empirical answer.
We can for instance easily reject the two extremes; one where one persons owns everything and has all the income, the other where everyone has exactly the same income and wealth. Neither of these extremes is feasible.
But they are useful markers to help think about the problem. In global terms it’s fair to say we are much closer to the first extreme of everyone owning everything, than perfect equality. So this strongly suggests which direction we need to move in … towards spreading income and wealth more evenly. I’ve clearly argued elsewhere that the elimination of the extremes of wealth and poverty is one of the four big moral challenges of our era.
But how would we know if we had gone too far?
I don’t think we can rely on individual opinion; each one of us would have a different answer. Nor can any fixed number be relied upon to account for the multiple dimensions which determine income, wealth and social capital.
Nor should we rely on just one mechanism; progressive taxation has long been the traditional tool the left has wielded, yet other nations have tended towards tighter distributions of income before taxation. Others have taxed capital, investment and expenditure in complex fashions, and so on.
There is also a complex relationship between opportunity and outcomes; these two being tension with each other. We tend to maximise one at the expense of the other.
Nor is it easy to account for exactly how brutal the drivers of inequality really are, and how deep they run into our psychological being. For instance; how many tens of millions of talented musicians are there? Yet probably less than 1000 of them account for the vast majority of music listened to. Last year I was working on a site with 13,000 people, yet barely 100 of them would count as the key technical leaders. If you want a formal expression of this, checkout Price’s Law.
Outstanding success is a very rare thing; it’s distribution is exceedingly skewed. The vast majority of people are firmly lodged right at the bottom. This is true of all fields of endeavour, across all societies.
The modern world has largely solved the problem of absolute poverty; but it has greatly exacerbated relative poverty; inequality challenges us in ways we’re only just beginning to understand. The left exists to address this question; but our grasp of it’s true nature and our dialog around it falls woefully short.
But they are useful markers to help think about the problem. In global terms it’s fair to say we are much closer to the first extreme of everyone owning everything, than perfect equality.
The first extreme you mention is one person owning everything and we’re actually getting pretty close to that. It is, after all, the inevitable result of capitalism. So is the collapse of society that it will bring about.
The solution isn’t actually everyone owning the same amount but nobody owning resources, land, houses and other items that bring in unearned income. This would actually allow the labour market to work.
But how would we know if we had gone too far?
When we have increasing poverty while a few people have far more than they can either spend or use in their life time.
There is also a complex relationship between opportunity and outcomes; these two being tension with each other. We tend to maximise one at the expense of the other.
We don’t have equal opportunity nor do we have equal outcomes.
Outstanding success is a very rare thing; it’s distribution is exceedingly skewed.
Perhaps the problem is our definition of success. As you say, there are millions of talented musicians but, despite these people actually being successful, we don’t see them as such because they haven’t made millions.
The vast majority of people are firmly lodged right at the bottom.
Which I seems to be largely because people don’t have the right ‘class’.
The ironic thing is that people like you JS come onto TS and stay as if you find it worthwhile, and then start criticising and nit-picking.
What on earth do you mean by “you accuse them of being thieves”
If you are going to try for TS interaction and discussion can you please explain your line of thinking. I for one am tired of the tossers who toss-off some remark that they think as profound or shrewd.
DTB once said being rich was only achieved by theft. I countered that the musician or artist who becomes rich does so from the benefits of their own talent rather than off the backs of the poor. He never answered it so I mentioned it here as it seemed relevant.
Also – fuck off. This open mike and I’ll say what I want. Don’t like it? Don’t read it
Don’t like personal criticism or seeking improvement John Selway.
Don’t come here!
This is Open Mike and I’ll say what I want.
You are a good example of someone who is highly individualistic and doesn’t care about the purpose of this blog, which is to look at what’s being done in NZ and see how we can do things better.
Not to stamp like a three year old and run around demanding things be done to suit oneself.
owning resources, land, houses and other items that bring in unearned income.
Marx formulated his outdated theories in an era when the relationship between wealth and resources was poorly understood. It turned out Marx was completely wrong. By simple observation it’s clear that real wealth derives from a complex of factors; monetary and social capital, intelligence, talent, persistence and diligence, tolerance for risk, resilience, good looks, good luck and an energetic urban setting are some of the obvious ones.
In the early 1800’s it was natural to perceive labour in purely physical terms, but 200 years later this kind of ‘labour’ has almost zero global value. In a modern economy real value lies almost entirely elsewhere; and this is a trend that is rapidly accelerating.
Which I seems to be largely because people don’t have the right ‘class’.
This is true to at least some extent; class is real and has real impacts. But the West has moved very strongly in the direction of an equality of opportunity in order to mitigate this. You just can’t have a perfect equality of outcome at the same time.
Almost all of those immediately come down to luck, anyway.
Frankly, all I’d do is make it illegal for the state to countenance <60 median income after housing costs (as a poverty line, i.e. so everyone under that line gets a cheque from the government so they meet that minimum), then adopt a progressive taxation policy on all income so that marginal tax rates on more than 9 times the gross median income are something like 90% (everything over roughly $440k at the moment).
It wouldn't be perfect, but I don't think it would be too far wrong.
The reason progressive taxation fell out of favour with the electorate was due to Labour using it to fund big govt, so the question is how to market it effectively. Can you foresee Labour learning it’s lesson and campaigning on the combination of promising to keep the cost of govt down while pitching for a mandate to bring back progressive taxation on income?
Yes. The genetic lottery is a capricious and often cruel thing; but exactly what should we do about it?
Until we understand inequality properly; that it’s roots lie far deeper than mere capitalism or neo-liberalism, we don’t stand a chance of addressing it effectively.
It’s my sense the answer lies less with how wealth is distributed, but in how it’s used. A society that makes put’s energy into ensuring those that the bottom of the heap, even those it might despise as ‘losers’ are not disrespected and discarded is the moral platform we need to re-build. The idea that each one of us, regardless of our lot in life, is of value and worth, is the key idea.
As I said, my position is that what we should do about it is make sure everyone has the basics and tax the fuck out of the disproportionaly wealthy so that their children don’t have dolt-45 level unearned advantages.
It got dismantled in the 1980s because more equal societies don’t stop people being corrupt fuckwits.
Getting an egalitarian and fair society is like quitting smoking. You do the good thing for a while, then someone succumbs to temptation. So you try again. And again. Forever.
Until we understand inequality properly; that it’s roots lie far deeper than mere capitalism or neo-liberalism, we don’t stand a chance of addressing it effectively.
Poverty is a direct result of capitalism. The whole system is designed to channel the wealth to the rich. That’s what it does and that wealth must come from the poor.
Get rid of the system that channels the wealth to the rich and we can do something about poverty.
We certainly won’t be able to do something about it until we accept that truth.
It’s my sense the answer lies less with how wealth is distributed, but in how it’s used.
In the context of economics distributed and used are the same.
We either distribute the wealth so that there is no poverty or we distribute it to the already wealthy and ensure that we do have poverty.
Poverty … both absolute and relative existed long, long before capitalism. The inescapable problem is that differences multiply; success attracts success. This applies to all fields of human endeavour, the first 10,000 hours are the hardest, after that it largely a matter of pursuing the endless opportunities that open up to competency and integrity.
And even then, outstanding success remains an exceedingly rare thing. Indeed according to Prices Law of the 7 billion humans on earth, it’s just 80,000 or so who contribute 50% of the creative value and innovation to the entire global output.
But the West has moved very strongly in the direction of an equality of opportunity in order to mitigate this.
No it hasn’t. In fact, over the last few decades it’s gone completely in the other direction as we’ve punished the poor for being poor while putting the rich, no matter how they got that wealth, upon pedestals.
So, rent, shareholding, inheritance, interest etcetera. For a more informed view read Why we can’t afford the rich.
And who defines your 30% ratio?
That was merely a suggestion. I have stated before that there should be both a minimum income (UBI) and a maximum income.
Why do you think the version of me that’s 50 yrs older is being paid so much more?
Because we’ve got the valuation of work massively wrong. One of the interesting things I’ve noticed over the last few years is that those people we need the most are paid the least while those we need the least are paid the most.
Some time back I pointed out that a CEOs million dollar bonus, if given to the work force, would have been a 40c per hour raise. That million dollars still came from the same pile – the corporate accounts – but the workers had just been declined a pay-rise. The point being that high pay-rates for some are preventing decent pay-rates for others.
You should, of course, be paid more than teenage you as experience and knowledge count but is the job that you do actually worth the amount that you’re paid? The evidence suggests that it’s possible you’re being paid too much.
And how exactly do you think this should be regulated?
A minimum and maximum wage and then let the market sort it out.
“Over and again your message translates to a hatred of the rich rather than any real concern for the poor.”
Hole in one. Draco is an admitted authoritarian who hates the rich (actually anyone who has riches because in Draco’s mind it all amounts to theft – even the artist who gets rich from their own efforts rather than from rents or inheritance)
Very useful if it works. I’m a terrible procrastinator and much of that is goal setting or failure to break them down so I get overwhelm of mental to do lists.
But there have been times in life I’ve juggled a dozen things seemingly effortlessly. With a plan, and a diary…
It never fails to amuse me how, as humans, we learn good helpful things then forget them just as easily. Like our default is to self sabotage.
Time management. That’s what I require right now. So simple I simply forgot.
I find that an attack of my chronic inertia seems to activate my congenital procrastination. particularly on hot days. I also forget that I have lost my memory somewhere.
WtB
Familiar story. But I like it. Perhaps there can be a society for the chronic procrastinator/fevered activator – goes like a see-saw. Who finds they tend to wait for a deadline and that sharpens your mind acutely and you can immediately judge how long each thing will take to a 3 minute accuracy?
I used to edit a monthly community paper. So I was writer, editor, sales, etc… 90% of it got done in the last week. Still managed to double circulation and triple the size in six months.
Then won > $6K with friends playing phone trivia, also coinciding with a nice sized holiday pay – and so went on a 6 week drinking jag (as you do) followed by a hospitalised detox.
6 months drinking in 6 weeks, now that’s efficiency.
Yes WtB some people waste their lives drinking too much over decades and end up with no life left and trying to detox. You did the short pressure-cooker course, and passed the third stage of wisdom successfully (learning from personal experience), and now have jumped that ravine and can journey on at a higher level. Poetic eh!
…….The brazen young hero, Lemminkäinen, is murdered for his womanizing, and his body is utterly destroyed, blasted into tiny pieces and cast into the black river Tuona that courses through the underworld. All his mother knows is that her beloved boy is missing so she searches the world over to find him, every difficult mile in vain. Finally, she asks the sun and it gives her the terrible, heart-shattering news. Okay, she says. I’m going to need a rake. Make me one, she tells her friend the blacksmith, and she descends into the darkness and begins to seek her boy anew. She rakes the river Tuona for untold days, in her wet shift in the cold rushing blackness, all the way to the ocean. Nothing. So, she turns and begins raking her way back upstream. And somewhere in the blending black days and weeks she finds…. a piece of his shirt. So, on she rakes. And she finds a bone, eventually a rib, finally a hip. On she rakes, maybe not even thinking enough to despair. Just striving to save her boy. Because if she thinks she possibly can, then how can she possibly stop?
Eventually, she finds all of him. And she begins to sew him back together. Every bit of sinew attached to every bone, every patch of flesh rejoined, every eyelash made right in her inconceivable toil. Finally, he is complete. And with a drop of honey to his lips, Lemminkäinen stirs and comes to life. His mother has fought long and hard and far, far beyond all limits of what we think of as hope. Her hope is no butterfly. It’s more like the monarch’s miraculous migration and the green-fuse force of life that drives it.
Jenny – How to Get There
Which day of the week do you decide to note the latest, but then shut down for the rest of the day and night ie nearly a whole day leaving the world to everyone else to worry about and resting your weary mind?
But is fear of the future the best way to engage with it? I’m inclined to go with Monty Python instead. And that line they made a song out of had already been traditional folk wisdom for a very long time!
“When Chapman died on 4 October 1989, the five remaining Pythons, as well as Chapman’s close friends and family, came together at his public memorial service to sing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” as part of Idle’s eulogy. In 2005, a survey by Music Choice showed that it was the third most popular song Britons would like played at their funerals. By 2014, it was the most popular.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Always_Look_on_the_Bright_Side_of_Life
Were the young men who played football with blocks of ice on the deck of the Titanic brave, or just not aware of the true nature of the tragedy unfolding around them?
Did their levity in the face of the coming disaster help or hinder their chances of survival?
I would say that creating an air of carefree lightheartedness, would have led many, not to understand the peril they were all in. Even some who might otherwise have survived if they had been moved to action sooner.
If you are not afraid, you are not brave, you are just not fully aware of the danger.
Without fear there can be no courage.
Courage is acting despite your fear.
Speaking personally, Dennis, I don’t find your argument for levity in the face of the climate disaster compelling. To make light of the peril we are all in would, in my opinion, be a mistake.
P.S.
In the example you gave to back up your point; The mourners, at Graham Chapman’s funeral, were not themselves in any peril.
This tells me that you think the same way about climate change, that it will affect others, and not you, or those dear to you.
No, the precautionary principle must apply as regards public policy, but the problem with fear is that it tends to paralyze people. As with animals.
So to empower them, we must provide a positive alternative to a grim reality. One that opens up another pathway to the future which is viable. That gives them a useful basis on which to proceed.
Girls and I have been talking about this daily, usually as we return from a swim at the river or beach. Discussion about how we are going to work with the new climate also occurs.
The girls are now noticing the difference after five years of summer swimming at the same places. Visible marine life changes via sea temp’s; resulting in educating ourselves on sharing the water with stingrays etc.
For the next time a commentator (or economist, or member of government) suggests cutting minimum wages, or benefits, or employment protections is a good way of improving employment outcomes. This is often called making the labour market more flexible/responsive/dynamic.
At heart the argument seems illogical because its based on a fallacy.
“What started the discussion was the allegation that the level of employment in the long run is a result of people’s own rational intertemporal choices and that how much people work basically is a question of incentives.”
“Already this year I have outlined two critical underpinnings of our approach. First, our Budget Responsibility Rules. In order to make our bold and progressive programme credible we have to demonstrate to New Zealanders that we can deliver it. They want us to show that we understand their desire for a government that manages our finances responsibly.”
Sadly this policy is harmful, restrictions of government spending reduce employment and importantly this net effect is not automatically equalized away by the economy responding to government spending (though the sensibleness of the above approach rests on this). The upshot of this will be unemployment in NZ will not lower as quickly as is otherwise possible (even if its not excessive). It also seems likely that the government will be slow to react to shifts in the economy resulting in a continuing pattern of an observable large increase in unemployment followed by a slow drawn out recovery.
“The Labour Party believes in full employment- anyone who can work should be able to work. As Minister of Finance I will re-assert Labour’s historic mission of full employment. In the first term of government we will lower unemployment to 4%.”
The goal of 4% is not particularly high, NZ achieved close to 2% unemployment across the entire period between the mid 1930’s and the mid 1970’s when the country actually had a policy of full employment. Further the meaning of full-employment is these days up for grabs and in this context probably refers to the NAIRU rate (as he goes on to talk about monetary policy). The NAIRU rate only looks at unemployment and so infers that full employment can include significant under employment (people who while employed want more hours of work). Also the last we heard the reserve bank believed the NAIRU rate was about 4.5% unemployment and the economy was beyond full employment.
“And we want all parts of the economic apparatus working towards that goal. That is why we will expand the objectives of the Reserve Bank to include not just controlling inflation, but also maximising employment. We want to modernise our monetary policy, recognising that in 28 years a lot has changed, and we want it to work for us, not the other way around”
The problematic implication here is that the reserve bank can achieve full employment and significantly effect employment by manipulating monetary policy. In the longer term this is thought to be the best approach to maximizing employment and use of fiscal policy is discouraged for this purpose (also see surplus above). Unfortunately this is fallacious, based on the idea that the economy will equalize away the net effects of fiscal policy on employment (and bring inflation in line with government spending). The upshot of this policy choice is that the employment rate will ultimately track the fortunes of the NZ economy.
“These are policies that aim to make changes for workers and employers easier and quicker, and thereby reducing unemployment. This involves helping people find work in areas that need them, helping people get the skills they need to fill gaps in the labour force, and anything else that can help those without work, or in poor working conditions, to find new employment quickly, simply and without hassle.”
Now to be fair, some of the measures outlined above are possibly reasonable and may help with the responsiveness of the labour market. But ultimately this is still based on a fallacy that unemployment is reflective of peoples desire to work. As Robertson made clear ultimately the government will *not* itself be actively ensuring that employment is available for all, this will remain at the fortunes of the NZ economy. This undermines many of the suggested policies, while work and income may be accessible to more people including those in work, if they can’t find jobs or better jobs this will almost certainly turn into work and income holding their users responsible for not finding jobs or better jobs and looking at their incentives. Training programs can be helpful, however if there are none of the anticipated jobs at the end then these become problematic and a waste leaving students with debt or at least having wasted significant time and still needing to retrain. There are also likely some labour market reforms which favor employers but didn’t get mentioned in full detail.
Ultimately, as I see it, this policy is a continuation of NZ’s long standing employment policies and will amount to Labours softer touch in government, but nothing more.
It is important for Labour to sound as if it is ready to fit in with whatever the death spiders of the financial world are weaving. Labour needs the bluster of a blowfly that keeps on fighting the sticky web, then rests, then has another go and often evades the spiders fangs wanting to suck it dry of its life juices.
That’s where we are now, in the web and losing strength. Can we make it to carry on our sort of valuable contribution to the world, or are we losers?
The goal of 4% is not particularly high, NZ achieved close to 2% unemployment across the entire period between the mid 1930’s and the mid 1970’s when the country actually had a policy of full employment.
Is that supposed to be not particularly low?
Further the meaning of full-employment is these days up for grabs and in this context probably refers to the NAIRU rate (as he goes on to talk about monetary policy). The NAIRU rate only looks at unemployment and so infers that full employment can include significant under employment (people who while employed want more hours of work). Also the last we heard the reserve bank believed the NAIRU rate was about 4.5% unemployment and the economy was beyond full employment.
I think that your sentence gives the wrong impression patricia. We are in no position to have an opinion about John Key and what he does. This is the golden boy of the financially prominent and he has done so well for them here and even Australia, that they have given him a top award. 18 July 2017 > https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/94826194/sir-john-key-receives-australias-highest-honour
We tolerate him because we have to, having very little say in anything of importance to this country. (Why it is important to keep goals in sight and focus and look to mix with people who have integrity and who care about and respect others).)
I have been in Wellington on holiday for a few weeks and am due to head back home to Tauranga on Tuesday. I don’t have my car with me and didn’t want to fork out for a flight so I am getting a bus but it makes me wonder why we don’t have a proper rail network. I would have thought a train could start in Wellington, head through Palmerston North then branch off somewhere central like Taupo to New Plymouth, Tauranga and Gisbourne with another line heading north through Hamilton to Auckland, then heading further – maybe ending up in the Bay of Islands.
It wouldnt have to visit every town but at least the major centres
Because the politicians decided that we should all drive cars. Cars are more expensive but they create more work than public transport and more unearned income for shareholders.
Maybe a clever person should start a kiwisaver fund that buys kiwis business. It s the best path to a public ownership of nz companies of a bunch non business minded strangers .
How would you combat the to many chiefs in the kitchen problems . How would they gain ownership without some sort of massive uprising?
Mine is a more easy to reach goal I believe.
Super Fund and Kiwisaver funds would have a good stake in New Zealand sharemarket. And the fear of state control of capital markets by state super funds was what Muldoon’s 1974 dancing cossacks add was about.
Yes but I thought that a hands off situation would present us with a
well balanced economy. But instead of the government making decisions it is Treasury and powerful people here and in other countries so we have a flexible exchange rate, and flexible this that and the other thing. We are Houdinis now. Perhaps we should turn around some of our accustomed behaviours after reflection, and find a new route.
It’s been an ideological battle in NZ politics for a very long time. Labour wan’t community or state /defacto state ownership of strategic assets, National wants private, preferably by their mates or donors, ownership.
NZ Super Fund and Kiwisaver are almost a guerrilla attack from behind the lines on the National view. And it may be working. Look to see what these funds do when NZ strategic and blue chip assets are being sold cheaply, bet they quietly buy. Otherwise they are playing in the international markets and doing quite nicely.
And both are very similar to what Labour’s 1974 scheme would have become by now, but probably 1/10 the size. Where we could have been with a good super / sovereign wealth fund from the mid 70’s haunts me a lot and I’ve detested the National party with a vengeance since that add aired.
Wellington – Bus issues: timeliness, capacity, transfers … and route changes
January 9, 2019 20 comments
On the electric bus front, the current 10 double-decker trial buses will soon start operating all day, with the assistance of the charging station at Reef Street. I am pushing for the next order of Transit’s electric double-decker buses to be brought forward (22 more – all fabricated in Tauranga).
California needs to prepare for the next fire season. They used to last 200-250 days in the year, and now have elongated to about 300 days. Yet the government is not paying fireman, for training, for what is required to prepare for more wildfires.
Some furloughed employees see an additional irony because the shutdown has delayed fire mitigation and training at a time when President Donald Trump has attacked California for poor forest management. But Whittington said most of his former co-workers are determined not to get involved in politics.
How long is California going to put up with this deadbeat USA government that seems bent on ruining the country and making grotesque visions of the USA democracy? They have started talking about seceding and being the country’s wealthiest state, but under water constraints that must cut its horticulture crops, it may become obvious that they need to handle their own problems and their own money. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/beleaguered-firefighters-put-hold-government-shutdown-n957456
I however wish some our Leftist prophets celebrated this magnificent civilisation ‘in the meanwhile’ whilist also criticizing the comfort-loving that will kill us. Sez a magniloquent comfort-lover.
sumsuch
You are so right. Do we enjoy what we have and be grateful and satisfied, also then, when we have had our plenty give what is left and still good so that others can have some too?
No, in general we are always trying for more. Some of us haven’t got past that grasp and hold mentality that saw people dumping good furniture and other stuff in the refuse rather than taking it to recycling – because letting one of those lazy b..s buy it cheap, no way.
Kia ora R & R I support equality for maori & our wahine they raise our tamariki so they deserve to be payed and respected for the great role wahine play in our society .
The way I see it is that Europee people are in most of the management jobs even on our farms and they give the best jobs to there M8 hence maori have a hard time climbing there ladder of life as the odds a heavly stacked against US . After all most jobs are filled by word of mouth first and for most . Maori must learn to do what the Europen do and look after Maori first wake up in all aspects of life jobs education sports culture. Ka kite ano P.S I back free snaitary prouducts for wahine at the least school tamariki
Eco Maori could see this he is waging a war on the mokopunas future backing carbon and rolling back all the good laws that protected OUR enviroment that Obama installed to protect the creatures wai and the enviroment and who will be better off if global warming runs rampant. ???????????????????????????????
F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia
WASHINGTON — In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.
The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.
The investigation the F.B.I. opened into Mr. Trump also had a criminal aspect, which has long been publicly known: whether his firing of Mr. Comey constituted obstruction of justice.
Agents and senior F.B.I. officials had grown suspicious of Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign but held off on opening an investigation into him, the people said, in part because they were uncertain how to proceed with an inquiry of such sensitivity and magnitude. But the president’s activities before and after Mr. Comey’s firing in May 2017, particularly two instances in which Mr. Trump tied the Comey dismissal to the Russia investigation, helped prompt the counterintelligence aspect of the inquiry, the people said.
And when a newly inaugurated Mr. Trump sought a loyalty pledge from Mr. Comey and later asked that he end an investigation into the president’s national security adviser, the requests set off discussions among F.B.I. officials about opening an inquiry into whether Mr. Trump had tried to obstruct that case.
F.B.I. officials viewed their decision to move quickly as validated when a comment the president made to visiting Russian officials in the Oval Office shortly after he fired Mr. Comey was revealed days later.
“I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said, according to a document summarizing the meeting. “I faced great pressure because of Russia.
That’s taken off.”More recently, the president startled his own national security officials by suddenly announcing the withdrawal of troops from Syria, widely seen as handing a strategic victory to Russia and prompting the defense secretary James Mattis to quit. He also bizarrely endorsed the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Holed up at the White House with no official engagements, Trump then turned his Twitter feed to the other subject dominating US politics: a partial government shutdown which, in its 22nd day, is now the longest in American history, eclipsing the previous record set during the presidency of Bill Clinton. Ka kite ano links below.
Victoria
New Victorian windfarm could provide 10% of state’s energy
Golden Plains approved by Andrews government and awaits federal consent to proceed
The managing director of a company that plans to construct Victoria’s largest windfarm says the project will supply enough power to replace up to a third of the generation of the decommissioned Hazelwood power station at less than $50/MWh.
The Victorian government has granted a planning permit for WestWind Energy’s $1.5bn Golden Plains windfarm, which will become one of the largest windfarms in the southern hemisphere.
The project is now awaiting federal approval to proceed.
Victoria’s blackouts, Hazelwood’s closure and the search for someone to blame
Read more
The windfarm would span 17,000 hectares on land 60km north-west of Geelong and generate more than 3000 gigawatt hours of electricity per year – enough to power more than 400,000 homes.
Tobias Geiger, the managing director of WestWind Energy, said the large scale project would be able to supply energy at low cost.Tobias Geiger, the managing director of WestWind Energy, said the large scale project would be able to supply energy at low cost.
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“With this very large project and very good wind resource, combined with the latest wind turbine technology that’s now available, we can achieve a levelised cost of energy for this project that is below $50 per MW/h,” he said.
“If you put that into the context of electricity market prices from Victoria which for the past two years have hovered around $80 to $120 per MW/h, you can see the significance of this project for driving down electricity prices for all Victorians.” At $50/MWh — just 5 cents per kWh — the Golden Plains windfarm will produce power for less than the market cost of fuel alone for many coal and all gas power stations,” he said.
“And it’s big — expected to provide between 8–10% of Victoria’s energy.”
Ka kite ano links below
At $50/MWh — just 5 cents per kWh — the Golden Plains windfarm will produce power for less than the market cost of fuel alone for many coal and all gas power stations,” he said.
“And it’s big — expected to provide between 8–10% of Victoria’s energy.”
The neo alt right people can not sleep with all the Fame the Pacific people are getting at the minute they do what they do best and cheat and get a faulse story posted about
DJ the Rock. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has claimed the Daily Star fabrecated.The story, which appeared on Friday’s front page under the headline “The Rock Smacks Down Snowflakes” and was billed as an exclusive, was picked up by news outlets around the world
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It quoted the actor as allegedly saying that “generation snowflake or, whatever you want to call them, are actually putting us backwards” and “if you are not agreeing with them then they are offended – and that is not what so many great men and women fought for”.
However, Johnson, a former wrestler who has become one of the world’s biggest film stars, used an Instagram video to insist the quotes were fake.
“The interview never took place, never happened, never said any of those words, completely untrue, 100% fabricated, I was quite baffled when I woke up this morning,” he said.
“You know it’s not a real DJ [Dwayne Johnson] interview if I’m insulting a group, a generation or anyone, because that’s not me.”
The Daily Star is overseen by the Independent Press Ka kite ano links below
Kia ora Newshub Auckland transport needs to listen to the people when warned about A road from the Oraki board being dangerous and asking for speed ristricting . I have my opinion on the people being named and shamed who attacked and robbed that old Wahine living by her self I will keep it to my self.
I say it’s a good move making Hamilton Bees testing for American foul brood dersase to eliminate the dease from Hamilton we need to change the way we farm from mono culture farming to many different crops in the same area and Organic farming to protect our Bees and insects awa & Tangaroa.
Its good to highlight the plastic that is used unnecessary on food products Tom we need to make everyone accountable for the plastic waste they make.
Good on Canada for granting that Saudi girl asilm she needed help the Saudis don’t treat there Wahine very respectfully. I Tau toko the Wellington Phoenix soccer club it would be good to see all Kiwis support the great game te Mokopunas could make a lot of putea playing Soccer Ka kite ano
Last night I stayed up till 3am just to see then-President Donald Trump leave the White House, get on a plane, and fly off to Florida, hopefully never to return. And when I woke up this morning, America was different. Not perfect, because it never was. Probably not even good, ...
Watching today’s inauguration of Joe Biden as the United States’ 46th president, there’s not a lot in common with the inauguration of Donald Trump just four destructive years ago. Where Trump warned of carnage, Biden dared to hope for unity and decency. But the one place they converge is that ...
Dan FalkBritons who switched on their TVs to “Good Morning Britain” on the morning of Sept. 15, 2020, were greeted by news not from our own troubled world, but from neighboring Venus. Piers Morgan, one of the hosts, was talking about a major science story that had surfaced the ...
Sara LutermanGrowing up autistic in a non-autistic world can be very isolating. We are often strange and out of sync with peers, despite our best efforts. Autistic adults have, until very recently, been largely absent from media and the public sphere. Finding role models is difficult. Finding useful advice ...
Doug JohnsonThe alien-like blooms and putrid stench of Amorphophallus titanum, better known as the corpse flower, draw big crowds and media coverage to botanical gardens each year. In 2015, for instance, around 75,000 people visited the Chicago Botanic Garden to see one of their corpse flowers bloom. More than ...
Getting to Browser Tab Zero so I can reboot the computer is awfully hard when the one open tab is a Table of Contents for the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, and every issue has more stuff I want to read. A few highlights: Gugler et al demonstrating ...
Timothy Ford, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Charles M. Schweik, University of Massachusetts AmherstTo mitigate health inequities and promote social justice, coronavirus vaccines need to get to underserved populations and hard-to-reach communities. There are few places in the U.S. that are unreachable by road, but other factors – many ...
Israel chose to pay a bit over the odds for the Pfizer vaccine to get earlier access. Here’s The Times of Israel from 16 November. American government will be charged $39 for each two-shot dose, and the European bloc even less, but Jerusalem said to agree to pay $56. Israel ...
Orla is a gender critical Marxist in Ireland. She gave a presentation on 15 January 2021 on the connection between postmodern/transgender identity politics and the current attacks on democratic and free speech rights. Orla has been active previously in the Irish Socialist Workers Party and the People Before Profit electoral ...
. . America: The Empire Strikes Back (at itself) Further to my comments in the first part of 2020: The History That Was, the following should be considered regarding the current state of the US. They most likely will be by future historians pondering the critical decades of ...
Nathaniel ScharpingIn March, as the Covid-19 pandemic began to shut down major cities in the U.S., researchers were thinking about blood. In particular, they were worried about the U.S. blood supply — the millions of donations every year that help keep hospital patients alive when they need a transfusion. ...
Sarah L Caddy, University of CambridgeVaccines are a marvel of medicine. Few interventions can claim to have saved as many lives. But it may surprise you to know that not all vaccines provide the same level of protection. Some vaccines stop you getting symptomatic disease, but others stop you ...
Back in 2016, the Portuguese government announced plans to stop burning coal by 2030. But progress has come much quicker, and they're now scheduled to close their last coal plant by the end of this year: The Sines coal plant in Portugal went offline at midnight yesterday evening (14 ...
The Sincerest Form Of Flattery: As anybody with the intestinal fortitude to brave the commentary threads of local news-sites, large and small, will attest, the number of Trump-supporting New Zealanders is really quite astounding. IT’S SO DIFFICULT to resist the temptation to be smug. From the distant perspective of New Zealand, ...
RNZ reports on continued arbitrariness on decisions at the border. British comedian Russell Howard is about to tour New Zealand and other acts allowed in through managed isolation this summer include drag queen RuPaul and musicians at Northern Bass in Mangawhai and the Bay Dreams festival. The vice-president of the ...
As families around the world mourn more than two million people dead from Covid-19, the Plan B academics and their PR industry collaborator continue to argue that the New Zealand government should stop focusing on our managed isolation and quarantine system and instead protect the elderly so that they can ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 10, 2021 through Sat, Jan 16, 2021Editor's ChoiceNASA says 2020 tied for hottest year on record — here’s what you can do to helpPhoto by Michael Held on Unsplash ...
Health authorities in Norway are reporting some concerns about deaths in frail elderly after receiving their COVID-19 vaccine. Is this causally related to the vaccine? Probably not but here are the things to consider. According to the news there have been 23 deaths in Norway shortly after vaccine administration and ...
Happy New Year! No, experts are not concerned that “…one of New Zealand’s COIVD-1( vaccines will fail to protect the country” Here is why. But first I wish to issue an expletive about this journalism (First in Australia and then in NZ). It exhibits utter failure to actually truly consult ...
All nations have shadows; some acknowledge them. For others they shape their image in uncomfortable ways.The staunch Labour supporter was in despair at what her Rogernomics Government was doing. But she finished ‘at least, we got rid of Muldoon’, a response which tells us that then, and today, one’s views ...
Grigori GuitchountsIn November, Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest publishers of scientific journals, made an attention-grabbing announcement: More than 30 of its most prestigious journals, including the flagship Nature, will now allow authors to pay a fee of US$11,390 to make their papers freely available for anyone to read ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels, and Benjamin Santer Imagine a major climate change law passing the U.S. Congress unanimously? Don’t bother. It turns out that you don’t need to imagine it. Get this: The Global Change Research Act of 1990 was passed ...
“They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”WHO CAN FORGET the penultimate scene of the 1956 movie classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? The wild-eyed doctor, stumbling down the highway, trying desperately to warn his fellow citizens: “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”Ostensibly science-fiction, the movie ...
TheOneRing.Net has got its paws on the official synopsis of the upcoming Amazon Tolkien TV series. It’s a development that brings to mind the line about Sauron deliberately releasing Gollum from the dungeons of Barad-dûr. Amazon knew exactly what they were doing here, in terms of drumming up publicity: ...
Since Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1953, US presidents have joined an informal club intended to provide support - and occasionally rivalry - between those few who have been ‘leaders of the free world’. Donald Trump, elected on a promise to ‘drain the swamp’ and a constant mocker of his predecessors, ...
For over a decade commentators have noted the rise of a new brand of explicitly ideological politics throughout the world. By this they usually refer to the re-emergence of national populism and avowedly illiberal approaches to governance throughout the “advanced” democratic community, but they also extend the thought to the ...
The US House of Representatives has just impeached Donald Trump, giving him the dubious honour of being the only US President to be impeached twice. Ten Republicans voted for impeachement, making it the most bipartisan impeachment ever. The question now is whether the Senate will rise to the occasion, and ...
Kieren Mitchell; Alice Mouton, Université de Liège; Angela Perri, Durham University, and Laurent Frantz, Ludwig Maximilian University of MunichThanks to the hit television series Game of Thrones, the dire wolf has gained a near-mythical status. But it was a real animal that roamed the Americas for at least 250,000 ...
Tide of tidal data rises Having cast our own fate to include rising sea level, there's a degree of urgency in learning the history of mean sea level in any given spot, beyond idle curiosity. Sea level rise (SLR) isn't equal from one place to another and even at a particular ...
Well, some of those chickens sure came home bigly, didn’t they… and proceeded to shit all over the nice carpet in the Capitol. What we were seeing here are societal forces that have long had difficulty trying to reconcile people to the “idea” of America and the reality of ...
In the wake of Donald Trump's incitement of an assault on the US capitol, Twitter finally enforced its terms of service and suspended his account. They've since followed that up with action against prominent QAnon accounts and Trumpers, including in New Zealand. I'm not unhappy with this: Trump regularly violated ...
Peter S. Ross, University of British ColumbiaThe Arctic has long proven to be a barometer of the health of our planet. This remote part of the world faces unprecedented environmental assaults, as climate change and industrial chemicals threaten a way of life for Inuit and other Indigenous and northern ...
Susan St John makes the case for taxing a deemed rate of return on excessive real estate holdings (after a family home exemption), to redirect scarce housing resources to where they are needed most. Read the full article here ...
I’m less than convinced by arguments that platforms like Twitter should be subject to common carrier regulation preventing them from being able to decide who to keep on as clients of their free services, and who they would not like to serve. It’s much easier to create competition for the ...
The hypocritical actions of political leaders throughout the global Covid pandemic have damaged public faith in institutions and governance. Liam Hehir chronicles the way in which contemporary politicians have let down the public, and explains how real leadership means walking the talk. During the Blitz, when German bombs were ...
Over the years, we've published many rebuttals, blog posts and graphics which came about due to direct interactions with the scientists actually carrying out the underlying research or being knowledgable about a topic in general. We'll highlight some of these interactions in this blog post. We'll start with two memorable ...
Yesterday we had the unseemly sight of a landleech threatening to keep his houses empty in response to better tenancy laws. Meanwhile in Catalonia they have a solution for that: nationalisation: Barcelona is deploying a new weapon in its quest to increase the city’s available rental housing: the power ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters, PhD The 2020 global wildfire season brought extreme fire activity to the western U.S., Australia, the Arctic, and Brazil, making it the fifth most expensive year for wildfire losses on record. The year began with an unprecedented fire event ...
NOTE: This is an excerpt from a digital story – read the full story here.Tess TuxfordKo te Kauri Ko Au, Ko te Au ko Kauri I am the kauri, the kauri is me Te Roroa proverb In Waipoua Forest, at the top of the North Island, New ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Coming attraction: IPCC's upcoming major climate assessmentLook for more emphasis on 'solutions,' efforts by cities, climate equity ... and outlook for emissions cuts in ...
Ringing A Clear Historical Bell: The extraordinary images captured in and around the US Capitol Building on 6 January 2021 mirror some of the worst images of America's past.THERE IS A SCENE in the 1982 movie Missing which has remained with me for nearly 40 years. Directed by the Greek-French ...
To impact or not to impeach? I understand why some of those who are justifiably aghast at Trump’s behaviour over recent days might still counsel against impeaching him for a second time. To impeach him, they argue, would run the risk of making him a martyr in the eyes of ...
The Capitol Building, Washington DC, Wednesday, 6 January 2021. Oh come, my little one, come.The day is almost done.Be at my side, behold the sightOf evening on the land.The life, my love, is hardAnd heavy is my heart.How should I live if you should leaveAnd we should be apart?Come, let me ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 3, 2021 through Sat, Jan 9, 2021Editor's ChoiceAfter the Insurrection: Accountability, Reform, and the Science of Democracy The poisonous lies and enablers of sedition--including Senator Hawley, pictured ...
This article, guest authored by Prof. Angela Gallego-Sala & Dr. Julie Loisel, was originally published on the Carbon Brief website on Dec 21, 2020. It is reposted below in its entirety. Click here to access the original article and comments. Peatlands Peatlands are ecosystems unlike any other. Perpetually saturated, their ...
The assault on the US Capitol and constitutional crisis that it has caused was telegraphed, predictable and yet unexpected and confusing. There are several subplots involved: whether the occupation of the Michigan State House in May was a trial run for the attacks on Congress; whether people involved in the ...
On Christmas Eve, child number 1 spotted a crack in a window. It’s a double-glazed window, and inspection showed that the small, horizontal crack was in the outermost pane. It was perpendicular to the frame, about three-quarters of the way up one side. The origins are a mystery. It MIGHT ...
Anne-Marie Broudehoux, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Will the COVID-19 pandemic prompt a shift to healthier cities that focus on wellness rather than functional and economic concerns? This is a hypothesis that seems to be supported by several researchers around the world. In many ways, containment and physical distancing ...
Does the US need to strike a grand bargain with like-minded countries to pool their efforts? What does this tell us about today’s global politics? Perhaps the most remarkable editorial of last year was the cover leader of the London Economist on 19 November 2020. Shortly after Joe Biden was ...
Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato and Valmaine Toki, University of WaikatoAotearoa New Zealand likes to think it punches above its weight internationally, but there is one area where we are conspicuously falling behind — the number of sites recognised by the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. Globally, there are 1,121 ...
An event organised by the Auckland PhilippinesSolidarity group Have a three-course lunch at Nanam Eatery with us! Help support the organic farming of our Lumad communities through the Mindanao Community School Agricultural Foundation. Each ticket is $50. Food will be served on shared plates. To purchase, please email phsolidarity@gmail.com or ...
"Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here." Prisons are places of unceasing emotional and physical violence, unrelieved despair and unforgivable human waste.IT WAS NATIONAL’S Bill English who accurately described New Zealand’s prisons as “fiscal and moral failures”. On the same subject, Labour’s Dr Martyn Findlay memorably suggested that no prison ...
This is a re-post from Inside Climate News by Ilana Cohen. Inside Climate News is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here. Whether or not people accept the science on Covid-19 and climate change, both global crises will have lasting impacts on health and ...
. . American Burlesque As I write this (Wednesday evening, 6 January), the US Presidential election is all but resolved, confirming Joe Biden as the next President of the (Dis-)United State of America. Trump’s turbulent political career has lasted just four years – one of the few single-term US presidents ...
The session started off so well. Annalax – suitably chastised – spent a pleasant morning with his new girlfriend (he would say paramour, of course, but for our purposes, girlfriend is easier*). He told her about Waking World Drow, and their worship of Her Ladyship. And he started ...
In a recent column I wrote for local newspapers, I ventured to suggest that Donald Trump – in addition to being a liar and a cheat, and sexist and racist – was a fascist in the making and would probably try, if he were to lose the election, to defy ...
When I was preparing for my School C English exam I knew I needed some quotes to splash through my essays. But remembering lines was never my strong point, so I tended to look for the low-hanging fruit. We’d studied Shakespeare’s King Lear that year and perhaps the lowest hanging ...
When I went to bed last night, I was expecting today to be eventful. A lot of pouting in Congress as last-ditch Trumpers staged bad-faith "objections" to a democratic election, maybe some rioting on the streets of Washington DC from angry Trump supporters. But I wasn't expecting anything like an ...
A growing public housing waiting list and continued increase of house prices must be urgently addressed by Government, Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson said today. ...
The Government has released its Public Housing Plan 2021-2024 which outlines the intention of where 8,000 additional public and transitional housing places announced in Budget 2020, will go. “The Government is committed to continuing its public house build programme at pace and scale. The extra 8,000 homes – 6000 public ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has congratulated President Joe Biden on his inauguration as the 46th President of the United States of America. “I look forward to building a close relationship with President Biden and working with him on issues that matter to both our countries,” Jacinda Ardern said. “New Zealand ...
A major investment to tackle wilding pines in Mt Richmond will create jobs and help protect the area’s unique ecosystems, Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor says. The Mt Richmond Forest Park has unique ecosystems developed on mineral-rich geology, including taonga plant species found nowhere else in the country. “These special plant ...
To further protect New Zealand from COVID-19, the Government is extending pre-departure testing to all passengers to New Zealand except from Australia, Antarctica and most Pacific Islands, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “The change will come into force for all flights arriving in New Zealand after 11:59pm (NZT) on Monday ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Babies born with tongue-tie will be assessed and treated consistently under new guidelines released by the Ministry of Health, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Around 5% to 10% of babies are born with a tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, in New Zealand each year. At least half can ...
The prisoner disorder event at Waikeria Prison is over, with all remaining prisoners now safely and securely detained, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says. The majority of those involved in the event are members of the Mongols and Comancheros. Five of the men are deportees from Australia, with three subject to ...
Travellers from the United Kingdom or the United States bound for New Zealand will be required to get a negative test result for COVID-19 before departing, and work is underway to extend the requirement to other long haul flights to New Zealand, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed today. “The new PCR test requirement, foreshadowed last ...
Jacinda Ardern has reminded Labour MPs "ongoing vigilance" will be required in 2021 to avoid another Covid outbreak, admitting she held her breath over the summer break. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zareh Ghazarian, Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, Monash University Despite many young Australians having a deep interest in political issues, most teenagers have a limited understanding about their nation’s democratic system. Results from the 2019 National Assessment Program – Civics and ...
Pinged $65 for overstaying 10 minutes in a parking block? Put away your hard-earned cash and read this first.Hopefully, by now, I’ve already established myself at The Spinoff as the resident tightarse, determined to avoid all unfair and unnecessary punishments (see: oversize baggage charges). Today, I’m focusing my attention on ...
Nuclear weapons states and their allies risk reputational ruin if they flout a new UN Treaty, Carolina Panico argues The United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will come into force this month, on January 22, 2021, turning nuclear weapons into illegal objects. It is an achievement that ...
How does one turn into a rabid extremist over the description of a children’s bike? Emily Writes looks at Facebook comments so you don’t have to.You’ve been there, I know it. You’re scrolling along, trying to avoid QAnon conspiracy theories and Trump apocalypse memes when a story catches your eye. ...
Joe Biden is now the President of the United States and many people across America and throughout the world will consequently be breathing more easily. But while the erratic, unpredictable and irresponsible years of the Trump Presidency may be over, ...
Tough border testing for New Zealand honey imports to Japan is re-igniting the conversation about the use of the weed killer glypohsate in New Zealand. ...
The Taxpayers Union should be aware of the law and of the history of ACC. The ACC is a legal system introduced in 1974 to replace the common law right of accident victims to sue for damages for personal injury sustained as a result of negligence ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne Terrorism, political extremism, Donald Trump, social media and the phenomenon of “cancel culture” are confronting journalists with a range of agonising free-speech dilemmas to which there are no easy answers. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nial Wheate, Associate Professor of the Sydney Pharmacy School, University of Sydney You’ve just come from your monthly GP appointment with a new script for your ongoing medical condition. But your local pharmacy is out of stock of your usual medicine. Your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deanna D’Alessandro, Professor & ARC Future Fellow, University of Sydney On Wednesday this week, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was measured at at 415 parts per million (ppm). The level is the highest in human history, and is growing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Renwick, Professor, Physical Geography (climate science), Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington It might be summer in New Zealand but we’re in for some wild weather this week with forecasts of heavy wind and rain, and a plunge in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zareh Ghazarian, Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, Monash University Despite many young Australians having a deep interest in political issues, most teenagers have a limited understanding about their nation’s democratic system. Results from the 2019 National Assessment Program – Civics and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle O’Shea, Senior Lecturer, School of Business, Western Sydney University Last week, the McIver’s Ladies Baths in Sydney came under fire for their (since removed) policy stating “only transgender women who’ve undergone a gender reassignment surgery are allowed entry”. The policy was ...
There are good grounds for optimism after the guardrails of American democracy held firm through to Joe Biden's inauguration today as President, writes Stephen Hoadley Pessimism abounds about the perilous condition of American democracy. Commentators and headline writers proffer memes such as ‘broken and divided nation’, ‘the threat from within’. ...
*This article was originally appeared on RNZ and is republished with permission. Donald Trump will forever be remembered as the president who was impeached twice - and for his rhetoric that struck a chord so deep in America that it will take years to dissipate. Donald Trump leaves Washington with the lowest approval ...
A new plan shows how and where the Government will build 8,000 new state housing places it funded in Budget 2020, Marc Daalder reports Jacinda Ardern has kicked off the political year with a major announcement, promising hundreds of new state housing places in regional centres across the country. With ...
This is the full transcript of President Joe Biden's speech after being sworn in at his inauguration this morning in Washington DC Chief Justice Roberts, Vice President Harris, Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schumer, Leader McConnell, Vice President Pence, and my distinguished guests, my fellow Americans, this is America's day. This ...
Analysis: President Donald Trump has left the White House, and his deputy chief of staff confirms he is withdrawing his candidacy to lead the OECD. New Zealander Christopher Liddell withdrew his nomination to be Secretary-General of the powerful 37-member OECD and was one of the last members of the Trump Administration to depart ...
Kate Wills is facing stage four cancer with the same fierce approach she takes into her ocean swimming - never say can't. Even on the mornings Kate Wills feels wretched from her fortnightly chemotherapy treatment, she drags herself up at 5am and goes swimming. “I have to. It’s my job – to ...
Some costs associated with meetings speak for themselves, others are less conspicuous. Victoria University of Wellington's Val Hooper lays those costs out, making suggestions on where we can rein them in. Meetings – when last did we count the costs? And so it’s back to work and one of the ...
Andrew Paul Wood assesses the best-selling picture book by Grahame Sydney It's no great secret the commercially very successful Grahame Sydney has a long-standing beef that his work doesn’t receive more critical and institutional approval. I sympathise about the lack of critical attention, but I can understand why. The Discourse™ ...
This story was produced in collaboration with the Center for Public Integrity and Columbia Journalism Investigations. It was originally published by Public Integrity, Mother Jones, The Arizona Republic and Orlando Sentinel. It is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the ...
Analysis: It has been easy to ignore anyone daring to criticise or even question any aspect of the government’s Covid-19 response. Their voices have rarely been heard, and when they have been raised they have been quickly and decisively howled down by the favoured coterie of academics. ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s US presidential inauguration live blog: inauguration news, analysis and reaction, updated through Wednesday and Thursday. The inauguration ceremony begins at 5.15am Thursday, NZ time, and Joe Biden takes the oath of office around 6am. 7.25am: And what about Trump?In the early hours of this morning, NZ ...
In 10 x 100, we survey a group of 100 people via Stickybeak and ask them 10 questions. Last month we quizzed Wellingtonians. Today, we ask NZ drivers how they’ve found a holiday period without international tourists, and what they get up to while they’re on the road.Across Aotearoa roads ...
Emmanuel Macron's anti-separatist policies have garnered backlash from the international Muslim community. Now, a global coalition has complained to the UN. ...
Summer reissue: Join Michèle A’Court, Alex Casey and Leonie Hayden as they go on an odyssey of women’s rage, and find out how we can channel our anger into good. First published September 15, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by ...
By Lorraine Ecarma in Cebu City The University of the Philippines Visayas (UPV) will continue to stand against any threats to human rights, chancellor Clement Camposano has declared in response to the termination of a long-standing accord preventing military incursion on campus. In a Facebook post, Camposano said the academic ...
ANALYSIS:By Jennifer S. Hunt, Australian National University Every four years on January 20, the US exercises a key tenant of democratic government: the peaceful transfer of power. This year, the scene looks a bit different. If the last US presidential inauguration in 2017 debuted the phrase “alternative facts”, the ...
By Lulu Mark in Port Moresby In spite of Papua New Guinea’s mandatory mask-wearing requirement under the National Pandemic Act 2020, many public servants attending a dedication service in Port Moresby have failed to wear one. They were issued masks before entering the Sir John Guise Indoor Complex but took ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Moro, Associate Professor of Science & Medicine, Bond University How do scabs form? — Talila, aged 8 Great question, Talila! Our skin has many different jobs. One is to act as a barrier, protecting us from harmful things in the ...
US President Donald Trump is pardoning former White House adviser Steve Bannon, who is accused of fraud in a case involving funds for the border wall. ...
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If you are not white or privileged, this message is not intended for you.
(even as a metaphor).
Almost as good as this one…
Are you a bargain hunter? A connoisseur of crap? A Sally Store shark?
Apparently, a new netflix show ‘Tidying up with Marie Kwondo’ has inspired many Kiwis to declutter lately. This has resulted in windfall hauls for various charity organisations.
So the message is, there’s bargains to be found for those wanting them.
I recommend blenders for fresh smoothies. Old books for learning from. Old clothes for a hipster disguise. I’m in the midst of a declutter myself though – out with the old in with the (not so) new? Change is good.
I loved punk for a similar reason to hipster fashion, go to op shop, rip stuff, pin stuff, add badges, wardrobe done. With the hipster look just find something hideous and wear it with confidence. Job done.
Happy hunting!
This short film, offered yesterday here on TS by some kind soul, is a great watch and on the topic of de-cluttering – in this instance, shedding an entire herd of cattle! I enjoyed it very much and thought how paltry my own de-cluttering challenge when compared to the subject of “73 cows”.
https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2018/10/09/73-cows/
I really enjoyed that film and it did challenge my stance (a little). I will never condone factory farming or the concept of eating meat daily. I do however subscribe to dietary science and find after a week of dining from my garden I’m still a bit hungry. I eat meat weekly, or slightly less, when my body asks for it.
This is likely a lack of fats as much as protein, though I fared poorly growing beans this year so there is that missing.
I eat a range of herbs and veg every day.
I am open to suggestions as to what this ‘missing ingredient’ in my diet can be replaced with. If you start trying to push soy on me don’t bother, I’ll never eat that GE crap they’re destroying the Gulf of Mexico to farm for y’all.
You thought I might “start trying to push soy ” on you?
Nah!
Cricket-flour patties, WTP; they’re the buzz 🙂
If the cow farmer could only hook up with Charles Dowding…
On another topic…do we humans ever willingly accept less comfort than we have grown accustomed to? Has anyone real examples of voluntary change to less comfort? I’m thinking/remembering what it was like sleeping on sand. Every time you turn, even slightly, sand fills in behind you, preventing you from turning back; is comfort like that?
Cor, the deep questions so early in the day? I’m floundering. Must be some good reason why no bed of sand has entered the market. Nor have I ever heard of home-made examples. Perhaps we need to turn so frequently during the night that the sand effect you describe creates resistance. That would make it a non-user-friendly design.
Just in case you haven’t already noticed: “A new poll reveals a large majority of New Zealanders would support legalising recreational cannabis use in the Government’s 2020 referendum.” Forget decriminalisation! The public wants to go all the way!
Here’s evidence that the boomers are the mostly closet-fascists and closet-stalinists, dead-keen to suppress the rights of others:
18 – 24 years: 68 percent agree
25 – 34 years: 75 percent agree
33 – 44 years: 72 percent agree
45 – 54 years: 58 percent agree
55 – 64 years: 58 percent agree
65 – 74 years: 30 percent agree
75yrs or over: 37 percent agree
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/01/2020-cannabis-referendum-would-easily-pass-poll-says.html
Two thirds of all the younger generations are now rejecting prohibition! I’d better take back my oft-expressed dismissal of their collective intelligence. Those over 65 are two thirds in support of continuing prohibition. It’s a huge difference!
You think they are “closet-fascists and closet-stalinists” from a poll on making weed legal?
How very “judgmental” of you.
And rather stupid
We judge people on their actions, and their attitudes. These rightist and leftist turkeys who pretend to support democracy while trying to get away with denying others their civil rights have never been anything other than scum.
You may think it stupid, but that’s obviously because you ain’t no real kiwi male. We call a spade a spade. Get with the program if you want to belong here.
Chris T
You are judgmental of the individual Dennis Frank for honestly decrying a recalcitrant group resisting practical change, as stupid.
You are repressing an individual – he was expressing a considered opinion about a group in society. So you are the one who is stupid.
100% bang on greywarshark.
Chris is just a “carping critic with no logic”
So you think the 32% of under 24s against it are “closet-fascists and closet-stalinists”
Brilliant
Another brilliant generalisation
Thy’re old enough to see the damage it’s done in praxis franxie.
Most have never tried it and fill up on alcohol daily. Try again.
Thy’re old enough to see the damage it’s done…
Most people over 70 in this country have as much acquaintance with the smoking of marijuana and its effects as I do with aerobatics in a jet fighter.
I have fond memories from my student days in mid 70’s of being lectured on the perils of drugs by my stepmother while she had a gin in one hand and a tailormade in the other.
@Psycho Milt, What are you talking about? if you are 70 today, that would make you 20 yo in 1969, I know for a fact that there was plenty of pot smoking going in certain circles in NZ in ’69, just the same as today.
While it was smoked in certain circles in the 60s it was not smoked in most circles like the 80s. My parents had no idea what it smelt like. I used to mix it with drum tobacco and smoke it right under their noses. Once my father walked through the kitchen while i had a couple of big buds drying in the oven and he didn’t notice.
@solkta, that’s funny, because during the 1980’s there was pot pretty much everywhere I went…in one form or another.
I would say it would have been without doubt the most widely used recreational drug used in NZ during that time, after alcohol of course.
Isn’t that what i said?
What Soltka said. Most 20-year-olds in 1969 weren’t smoking dope and didn’t look kindly on the kind of people who did.
I turned 20 that year, and can report that I was still sceptical and too cautious. Not till March ’71 that I first tried it (to little apparent effect) due to feeling like I finally ought to jump on the bandwagon because the world was leaving me behind. I was a strange mix of radical and conservative, still am. But unlike what you say, I wasn’t hostile to users then. I recall viewing them with envy, in fact. Oh to be so adventurous! Casting your fate to the winds. Nah, too much of a challenge at the time so I wimped out…
Most people over 65 are the generation who discovered the joys of weed first, mind you those that did are probably already dead.
A friend of mine, refugee from California, is still going strong in his late seventies. I think any correlation between cannabis users & early death would be established by now if real. I’ve never even heard of it being suggested.
3.2.2 True. Fear of the unknown.
Yeah, like fast drivers. Eliminate them due to the damage done. Easy. Just pass a law making it illegal to sell a car that drives faster than the speed limit. Industry can spin on a dime. Often does so. No problem.
So why don’t rightist govts do that? Freedom of choice. Milton Friedman. Neoliberal ideology. People want to be free to choose to break the law, speed when they want to. Same logic for cannabis. But Gabby, you know this already. Cruise control on cars has been there since the nineties. The tech exists to eliminate speeding. It’s really just that the right are full of shit. Go on, be honest, admit it.
Yes, pot does have adverse health effects, but so do a lot of other substances. We don’t lock someone up for smoking a cigarette, or drinking a beer. Even during the age of Prohibition in the USA, it was still not illegal for people to drink alcohol in their own home (they just couldn’t possess, sell, buy or transport it).
Old people are certainly not my favorites despite approaching membership. In uni it was the old farts who’d fight for the status quo and question those who questioned them. A bunch of oil aficionados.
But the young adults… They’d come to study group and we’d rant long and loud on alternative energy, agricultural diversification and more.
I still remember my first Jay Day at Uni. We had a biology lecture and almost the entire class showed up baked (we’d been having spots in the quad). The lecturer knew what was up immediately but didn’t know how to change tack.
“Questions?”… …. ……. ……………..
😀
I did some adult-reading recovery tutoring in a drug rehabilitation unit before, I think, Labour in Ruth Dyson’s time closed them down.
Talking to the chap I was helping, he told me that part of the steps he had to achieve towards wellness was to read a certain book on drug taking and write a summary of what he had learned. He found that he could read a whole page, know the words as he read them, but not be able to retain enough joined-up ideas and meaning by the end of the page to summarise what he had just read. Consequently the counsellors thought he wasn’t trying. I related the problem to them. They had not realised the brain function ‘numbing’ that the recovering people could be experiencing.
I understand that the brain does recover but the traces of cannabis regularly used, get into some tissues and take months of absistence before being drawn out to leave the brain which then can function better.
Any fogging of the mind can be dispelled by drinking a herbal tea in which dried & powdered rosemary leaves are a primary component. Works like magic!
So that’s your secret you cunning person. Rosemary is more than just a pretty flower, smell and taste. Maybe you’ve come across the Elixir we have all been hoping for. I’ll definitely try it.
Have you ever done a detox? System cleansing is sometimes necessary due to the polluting effects of chemical food additives, micro-organisms, heavy metals. Rosemary is merely a system-maintenance agent. In my herbal tea mix, there’s around a dozen such.
There are only 2 ‘boomer’ cohorts in that list…and one one them is well in favour.
Generalisations/stereotypes are notoriously of little use…..about as accurate as ‘average’
That probably means you’re younger than me and are sufficiently pragmatic/ broadminded to accept the extended definition of boomer & take it more seriously. I’m bang in the middle of the group only in 30% approval, and untypical (nonconformist). In the counter-culture we’d grown to 1% of the whole generation, which seemed impressive growth at the time!
I kept tracking it & vaguely recall it trending around 5% at the end of the seventies. Just my estimation. Values polling is only an approximate indicator. I still saw them as trendy establishment liberals pretending to be radical. I wouldn’t have trusted them to support legalisation so never even checked if they did or not. Suit-wearers.
on the contrary …I dont take the labelling of generations seriously at all (except in the the misuse of its relevance)….folk are folk regardless and the curious thing is most of them age.
Pat
That might be wishful thinking. I think more of older retired folk around here anyway, in Nelson, are National supporters. They display similar characteristics – there is the birds of a feather thing as a general point. Refusal to understand this would mean that you would be less able to make personal predictions that would achieve accuracy when considering voting patterns etc.
im sure you are not suggesting that someone who is an empathetic open minded thoughtful individual receives a personality transplant for their 65th birthday GWS
Pat
There has been a trend observed that peiople become more conservative in old age. Also that older people tend to support the status quo when it is in a place that is positive for them.
There has indeed been such a trend observed, conservative in that they less inclined to change i.e. maintain the views they have developed, so if you were of the view that drug reform was not a good idea when you were 30 odds are you will maintain that view at 40, 50 or 60 etc. This may be attributed to the predominant views/influences in the formative years ….and we also know that politics follow public opinion rather than lead it.
How this reduced appetite for risk is reflected in voting patterns is a topic of much debate.
As to the assertion that ‘older people tend to support the status quo when it is in a place that is positive for them’ a more accurate statement would be ‘people tend to support the status quo when it is in a place that is positive for them’…..age is not key.
Again, folk are folk…and they age.
Shouldn’t the government stop all these temporary work visas being issued under false pretences of work (and a hefty fee to the middleman) taking up accommodation in shortages?
The best thing the government could do, is prosecute the recruitment company and make them pay the Chinese workers money back and then Close the scam.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/379947/jobs-on-offer-but-still-no-visa-fix-for-chinese-workers
No wonder tradespeople are complaining their wages haven’t moved in 20 years while the cost of construction is skyrocketing as are all the defects. Time construction was not some immigration scam, but people with the right paperwork and the right NZ training or equivalent who speak and read English so can be safe on site and follow the plans or they really are skilled and paid $100k plus that high skills should be getting in NZ. Kiwis are expected to pay $30k for a degree to become a builder and take 3 or 4 years but being undercut by non/poor English speakers often bought in by migrants as a work scam or to be cheap labour, who will work for virtually nothing.
The government should be thinking of Kiwi welfare, rights and safety first instead they seem to be able to do anything for a foreigner with a problem, but somehow seems indifferent to the massive queues at the foodbanks for working Kiwis who can no longer survive on wages.
I saw a lot of indentured labour in Kuwait (even supervised some) and it still gnaws at my insides. It’s horrifying and disgusting that we’re now allowing it to happen here, and I’d like my elected representatives to do something about it – I’m looking at you, Iain Less-Galloway, you’re my MP as well as the relevant Minister. If we’ve signed FTAs that require us to allow this, please get on with reviewing and renegotiating or withdrawing from those FTAs, because they should never have been agreed to in the first place.
This is the standard method of running indentured labour:
1. In countries with lots of desperate people in poverty, you get local contractors to hire labour for you.
2. Those contractors sell the right to work for you to desperate locals. They can’t pay the amount the contractor is demanding, so the contractor ‘lends’ them the money on the basis they’ll soon be able to pay it back again once they’re earning allegedly big bucks working for you.
3. You have your staff pick the labourers up from the airport, take their passports off them and shoehorn them into run-down accommodation fit for a small fraction of the number of people.
4. These people are now effectively your slaves. They can’t go and work for anyone else because you have their passports. You can pay them whatever and whenever you feel like, and if anyone wants to make trouble about that you hold the threat of withdrawing sponsorship and putting them on the next plane home with nothing but a debt to the local contractor that will make them a slave to that contractor, who’s probably worse even than you.
Is this seriously what we want happening here? Because various incidents have demonstrated that it already is.
It most certainly is what some want, and you are correct to ask the question of ILG because the response to the exposure of its prevalence has been non existent….why?
It is also putting the better businesses out of work, who can not compete with the low tenders from companies with workers working at below market rates. Race to the bottom. Also it impacts on everyone as often when those firms get in cheap labour it backfires and a decade later you find out that the materials were also sub standard as is the work and currently the rate payers seem to be paying to fix it while the council blithely adds more liability to our books as well as the poor home owner who then finds out that they need to poor in $100k+ remedial work and actually might not even be able to live there anymore.
Apparently so because its happening here.
Capitalism will always shift to slavery of some form or another. People being free to leave work and get another job on the same day for better pay or even just better conditions minimises the capitalists profits.
And so they work to make sure that freedom is not available. They cut the welfare state by saying that people getting welfare are being paid too much, put in degrading conditions for getting welfare and put in place so many hoops for getting it as well.
And the whole lot is for the purpose of removing people’s freedom.
Out in place a UBI and watch as the poor/bad employers scream.
Maybe we will end up as in Israel – crowded to the max. No graciousness.
(https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/traffic-congestion-in-israel-yalla-solutions/
You really do write some unadulterated bs.
“People being free to leave work and get another job on the same day for better pay or even just better conditions minimises the capitalists profits.”
Not for the employer who the employee shifts to, or they wouldn’t offer better terms. That is capitalism at work, the freedom of the worker to negotiate better terms. Do you really not understand that?
You miss the point that workers are, presently, not free to leave their present employment.
I know you’re going to say that they are but they really aren’t.
First off, if they leave they have no income for 13 weeks. That’s a cost.
Because of the governments failure to run a full employment policy they can’t just walk to another job. Which means that they could be out of work for weeks or even months.
I understand it. Do you not understand that a high unemployment rate removes the ability of workers to negotiate? That they can only take what’s offered?
This is why the government keeps unemployment high. To actually prevent the workers from negotiating better terms and wages.
“You miss the point that workers are, presently, not free to leave their present employment.”
Of course they are. It’s called ‘resigning’.
“First off, if they leave they have no income for 13 weeks. ”
Wrong. They leave their old employer with potential outstanding leave entitlements, and start earning the very next day with their new employer. There are plenty of jobs.
“Do you not understand that a high unemployment rate removes the ability of workers to negotiate? ”
And a low unemployment rate increases the ability to negotiate. Thus the market provides the freedoms that workers don’t have under the dictates of socialism.
“This is why the government keeps unemployment high.”
The government wants low unemployment, because it increases it’s revenues and reduces it’s costs. If you seriously believe the government wants to keep unemployment high, you must think the current government is doing a pretty poor job!
@Psycho Milt +1, come to the Hawkes Bay if you want to see imported labour from impoverished pacific Island being used cynically to suppress wages and conditions. I brought this up with A. Little when I got the chance once, he blurted out some meaningless bullshit for an answer, which was really disappointing as I have always quite Little.
The problem with Little is the same problem with Labour NZ, ie. they seem to in their hearts, still really believe free market capitalism will answer all our problems, they really are liberal ideologues, this whole pragmatism bullshit that Ardern bangs on about is nothing more than a smoke screen for more of the same.
Same in Marlborough. I was in Blenheim for Christmas and found there’s now a big ugly barracks on the edge of town for the labourers imported from Vanuatu to work in the vineyards. I’ve seen better-looking prisons.
The police and immigration also seem also more willing politically to prosecute Pacific Islanders for ‘trafficking’ but less so for other nationals also in on the same wicket! Maybe not keen to displease Asian dual nationals who apparently bring in good political donations for politicians…
Evidence? That doesn’t sound correct. Are there any stats?
Asians? From where? You mean China don’t you or do you have an ethnicity breakdown to put up.
There have been 4 trafficking cases prosecuted in NZ, as far as I am aware it always concentrates on Pacific Island horticulture workers, while it seems that other types of rampant human trafficking aka among the massive 150k temp work permits per year last year on top of the 129,000 migrants coming. That is under Labour. To give an idea they were talking about 15,000 when they won the election. So that promise has defiantly not be kept.
For years now we have constant stories of workers paying for the work permits etc up front and then finding out there is no work and it is not all what is promised but they don’t get their money back. As far as I am concerned it falls under trafficking. Should people even be allowed to sell temporary work permits and internments to foreign people and profit from it?
if people were paying to come into NZ in a boat they would be called human traffickers. Instead they do some shady stuff, and are bringing people to NZ who pay for the privilege just like the people traffickers but because they are on bogus permits it is apparently ok to lie and cheat people and then rely on NZ taxpayers to bail everyone out and turn a blind eye to the process because they are too incompetent to close it down.
Ta – here’s one for your files
Marlborough wine contractor ordered to pay $127k for exploiting migrant workers https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/business/379825/marlborough-wine-contractor-ordered-to-pay-127k-for-exploiting-migrant-workers
When did the PM talk about pragmatism? ???
I thought that was a National mp. “We are pragmatists”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/107442623/kindness-not-hate—jacinda-arderns-message-to-donald-trump-and-the-world
https://e-tangata.co.nz/korero/jacinda-lofty-goals-and-small-town-values/
Of course, she’s still following capitalism which, itself, is not pragmatic. In fact, its a denial of pragmatism.
There is a marriage of words that some people are wrongly divorcing.
The term for what we need is ‘pragmatic idealism’.
Here pragmatic is an adjective qualifying the idealism that we need to drive us forward as a nation to some good goals. This will prevent a fast gallop headlong down the road signposted with fluffy feel-good names of destinations for Labour. Or for National the roads marked off with little spots of gold that only the first person to reach them gathers and pockets, leaving the later phalanx lost, confused and searching for a leader.
So that is the recipe, ‘pragmatic idealism’. Pragamatism as a noun will just turn the nation to an empty dust bowl with huge barrack-like prisons placed strategically apart.
On the job
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5rJb2gNsXI
@PM
This. On the nail; a very accurate post that reflects exactly what I’ve seen elsewhere. I’ve seen this exploitation up front and in person on one big overseas project; it’s ugly, ugly.
This is a story about desperate people living in over-populated countries where there is intense local competition for opportunity. Of course the intense desire to better oneself gets exploited in these circumstances.
Yes we can take action here in NZ to minimise the egregious abuse; but the root causes lie elsewhere. It reinforces yet again; no single nation state is able to address the big global scale challenges facing us.
Does it?
Or does it show that the government is willing to accept these types of things in the name of trade?
As a nation we do have the choice of not trading with nations that allow this, to make sure that such exploitation doesn’t happen in our nation and that anyone of our nation who does support this in anyway ends up in jail. And we can even point to the UDHR to say why we’re not doing it.
Of course, that does mean dropping out of FTAs that breach the UDHR like the one with China. And not signing up to ones with nations like Saudi Arabia.
Sure, it’s not a global solution until everyone does it but it’s a step on the right path. And once we’ve done it we can apply pressure to others in the UN to do it. Somehow I think that some of the most exploited nations may actually be the first to step up.
SaveNZ. 100%.
Yes I support your logic.
It seems very clear now that the Chinese Government is behind dumping all these workers onto us here as the Chinese economy enters a slow down now.
“Shouldn’t the government stop all these temporary work visas being issued under false pretenses of work (and a hefty fee to the middleman) taking up accommodation in shortages?
The best thing the government could do, is prosecute the recruitment company and make them pay the Chinese workers money back and then Close the scam.”
“Shouldn’t the government stop all these temporary work visas being issued UNDER FALSE PRETENCES OF WORK (and a hefty fee to the middleman) taking up accommodation in shortages?”
And shouldn’t they stop tying any type of visa to a specific employer rather than to an employment sector or specific project? It’s a recipe for exploitation – but unfortunately it’s all working as designed
AND
“The best thing the government could do, is prosecute the recruitment company and make them pay the Chinese workers money back and then Close the scam.”
Since you’ll usually find cosy little relationships between hire companies (and others such as shitty tertiary education providers and charlatan Immigration Advisors that have not been properly monitored – as opposed to professionals with a proven record of ethical behaviour and subject to sanctions of the legal profession), YES, the best thing would be to prosecute and compensate their victims. And where they only possess PR, rescind it and deport. And where they have dual citizenship, we should seriously consider giving them a choice of which country they wish to retain their citizenship
AND
“The government should be thinking of Kiwi welfare, rights and safety first………….”
The government should be thinking of the welfare, rights and safety of ANYBODY that’s in the country regardless of their circumstances without favour
The government should close down any temporary work permit being issued unless the person has a job that is proved that can not be done by a New Zealander and is paying well above market rates (because at present employers get around it by for example offering pay rates that are unliveable or the same as 20 years ago, like horticulture workers or people being recruited through numerous third parties all taking a profit and so the end worker gets under minimum wages (ak Chorus subcontractors and construction workers). They should also have to provide accommodation and prove that it is not taking accomodation away from other people aka the job has to supply it in high shortage areas like Auckland, Hawkes bay, Wellington).
There should also be a limit to work permits per year like 15,000 of temporary work permits. A bottom line will automatically change the dynamic and the traffickers will be out of business, because at present the numbers of temp workers are limitless.
Foreign people who study in NZ should not be allowed to work as that has become a way to enter NZ and then use it later to find a fake job and get residency.
Former migrants or non NZ citizens should not be allowed to offer work permits or job sponsorship or marriage with residency to others. (aka Sroubek and his wife getting residency and these cases, https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/376220/10k-11-days-and-one-failed-deportation, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12123831) so that the Ponzi scam is closed.
So many people are profiting off what is essentially NZ visas and citizenship and that is why we have ridiculous levels like 150,000 work permits last year alone, while jobseeker benefits are up and 129,000 new migrants when apparently Labour, Greens and NZ First were supposed to close the loopholes. There are more migrants than under the Natz, because the government and their officials have such ineffectual controls, so many lawyers are profiting off the scams with litigation as the laws here are not fit for purpose or being exploited, allowing people who pay little to no taxes here for most of their lives to retire here and criminal exploiters to live in NZ and scam here.
Nice one Bleeple
“Old books for learning from”
Agree with that every year we go the Red Cross Bookfair held in Hamilton. We use it as a giant lending library. Always come away with a large load of books, all sorts of reading material. When we have read the ones we do not need to keep we return them to the Red Cross for the next book fair We have picked up some great books there like Peter Wrights SpyCatcher and Neville Shute’s Slide Rule and they are nearly always in good condition.
Book fairs. what a great way to spend a day, book fair and brunch, my favorite. I’ve attended the Hamilton book fair a couple years ago and got ‘The Reader’s Digest Do It Yourself Manual (1965)’ – a 500 page hardcover book on building – from furniture and shelves etc through to houses, log cabins… All with hand tools. What a Treasure! BBQ areas, ponds, pagolas, retaining walls, paths, terraces…. amazing book.
My difficulty with book fairs is meeting people there. What’s the protocol; nod and keep searching? A quick howdy-do and … keep searching, or stop for a catch-up and watch your almost-treasures walk out the door with someone else? I love talking. I love foraging at book fairs; what to do, what to do?
Learning about – books plus. On Radio NZ this a.m. interesting, informative, leading to understanding, hopeful.
8.35 Erin Rhoads: A zero-waste quest
Erin Rhoads runs the Australian eco-lifestyle website The Rogue Ginger, and has written the book Waste Not, which gives suggestions for reducing consumption and waste – particularly of plastic – in every area of life, and every room in the house. She has been attempting to come as close to “zero waste” as possible since 2013. She also consults with businesses on waste reduction.
09:05 Dov Alfon: Stories from inside Israel’s military
Dov Alfon is an Israeli investigative journalist and former editor of the newspaper Haaretz, to which he still contributes from his home in Paris. Dov was formerly an intelligence officer in Unit 8200, the most secretive arm of the Israeli military,
and –
in his first work of fiction, A Long Night in Paris, he lays bare Israel’s secretive world of intelligence gathering. He received a Peace Through Media prize in 2011.
10:05 Anthony Cabraal: Tackling a broken culture of work
Anthony Cabraal is a member of Enspiral, a collective of businesses and freelancers that aims to support people who want to spend their lives changing the world. He is co-editor of the book Better Work Together, which discusses harnessing the “power of community” to transform businesses. He is interested in helping communities of people approach governance of companies, profits, leadership, staff retention, and other structural issues that make workplaces dysfunctional, in new and innovative ways.
10:35 John Cryan: How your gut affects your brain
Dr John Cryan, a neuropharmacologist and microbiome expert from the University College Cork, researches the interactions between the brain and the collection of microbes in the gut, and how that relationship affects stress, psychiatric health, and immune-related disorders. In his latest book, The Psychobiotic Revolution, Professor Cryan and colleague Ted Dinan write about research showing that beneficial microbes can improve mood.
Someone could put up audio when its through if they have time. I want to be on the Earth March, and want to be in two places at once, so I am a bit stretched!
And Halfcrown – this Israeli book may be special; there isn’t that much sane thinking available to us from there. (I like Nevil Shute – great humane, storyteller with interesting technical stuff too. I guess Slide Rule is about him personally?)
I highly rate Dr Cryan I read a ton of his stuff when researching autism. He’ll be an eye opener for many.
Dr Cryan is excellent and many before him has explained the effects “our toxic world”
try also the book called “Our toxic World” by Our Toxic World: A Wake Up Call Paperback – October, 2003 by Doris Rapp (Author)
Just a short brief in this link below will chill your bones as enter into a poisoned world.
By Dr. Mercola
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/03/15/the-wild-world-of-chemical-exposure.aspx
Dr. Mercola’s Natural Health Newsletter
Polytoxicity: The Wild World of Chemical Exposure
26 March 15, 2017
toxic chemicals in hand sanitizer
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
There are about 85,000 chemicals registered under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), but even the EPA is largely in the dark about what that actually means for people’s health and the environment
Combining chemicals often magnifies their toxic effects; in the case of bisphenol-A (BPA), using hand sanitizer prior to handling a BPA-containing receipt may increase skin absorption 100-fold
About 1 in 11 public schools in the U.S. are located within 500 feet of highways, truck routes and other roads with heavy traffic, leaving millions of school kids breathing polluted air
By Dr. Mercola
Have you ever wondered how many chemicals you’re exposed to on any given day? How about your kids? It’s really anyone’s guess. The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) requires that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) compile and keep a current list of chemical substances manufactured or processed in the U.S.
That list includes about 85,000 chemicals,1 but even the EPA is largely in the dark about what that actually means for people’s health and the environment.
As noted in Chemical & Engineering News, “The agency is struggling to get a handle on which of those chemicals are in the marketplace today and how they are actually being used.”2
Very few chemicals on the market are tested for safety, but even those that are, are not necessarily safe. Part of this is because safety testing is typically done on just one chemical at a time, and under laboratory conditions.
The way you’re actually exposed to chemicals — in combination and under countless different real-world scenarios — may increase their toxicity exponentially.
The Toxic Reality of Using Hand Sanitizer, Eating and Holding a Receipt
A revealing example of just how toxic our world has become is the bisphenol-A (BPA) used in thermal paper (the type many receipts are made out of).
BPA is an endocrine-disrupting chemical linked to a number of health concerns, particularly in pregnant women, fetuses and young children, but also in adults, including high blood pressure, heart disease,3 obesity, fertility problems and more.
BPA is most often associated with plastics, personal care products and canned goods but, according to a 2014 study published in PLOS One, “Free BPA is applied to the outer layer of thermal receipt paper present in very high (∼20 mg BPA/g paper) quantities as a print developer.”4
This in itself is unsettling, considering very few people think twice about handling receipts (or handing one to a child). However, the study revealed that a very common scenario — using hand sanitizer prior to handling a receipt — maximizes the risk.
I don’t know how you went from Dr Cryan on the gut microbiome to ‘our toxic world’ to Dr Mercola, but you did it.
Here’s a taste:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22968153
“Studies are revealing how variations and changes in the composition of the gut microbiota influence normal physiology and contribute to diseases ranging from inflammation to obesity. Accumulating data now indicate that the gut microbiota also communicates with the [Central Nervous System (CNS)]–possibly through neural, endocrine and immune pathways–and thereby influences brain function and behaviour. Studies … suggest a role for the gut microbiota in the regulation of anxiety, mood, cognition and pain. Thus, the emerging concept of a microbiota-gut-brain axis suggests that modulation of the gut microbiota may be a tractable strategy for developing novel therapeutics for complex CNS disorders.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/the-weekend/audio/2018678197/erin-rhoads-a-zero-waste-quest
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/the-weekend/audio/2018678201/dov-alfon-stories-from-inside-israel-s-military
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/the-weekend/audio/2018678205/anthony-cabraal-tackling-a-broken-culture-of-work
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/the-weekend/audio/2018678206/john-cryan-how-your-gut-affects-your-brain
and an extra – on Canada, the venturing woman and Saudi Arabia.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/the-weekend/audio/2018678196/spotlight-on-saudi-arabia-s-guardianship-of-women
and, published 2010:
Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia by Jean …
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/613283.Princess
Rating: 4 – 26,738 votes
Start by marking “Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia” as Want to Read: … The true story of one of the princesses of the royal house of Al Saud in Saudi Arabia is told in a fashion that is both charming and riveting. The veil that guards the women of …
” I guess Slide Rule is about him personally?”
Yes it is. Nevil Shutes full name is Nevil Shute Norway. He explains why he only used Nevil Shute as his writing name (shit I am surprised no one picked up my typo) He was a mathematician working on the R101 Airship, Gives an insight into his political thinking and why he ended up in Australia writing novels about Australia and aircraft. A great engineer predicted metal fatigue long before it was understood what metal fatigue really was (No Highway). As I have said before I don’t recommend books as we all have our different tastes but it is a good read all about the British Aircraft industry in the ’20s and ’30s with great characters who he worked with like Alan Cobham and Geoffrey De Haviland.
“this Israeli book may be special; there isn’t that much sane thinking available to us from there.”
Oh I don’t know Grey I found Dr Yuval Noah Harari’s book “Sapiens” extremely good and he’s Jewish and lectures at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
but your recommendation has been noted and added to the list. Thanks
The thing about books, is that there are lots of info in them that you simply cannot find online.
+100%
The invisibility of class and the advantages of social capital: https://www.damemagazine.com/2018/07/17/the-self-made-billionaire-is-a-myth/
Yes, an essential perspective. The effect of social niche is often not factored into evaluation. Context is everything. As I’ve pointed out here before, all meaning is relative to context.
“humans are herd animals. If that herd happens to go from Stanford straight into the product manager program at Google, that’s what you do. There are a lot of people who were just on the assembly line from Stanford to Google to some little startup they sold for $50 million and that’s it. That track was just laid out for them, they just got on the treadmill and went down the assembly line and I don’t think most people understand how that works.”
The point is to learn how the culture of capitalism both forms and replicates. It replicates itself via the endeavour of the individuals it forms. Context produces matrix – recall the formative role of that being the feature of the movie. It created the social reality of the world. Only the minority rebels saw through it to the deeper reality in which it was embedded.
Extreme Wealth is Not Merited
Is there a place for difference in earning?
Yes, yes there is.
But there should still be no unearned income and no one is worth more than, say, 30% more than the average wage.
Who defines ‘unearned income’? You or me? Or some unaccountable Central Committee of Comrades?
And who defines your 30% ratio? Same committee?
Take my own life for example … the annualised income ratio between my first job as an after-school bottle washer in a chemist shop, and the one I’m doing now is (in real terms) probably in the order of 1200% or more. Why do you think the version of me that’s 50 yrs older is being paid so much more? And how exactly do you think this should be regulated?
I think that DTB’s idea of having some proportionality from bottom to top is right. We have gone up on the Bell curve? and I would prefer not to see it rushing down the other side. Why not ease up a little so the gradient won’t be so steep? Forget percentages – they are just indicators that have too many variables to be tossed into an argument.
Say though the minimum wage is just getting by level at $20 an hour, and with thousing play being the game du jour for the irresponsible economists that is a basic, then what would 5 times be like, $100 an hour, $4,000 a 40 hour week making approx $200,000 per annum. Stop the competition for housing from immigrants by reducing immigration numbers, and refuse to sell our land and housing infrastructure to overseas hot-pants money off-loaders and pay at the highest $500,00 p.a. Half a million would give a very nice lifestyle and housing could settle down to being necessary infrastructure at more reasonable prices.
If people didn’t like it they could take their money and go elsewhere. We would not be worse off in the long run. If we were short of top talent we could pay some big bucks on a short term basis and buy it in. We could afford that.
This is one of those questions that has no empirical answer.
We can for instance easily reject the two extremes; one where one persons owns everything and has all the income, the other where everyone has exactly the same income and wealth. Neither of these extremes is feasible.
But they are useful markers to help think about the problem. In global terms it’s fair to say we are much closer to the first extreme of everyone owning everything, than perfect equality. So this strongly suggests which direction we need to move in … towards spreading income and wealth more evenly. I’ve clearly argued elsewhere that the elimination of the extremes of wealth and poverty is one of the four big moral challenges of our era.
But how would we know if we had gone too far?
I don’t think we can rely on individual opinion; each one of us would have a different answer. Nor can any fixed number be relied upon to account for the multiple dimensions which determine income, wealth and social capital.
Nor should we rely on just one mechanism; progressive taxation has long been the traditional tool the left has wielded, yet other nations have tended towards tighter distributions of income before taxation. Others have taxed capital, investment and expenditure in complex fashions, and so on.
There is also a complex relationship between opportunity and outcomes; these two being tension with each other. We tend to maximise one at the expense of the other.
Nor is it easy to account for exactly how brutal the drivers of inequality really are, and how deep they run into our psychological being. For instance; how many tens of millions of talented musicians are there? Yet probably less than 1000 of them account for the vast majority of music listened to. Last year I was working on a site with 13,000 people, yet barely 100 of them would count as the key technical leaders. If you want a formal expression of this, checkout Price’s Law.
Outstanding success is a very rare thing; it’s distribution is exceedingly skewed. The vast majority of people are firmly lodged right at the bottom. This is true of all fields of endeavour, across all societies.
The modern world has largely solved the problem of absolute poverty; but it has greatly exacerbated relative poverty; inequality challenges us in ways we’re only just beginning to understand. The left exists to address this question; but our grasp of it’s true nature and our dialog around it falls woefully short.
The first extreme you mention is one person owning everything and we’re actually getting pretty close to that. It is, after all, the inevitable result of capitalism. So is the collapse of society that it will bring about.
The solution isn’t actually everyone owning the same amount but nobody owning resources, land, houses and other items that bring in unearned income. This would actually allow the labour market to work.
When we have increasing poverty while a few people have far more than they can either spend or use in their life time.
We don’t have equal opportunity nor do we have equal outcomes.
Perhaps the problem is our definition of success. As you say, there are millions of talented musicians but, despite these people actually being successful, we don’t see them as such because they haven’t made millions.
Which I seems to be largely because people don’t have the right ‘class’.
The ironic thing being that if a musician does become successful you accuse them of being thieves
The ironic thing is that people like you JS come onto TS and stay as if you find it worthwhile, and then start criticising and nit-picking.
What on earth do you mean by “you accuse them of being thieves”
If you are going to try for TS interaction and discussion can you please explain your line of thinking. I for one am tired of the tossers who toss-off some remark that they think as profound or shrewd.
DTB once said being rich was only achieved by theft. I countered that the musician or artist who becomes rich does so from the benefits of their own talent rather than off the backs of the poor. He never answered it so I mentioned it here as it seemed relevant.
Also – fuck off. This open mike and I’ll say what I want. Don’t like it? Don’t read it
🙂
Don’t like personal criticism or seeking improvement John Selway.
Don’t come here!
This is Open Mike and I’ll say what I want.
You are a good example of someone who is highly individualistic and doesn’t care about the purpose of this blog, which is to look at what’s being done in NZ and see how we can do things better.
Not to stamp like a three year old and run around demanding things be done to suit oneself.
owning resources, land, houses and other items that bring in unearned income.
Marx formulated his outdated theories in an era when the relationship between wealth and resources was poorly understood. It turned out Marx was completely wrong. By simple observation it’s clear that real wealth derives from a complex of factors; monetary and social capital, intelligence, talent, persistence and diligence, tolerance for risk, resilience, good looks, good luck and an energetic urban setting are some of the obvious ones.
In the early 1800’s it was natural to perceive labour in purely physical terms, but 200 years later this kind of ‘labour’ has almost zero global value. In a modern economy real value lies almost entirely elsewhere; and this is a trend that is rapidly accelerating.
Which I seems to be largely because people don’t have the right ‘class’.
This is true to at least some extent; class is real and has real impacts. But the West has moved very strongly in the direction of an equality of opportunity in order to mitigate this. You just can’t have a perfect equality of outcome at the same time.
Almost all of those immediately come down to luck, anyway.
Frankly, all I’d do is make it illegal for the state to countenance <60 median income after housing costs (as a poverty line, i.e. so everyone under that line gets a cheque from the government so they meet that minimum), then adopt a progressive taxation policy on all income so that marginal tax rates on more than 9 times the gross median income are something like 90% (everything over roughly $440k at the moment).
It wouldn't be perfect, but I don't think it would be too far wrong.
The reason progressive taxation fell out of favour with the electorate was due to Labour using it to fund big govt, so the question is how to market it effectively. Can you foresee Labour learning it’s lesson and campaigning on the combination of promising to keep the cost of govt down while pitching for a mandate to bring back progressive taxation on income?
They promised to keep government cost down last election. It is a promise I think they should not make at the next election. And tax is under review.
immediately come down to luck
Yes. The genetic lottery is a capricious and often cruel thing; but exactly what should we do about it?
Until we understand inequality properly; that it’s roots lie far deeper than mere capitalism or neo-liberalism, we don’t stand a chance of addressing it effectively.
It’s my sense the answer lies less with how wealth is distributed, but in how it’s used. A society that makes put’s energy into ensuring those that the bottom of the heap, even those it might despise as ‘losers’ are not disrespected and discarded is the moral platform we need to re-build. The idea that each one of us, regardless of our lot in life, is of value and worth, is the key idea.
As I said, my position is that what we should do about it is make sure everyone has the basics and tax the fuck out of the disproportionaly wealthy so that their children don’t have dolt-45 level unearned advantages.
We tried that, and while it worked for a while, because we didn’t have an effective moral defense for it … it all got dismantled in the 1980’s.
I’m not against strong progressive taxation; but I’d argue that by itself it’s a fragile tool.
And what Dennis said at 4:25
It got dismantled in the 1980s because more equal societies don’t stop people being corrupt fuckwits.
Getting an egalitarian and fair society is like quitting smoking. You do the good thing for a while, then someone succumbs to temptation. So you try again. And again. Forever.
Poverty is a direct result of capitalism. The whole system is designed to channel the wealth to the rich. That’s what it does and that wealth must come from the poor.
Get rid of the system that channels the wealth to the rich and we can do something about poverty.
We certainly won’t be able to do something about it until we accept that truth.
In the context of economics distributed and used are the same.
We either distribute the wealth so that there is no poverty or we distribute it to the already wealthy and ensure that we do have poverty.
So far, we’ve chosen the latter course.
Poverty is a direct result of capitalism.
Poverty … both absolute and relative existed long, long before capitalism. The inescapable problem is that differences multiply; success attracts success. This applies to all fields of human endeavour, the first 10,000 hours are the hardest, after that it largely a matter of pursuing the endless opportunities that open up to competency and integrity.
And even then, outstanding success remains an exceedingly rare thing. Indeed according to Prices Law of the 7 billion humans on earth, it’s just 80,000 or so who contribute 50% of the creative value and innovation to the entire global output.
Random linky: https://dariusforoux.com/prices-law/
No it hasn’t. In fact, over the last few decades it’s gone completely in the other direction as we’ve punished the poor for being poor while putting the rich, no matter how they got that wealth, upon pedestals.
Any income that doesn’t come from work.
So, rent, shareholding, inheritance, interest etcetera. For a more informed view read Why we can’t afford the rich.
That was merely a suggestion. I have stated before that there should be both a minimum income (UBI) and a maximum income.
Because we’ve got the valuation of work massively wrong. One of the interesting things I’ve noticed over the last few years is that those people we need the most are paid the least while those we need the least are paid the most.
Some time back I pointed out that a CEOs million dollar bonus, if given to the work force, would have been a 40c per hour raise. That million dollars still came from the same pile – the corporate accounts – but the workers had just been declined a pay-rise. The point being that high pay-rates for some are preventing decent pay-rates for others.
You should, of course, be paid more than teenage you as experience and knowledge count but is the job that you do actually worth the amount that you’re paid? The evidence suggests that it’s possible you’re being paid too much.
A minimum and maximum wage and then let the market sort it out.
The evidence suggests that it’s possible you’re being paid too much.
Interesting you should frame it like that; why not suggest that the bottle washer version of me was being paid too little?
Over and again your message translates to a hatred of the rich rather than any real concern for the poor.
He probably was.
No it doesn’t. That’s just you twisting my words to make yourself feel better as you’re one of the rentiers who should not exist.
you’re one of the rentiers who should not exist.
I scarcely have to twist anything. Not so much as a tinsey tweak ….
“Over and again your message translates to a hatred of the rich rather than any real concern for the poor.”
Hole in one. Draco is an admitted authoritarian who hates the rich (actually anyone who has riches because in Draco’s mind it all amounts to theft – even the artist who gets rich from their own efforts rather than from rents or inheritance)
He hates more than he empathises
No, it was just Red twisting things because he didn’t like the truth.
While I have your ear do you wanna get on to getting those citations I asked you for?
This on procrastination – do you suffer from this? Apparently it’s in our genes – so does that mean it is inevitable and we should just let it rule? This from Canadian who looks into our underlying drives.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/the-weekend/audio/2018677711/piers-steel-why-we-procrastinate-and-how-to-stop
I’m going to read that link when I get round tuit
Hah. Those round tu-its, I understand if you can collect enough of them you can clad a house in them like cedar shingles.
But who’s going to hang them .
Very useful if it works. I’m a terrible procrastinator and much of that is goal setting or failure to break them down so I get overwhelm of mental to do lists.
But there have been times in life I’ve juggled a dozen things seemingly effortlessly. With a plan, and a diary…
It never fails to amuse me how, as humans, we learn good helpful things then forget them just as easily. Like our default is to self sabotage.
Time management. That’s what I require right now. So simple I simply forgot.
I find that an attack of my chronic inertia seems to activate my congenital procrastination. particularly on hot days. I also forget that I have lost my memory somewhere.
WtB
Familiar story. But I like it. Perhaps there can be a society for the chronic procrastinator/fevered activator – goes like a see-saw. Who finds they tend to wait for a deadline and that sharpens your mind acutely and you can immediately judge how long each thing will take to a 3 minute accuracy?
I used to edit a monthly community paper. So I was writer, editor, sales, etc… 90% of it got done in the last week. Still managed to double circulation and triple the size in six months.
Then won > $6K with friends playing phone trivia, also coinciding with a nice sized holiday pay – and so went on a 6 week drinking jag (as you do) followed by a hospitalised detox.
6 months drinking in 6 weeks, now that’s efficiency.
Yes WtB some people waste their lives drinking too much over decades and end up with no life left and trying to detox. You did the short pressure-cooker course, and passed the third stage of wisdom successfully (learning from personal experience), and now have jumped that ravine and can journey on at a higher level. Poetic eh!
Be afraid
Be very afraid
Oceans Are Warming Faster Than Predicted
“Earth’s seas are absorbing excess heat 40 percent faster than previous estimates”
Chelsea Harvey – Scientific American, January 11, 2019
New Zealand seas in 2018 hottest since records began, dire warning for marine life
Michael Neilson, General/Māori Affairs reporter – NZ HeraldNZ Herald, January 11, 2019
‘
by Erika Spanger-Siegfried, Senior Analyst in the Climate and Energy program at UCS – Union Of Concerned Scientists, December 30, 2018
An ancient pre-literate myth; metaphor for the effort we need to recover our badly wounded climate.
Jenny – How to Get There
Which day of the week do you decide to note the latest, but then shut down for the rest of the day and night ie nearly a whole day leaving the world to everyone else to worry about and resting your weary mind?
But is fear of the future the best way to engage with it? I’m inclined to go with Monty Python instead. And that line they made a song out of had already been traditional folk wisdom for a very long time!
“When Chapman died on 4 October 1989, the five remaining Pythons, as well as Chapman’s close friends and family, came together at his public memorial service to sing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” as part of Idle’s eulogy. In 2005, a survey by Music Choice showed that it was the third most popular song Britons would like played at their funerals. By 2014, it was the most popular.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Always_Look_on_the_Bright_Side_of_Life
Were the young men who played football with blocks of ice on the deck of the Titanic brave, or just not aware of the true nature of the tragedy unfolding around them?
Did their levity in the face of the coming disaster help or hinder their chances of survival?
I would say that creating an air of carefree lightheartedness, would have led many, not to understand the peril they were all in. Even some who might otherwise have survived if they had been moved to action sooner.
If you are not afraid, you are not brave, you are just not fully aware of the danger.
Without fear there can be no courage.
Courage is acting despite your fear.
Speaking personally, Dennis, I don’t find your argument for levity in the face of the climate disaster compelling. To make light of the peril we are all in would, in my opinion, be a mistake.
P.S.
In the example you gave to back up your point; The mourners, at Graham Chapman’s funeral, were not themselves in any peril.
This tells me that you think the same way about climate change, that it will affect others, and not you, or those dear to you.
No, the precautionary principle must apply as regards public policy, but the problem with fear is that it tends to paralyze people. As with animals.
So to empower them, we must provide a positive alternative to a grim reality. One that opens up another pathway to the future which is viable. That gives them a useful basis on which to proceed.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/379964/mock-funeral-for-planet-earth-in-nelson
Alhough it isnt the earth at risk of demise the sentiment is clear
Thanks for the links Jenny.
Girls and I have been talking about this daily, usually as we return from a swim at the river or beach. Discussion about how we are going to work with the new climate also occurs.
The girls are now noticing the difference after five years of summer swimming at the same places. Visible marine life changes via sea temp’s; resulting in educating ourselves on sharing the water with stingrays etc.
Will share the info with them.
For the next time a commentator (or economist, or member of government) suggests cutting minimum wages, or benefits, or employment protections is a good way of improving employment outcomes. This is often called making the labour market more flexible/responsive/dynamic.
At heart the argument seems illogical because its based on a fallacy.
“What started the discussion was the allegation that the level of employment in the long run is a result of people’s own rational intertemporal choices and that how much people work basically is a question of incentives.”
https://larspsyll.wordpress.com/2019/01/06/cutting-wages-the-wrong-medicine/
Sadly the Future of Work is failing to understand these fallacies at all,
https://www.labour.org.nz/speech_by_grant_robertson_the_future_of_work_and_labour_s_economic_vision
“Already this year I have outlined two critical underpinnings of our approach. First, our Budget Responsibility Rules. In order to make our bold and progressive programme credible we have to demonstrate to New Zealanders that we can deliver it. They want us to show that we understand their desire for a government that manages our finances responsibly.”
Sadly this policy is harmful, restrictions of government spending reduce employment and importantly this net effect is not automatically equalized away by the economy responding to government spending (though the sensibleness of the above approach rests on this). The upshot of this will be unemployment in NZ will not lower as quickly as is otherwise possible (even if its not excessive). It also seems likely that the government will be slow to react to shifts in the economy resulting in a continuing pattern of an observable large increase in unemployment followed by a slow drawn out recovery.
“The Labour Party believes in full employment- anyone who can work should be able to work. As Minister of Finance I will re-assert Labour’s historic mission of full employment. In the first term of government we will lower unemployment to 4%.”
The goal of 4% is not particularly high, NZ achieved close to 2% unemployment across the entire period between the mid 1930’s and the mid 1970’s when the country actually had a policy of full employment. Further the meaning of full-employment is these days up for grabs and in this context probably refers to the NAIRU rate (as he goes on to talk about monetary policy). The NAIRU rate only looks at unemployment and so infers that full employment can include significant under employment (people who while employed want more hours of work). Also the last we heard the reserve bank believed the NAIRU rate was about 4.5% unemployment and the economy was beyond full employment.
“And we want all parts of the economic apparatus working towards that goal. That is why we will expand the objectives of the Reserve Bank to include not just controlling inflation, but also maximising employment. We want to modernise our monetary policy, recognising that in 28 years a lot has changed, and we want it to work for us, not the other way around”
The problematic implication here is that the reserve bank can achieve full employment and significantly effect employment by manipulating monetary policy. In the longer term this is thought to be the best approach to maximizing employment and use of fiscal policy is discouraged for this purpose (also see surplus above). Unfortunately this is fallacious, based on the idea that the economy will equalize away the net effects of fiscal policy on employment (and bring inflation in line with government spending). The upshot of this policy choice is that the employment rate will ultimately track the fortunes of the NZ economy.
“These are policies that aim to make changes for workers and employers easier and quicker, and thereby reducing unemployment. This involves helping people find work in areas that need them, helping people get the skills they need to fill gaps in the labour force, and anything else that can help those without work, or in poor working conditions, to find new employment quickly, simply and without hassle.”
Now to be fair, some of the measures outlined above are possibly reasonable and may help with the responsiveness of the labour market. But ultimately this is still based on a fallacy that unemployment is reflective of peoples desire to work. As Robertson made clear ultimately the government will *not* itself be actively ensuring that employment is available for all, this will remain at the fortunes of the NZ economy. This undermines many of the suggested policies, while work and income may be accessible to more people including those in work, if they can’t find jobs or better jobs this will almost certainly turn into work and income holding their users responsible for not finding jobs or better jobs and looking at their incentives. Training programs can be helpful, however if there are none of the anticipated jobs at the end then these become problematic and a waste leaving students with debt or at least having wasted significant time and still needing to retrain. There are also likely some labour market reforms which favor employers but didn’t get mentioned in full detail.
Ultimately, as I see it, this policy is a continuation of NZ’s long standing employment policies and will amount to Labours softer touch in government, but nothing more.
It is important for Labour to sound as if it is ready to fit in with whatever the death spiders of the financial world are weaving. Labour needs the bluster of a blowfly that keeps on fighting the sticky web, then rests, then has another go and often evades the spiders fangs wanting to suck it dry of its life juices.
That’s where we are now, in the web and losing strength. Can we make it to carry on our sort of valuable contribution to the world, or are we losers?
Good analogy greywarshark,
I for one have seen the total sellout of our NZ media to corporate control and influence.
I recall when Labour MP’s all solidly said that they want to see a government operated neutral balanced free from commercial media provided.
But we have since have just seen RNZ captured by the right wing element.
RNZ is just another right wing element of the National Party now.
Labour must take control the media; – or it will lose in 2020; – be sure of this.
Is that supposed to be not particularly low?
The NAIRU is non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment. In other words, it’s the rate of unemployment that prevents wages rising but still allows profits to rise. It is for this reason that all the benefits of increased productivity over the last few decades have gone to the rich rather than everyone. And, yes, New Zealand too.
Looks like Robinson and the Labour Party are still following the failed capitalist model.
Well we are still tolerating spiders in our midst. i.e Key in ANZ.
I think that your sentence gives the wrong impression patricia. We are in no position to have an opinion about John Key and what he does. This is the golden boy of the financially prominent and he has done so well for them here and even Australia, that they have given him a top award. 18 July 2017 >
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/94826194/sir-john-key-receives-australias-highest-honour
We tolerate him because we have to, having very little say in anything of importance to this country. (Why it is important to keep goals in sight and focus and look to mix with people who have integrity and who care about and respect others).)
I have been in Wellington on holiday for a few weeks and am due to head back home to Tauranga on Tuesday. I don’t have my car with me and didn’t want to fork out for a flight so I am getting a bus but it makes me wonder why we don’t have a proper rail network. I would have thought a train could start in Wellington, head through Palmerston North then branch off somewhere central like Taupo to New Plymouth, Tauranga and Gisbourne with another line heading north through Hamilton to Auckland, then heading further – maybe ending up in the Bay of Islands.
It wouldnt have to visit every town but at least the major centres
Because the politicians decided that we should all drive cars. Cars are more expensive but they create more work than public transport and more unearned income for shareholders.
Which shareholders?
Gas stations
Service garages
Oil companies
Road construction companies
All of these have owners that get income from others work. And the list goes on.
Maybe a clever person should start a kiwisaver fund that buys kiwis business. It s the best path to a public ownership of nz companies of a bunch non business minded strangers .
That’s just legitimising the continued ownership and unearned income.
My preference is that businesses becomes self-owned and controlled solely by those who work there.
There are some exceptions with natural monopolies that everyone needs at which point they should be state owned and provided as a government service.
How would you combat the to many chiefs in the kitchen problems . How would they gain ownership without some sort of massive uprising?
Mine is a more easy to reach goal I believe.
The whole point is that they don’t gain ownership.
And the government can always buy everything in the country.
So, government buys the business, sets it as a self-owned business and then leaves it alone as the people who work there run it. A total free-market.
It’s within the current paradigm but the current paradigm is a failure.
I think that idea has some merit – especially ones in which we would like to have a monopoly or near.
NZ Super Fund held 10% of Z Energy in 2016.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_Energy
Super Fund and Kiwisaver funds would have a good stake in New Zealand sharemarket. And the fear of state control of capital markets by state super funds was what Muldoon’s 1974 dancing cossacks add was about.
https://teara.govt.nz/mi/interactive/32721/dancing-cossacks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_Cossacks_advertisement
Yes but I thought that a hands off situation would present us with a
well balanced economy. But instead of the government making decisions it is Treasury and powerful people here and in other countries so we have a flexible exchange rate, and flexible this that and the other thing. We are Houdinis now. Perhaps we should turn around some of our accustomed behaviours after reflection, and find a new route.
It’s been an ideological battle in NZ politics for a very long time. Labour wan’t community or state /defacto state ownership of strategic assets, National wants private, preferably by their mates or donors, ownership.
NZ Super Fund and Kiwisaver are almost a guerrilla attack from behind the lines on the National view. And it may be working. Look to see what these funds do when NZ strategic and blue chip assets are being sold cheaply, bet they quietly buy. Otherwise they are playing in the international markets and doing quite nicely.
And both are very similar to what Labour’s 1974 scheme would have become by now, but probably 1/10 the size. Where we could have been with a good super / sovereign wealth fund from the mid 70’s haunts me a lot and I’ve detested the National party with a vengeance since that add aired.
Tremendously proud of our local MP Damien O’Connor.
The only downer about him being so very busy in government is…. we haven’t see him around as much at this time of year.
Hope he’s had a chance to enjoy a break with his loved ones over the summer holidays.
He’s one of the good guys,
Excellent article in today’s Nelson Mail.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/109466288/grappling-with-the-big-issues-all-part-of-the-job-for-mp-damien-oconnor
Wellington – Bus issues: timeliness, capacity, transfers … and route changes
January 9, 2019 20 comments
On the electric bus front, the current 10 double-decker trial buses will soon start operating all day, with the assistance of the charging station at Reef Street. I am pushing for the next order of Transit’s electric double-decker buses to be brought forward (22 more – all fabricated in Tauranga).
Daran Ponter – Wellington Regional Councillor
http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=115387
California needs to prepare for the next fire season. They used to last 200-250 days in the year, and now have elongated to about 300 days. Yet the government is not paying fireman, for training, for what is required to prepare for more wildfires.
Some furloughed employees see an additional irony because the shutdown has delayed fire mitigation and training at a time when President Donald Trump has attacked California for poor forest management. But Whittington said most of his former co-workers are determined not to get involved in politics.
How long is California going to put up with this deadbeat USA government that seems bent on ruining the country and making grotesque visions of the USA democracy? They have started talking about seceding and being the country’s wealthiest state, but under water constraints that must cut its horticulture crops, it may become obvious that they need to handle their own problems and their own money.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/beleaguered-firefighters-put-hold-government-shutdown-n957456
The only thing that matters.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/09/trump-threatens-to-cut-off-federal-funding-for-california-wildfire-relief.html
There is only one issue as there was in September 1939. Climate change now, or, 100 times WW 2. Christ help us, says an atheist.
I however wish some our Leftist prophets celebrated this magnificent civilisation ‘in the meanwhile’ whilist also criticizing the comfort-loving that will kill us. Sez a magniloquent comfort-lover.
sumsuch
You are so right. Do we enjoy what we have and be grateful and satisfied, also then, when we have had our plenty give what is left and still good so that others can have some too?
No, in general we are always trying for more. Some of us haven’t got past that grasp and hold mentality that saw people dumping good furniture and other stuff in the refuse rather than taking it to recycling – because letting one of those lazy b..s buy it cheap, no way.
Kia ora R & R I support equality for maori & our wahine they raise our tamariki so they deserve to be payed and respected for the great role wahine play in our society .
The way I see it is that Europee people are in most of the management jobs even on our farms and they give the best jobs to there M8 hence maori have a hard time climbing there ladder of life as the odds a heavly stacked against US . After all most jobs are filled by word of mouth first and for most . Maori must learn to do what the Europen do and look after Maori first wake up in all aspects of life jobs education sports culture. Ka kite ano P.S I back free snaitary prouducts for wahine at the least school tamariki
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute.
Some Eco Maori Music for the Minute.
Eco Maori could see this he is waging a war on the mokopunas future backing carbon and rolling back all the good laws that protected OUR enviroment that Obama installed to protect the creatures wai and the enviroment and who will be better off if global warming runs rampant. ???????????????????????????????
F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia
WASHINGTON — In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.
The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.
The investigation the F.B.I. opened into Mr. Trump also had a criminal aspect, which has long been publicly known: whether his firing of Mr. Comey constituted obstruction of justice.
Agents and senior F.B.I. officials had grown suspicious of Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign but held off on opening an investigation into him, the people said, in part because they were uncertain how to proceed with an inquiry of such sensitivity and magnitude. But the president’s activities before and after Mr. Comey’s firing in May 2017, particularly two instances in which Mr. Trump tied the Comey dismissal to the Russia investigation, helped prompt the counterintelligence aspect of the inquiry, the people said.
And when a newly inaugurated Mr. Trump sought a loyalty pledge from Mr. Comey and later asked that he end an investigation into the president’s national security adviser, the requests set off discussions among F.B.I. officials about opening an inquiry into whether Mr. Trump had tried to obstruct that case.
F.B.I. officials viewed their decision to move quickly as validated when a comment the president made to visiting Russian officials in the Oval Office shortly after he fired Mr. Comey was revealed days later.
“I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said, according to a document summarizing the meeting. “I faced great pressure because of Russia.
That’s taken off.”More recently, the president startled his own national security officials by suddenly announcing the withdrawal of troops from Syria, widely seen as handing a strategic victory to Russia and prompting the defense secretary James Mattis to quit. He also bizarrely endorsed the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Holed up at the White House with no official engagements, Trump then turned his Twitter feed to the other subject dominating US politics: a partial government shutdown which, in its 22nd day, is now the longest in American history, eclipsing the previous record set during the presidency of Bill Clinton. Ka kite ano links below.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/us/politics/fbi-trump-russia-inquiry.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94dBVPpymac
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute
Victoria
New Victorian windfarm could provide 10% of state’s energy
Golden Plains approved by Andrews government and awaits federal consent to proceed
The managing director of a company that plans to construct Victoria’s largest windfarm says the project will supply enough power to replace up to a third of the generation of the decommissioned Hazelwood power station at less than $50/MWh.
The Victorian government has granted a planning permit for WestWind Energy’s $1.5bn Golden Plains windfarm, which will become one of the largest windfarms in the southern hemisphere.
The project is now awaiting federal approval to proceed.
Victoria’s blackouts, Hazelwood’s closure and the search for someone to blame
Read more
The windfarm would span 17,000 hectares on land 60km north-west of Geelong and generate more than 3000 gigawatt hours of electricity per year – enough to power more than 400,000 homes.
Tobias Geiger, the managing director of WestWind Energy, said the large scale project would be able to supply energy at low cost.Tobias Geiger, the managing director of WestWind Energy, said the large scale project would be able to supply energy at low cost.
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“With this very large project and very good wind resource, combined with the latest wind turbine technology that’s now available, we can achieve a levelised cost of energy for this project that is below $50 per MW/h,” he said.
“If you put that into the context of electricity market prices from Victoria which for the past two years have hovered around $80 to $120 per MW/h, you can see the significance of this project for driving down electricity prices for all Victorians.” At $50/MWh — just 5 cents per kWh — the Golden Plains windfarm will produce power for less than the market cost of fuel alone for many coal and all gas power stations,” he said.
“And it’s big — expected to provide between 8–10% of Victoria’s energy.”
Ka kite ano links below
At $50/MWh — just 5 cents per kWh — the Golden Plains windfarm will produce power for less than the market cost of fuel alone for many coal and all gas power stations,” he said.
“And it’s big — expected to provide between 8–10% of Victoria’s energy.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jan/13/new-victorian-wind-farm-could-provide-10-of-states-energy
The neo alt right people can not sleep with all the Fame the Pacific people are getting at the minute they do what they do best and cheat and get a faulse story posted about
DJ the Rock. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has claimed the Daily Star fabrecated.The story, which appeared on Friday’s front page under the headline “The Rock Smacks Down Snowflakes” and was billed as an exclusive, was picked up by news outlets around the world
Read more
It quoted the actor as allegedly saying that “generation snowflake or, whatever you want to call them, are actually putting us backwards” and “if you are not agreeing with them then they are offended – and that is not what so many great men and women fought for”.
However, Johnson, a former wrestler who has become one of the world’s biggest film stars, used an Instagram video to insist the quotes were fake.
“The interview never took place, never happened, never said any of those words, completely untrue, 100% fabricated, I was quite baffled when I woke up this morning,” he said.
“You know it’s not a real DJ [Dwayne Johnson] interview if I’m insulting a group, a generation or anyone, because that’s not me.”
The Daily Star is overseen by the Independent Press Ka kite ano links below
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jan/12/the-rock-says-daily-star-interview-criticising-millennials-100-fabricated-dwayne-johnson P.S alt right are low down dirty cheats
Kia ora Newshub Auckland transport needs to listen to the people when warned about A road from the Oraki board being dangerous and asking for speed ristricting . I have my opinion on the people being named and shamed who attacked and robbed that old Wahine living by her self I will keep it to my self.
I say it’s a good move making Hamilton Bees testing for American foul brood dersase to eliminate the dease from Hamilton we need to change the way we farm from mono culture farming to many different crops in the same area and Organic farming to protect our Bees and insects awa & Tangaroa.
Its good to highlight the plastic that is used unnecessary on food products Tom we need to make everyone accountable for the plastic waste they make.
Good on Canada for granting that Saudi girl asilm she needed help the Saudis don’t treat there Wahine very respectfully. I Tau toko the Wellington Phoenix soccer club it would be good to see all Kiwis support the great game te Mokopunas could make a lot of putea playing Soccer Ka kite ano