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notices and features - Date published:
6:00 am, July 25th, 2017 - 19 comments
Categories: open mike -
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The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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New NZ twitter discussion thread:
#LeftWithEnough
At the hashtag are the tweets from last night’s discussion: focus on poverty, homelessness, etc
started by Keep Left Waikato
If you are a programmer can’t you do most of your work remotely making where the employer is irrelevant ?
Similarly can’t PB tech courier you the products you want ?
………. and where’s my fecking flying hovercar !
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[lprent: I see that was on my post. I guess you didn’t read it. Banned until October 23rd. ]
We should be importing single seater drones and all be flying around Auckland?
This is a picture of some of my home computers. That part of the electronics collection has at least 10 3.5″ drives with over 16 terabytes of storage and then there are innumerable SSDs as well. Not to mention assorted laptops, phones, keyboards, mice, breadboards, portable raid drives for holding raw footage (my partner does documentaries), screens, switches, network links, cables.. All of which require maintenance and parts
What programmer ever leaves their work at work? Fastest known way to lose a profession.
One part of the cluster is The Standard. Which I send time linked into from my long days at work (and when I am home I’m linked to the work networks).
Because I’m seldom at home during their couriers delivery hours and I live in a pretty secure apartment complex that couriers can’t get into and provides no place for them to leave stuff. Couriers just mean that I have to drive to Morningside or a delivery point during their working hours to pick stuff up.
Sometimes your supreme lack of attention to details still surprises me
Clearly you have a confused idea about what programmers do.
You cannot afford to have people trying to undercut the authorities on issuing disaster evacuation orders. Like a fire in a theatre or other building with people in it, the one you get wrong is the one that will kill.
If you have five minutes, one of the most important videos you can ever watch on climate change.
The Guardian is beginning to really follow the Trump-Kushner-Ross money trail:
https://www.theguardian.com/international
Will be great to hear how Muller deals with the extended remit into financial affairs; there’s no going back from ‘follow the money”.
“Todd Barclay has come out of hiding, returning to Parliament with a cheery smile as if the past month never happened.”
Perhaps he is happy because he will have been set up with a high paying job within the “Club.”
The seafaring/coastal shipping industry used to be one of the largest employers in New Zealand. Since coastal shipping routes were opened to overseas shipping companies in 1994, having a seaborne career (unless you want to join the Navy) is almost impossible, as New Zealanders are being bypassed in favour of cheap overseas labour.
Now from the looks of it, carreers such as farming, hospo or hoticulture may end up being closed off to New Zealanders.
Lol. Douglas came up with the idea of a universal benefit… …no… …the Romans did. Paying citizens a bread stipend.
wrapped in the flag….
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DFib8oXXYAE_LI1.jpg
In March this year Tanzania banned the export of raw gold and copper.
They are forcing the economy away from bulk exports towards higher valued refined or processed goods. Their President has also banned exports on raw gems as well (like the lovely Tanzanite you can get in the jewellers now).
The Tanzania President had been promising to do this for some time. Few African leaders really carry this kind of threat out, even fewer have stable democracies as Tanzania does.
In New Zealand this would be like banning all raw logs and all raw water and all powdered milk exports – until they were shown to be processed in this country. It’s a pretty radical change.
I sure ain’t defending everything the Tanzanian President has done. But he’s not proposing to renationalise anything – only to get more value kept within Tanzania. He’s putting Tanzania first. He is definitely giving the impression that one leader will not be cowed or dictated to by the investment community or major international mining companies or the trading markets for such minerals.
For all its gamut of minerals, Africa still depends on foreign investors to extract resources from its mines, while the financiers keep refined gold and cut diamonds in their vaults in London and Belgium.
In the context of the ongoing downgrades by Standard & Poor’s and Fitch, this might sound like one is promoting policy recklessness. Far from it.
The argument, rather, is that it is wrong for Europe to own the technology, intellectual property and the profits for making auto-catalytic converters out of platinum mined in Africa, or for Switzerland and France to make billions from jewellery manufactured with African gold, while Africa struggles to keep investors happy by shying away from building its own downstream capability.
Like comparing Fonterra’s near-raw processing to Nestle’s vast FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) empire of milk, sugar and chocolate.
The other instrument he has at his disposal is tax.
This guy has just handed the major gold exporter a $180 billion tax bill.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-24/acacia-gets-190-billion-tax-bill-it-would-take-centuries-to-pay
Of course it will settle for a fraction of that.
But this President has balls of steel, by making the multinational miners pay, and so doing good for his country.
I’m sure it’s unthinkable in New Zealand – where governments are so cowed by Fonterra since it is a creation of the government itself.
Just nice to see a leader go for full economic transformation, without reverting to communist renationalistation inevitably at the pointy end of a gun.
I like what Doug Casey has to say about UBI – it’s stupid, versions of it have already been done (and failed), and just like during the industrial revolution we will find other ways of making money as we are replaced.
https://www.caseyresearch.com/doug-casey-on-universal-basic-income/
Well, I read through it and don’t recall ever having seen as much hyperfellating dialogue before.
But man, the dude really hates people. You can tell he’s a bit of a Randian.
His main argument seemed to be that even though he thinks we’ll probably be able to afford a UBI, it’ll A) make people lazy and B) will never satisfy the bounds of avarice.
To which I respond “A) so what”, and “B) maybe so or maybe not, but it will satisfy the bounds of need”.
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Which means to say that he’s lying. Yes, some versions of it have failed but the good ones worked really well.
Do some reading and get a little educated.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/08/universal-basic-income-socialist-libertarian/
https://www.vox.com/first-person/2016/11/14/13513066/universal-basic-income-crowdfund
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-santens/minimum-wages-vs-universal-basic-income_b_7957850.html
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Ok can we please now leave the kid alone. Todd Barclay has fronted back at Parliament. His career is over. He is a bit of a dick but he is also young and his resignation should now be enough. Leave him alone. Anything else is starting to be a bad look.
Cigarette salesman aside.
Yeah, nah.
We’re still paying for this turkey – if he’d resigned as honour demands we could leave it to the police, but he’s still got both trotters in the trough. Do you think he’s doing a good job? Indications are that an empty space does it better.