hs: there is a pretty good graph in the Morgan poll. DPF does a reasonably good composite poll e-mail PDF from curia monthly. I take the commentary with a vial of salt, but it pulls the polls together. I seem to remember seeing a link on kiwiblog to ...
hs: If you want a run down on examples of politicians saying nothing I recommend the following link when you have 10 minutes to spare. Excellent link. I was trying to pick JK's favorite strategy for dodging awkward questions as he isn't represented in the ...
I'd guess that the government will be putting TranzRail in as a part of the successful SOE model. That has proved to be quite effective in producing profitable enterprises once the capital expenditures have been done. Less opportunity for politicians to ...
Steve: you forgot to mention the existing customer relationships. When companies are sold that is usually the biggest asset. After all that is where you make money from. Book value is the absolute worst case. It is what you should be able to get if you ...
I'll sign you up. You look like you could be a good canvasser. captcha: heroes $75 See - costs a lot less in the NZLP
SP: I have a membership book handy - got a spare $15 handy.
jafa: I was not really political in 1981. Well apart from the tour where a police baton managed to send my teeth through my upper lip. In fact I actually helped the Nat's put up hoardings. That was because my father asked for some help and he was ...
milo: The other point I'd make is that you're really only talking about one benefit - the dole. The overwhelming number of people on the DPB are there because they have a failed marriage and young kids. Sickness benefit because they have conditions that ...
Opps - I buggered up the blockquotes somehow.....
milo: And I think John Key follows that tradition, sometimes seen in the National party, of compassion. Kiwi Keith was certainly in that tradition, and Muldoon was as well, albeit quite incompetently as a long term policy maker. The question of if Key is, ...
DS: Agreed, aussie is really wierd. But they have some of the most 'interesting' electorate seats outside of the southern US. Have you ever seen a map of one famous southern US electorate - its shape looked a bit like a corkscrew. Mind you, those hamilton ...
DS: That is useful getting the detail. j: At a 'feel' level for me, 1990 was the worst as a labour supporter. Phone and door canvassing that year was really bad, and it carried through into the 1993 election. 1984 was the same, but the other way. There was...
Ironic isn't it... Oh yeah. One thing you have to say about this country, it certainly believes in overturning the "political rules". I was just contemplating the numbers that Steve put up in the post. Those are probably pretty unique in the 20th century ...
hs: I've seen far more left leaning interventionist governments in my lifetime than the current mob. And the most left-leaning interventionist with popularist bits of quick-fix was the ignoble national governments from 1975 to 1984. They explored the ...
rOb/Phil: also read this press release from last year Building interest in politics key to voter turnout survey results from the electoral commission. BTW: I tend to trust the EC's polling more. They use much larger samples than the public polls, and ...
I suppose you could say that I suspect the polls at many levels and I have done so since the 80's. I think that their methodology sucks, their quality control is lousy, and they are a classic case of what you get when you hire monkeys at low rates of pay. ...
Phil: I've been involved in political canvassing since 1983. All the major parties do it to one degree or another. You do it because you get to talk to the politically inactive. The ones that don't turn up at public meetings or write on blogs. It is rare ...
BD: What is amusing about your comment is that most on the left would complain how far to the right this government is. Irish was complaining about it in the previous post. It seems to me that you lack a certain level of historical perspective. It is also ...
Know the feeling. All this house cleaning today has definitely gotten me a bit more ummm sarcastic than usual. I hate domestic chores. Mind you I was just scanning Real Mummy. Just reading the posts was starting to make me really glad not to be around ...
hs: Oh they'd have looked at them. They are interested in trends. But notice that I used the word "obsessed" quite specifically. What gets me is that way that the msm does things like saying "this is the way that parliament would look", and then treating ...
Personally I don't think that the politicians are obsessed with them. But the mainstream media certainly are. Seems to be a cheap way to get a headline story. Perhaps editors and journo's should get some mandatory education in demographics and statistics. ...
rOb: Can't agree more. The superannuation benefit has been tracking pretty much above inflation for the last few years once you count items like the rates rebate into it. But benefits like the DPB and sickness haven't as far as I can see. They're benefits ...
It is not only possible, but I'm coming to the conclusion that it is probable. There is no doubt that voters are generally grumpy at present, and a lot of that is directed at the government. Each tends to have a different reason, but there doesn't appear ...
bb: You appear to have avoided looking at the drops in the "benefit roll" over the last decade. They didn't happen under the national politicians because frankly they appeared to be adverse to doing any hard work during their last watch. Changes in the ...
Yeah - well there is something about getting near the sharp edge that tends to sharpen the focus on politics. In my case it was seeing the effect of using a M60 on sheep at the range in the army, hauling grunts in with frostbite and exposure, hanging out ...
hs: I always hate that attitude of voting against rather than voting for people and policies. It tends to be quite prevalent amongst the young. As a generalization (but all too often accurate), I often wonder if they bother to think about their future ...
Steve: thanks - those explanations (especially the graph) made it much clearer.
Joker: you name yourself well. Your simplified assumptions say more about your intellect than almost anything else you could have done. The reason why I gave an idea of my income is because there has been too much concentration on the upper incomes in the ...
MP: I'm actually more concerned with the fiscal drag at the bottom end rather than the top end. If you look at the slopes in the graph above you can see the change in the velocity of tax increase with income. It steps. Now consider that just wages at the ...
Steve: What would the reduction in lowest bracket tax do to the effect of low income rebates? And I don't understand this at the treasury site:- Statutory tax scale from 1 April 2000 * 19.5c per $1 on income up to $38,000 * 33c per $1 on income between $38...
That was just digging tables out of an old textbook. Fortunately I'm at home today. "Geochemistry" by Arthur H Brownlow Prentice-Hall 1979. It was state of the art at the time. Reading the modern stuff makes my head hurt. I'm more impressed by this graph ...
Recent Comments