Why stop at Ministers' and MPs' salaries? Reduce the number of MPs! (Wasn't there a referendum one time, with a thumping majority in favour of doing just that?) And why don't we forget the absurd fiction that Cabinet has to number 20-odd? Everyone knows ...
Whose economy?
Absolutely. Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene II is a perfect demonstration. Brutus gives a closely-reasoned academic analysis of why he and his band believed it necessary to assassinate JC. Antony responds with a shameless appeal to the emotions and baser ...
" .... when it starts to seriously affect them will be demanding that 'something be done about it'" By, of course, that government that they're usually so anxious to banish from their lives.
I haven't the time to trawl through all the material available on the site that Alwyn has linked to, but what I have seen suggests there's little or nothing there that supports Adrian's contentions.
Me too. Try and hit too many targets, you're liable to miss most if not all of them. A relatively small but dedicated group of activists who are focused on a tiny number of objectives (or preferably just one) are always going to achieve more than a flabby ...
Whatever helps get rid of Plastic Man.
The AA mag has long been a total waste of trees and china clay (used to make those glossy pages). I wish they'd make it optional in return for a reduction in the sub. Obtrectatrix once sent them a draft article detailing the trouble we'd had contesting an ...
Looks like Wellington, end of Willis Street leading up to junction with Lambton Quay at what used to be called Stewart Dawson's Corner.
Fact is, it's becoming harder to dispose of unwanted books, as Obtrectatrix and I have been finding lately. Fewer people are wanting them; the second-hand bookshop we used to sell to is no longer paying cash to replenish its stock (swaps only now); even op...
The link to the Telegraph story doesn't seem to be working properly, but I was able to look it up via Duckduckgo. I stand with Roz. How in hell did that "Whadareya" character get to be appointed to that sort of position? Cis- and trans-women have to have ...
Some heartening news (for once) from Turkey: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/31/turkey-local-elections-istanbul-mayor-ekrem-imamoglu-recep-tayyip-erdogan
Another example of thoughtlessly uttering a politically and culturally loaded phrase, without understanding the context. (C/f recent uses of "from the river to the sea".)
I don't see how real estate capital gains generate wealth. They're just a mechanism for redistributing it.
Same here, Jilly. Always have it in coffee, though - way better than cow's.
Slightly higher even than that! For a few years in the 1970s, the top rate for investment income over UKP20,000 was 98% (83% for income of any sort, plus a 15% surcharge on the investment part). Equates to 19s 7d in old money.
Ah, but prove he was driving it at the time ....
It also benchmarks in case it wasn't obvious that Maori business are no friend of liberal causes Green, Labour or TMP. Those people are businessmen first and foremost, whose Maoriness is largely incidental.
According to Wikipedia, they lost their charitable status in 2022.
What, no formal Mod Note for Mr Vercotti Sanctuary's comment?
I too detest this mindless tribalism. No one person or party has a monopoly on good ideas (or bad ones).
Data that's specifically about persistent (i.e. long-term and/or inter-generational) poverty is no longer being collected: https://www.stats.govt.nz/help-with-surveys/list-of-stats-nz-surveys/about-the-living-in-aotearoa-survey/ As Kate Prickett remarks in...
"Taxes on unrealised gains are an accountants dream and the publics nightmare." Taxes on unrealised capital gains were tried in the UK nearly 60 years ago, via an outfit known as the Land Commission. It was a fiasco. The way it was set up. people were ...
Rule One for drafting questions to be included in a poll: don't use hypothetical ones!
I've held aloof from the GI debate so far, mainly because of a personal conflict. On the one hand I want to be tolerant of non-binary people, but on the other I'm unconditionally supportive of cis-women's right to be unmolested by male-bodied bullies of ...
Queue Cue.
But serious deforestation only began around 300 years ago. Even earlier than that, I believe. Population of the British Isles AD1600 is estimated at around 6.5 million, less than a tenth of today's. But already by then forests - an essential resource for ...
As I said five years ago: https://thestandard.org.nz/what-if-trump-wins-again/#comment-1676109 The de-education process has continued in the meantime, with the Covid pandemic providing an accelerant.
.... because they knew damn well he would probably try to restore BAU, pre-war style - a prospect up with which they were determined not to put.
Predictions: * prescription fees return * independent (community) pharmacies have no choice but to charge them * meanwhile, big international chains like Chemist Warehouse refrain from charging them because they can afford the temporary dip in cash flow, ...
And most importantly, it damages our chances of getting an implementation of the Treaty that we can all agree to. Classic extremist technique - don't take out the opposition (it's needed to justify your own existence). Take out the bridge-builders instead,...
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