He still loves his wife. But after 25 years of marriage, he has lost his enthusiasm for sex with her. Still. It is Valentine's Day. And she?

Seriously. WTF is wrong with you people?

Maybe you have to say that a bit LOUDER. It hard to hear over the roar of the twin turbo diesel's. Or maybe you sound just like a nagging wife.... to them........and the volume is adjusted accordingly.
Great column btw.

I've always been skeptical of the "privately owned companies are more efficient" meme, especially in the context of the New Zealand economy and work culture. Yes, I don't doubt that in some specific cases businesses can be made more?

I think the argument is that, free from meddling government ownership, they can raise more capital.

You know, I can't even remember the names of their spouses. A refresher is obviously in order!

Not necessarily. You could be mortgage free, but with a smaller house.

To simply rule out any asset sales carte just doesn't make sense. (Otherwise,?

Well, obviously his argument is so powerful it's not necessary to talk about it.

A better analogy might be selling off your downstairs flat that you're currently renting out to some nice tenants who pay a handsome rent. You'd reduce your mortgage, but lose more in rental income, and the new owners?

The current stated reason (in Key's speech) for privatisation is that we can't acquire more debt, therefore we need?

You're stretching my analogy. All I'm saying is that when you sell equity to pay off debt, you don't end up any richer.

To simply rule out any asset sales carte just doesn't make sense.

I think I?

Marty at Te Standard reminds us of recent history.

In 2008, John Key?s line was ?New Zealand doesn?t have a debt problem, it has a growth problem?. In?

If true it should be fairly straightforward to show how well the privately-owned Contact has outperformed Might River, Meridian and Genesis over the last 10 years... No?...

And Fallow is exactly right. If I was David Cunliffe, I?d be pissing my pants with glee at getting away with tax policy that?s being paid for with New Zealand?s generous?

I do not see that AsureQuality, Learning Media and Quotable Value operate as natural monopolies.

Nor for?

I don't think the housing investment analogy sheds much light but if one?

And one worth having but like Labour's tax policy how the hell do you engage with an argument that isn't being made with any degree of seriousness? It's like trying to dance with thin air.

Oh, you mean leveraged property speculation? Why didn't he just say so..

Only, we don't have a high level of debt. If "we" is the Government, that is. Private debt is high, but?

Possibly the best argument against is that we aren't increasing assets here,?

I'm not clear about what he meant though. Didn't he mention schools and roads as examples? They don't seem to be in the same category of 'assets' to me.

I'd be a bit careful drawing straightforward analogies here, even within a particular sector. Most of the time the devil is in the?

Selling us back assets we already own is simply nonsensical. See my reasons here

http://sustento.org.nz/nz-privatisation-tina-is-back-in-town/

And if we really need hard cash now we should liquidate the overseas piece?

Well, yes and no. One of the?

Yeah, what Ben said.

More specifically, our downgrade risk isn't due to net debt (public + private debt) in isolation, but?

may not be true if the productive asset is held by NZ residents as the investment income is not lost to NZ.

GAH! The operative word is *sell*. The plan is to *sell* the asset. If NZ residents are to get the asset, they must buy it. In order to?

There is no cash. Not unless it's physically under your mattress. If it's in the bank, the bank is already doing something with it. And if you go buy something with?

Like mortgage lending? Or consumer debt financing? I don't see why the asset that is liquidated must be one that is "productive" (e.g. a loan to a company producing widgets).

Don't you hate it when people point out the realities of the world around you, and it makes no sense for it to be that way, and yet that's the way it is.

In which case, why isn't the Commerce Commission batting an eyelid?

And it's obvious who really profits from selling what's left of the family?

That is productive for the lender (i.e. They make money out of it).

I don't see why the asset that is liquidated must be one that is "productive" (e.g. a loan to a company producing widgets).

Because we live in a capitalist society.?

In any case, there's might be little point in talking about the virtues of a partial?

Fuck that. Keith Ng for President!

Word. If you're selling 25%, why not 100%? Once the entire debate boils down to the terms used by portfolio managers,?

The problem with?

I would have thought anyone on a relatively low income. One problem though is whether not?

I expect it will be much harder to get a partly-privatised power generation company to investigate alternative generation methods, or?

We are told that we need to sell power generation so that we can build more schools and roads and other things.

Selling parts of the pie, wh8lst shrinking the pie, so that you can eat more of the pie doesn?t help grow?

Yes there is -?

Selling for a profit to who? Given you?

and that was what I was trying to get at with my second paragraph – the rich pay more tax than the rest of us – if?

Not really. If this was automatically true then you would never see shareholder structures with significant/controlling minority shareholders as?

One of the financial commentators on?

Oh I'm damned sure it's going to be?

OK, thanks for clearing that up.

As im not much of a financial person, could you give insight into which would be the more appropriate figure to use in this case?

return on capital, that last line should read.

Depends really on the question you are asking. If you were a company looking at what projects to invest in, you would use return on capital. If you were a cashed up investor looking at various?

Why ?opposite"? Isn?t what?s proposed for the power companies the same as Air NZ?

But I?m?

It?s still quite hard to think of a clear underlying philosophy on why they shouldn?t own fashion stores though.

If there were clear policy objectives that could be met by doing so, then there would be an argument for owning fashion stores. That's why we own a bank, for example.?

Given the subtle corruption of the ratings agencies leading up to the GFC, I would call valuation of property a service too essential to be trusted to the private sector.?

Also, if nobody else has said it, here's Gordon C from yesterday.

That's what I was saying earlier – there's no focus on the income side of the ledger in Key's public pronouncements?

Including the geniuses threatening the credit downgrade that trader Key is jumping to avoid.

No, they don't. I'll leave that one up to Keith or others. Been tackled here many times in the past, but the amount of dodging is striking.

Thanks. Worth a read. And concise.

As has been said many times, it wasn't the wholesale flogging-off that improved Telecom's performance, it was turning it into an SOE.

Thanks. Worth a read. And concise.

He always is. Gordon and Lyndon both deserve columns at a major newspaper, or at least regular slots. I'm sure there's a market for clear-headed analytic commentary. In the meantime, we'll just keep on Scoop'n.

those poor bastards who?re trying to raise a family on the back of two, or three, minimum-wage jobs.

The disgustingly discriminatory secondary tax rate still applies, right? If there's any tax that slugs the poorest, it's the one that means the person struggling to pull together 30 hours a week?

It's like living in a country run by Ricky Gervais.

– Gordon Campbell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SK3y1a8TYs

This is sooooo true. The SOE period of Telecom's existence was one of significant capital investment and substantial improvements in performance. Under Deane, Telecom's capital investment fell to?

It's the newspapers that don't deserve them.

That said, I'd so live in a country run by Ricky Gervais...

This relates to my earlier comment about private ownership and the corporate model making it hard for state operations to implement policy goals. To me, it is the extent to which state ownership enables policy that justifies that ownership. When we neuter the state's ability to direct the?

"There just isn't the money to go out and borrow one-and-a-half-billion dollars and start repairing schools," Mrs Tolley said.

She planned to consult Finance Minister Bill English on getting more cash, but would also?

Do they bear any relationship to reality? The guy can't justtify the costings of his own policies, so a smidge of scepticism would be in order.

And why hasn't any government tackled it?

And in a country where unbridled capitalism is still the flavour du jour in many levels of bureaucracy and government, regulation is a word that engenders responses?

Dividend yield is a calculation of a return on capital – it is the ratio that shows how much a company pays out in dividends each year relative to its share price.

The share price is the cost of the capital.

The Div yeild calculation = annual?

there are arguments that ownership isn't the only way in which you can achieve public policy goals, regulation and incentives are others.

Oh, absolutely. My point is simply that even partial privatisation effectively closes off a government's options. In some cases, of course we won't care about that, but I?

ETA: The share price is not the cost of capital in financial analysis terms. The share price may be a reflection of the market value?

And as Gordon Campbell observed:

In the circumstances, the fact that our captains of industry dare to lecture the public about the innate superiority of private sector performance is simply breathtaking.

The opposition needs to find some?

regulation is a word that engenders responses similar to those one gets from bringing angels on horseback to a kosher dinner party.

For good reason

Regulators, mount up!

Warren G.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1plPyJdXKIY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPEvB_NEvSs

Heh.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/4433678/Treasury-to-lay-out-case-for-against-asset-sales

So either someone's calculations are wrong or the other?

I've been somewhat convinced that the benefits of ownership might be overstated by some of the applied behavioural economics thinking/writing of several groups in Australia, percapita?

Ha, nice. New to me too – I remember reading somewhere that Warren G had deliberately decided to chose one of his dad's favourite songs to g-funkify,?

Possibly you're being far too clever for me, but that seems overly complicated. Why not simply refer to the heralds underlying (irrational and terrifying) beliefs, or the hubtext for short?

Oh, it absolutely is. The problem is that NZ has no history of such things that inspires any sort of confidence. Our single biggest contribution to?

I've not yet read it yet but follow his blog closely and admire his work.

NZ also has a population the size of Australia's largest city, making for rather?

Gordon and Lyndon both deserve columns at a major newspaper

Aw, shucks.

Y'all may or may not be aware that Gordon is syndicated in sundry Fairfax community papers. Which may be by way of emphasising your point.

Hmm.....no mention of Momentum Consulting anywhere......

Paragraph 22 says

22. The NZSIS carried out the following required checks for an application of this kind:
? check against security database
? police history check
? credit and company check
? questionnaires from nominated referees
? interviews with nominated referees.

Last part of Paragraph 30?

I think that oversight would've been mentioned very prominently indeed had it occurred. An interview with the subject isn't exactly a "check", which may be why it's not listed.
Going to the trouble of interviewing two (or more)?

(Ah, the 80s! How I miss them!)

Having held a Top Secret clearance now and again, I can confirm that the SIS do not customarily interview the subject as part of the vetting.

New Zealand?s approach to security clearances is not like the?

You need to look again, then. It's your reputation that they're checking.

Gotta say that Bryce's blogging has really been speaking to me in the last year. All our parties, not just the left-wing ones, are lacking ideological backbone, lacking sincerity, lacking the commitment that comes from a?

Hmm, well... I can only comment on the process, not the?

Sure, as I said, it's been 5 years. But going by that book, Wilce should not have been cleared. As to the US, they may have changed that since 9/11 but it wasn't?

No difference there. The government pays tax on them if they own the shares.

Assuming same dividend:?

If that is what this govt really want to do they could issue limited amounts of government stock that can only be?

In a nutshell, no.

Much?

Something that deserves tackling

She is correct in that many of the key players behind the global financial crisis have yet to be held accountable – and may well never be.

But she spoilt it by lapsing back into incoherent rant mode?

Great. I'm fully determined to die before I have a cold shower.

1) People can create wealth.
2) People can use that wealth to buy things.

People using wealth to buy?

A two party trade (NZ government & NZ public) of a good with a clearly defined monetary value (shares) is pretty close to a zero sum game, not factoring in the time value of money.

Apart from time value of money arguments, I?

It's very powerful ;-)

Yes, probably. But the deficit is, largely, a private sector problem. Reducing government debt-related outflows doesn't deal to the 80-something percent of our foreign debt that is?

Maybe, maybe not. The report into the affair was quite clear that nothing that came up in the review was so damning that Wilce absolutely wouldn't have been given clearance had it been discovered during his vetting. More than?

I don't see that being proposed – only to reduce future borrowing for unspecified core assets which may or may not have productive revenue streams. Of course as mentioned upthread it's all the same giant obfuscation as?

That as well.

Agreed. (ETA: And I said as much as well).I was pointing out that Keith?s assertion that there is no benefit is only true if you are talking about wealth creation.?

hmm? You mean accusing Pike River management of collusion and "an orchestrated litany of lies"?

The next-of-kin of the Pike River miners will not be satisfied with any ruling?

Prime Minister John Key has revealed his celebrity crushes and says he's envious of Shane Warne's ongoing fling with a "hot" Liz Hurley.

Key ­ who is married to his childhood sweetheart, Bronagh ­ opened up about what high-profile?

My analysis is that it sucks and he blows – what is yours?

Lecturer in Political Studies at Timaru University, Fraser Newdick, said that Key had recaptured territory lost to him over the last couple of years.

"Being interviewed on Tony?

A two party trade (NZ government & NZ public) of a good with a clearly defined monetary value (shares) is pretty close to a zero sum game, not factoring in the time value of money.

It boils down to an idealogical approach to life doesn't it? Owned by all for a?

Andy Gray has just received the harshest red card in football.

His sacking from Sky Sport (England) this week, after recordings of some non-broadcast remarks he'd made were leaked to the tabloids,?

Sport deserves more than to be represented by a group of overgrown frat boys

Heh I thought they were the perfect representatives of modern day sport.
When its all about winning at any costs. Even being a decent human being.

Revenge of the Jocks, methinks?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw6zrInbtQE

A focus on increasing New Zealander's investment in NZ to fund more of our growth from our domestic savings/markets would be better than reminicsing on who you would most like?

A quick squizz at the FTA suggests not. Provided everyone is treated the same regardless of whether the investor is NZ resident or China resident (and also no worse than any other nation – MFN status), then?

Even the Herald noticed a pattern.

They were applauded for being "laddish" and outrageous on screen – but no one is laughing after a fifth panel member of the sports show Game of Two Halves got himself into?

Weird moment of truth from Key on Breakfast this morning. He admits government debt is low and private debt is high. Why then does he expect Mum ad?

Whether or not you think government debt is currently at sustainable levels, the elephant in the BoP room is?

Supposedly these assets will be sold back to the owners. But the owners are broke, and if they don't?

Ignoring the loss of government revenue from dividends, of course. And at its worst the Smiling Assassin and his band of merry men are projecting that government debt will top out at about 30% of GDP. These asset?

5% of GDP is a lot of money to play with – it represents around 10% of the current government expenditure.

As 1/6th of the current debt position that is also significant.

I don't see how you can say it's not?

A government with balls would respond with a capital gains tax. Whatever else you may think of them, at present?

Sounds awfully familar. Next step, those first-round investors all sell out at the?

Agreed. As is the case in Australia.

Revenge of the Jocks, methinks?/quote>
Nerds ....Jocks...who the fuck doesnt want to kick someone's arse.
And (more importantly) who DOESNT FUCKING deserve it!

Which could also be done by implementing a CGT – but without making the rest of us pay for your opportunity.

If I thought that there might be a sufficiently-large pool of "mum and dad investors" out there with cash to spare?

A CGT to bnidge the cap in reckless spending is not responsible govt.

If Govt debt sits at 20% of GDP, then bringing the spend under control and promoting growth?

The Greens are promoting it, and labour aren't, as far as I'm aware. How does CGT reflect badly on both?

Anyway, your concerns are not shared by the experts (sorry, 2nd?