Posts by Sacha
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That a man who himself is a public servant of such long experience can be so willfully ignorant of the facts on the ground is an indictment of him, personally.
Treasury probably do not see themselves as part of the public service, and their woeful engagement with either that or any other external reality is shown in their regular mindfarts and tragic forecasting errors.
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About Sian Elias. Rex Widerstrom's response in the Kiwiblog comments (direct link so you don't have to wade through crap) has some good quotes from overseas chief judges about the boundaries of their role. The Western Australian one says:
Although Judges are servants of the public, they are not public servants. The duty of a Judge is not to give effect to the policy of the government of the day, but to administer justice according to law, without fear or favour and without regard to the policies of the executive government
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Martin Taylor does not seem to understand that selling "access" is what has fundamentally changed. Old media's position as privileged gatekeeper is not coming back any time soon, though I note Taylor would like to "regulate" for that - which I guess puts him somewhere near the s92 US lackeys trying to prop up their previous lucrative positions.
Maybe suggest he read a bit of Clay Shirky and then get back to us. Actually, someone buy Colman a copy of the book.
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What more proof do we need that the business model is unsustainable. :)
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Emma, your mother must be proud to have such a compassionate, thoughtful and brave daughter.
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Ask a cow.
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wrest control of our destiny from ourselves
Comes down to who we think "ourselves" is, and whether we acknowledge it changes over time.
enjoy both Vegemite and halva
And a measure of progress might be knowing never to combine them.
Having said which, our surge in migration over the last couple of decades was certainly not negotiated beforehand, so unresolved fear (and Winston) is to be expected.
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A question perhaps best answered by potty-mouthed readers: does the beef-based soap taste any better than the palm-based? (Well it is a thread predicated on hedonism)
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Logan, I believe the complaint about palm oil is not its productivity but the placement of those plantations.
I agree about the far from benign impact of our own farming industries. Idiot/Savant has recently graphed their carbon impacts.
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Threadjack (unless somone can make it about chocolate or elitism): I don't remember where Finlay McDonald was being doubted here recently, but his SST column today is a forthright reflection on Key's recent speech about bravely rescuing our economy by doing nothing.
Nine months into this government's first term we might be forgiven for expecting a little more. But it is all we'll ever get from politicians who are capable of identifying the problems but prevented by ideology and intellectual timidity from offering honest analysis of the causes and therefore real solutions.
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Conservative and liberal commentators alike acknowledge that New Zealand cannot hope to return to its pre-recessionary ways, buying and selling houses to fill up with consumer junk bought with the borrowed savings of more successful national economies.
The trouble is, without meaningful reform of the fundamental economic conditions that have created and sustained this fantasy, New Zealanders can only ever be expected to behave in predictable ways.
Our capital markets are feeble, our finance companies black holes, so we invest in personal property. Our tradeable sector suffers due to manufacturers and exporters being routinely hobbled by an over-traded and over-valued currency. Our foreign-owned banks have used the hot money gushing through their coffers due to that volatile exchange rate to flood the economy with credit, fuelling the preoccupation with property and flat screen TVs. We train lawyers and accountants instead of scientists and engineers. We can't save because we're already borrowing just to maintain a static standard of living.
...The silence is deafening. At the same time we seem to be looking in all the usual old places for signs of "recovery" – house prices and sales volumes, a pulse in the sharemarket, an uptick in consumer spending.
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