Posts by DeepRed
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OnPoint: What Andrew Geddis Said, But…, in reply to DeepRed,
Mentioned in passing on Stuff. The Granny was a bit better, but not headline stuff.
Stop Press: Govt slammed over censored caregiver legislation
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OnPoint: What Andrew Geddis Said, But…, in reply to Tom Semmens,
this government is ideologically opposed to plans.
Unless of course, the plan involves effectively raising the barriers to entry to full participation in society. Just like a cartel from a high school economics textbook.
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OnPoint: What Andrew Geddis Said, But…, in reply to Hebe,
Add to that taking over Christchurch, New Zealand’s second-largest city.
Add to that condescending indifference at best towards Wellington. That means the usual suspects are effectively offside with NZ's 3 biggest cities - notice a pattern here?
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OnPoint: What Andrew Geddis Said, But…, in reply to Russell Brown,
The whole thing is part of the wider issue of Auckland being dragged kicking & screaming from overgrown country town to proper globalised city.
It defies logic for a city to be bursting at the seams while the rest of the country seemingly empties out. Unless of course, you're setting up a business that supposedly needs to be on the next flight to LAX/LHR/NRT at a moment's notice.
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OnPoint: What Andrew Geddis Said, But…, in reply to Ianmac,
Ominous. Arrogant Governance. Serious assault on the people of NZ. Nearly 9,000 visits to Andrew Geddis’s post on Pundit.
And on the MSM? Nothing. (I think it got a mention on National Radio news on Saturday then silence.)
What to do about it.Mentioned in passing on Stuff. The Granny was a bit better, but not headline stuff.
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OnPoint: What Andrew Geddis Said, But…, in reply to Sacha,
You think a government that doesn’t respect its own institutions is going to be worried about those ones? Now if the US or China threatened our trade or banking in any way..
We have to start somewhere. The Black Triangle Campaign in Britain offers a pointer in the right direction.
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OnPoint: What Andrew Geddis Said, But…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
some of his attitudes are “of his age” but otherwise reasonable.
As in the 'bring back Rob Muldoon' age? If so, some old dogs can't be taught new tricks.
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Not even the Ombudsman can do anything? If worst comes to worst, what possibility of going to the UN Human Rights Council or the World Court?
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Traditionally, it seems periods of above-average fuck-up-ed-ness bring out the best creative streaks. The Great Depression saw jazz, swing, blues and big band music thrive. The turbulence of Vietnam gave us psychedelia, folk rock, and the wider protest song movement. The breakdown of the Bretton Woods system saw the rise of the Sex Pistols, Bob Marley, and Joy Division. Gangsta rap rose up from the housing projects of the Bronx and South Central LA.
We're now into the Great Recession, and it seems no obvious musical groundswell has emerged. Any ideas?
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Hard News: Competing for Auckland, in reply to Sacha,
Unfortunately that includes English, Joyce and lord knows how many other dolts in cabinet.
I've come to the realisation that even basic public goods like housing and education have effectively been invaded by the textbook economic cartel model. In other words, the "market society".
Just as a cartel puts up barriers to entry by way of making it illegal or horribly expensive to enter a market, so too we're seeing barriers to entering the housing market and higher education. While anyone is legally allowed to buy a house or a decent qualification, it's become prohibitively expensive to do so, unless one is effectively born into wealth.
And as seen with the Unitary Plan and the NZ Power announcement, it's gotten to the point where the remotest threat to break up the cartel orthodoxy is met with howls of Reds Under the Bed. Those preserving the cartels have far more in common with the ideology they hate than they care to admit.
The British class system could be thought of as a state-sanctioned social cartel, while in America it's more like a private cartel where you buy your way into the system. In Europe, the Common Agricultural Policy has gone from relieving food shortages to an effective farming cartel by way of protectionism.
It all goes to show, with apologies to Ronnie Reagan, that the usual suspects read Adam Smith but don't necessarily understand Adam Smith:
"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary."