Posts by Andrew C
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Hard News: What about that Welfare…, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
So an Economist (Rebstock) has a better idea about what Doctors deem unfit for work because they are ill, invalid, or other? Y’know, Doctors who spend up to hundreds of thousands of dollars getting (what she must obviously think a waste), a Science degree.
As an FYI, the 3 friends I refered to earlier all have found doctors who are prepared to sign medical statements saying they are unfit for work. None are unfit, and, and this in my friends' views, the doc's all know this and are aware of the true reason for the requests and are simply playing along. Just sayin.
I mentioned previously I think the issue of bludging is trivial and thus not worth worrying about, but I guess the above means that at least some portion of the medical figures contain an element of fraud.
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Hard News: What about that Welfare…,
My response to the statistically negligible ‘bludger’ problem is that, like Peaches, I just. don’t. give. a. fuck. and I suggest everyone else stops giving a fuck too.
That's my view too. But for the sake of argument, what ideas are out there assuming we do give a fuck
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Hard News: What about that Welfare…,
Almost most of the people I know who are on a benefit would rather not be except for a rather small number who have made a life style choice
Ignoring middle class friends with small children who receive working for families and/or childcare subsidies, all of the 3 friends I know who are on the dole are what would generally be classified as bludgers.
It is a choice for them, they dont want to get a job, and actively seek ways to stay on the dole via any means possible. All are capable of working, all have qualifications of some description, and I believe all could find work if they tried. They simply dont want to.
Question: does anyone have ideas on how this specific type of beneficiary can be identified and culled which wouldn't make life hell for those genuine beneficiaries? Or is the consensus this is basically just too hard to do and we have to take a few licks for the greater good.
I guess that at least in part this is one of the questions the working group is attempting to address. Ive seen complaints so far but havn't really seen ideas. Do we have any?
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Hard News: Morning in Auckland,
[side thread jack]
@hilarystace[side threadjack] Marcus have you got a link to that article? I'm really interested as to why people put their kids through non-evidence based treatments
An american with interest in this once explained his view of why to me along the lines of: in america there is an underlying belief that if anything bad happens to you, you should be able to seek remedy. And that also sort of implies that if something bad happens to you and you can blame someone/something, then that someone/something caused the problem. And if something caused the problem, then something exists that can be unwound or fixed.
I've done a fairly bad job of repeating his line of reasoning, but hopefully you get the drift.
So there is this underlying belief that something must exist which they can try and fix/cure. And as conventional medicine doesn't offer fixes, they turn to alternative therapies.
Fringe frenzy: As many at 75 percent of autistic children are receiving alternative treatments not developed by conventional medicine, which are often bogus.
If this stat is real, that's pretty amazing...
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Hard News: Morning in Auckland,
@Marcus Turner
Interesting article on "Autism Cures" in the latest Scientific Amercian.
Thanks for pointing this out. Man the cranks are certainly good at mobilising the troops into the comment zone.
I wonder if Orac will give it a once over.
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Hard News: Meaning well with the money…,
Well, that doesn't count. But is there something inherently wrong with the business model that finance companies adhere to?
Again, I'm not personally interested, I'm just wondering if this can be done right?
I would be interested to hear ideas around what to look for also.
Brian Gaynor said this morn that he doesn't believe the industry is dead, just that it will stop looking for its finances from Mum and Dad investors.
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Hard News: Meaning well with the money…,
Are there any good ones? And how would I be able to tell if they are any good?
Well, there are many still covered by the govt guarantee, so from a purely financial perspective you can easily find safe havens for your $$
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Hard News: Meaning well with the money…,
Some late replies to earlier entries
The Government this morning paid out $1.7 billion to cover investor losses - about $150 million more than it was required to
Anyone know more about that last bit?
Recently a firm called Torchlite had arranged the injection of some capital into SCF to keep it going, but as a condition it required first dibs on up to ~175m before any other claims could be made [fairly normal when you are a risky enterprise asking to be propped up].
The concern was that Torchlite, as the priority creditor, could force the firesale of assets at bargain basement prices simply to recover enough to get its monies owed - as long as it got 175m it wouldnt care how much value it was throwing away.
Clearing them out of the way tidies things up and improves our chances of extracting maximum value from the assets.
Mixing some threads:This debacle also shows what a dumb idea it was to extend the RDGS to finance companies. It is one thing to protect customers, who are innocent third parties. It is quite another to protect investors. What next? The government will guarantee people against gambling losses?
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The idea was to prevent a run on the Finance Companies, followed by a tidal wave of collapses and then foreclosures and forced sales across the country as they all went under at once. So it worked pretty well in that respect.
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With the proviso that we'll never know whether it would in fact have happened, yes.Some numbers. When Lehman Brothers was allowed to collapse in the USA it was the trigger for the biggest shitstorm financial disaster seen in the world since the Great Depression. Lehman Bros represented 0.5% of US GDP.
SCF represents 0.8% of NZ GDP. So we were definitely in the same ballpark of figures that have a recent precedent for financial major epic fail.
We now have SCF collapsing in a fairly orderly and tidy fashion. While not having any collapses would have been the ideal outcome, avoiding a catestrophic meltdown which reverberated across all sectors was the next best thing. The USA has had wealth destroyed many many times over and above the face value of the collapsed investments themselves, the DGS is (hopefully) acting as baffels in the way of similar shockwaves.
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Gutted I missed the Maori game, trawled some of the rugby newsgroups and Twitter later in the evening and realised I'd missed a classic.
Hunt down the haka, it was totally aws! At one stage during it the maoris suddenly marched forward 3-4 paces in unison, tv camera was perfectly lined up in front at ground level showing what the English would see. Freekin terrifying..
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Hard News: The Disingenuous Press,
Read somewhere, he is off to Metro. or I am completely wrong. :)
You are correct
Plunket confirmed at the weekend that he had reached an agreement with RNZ and his first political column would appear in next month's Metro magazine, the Herald on Sunday reported.