Posts by Richard Aston
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Damian discovered girls.
And perhaps drugs and rock and roll.
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Raising the retirement age by 2 yrs may have some merit and some economic advantage ( how much I wonder) .
But what about a finer tuning of super - asset testing, income testing or even basic needs testing - do you really need this?
I know many people who are asset rich, have incomes ( investments) and consider getting super a nice little bonus. Surely that just does not make any sense.
I don't tell me its too complicated to test eligibility, the IRD are masters at in in other domains. -
Ben - thanks for writing on the notion of super as a thank you to our elders.
I have been struggling to understand the other line that goes "I paid tax all my life so I deserve some back when I am old" it doesn't feel right and as others have pointed out it does actually work like that economically.
But to consider the broader aroha of us all looking after our elders in gratitude for the contributions of their lives, in respect for the fact we need elders freed up from nose to the grindstone work to ...um.. Be elders , it feels right. It feels human.
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Damian - what changed your take on the Libertarians - aside from getting older and smarter? I remember the Ayn Rand wave - those people were scary, their shiny eyes and brutally cold logic turned me right off.
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I watched the game in with some psychologist mates in a RSA . We’re all students of body language and had our own competition predicting the success of a kick by reading the body language of the kicker. It was scarily accurate – seeing if he was “in the zone” or not. Piri’s eyes kind of glaze over slightly, he has a very slight smile just before he kicks and does this deep looking down at the ball thing before moving .
It may be a brutally physical game in the whole but parts of it require an intuitive intensity that approaches art.
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Hard News: The Sound of Music, in reply to BenWilson,
Hah! I knew it. Freude!
And a bit Freudian as well
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I watched the AB/Argentina game with headphones on playing Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 , really loud – it was surreal and strangely congruent .
I think Stevie Ray Vaughn Voodoo Child could work too , no no.. how about Hendrix All Along the Watchtower.
Whatever it was way better than the crowd engineering pop crap they play at the match. -
Hard News: About Occupy Wall Street, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
he idea of war as a thing where you pack up your military and go way overseas is modern
um .. what about the Crusades
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Hard News: About Occupy Wall Street, in reply to Dylan Horrocks,
I feel more compelled right now to dive into the chaos and engage than I have in years. It's a moment of openness and potential and possibility - in stark contrast to the rigid hopelessness of the last 20-30 years. And that's exciting and fills me with hope - for all the confusion and fear it also provokes.
I am with you Dylan, quite aside from the right/wrong argument I get a great sense of hope when large numbers of ordinary people break out of their slumber to speak for and seek a better way. As you point out this can be chaotic but that is so often the case when social change happens.
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Hard News: Dropping the Bomber, in reply to DCBCauchi,
deal with them like adults
That where the complexity starts.