Posts by Kumara Republic
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Many of them clearly aren't comfortable with the idea of a bloody great big motorway splitting their suburb.
I wouldn't at all be surprised if the costs of paying off the residents for an above-ground Waterview route approach or exceed that of a tunnel.
And would Owen McShane say what he'd usually say if it cut through Remuera or Epsom?
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Ironic for the supposed party of business to be stuffing that up and reinforcing the delusion that our future is just more farming. There's a reason our streams are polluted, and there's only so many of them you can hide the externalities in. Call that ambition?
And with the current econo-political thinking (or lack of it) weighted towards the size of one's Range Rover rather than the size of one's brain, it'll be an uphill drive.
Once again, I've dug up this journalistic oasis from the Granny:
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Perhaps we should be happy that even the innumerate and illiterate are engaged in work and paying taxes. Perhaps merely maximising productivity is bad.
Paradoxically, nations like France have high productivity rates as well as high unemployment, by way of bolshie workers being replaced with robots.
The States & other New World nations are grappling with the same issue of functional illiteracy as well, to varying degrees.
In NZ, expansion of production in any sector except the purely intellectural hits a huge barrier called "the ocean" which tends to limit ambition, compared to the possibilities afforded by a continental location.
In other words, the "bach, boat & Beemer" school of thought.
Yet another reason to secure our digital trade routes - while FTTx is good, it'll be not much more than 8-lane digital freeway from Morrinsville to Matamata without the "digital trade routes".
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Would it be nice if the left avoided the Monty Python redux?
As in this Monty Python redux?
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Matt P:
But there's a serious aversion within NZ business to the concept of "You've got to spend money to make money." This even extends to getting professional advice, where businesses will avoid it as long as possible and then only grudgingly hire the cheapest consultant they can find. In the long run, that can cost far more than it saves.
That I agree on. It seems to date back particularly to Black Monday and the subsequent DFC collapse. There was a similar effect in Adelaide when the SASB went bankrupt, depriving it of much-needed investment capital.
NZ turns out a large measure of know-how, but most of it goes overseas or stays under the radar because most of NZ's investment money has gone into McMansions. A good start to addressing that problem would be to take a leaf of the US Democrats' book, and remove tax benefits on suburban properties above a certain plot size. Going by the Democrats' example, that would translate to about 278 sq m. And it would still circumvent the politically suicidal capital gains tax.
According to the NZ Business Roundtable, of course, Germany has it all wrong...
They like to point to Germany's near or actual double-digit unemployment rate. In reality, the figures are skewed by the much higher unemployment rates in the former East Germany, which had the indignity of Joe Stalin foisting a puppet government on it.
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Any group of 'freedom fighters' jump the shark the moment they set off a car bomb.
As Mike Davis starkly describes it:
Fourth, like even the "smartest" of aerial bombs, car bombs are inherently indiscriminate: "collateral damage" is virtually inevitable. If the logic of an attack is to slaughter innocents and sow panic in the widest circle, to operate a "strategy of tension", or just demoralize a society, car bombs are ideal. But they are equally effective at destroying the moral credibility of a cause and alienating its mass base of support, as both the IRA and the ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna, or Basque Fatherland and Liberty) separatist movement in Spain have independently discovered. The car bomb is an inherently fascist weapon.
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Matt P:
Working longer is not the path to increased productivity, though. Any politician who tries to argue otherwise should be ignored out-of-hand as having not the slightest fucking idea what they're discussing.
Once again, encouraging people to keep up with the Joneses and buying the latest Range Rover or lifestyle block seems to be the prevailing economic doctrine. It'd be unfortunate if the mortgage and credit card sectors go Icelandic, but I suspect it's the only thing that will jolt overspenders to their senses. Westpac's Brendan O'Donovan I believe described it as the Freddie Mercury economy: "I want it all, and I want it now".
Sofie:
I also got a letter on behalf of Rodney Hide, and that just confirmed we have no say in Megabeggardropapopamiss. Now I will lower all expectation of a for the people by the people city. I continue.
Maybe there doesn't even need to be a poll tax to screw things up after all.
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Me, I'm trying to come to terms to the fact that it's being rescued by FIAT. That's like being told how to keep on the straight and narrow by Satan.
Parallels with the post-British Leyland motor industry in the UK.
And Pontiac has just been killed off by GM. GM basically has until the start of June to get its house in order, or face Chapter 11.
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PS.
Kiwi Party - TBA
Legalise Cannabis - TBA -
Stop Press:
The candidates so far (in party alphabetical order)...
ACT - John Boscawen
Greens - Russel Norman
Labour - David Shearer
National - still tossing up between Melissa Lee and Ravi Musuku
Progressives - no candidate
United Future - to be announced ~14 MayKind of hedged my bets for Meg Bates tho. Maybe a high list placing will make up for it.