Hard News: Is that it?
327 Responses
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B Jones, in reply to
When is nanny statism not nanny statism? When it's paternalism.
When the Prime Minister is male? There's a funny gendered undercurrent to this - see John Armstrong:
It is the kind of policy that a lateral-thinking Labour Party should have been promoting to confound its critics and shed once and for all its lingering image of political correctness in order to recapture some of the huge number of male voters who have switched to National.
I thought it was the huge number of female voters who switched to National after Brash left that tipped the balance, but nevermind. I'm not sure of the answers there but it bears thinking about on those terms, especially after that whole "men who think like men" business.
Izogi:
Or do the young and job-less all get forced to live in a small town with a 4-square and a closed meat-works factory, because that’s the only place where rent is low enough for the allowance?
Where they're not allowed to move to while they're on the dole because there are no jobs there, thanks to a policy change in the early-mid 2000s. Catch 22.
The part of me who vaguely remembers studying economics in the early 90s would hope that someone affected by this policy would be able to choose an appropriate balance of rent/food/utilities costs to suit their own needs. Otherwise it's central planning that interferes with people maximising their utilities, imposing a cost to the economy. The essential difference between a neoliberal and a conservative is food stamps.
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Jeremy Andrew, in reply to
Misopaedia - the Japanese soup wiki?
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Che Tibby, in reply to
Misopaedia?
"an appreciation of the erotic qualities of soy-based soups".
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The parents in that group will be expected to be in education or training by the time their child is one year old, and a National government would fund childcare to make that possible.
I fear only the first part of this sentence will ever come to fruition.
(But then I am apparently the last male Labour voter).
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Idiot Savant, in reply to
"an appreciation of the erotic qualities of soy-based soups".
That would be misophilia, and its probably a love-hate relationship.
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I know of a young person who was sent to one of the six week boot camps. He went willingly and fully expected that there would be a job waiting for him when he finished, as that was the hype. Unfortunately, that didn't seem to be part of the plan at all. To go on the boot camp you have to go off the benefit. He now has to do a full reapplication and faces a three week stand down with no money before he can go on it again. One more let down vulnerable young person.
Another example of state ephebiphobia - a fear and loathing of young people (thanks Gordon Campbell).
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
Sound employers and good leaders - both of which this nation needs more of - consider more than bare input costs, just as productive employees are motivated beyond dollars.
Instead we have this abomination happening right here in NZ, while the perpetrators feign disbelief and the victims face deportation.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
Misopedia then? :) I had the desire for a miso soup myself.
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As I ranted on Bernard's comments…
No wonder the party faithful were whoopin’ and a Hollerin’ like a bunch of Tea Bagger Tories.
Dear leader and his pals found a way to get the hating going without losing many votes, 16-17 year olds vote?. Yay, blame the kids without jobs while the NZX rakes in the dividends, the likes of Freightways ramp up the profits and our richest 150 bludgers get a 25% boost to their coffers. Yup, got to close that gap with Australia
“New Zealanders desperate to move to Australia are being told not to bother.
Rather than the good life they are expecting, they risk finding themselves broke and homeless” according to the Herald. Yay, let's all be broke and homeless.More and more we are being told that we are being protected from those “Evil Ones”, in this case 16-17 year olds, last year it was “Boy Racers”, perhaps now the Yoof can’t afford cars. Judith (lock him in a cell with a “cellmate”) Collins promised to chush those cars, more hollow rhetoric
Are these people really offering us a brighter future or just offering us bogey men.
Welcome to (Brave) New World, Order… while stocks last.
</t’shirt Moment>“In the past, politicians promised to create a better world. They had different ways of achieving this, but their power and authority came from the optimistic visions they offered their people. Those dreams failed and today people have lost faith in ideologies. Increasingly, politicians are seen simply as managers of public life, but now they have discovered a new role that restores their power and authority. Instead of delivering dreams, politicians now promise to protect us: from nightmares.”
Adam Curtis -
Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
Sadly the Oyang 75 crew were up for deportation Saturday gone. They needed $500 each to appeal and no matter how Labour tried, National blocked any chance for an urgent question to waver the appeal fees to be able to remain and deal with their plight.For starters they hadn't been paid, and they were up for fines for breach of contract if they returned. Not sure what happened to them after that, on Thursday :(
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Big Brother isn't watching us. Big Daddy is.
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Hebe, in reply to
Impossible I am assured by my scientific survey (sample: one, margin of error 100%).
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Russell Brown, in reply to
I thought it was the huge number of female voters who switched to National after Brash left that tipped the balance, but nevermind.
I thought so too. Also, I find it unedifying seeing Armstrong all over it as election strategy without bothering to ask whether it's consistent, sensible or likely to be an effective use of taxpayers' money.
It's like these guys are all so fixated on calling the damn race that they can't bring themselves to ask how that boot camps thing from 2008 worked out.
Sort of appalled, actually.
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merc,
Seeing how the numbers stack up on this one would be quite good. 23 million? over how long for how many and with a view to achieving what?
Maybe we could even post evaluate these things? -
Sacha, in reply to
I had the desire for a miso soup
That'd be the Auckland snow/sleet/graupel - not seen since 1939.
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
That'd be the Auckland snow/sleet/graupel -
Some people have many words for snow...
Just not the Usual SuspectsBut the truth is that the Eskimos do not have lots of different words for snow, and no one who knows anything about Eskimo (or more accurately, about the lnuit and Yupik families of related languages spoken by Eskimos from Siberia to Greenland) has ever said they do. Anyone who insists on simply checking their primary sources will find that they are quite unable to document the
alleged facts about snow vocabulary (but nobody ever checks, because the truth might not be what the reading public wants to hear).The prospect of snow must chill the hearts of television weather forecasters, as well as writers covering the Winter Olympic Games in Sarajevo, because there does not seem to be any short, acceptable synonym for ''snow.''
They are forced, after the first mention of snow, to refer to it as ''the white stuff.''
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
Thanks for the link. I saw that mentioned in a related report somewhere. I don't know terribly much about it, but I find people going out and finding positive, practical solutions to problems a very welcome breath of fresh air after so many decades of the right preaching petty, narrow minded, grasping, short term greed, Labour half-arsedness, all sides bashing whoever's found themselves at the bottom of the heap, and negativity in general.
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
Well, if, as some here are suggesting, this new youth unemployment policy is an experiment which, when proved successful, will be scaled up to all beneficiaries, then why not scale up Otorohanga's experiment to cover the whole country? It would seem many a mayor is trying precisely that at their local level, what's so hard about a bit of central government support?
And Otorohanga small? I live in a city with somewhere in the region of 5 times New Zealand's population. I struggle to see 4 and a bit million in an island group the size of an average Chinese province as "too big". Sounds to me like he's making excuses.
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Pfft. Everyone knows poor people are poor because they make bad decisions. Obviously, if you let rich people make their decisions for them then they won't be poor any more.
Or, once you get away from the line they use on National party voters, there's got to be a profit to be had out of all this welfare stuff. Billions of dollars, even a lousy 1% rake is good money, and you can basically guarantee they'll never get off the benefits if you're careful about it.
Why, with all that money, you could push for policies that create high benefit dependency. Get everyone on them. Help low wage workers with their money too. Hell, get a cut of those retirement funds while you're at it.
Needs a name that, something to do with National's socialism. Hmm.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
Yes, yes. Whatwhat. Pfft! :)
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Hilary Stace, in reply to
I didn't realise they were deported so fast. Was that reported anywhere as I missed it? That is an appalling example of man's inhumanity to man. I hope that cruel deporting government gets their karmic come-uppance.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
Dunno, I watched question time on Thursday. That 's what unfolded and in the end Wilkinson got up to offer an answer and due to a procedure missed, and raised by David Carter, Lockwood Smith wouldn't allow it thus ending question time and a possibility to help. Check Hansard
I see it appears not to end question time but Red Alert has it here -
There will be more in Hansard because of the request for an extra question isn't mentioned on that Red Alert link. So may have been the last question afterall.
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No, I missed that, sorry. I think I get your argument now. That the youth minimum wage should be topped up to the adult minimum wage? That’s not such a bad idea.
I'd struggle to find a good argument for why the government should subsidise employers to discriminate against young people.
re: National's welfare announcement. I'm not at all disappointed that they've announced welfare reform, you expect that from a national government at some stages. What's disappointing is that it's just age discrimination - attacking young people who can't vote, and who are a popular electoral target, and 2, that I doubt there's any evidence elsewhere that this strategy actually helps.
Dog whistle indeed.
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BenWilson, in reply to
I'd struggle to find a good argument for why the government should subsidise employers to discriminate against young people.
As a small step towards something better from an already fucked system, it makes sense. But for sure there's no way I'd have ever thought that youth rates were a good idea. I grew up with them, having my pay adjusted at every birthday through my teens, on the paper round I did, despite the fact that the round never changed. I was delivering the same papers to the same houses when I was 13 as when 16.
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