Posts by Idiot Savant
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But we're pretty confident Sarah P will never read it.
Hadn't you heard? She reads all the magazines...
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I'm terrible with names. I'm not sure I try properly - perhaps if we all did that American repeating-peoples names back as often as possible thing it would help.
Alternatively, we could pursue a technological fix. The Romans had one, in the form of a slave who had to remember names and prompt their master. Nowdays, we have computers for that.
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Jeremy: facts may tell you how to get what you want (if you're lucky and its an easy problem). They may tell you what other people want. But they won't tell you what you should want. And that means that arguments between competing ends (which are the very definition of politics) can never be settled empirically. At the end of the day, we simply have to accept that other people will want different things, and settle it by voting as a substitute for kiling each other.
This doesn't stop you from pointing out that people's international comparisons are bunk, or that their proposed policies won't achieve what they want (and are in fact counterproductive), or that policy X will have consequence Y. But if people want different things, we're just stuck with it.
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The truth is not that hard to agree on
Wrong. Or rather, its a category error to think that there is such a thing as a true or false answer to the questions of politics (all of which boil down to "what should we do?").
There are facts about the world, and these should affect our political answers (at least if we're remotely reasonable people). But at the end of the day, there's no truth in politics - only interests.
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Based on figures from 2004? Try 2008 Annex Table 25.
That would be total, rather than core crown figures (the difference is explained well upthread). Try again.
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s52 and s53 of the Crimes Act, which provide for "defence of movable property" by way of "reasonable force", but require that the defender "does not strike or do bodily harm to" the offender. So beating someone with a hockey stick doesn't count.
That's the bit I was thinking of. You can hit someone if they're hitting you, but not if they're simply taking your TV set. Money isn't worth shedding blood in this country.
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Ian: there may also be a question of proportionality. People are allowed to use reasonable force in defence of their lives or those of others. They're not allowed to use force to defend property, because we're Not Bloody Merkins.
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The PREFU is out; comments here. Short version: $6 billion deficit next year, no room for further spending, and we're in the red for the better part of a decade. Aren't you glad Dr Cullen saved for this rainy day?
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can anyone help with definitive, up-to-date numbers and any relevant commentary?
Information on the size of the NZ state is in any Budget; recent figures are here. Core crown expenditure was forecast to be a mere 31.8% in 2008, about the same level it was in 1997 (I can probably dig up some older figures if you want). I can't find total figures (which include the balances sheets of SOEs), but IIRC they're somewhere in the mid 40's.
International comparisons can be tricky, since you need to make sure you're comparing apples with apples. The OECD should have something somewhere, though.
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Ex New Zealand First MP and High Commissioner to the Cook Islands, Brian Donnelly, has passed away at the age of 59.
Suck. He was a good guy, and NZ First's only liberal.