Posts by Rob Stowell
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Thumbs up :)
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The house looks beaut in situ! And gotta love that Canterbury sky overhead :)
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Perhaps not the place to post it exactly, but Philip Matthews (bless you, mate!) takes a good hard look at what's happening at the University of Canterbury.
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Gawd, that was a shocker orright. Singing the virtues of our current economic system must have taken all the rational and melodic energy that writer had to spare, leaving nothing but the tide-swept debris of prejudice and spite :)
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Hard News: #JohnDotBanks and all, in reply to Gudrun Gisela,
Parker announcing a new Conference Center, three times the size of the one just destroyed
Jeeze this is ludicrous.
Has noone considered that the grand junkets, where hundreds of boffins jet off to the furthest corners of the earth to talk shop, drink, smooze, and indulge in bored adultery, are bound to disappear under cost-cutting, rising fuel prices, global warming, and the ubiquity of instant telecommunications?
Parker et al appear completely unimaginative. Wot we had, only bigger. Bet we get to call it 'The Parker Centre' so out-of-towners can roll up looking for a space to plonk their camper-van. -
Hard News: Telling stories about us, in reply to Kumara Republic,
Anyone here watched 'housos'? It's an SBS mocku-reality series about people living in govt housing, featuring 'kev the maori' and his wife. Funny. But might put you off visiting Oz altogether :)
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Hard News: The Base, in reply to BenWilson,
Interesting ideas, for sure.
I can’t levy taxation on other people, nor can I print money. The government therefore has an entirely different set of options to deal with the economy than I do – they can use both of those powers to balance the books at any time.
If you consider that monetarism was in large part a response to ‘the problem of inflation’ it explains (some of) the preoccupation with limiting money supply. Brash kept throttling our economy throughout the 90s just doing his job- keeping inflation between 0-2%.
Inflation seems fairly benign from here, but that hasn’t always been the case- and it’s the obvious reason Govt’s power to print money isn’t unlimited.it is actually possible to bankrupt the government
If you share a currency with other countries and a central bank (like the EU) it is entirely possible. It’s interesting how other ‘currencies’ are emerging in Greece (ie barter systems).
In wider terms, while the world runs on interstate trade (which requires a common unit of value, still at present mostly the $US) isn’t it also possible to have an effectively bankrupt govt- to the extent that other countries/traders/banks simply won’t deal with the currency they issue? That wouldn’t be a problem in a country which didn’t essentially rely on external trade- but apart from maybe Myanmar/Burma, I can’t think of one off-hand. -
Meanwhile, David Cunliffe gets in a solid speech, signalling a clear rejection of neo-liberalism. What more could a leftie want for breakfast :)
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Good luck and a jinx on the rain gods :)
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For the Mike love haters? Nah, it's ok, really! http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2012/04/25/151355713/hear-the-beach-boys-best-new-song-in-40-years?sc=fb