Posts by linger
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OnPoint: Fiscal Responsibility is the…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
OK; want to try applying that point to the fruit & vege exception?
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I’m inclined to believe Goff on that detail at least.
If Australians can do it, how hard can it be to administer? :-P -
Hard News: We interrupt this broadcast ..., in reply to DexterX,
BTW: you may reasonably infer I will not be voting National, but nothing I have posted should lead you to believe I'd vote Labour.
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Hard News: We interrupt this broadcast ..., in reply to DexterX,
Both National and Labour Govts RAM shit through under urgency. It is not unique to either of them. Except when Nats “do it” it is evil and when Labour “do it” it is for a greater good.
You can’t reasonably do a “plague on both your houses” on this.
Urgency is not always a bad thing in itself – if used responsibly, for legislation that actually needs to be put into effect quickly, and for which public submissions are unnecessary. (I would prefer that it is used with the agreement of opposition parties; but fat chance of that I guess.)What’s the worst example you can think of from Labour? Harry’s Law? Politically expedient, sure, but not something that affected NZers’ lives.
However, National demonstrably over-used urgency, for bills that were not in any way “urgent” but which did have the potential to impact on citizens' rights; and they used it in a way that deliberately reduced chances for other parties to introduce bills (e.g., using Member’s Days).
They didn’t just “use” urgency: they abused it, to an extent not seen in any previous NZ government. -
@Joe:
Also a sweet victory to trounce a ‘proper’ hockey team.
Depends what you mean by “proper” I suppose.
When I was much younger, I was in the school’s lowest ranked soccer team.
(Those who know me will start laughing at this point. I don’t really do physical.)
In a school where team sports were compulsory, and rugby vastly preferred to soccer, this team was pretty much selected to be hopeless: uncoordinated, ill at ease in our developing bodies, and even more ill at ease on a sports field.
And our only opponents were the IHC team, who were all physically adult.
Unsurprisingly, we got slaughtered. Every bloody time. -
Speaker: Doing the right thing on retirement, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
I love what I do and have enormous opportunities (teaching, writing, thinking) and I suspect that retirement would be much duller.
Only if you let it be. Got any research projects that interest you but which don’t have a snowball’s chance of attracting funding?
Or are you able to pursue all of those in your current position? (In which case: you lucky, lucky ß@$†@®∂)
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To connect Sacha’s, Islander’s, and my own points, at some risk of stating the obvious:
The mass flows of money and of people used in making overall forecasts represent a large number of individuals, with individual circumstances – which are not predictable.
People, placed in particular situations, adapt to them, and change their attitudes, expectations, and behaviour. Which changes the situations of other people.
Sometimes, as a result, even the mass outcome is entirely unexpected.
Thus, when people are involved, information at all levels of generality, whether describing an individual or a population, is certainly relevant to the problem. We need the mass figures, but we also need individuals' experiences. -
(Actual wording of the eligibility summary for returnees is:
You must also have lived in New Zealand for at least 10 years since you turned 20. Five of those years must be since you turned 50
which means that to qualify at age 65, anyone who left NZ before age 20 must return by age 55; anyone who left NZ after age 25 has to return by age 60.)
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The mass of expatriate NZers also has to be included in the wider scheme of things – which could make any plans based on the existing NZ population wildly inaccurate. It is anybody’s guess how many of the half-million-strong Kiwi diaspora will eventually return to NZ, and how many will apply for superannuation (I think at present they need to return by age 55 to qualify automatically; and anyone eligible for overseas schemes needs to apply for those first – the NZ superannuation is abated for any overseas superannuation payments).
Demographically, raising the qualifying age is such a no-brainer that I’m surprised the process didn’t start 10 years ago. I have been working on the assumption that the qualifying age for super would be raised over 70 by the time I would be eligible, and have been attempting to save accordingly. [Though with somewhat disappointing results. NZ finance companies, ’nuff said. Decide on that basis how much you should trust my predictions :-/]
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Nah, there seriously isn’t any policy there: even the National Party’s aim (“we’re going to keep doing betterer!”) could have been written by a primary schoolkid.
The page space is mostly taken up by a list of “what we did last term”. But even that’s pretty desperate: there’s some (ooh, shiny shiny) film stuff (including prominent credit for “saving the Hobbit”, i.e. throwing money at overseas media corporations) and very little else. The list even includes getting rid of secretarial staff (aka Being More Efficient, because everybody knows artists produce much more work when they also have to do all the legwork of promoting it), and giving some money to the Historic Places Trust (which surely is more about maintenance than development – and an unavoidable expense for any government). There is no sense that any of the actions so far performed were part of any coherent strategy or predetermined policy for the arts -- and no hint of a direction for any future coherent policy either.
And if I write any more, my comment will be longer than their policy statement. No joke.