Posts by slarty
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Anyway, who fancies a "we won't buy music" day to try a send a message to the Legacy Media Companies that, well, they can just sod off with their primitive C20th business model.
I want to pay artists, not fat old white men sitting around pools in Vegas.
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Mmm, I think I can use that.
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Maybe I'm a bit sad...
My mortgage is split into 4 - 3 fixed, one floating.
A fixed one comes up about every 18 months (I vary term based on my wild guesstimates in the market). I've got 2 rolling over in the next year.
How hard is that? My average weighted cost of borrowing for the last few years has been 7.2% - as compares to over 9% had it been floating.
It always surprises me how few people consider doing it this way.
The new consumer credit act makes it a requirement that early repayment fees have to be within cooee [sorry for the jargon] of what it actually costs in terms of margin loss, I think that's what the ComCom are probably looking at.
For example, looking at the margin difference on, say, $100k loan.
[over simplified to make the point]
Floating rate today: 5.5%
Fixed rate on a 2 year, fixed last year: 8.5% (? trying to make the maths easy)
Difference: 3% (say)= Bank margin loss $3k (I know this is technically wrong but focus on the principle not the maths)
So a fee of $10k is unreasonable. If they said $4k they'd probably get away with it.
I think that's what people are upset about...
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You should be happy RB - I notice that Hard News is the first media site that The Economist link to on their New Zealand briefing... ahead of nanny & The Listener (who does thingy write for again?)
There must be some mana associated with that, surely... :)
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Ralston (like Garth George) always reminds me of an old Bernard Manning joke:
"You've probably seen his arse - it's about an inch below his nose"
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Nice to see so many relaxed, refreshed and just, kinda, copacetic people following the break :)
And, no, I don't go to gigs to listen to music. Never have. To do that you need to sit in a very precisely defined room surrounded by speakers and listen to a studio recording.
Live stuff is about community and being among people. We have to accept that this now includes people who may no physically be with you at the time, but with whom you wish to share the moment...
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Oooo, so excited at possibly being first I've dried up.
We do tend to forget that those of us in countries with support structures won't suffer nearly as much...
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I recall an English uncle being surprised at what he termed the "height of the sky in New Zealand". He compared antipodean skies to a cathedral, whereas he thought that England had been built "with an old-fashioned nine-foot stud".
Thank you so much for this. I was sentenced to 18 years in Britain from the age of 8. My accidental return to NZ ("Tell you what my beloved, as you can't stand the vulgarity of Australia, how about we return to England via another place I used to live - a little Island of Tasmania called 'NiewZulland?") was very emotional.
It was the smell (in the days when you passed cattle on your way in from Mangere - but not that smell) and the height of the sky.
I spent all that time in Britain feeling like a great grey smog was about to fall on my head.
And then there's the colour: it's like someone has turned the contrast down on everything.
Under a low, watery sky...?
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You're on the money RB. And don't overlook OFCANZ now it has lost a bit of direction...
But keep in mind that if the Police weren't doing it, who would? (Hint: TLA)
And have a think about the scope of this guy... I think that might be the root of the issue...
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on the contrary. giving due respect to authority figures whether they deserve it or not is mandatory for maintaining our society and our own well being.
Still reeling from this one.
One of the great things about the 21st C is that we are starting to realise that the people we were brought up to respect had often failed to earn it.
Britain in the 80's and early 90's was good for that. Police corruption, Poll Tax, race riots... you name it. It was all triggered by a lack of trust.
Trust does not arise from "honour thy father & mother" in a well educated, informed society.
At the risk of hyperbole, the shoulders of giants we stand on weren't only great scientists, they were people who strove for truth & justice, whether they be suffragettes or union leaders.
One of the reasons that schools have such trouble with the student-teacher relationship is the imbalance of power, for both sides. Because it is not even tripartite: there are many actors with contrary objectives.
Parents want their kids to be out of the house for a few hours... some of them would like kids to get a good education (but many feel threatened...)
Parents as Voters want some Utopian thing where they can measure on a score card how well the kid is doing, rather than actually spend time with them and work it out...
Government wants educated plebes for the workforce at a low cost... oh and while you're at it can you deliver a pile of social education because nobody else seems to want to.
And students want to work out who they are, which is bloody hard with all that other crap going on.I left school with no idea who I was or what I wanted to do. Stuff all qualifications. It's the former I think was the big failure.