Posts by Rich of Observationz
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Given Whalespunks general level of integrity, how do we know he hasn't got a whole collection of robot scripts hammering his site and driving up the published rankings?
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Maybe our media regulation needs rethinking:
There's a continuum of what's acceptable, ranging from the BBC standard (mostly polite, balanced, clear differentiation between broadcasters and politicians - we don't have this in any NZ media) through to blogs/LPFM which just have to stay legal. This roughly reflects their use of scarce spectrum, amongst other things.
Maybe the requirement for large commercial broadcasters needs to move up a notch, so the whole shock-jock thing isn't allowed.
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to BenWilson,
The UK still expects graduates to start on the beat, but they get accelerated promotion. They tried an "officer class" in the 1920s and it wasn't a success, but is being considered again.
Mind you, the current system doesn't seem to work that well and pretty much all militaries have an officer cadre.
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We ended up with elections, I guess, because at some stage, we realised having hereditary rulers was a crock
We ended up with elections because a faction amongst those in power thought (correctly) that they could advance and cement their position by enlisting the less powerful in support:
- Colonial Americans like Washington wanting rid of British rule
- Factory owners in England wanting to displace the landed aristocracy
- UK tories wanting a political advantage over the mainly Liberal mill ownersetc.
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to Martin Lindberg,
They have a corporate presence - to what degree that brings them under NZ law I don't know. Both Google and Yahoo have been successfully sued for libel in Australia.
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to Chris Waugh,
passing this
When that bill's passed, it might stop evil trash from boasting on Facebook (and maybe drive them to a sleazy offshore site beyond NZ jurisdiction).
It would also allow much of this and other discussion to be suppressed. Currently, Russell has little to fear from e.g. a libel suit, as it's an expensive and complex process, and the cops are unlikely to bust anyone for incitement to assault the thugs (unless one of them gets murdered, in which case I suspect a few Facebook posters might get a knock on the door).
With the new law, one of the thugs, or their parents/lawyers only has to send a complaint to the hosting company, and they're faced with a choice of removing the content or risking future prosecution - and with little ability to determine the status of complaints, it's likely that any complaint will lead to a takedown.
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Our cities and towns aren’t doing the subsidization
Which isn't to say that they wouldn't, almost all NZ mayoral candidates giving prominence in their platform to plans to run a half-arsed, beggar-my-neigbour "industrial policy". Fortunately it isn't a core council function and they have no budget.
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Hard News: Movie Disaster, in reply to Russell Brown,
You're not really discussing this in good faith.
Yes I am. I'm actually convinced that if we must have corporate welfare, it ought to go to companies that at least do minimal harm.
how much tax would be paid on the 50% of of screen production costs that would go to labour
For employees permanently resident in NZ, that's 25% or so of the labour cost *less* the amount those people would have earned in a different, unsubsidized industry.
For temporary overseas residents, it's their tax *less* the cost of services they consume while here. If Stephen Fry paid NZ tax on his fees, then that would be quite a lot. Bet he doesn't.
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$36 million over seven years
That's the most convincing argument Russell - it's only $36 million, it keeps lots of people occupied and it doesn't fuck the planet up that much. So as corporate welfare goes, it has that advantage over Solid Energy's somewhat larger indents to employ somewhat fewer people.
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Hard News: Movie Disaster, in reply to Simon Bennett,
If you spend $100 million dollars in NZ making your movie, we'll give you $30 million back
No more than if we gave 100 foreigners a subsidy to buy million dollar villas in Ponsonby. That'd be $100 million in "magic" foreign money.
The money isn't a gift. The studios get value for it - $100 million of movie making work for $70 million.
The economic value of the investment isn't the whole investment - it's the difference in production of the workforce with and without the investment, which is roughly the difference between what they would earn working on foreign blockbuster movies and doing something else. Say a set builder makes $40 grand a year on the Hobbit (ha ha), and could have made $35 a year on a building site. Then that's an economic input of $5k, not $40k. Multiply that out, and you get the real number.