Posts by Kumara Republic
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More on so-called social mobility in this Twitter thread by Thomas Haig. It starts with a Paul Ryan-style remark on the matter, and neatly deconstructs it.
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Hard News: The Day After Tomorrow, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11924976
Words fail me.
The self-immolator is supposedly connected with Family Court issues. In any case, it's sad that it's even happening.
Bill English may not be Donald Trump or Nigel Farage as some on Twitter compare him, but all the same he doesn't realise he's playing into the hands of the Brexiteers and Trumpniks in our midst. I'd compare him more to David Cameron or Hank Paulson - they made huge gambles on the status quo holding in place, only to lose the bet. Cameron with the Brexit vote, and Paulson with his setting up of the Wall St bailouts.
If English manages to lie his way back into office come Saturday, it could well be a poisoned chalice, as people run of patience waiting for their share of the "rock star economy", and NZF drums up the nativist elements. I'm reminded of The Sun's suspected role in swinging the UK 1992 elections. And it'd be nothing less than poetic justice for the nation's IGMFY types to lose the lot if/when the housing bubble bursts.
NZ's multiple property owners have basically become an unelected upper house, who threaten to go nuclear at anything remotely challenging their grip on the housing market. As Buckminster Fuller said once, "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." Here's hoping KiwiBuild and other schemes can be that new model, instead of a hard crash happening.
For me personally, whoever's in charge on Saturday will have a major bearing on my social mobility or lack of it. (More on this in my guest post.) Either way I'm still awaiting further instructions from Specialisterne.
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Another important policy that would do much for disabled workers and jobseekers is a German/Scandinavian-style labour market policy. I've already touched on that in my guest post.
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In any case, it seems easier to create a new BBC/ABC/PBS-style channel or channels, than attempt to retool the existing TVNZ channels. What I'd also like to see is a new Royal Commission on NZ On Air and the wider media industry, possibly taking after the Leveson and Finkelstein inquiries. When the 1986 one reported back, the Internet was still a university/military research project.
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Hard News: Where are all the polls at?, in reply to simon g,
Latest oddity: a sort-of poll (illustrated by a not-sort-of propaganda video from the Nats) on NZ Chinese voters, which is described as being "at odds with some other mainstream polls". Well, yes, probably because it isn't one.
It's not a new thing. I remember reading a Scoop or Newsroom.co.nz article in the run-up to the 1999 election about similar results. So far I can't find it on the Web Archive, and Scoop's archive search is a bit scattershot.
Keith Ng did his own research on a similar issue a bit over a decade ago, and the results weren't quite as clear cut. Especially once you start breaking down the figures between 1st-generationers, and 1.5ers and 2nd-generationers.
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In any case, the following policy remains a likely deal-maker for me personally. I've touched on it in my guest post.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11742338
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One other aspect I didn't mention in my original post: when bailouts are inevitable, there's a visible difference in approach between the Anglo-Saxon model and the Nordic model. Long story short, Anglo-Saxon economies tend to bail out distressed corporations with no guarantee of ROI - think British Leyland, GM, and much of Wall St and the City of London. Whereas Nordic economies have tended to bail out distressed workers instead, as happened with Sweden's shipbuilding sector, and more recently the Saab Cars bankruptcy.
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Access: The Driverless Road Ahead, in reply to Moz,
It seemed less hackable than the C64 I had somehow managed to acquire ($1000 was a lot of money back then).
At that time the hacker community was ham radio based for the most part (unless you wanted to do TV with the Christians). I got some valuable help from local radio people and ended up with a "tweaked" C64, before the C128 came out with similar mods.
Speaking of the C64, it's what got me started on the whole computer thing to begin with. There's often one person you've never met who still had a major impact on your life, and for me that person was Jack Tramiel, the founder of Commodore Business Machines.
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Access: The Driverless Road Ahead, in reply to Moz,
Polytech used to be great, you'd pay $50 for six months of weekly evening classes in a workshop where you could generally work on your own vaguely-related project under expert supervision).
The kind of polytech that helped produce the Poly-1? The Wikipedia entry for it is courtesy of yours truly. All it's missing now is an image, fair use permitting. It'd be interesting to revive it as a desktop or "luggable" PC chassis.
Hilary:
I really hope that Specialisterne sets up in NZ. I've been a fan of the idea since hearing Thorkil Sonne speak about it many years ago. It wouldn't suit my family, but could provide real employment opportunities for many.
So far they've held surveys, and they're getting back to us in a matter of weeks.
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Hard News: The new establishment, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
David Seymour takes the cake with his claim that Labour’s plan to teach kids Civics at school is an ‘Orwellian’ and ‘dodgy’ way to indoctrinate young people to Left-wing views!!
Maybe it challenges his beloved Charter Schools.
Or maybe he realises his ‘Market- driven’ policies won’t stack up to young minds.What David Seymour is really scared of is that civics education would mean a less gullible public. His world-view relies on a classic strategy of ignorance.