Posts by Steve Barnes
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Hard News: The Huawei Question, in reply to Chris Waugh,
I do know I really enjoyed being in the Queen St area last time we were in NZ and seeing signs in Korean, Japanese, simplified and traditional Chinese, and whatever other languages and scripts there may have been. That had me thinking, “Now here’s a place I could bring my family to live in.”
And the likes of Brewer want to harsh that buzz.
Small population=Small shops and worse, Small minds. -
Hard News: The Huawei Question, in reply to Matthew Poole,
We already have a bunch of strips like Otahuhu, all over the city, but we only have one Queen Street.
I may be a bit out of touch with current retail therapy theory and the main protagonists in that field but I can't think of many of our own established Big Name Stores that could possibly satisfy Mr Brewer and that means attracting big offshore retailers to suck even more out of the economy. So, we have some migrants coming over here and setting up shops, eking a living and offering the consumer unlimited variety. What would we rather have, "People coming over here and going on the dole" and an EazyBuy or a Costco every 100 mtrs along Queen Street?
Like I've said before, I fear the corporate white guy more than the "Yellow Peril" -
Hard News: The Huawei Question, in reply to nzlemming,
“You mean they’re going to install ghost chips???”
Ha ha ha h.....
Well, I thought it was funny.
Meanwhile in other China Hating News...
Shoebox shops 'the ruin of Queen St'
Yellow Peril indeed, I am more fearful of fat rich white middle class greedheads. Look at the damage they have engendered. -
The whole concept of VIP's is abhorrent to me, especially so when related to peoples injuries, is one Vip bruised toe is equal to a "Pleb's" Gaping head wound?.
Another thing on my Radar is ThisShoe-box retailer debate heating up
A civic leader says he has support for his call for Auckland Council to stop the spread of shoe-box shops on Queen St.Cameron Brewer, a councillor and chairman of the council's business advisory panel, spoke out yesterday against the trend and said he had a lot of feedback.
"The council can't have it both ways - that is promise a 'world-class city centre,' while at the same time continuing to sign off these tacky little retail spaces," Brewer said.
Maybe this should be on the "Huawei" thread because I am smelling racism here.
Immigration New Zealand allows migrants to enter the country under its long-term business category but a spokesman said restrictions applied and these included showing a profit after two years and sometimes employing New Zealanders.
An initial nine-month work visa allows migrants to establish a business but they must show reasonable progress in getting established, the department says.
The man to turn to in these situations is Retail expert Robert Gibbs apparently.
Naples, Fla., which made changes to draw shoppers based on Gibbs' findings, saw the downtown grab 50 percent of the market share.
"They called me and said it's too busy, so we did things to dial it down to 30 percent," he said.
So, he has proved he can reduce the number of shoppers, cool.
Street parking, for example, boosts sales.
"Women like to see the front of the store from their car," Gibbs said. "Men will put up with lower levels of lighting. They will tolerate teenagers and scary-looking people. Women won't. They are more sensitive to the shopping environment."If businesses brought more families downtown, the number of homeless people or panhandlers would appear smaller, he observed.
I really don't know what to think there, apart from "I thought we were getting rid of street parking downtown?" and "Didn't we "get rid of" the homeless in time for the World Cup?"
The whole thing has the putrid smell of self righteous wingnuts about it and it seems All is not well in that neck of the woods.The Citizens & Ratepayers leader on Auckland Council, Christine Fletcher, reportedly threatened to resign during a heated internal wrangle among right-leaning councillors on Mayor Len Brown's $2.86 billion inner-city rail loop.
Mrs Fletcher stayed on as leader, but is now offside with some centre-right councillors for making "nasty, personal comments" against councillor and former Act MP Penny Webster at last Friday's adoption of the Auckland Plan.
I see the "Loop" is driving them "Loopy". I certainly don't envy the task of Mayor Len Brown, it must be like working at the Zoo but with less predictable animals.
And I'm not even lying. -
Hard News: One man’s Meat Puppets is…, in reply to JacksonP,
I think I've said too much.
I think you said it all.
That's me in the corner,
Losing my lack of a coat... -
But wait...
there's worse.Possibly one of Jackie's favourites.
;-) -
I challenge anyone to devote an entire 3 minutes 49 seconds of their life to this but the clip is just so cheesy.
Bring on the dancing horses WTF?
The thing about the musical, Hair, was they just didn't have a clue about the culture they were trying to depict IMHO. So I find it doubly tortuous. -
Apple supplier in violation of labor and safety rules, outside audit says
And other worker unfriendly practices...The FLA also took issue with the way that employees were paid overtime. "FLA also discovered that 14 percent of workers may not receive fair compensation for unscheduled overtime," it said in a statement. "The assessment found that unscheduled overtime was only paid in 30-minute increments. This means, for example, that 29 minutes of overtime work results in no pay and 58 minutes results in only one unit of overtime pay.
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Hard News: A storm in any port, in reply to DexterX,
It is spelt “Malignorance”
Noun 1. malignance - (medicine) a malignant state; progressive and resistant to treatment and tending to cause death.
2. malignance - quality of being disposed to evil; intense ill will
Think that's about right.
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Capture: EQNZ Remembrance, in reply to Gudrun Gisela,
Here are four of Checkpoint Charlie.
I really don't know what to think about that wobbly writing on a whiteboard propped against a chair, even carparks have more "Official" looking signs. You can't take these things seriously...?.
The whole situation seems to be in the control of clowns, how do you know when it's "Red Nose Day" down there?.