Posts by Matthew Poole
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to nzlemming,
I heard a number of vox pops at the time of the election saying that they wanted a change, for change’s sake.
Politicians are like diapers; they need to be changed often and for the same reason. - Mark Twain
I don't necessarily disagree, but lurching politically in another direction isn't necessarily a good way to achieve that change.
Certainly there was a lot of hatred being directed at Helen by the end of the third term, some of which was justified but much of which was merely whipped up by a sycophantic media that would've spoken in support were it not for the difficulty of speaking while fellating the Leader of the Opposition. -
I struggle to find sympathy for people who live in the central city and complain about noise levels. I don't care how old they are. Whether or not the developers should be roundly beaten (like drums or with drums I'm not quite sure) for the shit sound insulation is irrelevant, the central city is not a quiet place to reside. Trying to achieve suburban levels of tranquillity ain't happening, and I hope that noise control politely told the complainants as much.
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to Danyl Mclauchlan,
A centrist voter will be, by definition, a pluralist voter who believes that both left-wing and right-wing parties have appropriate solutions to various social and economic problems, so it makes perfect sense to alternate them.
Possibly, yes, but that doesn’t mean that “It’s the other side’s go” is a justification for casting one’s vote in that direction. “The other side’s solutions to the current problem(s) du jure are better than those of the current side” would be a justification, and one that would work for a proper centrist voter.
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to BenWilson,
compulsory saving is indeed one way they could be looking after our future, and it's also a way that's quite hard for successive governments to fuck with.
Except that National have demonstrated, twice, that it's actually pretty easy. Piggy canned compulsory super, and then B'linglish came along and suspended payments into the Cullen Fund so that he could offer bigger tax cuts to the prolles.
National could easily fuck with compulsory saving, by making it optional and selling it as "personal choice". People might even buy the lie.
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to BenWilson,
Here’s a wild thought on repatriation: You can’t claim a pension if you own property with the debt held offshore. So you have to refinance to Kiwibank.
Except that a) KB isn’t the only NZ-owned bank, or mortgage lender, and b) it would require quite some legislative circumlocutions to transform companies registered with the NZ Companies Office and licensed as banks under NZ legislation into entities whose local mortgages are "debt held offshore".
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to BenWilson,
Being unable to take an interest in things outside of a perceived optimal path is extremely frustrating to employers who want flexible workers who can come up with ideas.
That might be plausible if it were demonstrably true. But given some of the shit I've been through when looking for work in the past, I just don't buy it. Recruiters are morons, IME, and incapable of examining any deviation from "the client's requirements". Of course this then comes back to "the client's requirements" being prescriptive and narrow.
I've been turned down for even getting an interview due to lacking an entry-level vendor certification despite having been working at higher levels, with more-advanced kit from the same vendor, for a number of years. That doesn't encourage me to believe that most employers (or, at least, most hiring managers) want anyone who's not an exact fit to their to-the-letter requirements.Also, it can be quite the CLM to be smarter than your boss. Takes a very big person to be comfortable with subordinates who know more, understand more, and are more capable than you.
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to Keir Leslie,
Most of my classmates said they thought it was a complete waste of their time, having to study things unrelated to their degree.
I have to agree here. In a sane world they’d get a Diploma (or whatever) in Management (or whatever) from the Auckland Polytechnic and have done with it
Pretty much proving my point. Once upon a time, one went to university to get educated, not to get trained (except in very narrow professional fields). Now it's just a job mill, and that's a consequence of the "education is a private good. Pay up, bitches" model that's been foisted upon us. When you have to pay to attend, you expect the outcome to be something that'll get you a job with which to pay off the attendant loan. Studying for the sake of intellectual extension is a luxury most people can't afford.
I think the GenEd model at Auckland is brilliant, and is an attempt to get students back to receiving an education not just a degree. Given the breadth of scheduled GenEd papers, you can pick stuff that, hopefully, interests you, and get taught about it at an achievable level. It might even encourage you to extend your study.
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to Kumara Republic,
“I want someone with a general knowledge, general interests, someone who can think,” says Jones.
He'll be sorely disappointed by the majority of current students, then. One entirely predictable consequence of student loans is that students study to get a job, not to get an education. They want to learn things that'll get them hired.
This was amply demonstrated in one of the two general education papers I had to take while studying for my BCom (I actually am a business consultant now), when the lecturer asked whether the students thought the general education scheme - majority (I think there are two degrees where GenEd is not required, and a further two where only one paper is required) of students at UoA doing their first under-grad have to take two papers from faculties outside and unrelated to their degree, from a schedule of papers - was worthwhile. Most of my classmates said they thought it was a complete waste of their time, having to study things unrelated to their degree. This included BArch, BSc and BA students, plus me as BCom. I think I was the only one, largely because I was an adult student and a particularly curious one at that, who considered any education to be of use because it gives you other tools to use when pondering a situation.
BCom might historically have a bad rep, because it's the one most mediocre managers have studied, but these days curiosity and intellectual interest are a long, long way down the list of reasons to study any given topic.
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to Keir Leslie,
Here I am suggesting that management in NZ isn’t very good at making money
This could even be qualified with "good at making money sustainably." We've got lots of small businesses that do fairly well for the owners but don't really grow to contribute significantly to the national income. And we've got a few big businesses that, by and large, end up burning out through poor management.
Case in point, the slash-and-burn merchants who strip-mined the assets we gave away in the 80s and 90s. Or Telecom, which was spectacularly profitable but not sustainably because it relied on a) network under-investment, which is a variation on the strip-mining philosophy of the slash-and-burn merchants and is eventually unsustainable, and b) the Government not blinking at the continued rape and pillage of the consumer and calling Telecom's bluff. Once the Government did blink, Telecom's monopoly rents were curtailed and its share price and revenue both did a passable imitation of a dropped rock.
Very few of our big companies last, historically. This is gradually changing, as we get directors who have a long-term view and managers who've watched the various implosions, probably from overseas while on their OE's, and imparted those lessons into their management and directorial styles.
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Hard News: Only what we would expect a…, in reply to recordari,
What about it?