Posts by Neil Smart
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On Wednesday I was at St Pats Silverstream. I walked by a wall of pictures of young men proudly wearing their "stream regalia. I laughed with another older man. We agreed that this is what the game is about.
I hear Andy Haden and others referring to the game as a product.
The sporting public pander to young men who are skilled and talented at sport and set them on pedestals for which they are in many cases ill prepared. Soccer in Europe is indicative of the problem. How long before this is a rugby story. [ http://www.stuff.co.nz/4505465a18075.html]
When you compare the salary packets of these superstars. Are they worth it? Perhaps it is the value system that is wrong?
The game is still loved and always will be the fickle nature of fashion is that it will go through periods of being fashionable and periods when it is not. Does it matter?
Only if the All Blacks start to consistently lose to the Northern Hemisphere. I am sure our love of the game will keep it going.
It is interesting that Haden is best remembered as a player for trying to milk a penalty against Wales. It is this approach to the great game and the vale we place on the stars that is having a detrimental effect in my opinion.
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with respect to Deborah do we need advice from Australia or even from Kiwis living in Australia?
That was gratuitous, Neil.
Ok so I apologise and withdraw. My point was that Australia has one of the worst tax system in the world. I do not think we should try to copy their GST regime. I have heard such silliness proposed since this particular election year nonsense started.
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So if you want to help the poor raise the threshold rates of income tax that people start to pay. That way you provide a greater sum of the money to the the less fortunate without giving a hand out to those who earn enough to spend on luxury items.
Look at the practicalities not the the commonly used tags such as
"Friedman like tosh"
which don't mean anything.
And with respect to Deborah do we need advice from Australia or even from Kiwis living in Australia?
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Does no one agree with you Russell? I will.
I think you have it absolutely right why waste money putting in a system that will absorb much of the saving trying to collect the tax.
Most of it will advantage the rich who spend most on food, unless of course you are going to make the tax only apply to staple foods and even more difficult to collect.
It was on of the few things Sir Roger Douglas did right.
The zero rated GST on foods is almost as bad as spending $5billion on a fibre network that 10 % of the population will use.
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To get down to 1.5km and thus get universal 20Mbit (per this doc) would cost more than Telecom are prepared to spend, as would fixing the (maybe 10-20%) of households with flakey wiring
Precisely why it should not be left to Telecom. But also why it would be senseless to reproduce what already exists. The issue is a public good in private hands.
Wireless will never have sufficient spectrum to service demand. Mobile (wireless) is important but the next possible change maybe femtocells using DSL links to take cellular traffic so that mobility becomes a reality in the home environment.
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You are right that the cost is not in the cable but most of the existing Telecom cable is ducted so using the duct is cheaper than burying a new a new one. Vector used the gas main in Wellington for that reason
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I am not sure I agree fibre is the answer for everyone. Fibre would be the solution if you were building it from scratch but the existing copper network represents a large existing investment some of it is already fibre to the node. How much I cannot say. I am sure there are people with that information.
What we should be doing is to build the feeder cables to the sub loop in fibre and then where necessary replace copper with fibre, if demand or condition dictates.
Many people do not need fibre speeds or capacity. It is poorly thought through public policy to create a network because the Koreans have one. Their network is probably built in fibre because they may not have a copper network already. Where are the studies that show how economic benefits flow?
The argument against Key is that he has not done his homework Labour would be stupid to respond the same way. As I said the problem is a private company with in adequate resources owns one of our valuable assets, which is the real problem.
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Building high speed fibre to 75% of homes is like building dual carriageway roads to each home. Why would you do it?
We do need improved speeds and DSL can provide it with fibre to the node. The issue is really whether Telecom should own the access network?
If they did not own the network and it was a national resource we could use the most efficient method driven not by the fancy idea we all need FTTH which has to be not only a nonsense but a waste of money.
Very few disagree with the emotion behind the Key statement just the rationale. As has been pointed out if you invested $5b in the copper network you would get a better result.
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but I just couldn't take seriously this crisis of conscience from someone who bolted from the newsroom
Craig you are reading too much into the story. The PR man was laughing at the system. The issue is a free market that allows Murdoch et al to print rubbish or their version of it. Hence the importance of Keith Ng piece and other independent reporting.
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Congratulations on an excellent post. Independence is something to be treasured. We seem unable to receive the unedited truth from mainstream media. I discussed the subject on the Eastbourne ferry a couple of weeks ago with a couple of acquaintances that earn a living out of PR. They said they are no longer surprised how often their biased views on subjects are printed verbatim. Particularly on weeks that are short on news, by journalists who either do not have the time or experience to do some background.