Posts by Rich of Observationz
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should we look to [ solar, presumably PV ] virtually untapped, right on our rooftops?
Well, you can look up the numbers. Indicates that solar is at least 50% more expensive than wind/hydro/geothermal and maybe double. Specific NZ figures would differ from these, but are certainly calculable.
Isn't this a matter of maths, not opinion?
do New Zealand’s technologies and expertise put it in a unique position to teach the world to feed itself?
I think the problem in much of the developing world isn't a lack of technical knowledge on how to farm effectively, but rather economic and social conditions that militate against doing that.
Should New Zealand stop being a ‘town in a country’ and increase the population – i.e. 15 million people in the next 50 years?
Yes. We could house 15 million on the footprints of our current cities, and energy use per capita would drop substantially from more viable public transport and other improvements.
(Barcelona carbon emissions p.p. = 3.4 tonnes, NZ approx 18t)
Selling New Zealand
If we sold it, where would we go and live instead?
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Hard News: Briefing, blaming, backing down, in reply to David Chittenden,
There are economists who don't go along with the Treasury orthodoxy. In fact, NZ has a particularly hard-core right-wing monoculture amongst economists, compared to other nations. It would make sense for the next left-wing government here to repeople Treasury from overseas.
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I thought these guys were supposed to be apolitical
ROFL! (&LMAO)
Basically, Treasury are ACT in permanent government. Why Labour didn't disestablish the lot of them during their nine years of government escapes me.
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Speaker: The Voyage: Dutch Disease –…, in reply to Angus Robertson,
Except that the CAP costs half of one percent of European GDP, and has a negligible effect on food prices (which are mostly *cheaper* than NZ's "globally determined" ones).
I think the property bubble has rather more of an impact on the NZ economy than that.
The CAP is in many ways the parks and gardens budget of the European Union.
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Speaker: The Voyage: Dutch Disease –…, in reply to Matthew Poole,
I’ve got friends who had to go begging on fucking Facebook to get a few grand
Did their businesses succeed?
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a Financial Transactions Tax
A bad idea for several reasons:
- easily avoidable. You're taxing an activity that can morph into something else (like a contract for differences) and move offshore at the click of a key. Compare this with a land tax, which, if government controls the land registry, is unavoidable - you just don't get your title transferred if you owe tax.- results in unwanted effects, like a currency that takes a dive because Air NZ bought a new plane. If you're going to have the current system of freely traded currencies (and it's hard to invent an alternative) then you have to have an effective and liquid system of price formation.
- produces negligible revenue (which was the experience in Sweden, where revenues never got far into seven figures)
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Speaker: The Voyage: On Interpreting and…, in reply to BenWilson,
Ben, how about if you got swapped into a secure lifetime tenancy with the right to make reasonable changes, etc and pay a fair rent?
That would be my solution - nationalise the unpayable mortgages, let people stay in their houses and convert them to tenancies. A house becomes a place to live, not an investment vehicle.
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I as a "neo-liberal"
No shit, Sherlock.
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Speaker: The Voyage: The Engine Room…, in reply to Julian Melville,
I'd agree: there are basically three things wrong with utopian ideas of the past and present:
- resource scarcity (e.g. supersonic air travel)
- laws of physics (e.g. antigravity)
- risk aversion (e.g.. flying cars)It's only the latter that we could deal with by realigning our ideas. If we decided to give up the 10 year lifespan gain from modern medicine in favour of a higher accident rate, we could take maybe a 12% increase in accidental death - flying cars slamming into buildings, nuclear plants melting down, that sort of thing. But people crave immortality along with all the other good stuff.
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Speaker: The Voyage: The Engine Room…, in reply to Martin Lindberg,
The only non-bank payment system to have gained any momentum is noted for arbitrarily freezing peoples money for indefinite periods.
I don't think I'd be putting my salary in there.(Or indeed into Bitcoin, which Doesn't Really Work).