Posts by Matthew Poole
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You occasionally see blokes in suits and ties around the university but they must be ... academics who teach something called management studies.
My MGMT101 lecturer was less formally-dressed than the majority of his students, and that looked to be the case with most of the faculty.
The contrast was the Head of School for the School of Business, who was famous for his bow ties. -
Smith's is one of several stories of heartache and misery being rolled out in the aggressive campaign against the government's new 90-day work trial scheme.
Nasty aggressive Unions and their stories of misery.
Steve, did you consider that the adjective "aggressive" might've been intended to mean "forceful" rather than "threatening"?
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I'm not quite sure where my class upbringing falls. I'm the son of a priest (well, two, but Dad died before Mum started studying theology and I'd left home by the time she was ordained so I don't think it really counts), which isn't exactly working-class but was definitely lower-middle for income. The free housing helped the overall fiscal picture, I'm sure.
My latest conundrum is that I'm a fortnight away from starting work at one of the Big Four, and have no desire to start worshipping John Key and Rodney Hide as our economic saviours. This despite being in the top 10% of national income distribution and probably only two years away (less if things go to plan) from the top 5%. The top 1% is within reach. Bought my first pin-stripe suits last weekend, in preparation. Still not feeling the National Party 4eva vibe, though.
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Wait the protest by truckies,when we are spending millions replacing the Harbour bridge because of trucks, and they got glorified as Robin Hoods because of $500 they might have to pay extra?
That whole thing was one of the most serious "What. The. FUCK?!" moments in the last few years of NZ politics. Labour trying to make users (and damagers) of public roads pay something closer to their fair share, and being demonised by the "user pays" acolytes of the National Party for doing so. And National got away with it. Now, of course, they're adjusting the entire RUC system, and I'm far from convinced that it won't shift even more of the costs of truck-related damage onto taxpayers.
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So if you could 'enlighten' me, I'd like to rise above the subclass of rock
Well, it appears that at least some of the electorate turfed Labour because they thought National really had become Labour-lite - or Labour had become National-lite - so there was no harm in changing the colour of the flags in the House. Now there's this palpable air of abject shock that, *gasp*, National actually haven't changed since 1999, they've still got the same basic policies and attitudes.
[edit] And to clarify, I wasn't using the term "creatures" to imply you're evil or obtuse. Just that "sentient being" didn't seem quite appropriate as a label for people who voted based on appearance of change over consideration of substance. And I did miss out at ":P" from the end, which didn't help.
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can't beat the wry wight
From the link: "a creature or living sentient being".
Assuming you're referring to the public that voted in the current government, I suspect "creature" rather than "sentient being" would be the more-apt of the definitions. -
+1
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And how did their policy to ban incandescent bulbs work out?
Thank you for demonstrating the absolute failure of Labour/Greens to get explanation of the actual policy in front of the electorate. Whether than failure was due to the media (largely, I think) or due to the parties failing to communicate clearly (also a factor, but they really did get drowned out by the "They're taking away our incandescent lightbulbs" crowd) is open to debate, but whatever the policy was it was not a ban on incandescent lights. It was an energy efficiency standard, something that's been done in a number of other countries, and something that some incandescent light bulbs meet! You can buy energy-efficient incandescent bulbs at the supermarket. I know, because I saw some last Sunday.
Whatever the engineering arguments against fitting the entire nation's houses out with CFLs (discussions with a former flatmate, who's an engineer, suggest that the harmonic(?) load on the national grid would be quite catastrophic), the policy certainly did not limit consumer choice to CFLs or nothing.
It's much like the debate around the low-flow shower-head policy. Labour successfully failed to penetrate the public's consciousness with the message that mandating low-flow heads was the last resort after any number of other energy-consumption-reduction measures had not been implemented, including such radical ideas as wrapping hot water cylinders and pipes. What people got was "The council's going to be coming to make sure you've got a low-flow head in the shower of your newly-constructed house" not "The council's going to make sure you've got a low-flow head in the shower of your newly-constructed house if you haven't done a single one of these other things, all of which will save you money if you do them!"
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And where exactly did the "$50bn welfare bill" figure come from, since the media don't seem to be telling us the whole story?
Actually, the media have told the whole story. But only once or twice, before latching onto the $50b figure. It's a valid number, but with a very, very, very fucking dodgy premise; namely, that everyone currently receiving a benefit continues to do so for life. As I said, valid, but dodgier than a dodgy thing playing dodge-ball on St Dodger's Day.
[edit] And, as Sacha says, the numbers on welfare continue to grow at current rates (that is, at the rate of an economy that's going into a recession) and all those new beneficiaries also remain on welfare for the remainder of their lives.
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Link to Danyl's comments?