Posts by Rich of Observationz
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Hard News: Unwarranted risk, in reply to BenWilson,
Wasn't that much of what I said? :-)
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I'd suggest that Labour should be working with the other opposition parties to put together a plan to acquire these firms back for the NZ people:
- swap (by legislation) ordinary shares for non-voting stock
- revisit regulation: Pricing and selection of electricity sources by a carbon-minimisation model, rather than the current pseudo-market. Forced retirement of fossil fuel assets. For AirNZ, regulation of regional service and fares
- a better ownership model such as a worker/consumer co-op, with government and former shareholders providing capital as a long term loanOf course, an expectation that this might happen in the future would deter "investors" from buying shares in the first place.
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Not owning Telecom hasn't stopped it aggressively intervening in that market
But that "intervention" has involved dumping money in the pockets of Telecom's foreign shareholders.
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If you want an example of how the electricity generators are being run against the public interest, look at this. Obviously, if we want to get to 100% renewables, we have to close Huntly units and then gas generators, replacing them by wind, water and geothermal.
Instead, designed and consented wind farms are being put on ice, Huntly is being kept going and they're even looking at new (cheap in the very short term) gas generation.
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Speaker: Censorship is not the only…, in reply to Russell Brown,
A man's fight to have a defamatory post removed from an international website
It's a bit hard to understand the article (which seemed to be informed by a lack of understanding of both the legal issues or how the internet works).
But my non-legal guess is that the case will fail, either immediately or on appeal.
In the event that the plaintiff does win, we'll probably see Google (&c) trying to remove their operations from NZ, either by closing the NZ branch, or making it a legally distinct agency arrangement.
While it's obviously bad for the guy that he's being libelled overseas, the only real way NZ could stop this is to extend the DIA website filter to block such sites. I don't think we really want to go there.
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Firstly, I'd suggest better education on internet use: that the best approach to annoyance/harassment is to simply killfile the offender and move on; that if you find a site obnoxious, you should simply not go there; that information on the internet can be posted by anybody and should be treated as nonsense until proven otherwise (akin to graffiti or pub chatter).
I'd suggest that any dispute tribunal runs the risk of both being ineffective and being a channel of abuse. Most of the remedies above require that the offender be positively identified (and within the jurisdiction) which is an expensive and intrusive process, as well as easily circumvented, A tribunal may well wind up as a popular venue for NZ's many litigation addicts (both as plaintiff and defendant). Not to mention the wide scope for deliberate intimidation, such as is documented here: http://torrentfreak.com/dmca-horrors-of-a-broad-and-automated-censorship-tool-120304/
The scope and utility of takedown orders would in any case be limited: many sites already have an effective complaints process, while others would refuse such orders from a foreign jurisdiction.
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I actually don't want a corrections system, because it would just give the newspapers a better appearance of credibility and the ability to fine-tune their propaganda.
The real problem is that we allow one organisation (typically controlled by a few ultra-wealthy individuals) to have a complete monopoly of newspapers in each NZ city.
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Speaker: Who are the news media?, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
That's something I was trying to work out a way of saying. It should be the activity, not the status that, gives somebody journalistic protections.
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It's a huge pity the Workers Beer Company doesn't have an NZ equivalent. There's probably a rule in the Sale Of Liquor Act banning good beer from being sold at a major event.
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The ECB is (effectively) doing qualitative easing (QE). Why are people saying that it can't?
Also, I don't think that if Greece exited the Euro, it would be able to do QE. The Greek government bonds are Euro denominated, so unilaterally converting them to "new Drachma" would be a default. They wouldn't be able to buy back their Euro bonds using Drachma (at least, not at a reasonable rate). And they'd have to pay back Euro debts from tax revenues in a devaluing currency.