Posts by Rich Lock
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Russell noted up thread that National's plan "offer a guaranteed return from the projects they fund", this means, under National's plan, that the public is. If there's one upside of the CCT project failure it's that at least the State government didn't inherit the risk.
Thanks Paul, that clarifies things.
My (UK) experience of PPP's and the Private Finance Initiative is that if the public carries the risk, they usually end up paying twice.
They pay the first time because the infrastructure in question which is PPP funded is generally considered essential (hospitals, transport, etc), so when the private firm responsible (seemingly inevitably) blows the budget, goes bust, etc etc, the government has to step in to pay the extra costs and generally bail them out and get the job finished.
They pay the second time because the company/shareholders then point out the 'guaranteed payment' clause in the contract, and the government has to stick its hands in the taxpayers pockets again to make sure the shareholders are paid off.
No sir, I'm agin 'em.
-
The experience of PPP here in the UK is that the private sector will only invest if the state takes on the vast majority of the risk inherent in the projects. This means the state gets left holding the baby and paying interest on it. How this benefits the state is beyond me.
PPP is driven primarily by national accounting rules. Under said rules if the private sector borrows money to build a school or a hospital then that borrowing does not impact on the nation's books. Whereas if the state borrowed the money (at vastly lower interest rates) to build the school or the hospital that debt is on its books.
So because of an accounting rule that could be changed, a slight of hand is effected. This slight of hand extracts much more money from the public purse than would have been the case. And this is a good thing?
That is all before we get into shoddy building, buildings under specc and since the private sector usually gets to run these things after they are built, slow and inadequate maintenance. The for eg hospital management can do nothing about this as they are not party to the contract. They just have to pay the cost of it.
Of course they could buy out the contract, but to do so they would have to compensate the holder for all those years of printing money they would have had....
Don't go there.
So that's two of us, both from the UK, both with direct experience of PPP's, both saying 'don't do it'.
Now, as this is PAS, clearly we're both filthy Reds who should go back to Russia, but does anyone want to make the case for PPP's
-
PPPs. The evidence that they're a better way of funding infrastructure is scant, but they're ideologically appealing.
Two examples from the UK which in a sane world would be enough to deep-six any PPP discussion before it got off the ground:
1) The NHS. A lot of horror stories floating around about PPP-funded and built hospitals.
2) The London Underground. Under the contract scheme NuLab oversaw, its usually more profitable for the owners to make sure the trains don't run on time.
-
ROFL!!!!!1!!!!!
the c-word three times, and there he is.
i actually gaffawed when i saw that the j-man had popped in.
Yep, quite pleased with how that worked out.
Anyhoo, with regard to conspiracy theories, I reckon Russell only posted this up because he's just trying to boost his advertising revenue to pay for all his expensive consumer toys (iPhone, Hi-D TV, etc).
See Charlie Brooker in The Guardian here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/14/september11.usa
and here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/21/charliebrooker.pressandpublishing
Russell will of course deny this, but the truth is out there.....
-
44 minutes.....
-
<quoteWhere's James when you need him to tell us how it really is?
</quote>Candyman, Candyman, Candyman.
-
Technically (i.e. pedantically) speaking, it's not actually a jet pack or a rocket pack (not having jets or rockets in it).
I'm going to call it a D.A.F.T (Ducted Air Fan Turbine), in the hope that it catches on.
-
That's all I get too,and I suspect that they are very good at making money, however I am not a business, I am people!(at least part thereof) I don't wanna know what this guy John shits. I wanna know substance from Nats policy.
Here's a one-two knockout punch that means I'll be voting for a yellow dog before I vote National:
From pg 11 of the Harold online profile:
"In a more harder-right sounding moment Key in mid-2002 also revealed to the Sunday Star-Times a tough personal view on welfare. Asked about the topic as National struggled internally with its policy line, Key said there had been "enormous growth in the number of people on the DPB, and where people have been, for want of a better term, breeding for a business".
Demonising single mothers is soooo 1980's, John.
Also from pg 11:
"Another example of the looser talk he would steer clear of now came in late 2003 when Key was arguing against Labour's push for a minimum of four weeks' annual leave for workers. He urged other members in the House to go and have a look at the United States, "which has a minimum of two weeks' holiday a year, and the economic prosperity in the US is so much greater than New Zealand's".
Because all those European countries with anything up to six weeks annual leave are dirt-poor, right, John?
And if I needed any evidence that this was a puff-piece, I personally don't need to look any further than pg 7:
"Though the $233,000 salary he receives as Leader of the Opposition is something most Kiwis will never receive, it is a drop in the ocean compared with the millions he received as a trader. He gives away much of his six-figure Parliamentary salary.
blahblahblah health treatment blahblahblah school fundraising blahblahblah larger sums of money for individual charities"
Seriously, why not have him wearing a white robe, surrounded by children singing 'we are the world'?
-
As far as I'm concerned, Raybon JKan still has quite a long way to go to redeem himself after his column(s) around the time of the Rickards/Schollum pack-rape stuff.
The tone of his writing around the time of those verdicts was along the lines of "oh, isn't this a lot of fuss about nothing very important. What an over-reaction. Rape isn't all that bad. I can certainly squeeze a couple of hundred jokey words out about this."
So he's still got quite some way to go, as far as I'm concerned.
A good start, though.
-
It's entirely possible that Scientology's leaders have come to believe their own stories. Don't discount the combined power of repetition, outside 'persecution' and unthinking sycophantic affirmation from sciborgs lower in the hierarchy.
I understand that Elron at least did by the time he passed on to whatever plane xenu resides on.
For my money, one very interesting area of study at the moment is the investigation of why we (species we) believe what we do, whether we are hardwired for belief, and if so, why? i.e. could it have provided an evolutionary advantage at some point to have an increased 'pattern-spotting' sense, even if there isn't always a pattern to be spotted?
Better to jump for the nearest tree if the pattern in the long grass could be a tiger, than assume it isnt....
Did this evolve/mutate over millenia into a tendancy to assume that because a virgin was sacrified last year, and the harvest was good, we should probably do it again this year, just to make sure?
And if we are hard-wired for belief, what strategies should we as a species be adopting to ensure this isn't actively damaging to our society?
The way the brain works, both on a base physical level, and, um, a not completely physical level (for want of a better phrase) is endlessly fascinating.
I have a (false?) memory of reading an article about Richard Dawkins being put in a machine that generated a strong electromagnetic field around a persons head, the machine apparently radically increasing the tendancy to believe in god, spirits, ghosts, etc. Apparently he came out with a pretty strange expression on his face....