Posts by Rob Hosking
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Which was right around the time that businesses started going through the upgrade process to get their offices running XP. That frequently involved buying new computers...
Yeah, but the MPS figures I was referring to usually strip out the computer investment from their business investment stats.
Never asked them why, and perhaps I should have. But it always struck me as an implicit vote of no confidence in the productivity benefits of IT.
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David Hayward wrote:
And I suspect our biggest economic advantage is:
1. Extremely low levels of corruption.
2. A highly literate and numerate workforce.Well, Id agree with you on the first: On the second, no. This is from the Tetiary Education Commission a couple of years back:
The more recent 2006 Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey compared results internationally for numeracy (the ability to understand and process mathematical and numerical information) and document literacy (the ability to read and understand discontinuous texts such as
graphs, charts and tables). This survey shows that approximately 50 percent of the adult New Zealand population still have low numeracy and (document) literacy scores.
Apart from that, I'll admit I've heard a lot of anecdotes about people not being able to read safety instructions, for example. A good friend who teaches whatever they call woodwork these days is constantly frustrated by the number of his pupils who can't read the written part of the course, let along have the maths skills to cope with basic measurement activities (he teaches, or did until recently, in a decile 5 school).Someone over the page referred to a recent study showing our school leavers are doign comparatively well. Yes, I'm aware of that, but there are two things to remember - firstly, those are people joining the workforce today. There are still a lot of people within the workforce with extremely low skills.
The second caveat is with the use of averages in a lot of these statistics. There's plenty of people posting here with better knowledge of statistics than I have, so I'll just point out that an average doesn't tell you much. The spread of figures does. I think those school leaver figures are an average, and from memory when you look at the spread we have a lot in the low end.
I'll partially retract one thing - saying it was 'the biggest' drag. That was a careless use of words, if only because I don't think this sort of thing is quantifiable, at least not in any useful way. It is a major drag, though.
A comment about the wider context of my original comment - I was concerned about what looked like developing into a bout of reflexive business-bashing exercise (and subsequent posts haven't exactly disabused me of that notion).
I can point you to numerous monetary policy statements from the Reserve Bank over the middle of the decade which noted the comparativley high level of business investment - around 20% above trend in '04-05. Now, thats an aggregate figure, which, like averages, can conceal a large 'tail'. I'm not sure it does so in this case though.
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But that requires an investment in capital means of production, which in this country is almost a dirty phrase - it's up there with "tax increases" and "sickness beneficiaries"
That's nonsense. It was true 15-20 years ago but has not been the case for some time.
There has in fact been a surge in capital investment since about 2002. (Its dropped off recently, for obvious reasons) We've had a tight labour market so businesses have had to look at more machanised ways of doing things. Also most of our capital goods are imported: when the dollar was low a lot of businesses took advantage of that to import plant and machinery.
The biggest drag we have on productivity is the numbers in our workforce who are still functionally illiterate and innumerate.
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Always understood lower gears mean its more efficient because it brings more muscles into play and you get more power.
How on earth did Bob spot that?? Does this mean JK is Judith's lovechild?
Nah. Neil Sedaka's.
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I was never into ABBA - younger brother and sister loved them and I felt ABBA'ed out...BUT... the one I fancied was Frida.
She just looked more interesting.
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Once again, I am the type of interesting medical specimen that makes health professionals say 'hey, come and have a look at this!'.
Yeah, that is seldom fun.
I had that with my first adult eye test, at 21. I'd had a couple of near misses, mis-calcualting distances when passing cars. Then met this woman at a party, got on very well with her....
Couple of days later saw her in the grotty cafe under the quad - which admittedly was pretty dark. Well, I thought it was her. Went up, gave her a fairly familar greeting, and she stared and said - in a very eastern suburbs accent - 'I've never seen you before in my life.'
Time for an eye test.
Went to the Auckland Uni optemtry clinic - don't know if they still do this but back then it was a cheap way of getting glasses done. The students got to examine you as part of their training.
Anyway the student examining me took a long time. I thought this was probably normal. She took off to get her supervisor. AGain, I thought this was probably normal.
He took a lot of time examining me, then went and got a bunch of other students, who took it in turns to look.
This went on for quite some time. Eventually the supervisor asked me if I'd ever had any serious bangs on the head recently. I hadn't. None I could remember.
I still don't know what they saw, but he thought I was concussed. Sent me home. Told me not to drive.
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One other gross eye thing - a safety film at school which involved a nasty eye injury.
Was anyone else shown that? They herded us into the school hall, showed us a pair of safety goggles, and immediately bunged on a film of a guy working on a lathe.
A sliver of metal peeled off and went into his eye.
That bit, at least, was staged.
The eye operation wasn't. Up on the screen comes a close up shot of a bloodied eye and a scalpel moving in...About three blokes in the audience hit the floor in the first 10 seconds.
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My daughter throws a paddy as soon as she gets into the optometrist's room.
As well as being mildly autistic, having hypertonic muscles, and being born with clicky hip, she also has had a squint.
The odd thing is nothing hurtful or bad has happened to her in the optometrist. She just hates it as soon as she sees their equipment.
We suspect its part of the autism - not liking having someone in her face. She is quite even tempered about most things - compared to most children of that age (6), let alone someone with autism.
I have glasses, have had since I was 21. I won't do contact lenses - the idea of sticking something on my eye is Not Desirable.
However I'm OK with the idea of laser surgery and I'm saving up for it.
Glasses are expensive and they're a safety hazard for tramping, when the weather turns foul.
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for my child-self, it'll always be Children of the Stones.
Which is an odd title for a horror thing, in a way, because if you were a child of, say, Keith Richards, you would probably never be frightened of anything. Again.
For my child self, it was H R Pufnstuff. Not, not Witchiepoo, even though there was a horrible teacher at school who looked just like her.
It was the forest with all the moving trees which freaked me out.
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I like the Tim Minchin thing, although I thought another one, 'If you really loved me' was funnier. Esp. the bit about 'Islam...Ozzy Ozzy Ozzy...and Bob the F***ing Builder'.