Posts by BenWilson
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OnPoint: If Wishes Were Horses..., in reply to Sacha,
National's 'employment' policy released. Spanking the uppity workers and the young.
Jezuz. We have to get more kids to vote.
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It took me a while to get used to the idea of compulsory savings in Oz. But it really is my money sitting over there in an account. Surprisingly large sum, considering I was only working for Australians for 3 years. Australia has the highest proportion of small investors in the stockmarket in the world, and it's one of the main things that's driven their economy so much further than ours. It's a bloody good idea, which is why they keep voting to raise the level of the contributions.
Of course, to some extent, it is supporting capitalism. But at least it's supporting functional capitalism that makes it's own people richer.
It also took bugger all time to make a big impact, they only started the scheme in the early 90s.
If the only good outcome of this election is that compulsory savings are squarely on the table, then I'll have some hopes that my kids might live in a wealthier NZ than I am.
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to Kate Hannah,
George Monbiot has the answer for you: economic parasitism by academic publishers who have prfoit margins approaching 40%.
Yes, I forgot all about the profit motive on intellectualism. Probably because it just seems so pissly compared to the kind of profits such clever people could make if they really went for broke.
ETA: What I mean is, they would probably only have to write ONE popular book to pay for all of their more serious works.
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I'll say one thing for the super city. It's made the library system in Auckland WAY better. Not only can I freely browse and order books from ALL of the libraries in Auckland, but they are transferred for free to my local library. I was actually flabbergasted.
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to Kate Hannah,
thx 4 that, I might ping you in the next few days if I'm feeling muscular enough for a bike ride into the library.
and given we have so few public intellectuals here, in a way they have even more responsibility to do this ....
I think that intellectualism and academics are certainly highly correlated. There's a much higher chance of someone being an intellectual who took on higher learning. Not sure which causes which, but it doesn't really matter.
But there's still a lot of people who are intellectual who just couldn't afford the time or money involved in higher learning. And these people are in many ways far more influential because they are infiltrated everywhere in society.
And the point that academics are under institutional pressure is important. Respect to those who aren't scared to speak out.
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to Kate Hannah,
and Chomsky - "it is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies."
He does say that, but I've read and listened to a lot of Chomsky, and a constant theme of his is that American academics fails of this responsibility quite badly, as a class (although there are many, many exceptions). Note he used the word "intellectuals" rather than "academics". I don't think that's an accident. He claims one of his greatest influences was his uncle, who owned a newsstand and had no schooling beyond 4th grade. His mother was the activist, despite his father being a professor.
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to Kate Hannah,
That's generous of you, thank you. How does one holler at you? Couldn't find your email on your blog.
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
The Auckland University Library is chock full of books that are interesting to me. It is a bit limiting, though, that I have to read them in the library. I wouldn't even be going to such a library if I was looking for books that I could get much out of in a sitting.
I have, in the past, paid to have the right to take books out. But the need has been that infrequent that I've ended up just taking a camera and photoing the pages I needed to pore over. And recently, it's been rare not to be able to find the information I'm after on the internet.
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to 3410,
with some more very wealthy people avoiding taxes.
Or, to be more specific, the two wealthiest people in the world avoiding tax.
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OnPoint: PREFU 2011: "What credit downgrade?", in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Winz, Doc, Housing NZ .Military , NZ Transport Agency, MAF,IRD, the beehive, Universities, Zespri to name but a many.
I'd really have to do my research to have any clue what happened to all of those. A cheat sheet would be handy.
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