Posts by Rob Stowell
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Merry Christmas Russell – hoping everyone has a great summer.
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Hard News: Word of the Year 2014: #dirtypolitics, in reply to Russell Brown,
PAS' loss is Kiwiblog's gain.* Couldn't happen to nicer folk.
* The average rationality of both blogs rises so perhaps it's a win-win. -
I'm picking 'cut the crap' for 2015. Because there's so much crap still out there...
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Best luck Emma. Hoping for a happy summer.
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Speaker: Inequality: Too big to ignore, in reply to BenWilson,
I’m really curious whether, in practice, you make your hypotheses in advance of your experiments.
How could you design an experiment without doing this?
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Speaker: Inequality: Too big to ignore, in reply to Bart Janssen,
I am faced with believing Key and his caucus or believing the OECD and their team of experts
Tough eh. But that nice Mr Key made millions, so he knows all about money. How much did any of these 'so called experts' make on the international money-markets?
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It's fairly simple to understand how people at the lower end having more money stimulates the economy. Robert Reich has been explaining this for many years.
One of the flip sides (I reckon) is how the rich getting richer creates investment bubbles. People who have way more cash than they need or want to spend, have to find a home for it. They invest in things that will maintain or increase in value and/or deliver a good return- like property. All that money looking for a home fuels bubbles; housing is just one (and it's fuelled not just by the wealthy directly buying up houses; it's also banks being able to access large dollops of money -overseas money, for NZ - to lend.)
Also: Morning Report's interviews drove me a little crazy. No one even mentioned the one thing which a/ caused inequality and poverty in NZ to shoot up, and b/ is one of the most obvious ways to redistribute wealth - the 1991 benefit slashing, and the way no government since has considered redressing this. Instead we get harder and nastier daily on beneficiaries- with the implied assumption the only good beneficiary is an ex-beneficiary.
Makes me feel sick. -
Legal Beagle: Wellington Super City? Not…, in reply to Hebe,
BPC wasn't doing well - but many of its problems related to endless and ever-increasing bureaucratic demands from central govt. Eg the BP district plan of 1998 was one of the toughest on development in NZ, on the back of various consultants' reading of the RMA. That took 10 years to unravel, a mountain of paper, and massive cost in $ and goodwill.
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If we combine with the Australian military presence, surely we'd have to have the same 'rules of engagement'?
What does that mean vis-a-vis Key's assurance NZ forces would have a 'training role only'? -
'slightlyleftofcentre' has gone private. Or maybe I have a suspicious IP?!