Posts by Kumara Republic
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Speaker: The government's Rules…, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
Cowboy movie, anyone?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11528352
Or a TV sitcom in the early 1980s.
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Polity: TPP, eh?, in reply to izogi,
Oh and I’ve written my little rant under that RNZ article about why the family farm analogy doesn’t add up, at least in my own view.
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Polity: TPP, eh?, in reply to Stephen Judd,
Now that Slater is toxic, Hooton is the last working channel for injecting noise. See, here we have a Stuff story about a claim by Hooton that a claim was made by unnamed insiders. There is no news value and no evidence. Ask yourself, how much trust you would like to place in Hooton.
Here’s an idea: for every mention of “Labour split”, we actively promote the fact that Judith Collins keeps a sharp set of knives.
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Polity: TPP, eh?, in reply to Swan,
“Canada did OK by continuing to protect dairy / poultry,”
The small fraction of Canada that work in the dairy or poultry industry did ok. The other 99.9%, lost out by continuing to overpay for food. In particular the poor are most affected.
Funny thing is, those we’d expect to uphold free-market principles and abolish farm subsidies are too chicken to challenge the farming lobby, if they’re not outrightly in cahoots with it.
Farm subsides in the G8, it seems, has mutated from a post-WW2 food shortage relief programme, to a corporate welfare scheme that’s gotten too big to unpick.
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Polity: TPP, eh?, in reply to Martin Brown,
The extension of copyright terms in the US under the Sonny Bono Act wasn't done with the interests of artists in mind, but rather for the interests of Big Media. There's a good reason why the Sonny Bono Act is commonly referred to as the Mickey Mouse Act.
And there's been a right blow-up over tax-funded university research being locked behind paywalls by publishing cartels - the kind that Aaron Swartz tried to expose during his lifetime.
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Polity: TPP, eh?, in reply to mpledger,
It does worry me that some foreign corporation can buy land here, totally destroy it, declare bankruptcy and never have to fix up (if they could) what they have destroyed.
We've already seen these 'phoenix companies' in the building sector. The Clark Govt had measures to deal with them, only to back down after NZ Inc threatened a capital strike. Or if the law is in place, it's yet another wet bus ticket regime.
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Polity: TPP, eh?, in reply to Bart Janssen,
I am of course thinking wishfully, it is pretty clear from Minister Joyce’s comments of late that the only investments the govt is keen on are those that pay off in less than one electoral term and plants take too much time to grow.
In other words, "dumb economy" sectors like oil, agriculture, mining, tourism, FIRE, property bubbles, casinos (which combines the last 3)...
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So we effectively imported the Mickey Mouse Copyright Act. Could have been worse though.
It also goes to show that Big Farming within the G8 is more powerful than their nations' upper houses. Even those of a 'free market' persuasion are too wimpish (or hypocritical) to challenge them.
What I find most bizarre is that US farmers, who have this image of being freedom lovers with a loathing for pinko-socialist bureaucrats in Washington, accept handouts from the state. It seems so . . . un-American! Aren't they embarrassed?
When the Business Roundtable was in its prime it used to bring out zealous American academics that were so right wing they made Ayn Rand look like a raving Marxist. They lectured New Zealand on the benefits of the free market and getting government out of our lives.
I used to like interviewing them as I would always ask them what they thought of the billions of dollars of government handouts doled out to US farmers. They would smile nervously and say of course they didn't agree with them but it was all politics and nothing much could be done about it. What hypocrites! I always felt they would have been more useful staying home and preaching to their own politicians and farmers.
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Further to my point, I'm curious to know how many disabled students are at high decile schools like Auckland Grammar, if there are any at all.