Posts by Russell Brown
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OnPoint: Student Loans are Loans (Duh.), in reply to Kumara Republic,
And for the ultimate in irony, remember the much-touted Wall Street of the South Pacific? Treasury and MED have called bullshit because it would need big subsidies to prop it up, and even if in place it would still make a net loss for NZ.
Also: countries with large financial sectors at the kind proposed got reamed in the credit crunch over the past three years. It's just a terrible idea.
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OnPoint: Student Loans are Loans (Duh.), in reply to Sacha,
prefer to pretend
more like angrily deny :)
"Angrily pretend".
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OnPoint: Student Loans are Loans (Duh.), in reply to Sacha,
And they sent huge numbers of them to be trained *in* those Western systems – notably, US universities.
The other thing that the Chinese system (for all its many faults) is beginning to get really right is devoting resources to ameliorating the threat of climate change. Indeed, climate change is notable (to put it mildly) as an example of a challenge for which there is no immediate market imperative. That’s why so many libertarians prefer to pretend it simply isn’t happening
Emissions trading schemes are an attempt to retrofit a market imperative by putting a price on carbon, but direct government action is simpler and, on the evidence so far, more effective.
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OnPoint: Student Loans are Loans (Duh.), in reply to Keir Leslie,
Cherrypicking successful example of government spending is not an argument.
Citing the internet is hardly cherry-picking. It's so important that it counterbalances any number of losing bets.
Interestingly, TCP/IP caught on it part because Cerf, Postel, etc were able to force adoption via their control of public research funding. If you didn't get on board, you didn't get the money.
In particular, war-driven advances in technology are one of the worst advertisements for government investment in technology ever.
Well, for a start, they win wars, which is not insignificant. They make an excellent case for government investment in that sense. But in general, that doesn't say that we should maintain war because it produces useful technological advances -- just that some investment outside the short-term requirements of the market produces vast subsequent market benefits.
I think there's no debate that what emerged from DARPA was a better, more open solution for everyone than the alternatives: which were proprietary networking protocols on one hand and establishment solutions like GOSIP on the other.
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OnPoint: Student Loans are Loans (Duh.), in reply to Keir Leslie,
The thing is, when someone says: we have insufficient tradespeople, they are not really saying that. What they are saying is that tradespeople cost too much, and they would like the supply of tradespeople to be subsidised in order to bring that price down. Markets work. Not always, but in general.
So if the education market delivers us loads of fairly ordinary accountants and lawyers and a vanishing number of computer scientists and engineers, then that must be the right answer because that's what the market said?
The accountancy and law degrees are cheaper and easier to get and offer access to an employment market with many customers -- a no-brainer on a personal level. The science and engineering degrees are harder to get and offer access to a smaller employment market and lower incomes. So, clearly, all sensible people should become lawyers and accountants. But this isn't so good on the level of national economic development -- and, crucially, it's every bit as much of an artefact of the system you've chosen to distribute the public resources as, say, people choosing science degrees because there's a 100% subsidy for the cost of science degrees.
China's success in technology manufacturing isn't only a result of competitively low wages -- but of the state's decision to train many more engineers than would typically be trained in a western system. They don't all have to be brilliant engineers, but they're there -- and they're a crucial factor in China's market competitiveness.
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OnPoint: Student Loans are Loans (Duh.), in reply to Keir Leslie,
Of course, it is very easy to point to examples of misguided government investment. Think Big, for instance. Or farm subsidies.
And you dismissed it as “cherry-picking” when Ben cited the internet!
And that is solely in New Zealand, a traditionally free market economy.
Anything but. New Zealand in the 20th century looks like a museum of regulation and intervention. We didn’t so much distort markets as tie them in pretzel bows.
And yet, it’s clear that the government acting outside market theory worked pretty well in some cases. The overwhelming modern emphasis on contestable spending has been to the cost of public science and public broadcasting. And the old Ministry of Works would have been bloody handy in Christchurch these past couple of years.
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Hard News: " To prostitute yourself to…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
she had the awareness and easy confidence of a high-functioning psychopath.
Or without being that offensive, Russell, someone who has probably spent weeks – if not months – with the best lawyers and media trainers a lot of money can hire drilling her on every possibly line of questioning.
No, I think what was on show wasn't something she learned in the last year, but what took her to the top of the organisations for which she worked. It was both highly impressive and unnerving.
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Hard News: Where do you get yours?, in reply to Islander,
Bart – despite a cataract operation in my dominant left eye (which has given me better vision than I have ever had before – waua! waking up and actually being able to see! Right now!) I havent craved any kind of e-reader.
I was talking to my mum this morning -- of course -- and she'd been to my great uncle Dave's 99th birthday party. The family had feared he'd been fading, but a cataract operation has taken years off him -- he was even back to leading the singing, which is a big part of that side of the family's culture. Looks like he'll do the ton.
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Hard News: Where do you get yours?, in reply to Simon Grigg,
The tips I find on DJ History are always worthwhile once I get past the Balearic references to obscure Fleetwood Mac records.
The DJ History group on Soundcloud is a good follow too.
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Hard News: " To prostitute yourself to…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Chipping away at the Govt…
Rebekah ‘babbling’ Brooks testifies…Brooks' appearance at Leveson last night was tremendous viewing. As I tweeted in the midst of it, she had the awareness and easy confidence of a high-functioning psychopath.
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