Posts by Chris Bowden
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A good podcast on the WTO process. However bad the US is doing at a number of things, they do great podcasts: from Planet Money
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You might want to fact check the presales figures. There seems to be some disagreement as to whether the 5,000 stat is accurate. See http://istwitterwrong.tumblr.com/post/30589859019/are-london-2012-paralympic-ticket-pre-sales-four, for example (apologies for my inability to post user friendly links)
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Since the appointement I have heard at least two interviews with JK where the interviewer referred to him as "Sir John" and JK immediately replied that he was more comfortable with "JK". He is certainly in the honeymoon stage with the media at the moment, but I suspect things will get a lot tougher as soon as the 2013 season starts.
He was my favourite All Black as a kid, I used to watch him run around for Marist. Good luck to him, but it will be a hard ask for the reasons Russell sets out.
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Slightly off topic (fast food rather than food shopping) but the Glenfield Night Market on a Sunday is worth a look. I never thought a market in the carpark of a North Shore mall would be worth going to, but the number of ethnic food stalls is amazing, and there is a buzz about the place that reminds me of thai street food markets. Most things are around $5 too so you can pick and choose, and try a few things that you have never seen before.
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My understanding is that most Scandanavians sound American because movies and TV programmes over there are not dubbed, but subtitled. Therefore, kids grow up on a diet of American English.
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I think that the need for cleaner energy could be resolved by the public sector, provided that the incentives are in place by government to encourage it (tax breaks, subsidies etc). As has been demonstrated above, the ownership of energy companies by the public sector has exactly encouraged renewables.
Ben, I am confused by your concept of 'demand'. While I understand your reservations regarding the orthodox economic supply and demand equilibrium, demand has to be a related to price to some extent. I would happily 'demand' a lot more power if it was free (or half/quarter the price), running my heating/air conditioning 24hrs a day and buying a plasma TV, as would a lot ofpeople. However, such demand would be extremely inefficient, and someone would end up paying for it (in the case of public provision of electricity, it would mean diversion of funds from other services). How do you define demand? Is it the demand for electricity at a 'reasonable' price and if so, what price is 'readonable'?
I have done a bit of looking around, and the profits of electrictity generators does seem high on a numbers basis, but I can't work out whether it is an exceptional profit given the high asset base and capital investment required. Can anyone shed light on this?
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Hard News: Unwarranted risk, in reply to Bart Janssen,
I would love a plan to replace my knees, especially a for pair that is more efficient and more forgiving as (I hope) I still have a few things for them to achieve!!
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Hard News: Unwarranted risk, in reply to BenWilson,
Only a wikipedia source but nevertheless, demand increase may have been less than 20%:
"Electricity demand is growing by an average of 2.1% per year since 1974 and 0.9% from 2005 to 2010."
Electricity price rises will not just be a function of supply v demand over that time frame. I suspect price prices would be explained at least in part by increases in the underlying cost of supplying power, although I don't have the time or inclination to comprehensively source this assertion.
I am not a big fan of building extra power stations just for the hell of it. On the assumption that you are advocating a public rather than a private work, the capital that would be required to create power we don't need could be put to much better uses. A better argument might be to invest in more efficient and cleaner energy.
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Hard News: Staying Alive, in reply to George Darroch,
+1 for the phased lights. That would solve the "jumping a red" problem.
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Hard News: Staying Alive, in reply to Mark Thomas,
It is a case of "if you build it they will come" in terms of safer cycling infrastructure (and better public transport options in general). I am sure that if there were separate, safe cycle lanes down the main arterial routes into the city there would be a lot more cyclists, and consequently a lot less cars on the road.