sagenz

I am a market democrat

dpf links to a new political philosophy at Kiwiblog. Craig Emmerson, an Australian Labour MP

In a market democracy governments should serve the people instead of seeking to subjugate the people to the will of government through high taxes and heavy regulation. By allowing markets to reward hard work, risk-taking and entrepreneurship without unnecessary interference, market democrats advance freedom and self-fulfilment.

And with that thought I finally identify my true political philosophy.  A strong belief in markets democracy and equality of opportunity.  I have always struggled with the libertarian view that education is the obligation of parents.  That makes life a total lottery mostly determined at birth.  But I have never been able to cope with cradle to grave welfarism.

And the authoritarian instincts of some fellow National party members leaves me totally cold. 

I look forward to reading more about the description of this philosophy.

It describes why I felt joy that Ireland rejected the perfectly sensible "treaty" that they Eurocrats are trying to implement in a completely anti democratic way and the delight that David Davis had the honour to resign his seat and fight the fascist authoritarian tendencies of this Brown government in the UK.

42 days detention without trial is not a requirement.  It is an indication that you have lost precisely what you are supposed to be fighting for - freedom and the right to habeus corpus

Parliamentary Service is breaking the law?

Interesting point by Graeme Edgeler. Taxpayers financing Labour's Budget ad .   Surely it is outside Parliamentary Services powers to make campaign donations whether they are acknowledged on the ad or not?

Mr Edgeler also said that under the new law, the cost of the leaflet might have to be declared as an election donation by the Parliamentary Service to the Labour Party. "If I gave the Labour Party $30,000 worth of leaflets it would be a donation - just as if they printed off $30,000 worth and sent me the bill and I paid it, that would be a donation. "I really don't see the difference between them sending a bill to me, or getting the leaflets from me, and them sending the bill to the Parliamentary Service or getting the leaflets from the Parliamentary Service." That was not how Labour intended the act to operate and would be another big embarrassment for it.

I would be interested to know how you get past that paradox

paying the cost of socialist mistakes

Just Left: Cost of Living asks what can be done about the current cost of living crisis.  So I told him.

Quite willing to take undeserved credit for the good but not willing to take responsibility for the bad. Cullen is reaping what he sowed. Your socialist policies of increased middle class welfare and taxing the bejesus out of everyone so that net of tax people have not gained income on average is the root cause of these problems. There is a culture formed that people do not need to take responsibility for their own actions. The best thing Labour can do is call an election now so that National and a competent administration can take over. The problem is also caused by the high exchange rate meaning too much easy money flowing into New Zealand. While US & UK have a housing crisis the median mortgage servicing problem in NZ is far in excess of those. Incomes need to rise to service the debts. The only way that will happen is over the long term. That means cuts in corporate tax and increased capital allowances. But that is the honest option and Labour are too gutless. You want to buy some peace now. Cullen needs to drop taxes enormously and increase disposable incomes and incentives for business to invest. Raising the market demand for staff will raise incomes. But that wil take time and Labour do not have it. Cutting GST will fuel inflation. Cullen needs to force down the exchange rate. Bollard must drop interest rates

OMG - Helengrad is going to sell state assets

In a sign  of total panic Labour announced today that they intend to sell state assets to key elements of their core constituency - PM announces shared equity scheme for home buyers .

Spin, Entitlement & deception. When is it corruption

Ruth Laugesen has an excellent piece in the SST. Spinning govt yarn costs $47m.   

Government agencies have hired more new communications staff in five years than all the journalists working at Television New Zealand, Radio New Zealand, the Sunday Star-Times and the Dominion Post newspapers put together.

The Ministry of Social Development topped the list with 54 communications staff and contractors, making it bigger than Radio New Zealand's entire workforce of journalists.

Think about that.  Social Welfare has more than the main public radio station.  Does that tell you something about priorities?  Apparently "only" 15 deal direct with the media. But there is only 1 social welfare reporter in Radio New Zealand.  So every time there is something newsworthy the massed ranks of "communications" employees in social welfare can be brought to bear.

The standard has a hilarious attempted rebuttal.  Its all the nasty capitalists fault.  thestandard.org.nz.

The basis of the article is that the number of spindoctors employed by the Government has greatly increased - we’re told it’s doubled from five years ago and is much much larger than it was in 1984. This is totally true. But one of the aspects of good spin is what you leave out.

There are a lot of reasons general communications staff might increase, most notably the fact that it takes a lot of people and effort to maintain an up-to-date website and having no website or an out of date one leaves you open to a lot of criticism (especially if you’re a ministry). Y’see, nearly every newsroom in New Zealand has had the guts ripped out of it by its owners.

The really disturbing piece about this is the justification.  Labour feels it has to get its message out because newsrooms are being cut.  NO statistical basis for that whatsoever, unlike Laugeson who sticks to the facts.  And the argument is completely circular.  The government must according to standard employ more people to generate more press releases to make up for the reduction in MSM journalists. So apparently the MSM have retrenched journalists because it is cheaper just to regurgitate the government spin.  What next? Parliamentary Services takes over news corp?

Aparently the ministry needs to have up to date websites.  Apparently not all of them disclosed.  Here is what part of your $47m pays for.

Kiwiblog » Blog Archive » The Standard hosted by the Labour Party?.  Apparently The Standard is hosted by the Labour Party on servers that also host the Labour party website.  The main Labour party website has the parliamentary crest meaning it is paid for from public money.

The following is a comment I wrote at Kiwiblog. -   To summarise my understanding of facts & inferences so far. Labour party rented servers & one of a block of reserved IP addresses are used to host the standard. - not in dispute The fact that the labour party pays for but does not authorise the site appears to be a breach of the EFA - not yet disputed The standard bloggers are self described not members of the labour party. - Whilst not being paid up financial members allows them to truthfully assert they are not members I wonder whether d4j or redbaiter would get the same charitable offer of server space from the friendly labour party. Some of the Standard bloggers appear to work in the communications area for EPMU. - not disputed yet. But there is a difference between someone whose job description is to blog and someone, whose bosses understand that these staff are “fighting the good fight” by spending part of their working hours blogging. The output from the standard is to high to be done in that limited time outside working hours with a normal social life. I pay for my own site on sixapart. It costs me about $10 a month. No doubt dpf’s costs are worth substantially more due to the higher traffic. The biggest cost is time.I surmise that some of the standard bloggers have moved gradually to a situation where they spend part of their working hours at EPMU blogging on labour party hosted servers. Under the current law that would appear to require authorisation and disclosure.

We are not talking huge sums of money. It is the principle. It would be the highest delicious irony for the first breach of the new law to be a labour supporting group. I can see a complaint to the electoral commission coming on.

Taxpayer money is being used to fund people in the New Zealand blogging community to rebut the time of people like myself who think it is worth their own time and money to argue against the evils of this current government. 

At what point does the misuse of taxpayers funds become corruption?

We knocked the bastard off

Sir Edmund Hillary has died.  They quoted his famous - "We knocked the bastard off" on Radio this morning.  Interesting contrast with yesterday morning when they replayed what the first astronauts to leave Earths orbit - on Apollo 8 - said.  They quoted a passage from Genesis.

I guess that says something about the respective national characters.

A very sad loss.  Respect.

The Year in Online Video 2007

Wired Mag- you have to check out the mtv presenter emo to "Leave Britney alone", then 5 fellas dry humping an ottoman,  this is worthy of ricky gervais.  Brilliant!!! The Year in Online Video 2007.

New Zealand should be a leader in hydrogen solutions

A blog I only recently discovered and already much admire, The Hive has an excellent post on realistic commercial solutions for New Zealand energy needs.  It is a position I have long believed in.  Use sustainable sources to generate and store hydrogen and then use that stored energy when you need it.  This gets around the fundamental problem that sustainable energy sources generally have, which is that the time of generation is not the same as the time or requirement and traditional storage methods are not commercially viable.

New Zealand for example has a wonderful opportunity to lead the way in hydrogen solutions. We have a relative abundance of energy (both power from renewable sources such as wind and hydro and huge coal reserves – 1,000 years worth of coal reserves) and we have lots of water. If the wind is blowing and we have a heavy snow melt or lots of rain, New Zealand has more energy than it can use. The spot price for electricity drops to close to zero. Why not turn it into hydrogen? All you need electricity and water. The hydrogen could be used to power cars, trucks and busses, and even buildings or groups of buildings. New Zealand’s greenhouse gas contribution could reduce substantially.

For instance the Waitaki Hydro scheme had total average energy output of 6,744 GWh.  Its station generation output is 1526.2 MW.  The scheme is operating at around 50% of its theoretical capacity of 13,369 GWh is all stations were run 24 hours a day all year.

Obviously drought and maintenance would substantially reduce the difference but there is still an enormous opportunity to capture the energy value of all that water going over the spillway rather than through the turbines.

Use of a party logo makes it election spending

The way this law has been written is actually going to force huge unintended change. Interpreting bill 'almost impossible'.

The problematic clause 80 says parties' election expenses do not include anything done by an MP if it was "in his or her capacity as a member of Parliament".

I would argue that any inclusion of a party logo on any advertisement or any link to a party site would make this an election expense.

If indeed the publication of a information on a subject such as WFF is required it does not follow that the party that promoted that policy is part of the information required except for one reason.  That reason is promoting votes for that party or person.

The publication of an MP office hours for consituents to visit is clearly acceptable.  Publishing their views on any topic makes it election advertising.

Look forward to some challenges in court for anybody attempting to combine parliamentary services crest and a party logo.  This law will make advertisments like this party political.

I really doubt the public will look kindly at state funding by the back door.

Donate Bullshit to the Labour party!!!

OK - So who wants to anonymously give $5000 worth of bullshit to the Labour party.  Just pass it though the electoral office: Crays caught in electoral pot - 22 Nov 2007 - Political News - New Zealand Herald.

Under new protected disclosure provisions in the bill, the commission takes donations of more than $1000 if the giver wishes to remain anonymous and passes them to political parties "But donations are money, goods and services," Dr Catt said, "so if you wanted to give $3000 worth of wood to a political party or 300 crayfish and remain anonymous, you would have to give it to us and we would have to do something with the wood or crayfish before we could pass it on."

Brilliant!!! if only for the incompetence

Seen over at hard news.  TVNZ is about to be banned from running election advertisements

Posted at 12:28PM on 20 Nov 07. Permalink.

But we shouldn't be depending on the whole-of-house committee to fix new and remaining problems over a few days in Parliament.

Agreed. On this topic, have a look at the new section 55B:

The following persons and bodies may not publish or cause or permit to be published any election advertisement:
(a) the chief executive (however described) of a department of State or a Crown entity:
(b) a department of State:
(c) a Crown entity:
(d) a State enterprise (within the meaning of section 2 of the State Owned Enterprises Act 1986) or a Crown owned company:
(e) any other instrument of the Crown.

I'm not sure, but would this prevent TVNZ from broadcasting any of the parties' election advertisements? TV3 might not mind that, but I'm sure it wasn't intended.

The way this is going, I don't think I trust parliament to remove more errors than they're going to introduce. If they reduced the regulated period to a uniform 90 days, they wouldn't be in so much of a rush.

Tim
<><

P.S. Graeme, I'm looking forward to reading your blog post on this.

Graeme Edgeler
From: Wellington, New Zealand
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 343

 

Reply

Posted at 12:48PM on 20 Nov 07. Permalink.

Tim - I haven't completely thought it through, but I think you're right (or at the very least this clause of the EFB and sections of the Broadcasting Act are in direct conflict).

I'll add it to my list :-)

superb ministerial epitaph

hattip dpf for link Beehive.govt.nz - Renewed Cabinet line-up.

Both Steve Maharey and Mark Burton have carried tremendous workloads since 1999. I respect ...Mark’s decision to put all his energy into campaigning for re-election in his constituency.

He was not pushed.... Honest :)

This is way beyond a choke

This article is well worth reading for those of you who blame the ref or anybody but the team and the coaching

This is way beyond a choke

October 10, 2007 

Arrogance came back to haunt the favourites yet again, writes Brendan Gallagher in Paris.

Where did it all go wrong? And, more importantly, why does it always go wrong? Those were the questions being asked by the shell-shocked New Zealand rugby public as their beaten team again headed for home without the World Cup - nor even a sniff of it. Their fall from grace could not have been more painful.

How can it be that the self-styled greatest rugby side on earth, championed by Adidas as the template for teamwork and success across the sporting world, yet again failed to deliver when it counted? No longer can they dismiss the "choker" taunts - time after time, the All Blacks have redefined the term at World Cups.

Only once have New Zealand won the World Cup, and that was when they co-hosted the inaugural competition in 1987, a tournament in which they were effectively the only professional team.

If they are ever to regain the trophy they believe is their birthright, they have got to get over themselves and take a long look at the way the rest of the rugby world perceives them. It will hurt, but the reward could be the Webb Ellis Cup.

The All Blacks are probably the world's best rugby players, but they have a fatal character trait - a pure, unattractive arrogance that trips them up every time. Occasionally, some PR guru encourages them to show their humble side and, in fairness, the class of 2007 have tried hard to avoid public statements of superiority. But, generally, it does not last - and their administrators do them no favours.

To win sport's biggest prizes, you have to absorb and learn, not lecture and preach. You must be humble. The All Blacks have never been humble. They are told they are special from the moment they first pull on the famous shirt and they expect special treatment from the rest of the world. The All Blacks ethos is their Achilles heel.

They are huge fish in a small pool and everything they do or say goes unquestioned. If Graham Henry and the New Zealand Rugby Union want to rip up the Super 14 and take their top 22 players out of the competition for special fitness training for two months, they plough right ahead. If you happen to be Sky television, or the Australian and South African rugby unions, it is tough. The All Blacks have spoken.

That haughtiness and insularity explains why they blindly defended Tana Umaga and Keven Mealamu when they nearly maimed Lions captain Brian O'Driscoll. They would have done New Zealand rugby a much bigger service by banning the duo for two months apiece. Dream on.

There is extraordinary arrogance and pettiness over their commercially driven haka, as though they are the only nation on earth allowed to express their individuality. So, too, the pompous assumption that they always know better than the lawmakers and referees. Unbelievable. Have a flick through a law book, guys, take an honest look at the match tapes and see just how much the All Blacks get away with.

They raid the Pacific Islands to replenish their playing stocks, but have the All Blacks ever played a full international at Apia against Samoa by way of encouragement? Or even thanked them? The truth is that New Zealand are terrified Samoa, Fiji and Tonga will get their act together and become competitive teams who can hang on to their stars. On the evidence of France 2007, their worst nightmares could soon come true.

New Zealanders slag off the Six Nations incessantly but, bless them, they miss the point entirely. Yes, the Tri Nations is more athletic and skilful, and produces some very watchable, pretty rugby. But the Six Nations is played on an epic scale, in giant stadia packed with up to 80,000 screaming, half-drunk partisans.

It embraces six rugby cultures, stadia, climates and playing standards. The Six Nations breeds hard-nosed brutes who regularly grind out winning performances and learn how to win "ugly". Australia, with a wider sporting culture than NZ, also know how to win ugly. In contrast, when the lights go down and it comes to showtime, New Zealand suffer horribly from stage fright.

It is their isolation - mental as much as geographical - that makes NZ so vulnerable. If they came down off Mount Olympus and joined us rugby serfs more often, they would gain a much better perspective on the game. And the World Cup would almost certainly be their reward.

Telegraph, London

NZ's Cup calamities

1991: Semi-final, Dublin, lost 16-6
Veteran team done in cold blood by Australia. David Campese's finest moment, with Tim Horan not far behind.

1995: Final, Johannesburg, lost 15-12
Looked superb going into the final but failed to fire against a Nelson Mandela-inspired South Africa. Then tried to blame a hotel waitress for poisoning them.

1999: Semi-final, London, lost 43-31
Relied too heavily on Jonah Lomu to build a lead and were then blitzed by France in an epic match at Twickenham.

2003: Semi-final, Sydney, lost 22-10
Unapproachable for most of the tournament, New Zealand went into their shells and played like drains against Australia.

2007: Quarter-final, Cardiff, lost 20-18
Froze against a clever but hardly vintage French side. Big names failed to deliver, little leadership and tactically inept.

Jock Hobbs has a crack

This is the quality of what those foreign based of us has to put up with.  In response to The ref's to blame: NZRU - rugbyheaven07.com.au.

"Some of the decisions the referee made had an enormous bearing on the outcome," Hobbs said. "In our view some of the decisions were very, very questionable.

I got emailed the link and the following

And this from a side whose number 7 lives offside, practice accidental blocking as part of a training routine and are basically so far up themselves they cannot see reality or daylight.

When you have 70% of possession and the opposition have to make 170 (I also read 313) tackles there is nobody to blame.

If anybody knows any Kiwis tell the girls to get over it it’s a man’s game and stop choking.

the state of the game is shit

This about sums up the aussie attitude to rugby and makes some good points about the state of the game.  talk about playing forcebackThe Sydney Morning Herald Blogs: All Men Are Liars.

Part of the reason for the fans' lack of passion is they aren't really sure what happened, and why? If rugby is so good how come they always change the farking rules? If you're looking for a red flag that a game is fatally flawed, note how often its administrators change the fundamental ways the game is played.

I mean really, you've had a century or so to work it out guys, yet every couple of seasons fans and players have to digest a raft of ridiculously technical rules like the new Experimental Law Variations

rugby jokes started already

Hi,

I just wanted to clear something up....

What do you kall a Kiwi in the World Cup final?          A Referee

What do you call an Aussie in the World Cup Final?   A linesman.

France to meet England at the Stade de France. New Zealand to meet Australia at terminal two at Charles de Gaule.

The difference between a tea bag and an All Black? A tea bag stays in the cup for longer.

All Black Rugby - Says it all really

This was left on my keyboard on arrival at work this morning.  says it all really

choke (FAIL)   Show phonetics
verb [I] (ALSO choke it) INFORMAL
(usually in sports) to fail to do something at a time when it is urgent, usually because you suddenly lose confidence:
He could score points at will during the qualifying matches, but in the final he completely choked.

Will KiwiSavers be scammed the same way?

One reason why I have no intention of putting any money into managed pension funds. The hidden sales scandal .

A study by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission found that in 4900 super fund switching recommendations given by advisers, 90% recommended a switch to a related fund on which they earned commission. In many cases they made only generalised references to costs and failed to report on lost benefits

Climate Audit - How crap is the measurement

You may be a climate change sceptic or you may genuinely interested in reality.  Give yourself a few minutes to read this post over at Climate Audit - by Steve McIntyre ? Does Hansen’s Error “Matter”?.  Written by 1 of a group of people who are steadily going through and proving that the temperature measurement points in the US that much of the whole climate change issue is based around are flawed.  What really struck me was the way the US temperatures are no higher than the 1930's.  The rest of the world average temperature is increasing much more rapidly.  And yet the US is supposed to be the big global warming bogeyman.  The nuance identified by steve McIntyre is that outside the US there does not seem to be many adjustments for urbanisation effects on temperature measurement. Hattip No minister

On the other hand, for most stations outside the U.S., there are no such adjustment procedures. Furthermore, many of the stations are in extremely urban areas (such as Shanghai or Beijing). The need for urban adjustment is most severe in the very areas where no adjustments are made.

Read the whole thing. 

One more story to conclude. Non-compliant surface stations were reported in the formal academic literature by Pielke and Davey (2005) who described a number of non-compliant sites in eastern Colorado. In NOAA’s official response to this criticism, Vose et al (2005) said in effect -

it doesn’t matter. It’s only eastern Colorado. You haven’t proved that there are problems anywhere else in the United States.

In most businesses, the identification of glaring problems, even in a restricted region like eastern Colorado, would prompt an immediate evaluation to ensure that problems did not actually exist. However, that does not appear to have taken place and matters rested until Anthony Watts and the volunteers at surfacestations.org launched a concerted effort to evaluate stations in other parts of the country and determined that the problems were not only just as bad as eastern Colorado, but in some cases were much worse.

Now in response to problems with both station quality and adjustment software, Schmidt and Hansen say in effect, as NOAA did before them -

it doesn’t matter. It’s only the United States. You haven’t proved that there are problems anywhere else in the world.

My climate change prediction

“it doesn’t matter. It’s only the United States and Europe. You haven’t proved that there are problems anywhere else in the world. ”

“it doesn’t matter. It’s only the United States, Europe and Asia. You haven’t proved that there are problems anywhere else in the world. ”

“it doesn’t matter. It’s only the land surface of the world. You haven’t proved that there are problems anywhere else in the atmosphere. ”

“it doesn’t matter. It’s only the surface of the world. You haven’t proved that there are problems anywhere else in the atmosphere. ”

“it doesn’t matter. It’s only the lower atmosphere of the earth. You haven’t proved that there are problems anywhere else in the atmosphere. ”

“it doesn’t matter. It’s only the atmosphere. You haven’t proved that there are problems anywhere else in the …. “

The high NZ dollar is overwhelmingly driven by the yen carry trade

This is one of the most relevant comments I have read recently Hard News: Death Spiral! : Public Address | System.

why do you all ignore the yen? this situation is overwhelmingly driven by the yen carry trade. and contrary to the pathetic NZ media, that doesn't mean japanese housewives buying nz dollar retail bonds. how glib. no, the yen carry trade involves US-based hedge funds borrowing billions of yen from japanese banks at ultralow interest rates, selling the yen and buying nz dollars, Aus dollars or other high-yielding currencies. this money coming in is what fuels our housing "boom" (bubble). in 12 months the nz dollar has appreciated MORE against the yen than against the US dollar--up 35%. Even at the current parity, prices and wages in NZ are much lower than in most other developed countries. wages, yes. prices, no. prices in NZ are out of control at the current exchange rate. most things are cheaper in japan. basics: food, rent, transport, etc. a direct reversal of five years ago.