Confessions of an ex Labour Voter

New job

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:41:00 +0000

I start a new job in Monday. Possibly means that I'll be posting less. Depends how busy I get.

But according to my stats I have no readers anyway, so I don't think I'll be missed too much!

Reminds me of that t-shirt with the logo "more people read this than read your blog". Sadly it's true!

Advertising

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:39:00 +0000

I remember learning about taking an "angle" on a story in 6th form journalism, the Herald is getting rather poor at it. Always trying to take a contrarian attitude and blow up a story when there isn't one.

Air NZ has created an ad that pokes fun at the budget airlines. So the Herald goes and interviews the budget airlines who come up with ridiculous statements like "why are they spending hard earned revenue on advertising in an economic crisis?"

Because, you numpty, that's how you drum up business when people aren't spending. You advertise.

Why we're in for a massive crash in a few years

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 15:56:00 +0000

From the LA Time, "The delusion that a crisis of excess debt can be solved by creating more debt is at the heart of the Great Repression. Yet that is precisely what most governments propose to do."

Indeed the world's solution to spiralling debt in the private sector is to get into spiralling debt in the public sector. What happens, however, when the governments start getting into trouble, who is going to bail them out?

I've yet to hear about people wanting to reduce general debt. The whole world seems to want to continue the rampant level of borrowing that we had a few years ago which is precisely what got us into this mess.

Make no bones about it, this cheap money that is being created by the worldwide governments in an effort to stave of depression will kickstart another bubble. And I am pretty sure it's going to be bigger than the last one - which means when the inevitable pop comes, the fallout will be even greater.

I hope that the general population at large will start taking care of their own affairs and pay down their debts when this cheap money starts trickling down. I don't think they will though.

Danish social care for children

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:17:00 +0000

Fascinating article about pedagogy in Denmark from the BBC which talks about a real level of care and committment to disadvantaged children including (shock horror) physical affection like hugs and stability of care. Importantly, the carers also enjoy high social status. The differences in the results between Denmark and Britain are hard to overstate.

I think the single biggest saving for the future would be massive investment in helping the children of today. Children that slip through the cracks in Britain and New Zealand are the criminals and the social welfare abusers of the future. They need, love, affection, education, as well as the basics of warmth, food and clothing. Sure it's expensive and probably not going to win that many votes in an election, but it will save the next generation a boatload in financial and social terms.

Unfortunately short sighted governments who are incentivised to maintain a three to six year view of the world, cannot afford to look into the future with a system like this.

This is how a social welfare state should be. Trying to cure the disease at the early stages, rather than alleviate the symptoms once it has set in for good.

The children are our burden

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:07:00 +0000

From a BBC article about the snow, "Many parents - faced with having to take time off work to care for their children - are puzzled and angry"

I'm taking it a bit out of context here, but I still take issue with the implication that work is more important than kids. That the kids are a burden and a frustration. I can imagine a child reading that and thinking "my mummy must be angry at me because I made her stay home from work. She's angry because her work is more important than me", because that's pretty much what it says at an age where you can't help but be ego-centric.

The children are our future, not a burden.

Selfish adults ruin childhood

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:06:00 +0000

An article in the BBC tells of how parent's selfishness in pursuing their own wealth and happiness is coming at the expense of their children's wellbeing. It's gotta be time for a change of attitudes to life and wealth soon. This latest crash has shown how temporary money is, as it did in the 80s. Yet we still pursue it to the exclusion of so much else in our lives.

Property buying

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:34:00 +0000

What a load of self serving jibberish in the Herald this weekend about more investors looking to buy into property. Of course the head of Auckland Property Rental Association is going to say now's a good time to buy.

This is a great example of what a load of codswollop comes out of traditional news media these days, as journalists with no real knowledge about a subject try to "inform" the masses. About the only thing worth reading in newspapers these days are the columns, because they tend to be written about subjects that the author actually has a clue on.

My investing advice (for the two cents it really is worth), and what I'm about to do myself, is stick some money in shares for the year, ride the wave up as the market begins to price in an economic recovery in 2010, then if you have to get into housing, do it at the end of 2009.

Violent Girls

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 14:28:00 +0000

In the UK, violent crime by girls is up by 50% in the last four years. 10,000 attacks in 2004 to 15,000 attacks last year. Some say this is because police are being less tolerant of female crime, but being the raving Christian Conservative that I am, I have to bring it back to sex and gender differences.

Women have become more sexually and socially aggresive in recent decades, since the women's lib movement. The pace appears to have quickened lately, with sexually aggresive role models like the Pussycat Dolls and Bratz dolls fuelling the sexual fire. While shows like the Apprentice fuel the business fire. So it is hardly surprising this general increase in female aggresion is becoming more manifest in criminal behaviour.

Never mind the man-drought, where have all the ladies gone?

SOE = Govt play thing

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:15:00 +0000

Bill English's latest meddling in the running of an SOE reminds me of what a pain in the posterier the government can be when you're trying to run a decent company. Because the shareholder is the government and the SOE minister is a politician, they're more interested in politics than having a well run company.

I contracted for an SOE in the 07/08 summer and the threat of government regulation for political reasons ate up a tremendous amount of high level time and money.

The CEO's general take on any request from one of our competitors was "let them have it", because if they didn't get it, they'd go running to the government saying we were running a monopoly and not playing fair. As it happened, we were actually bending over backwards for them, but that wouldn't matter a jot in the court of public opinion, so the CEO had no real choice except to roll over and accept the competitor's requests to avoid any negative publicity for his political masters.

This was particularly worrisome as Labour was the government at the time, and would be far more interested in promoting "competition" than ensuring the best possible price for customers. In this instance, they happened to be mutually exclusive.

The point is, a state owned entity is not that great an idea, because it gets mucked around by politics. I can understand that it's a good idea for ownership of certain assets to be retained in New Zealand, but that shouldn't have to mean that the management has to adhere to political flights of fancy and populism. They should be allowed to run themselves as a non-nationalised company would and just pay the dividends into the Crown's coffers.

Bill English needs to keep his nose out of Kiwibank's business and focus on running the economy.

Bill English

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:01:00 +0000

Bill English appears to have lost the plot a bit lately. As shareholding minister he says he's going to have a chat with Kiwibank about reducing the fees charged for mortgage payers who want to break out of their fixed term contracts, and expects other banks to come under pressure to do the same. Phil Goff was widely lampooned when he made the suggestion a few days ago, but his misguidance can be put down to a lefty who doesn't always understand how the real world works.

Bill English has no such excuse. When a bank negotiates a fixed rate, they will source the funding (usually offshore) and will themselves be paying a fixed amount to borrow this money. They have a contract that they must honour too. So if a customer wants to break their contract it costs the bank money to break out of their contract too - or refinance the money to another customer at the lower rate.

If English doesn't understand this, it would make me wonder whether he was the right choice for a finance minister.

Idiots guide to US law passage

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 11:44:00 +0000

After my last post about the House of Representatives passing a bill I realised I didn't know how US Federal law was made, so I did some research. For your edification...

US Congress is made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Senate has two representatives from each state, regardless of size and Senators serve six year terms. The HoR is made up of representatives from each state, with the number of representatives dependent on the population of each state, but each state has at least one representative. Representatives serve two year terms.

Both Senators and Representatives are elected by public vote and they are generally affiliated with Republican or Democratic parties. Because Representatives are only elected for two years at a time, they tend to stick to their party lines more. Senators are there for a longer term so often don't stick necessarily so rigidly to their respective side.

A bill can be introduced in either house (except tax, which must be introduced by the House of Representatives). If one house passes the bill, then it goes to the other house. They must both agree pass the exact same bill. If they do, then it goes to the President who can veto it, or pass it. If he vetoes it, then Congress can override him by getting a two thirds majority in both houses.

Quick and holey, but that's the jist of it. You're welcome.

Introspection

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 11:20:00 +0000

The US House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill that will require iron and steel used for production be provided by American companies. The BBC business editor notes that British and American banks are repatriating a lot of their lending because they are under pressure politically to support their local economies. Especially if they have got handouts from the government.

Inevitably with the world in recession we are seeing every single economy contract into itself and look to hoard its assets and encourage its companies to focus their energies internally. Globalisation is taking a small step backward while every country fends for itself and patriotism enjoys a bit of limelight.

Good news if you're struggling to fight against international competition in your own backyard. Bad news if you're trying to export, even with the cheap NZ dollar.

CapGemini tells contractors to take a pay cut

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:53:00 +0000

Contractors for a project being run CapGemini have been told to take a pay cut or take a hike. I remember a story from a guy who was a supplier to a large corporation. The large corporation was going through some hard times and asked all it's suppliers to reduce their rates and if they did, they'd be looked after in the future (similar story to CapGemini). This particular guy refused to reduce his rates (but offered to look at other ways of reducing overall spend), but was the only one who did so. Six months later he was the only supplier still working for this firm. The rest had been shafted.

The moral of the story is that when companies ask you to do something for them now, for the promise of unspecified rewards at a future unspecified date, they are trying to see how stupid you are. Tell them to stuff off.

Christian hate

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 13:20:00 +0000

David Attenborough has been getting hate mail from Christian fundamentalists because he does not credit God and saying he should burn in hell. This I simply cannot understand. Throughout the bible, readers are repeatedly told that God is the sole judge of character. The basis of the entire New Testament is love they neighbour. To suggest that someone should burn in hell is fundamentally against both notions. Not to mention inhumane and uncaring from people who are supposed to be the most humane and caring.

I disagree with Attenborough that it is incorrect to put creationism and evolution on the same footing. I think they are both theories that have large holes, and they need each other to come to a coherent conclusion. But it is utterly ridiculous to turn that intellectual disagreement into an eternal damnation.

The quote for today on Google is "With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion" - Steven Weinberg. Very apt and sadly so true.

Slumdog human rights

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 16:22:00 +0000

Tateshwar Vishwakarama needs to pull his head in. He's suing the Indian wing of the creators of Slumdog Millionaire for breaching their human rights because the title mentions "Slumdog".

For one this guy needs to redirect his energies into getting people out of the slums, rather than worrying about a movie reference. For two, why does every person who doesn't like something immediately complain about their human rights being violated? What about the rights of people to make a movie? Where does it stop - you can't depict racism in a movie, because that supports racism and violates a minority's human rights?

The far more important human rights being violated are the slum dwellers who can't get clean water or a regular meal. But there's nobody to sue for that.

Apparently some critics say that the movie glamourises poverty. Which part was that? The kid being covered in human excretement, the mother washing clothes in the filthy river, or the abusive "orphange" operators. When I came out of the movie I had a better understanding of poverty and glamorous is most definitely not a word I would use to describe.

It's a real eye opener and drives home some realities of the poverty that still engulfs far too much of our planet. I'd highly recommend it - be warned though, it'll make you want to open your chequebook.

Fiji

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 12:01:00 +0000

The Pacific Islands Forum will suspend Fiji from its midst if it does not make elections happen this year, which sounds like a fair timeline. Banimarama has the noble intention of sorting out a racist and unfair constitution, but he needs to stop mucking about and actually get something done. We can only hope this will provide a bit of impetus.

Sorting out those issues, however, is more important than being part of the Pacific Islands Forum. If they are not resolved, then Fiji will continue to have coup after coup.

Dutch tourism

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 11:14:00 +0000

Rapists should be castrated. Over the last couple of centures, the law has been written by men who don't really understand rape, so it has never really got the punishment it deserves. I don't really understand myself, but I see how much even just a rape scene on tv upsets my wife and I get a glimpse of what an horrific crime this is.

Rapists who attack tourists should be castrated, then sold into slavery and the proceeds given to the tourism industry. As this story shows, this criminal has not only hurt the direct victim of his heinous crime, he has also hurt NZ tourism and muddied the country's good name.

Cut 'em off. If you can't use them responsibly, you can't have them.

Fixing the economy

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 13:40:00 +0000

I dunno about back home, but here in the UK, all of the emphasis for fixing the economy is on getting lending back up to the levels it was pre-crisis. I'm not sure if the powers that be noticed, but this crisis was caused by too much lending. And the reason we got into that predicament is because when the last crash happened with the dot com bubble bursting, the US government made it really cheap to borrow money - i.e. created too much lending.

Anyone else seeing a pattern here?

So I'm picking that if we do manage to get out of this recession quickly, then that'll actually be bad long term, because it means we've slapped a band-aid on with more cheap lending, rather than actually addressing the world's addiction to debt.

Mortgage breaks

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 13:14:00 +0000

Whaleoil has already blogged on this so I'll keep it brief, but Phil Goff is being a muppet when he calls for banks to remove their fees when people who fixed their mortgages at high rates come cap in hand asking for their rate to be dropped.

I'm affected by this - 18 months ago I fixed a smallish mortgage at about 8.2% for five years and could shave at least a percentage point off this if I fixed now, but I made the decision to fix back then, so I'm happy to wear the consequences.

If you couldn't afford the rate, you shouldn't have got a mortgage in the first place.

Say it after me people, personal responsibility.

Poverty

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:07:00 +0000

I'm living in the UK so don't have many expenses going out of my NZ bank account, except my donations to a couple of charities. They look pretty big when nothing else is going out so I was almost contemplating re-evaluating them.

Then over the weekend I watched Kiterunner and Slumdog Millionaire. Two movies that slammed me right back out of my woe-is-me mood and had me weeping for those who really have things bad.

Life is very easy on my side of the tracks, and I won't begrudge a cent I give - it's much better to be on the giving side than the receiving side of this equation.

Broadband rollout

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:06:00 +0000

National have pledged to roll out fibre optic broadband across the country. Sounds like a great idea. They should do some checks though. The Americans did a survey of people who currently didn't get broadband and asked them why they didn't have it. Only 14% said it was because of availability issues. The rest said they weren't interested in having broadband.

I think it's a great idea and would be great for the country. But I'm not Bill minding a farm in Taranaki, who might not give a fat rat's rectum about that fandangled interweb thingy. Somebody should ask him too.

Politicians and media need to back the police

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:31:00 +0000

The case of the innocent bystander shot by police in Auckland last week is a tragedy. I am heartened, however, to see the Police Association president, Greg O'Connor, standing behind the officers, and expect the media and government to also support the officers, unless damning evidence suggesting they should not is presented.

For far too long in New Zealand we have had a culture of blaming police and thinking that they are the bad guys in scenarios. The rape convictions and allegations of a few years ago certainly did not help the matter. But in order to have a strong police force that has the respect of the public at large, the police absolutely must be backed by their superiors. Frontline police are in dangerous situations and have to make difficult decisions in high pressure situations. Occassionally they'll get it wrong. Sometimes they'll be heavy handed, or someone will get hurt who shouldn't have. That's not the police's fault.

Make no mistake, in this situation the blood of the innocent victim is not on the police's hands, it is on the hands of Stephen Hohepa McDonald who was jacked up on P and had police resorting to firearms to bring him under control.

I have no time for do-gooders who protest the introduction of tasers because they are worried that the tasers will cause deaths to some who end up on the sharp end of them. The protestation is completely short sighted. If a person has a weak heart then he should have thought of that before he started running at a police officer wielding a baseball bat. Shoot the guy with a taser. If he dies, tough luck. Stop being a violent offender, then you can have some civil liberties - like not being shot with a taser - back.

Too long we have supported the offenders at the expense of the officers, forgetting they are at the sharp end of the situations restricted by rules and regulations, while fighting against people who are unencumbered by such rules and trifles like morality.

I'd like to hear a few more stories about police "brutality", where a violent offender jacked up on P has had his arm broken while resisting police arrest and I'd like to hear the politicians back the boys in blue in such situations.

If you don't want to feel a police baton smashing down on your forearm, start obeying the law.

Greatest New Zealander

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:25:00 +0000

It's a sad state of affairs when the greatest living New Zealander is Helen Clark. The woman is powerful and gutsy, but she's done a lot of damage to the country as well as good. The competition was pretty woeful too. Willy Apiata did a stand up thing pulling his comrade out under fire, but one act of heroism and he's the second greatest person in the country?! What have the rest of us been up to?

Where are the people consistently at the top of their field, whether that is winning half a dozen gold medals or making scientific breakthroughs.

NZ looks like just another backwater with a heroine like Helen Clark. We need some stand out performers and we need to celebrate those who are trying to be stand out performers rather than this pitiful tall poppy syndrome everyone notices but does nothing about.

Free university education

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:50:00 +0000

Someone on Sideswipe is questioning why they had to borrow money for their education, yet was given twice as much for free on the dole. A lot of people question why we don't have free university education. I think free university education is completely wrong, because...

1. It means those who get it don't value it as much and are happy to cruise through and get by on the taxpayers dime. Possibly meaning extra years of study funding by the state.
2. If too many people have a university qualification then it devalues the degree and makes it pointless.
3. Free education would encourage people who would be better suited to trade qualifications to give university a go, wasting their time and taxpayers' money
4. A lot of NZers already take their subsidised degree overseas, robbing the taxpayer of payback on their investment. This gets worse if the investment is larger and there are more people taking advantage of the free money.

So the flipside to the question of apparent inequality is not to pay people to go to university, but rather stop paying people for not working. But that is a negative step and will create more poverty.

The system is as it is because it means people who are capable look after themselves and those who are incapable are given a safety net.

East Africa vs West Africa

noreply@blogger.com (Martin) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 11:25:00 +0000

I had dinner with a Kenyan friend of my wife's and her husband last night. In her opinion, part of the reason America has never had a black president before is at least party because predominantly African Americans are from the west of Africa, and she opines that they are much louder and more agressive than east Africans. Obama is also from Kenya, which is on the east of Africa.

She went on to say that she believes Obama has thus been more successful because the whites of America have been much more comfortable with his style than they are with the likes of, say, Jesse Jackson who was much more combatitive in his style.