Hard News: Life Goes On
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Like the Giant Rat of Sumatra?
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Hmmm... 50% of Americans would see through that story. Changing size in response to environmental factors smacks of evolution. Surely NZ rats, like US rats, are sized in accordance with God's plan, independent of the presence or absence of foxes.
Evidence of God's plan would surely mean they were bite-sized and either self-saucing and/or coated in crunchy sugar-goodness?
Ditto Mr Easterbrook.
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Hot rats on a stick.
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Ditto Mrs Williams and Easterbrook. Although... member since Nov 2006, Posts: 1, it might be a Halley comet-like wait until the next time he shows up.
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Stephen:
<quota>OK, but getting back to my original complaint: there is a difference between a) the majority of shares being owned by rich people (probably true), and b) the majority of share owners being rich people (which I doubt). If your policy aim is to put the boot into the rich, the scale of collateral damage is vastly different depending on whether b is true or not. Most of the evidence proffered in this thread addresses a, not b.</quota>The policy aim isn't to "put the boot into the rich"; its to ensure they are not disproportionately rewarded at the expense of everyone else, and that they do not get to direct the use of public assets to their own private benefit (and using the Cullen Fund to create an asset bubble on the NZSX certainly falls into the latter category).
Many rich people and ACT wannbes conflate the two, but they are not the same.
(Oh, and the Household Savings Survey data showed that 60% of shareholders were in the upper income quartile. Sadly, that's as fine as we can cut it, but it suggests that b will be false for most people's definition of "rich")
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I/S: fair enough. HSS doesn't tell you about indirect ownership though...
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Stephen: Yes it does; the statistic quoted is for "Investments with Other Financial Institutions", which "includes shares, managed funds (unit trusts, group investment funds, etc), fixed interest investments, securities or bonds, syndicated investments, etc".
But these are old figures, and as Danyl pointed out, Kiwisaver will be changing them significantly. Not that that changes the conclusion: b is almost certainly false for most people's definition of "rich".
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WH,
Speaking of interesting comments, Bob Novak's 'Powell was never much of a Republican' column in the Wapo got a hostile reception.
Highlights include:
I get it. General Colin Powell is not a "real" Republican. Liberals who live in Virginia are not "real Virginians." Muslim Americans are not "real" Americans. Women who want to keep abortion legal are not real women. Homeless people who walk infront of a car and get hit are not "real" people.
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Speaking of interesting comments, Bob Novak's 'Powell was never much of a Republican' column in the Wapo got a hostile reception.
And, in a classic case of burying the lead, I was intrigued by Novak's last par:
The popular general resisted efforts to enlist him as a party fund-raiser, and Powell was clearly not comfortable as a Republican. The endorsement of Obama was an event waiting to happen.
Perhaps Powell had every reason to be uncomfortable about pimping his uniform for dollars (and one might think it's a very good idea that the United States' highest ranking military officer cultivate a habit of being carefully apolitical in his public statements), but that's his bad. Right?
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Meanwhile, dumbest campaign commentary of the day from John Armstrong on the front page this morning
The crisis gave Helen Clark a heaven-sent opportunity to reinforce her "no change-trust us" theme.
Labour says it will bring forward construction projects to keep "real people in real jobs" and is already working on a stimulus package which it will reveal in December if it wins the election.
But there is no point in preparing a package if it is never going to see the light of day. [Emphasis added]
Indeed, John. There is no point is us dipshit voters getting to assess Labour's spending promises -- and how they're going to be paid for -- before the election. Where do we think we are, a parliamentary democracy or something?
You might even be cynical enough to think Labour has some kind of Grinch-y "secret agenda" or "flip-flop" to steal all out Christmases.
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I get it. General Colin Powell is not a "real" Republican. Liberals who live in Virginia are not "real Virginians." Muslim Americans are not "real" Americans. Women who want to keep abortion legal are not real women. Homeless people who walk infront of a car and get hit are not "real" people.
Last night's Daily Show had a hysterical (and very pointed) segment addressing just this issue. They're getting very angry this election, and it's mostly making them funnier.
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They're getting very angry this election, and it's mostly making them funnier.
Agreed. I am very pro-Incredulously Angry Jon.
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They're getting very angry this election, and it's mostly making them funnier.
Take your point, Lucy, but I guess it stops being funny when you're the one having your faith, honour and honesty attacked day after day by a habitual and pathological liar who is apparently also functionally illiterate. As Andrew Sullivan has pointed out, the weirdest think about Palin's preference for "truthiness" over objective reality is that she almost reflexively lies about trivia. The important shit, she just ignores.
And am I the only person who thinks Obama's preternatural calm in the face of this shit is awe-inspiring? He is the final Cylon.
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There is no point is us dipshit voters getting to assess Labour's spending promises -- and how they're going to be paid for -- before the election
Same applies to National, Craig. I'm really curious what they're going to "refocus" in the existing Police budget in order to find several million extra dollars to pay for their 220 extra cops. The $18.3m they've committed covers the extra salary cost (220x$50k=$11m), with about $7m to spare, but every new officer comes with overhead: Uniforms, allowances, additional radios and firearms, extra patrol cars (needing maintenance, petrol...), more NCOs for the extra staff, desks and computers, increased HR staff, potentially additional building space to house them all, extra prosecutions staff (assuming National want to get prosecutions against the additional people who will be arrested by all these extra cops), etc. A conservative estimate would be another $50k/officer in overhead, which means that National's expecting the cops to find about $4m in their existing budget. What's going to be slashed in order to fund that, Craig? We have a right to know, and because this is about law-and-order I rate it as a pretty damn important issue to be cleared up before the election.
This is just one point, but one that I can quickly work out the numbers for because I know what police recruit salaries are. I'm sure there are plenty of others.
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Same applies to National, Craig.
Yes, Matthew, which I've said repeatedly untill (miracle of miracles!) I'm almost sick of the sound of my own voice. And National has actually faced some critical scrutiny of that policy, and deservedly so.
But, hey, National actually released that policy before the election Matthew -- which is why you can ask those inconvenient questions. Do have any idea of what's in Labour's stimulus package, what it will cost and how it will be paid for? Armstrong doesn't, and I don't think he really cares. He should. We all should.
Or is this the "trust" Helen Clark says this election is all about. Fair dos, Matthew,
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Were Lockwoods Smith racist comments designed to test the waters for a race based campaign?
Key hasn't slammed him down and he jumped on Williamson pretty quickly. -
Meanwhile, dumbest campaign commentary of the day from John Armstrong on the front page this morning
Way to miss the money quote Craig, and wreck the context.
But there is no point in preparing a package if it is never going to see the light of day.
The party will therefore probably foreshadow as much of its contents as possible before election day.
Armstrong was saying that, for purposes of winning votes, Labour should put it out there.
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Were Lockwoods Smith racist comments designed to test the waters for a race based campaign?
No - and if that's what some emplyers are telling Smith, perhaps it says more about the casual racism of using the Pacific as a cheap pool of "guest workers".
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Way to miss the money quote Craig, and wreck the context.
You're half-right, Kyle. I should have included the next par, because "foreshadowing" is always a meaningful substitute for actual, properly costed policy. Not.
Armstrong was saying that, for purposes of winning votes, Labour should put it out there.
No, Kyle, Labour should "put it out there" because we deserve to know whether it wins votes or not. Especially when said Labour Party is busy accusing others of holding back a 'secret agenda' from voters, don't you think?
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Quite right Craig, both Lockwood & the Black-Birding labour scheme are racist.
Now what has happened to Lockwoods advisor Dr Clydesdale?
http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/about-us/news/article.cfm?mnarticle=pacific-peoples-report-welcomed-26-08-2008 -
Do have any idea of what's in Labour's stimulus package, what it will cost and how it will be paid for? Armstrong doesn't, and I don't think he really cares. He should. We all should.
We've got an idea of what's in it. More of an idea, in fact, than of what National's expecting the Police to do to be able to afford these extra cops. Another 100 officers on the streets of South Auckland is roughly two entirely-new police stations' worth, so there's some hefty building required to give them places to work.
I'd like to know in advance how Labour's proposal will be funded, but I imagine that it'll be through debt, just like most of what National's promising. Serviced in the same way, but with greater tax revenues to make the repayments because Labour's not cutting taxes as far.Are you prepared to admit, Craig, that Labour's in no position to know now what our economy will look like in December? That they're in no position to know what the global economy will look like in December? And that you'd utterly eviscerate them if, come December, they're in power and the details you're demanding now turned out to be totally wrong?
Credit might be available in December, it might not. The PREFU was admitted to be done on old data, and that things are likely a lot worse than that series of documents stated. But you're demanding that Labour produce costings now for emergency measures that won't even begin until next year. They might not even be totally necessary.As for Armstrong not caring, I think he's written Aunty Helen off already and is labouring (har har) under that presupposition in the production of his columns.
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Are you prepared to admit, Craig, that Labour's in no position to know now what our economy will look like in December?
Matthew: Nobody knows that with any degree of certainty, so if you're willing to give everyone a pass on pulling vague, number-free policy out of their collective recta and we're just supposed to take it all on trust. Fine. We are just going to have to agree to disagree. But nobody gets to have it both ways, and certainly not the party that's saying this election is all about trust and fiscal credibility.
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"Last night's Daily Show had a hysterical (and very pointed) segment addressing just this issue. They're getting very angry this election, and it's mostly making them funnier."
Agreed. I am very pro-Incredulously Angry Jon.
Solidly thirded here. If only every awkward cross-over segment with Stephen Colbert could be replaced with Jon in furious proud New Yorker mode.
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No, Kyle, Labour should "put it out there" because we deserve to know whether it wins votes or not. Especially when said Labour Party is busy accusing others of holding back a 'secret agenda' from voters, don't you think?
Well, if Labour don't release some further details before the election, then yes, that's a problem.
But that's completely different than what National was accused of which was saying one thing in public and another in private - essentially lying to the electorate.
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If only every awkward cross-over segment with Stephen Colbert could be replaced with Jon in furious proud New Yorker mode.
I must disagree. Any day which includes Stephen Colbert in any form is a good day.
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