Posts by Sacha
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Does the Labour Party have any level of responsibility for losing the 2008 election
Most certainly. Though little sign that some of them have accepted that.
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to Matthew Poole,
The policy positions taken pre-election were quite clear about where things were going.
I don't recall anything about gutting local democracy in Auckland and Canterbury, do you?
However, yes, it was entirlely predictable that the yesterday's men of the Nact cabinet would cut taxes mainly for the wealthy, have a crack at beneficiaries, hack services that poor people depend on most in education and health, and fire thousands of public servants (capping their arses, not capping their numbers as loudly promised).
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to BenWilson,
Now all we need is the bandwidth to sell it to the rest of the world.
I believe they already have their own proper fast networks
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May have taken them ages, but credit where due - this is much more like it.
The government plans to spend $27 million on a network of high-performance computers "to keep New Zealand researchers at the cutting edge of science," Science and Innovation Minister Wayne Mapp said today.
The project will be called the National eScience Infrastructure network or NeSI).
It will be made up of linked supercomputers and associated services such as software and data storage. “NeSI will power research that will deliver on the Government’s top priority – growing the economy,” Mr Mapp said.
"NeSI will have a very wide range of applications, ranging from designing high-tech devices through to areas such as gaining a better understanding of brain diseases and fine-scale weather prediction.” Access to these services will be prioritised to areas supporting the Government’s agenda for economic growth.
Some of New Zealand’s top research organisations are co-funding NeSI, adding nearly $21 million over four years to the Government’s investment.
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to BenWilson,
I mean they can't just take the money.
Isn't that precisely what happened in the past with ACC and EQC's appealing pool of accrued taxpayer-funded investment?
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to nzlemming,
I heard a number of vox pops at the time of the election saying that they wanted a change, for change’s sake.
People will say all sorts of things to justify their decisions and avoid seeming like a fool when a microphone is suddenly thrust under their nose. Especially when they're not really sure exactly what's prompting them other than a general sense they've formed over time (helpfully fanned by mediated campaigning).
Some voters probably did get sick of the staleness they observed and didn't necessarily go beyond that into thinking about what the replacement might look like. Others just stayed home.
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to BenWilson,
Considering how much of a percentage of what we earn is happily torn straight from us to fund things that politicians get to decide about
Sigh. Less than most other countries. Next.
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to George Darroch,
a good percentage feel we can just magic up that standard of living indefinitely
After a couple of decades of kool-aid, it's easy to forget the taste of water.
Our neoliberal governments and cronies have actively shaped our economy to create wide inequality and low wages relative to the cost of living for many, while fostering notions of 'aspiration' and 'ambition'as a band-aid to quell unrest. (note I even managed to get some brand placement in there)
it's that they're hostile to not making ends meet *right now*, in their current situation.
Not enough
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to Rich Lock,
The 'we need more engineers' meme is fairly prevelant
..where people think that future prosperity will look the same as it did in the 1950s.
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to Steve Barnes,
it seems that Chris Barton is not too impressed
As usual, a brilliant piece of work that makes the connection with the current mob gagging to sell off our electricity system as well:
Ever since deregulation of the telecommunications sector and the transformation of a publicly-owned New Zealand asset into our largest listed company, we've been at the mercy of foreign owners determined to under invest in the network and reap unsustainable monopoly profits.
Successive governments have tried for 20 years to bring this monster of their own creation under control, but all have capitulated under its share market might. Telecom rules OK.
It's even more extraordinary that this government is about to repeat the same mistake and consign our electricity companies to the same fate. All New Zealanders could benefit from cheap electricity and cheap ultra fast broadband provided by properly run government owned public utilities.
That is, enterprises prepared to operate under a steady- as-she-goes modest return on investment, rather than providing never ending dividends demanded by greedy shareholders. New Zealand business, built on such bedrock - free to waste bandwidth, not to mention electricity in creative endeavour - might actually deliver real productivity and wealth. If there us any way to leapfrog Australia, this is it.