Posts by Sacha
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Steve Barnes,
I think you're overstating the damage - the local economy is bigger than the CBD, and the private sector has to continue to play its part as well. No way the government can fully fund everyone's lives.
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to BenWilson,
The case that the Eastern Suburbs are still hurting real bad just hadn't been put loudly enough.
...easy to hassle them with 20:20 hindsight, but I can't claim that I knew before yesterday that it was that bad.
It's not your *job* to know that. However, poorer areas having fewer resources and therefore needing more intervention is not exactly rocket science for emergency management professionals or those who purport to govern them. CDEM is increasingly aligned with ongoing community development activity in local councils, which does bring some focus on equity.
You could argue that media were only reacting, sure, but if Brownlee and co claim the power and the attention then they also get the responsiblity - and the expectations of competence that come with it.
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to BenWilson,
Relocation is very much on the table as a concept.
How do you respond to the objections we've been raising above about what relocating its people would to to Christchurch's local economy?
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Matthew Poole,
The cake is real
though I fear it has already been eaten..
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Keir Leslie,
From Fendalton
Ah, so an eastern suburb would be Merivale - or Sumner if you're really pushing it
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Cracker: It's a Wonderful Thing, in reply to Danielle,
big dumb fun
light show sounded awesome
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Rich Lock,
Does anyone have any ideas as to who the most useful targets for any sort of correspondence would be?
The media seem to be getting the message. I'd go for the main national and local politicians, who are all resourced to and obliged to answer your correspondence.
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Christopher Dempsey,
I don't think Brown-kingcoal-lee deliberately meant to overlook the Eastern suburbs.
Perhaps, but the net effect is the same for those on the street. We can still do so much better than well-meaning incompetence - and the same goes for your apposite comparison, disability policy.
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Christopher Dempsey,
Botany Town Centre, a mall, would be a good example of how to build for people.
Ironically, Botany is a classic car-centred mall - try getting around it on foot.
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Brian Fallow argues for spreading the load of quake recovery to future generations.
We do not normally take a strict pay-as-you-go approach to infrastructure spending. It is orthodox and logical to spread the cost of long-lived assets over future as well as current taxpayers, by borrowing to pay for them.
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New Zealand Government debt is low by international standards and so therefore is the share of the taxpayer's dollar pre-empted by servicing that debt. As Standard & Poor's noted late last week, before the quake the forward track for Government debt would have seen it peak at just half the median level for AA-rated sovereigns.
The peak will now be later and higher, but there ought to be significant headroom there.
There is a world of difference between an increase in debt which is structural and reflects a lack of political will for a government to live within its means, and one which arises from a one-off shock.
However he also lends credence to repeat bollocks from the top:
Finance Minister Bill English nonetheless had a point when he said on Tuesday that New Zealand's external debt was too high. "We want to get government debt under control because it is [now] what is driving that external debt," he said.
I've asked before but someone please explain to me how public debt can be "driving" the private sector debt that makes up the vast majority of our nation's total exposure and is mainly residential property gambling fostered by our big Australian banks.