Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Unwarranted risk, in reply to BenWilson,
Labour could, however, head that off at the pass by saying that they will insist on buying back at the original price – this could deter investment altogether, indeed it would be a very aggressive move to block the sales outright, casting uncertainty over the whole deal.
It might also have the effect of deterring investment in New Zealand altogether. And it would certainly paint a big political target on Labour's back.
Or they could make it their policy that they will cap power prices, and pass laws that force the utility companies to reinvest a percentage of their profits into maintenance and new development. Anything that frustrates the ability of investors to strip this incredibly valuable asset right down will bring the price down to what it is actually worth as a sustainable business.
I don't actually see Telecom/TranzRail-style looting here. The risks are a bit more subtle than that. But there are viable regulatory options, yes.
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Hard News: Unwarranted risk, in reply to insider,
Do you include the $1b loss in value from unbundling legislation?
Unbundling of Telecom was a solution after the fact of sale; the "value" was a reflection of its almost-unregulated monopoly control of the local loop. Even NBR got on board with unbundling in the end.
There should have been wholesale-retail separation at sale. Or at least some meaningful regulation to curb market abuse.
Instead, the fourth Labour government left out any mention of interconnection from the Telecommunications Act on the basis of a promise that Telecom would “ensure that interconnection would be provided to competitors on a fair basis, and the relationships between Telecom companies would not disadvantage competitors.” That might have meant something when Telecom was an SOE. It became utterly meaningless when Telecom was sold.
You'll note I'm not objecting to the privatisation of the incumbent telco. Just the idiotic way it was conducted, and the decade of official sitting on hands and hoping that followed.
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Hard News: Unwarranted risk, in reply to Graham Dunster,
All the sane commentators are against these sales.
And moreover, any commentators beating a drum for them are beating it very quietly. It's a bad, confused policy that will hamstring future governments.
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Muse: The Good Word, Bad Numbers and The…, in reply to 3410,
I could go on.
Suffice to say that this *technical correction* will do absolutely nothing to remediate the damage done.Given that the Herald refused to even respond to TVNZ's attempt to provide correct figures, I'm treating it as a small win.
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This morning's correction, at the bottom of the 'In Brief' column on page 3 of the Herald.
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Hard News: Unwarranted risk, in reply to Lyndon Hood,
It’s not even a one-off gain. Selling something, as I think has been pointed out here, leaves your net accounts in the same position as they were before.
Point. Can we call it a one-off cash gain?
Unless, of course, the price you get is depressed for some reason…
Oh look. Another risk.
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Hard News: It's In the Kete!, in reply to Steve Barnes,
Jeez, talk about dragging up old shite.
Grinch. Try watching it. It's lovely.
It’s in the Bag was a radio version of “Double Your Money” a British TV show fronted by the late Hughie Green,
Ah! That's what I was trying to find this morning. I knew it had a box rather than a bag.
The parallels go deeper than you may think. Hughie Green went on to present a show called “Opportunity Knocks” (funnily enough, produced by Jess Yates, husband of Paula’s mother, you do the math) OK, as it was never known was the precurse (sic) of Some cuntry’s got talentless loons, or whatever.
Of, there's been talent shows forever. We had Studio One and New Faces. What's new is the manipulative reality-TV element.
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Speaker: Censorship is not the only…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
While it’s obviously bad for the guy that he’s being libelled overseas, the only real way NZ could stop this is to extend the DIA website filter to block such sites. I don’t think we really want to go there.
Google does do takedowns on government request, although they’re creditably grouchy about it. Takedowns from NZ government requests were in single figures for the last six-month reporting period – not enough to be categorised, but likely to be the likes of court orders.
There’s a map.
They also recently, with none of the fuss that Twitter attracted, launched the ability to do country-specific takedowns.
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Muse: The Good Word, Bad Numbers and The…, in reply to BenWilson,
It’s not really that large. There’s dozens of people who have that kind of money in NZ, who would hardly notice if the thing went belly up. I’m amazed none of them can be arsed, considering that owning a paper is owning a pulpit.
Michael Horton tried it in the late 90s, with an afternoon daily based in Manukau. It served a part of the greater Auckland area very poorly served by the Herald but it still didn’t fly and was closed in 1999, so the family could concentrate on its printing business.
NBR publisher Barry Colman had a crack at a weekly (Thursday) paper in the 90s too, but it also failed (perhaps its slightly garish tabloid look was ahead of its time). To his credit, he paid out everyone’s contract and there were a few journalists quite happy to pocket several tens of thousands of dollars.
Basically, starting a competing independent paper in market with one dominant player is much, much harder than it looks.
Then there’s that other weird little business weekly that was publishing for a while. Starting newspapers is a bit of a mug’s game these days.
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Muse: The Good Word, Bad Numbers and The…, in reply to Rob Stowell,
And I dunno- reckon we might still be waiting a while for the Herald headline: Minister misled public on TVNZ 7 viewer numbers!
You'd think someone there could have written that story.
