Posts by Gareth Ward
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Was it Roughan the week before with the "oh look I'M totally reasonable and down with teh gays but we shouldn't let them adopt because my kids will bully theirs" column?
Another reason not to buy... -
Hard News: Press Play > Budget, in reply to Luke Williamson,
Agreed. If personal rate goes up, then everyone becomes a company, and if company rate goes up, then the company moves offshore. Not easy.
The Scandinavian dual taxation systems make this work - capital income/corporate tax rates are set dramatically lower than labour income tax rates. Yes there are the incentives for reclassifying labour income but they don't mean a flat tax is the ultimate answer...
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Hard News: The Base, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I just wonder how long it will take people to realize that a foreign-domiciled capitalist isn't going to be a better steward of anything because they were born in Auckland rather than Shanghai.
Precisely - in fact the one born in Shanghai is less likely to have established the borderline-corrupt insider connections to stack the deal...
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skipping past, for the moment, the fact that Fay and Richwhite would be the beneficiaries of any move to prevent Crafar Farms being sold to foreign interests
Something I can't quite skip past - reading the speech I was waiting for him to raise it later given his specific invocation of the horrors of Fay but no...
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OnPoint: Peek-a-boo, I can't recall…, in reply to Ian MacKay,
Would Key continue with "ACT's" Charter Schools should a National candidate be elected in Epson?
An obvious question (although probably requiring weasel re-wording) for Question Time.*
Is part of the reason Key is keeping this going is retaining the sole ACT MP as a Minister is part of their confidence/supply agreement and he needs them to pass laws without the Maori Party (if I recall the numbers correctly)? Now sure, it's unlikely ACT are going to cross the floor, but I wonder if Key wants it all to become so incrimating that he can say to Isaacs "jeez, it's out of my hands now" rather than be the decisive one to push him.
*Plus there's an awesome printing/fax joke in there somewhere I can't quite nail -
Speaker: How's that three strikes thing…, in reply to Russell Brown,
The sentence ends " ... and reasonable amounts of money but no multichannel TV."
Ah yes, missed the last bit of that. Follow now - so it negates the benefits of going it alone but doesn't address the potential of replacing the multichannel TV service if the right scale of channels can avoid it. Makes for an interesting point on the need for a scaled move by multiple content partners and is probably why an Apple-type go-between and aggregator is probably the right catalyst...
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Actually Paul what is your take on that HBO stat that there's 105m US TV subscribers but only 3m with broadband? I'd have thought broadband penetration much much higher than that?
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Speaker: How's that three strikes thing…, in reply to Paul Brislen,
The Economist has a great piece on the future of pay TV (http://www.economist.com/node/21526314) and makes it quite clear HBO would like to move in this direction.
Oooh good read, cheers. If Apple hooks HBO as one of the "apps" for their TV play that would be intriguing - the CEOs take on the different channel sizes is interesting though...
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Just because these tiny shops selling tat aren't vanilla-chain-store-commerce doesn't make them Cuba Street. For a supposed heart of the city, which we've all spent many many millions on, it would be great if we had developed a vibrant, useful, attracting place. I doubt Cr Brewer is the man to put together THAT plan, but it doesn't change that a lot of what's there is seemingly pretty rubbish*. The ethnicity angle is a weird one though...
*All from my admittedly brief excursions of course, normally to the immediately adjacent areas that are increasingly vibrant and attractive. And I'm including a bunch of the chain restaurant and bank HQ offerings in that assessment
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Legal Beagle: MMP Review #1: The Party…, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
There simply aren't enough hours in the day.
I feel a Royal Commission coming on...