Posts by Gareth Ward
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You increase productivity by increasing the percentage in the workforce (which Labour has done significantly, not by reducing wages, but while they've increased), and through technology and investment.
Completely agree, and this topic was the first that really took the wind out of John Key's sails for me - at the National conference last year he builds up the (absolutely correct) statement that NZers income and living standards are constrained because of our low productivity and National's grand plan to fix this is........ "personal tax cuts". =|
It's seemingly based on the entirely theoretical basis that people suddenly are more productive (work harder? smarter?) if their overall tax rate moves from 31% to 29%. I don't know ANYONE that will do the same job harder or smarter based on that. Alternatively, you could say that waged employees will be incentivised to do more hours because more of the money paid is "theirs". Yet the whole point is that we need to work smarter, not harder - and that comes about through investment in infrastructure, incentives for R&D, and low business tax rates (people should be encouraged to keep money in the business, not take it out at lower personal tax rates).
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on my first trip here the airport terminal was in fact, and indisputably, a shed.
Thankfully that shed is now... umm... pumpkins?
Which I must admit I like in some ways, seemingly in the minority on that though -
Graeme Prowse
Ha, I recently had my birthday party in Sydney WITH that guy (well, Steve Bisley). Ended up on water taxi on Sydney Harbour and all I could think of was "Woh, I'm in a f#*^ing episode of Water Rats!"
/pointless-australian-actors-diversion
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I noticed around the corner from my place last night, that some zany marketing agency for Telecom have put cheeky little stencil arts of that new Okta branding (the swanky avatar/paper-cutout people things) amongst work from Component etc.
Clearly we need to amend the Telecom separation legislation to include anti-tagging provisions.(Unless some cad put it up with a deeper anti-establishment message that I entirely missed)
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Re: Homework. Prior to working from home, I never did any homework for any employer, ever.
Can't believe I'm defending homework (my 14 y/o self is hating me right now) but I think it's more about "working/learning/investigating things for yourself", than actually "working at home". Which is a huge part of any job. It's better than only having things taught to you in a class.
In 7th form I went to a new high school where the day was 8:45am - 4:45pm, with five 90 minute class "blocks" - you tended to only have an actual class for 3 or 4 of those a day so "homework" was meant to be done in the free blocks (stress on the "meant"). Was certainly a more accurate representation of work life and university... -
And credit to Mr Driver for building up the "everyone's leaving the country" bit then asking him "isn't that exactly what you did, with quite some personal success?". An obvious question that I haven't seen asked before and that Mr Key didn't have a solid response to.
Heh, it's a poser all right. On the one hand, Key could say that he also needed to leave to get ahead. On the other, why did he come back?
The beauty of it is that it forces people to think "if someone leaves for a few years then comes back, that ain't so bad" - which shifts the argument away from who's leaving to who's coming back. And positive net migration seems to show that it ain't so bad after all...
Of course you could argue that if the NZ economy etc was performing at peak, then there would be no need to head offshore to develop those skills - but it's pretty much always the case as Oliver put it "people from Adelaide move to Melbourne for a while, from Dover to London" etc because you are always going to have those options in a bigger market.
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Re the Herald, I am still undecided as to whether or not they have a strong right-wing bias or simply a strong "it's-easier-to-bash-the-government" bias. I suppose given a 9 year Labour reign they could morph into a very similar thing...
And re Key: did anyone else catch Oliver Driver interviewing him on Alt last night (not sure if it was live or not)? Actually rather intriguing interview - I like when the "small fish" get those interviews as they tend to be quite wide-ranging as opposed to daily event-focussed.
For every time Mr Key built my respect (which was regularly), he'd stumble - his strange and inconsistent positioning on the war in Iraq is rather baffling (you think all politicos would have that topic down pat now) and when he calls Kyoto a hoax because it isn't solving global warming and doesn't have developing nations involved, he showed a lack of understanding of purpose that troubled me.
As my wife said, he needs another year in the oven...And credit to Mr Driver for building up the "everyone's leaving the country" bit then asking him "isn't that exactly what you did, with quite some personal success?". An obvious question that I haven't seen asked before and that Mr Key didn't have a solid response to.
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Because that's what got *cough* strategically pre-released to the media, based on the assumption that was what would really grab the interest of mortgage belt morning newspaper readers? Kathryn Street didn't get Mike Munro's job to bring the sexyback.
Hmmmm, having read the article this morning about how the PM feels that she is at a disadvantage by having to supply her speech in advance to opposition parties and being constrained in her topics (where it's a subsequent free-for-all), it does perhaps feel a bit like a long-planned media "joint venture"...
It's just that the rest of the material released doesn't bear out the relentless shared-equity focus. Perhaps that's all part of the plan too... Conspiracies abound! tinfoil-) -
The key problem all of this raises for me, is what effect will increasing the competition for the cheapest (comparatively speaking) houses in a particular area actually have on prices?
Yup, and it's always a tough one in terms of any public intervention in the housing market.
But IF (and there's no policy I can see around this yet) it is utilised in conjunction with the other initiatives announced, then it should have minimal impact.
If it is used solely for specific new-build developments, and only as a small part of that development (mixed-ownership, from full private to mandated-affordable to shared-equity-affordable), then the impact you discuss should be negated (the "current owners jacking their price" theory).
It actually becomes quite supply-side focussed. -
The demented anger in the comments under Vernon Small's Stuff blog on the speech is unbelievable.
I'm sure this topic has been covered a hundred times here, but I'm still a little floored by just how demented so much commentary is around NZ politics.
I like to think I'm not some Victorian-young-lady-of-the-internet-age who is easily shocked, and I know there are nutters who take advantage of anomie and "go off", but I still end up a little slack-jawed around so much of this...