Posts by Bart Janssen
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And a petrol tax go into the govt consolidated fund. This isn't a tax, it's govt sponsored price fixing for the benefit of a business and not the govt.
That makes it worse in my mind but not a tax.
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Speaker: The Strange Tax on Your Internet, in reply to PaulBrislen,
I hear what you’re saying though and comms around such matters is always a matter of fine judgements…
Yeah no worries. It’s a personal issue I have with those kinds of numbers from years of having friends comment that “hey you’ll be getting lots of funding from the hundreds of millions that the govt are giving to science” and having to explain that no in fact it’s really spread over decades and is in fact a cut in funding …
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Speaker: The Strange Tax on Your Internet, in reply to Phil Lyth,
From a report prepared by economists Covec. You can read the Coalition’s media release here and it includes a link to Covec’s 35 page report
Thanks Phil. The media release didn't help at all but a five minute skim of the 35 page report told me what I wanted.
So first point I think the government bailing out Chorus like this is dishonest and disgusting at no level do I believe they should any way support a privately owned company in this way. I believe there is no viable argument for this governmentally enforced price fixing. And Chorus's response is the typical venal business speak for "we have the right to rip you off for as much as we can get away with".
But the representation of the price fixing as a $600 million tax is deceptive as well. It is $588 m over 7 years - about $90 million per year. I personally hate it when organisations (and the government are the worst culprits) sum per annum numbers to make a nice big impressive number for the media. I do get that you are summing over the expected duration of the UFB upgrade but it would have been trivial to make that clear.
Second phrasing it as a tax is deceptive as well since it then appears as if all New Zealanders are paying when in fact it is only those who pay for the internet who are paying. It makes good publicity but is not honest.
Please note I wholely support your opposition to the government supporting the profits of Chorus for no good reason but I don't like the way you've played with your numbers and language.
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Could you show us the working to get $600 million as the number?
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Hard News: The shaky ground of…, in reply to Gareth Ward,
entire group of people because they work in HR
People who work in personel I'm OK with. Even some of the people in HR. But HR as a structure in big organisations seems to have become a mechanism to "defend managers from staff". Sometimes that is a reasonable thing (when some employees make false claims and rip off the system) and sometimes it's just a way of allowing bad management to push through bad policy with least resistance from staff.
In such situations it takes a cold person indeed to enact management decisions over staff, those are the people I struggle to understand and indeed respect.
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Hard News: Game Lorde, in reply to Matthew Littlewood,
lyrics sound like someone her age would write
That's something I very much like about her songs. Even from mumble mumble years away the emotions and conflicts are genuine. I recognise them. I remember them. So how they must resonate with the teens now I can only guess.
But where she lifts it beyond normal pop, for me, is that she is clearly well read and articulate. Her lyrics may not be the height of poetry (not that I would know) but they are interesting in a way that so much of pop is not. She doesn't feel the need to say the same thing 27 times to make her point she simply says it once in an interesting enough way that it sticks.
Miley's songs just aren't that clever or interesting to me, nor are Lady Gaga's, nor most of pop. Even if they get the earworm designed right I still get annoyed by the banal and repetative lyrics.
oh and 3!!!!!
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Hard News: The shaky ground of…, in reply to Rich Lock,
HR was not to act in any way whatsoever in the interests of the employee
Um yeah. They are employed by management to manage a problematic resource with least disruption to business. You couldn't find colder fish in the antarctic ocean.
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Hard News: Game Lorde, in reply to Russell Brown,
if Lorde can rescue pop music
Is Lorde our saviour? :)
Kind of big ask, but music is interesting in that there can be huge swings in style from relatively small triggers. We can but hope.
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So this is my fundamental problem with all these tests ...
There are approximately 20 billion neurons in your head, yes billion!
Each neuron has upwards of 2000 connections with other neurons.
Each connection is variable, meaning it is much more than a simple on/off switch.And these tests resolve that complexity to how many categories? Absurd!
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Hard News: The shaky ground of…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
those with solid scientific studies to back their construction and use
Got any references for that?
Heh. When they first started using HR consultants with us to try and teach us leadership the consultant got very very tired of alway being asked for the primary references. She was very good humoured about it and did change her approach to one more grounded in "data first-conclusions second".