Posts by Eddie Clark

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  • Hard News: Real Gone,

    What are Gordon Copeland and Richard Lewis' bunch? Amy Grant?

    ...and if the Greens are the fall, that means Russ Norman is Mark E Smith. I'm not quite sure he's grumpy enough...

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 273 posts Report

  • Hard News: The odds, and the simply odd,

    Random question for peoples.

    When I got up this morning, DPF had a fairly toxic ranting post on kiwiblog talking about how disgusting and awful Labour's student allowance policy was. It now appears to be gone. Is it just me falling foul of Kiwiblog's weird very slow cache thing that seems to hide posts sometimes, or has he actually deleted it?

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 273 posts Report

  • Hard News: The odds, and the simply odd,

    *grin* DPF, at least, is predictable. I thought this'd be portrayed as a fiscally irresponsible bribe, and there he is (today we have also had bonus outraged splutter about Xmas crackers. Or something).

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 273 posts Report

  • Hard News: The odds, and the simply odd,

    B Jones: - In a word: yes. Very generous, huh?

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 273 posts Report

  • Hard News: The odds, and the simply odd,

    And now I've written that, I wonder if the $210 million figure is the additional expenditure, over and above the current amount spent on the loan scheme.

    That's what I assumed, Kyle. Without offsetting the expected reduction in borrowing, $210 m seems a very small number to give allowances to 50,000 students.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 273 posts Report

  • Hard News: The odds, and the simply odd,

    I guess $210m a year come 2012 isn't an outrageous amount of money but it does seem an odd time to announce it.

    Agree. If that costing is accurate, it's not wildly unaffordable, but with the PREFU numbers and the rhetoric about not trusting National to run a tight ship, announcing it now (rather than making some vague promise about "further support of tertiary education students" then doing the details in this December 'mini budget') looks irresponsible.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 273 posts Report

  • Hard News: The odds, and the simply odd,

    Stupid! Labour was managing to pull themselves back into looking like competent economic managers, and National was coming out with tone deaf policies like criminalising the parents of truants.

    This looks irresponsible and election-bribey. And the student voting bloc is not large. Whatever you think of the underlying policy, right now it looks unafforable and silly.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 273 posts Report

  • Island Life: Nats to the rescue,

    I do like the US scheme more - it requires banks to maintain particular liquidity requirements to qualify and puts a cap on how much per customer per bank they will cover (means you have to diversify that $5M across many banks both spreading your risk and the govt's).

    Except that, as far as I understand, the Reserve Bank's mandatory capital adequacy requirements for registered banks are much, much more stringent than anything that applies in the US. One of the biggest problems in the US situation is that all the banks were leveraged up the ass.

    I do agree with you in relation to finance companies, though - if the government is going to back them, they should sure as hell be investing in things other than dodgy car loans.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 273 posts Report

  • Hard News: Rationalisation is at hand!,

    don't think that word means what they think it means.

    Use anti-terrorism powers for an unintended purpose? Inconceivable!

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 273 posts Report

  • Hard News: Rationalisation is at hand!,

    I/S: Fair enough, and I take the point. You do, however, more than occasionally make statements that sound an awful lot like sweeping character judgements on the basis of said demographic trends. If I'm misinterpreting, I do apologise.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 273 posts Report

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