Posts by nzlemming
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Laws. Fucked, in both senses of the word
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Hard News: The digital switch-off, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
We certainly don’t vote for anyone who speaks in the majestic plural. :)
You mean, like Gerry Brownlee? Some body voted for him...
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Hard News: Nothing important, just some tunes, in reply to Sacha,
Must...not...get...involved...
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Hard News: The digital switch-off, in reply to Rob Stowell,
A ‘quality media environment’ isn’t optional if you want a stable healthy democracy. And that’s not a question of niches; of everyone having their own flavour of pie. Personally I think it’s crucially about public broadcasting. US is big, sure- but that’s only part of the picture. Unless you also think it’s marvelously well-served by its major broadcasters?
You miss my point, which is that we don't have the population for these things to fund themselves. Therefore, if we want them, they must be government-funded. I do think they're important, but let's not pretend they're self-sustaining.
My point about the US was not to compare the quality of the broadcasting, but simply to point out that they have a shitload more money to throw at the things they want to fund purely on volume of population.
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Hard News: The digital switch-off, in reply to Islander,
And, I would STRONGLY disagree that The Arts are fripparies
So would I. I was actually meaning the plasma TVs and other things that people do spend their imaginary dollars on, rather than the things they don't.
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Hard News: The digital switch-off, in reply to George Darroch,
Lew knows a lot more about the NZ media environment than I do, but I think his assertion that New Zealand is too poor and underpopulated to sustain a quality media environment is underwhelming
Underwhelmed you may be but he's right, if you are talking about the market serving demand. There just aren't enough of us to self-fund all the niches many of us enjoy, therefore we rely on state subsidies, especially in the arts, but also in sports, extramural education (WEA etc.), local government - the list is endless.
We may have the same percentage breakdown as other, larger economies, but .1% of 4.5 million is only 45,000 - of 307,006,550 (US) it's a lot more - 307K+ - which can easily fund whatever itch wants scratching.
It bewilders me how people can think we can afford the same standard of living as economies orders of magnitude larger than us - the money just isn't there, unless we borrow. Which is why private debt is so high. We want the fripparies and we want them now. Bugger the future, it might never happen. But when you borrow, the lender is going to want it back, plus the vig.
So myopic.
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Sacha,
heh, when you say "his convictions" you are very nearly right ;-)
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Sacha,
Aaron Keown’s pre-election statement
Oh, and he still thinks that a bomb hoax is a joke
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Matthew Poole,
it wasn’t patently obvious how much he was in the pocket of Big Trucking
I've thought this too, but I do wonder if he doesn't have a higher allegiance; trucks only use the roads - the real money is in building them. If there's a dearth of big roading projects and all you know how to do is build roads, what are you going to do for cashflow? I do wonder if Friedlander and the Road Transport Forum aren't merely a public decoy for the big infrastructure companies. Joyce is, after all, associate infrastructure minister, with English.
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Tamsin6,
I’m not sure what has driven the gentrification of Petone – property prices getting out of hand in other parts of Wellington?
I think it started once the meatworks closed. That was a big factor in keeping Petone poor - rich people didn't want to live with the smell, and poor people didn't have a lot of choice.