Posts by Rich of Observationz
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Mangere Bridge was the place where Jonah Lomu got beaten up on his way home from school.
Who were those kids? And why aren't *they* in the All Blacks?
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re: debentures:
Told you so! - March 2005
Waiheke was described this morning on George as the Ibiza of Auckland. Bleuuuuuurgggggggh!
(although I assume almost everything they say on George is meant to be ironic).
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Yeah well - I was really into Crowther/Woods Adventure when I was 18. For about a month - then I got bored and found/decoded the data file that drove it.
Can you start a terrorist gang in Second Life and blow up the Swedish Embassy with home made napalm and very pistols bought off TradeMe? And outwit virtual cops by sending txt messages in secret Te Reo code e.g.
30163: "gotta go mackas for some kai, bro"
I understand this is a reference to the popular family restaurant, McDonalds, which has been the target of terrorist attack in the past.
Our interpreter advised that the word kai could be used to mean either food or home made plastic explosives. -
I'm not that impressed with the options for Kiwisaver funds. They seem to be quite high cost.
I actually think they should open the Cullen Fund up to Kiwisaver investors, using Kiwibank or others as the retailer.
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I think the NZI is somehow involved with that genius of public administration Dick Hubbard. (Who's a very nice man, but...)
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Check out the info from the New Zealand Institute.
I could fisk that in detail, but I don't have time.
In short however:
- the "innovation in the weightless economy" bubble requires a combined net export growth / net spending growth of over $1000 per capita. I can't see how people will raise their spending by that much, or how net exports will shoot up. (The most successful web business in NZ, TradeMe, is almost entirely domestic in reach).- many of the other good things are possible now, if expensive. If you want fibre to your office (or even home) then within most CBDs it's available. My firm has it.
- the benefits of new technology are being overstated.
I do a lot of meetings by telecon/webex/video conference already. The reason I don't do more is that they aren't as good as actual face time if you want the other party to do what you want. Improved technology doesn't really change this - and you can't buy people lunch by webex.
It's entirely possible that if NZ companies do more of their business through webex, they'll lose market share as customers choose to go with a local supplier who will actually come and visit.
(Remote software development works well by email & phone, though.)- their benchmarking against Ireland is bogus. Ireland's success comes from:
(a) being a tax haven
(b) being the only English speaking country in the Euro
(c) having an educated, entrepreneurial population.We won't do (a) and can't do (b). We can do (c) but broadband isn't a magic wand to get us there.
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On the financial side:
If we *really* want to invest in telecoms infrastructure, then there are two types of cash, debt and equity.
Equity money is priced on a risk/return basis. At one end of the scale, if there is the prospect (real or imagined) of future massive revenue growth, then zero dividends are acceptable and equity is cheap money (e.g. Google).
At the other end, businesses such as power utilities with little prospect of revenue growth pay yields that are similar to debt interest rates.
So, assuming that this telco infrastructure upgrade isn't going to be allowed to make super profits in the future (implying that they are screwing the customer, which is what we are trying to avoid), then it'll probably be easist to finance it with debt.
The cheapest debt solution is for the government to raise sovereign debt in the markets. They will by definition get the cheapest money around.
So there's no real need to raid Kiwisaver accounts, the Cullen Fund or anything else.
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I'm prepared to buy that we are paying too much for telecoms, and that the telcos are making excess profits at peoples expense.
I'm also in agreement that it would be jolly nice if we could get reliable, fast broadband with coverage out to rural areas.
What I don't buy is that doing this would unleash some sort of massive economic burst of activity as we invent clever new ways to take advantage of all this bandwidth. Nobody's ever produced any evidence of this that doesn't involve an awful lot of hand-waving.
Internet technology has actually created *negative* growth in the content sector - people are now spending less on downloads then they previously did on CDs and video rental.
One thing that people forget in pricing Internet business is that content and technology are discretionary spending that competes with food, houses, cars and holidays. Even for me, I doubt that I spend more than a few percent of my income on or through the 'net.
Which does beg a question as to whether, apart from strong regulation, we should be trying to artificially force wealth to go into Internet infrastructure and what that will achieve.
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As far as I can see all Preferential Voting (aka instant run-off voting) allows is for voters to "make a statement" by ranking their preferred candidate first, then listing the candidate who actually has a chance.
STV (which is the same but with multi-member constituencies) does provide proportionality and is used in Wellington council elections. Which is why we have a much nicer city than others.
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I've never written to an MP, but I know people who've had some very "robust" responses back.
I suppose it's more honest than just emailing back with:
"the Minister thanks you for your comments, which have been noted"