Posts by Keir Leslie
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What evidence can anyone give about counter-factuals?
The problem with the government picking winners is that the government just doesn't have that much knowledge about the skills required in the economy. So it is all very well to say we need more tradespeople, but (a) the market should correct that problem anyway, and (b) there's Hayekian arguments that the government will stuff up these attempts anyway.
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Bart: Why do you think there is a structural under-supply of engineers or scientists? Why do you think there is an oversupply of lawyers or accountants?
Also you are factually wrong, lawyers and engineers get roughly comparable pay, and training engineers gets a far larger government subsidy than training lawyers.
In fact, one step to rebalancing the educational economy might be to move away from the heavy subsidising of certain degrees, and towards a more open model that doesn't attempt to pick winners. For instance, arts degrees get very low subsidies, and are then attacked for being uneconomic.
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I may be misreading, but it looks to me that the Electoral Commission is recommending the removal, not just of the right for scrutineers to wear rosettes, but also for anyone. Which would also extend to people doing turn out on election day, presumably.
In general I disagree with the idea of banning rosettes on election day. Elections are partisan, and while I don't agree with advertising etc on election day, there's no point trying to pretend political parties don't exist that day.
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That's not true though -- Warhol, Hirst, a few other artists are brands as big as anything. Certainly I suspect Hirst or Emin are as well known brands in the UK as many television shows or bands.
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Yeah, the NG building. Smart’s in Neil Dawson’s studio these days, something or other England Street Linwood, and the Physics Room is in Sandyford Street, although they have got back into the old Tuam Street building and are renovating it.
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Currently, Christchurch has a reasonably good contemporary art programme. The Rolling Maul thing at CAG's place on Madras is probably one of the more exciting contemporary programmes in NZ at the moment (go see it actually, Zina's show is pretty nice), and Jonathan Smart has had a pretty respectable series of shows, with a Saskia Leek show opening this Tuesday.
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Eh, art as commodity at it's most blatant is hardly fair. After all, if you buy a Hirst you get an actual thing. And the exhaustion of ideas? Well, if you say so, but I reckon that the Physical Impossibility is a pretty sweet idea.
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I have very little sympathy for the pain of setting aside one's ambition of becoming Prime Minister, and settling for Ministerial position. And Cunliffe is still working for himself, not just the team --- no doubt he wants to be a Minister; no doubt he wants to do well.
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Also, nobody is asking Cunliffe to put aside his personal ambition. He is, after all, still in line to be a senior minister in the next Labour government, a pretty high honour.
(While I hate to defend the honour of the shadowy backroom advisors, it does strike me that most of the discussion thereof is about as informed as my discussion of the office politics (with a small-p) at any given workplace in NZ would be – that is, essentially uninformed.)
[edited to add: and really, what is back-room standing as code for here? There seems to be way too much weirdness going on here for me to be entirely happy with the uncomplicated/frustrated use of such terms.]
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I think that's a bit too glib, given it wasn't just DPF that read it as that, and some of the slightly odd noises coming out of certain quarters that week.