Posts by James Clark
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OnPoint: Student Loans are Loans (Duh.), in reply to Lucy Telfar Barnard,
This doesn’t mean that I think limiting the allowance to 200 weeks is a good idea. It just means that I don’t think it will have much impact on the study decisions of the brightest students.
On that point I agree with Lucy.
Bart mentions:
They can work out that they will have a bigger debt the longer they stay at University. And they also can work out which professions pay the most and hence which professions will clear their debt fastest and easiest.
This is describing students that are gong to be economists or civil engineers anyway.
For the best and brightest, balancing their cheque account is unlikely to be a top priority. I don't think it will have any bearing on which country they will end up in either. Mathematicians that have their eyes on Cambridge or MIT will still end up in those places.
On the subject of funding tertiary education as an investment (that Keith touched on) I think a much stronger topic is that of full funding in exchange for bonded employment. Govt will fully fund your degree provided you agree to work for govt for x years. That could be CRI or civil service or something else valuable to the public (e.g. Dr in public health system). Debt is released after service and you are free to go on and make big bucks in the private sector if you wish.
No reason why that could not even fund overseas study where that would make sense. It's already done elsewhere.
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Have you considered that the crime rate may be in decline because of the higher rate of imprisonment?
I hadn't considered that, however it doesn't seem as if that would explain the predicted higher rate. If the crime rate is in decline then we should see fewer being sent to prison than the numbers being released (who were imprisoned at a higher rate).
My big mistake may be assuming that imprisonment rate is directly proportional to crime rate. I took it that Keith had covered that in his sentencing remarks - but there could be other factors (conviction rate for example).
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Total: 340 above the original forecast by 2018. About a tenth of the total increase. It's not nothing, but it's not the source of the problem, either.
I'm confused (perhaps because it's Friday and my brain has unwound).
If I read correctly, 90% of the forecast increase in numbers is not the result of tougher sentencing. I understand the crime rate is in decline, yet our imprisonment rate is set to rise significantly (a whole lot more than 10%). So what is the source of the problem then?
Doesn't seem to make sense.
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Bad choice of words. Better 'appreciation' where I used 'inflation'.
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You've got it backwards. The ~20% appreciation against the AU / Euro / Pound is the baseline due to high interest rates. But that's only a quarter of the increase in the US$ and Yen;
And that's exactly my point. Remove the "Interest rate" inflation of the NZD and you have it at ~60c US. Correct. Probably where it should be.
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I/S, sure the USD is doing poorly - but you can't ignore that the NZD has appreciated against all currencies. Most would agree it was way undervalued at US 40c.
If you take the rough appreciation of NZD vs EUR or GBP (using the RBNZ figures or your graph) - let's pick say 20-23% - and remove that from all of today's rates then you have NZD at around US 60 - 63c. That's a lot more realistic than where it is now.
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Because the $US is currently weakening against all other currencies due to Bush's poor economic policies. And that is not something our reserve bank can do anything at all about.
But surely it is NZ's interest rates that are the primary driver for the high currency. The TWI is peaking, there has been 30% appreciation against the Euro and similar rises against most currencies.
http://www.nbnz.co.nz/economics/exchange/nzdtwi.htm
If NZ's central bank rate was 5% then the weak USD would not really pose such a problem.
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I must try and find a telecomms map of the region ...
SEA-ME-WE3 has a landing in Đà Nẵng, and the NEC submarine cable map shows at least one landing in Vietnam. Starhub has another nice picture. There are bound to be many more, all owned by various consortia.
It would be interesting to see them all on one detailed map.
Here's yet another story on the cable fishermen: Vietnam has only one undersea telecom cable at present
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the Singaporeans don't seem to worry about terrerists at all.
That's not actually the case. They're just a whole lot smarter about it than the Americans. Putting ignorant racist thugs at the airport to give travelers the third degree shows such contempt that it is more likely to inspire terrorism than stop it.
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until s59 is amended, pursuing the softer (although likely more effective) measures you describe will be a little absurd when the 'reasonable force' defence remains
Why would that be absurd? Is it absurd to tell people not to blow smoke near their infant child's face? Being sensible is not absurd just because being ignorant is legal.
Come to think of it: making it a criminal offence to smoke in the same household as children would have a greater positive benefit on childrens health than the proposed amendment.
Kate has a very good point. There are obviously a lot of bad parents out there - parents that don't care about or even don't want their children. Removing the 'reasonable' defence is not going to turn these parents into loving models of parenthood.
The Bill's proponents say that violent parents and NZs shocking record of domestic violence are the targets of this bill. When the Sensible Sentencing crowd get fired up about minimum jail terms for crimes of violence then one of the standard responses is that violent criminals do not think about the law while they are beating the crap out of someone. The law is not a deterrent for crimes of violence.
Will violent parents have a copy of the revised s59 on their coffee table?