Dismal Soy Anz

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/07/20/snapsclowns_gallery__470x309.jpg

I can't do fancy stuff like embedding photos. Besides, its copyrighted.

Anyway, the caption is:

Cabinet meetings suddenly became more fun

Ok, it’s a relatively minor issue when compared against the angst/dogma-ridden discussions surrounding welfare and child abuse. But the fact that Auckland Health Board has to put out a press release saying this clearly shows that people are not using their GPs as the frontline in healthcare [I suppose that should be second-line, and prevention is the frontline, but you know I mean.] and that they are either a) too stupid (PC correction: poorly informed), b) too poor or c) attempting to free-ride.

The lefties will go for b) with a touch of a), while the righties will go for c) and a).

I find myself harping on about social awareness. And this issue of using hospital emergency departments is just as much a reflection of a lack of social awareness, as is dropping a concrete block onto a motorway.

Oddly enough, the police commissioner complaining about middle-class drivers flouting traffic laws also falls under the same category.

Now of course, some will argue that certain parts of society are so marginalised that they no longer feel bound by conventional social norms. That’s quite possibly true. The question is whether we are addressing this by saying “there, there - here, have some more money”. The fundamental truth of a liberal democracy is that the state will never be able to make these people conform. They have to have the benefits of conformity inculcated into their thinking, be seeing the benefits of it from the moment they are born.

Where am I going with this? I have no idea. But I do know that the continual blame-game played by many in the blogsphere will never solve problems like these.

Like so many other bloggers, I am overwhelmingly saddened by the death of Harriet, the tortoise. Although I never knew her personally, may not have ever seen her in person, and am unlikely to have even watched her webcasts, her passing is a sad indictment on society. It behoves the political elite to ensure that her sacrifice is not in vain. A reptilian cross-party conference would be a good start (but perhaps they should not invite the snakes – their eyes are just too closely set to be trustworthy).

Harriet (who was apparently originally named Harry) was proof positive that big gals do have stamina. Apparently she weighed 150 kgs and was as big as a dinner table.

My condolences to her friends and family, all of whom, I'm sure, read my blog.

… in whatever way will get they more money.

The Federal govt. promises to pay more money to parents, those who are already having babies delay delivery to get the max $$.

Rorting is inbuilt into the human psyche.

So the Greens are not so keen on foreign (actually non-NZ resident, but hey why not sacrifice accuracy for a bit of polemic) ownership of NZ property.

I always find it rather weird that the Greens, who tend to be those who are rich enough to be preachy about what the rest of us plebs should or shouldn’t do, can be so socialist in their economic policies. It could well be that they know that they will never have to show how their policies would actually work without screwing up a lot of other things.

The discussion over at DPF has rolled around to issue of affordability. The problem is this: housing is an asset. Asset prices reflect the relative demand and supply, unless it is being manipulated. For the sake of argument, let’s just say that there is no manipulation of housing prices (I’ll let Winne dig the dirt on that one). So one way of getting prices down is to reduce demand. So far, consistent with the Greens. But is it non-resident buyers who are pushing up the prices?

Unaffordable housing is not good. But to require intervention means that you are saying that demand for housing will continuously outstrip the supply. Why won’t the housing market correct? So either demand is growing too fast or supply is growing too slowly (or both). How long does it take to subdivide land, zone it, put in infrastructure, and build houses? Quite a while – so supply will always respond with a lag. There is no instant panacea to high house prices, especially if there are constraints (either natural or regulatory) on urban development. Funnily enough, the housing cycle in NZ is 6-8 years long.

So which would you trust? A bureaucrat/politican who "knows" what house prices should be? Or the market?

One final thought: To the guy who said that fewer non-res purchases would mean fewer Asian faces around. Aside for the stupid lack of logic (if they aint resident, you won’t see their faces, dickwad), the UK still provides the single biggest group of new migrants – over 25% of all permanent and long-term migrants for the year to April 2006. The reason why you don’t see their white faces is cos they don’t want to live in the same locale as morons like you.

Update:
I hope I am not the only one to see the hypocrisy in the Greens with the above and
their criticism of lack of freedom of speech in Singapore.

According to her mother, Lisa "I've got ADD" Lewis is an intelligent blonde. OK. I'll take her word for it.

What would you do for your 15 mins?

It is rather amazing that TV execs think she is worthwhile airing. "But it's topical!" they cry. But then so is every other story in the paper. It's also rather amazing that someone has insufficient intelligence that he would want to bid for her daks on TradeMe.

For f*ck's sake - save your money for an Xbox. Plenty more fun and longer lasting.

First of all, seeing as NZ Music Month has gone, I wanted to do a little promo for Sneaky Sneaky Dog Friend - Connan & The Mockasins. Heard it on National Radio's Music 101 show. Hilarious title and quite catchy tune.

The other thing: Was reading the SMH and a longish article by a journo who did some work for Russell Crowe. Not really sure what the point of it was but the line that stuck in my mind was that the term "Whatever!" was the new "Fuck off!".

Hmmm. Should I revamp my profile?

On a lighter note - it's lunchtime.

Just to show that I can jump on the bandwagon as good as Winston "I have never put my foot anywhere near my mouth - that's a scurrilous lie" Peters.

Google trends "Ebay scam" brings up Romania as the biggest searchers. Hmmm.....

An interesting study by Kiwi Expats Association

http://www.keanewzealand.com/tp/download/35173/e77eab7961158b39176bdf3e75321810/every-one-counts-survey-results-final.pdf

Now here's a key point. Nearly 50% of the respondents said that they would definitely or likely return to NZ. Less than 20% said they would definitely or likely stay away. The other 30% are uncertain, and assuming that they split evenly, then a rogh guess is that around 65% of expats will come back. The next question is when, and the majority (around 60%) say within 5 years.

So while many people leave, a lot do come back. Like I said before, the Nats are pushing a barrow uphill on the exodus to Oz thing. Now this is not to say that we should ignore the outflow of talent but we should be aiming at making NZ a better place to RETURN to - not as somewhere not to leave.

I came back because of family mainly. Yet the state of politics here is arguably no worse than elsewhere in the world but if we to be subject to shite policies (from whatever part of the political spectrum the govt comes from) then I may ws well get a bigger buck for enduring it. The other thing that keeps me here is that I feel that I can express myself politically with some real stake. Eslewhere in the world, us expats have to take up citizenship (and potentially lose our Kiwi passport in the process) or simply shut up and not take part in political debate.

But I digress. There are other dynamics at work here than simply the tax debate. The Nats should be focusing on those other dynamics if they want to make a convincing argument about the net outflow of Kiwis.

Much in the same way that Spy vs Spy alsways amused me, I find it rather funny when Jordan Carter trots out the party line (John Key showing "soft bigotry" - sounds like some kind of toilet paper) and Tim "I got plenty of axes to grind/throw away" Selwyn has a go at him.

Bring on the popcorn.

... you suddenly find yourself wondering, whatever happened to Alison Moyet.

I have been looking at the cabinet paper on using SOEs to promote economic growth.

It’s not the most fascinating of reading topics (and to be honest, the reason why I started reading it in the first place was because I was deadly bored with some other stuff). But it strikes me that this really typifies the approach of the current government to policy. It believes that in order to make things better it must meddle. The motto seems to be “Thous shalt…” rather than “Thou shalt not…”

Now I am all for having clear direction to SOEs. After all, their rationale for existence is that there is a market failure of some sort. However, what jumped out of the pages to me was that Treasury, the Crown Company Monitoring Advisory Unit, and MED, all seemed to be saying “Do not re-regulate. All of this can be done within the existing framework.” So the question I have is why bother putting out a cabinet paper on this? The only answer I can think of is that Helen’s Henchmen want to be seen to be doing, even if doing is actually nothing (or even at the risk of doing being harmful).

The paper makes use of the term “adjacent” technologies. Even if we overlook the fluffyness of some of the terminology, the logic of pushing for this rather escapes me. Either the SOE can see this technology as useful to its core business or it doesn’t. If it isn’t useful to its core business, and it has no mandate to divert resources into non-core areas, what makes the politicos think that it will be any better than the private sector? If it is useful to the core business then it should be no problem in getting it funded.