General Debate 29 March 2010

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me first…
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March 29, 2010 9:40am
Murray

Sorry but I can’t see the name Andrew Williams without thinking of a bear asking for cookies to go with his milk.

Older readers will know what I mean.

If you youngsters don’t know its because you’re ignorant and don’t actually count. Don’t feel bad, you’re just not very important. Just like teen MP’s, your opions are actually irellivant. Go get some time up. Lets face it your knowledge actually peaked at 15 and you’ve been getting more stupid every day since then as we all know that anyone with any grey in their hair is actually a moron.

That should to set off the self approving under 30’s for the day. My work is done.
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March 29, 2010 9:41am
david

One for the “legalisers”

http://www.smh.com.au/national/cannabis-health-woes-for-older-users-20100328-r59n.html
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March 29, 2010 9:42am
Murray

Good grief david the only thing worse than trying to reason with a teen is reason with a teen stoner.
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March 29, 2010 9:47am
Shunda barunda

Well Murray with the current lack of community leadership around here I would say there is a fair chance everybody over 30 is a moron.
Is it really fair to blame the younger generation for being born into a particular time when nobody gives a shit any more?
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March 29, 2010 9:58am
Ryan Sproull

One for the “legalisers”

http://www.smh.com.au/national/cannabis-health-woes-for-older-users-20100328-r59n.html

Legalisers? Ohhhh, you mean personal-liberty champions.
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March 29, 2010 10:00am
cha

Hospital treating overdosing stoners, meh!, more like hospital treating stupid people who drink, smoke weed and go for a ‘helicopter’ ride.
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March 29, 2010 10:02am
Pete George

A couple of opinion pieces (Woodham, Misa in the Herald) have touched on aspects of giving those on benefits a kick up the bum.

Woodham talked about how over the last forty years many of the low skilled jobs (assembly line, food packers etc), and also the government low skilled sponge jobs like the Railways have significantly diminished. Now there is a much larger of low skilled workers than there are suitable jobs – no matter how much they are pushed towards employment there are not enough suitable jobs. In other words many may be now unemployable.

Misa cites research that suggests that one of the main reasons there are so many unmarried mothers is because if men don’t have enough money they are less likely to get married. More unemployment = less marriage (but the bonking continues).

So widening wage gaps and higher unemployment rates may be much more significant factors than lazy bums. We had reduced unskilled positions dramatically ourselves, and now we contract unskilled labour to the likes of China, so we may be stuck with a high benefit bill, and the current strategies may be little more than “look, we are doing something (but we can’t change much”.
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March 29, 2010 10:12am
malcolm

If you youngsters don’t know its because you’re ignorant and don’t actually count. Don’t feel bad, you’re just not very important. Just like teen MP’s, your opions are actually irellivant.

Call me old-fashioned, but when berating the young for being ill-educated and ignorant, I always try to get my spelling correct.
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March 29, 2010 10:20am
dime

new financial year starts in a couple of days… any new tax cuts coming in?
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March 29, 2010 10:22am
Murray

Its the under 30’s that elected them Shunda barunda, who’s the morons?

Look at North Shores demographics.

Doh.

People over 30 include: Sir Edmund Hillary, Sir Aprirana Ngata, Kate Shepard, Ernest Rutherford, Sir Peter Jackson, Jane Campion, Sam Neil, Bill Henry Apiata, Ormond Burton, Al Deere, Bernard Freyberg, Keith Park, Kepa Te Rangihiwinui, Sir Paul Reeves, Split Enz, Sir David Beattie and Sir Robert Jones.

All apprently “morons”.

Who you got on your team?
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March 29, 2010 10:25am
malcolm

Now there is a much larger of low skilled workers than there are suitable jobs – no matter how much they are pushed towards employment there are not enough suitable jobs. In other words many may be now unemployable.

Pete, that argument is flawed because it’s based on the quaint notion that people are trapped with their current level of skills. Unless a person has a learning difficulty, there is no reason why they can’t learn new skills. The real shame is that during the recent boom, so many people moved from the unemployment register onto long-term sickness benefits.

I would argue that the welfare system encourages people to remain unskilled. In effect the one skill they are developing is how to live off welfare.
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March 29, 2010 10:25am
Captain Neurotic

David – You should create a ‘kiwiblog’ iPhone application if you have any spare time!
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March 29, 2010 10:26am
Jack5

Scepticism about John Key’s idea of turning NZ into a “financial superhub” with 5000 jobs….

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10634958
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March 29, 2010 10:33am
Pete George

Malcolm, have you tried to deal with upskilling the “unemployment class”? Some are willing, quite a proportion are very difficult cases. And there are a number who genuinely qualify under sickness, even though they may not appear to be unemployable.
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March 29, 2010 10:47am
Michaels

This story amazes me.

Trademe sells a few years back for $700 odd million.
A website.
A website that has been going just a few years.

Shell NZ sells today for $695 million.
A company with many assets.
A company that makes good profit.
A company made out of bricks and mortar.

It has me fucked.

When youtube.com sold for a bit over a billion US, did David Kirk pay shit loads to much?
Would have young Sam taken $100 million?
Has anyone ever asked?
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March 29, 2010 11:03am
malcolm

Malcolm, have you tried to deal with upskilling the “unemployment class”? Some are willing, quite a proportion are very difficult cases.

No I haven’t, although I’ve worked with a lot of people who would be classed as unskilled. Ultimately most people are capable of improving their lot and learning new skills. But for many, welfare provides a one-way route into a rut of uselessness.
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March 29, 2010 11:05am
Razork

They offered Sam much less than the $700M and he kept saying no.
Eventually Capt Kirk folded.

2nd only to Cullen’s train set in NZ’s amazing deals.
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March 29, 2010 11:07am
Pete George

But for many, welfare provides a one-way route into a rut of uselessness.

Of course there are some. How many? What proportion of total beneficiaries?

Ultimately most people are capable of improving their lot and learning new skills.

And ultimately we have less and less jobs for many of them, even with new skills.
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March 29, 2010 11:13am
malcolm

A company with many assets.
A company that makes good profit.
A company made out of bricks and mortar.

So why did Shell sell then? Judging by the number of shut-down and not redeveloped service station sites around, I’d say the business isn’t that shit hot and the assets aren’t necessarily worth that much at the moment.

$700M for Trademe was probably way too much, but that is typical of that type of business (i.e. lots of growth and potential) and during an asset bubble/boom.
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March 29, 2010 11:14am
david

Michaels, TradeMe is much much more than a website as you describe it. In reality it is a cash generating machine, and it is the income stream that Kirk bought.

Unlike Google and U-Tube which rely on attached advertising for revenue, TradeMe has a transaction charge attached to every listing both on the cost side and the success fee side and these are paid in small amounts by hudreds of thousands of registered members.
Don’t also forget the value of credit balances which will never be cashed out.

On a related note it wasn’t very many uears ago that the 3rd biggest bank in Japan was the Japan National Railway because of the prepaid fare vouchers it had issued, many of which would never get used (go through the wash, small balances thrown away, just lost) but always paid in advance.
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March 29, 2010 11:18am
dime

what sorta profit does trade me make? the info must be in some annual report?
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March 29, 2010 11:19am
david

Unemployed vs unemployable. Part of the answer lies in making educational failure “not-cool”
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March 29, 2010 11:20am
malcolm

Of course there are some. How many? What proportion of total beneficiaries?

I would say that 100% of able-bodied people on the dole for more than 1 year are in a rut of uselessness and the the dole is almost certainly giving them the option to remain in that rut.

And ultimately we have less and less jobs for many of them, even with new skills.

There would be plenty of jobs if the government didn’t overtax (partly to pay for welfare) and instead the money was left in the hands of NZer’s who would spend it and create jobs. It is an often suggested – but flawed idea – that society will run out of work. The unemployment benefit (plus other laws like minimum wage, etc) allows people to remain unemployed and argue that there isn’t enough work. Sure there will be periods when work is scarce but there will also be periods of labour shortages. If technology was going to put people permanently out of work then it should have happened by now – in the last 100-150 years farming and manufacturing has been totally de-laboured, yet just recently NZ has had skilled-labour shortages.
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March 29, 2010 11:22am
Michaels

Sure David, but how many years until Fairfax see their $700 mil returned?
10?
20?
More?
Even at 10 years I’m not to sure it was a great “investment”.
They got it so the opposition didn’t.
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March 29, 2010 11:26am
malcolm

Yeah Trademe isn’t just “a website”. It is a bloody good thing.

My brother recently moved to Norway and left me his old car to sell. I put an ad on Trademe on Saturday AM and probably under-priced the car ($1000) but he was going to take it to the wreckers anyway. Within 45 min a young bloke had come around and bought it and I cancelled the ad. As it was less than 1 hour, Trademe assumed I had changed my mind and refunded the listing fee. Excellent service.
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March 29, 2010 11:30am
BlairM

Can ACT just get rid of Heather Roy already? Not that I’m any fan of Rodney Hide, but really, she is behaving very badly out of all proportion to her political talent. She must go.
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March 29, 2010 11:34am
Inventory2

Patrick Drumm – there’s a name to remember

http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2010/03/that-man-deserves-db.html
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March 29, 2010 11:38am
Komata

An amphibian is missing. Has anyone seen it? Does anyone actually care?

(Rather peaceful without it isn’t it?)

The question still waits . . .

(Perhaps its been ‘Tasered’ by Keith Locke (for ‘experimental’ purposes of course. . .))
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March 29, 2010 12:13pm
Dirty Rat

Dime @10.22

changes to personal secondary income tax, portfolio investment entities (PIEs) and resident withholding tax (RWT) rates, and the taxing of lump sum payments from employers.
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March 29, 2010 12:29pm
virtualmark

michaels … there’s a very strong case for arguing that Trademe was worth more than $700m when it sold, I could see how it could have been valued at around $900m.
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March 29, 2010 12:29pm
Captain Neurotic

BlairM – Agreed, however she is doing well as the associate MOD
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March 29, 2010 12:39pm
Steve

Komata,
He will never answer that question. A Civil Servant just goes pan-faced when challenged. There is no way the amphibian will shoot himself in the foot.
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March 29, 2010 12:52pm
Hurf Durf

Is Holmesy going to correct his Sunday column then?

As for the much-heralded anti-nuke treaty: it was mid-level American and Russian bureaucrats who deserve the credit for that, not Barky. Then again the last week has allowed our esteemed fourth estate media to shill for him as though it were November 2008 again. They must be so happy.
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March 29, 2010 2:31pm
thedavincimode

grumpyoldtwat and LRO

Noted your completely ignorant comments about wages and conditions in the dairy industry. Utter crap. The wages are in fact comptetitive and are not minimum wage. In fact grumpygit, if you or yours had actually worked in that industry and been paid only $10 or $12 bucks an hour as the minimum wage, it simply means that you or yours were simply completely fucking useless and not worth any more. Try adding about $10 bucks an hour onto that and tossing in some accomodation. The Philippinos that come here do so because they get a good deal and have an opportunity to work. They don’t just come out for the season – many are permanent employees. I also understand that South Americans come here on the same basis. You also ignore the fact that they can come here just as unskilled as the pool of deadshits that cockies would otherwise be trying to employ from. The difference is they want to work, whereas our home bred locals not only have no work and no skills, they have no motivation and no desire to do anything to help themselves. They prefer to lob up to the counter every week with their hands out.

As for 70 hour weeks, well that happens occassionally in any endeavour and its something that losers with chips on their shoulders who choose to blame others for their own shortcomings, such as you two, prefer not to acknowledge. But to suggest that 70 hours a week for 8 months of the year is the norm is just ignorant crap.

grumpy, there are no doubt arsehole farm employers out there but the point remains that if you or anyone you know has been screwed in that industry it simply means that you or they were too fucking useless to have other options.

The fact remains that too many young and older people with no skills and no work history are simply not prepared to do some hard work and learn some skills, including the assumption of responsibility, that are vaguely relevant to anyone.

As for LRO, a predictable response straight from the weary pinko manual of denial. Fact is that before Klerk got in, we had actually got to the point where many young kids actually had the message that they needed to take responsibility for themselves. Klerk changed that when she plonked her fiscal tit on the table and told them to suck up large because someone else would pay. The fact that you don’t see that simply confirms that you’ve never actually done anything vaguely useful and most certainly haven’t employed people over the last twenty years.
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March 29, 2010 3:26pm
Patrick Starr

“When youtube.com sold for a bit over a billion US, did David Kirk pay shit loads to much?
Would have young Sam taken $100 million?
Has anyone ever asked?”

….nah, I’m still shaking my head over Cullen and Toll Holdings (with our money)
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March 29, 2010 3:43pm
Right of way is Way of Right

A quick perusal of RedAlert today, I note that Darien Fenton is posting liberally about the Labour Womens Leadership Conference in Wellington, and the American Right.

Meanwhile, Phil Twyford posts about a North Shore teenager whohas been selected for the Youth Parliament.

Now, which one of these two Labour MP’s recently went public about all the work she is doing in Northcote and the North Shore, and want’s to stand there in the election.

Fenton is a glorified party hack. At least Twyfords taking an interest. What a shame he has the Tizard handbrake firmly applied!
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March 29, 2010 3:53pm
Pete George

World oil reserves at tipping point

The Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment has today (23rd March 2010) published a paper stating that capacity to meet projected future oil demand is at a tipping point and that we need to accelerate the development of alternative energy fuel resources in order to ensure energy security and reduce emissions.

Sooner or later this problem will be real.

The Status of Conventional Oil Reserves – Hype or Cause for Concern?
(published in the journal Energy Policy)

“While there is certainly vast amounts of fossil fuel resources left in the ground, the volume of oil that can be commercially exploited at prices the global economy has become accustomed to is limited and will soon decline. The result is that oil may soon shift from a demand-led market to a supply constrained market.”
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March 29, 2010 4:54pm
Steve

Well Pete,

Time to stop posturing like peacocks and go Nuclear huh? It has to come soon, or are we going to be last and pay the most?
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March 29, 2010 5:22pm
Steve

“Williams for Lords”
Posted by the mad duck on Red Blert. Sad attempt at humor Trev, don’t give up your day job.
Actually, you should give yourself a warning and ban yourself for a week.
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March 29, 2010 5:44pm
Pete George

Yep Steve, we may not have a lot of choice, especially if China and India keep increasing energy use, and if Africa gets going. Nuclear isn’t as bad as other options.
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March 29, 2010 6:57pm
Tauhei Notts

Thedavincicode at 3.26 p.m.
A very accurate and erudite posting.
Thank you.
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March 29, 2010 7:13pm
Hurf Durf

Whoever decided to start importing Doritos is a farking genius. Om nom nom nom.
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March 29, 2010 8:32pm
nickb

Yay for Obamacare!

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/26/att-joins-growing-list-firms-say-health-care-law-cut-profits/

Change! Health care for everyone! Hope!
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March 29, 2010 8:43pm

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