by Kennedy Graham
How can we have an economy that works over the long-term, creating prosperity for our children and theirs?
The Green Party is organising a cross-party economics conference next month to explore how to make the New Zealand economy truly sustainable. The conference will cover economic theory and practice and include input from the three major political parties on how they propose to get us there.
Dr David Suzuki, a renowned scientist and world leader in sustainable ecology, will give the keynote address followed by well-known academics, commentators, and political and business leaders.
If you’re interested in attending, please contact Richard Slade in my office for further details.
Kennedy
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare | Environment & Resource Management | Featured by Kennedy Graham on Fri, October 29th, 2010
Tags: David Suzuki, ecological economics
More posts by Kennedy Graham | more about Kennedy Graham
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
It is layered… the core problem is the environment, but over the top of the environment we have the society layer, and the economy layer, and we cannot get to the environment without fixing certain underlying problems in those two.
Specifically the definition we use for money, and the wisdom of permitting unrestricted population growth.
As this is about economics, the definition of money is squarely on the table. I have made my own opinion clear a number of times.
Money is work done. Consider the barter replacement function that money provides, the lack of counterparty risk in a barter transaction. The lack of necessity of trust in such a transaction.
Debt is NOT money. Cannot be. Though both Debt and Money can be used in many similar ways they must NOT be confused, as the analysis and economics that flow from the assumption that debt can be money permits economists who use it to ignore the laws of thermodynamics.
Which money obeys and debt does not.
It is complicated and yet simple. Simple to see the problem, complicated to solve for us as a society.
..and yes, I will be there.
BJ
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In Wellington?
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Yes, Wellington
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looks like the pyramid scheme economy is unravelling before our eyes’
http://www.sonyclassics.com/insidejob/
Overdose: The next Financial Crisis – ABC Australia 2010
This is the story of the greatest financial crisis we will ever see… The one that is on the way
This documentary summarises in layman’s terms why the economy crashed and that the worst is yet to come. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26264.htm
Money As Debt (1 of 5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVkFb26u9g8
Paul Grignon’s 47-minute animated presentation of “Money as Debt” tells in very simple and effective graphic terms what money is and how it is being created. It is an entertaining way to get the message out. The Cowichan Citizens Coalition and its “Duncan Initiative” received high praise from those who previewed it. I recommend it as a painless but hard-hitting educational tool and encourage the widest distribution and use by all groups concerned with the present unsustainable monetary system in Canada and the United States.
Money as Debt II Promises Unleashed (1 of
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_doYllBk5No
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_doYllBk5No&feature=PlayList&p=879A14495D29C64F&index=0&playnext=1Bailouts, stimulus packages, debt piled upon debt, where will it all end? How did we get into a situation where there has never been more material wealth & productivity and yet everyone is in debt to bankers? And now, all of a sudden, the bankers have no money and we the taxpayers, have to rescue them by going even further into debt! Money as Debt II Explores the baffling, fraudulent and destructive arithmetic of the money system that holds us hostage to a forever growing DEBT…and how we might evolve beyond it into a new era. http://www.moneyasdebt.net/
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Money as an addiction – article on Huff post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-schwartz/dope-dopes-and-dopamine-t_b_775202.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=102810&utm_medium=email&utm_content=BlogEntry&utm_term=Daily+Brief
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We cannot have a sustainable economy with a financial system that requires constant growth.
NZ is small enough and has the resources to be the leader in changing both.
Without addressing social justice and the financial system a sustainable society is impossible.
The first step is to take away the power to create money and take interest from the private sector.
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Kerry
Can you explain what you mean by that statement?
Everything preceeding that is sound advice, not sure what you are implying in the tailpiece but.
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The financial sector has expanded from about 10% of GDP to almost 30%. Depending on who you talk to, some people reckon that >50% of the cost of everything produced now goes in interest on interest.
To continually pay back the ever expanding place of the finance sector, and the non-contributing rich, the economy has to grow or all other parts need to shrink.
A politician recently admitted that without finance UK would not have an economy. In other words their private productive sector is almost non existent. Now they are gutting the public sector to pay more to banks.
Starting by funding and expanding Kiwibank so it reduces the impact and requirements for offshore finance for firstly Government and the private investment. To invest in NZ for the future and aviod the currency and export wars we are too small to win.
We have already seen the favorable impact on the fees that banking took out of the economy when kiwi bank started.
Require investment to be in NZ for sustainable and effective business.
NZ’rs should be able to democratically choose the types of business they support. EG businesses that borrow publicly are required to be transparent.
For those who object to just printing dollars. I.E. They cannot understand that banks, the USA and derivative schemes do it anyway.
The Government could sell bonds to finance Kiwibank lending. As we have seen in the USA Government bonds are the most popular financial instruments at the moment, even though the US has borrowed more, for bailouts, than future production can ever repay.
Unless we invest in a sustainable future economy for NZ it does not matter what we have saved in investments, Kiwisaver etc (Especially in US dollars) because the economy in NZ will not be able to support us all unless we have made it work.
Sustainable energy, education, sustainable businesses, local production and some exports to pay for things we cannot make are investments in our kids future.
Just a quick bunch of ideas. Myself and others have expanded on them elsewhere.
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Of course it can. What it can’t be permitted to do is CREATE money and charge interest for that little service.
BJ
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I am trying to put across the idea that we cannot continue to have an economy that works by investing money in creating more money, as if it was a valuable commodity in itself.
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This article from the Standard shows that a country can tell international banking to naff off and make their economy work in the way they want.
http://thestandard.org.nz/meanwhile-elsewhere/#comment-265139
‘Contrary to a common belief, Argentina’s expansion was not based on exports or high commodity prices: Only about 13% of the growth during the expansion was because of exports.
What did Argentina do right? Most important, the government got its basic macroeconomic policies right. After years of seeing its domestic economy crippled by an overvalued currency that made imports artificially cheap, the Argentine central bank targeted a stable and competitive real exchange rate.
In other words, the authorities made sure that their currency didn’t rise too high and didn’t swing wildly as a result of movements in financial markets. (Here in the U.S., where we have shed more than 3 million manufacturing jobs since 2001 — the bulk of them lost because of an overvalued dollar — we might take note.) They also kept interest rates low and made growth, rather than the lowest possible inflation, the top priority.”.
Add sustainable to the equation and we have the beginnings of a way forward.
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http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/how-argentina-jump-started-its-economy
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Get no argument from me on that score.
We start by investing ALL Cullen and KiwiSaver funds into projects that stimulate the private tax paying sector.
Especially those sectors that create, sustain and pay well the jobs that this country so badly needs to reduce overseas debt and interest charges.
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Yah, and would either of you two wizards be coming to Wellington? I don’t know how the rest of the party has taken to my little “white papers” and less than subtle proddings
12 November may prove an interesting day.
BJ
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http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/investing/joseph-stiglitz-corporate-crooks-to-jail/19684353/?icid=sphere_copyright
How is this sustainable? We have our own versions here.
Or this
http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/how-goldman-gambled-on-starvation/
Still waiting for certain houses in Paritai drive to be siezed under the proceeds of crime act.
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i’d like to ‘third’ that cullen-fund/kiwisaver idea…
we have the tools to make this place hum…
(ahem..!…in a green/lo-volume/non-intrusive-way..of course..!..)
..but we ain’t using them…
(as in..really do/make a national-cycleway..as just one green-example..)
just continuing to do the same old..same old…
…is just going to take us further ‘down’…
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Bj. Would like too, but have to go to work. Should be entertaining.
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Unfortunately duty calls. Sailing regatta the same weekend.
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Given that tax revenues are down for the year our fiscal situation is not improving.
To be blunt, it’s not possible to continue with the billion dollar a year subsidy of Kiwi Saver (which should have already concluded for all except new entrants) – we cannot borrow this money to place into peoples savings for retirement.
Whether Kiwi Saver goes compulsory or not, the tax credit has to expire after the first year.
This is a necessary statement in December, and it being made before the Savings Review concludes will direct thinking on that.
This change is necessary to return to surplus soon enough to resume savings into the Fund.
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Perhaps someone could explain how the capital ratio of a bank would change if there was no created money only the value of existing activity?
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If there is no created money its capital ratio would, unless I misunderstand the term, be 100% and not changing at all.
I think you meant to just ask where the banks would find capital to lend out at all.
The banks would, with respect to savings, become conduits back to the treasury, which would be the only place (I suspect) that money could be held by individuals without loss. With respect to borrowings they might serve as the conduit back from the government to the borrowers, and the bank’s ability to lend would be predicated/limited to the deposit of funds that are not then accessible to their original owners.
BJ
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BJ:
Thats absolutely the root cause: because a single value system is used for both, they are intermingled, and thus cannot be told apart. Although once there was a concept of money as representing something of value (ie gold), those days are well gone, and there is a very real possibility that there really is no money there at all and it is all debt. Or maybe just numbers in a database. Who would ever know?
Growth, interest and inflation are different words that share the same underlying fallacy: creating “wealth” from thin air.
One real alternative solution to this problem is to establish a new monetary-like system that has no intrinsic value.
Many times in history there have been “local” “currencies”, from what are basically bartering systems (including for example LETS) right up to fully fledged currencies administered by agents of the government.
An alternative practical NZ based currency might be the answer.
Getting the required political will to make it happen, and to understand how it could be taxed would remain serious obstacles to implementation.
I said “wealth” in inverted commas earlier, rather than money: my implication is that the recent economic clusterfookies have illustrated just how real this created wealth isn’t…
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So if money reflected the level of “existing” activity in the economy, does this include “stored” savings?
If it does and these savings have to be unable to those saving them, then a bank could only lend for a new home to be built (via a builder/property developer) and for this home to be bought by a deposit and mortgage loan if they were the middle man broker (charging a margin) between the real saver and the real borrower (who pays both back principal and interest less the banks cut to the lender). Of course there could be ten savers for each home loan, or 1 saver for 10 home loans. I don’t see why the lender would not simply buy the homes and rent them out (certainly while there wass no CGT).
Of course given most of our home and farm finance comes from offshore, it’s more complicated than that.
How can one economy be quarantined off from foreign savings or prevent them used in our economy rather than in another … how could a country dependent on foreign loans for its existing home ownership ever move to such a system?
One of the engines for growth is the ability to purchase economic product before one can buy it outright (on the basis of contract to use some of ones future wage/salary income to pay for this loan) – this by such as home mortgages. Taking growth financing out of the economy now accustomed to it and dependent on it, is a natural to those opposed to economic growth, but where do the new homes come from (required population controls/no immigration)?
The road to banking sector change will go through many stages before it can approach this state (in a global market). We are already moving towards core funding ratios which require more local saving to our local (on) lending. At some point we should also favour lending for new home construction over lending for landlords to buy up existing housing. I have always advocated GST on consumption spending finance (including the home mortgage, that or a surcharge – which the RB eventually considered till BE said it “would not be popular” when in opposition). Such a GST raises “savings” revenue.
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Foreign savings and investment can only work if it is possible to trade currencies. So a non-tradeable currency is not attractive to legitimate international traders as they can’t get capital in, or more importantly, profit out.
I say legitimate as there will always be “unofficial” traders (the so-called black marketeers), but for a legitimate foreign investor they would be unlikely to want to work with unofficial traders, and there may not even be the capacity in the unofficial system to get the volume of transactions desired.
Transferring home loans from system A to system B is not impossible, it would work the same way as currency devaluations worked; you wake up to find your quid is worth 17/6d.
The hard bit is that the foreign investor will want to be repaid, so either that money has to be whistled up from somewhere, or one defaults, and then it really gets ugly.
But I suspect we’ll see some proper defaulting before the aftershocks from the economic mess the world is in subsides; it’s been avoided so far by some clever talking, but it probably cant go on forever. Even though this so-called money is non-existant, pipers still want to be paid…
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” … Even though this so-called money is non-existant, pipers still want to be paid …”
Whether it’s real, or not, (just a film account) the contractors still have a contract.
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Indeed, contracts that are subject to NZ law.
Topically, as an example, the Employment Act 2000 provides a basis for ripping up contracts. The Gummint could declare a whole class of contracts null, by, well, simply changing New Zealand law. It’s not like that hasn’t been done before
Its dodgy ground though; by defaulting on our loan obligations our international reputation would be wrecked, so its really a nuclear option that we wouldn’t want to use.
Which is what makes untangling home loans financed by foreign capital really hard.
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Here is my take on the issue: The world has nearly seven billion people. It can produce a certain amount of resources sustainably. Of course knowing exactly how many resources the world can sustainably produce is not a trivial task, but there are some reasonable estimates for this. There is some minimum amount of resources that a person needs to live. We had better hope that 7 000 000 000 times this minimum amount is less than the Earth can produce sustainably. If not, we’re up the proverbial creek without a paddle. If this is the case, we’ll need to work on population reduction urgently.
Its also clear to most ecologists that the world cannot sustain everyone living like North Americans (or New Zealanders for that matter). So the resource usage of the average person will have to be less than this for the economy to be sustainable.
Now there is another moral or ethical issue we have to confront. Can we condone a system where large numbers of people around the world live in desperate poverty? Is it right that those in the West consume huge quantities of goods made by people on minimal wages in China, India and elsewhere? Even if this acceptable to us, these people in the developing world will start to aspire to live like those in the West who purchase the cheap goods they make. This will lead to an environmentally unsustainable economy. We can already see this happening in China (for example).
So it strikes me, if we set up our economic structures in such a way that we have gross inequalities between the developed and developing world, we are setting ourselves up for an environmental catastrophe as the developing world strives to increase their standard of living to be like the developed world.
Instead, in my opinion, we need to find some middle path. The developed world _must_ reduce their consumption to a level that is sustainable if everyone in the world lived at this level. In the process, the resources freed up from the developed world can go to raising the standard of living in the developing world.
So what I’m getting at is for the economy of the world as a whole to be sustainable, we’re going to have to do something about finding a more equitable distribution of the resources. What system will achieve this best?
Its late now, so I’ll focus on this last (and most important) question later if I have time. One thing I think is quite clear is that business as usual is not going to work.
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All good questions samieula,
The only problem to be resolved is world population. Everything else will flow from there in regards resource allocation and sustainability.
While Stalin in the 1930′s and Hitler in the 1940′s tried various methods of population control (includes Stalin starving the Ukrainian population en mass in 1933), nothing really works in small scale human eradication programmes as carried out by these communist and facist states.
To get real population reduction is impossible therefore the question in allocating equal resources to 7 billion people is self defeating.
It simply cannot be done.
Nor is there a human designed “system” yet devised that will do so.
Only a dictatorship can wield the power to reduce populations but past experiences with these has shown it does not do it very successfully either.
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In the third world, there are countless millions of people who live in terrible poverty, and that food for that population is grown by fragile means. When the crops fail (as they do) then the first world population through aid agencies and the like try to do something to reduce the scale of the problem.
As the first world population begins to feel the squeeze through our profligate squandering of resources, then we simply wont have the capability (or, I suspect, will) to take on third world problems.
So the third world going to be first in line come the crunch, and the inequitable thing is that they are not part of the core problem; they have done nothing wrong, but will be the first to go.
So the global population will come down, but it won’t make a blind bit of difference. Not until the first world has to respond to the crisis. The wars that will ensue over food and resources will help reduce populations. Like I said: ugly. What a lovely world we are leaving to our children’s children.
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SPC
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Yes, I regard that stored savings are included, and I further note that outside the NZ treasury, money cannot be “stored” without loss. It has a use-by date. (and yes, the implementation details around the use-by date are daunting).
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I also regard that money comes from the treasury, not from the banks. So the limitation is not simply what the savers put back in, but also the new production that replaces the money that has gone past its use-by date over time, and growth in available “money” which, since I think of in terms of a redeemable-in-energy currency, is limited to our power generation capacity.
Those folks offshore don’t have NZ dollars. They have something else, and if they want to participate, their dollars have to be converted, which is going to cost, and follow the same rules here as our own do, including the deterioration over time rule. This can of course, be overcome if the interest rate charged is high enough. Finding a borrower at that rate is not going to be so easy though.
The second part of your question is a better one. Since this is a work in progress I don’t know all the questions and have only thought about this one for about 10 minutes, but there are a couple of points.
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1. I don’t want the overseas money distorting the market.
2. This means the prices charged for houses must drop.
3. The value of the NZ dollar is not the same outside NZ as in.
4. Foreign investors get paid back in NZ dollars. Which have a use-by date unless they are re-deposited (stored) in the country.
5. The exchange rate may well be quite invidious for those foreign investors, particularly if the NZ dollar is made functionally redeemable in power delivered in NZ.
That last bit, making the NZ dollar redeemable, is one of the ways in which we differentiate it from the foreign paper. To do the exchange the foreign paper has to include a transfer of stored energy to NZ, adding to our supply of energy… our wealth. This works much as the bullion transfers used to work, except that what is being moved is REAL wealth, as the ability to do and control work is the real measure of wealth for any individual or country.
So we wind up with more realistic values placed on things and production vs finance, and that IS one of the goals. The problem is the transition. DBuckley has offered some pertinent observations. So have you.
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If this is too sudden, the society collapses of economic shock, the transition IS one of the hard problems. I suspect that it will be uncomfortable at best.
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Overseas based investors will almost certainly get “burned” for which I feel no particular guilt at all. They have been extracting money and product from NZ without actually providing for productive growth in NZ, for decades. I did assert that we need to change the rules… and among the rule changes that is mooted here is that the government, not the banks, controls the money supply.
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Which means that foreign bankers cannot alter it.
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No reason to completely eliminate the use of loans. There really is not.
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The difference here is that the loan document itself is not ever, and cannot ever be confused as or traded as, money. It is a debt obligation that has to be paid back with money and that promise, if acceptable to the mortgagee, is undertaken with the lender being supplied through a combination of other people’s savings and the government’s supply of funds, to the bank which issues the mortgage.
So we haven’t removed the ability to borrow and lend, merely restricted it to money we actually have as savings and production… plus any government defined additional funding. The people doing the sums for a new business have to think a bit differently about their enterprises, and the use of credit will become… more circumspect.
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The inflation rate will by design, hover somewhere near zero. The need to continually get raises to simply keep-up will disappear… The change in society will run a LOT deeper than any superficial search for ways to save a few bucks on heating or more efficient light bulbs. … and that’s the point. To profoundly change the way we think about money and energy and things so that we value things we can fix over things we throw away, things that last over things that we consume. Houses we live in more valuable than houses we invest in.
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The unending growth in consumption that is necessary for the current economic system to function at all, disappears to the extent that it is economic. Population growth however, is a component of growth that is not addressed here.
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Anyway, it is not the intention to make buying on credit impossible, and if there is some difficulty overlooked then the rules need to be rearranged so that it remains possible and even attractive to people for certain things.
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I am still somewhat stuck on the transition, and use-by issues and suggestions are welcome.
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respectfully
BJ
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BJ,
Good summation and the transition is going to be interesting.
I would start by taxing money being repatriated overseas at a much higher rate then if it was reinvested here.
This would naturally stop foreign money being invested as freely in New Zealand and could put a dent into local job creation.
Therefore ALL the KiwiSaver and Cullen fund investmentsments have to be returned forthwith into New Zealand and invested in liue of the missing foreign investment funds into expanding the private sector, tax paying, job creating businesses.
All future savings KiwiSaver and Cullen fund investments will not be invested abroad but used to build the New Zealand economy.
Neither the Labour nor National parties will do this so the Greens have an opportunity to push this barrow, but need to market the fundamentals of such a scheme smartly and clearly to gain voter acceptance and make it possible to achieve the outcome in parliament.
The decision to make is simple but the “selling” of it and the possibility to actually make it happen needs serious consideration.
It could mean that the Green socialist brigade may need to take a backseat until the economy is sufficiently strong and vibrant enough to enact socialist agendas.
Crunch time will be if the socialist agenda is be enacted prior to the economy being sustainable and robust enough to pay for the programmes.
Something the Labour party in its third term failed to do. Face economic reality (e.g. low tax cashflow) but still try and enact socialist policies (e.g. WFF) without a sustainable and robust econmy.
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Samiuela
One of my goals in this is that the example we set should be a good one, and that people around the world recognize in light of it, just how thoroughly the banking system has come to dominate their affairs… and that they can in fact do something about it.
My hope here is that this will cause a populist revolution which overthrows the organized criminals of Wall Street. That this will shift real money and power from the investing class to the working class. The results in terms of social equity would be considerable.
However, it won’t solve the population problem. We have selfish genes after all. Overcoming that will require more potent social engineering than I can imagine, and will almost inevitably also be accompanied by failures that are catastrophic in terms of human lives.
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It is my opinion that those catastrophes are inevitable given the population, resources and efficiencies we know how to obtain. No matter how hard we try or what we change.
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My job to work to prevent and ameliorate that future, but I don’t expect to succeed. At best I hope to help some.
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However, without economic changes that increase equality on a global basis, that “some” is a very very small thing.
respectfully
BJ
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Just scrolled to the top and saw that the fact that the conference is in Wellington drew a negative tick
Sorry folks… I didn’t set the venue. It’d be good if it showed up in Auckland and Christchurch too… but I don’t think we can do that.
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If you want your opinions included talk about them here. I am sure this thread is being watched fairly close.
BJ
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The conference is at Parliament. As with most events here, access is with invitation only for security reasons, so you should request to attend as instructed above if interested.
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It is not necessary that Kiwi Saver and the Cullen Fund invest in the New Zealand private sector. Investment in SOEs would work just as well, as would investment in government borrowing. Really anything that pays back in the long term is an option, and this includes investment in health intervention systems, accident avoidance measures, better education etc. Any government department should be free to borrow money now to implement a program that would save that department more money later, providing of course that program meets other measures like improving rather than degrading quality of life, environment factors, etc.
Trevor.
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Trevor29,
Absolutely but with a major proviso. It must be run as a competitive business.
We cannot revert back to having monopoly situations such as kiwirail being owned by the state and preventing competition from keeping prices for goods and services affordable for workers.
The state should own the steel road, just like the tarseal ones, and open up the lines to ALL operators.
We then have to diferentiate between a “state asset” (owned by the state for the common good of all) and a SOE.
Roads (steel or tarseal), the land underneath them, the electricity power stations and grid, etc. are state assets paid for by the people and ownership should be the state.
SOE’s are simply state owned business which should ALL be sold to the New Zealand public through share handouts and listing on the NZX.
The state would invest the KiwiSaver and Cullen Fund moneys through buying shares in listed company’s on the New Zealand stock exchange.
Returning profit dividends to shareholders (you and me) equally.
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We can’t change the economic system overnight. What we can change quickly is the information available to the public on which they make decisions about purchases. Two quick examples:
I can buy expensive AA batteries which are “extra long life” or some similar almost meaningless phrase. Or I can buy a pack of cheaper batteries which I know are not going to last as long, but by how much? 1/2? 1/4? 1/10!? Is this a bargain or a rip-off? I don’t know as neither supplier is saying. When I buy a battery, I am buying some energy I can use, yet there is no requirement for the seller to say how much energy they are selling? Why isn’t there a requirement that batteries be sold with their capacity in Ampere-Hours (or milliAmpere-Hours for smaller batteries) plus a statement saying how this was measured (typically the current drawn for the test and the end point threshold). After all, rechargeable batteries typically give their capacity.
I buy light bulbs to give out light. Why don’t the light bulb packets say how much light they give out in a meaningful unit (e.g. lumens) rather than “equivalent to a 100W bulb”? (Actually some bulbs do – I looked at a 100W bulb and the bottom of the packet said 1330lm.) Some bulbs give a typical life. Why not require this of all bulbs?
I’m sure there are other examples.
Trevor.
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As long as this country is being run by a coalition of ‘fat-cats’ & those who kowtow to corporate fat-cats, words like ‘sustainability & environmental impact’ will always come after words like “how much can we make & how much will we have to pay out ?”.. its time to look past the size of your wallet, to ‘will Aotearoa/NZ have any future ?’ if we continue with the current Govt. & their mentality !! Kia-ora
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Gerrit – I am confused by your last post. Most power stations are owned by SOEs. You are saying these should be owned by the state but also that the SOEs should be sold. So who would own the power stations currently owned by the SOEs and if the state were to own them, would this be by some other mechanism than an SOE?
I think selling most SOEs is wrong. The SOEs are also strategic assets and it is sensible to allow the government control of these assets, so short-term profit is not the only consideration when decisions are being made. A case in point would be the Rodney gas-fired power station which might look good in the short term but which goes against our sustainable generation targets.
Trevor.
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The state should own the stategic assets (road, electricity generation, distribution grid, etc. not in an SOE capsule, but just own them.
Having a titular SOE moniker adds another level of state servant that we dont need.
Make a distinction between a state asset (to be retained just as an asset without the pretence it is a competitive business) and an SOE (like TVNZ).
Sell of all SOE’s that dont have to manage a state asset and close down the ones, that do have state assets to protect, by intergrating them back into the public service regime.
Why bother to have so many levels of state servants when one will do.
Invest those savings into more state assets, or invest into listed companies on the NZL stock exchange.
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Why not require this of all bulbs?
Why indeed, except that National won the election in part by beating up on sensible ideas like this one. The market is just not the answer to all questions.
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Nothing is going to happen without selling it to the public.
Expecting those at the bottom to bear the brunt of any changes while it is business as usual for those at the top is going to alienate supporters.
The “socialist agenda” of social justice has to be a part.
The Greens would have to have all their ducks in a row and answers to any objections, or we will see another Hobbit hysteria, or the Funny money stuff that buried social credit.
The first step in change is agreement that it is necessary.
Sell the fact that we will be worse off long term if we do not make drastic changes now.
AGW, peak oil, peaks in resources, rising energy costs, the unsustainable ever rising compounding interest on money (peak money), rising inequality all mean business as usual cannot go on.
The idea that every country is going to pay back their debts by out exporting the others is an obvious oxymoron. The USA will either default or massively inflate their dollar. Making Kiwi saver and other investments in US dollars worthless long term.
NZ is well placed in energy, food and other necessities to do well if we act.
An economy that does not require exponential growth to work is necessary to address all of the above.
Some ideas.
Take back control of our money supply. By expanding Kiwibank until it has removed all offshore banks from NZ. UK have done that several times nationalising and privatising the B of E. There are many examples of effective State banks. North Dakota, Singapore etc.
No land can be owned offshore. Leases at favorable rates should be possible for offshore investors in approved ventures. Those which benefit the NZ people. There will be one off decreases in land prices, but we will all gain by land prices long term reflecting real earning value, not CG.
Remove compound interest and just have a fee to cover the time value of money.
Tax capital outflows more than money that is re-invested within NZ. The opposite of what we do now. Shift the tax base from income taxes to transaction, finance, consumption and CGT.
BJ has talked about how we can use money as simply a medium of exchange.
I have no conscience about taking the money off those who simply put it into NZ for straight out speculation as RBA kept interest artificially high.
Argentina defaulted on 100 billion worth of IMF lending as I have referred too already. Despite predictions, it has not done them any harm. The resulting drop in their currency has helped their internal economy and their export competitiveness. Higher priced imports have helped internal import substitution business and hence their balance of payments.
Business finance from Kiwibank to be competitive and publicly applied for. Preference to be given to sustainable, productive and useful business ideas. It is corporate welfare and picking winners, but Singapore, South Korea and others have proven that it works with good governance.
End the emphasis on our competitive advantage being the cheapest. There is always someone who is cheaper.
Natural monopolies, like power, to be kept in public ownership and planned for sustainability.
Basically infrastructure is public. eg.Rail to be supplied on the same basis as roads to anyone who wants to run a train set.
Change the name and look of the currency as Germany did to stop inflation after WW1, to make a new start.
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Kerry
The “funny money” stuff that buried social credit? Can you elaborate? I wasn’t here at the time. As you are dead right about having ducks lined up.
BJ
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It was in the Muldoon era when Social Credit had a share of the vote that would have probably given them he balance of power if we had MMP at the time.
Muldoons PR machine was reasonably effective. They kept pushing the “funny money” slogan and ridiculing social Credit.
The “Dancing cossacks” equating Labour with Russian totalitarianism was another successful bit of theatre at the time.
People always seem to respond better to simplistic emotive slogans, rather than facts. We tend to like facts and evidence, but that is not what drives many peoples decisions..
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This figure 1.7 is hugely concerning and should be addressed in any sustainable economic model for NZL.
.
1.7 is the number of workers (tax payers) supporting 1 beneficiary.
.
http://www.interest.co.nz/news/fewer-number-workers-supporting-each-beneficiary-september-quarter
Add to this the public service employees that apart from GST contribute zero to the tax take and the crisis to pay our way overshadows taxation reform.
You cannot reform taxation from such a small pool of contributors.
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Right
.
That would be the principle reason for making the currency redeemable as I have been advocating. Someone who tries “funny money” on a non-fiat currency is apt to get their head handed to them in any debate… at least on that topic. What we have NOW is “funny money”.
respectfully
BJ
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Beneficiaries numbers are going to keep increasing as the population ages, and the employment numbers at this point are suckish… but I don’t see that there is something horribly out of whack.
Considering that I support my wife and kids and that makes 1.0 to 1 right there. Add in the Mother-In-Law and it is higher.
Maybe I am not seeing this the same as you are but I know of no way for the demographics of the boomers pushing through the retirement age to be anything but bad news for that ratio. No matter what changes are made in anything else.
respectfully
BJ
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BJ,
Your wife and kids are not beneficiaries (not that I’m aware off mind you).
.
What you have to add to your total of dependents is a beneficiary you dont even know.
So you are supporting your wife, your kids and the mother inlaw from your take home pay PLUS your taxes support 0.7 (head is a bit cloudy this morning so maths is probably wrong on the 0.7, but you get my drift) of the cost to keep a beneficiary in the life they are accustomed.
Leaves not much of your taxes to provide health and eduction support for your kids and their parents future.
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Well, if you don’t even know them then starve they should!
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Once there were two of us human beings.
Now there are 7000 million of us.
Were those first two human beings millions of times richer than we are?
Curiously as human populations increase they get richer. That is because “natural resources” are human inventions and the more brains the better and the more highly educated the brains even better.
There is no limit to our capacity to invent and hence resources are infinite.
There are only two metals that existed as metals prior to human invention – alluvial gold and meteoric iron.
Clay was just clay until women invented pottery. Then the invention of high powered electrolysis enabled us to extract the aluminium. There is no reason to keep poor people in poverty and nor are there grounds to make current wealthy people poor to lift those poor people up out of their poverty.
Once we identify an environmental problem we apply our inventive minds to solving it.
IT is quite immoral to give up before we start by declaring the case hopeless.
ON the other hand, junk environmental science has killed scores of millions – DDT and the sixty million needless malaria deaths are the prime example. It took someone with the moral authority of Nelson Mandela to tell the wealthy eco-terrorists to get their science right and at least read what RAchel Carson actually said rather than what the eco-terrorists claim she said.
I for one am not prepared to carry the burden of a hundred million or so needless deaths because of junk science and junk economics.
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I’ve no particular opinion here, just observing.
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People have support in addition to being beneficiaries, and people do provide support for them, apart from paying taxes.
.
…and the numbers are destined to be worse over time, until the pig in a python boomers begin to turn into fertilizer.
.
However long that takes.
.
… the questions are:
.
1. are there too many beneficiaries?
2. are there too few people in work?
.
and how does this actually affect the economic policy, monetary system and the rest of it? I’d submit that:
a. The monetary system stands entirely apart from it.
b. Economic policy that encourages the nation towards economic self-sufficiency, helps us through it.
.
…and there is little else to be said of it. The demographics are unalterable at this point. Future demographics are an issue, but this isn’t a question that bears on whether we get the money and taxes and economics right. Our children will decide to support us in our dotage, or not. Not our choice to make.
respectfully
BJ
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Once upon a time there was two humans…
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The offical UN projections are that the World Population will go into decline around the middle of this century – which is not very far away.
Once you combine declining population with ongoing improvement in efficiency and productivity environmental stress declines rapidly.
I have been watching population projections for some decades now and the low projection has always proved to be the right one, at least over the last twenty years.
This is because per capital wealth is the most powerful contraceptive. And no one foresaw the rapid increase in China and Asia. Once Africa moves towards open market democracy and begins to break the poverty cycle their populations will decline too.
The second most powerful contraceptive is female literacy and no one foresaw how the increased wealth the Indian Asian Subcontinent would also be accompanied by such a dramatic increase in female literacy – which was probably the result of the great female Prime Ministers and leaders who emerged at the same time.
China’s forced population control may have been a case of too much too soon because it has hugely distorted the demographic. My Chinese MBA students were highly aware of the social problems this had caused.
But that is another story. The population explosion is over and reducing human misery now is the best way to reduce misery in the future.
That is the good news.
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BJ,
Disagree that the funding required to maintain the tax recipients is not to be considered as a denominator in the economic equation.
As I said before, the socialist brigade may have to take a back seat until the economy can afford to sustainable maintain tax recipients.
It has to do with the transition you mentioned earlier. You simply cannot afford to keep to tax recipients at the current levels, it is not sustainable.
Nor can we let them starve, (maybe we can to promote lower population levels, just joking)
SO part of the solution to achieve a sustainable economic may well be reducing monetary payments to tax recipients and instigating a voucher system or similar.
Remember the post was to
In my view it is not possible to achieve “an economy that works” where 1.7 tax payers are required to maintain 1 tax recipient.
This has come down from 2.4 at its highest level and if it keeps going the chances of it hitting 1:1 increase.
When that happens the whole pack of cards will collapse and ALL will starve.
(PS frog, paragraph problem seems to have fixed itself. Looks good on my Firefox browser anyway. No more philu type fullstops required)
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http://publicbanking.wordpress.com/2010/10/30/a-real-way-to-fix-the-economy-and-it-exists-in-north-dakota/
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Ex parliamentarians who are paid thousands a day to suggest continuing past failures.
120 self appointed incompetents in Government who could be replaced by a coin tossing game. Or one RWNJ and one LWNJ plus BCIR.
Banks who use their monopoly power to extract maximum fees and get laws changed to maintain their market position. Now very upset Kiwibank has made them pull back a bit.
Education department chiefs on 500k who cannot organise a p-up in a brothel.
Trucking firms which say their user charges cover their use of the roads. Ignoring the roads paid for by rates.
Insider traders investing in finance companies knowing they will be repaid, including interest, by taxpayers.
People who bought infrastructure from their mates in Government for cents on the dollar then ran them down to the stage we had to pay again to keep it working.
Farmers who have no taxable income then retire to a million dollar house in Mt Muanganui.
Those who own 8 houses, but still take social welfare.
People who happily take advantage of the infrastructure, educated labour force and social cohesion of NZ, but reckon those who gain the least should pay the most.
Yes. It is time we reduced the burden of benefits.
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You are missing the main burden – those who combine both the deadweight costs of benefits from the public purse and add their own costs to ensure their ticket clipping maximises revenue.
For just example go here:
http://www.rmastudies.org.nz/issues/72-good-practice/478-a-hard-decision-withdraw-your-proposed-plan
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/liamhalligan/8098834/Mervyn-King-makes-a-stand-for-reform-as-banks-seem-intent-on-forgetting.html
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Gerrit
Agreed, the numbers don’t stack up.
But that is just another facet of our busted economy; we do too much low value stuff that will never cover our costs: we need to get into high value business, and stop being a commodity milk producer as our “strength”.
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“In my view it is not possible to achieve “an economy that works” where 1.7 tax payers are required to maintain 1 tax recipient”.
It is entirely possible. Depends on the ratio of individual taxpayers incomes to the benefits paid.
If so much of our wealth was not syphoned off by banks and other wide boys. who spend their days creating more ways of making themselves richer at our expense. It would not only not be a problem, but we could all work less hours and still have a decent income.
At the moment we work the longest hours for the least money in the Western world. That has to do with the beneficiaries mentioned above.
Anyway what is your alternative. Euthanasia or starvation. Maybe start with the biggest beneficiaries. Douglas, Faye, Hotchin, Jackson, Spencer, English.
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Which is because we as a country do predominantly low-value things.
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Kerry
Starvation will be the result if we continue to have a disparity between tax payers and tax recipients.
It will not abe the monetary difference that will cause a collapse into starvation for both the tax payer and the tax recipient.
It will be collapse casued by the tax payers opening the door every morning to go to work while the next door neighbour stays home. Why should the tax payer go to work?
Be easier to be a tax recipient and go fishing every day.
You really have an hatred for the past, how will that help the conference being planned?
Surely you need to look to the future or would you rather be walking backwards into the future and look back at all the pasat wrongs and try and right them (impossible)?
We need to play with the hand we are holding, not one we wish we had.
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as a beneficiary who once was a highly paid/regarded worker, I would be in favour of euthanasia for such as myself.
I might still have something to offer but blah….
See how all you starving wolves get on going at one another’s throats?
It already looks bad.
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- Sound money with asset backed money or competing currencies, etc
- Welfare reform, movement to a universal wage and elimination of the minimum wage holding back the lowest skilled in our society
- Common law development to deal with environmental damage caused by land owners against other
These are some the solutions I’d like to see proposed, I’ll bet they don’t get a mention
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Your right wing fascism is sure starting to look a bit cracked there Gerrit. That would equate to around 35% unemployment. I believe it’s currently at 7%.
We would only have wide spread starvation in New Zealand if there was a huge environmental catastrophe. Although being able to afford food that is good for you, is another subject entirely. A functional economic system is founded on the health and well-being of the populace. Maybe we should focus there considering we have woeful figures in nearly every health statistic available. Get the basics right first and then grow from there.
Because of mechanisation we will always have unemployment in a feudal based system. I believe it’s not until we value research and development of every aspect of our past, present and future that any real fix to the implications of mechanisation will be found. Cutting funding to tertiary education is going backwards in this respect.
Go on the dole and go fishing everyday then Gerrit… Just quit your whinging about beneficiaries being the bane of your existence.
dbuckley
And because vampires like Douglas, Faye, Hotchin, Jackson, Spencer and English have been sucking the country dry.
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I guess those who think the 1.7 to 1 ratio is a made up statistic may like to read this link (as posted in an earlier commment and obviously not read (perhaps even understood) by all.
http://www.interest.co.nz/news/fewer-number-workers-supporting-each-beneficiary-september-quarter
There is none so blind as those who will not see.
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I did in fact read the link already. However I believe your stats to be defunct just like your ethos that the economies problems are all due to the welfare state. I have 20 20 vision.
Please don’t start talking about fruit again.
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For those who are interested this is the breakdown of where the social benefits are spent
http://www.treasury.govt.nz/budget/2010/estimates/est10socdev.pdf
Interesting reading and should be taken into consideration when the conference discusses a sustainable economy in NZL.
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You say it as if all the ‘tax recipients’ are all unemployed dole bludgers who produce nothing of value, pay no tax at all and so must be completely carried by those 1.7 others.
It all depends on how you define beneficiary, doesn’t it. In the interest.co.nz article someone receiving WFF is included, no matter how much WFF. There are also people on low incomes who receive a small accommodation benefit ~$20 per week. I bet those are included. etc. The model is so simplistic that it’s not much use.
But now, back to the topic…
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These are some the solutions I’d like to see proposed, I’ll bet they don’t get a mention
Silly wabbit! Of course they will, as I’m going to be there and I’ve already argued for monetary reform… which should be somewhat in evidence a bit higher up in this thread.
I have some things to say about welfare “reform” as well (not likely to be what you want), but minimum wage? I see no particular advantage in changing it. I regard changes to it as a mostly ineffective way of influencing desperately little.
David Suzuki who is the headline speaker – is a strong advocate of multi-generational considerations in government activity… as is not the case now. Adding multi-generational considerations addresses environmental depredations of various “owners” quite handily I find.
BJ
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Rimu,
Never, ever did I or have said, that tax recipients are dole bludgers.
Not now not ever.
You and others are reading into the 1.7 to 1 ratio a particular slant that is different to what I’m suggesting.
The topic is sustainable economy. I’m asking is 1.7 to 1 a sustainable ratio. Highly on the topic.
Read the treasury report and you will find superannuation is the largest single benefit payout.
Not suggesting anything should be done to cut the benefit to anyone.
Merely asking the question, is it sustainable?
Repeat, you and others are reading more into it (benficiary bashing) then what is intended or designed to do.
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Beneficiary bashing… What! Me? Never!
Looks like they even calculated student loans on that 1.7:1 figure.
Interestingly the editor of that fictional piece of crap; Bernard Hickey has recently been appointed to the position of Group Head of Digital Fairfax Media. No wonder we have such bias reporting and media coverage in NZ. I wouldn’t trust any information on the interest.co.nz site especially with my investments. Doesn’t David Chaston have ties with the kiwiblog site?
Clap clap for the retarded stats Gerrit!
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Ok, point taken.
What I’m saying though is that a bald 1.7:1 ratio is useless when the terms are defined so broadly as to include anyone who gets any money at all from the government.
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Rimu,
What the government gives out on one hand has to be collected first with the other.
If the collecting hand cannot gain enough cashflow than the government has three choices
1.- Reduce what it gives out to match what it receives
2.- Borrow to make up the shortfall
3.- Increase the productivity and size of the taxable private sector to enable the tax take cashflow to match what it gives out.
We are currently borrowing to make up the shortfall and hoping our childrens children will pay to difference plus interest. Not sustainble.
I prefer that conference looked at how we get to where the government enables the private sector to provide the high paying jobs that enables the tax take cashflow to match tax outgoings. Highly sustainable.
But to ge there it has to look at where the money is going currently and thus it needs to look a the ratio mentioned.
We need higher paying sustainable jobs in long term viable businesses that can compete world wide, if the 1.7 to 1 ratio is to be maintained.
If we dont create those businesses and jobs then ratio is not sustainable.
Hence the call for the conference to look at sustainable economic models.
Neither capitalist nor socialist models can provide that and I’m hoping that the conference comes up with a different workable plan.
Myrelf I would have no income tax but increase GST to a guestimate of 50%.
That way it will encourage higher take home pays (lift the minimum wage if you like by 20-30%) and discourage frivolous spending.
Business investments returns (dividends) would be tax free to encourage investment into job creation.
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I take it back… It’s not just environmental disasters we need to be weary of; Gerrits plan would see wide spread starvation in New Zealand.
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Thanks Gerrit, I’m familiar with basic economics.
Especially familiar with the things conventional economics avoids talking about, like externalities – as if there is an ‘away’ to ‘throw things away’ to…
You are right, we are piling up debts and hoping our children will repay them. And not just financial debts, but ecological ones as well.
Does your definition of sustainable take into account ecological borrowing/debt?
I’m pretty sure that the conference’s definition is intended to use a definition of sustainable that includes ecological debt.
The way to shrink our financial debts is easy (although politically difficult), it’s the ecological debts that are interesting. It makes little sense to grow or shrink one kind of debt at the expense of the other because sooner or later, nature will ensure things come back into balance.
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Rimu,
I share BJ’s opinion
Scroll up, very first comment on this posting.
All problem solving starts with the economy, get that right and the rest follows. Get it wrong and the ecology goes down the drain.
The two are interlinked and while righting the economy has to mindful of the ecology, you cannot fix the ecology without the economy.
My view is that like Maslows Theory on the Heirachy of needs, food and shelter (economy) will always prevail over the ecology.
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OUr labour productivity is high and improving.
But our capital productivity is lousy and getting worse.
The end result is poor overall productivity.
And the little capital we have is further destroyed by unproductive compliance costs and the high level of projects that never go anywhere because the entrepreneurs give up.
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I am quite happy to focus on current generations – they seem to get the rough end of everything at present.
A child born today is likely to live to be 100.
Should we really be fretting about the needs of people beyond 2110?
We have no idea what their needs might be. Imagine worrying about our needs in 1910.
And just what has Captain Kirk done for me lately.
I little more attention to our current young would be much appreciated by them I am sure.
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The pension (it is not superannuation – that was a classic Muldoon lie) payout date should be raised to 70 As soon as politically possible.
As long as people have time to adjust and the sickness benefit is available to those who are too sick to work at 66 or whatever.
When the universal pension at 65 was introduced only 15% of males lived long enough to collect it.
Retirement is a deadly disease so the overall health of the older population would increase dramatically.
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Bloody hell yes!
We have no idea what their needs might be.
Forgive me if you are speaking in a very narrow sense, but we know a lot about what their needs will be in terms of ecology and climate. Not knowing in precise detail give us no right to trash the planet.
Imagine worrying about our needs in 1910.
The difference is that they didn’t know many things we do about the effects on the future and also didn’t have the means to have such a huge effect either.
And just what has Captain Kirk done for me lately.
I agree future generations needn’t worry about their effects on past generations, if that helps?
I little more attention to our current young would be much appreciated by them I am sure.
No argument there, but our responsibilities are not mutually exclusive.
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Well said Valis the French workers are not putting up with any bullsh!t from the multi national corporations government who claim that they don’t have enough in the kitty to pay for a pension scheme.
I refuse to accept that when you consider how much profits are going to the share holders of companies like Telecom in boom times.
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Exactly! It is an old ruse that Nat/Act seem to be rolling out all the time now. I am personally sick and tired of seeing people suffer because of cutbacks while they wallow in the pigs trough. I’m not sure what we should put our complacency down to but to steal a phrase… enough is enough! It seems that reasoning with the fascists isn’t working at all and I for one think that the only way there will be any halt to the money grubbing is to slap some sense into the bastards.
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Owen
Part of the reason Greens are who and what they are is that we, unlike any other party, feel a very real responsibility for the condition of the planet that we leave to our children’s children.
It is perhaps, the most important difference between us and the other parties.
We take responsibility for what we do.
BJ
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Drakula,
And all that violence is making a change? Laws still have been changed, the ruckus has died down, retirement age has been lifted and common sense prevails. Even the french realise you cannot distribute what is not in the kitty.
Looking forward to the conference discussiong the bitch slapping the fascist pigs as a means to increasing the size of the kitty. Yep that will work, not.
With no fascist pigs to slap in Cuba, who will the left wing blame for the layoffs of 500,000 people from the state?
http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/politics/Cubas-500000-Layoffs-Could-Lead-to-Social-Unrest-102803974.html
Bitch slap Castro?
What the Greens may consider at the conference is this from the UK Greens
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/green-manifesto-shifts-lucas-to-left-1946383.html
Now lets see if the New Zealand Greens will follow this lead after the conference.
As what you and bitch slapper are suggesting is pretty much what the UK Greens are putting down on paper and electioneering for.
At least they are honest, will people vote for them?
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From some of the sentiments expressed on the internet lately, the right wing would be foolish to try and push the envelope any further.
We’re not talking about the UK or Cuba Gerrit! We’re specifically talking about New Zealand and its worsening states in nearly every area because of what I see as fascist policies. Are we to understand the inference from your links… that globalisation has failed miserably, world-wide and there is no need to see it continue? We have tried peaceful protest, negotiation and marching in the streets but still there is no change for the better. In fact policies are continually being made to subjugate the poor and increase the “elites” power and control. This has caused untold suffering and pain to a large group of New Zealanders.
Something needs to happen to break the monetary hold the “fascists” have on the country. I think its time to try something new like violent protest. This isn’t a Green policy though. France can ignore its populace being on strike and violently protesting because it has a large police force and scousers (no insult to Liverpool intended) available nearby. New Zealand doesn’t have that and a protest like what we see occurring in France would be very effective against exploitation.
The right wing can make jokes and nervously laugh about an uprising all they want. However it is a real and powerful tool available to make change, hopefully for the better.
Some European countries are also evicting minorities at the moment, which would clearly point to the fact that they are again being run by fascists! My Grandfather’s fought that war and won. I’m not about to let their efforts go to waste.
I must say that the media bias re the armed forces cuts is in overdrive at the moment.
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I have no problem with being being concerned about the state of the biosphere thousands of years in the future.
But when it comes to allocating resources – which are always scarce – we have to apply a few test.
First we have to know what problems we are trying to solve and have to assign a priority. I suggest we have no idea what will be the prime problem facing people in 2120. I suggest you read a few earlier future studies to see how wrong they were. Wildavsky if you read a book about the long term future it is quite a good way to get up to date with the present.
Having identified the problems and assigned prorities we then have to decide what we can do to address them.
at this point we run into Karl Popper’s profound observation that we cannot predict the future economy or society (and hence the poverty of historicism) because we cannot predict future knowledge.
When we have faced all these uncertainties about knowledge and economics etc we then have to face the moral problem – given these uncertainties, how much should we withhold wealth and resources from the current generation (ie those looking to live for a hundred years or so) for the benefit of those yet to be born?
For example one planning report recommended moving a whole settlement of retired people away from their beach side properties to save them from rising sea levels in 100 years time! They were serious!
Surely, they should be left to enjoy their remaining years in peace. Especially as there was no sign of measured sea level rise in in this location. If anything because of tectonic plate movements and accretion the sea level has been falling.
I prefer to address real issues and relieve real poverty rather than panic over nameless and unidentified fears largely driven it seems by a religious gene which seems to yearn for catastrophe.
The RMA gives a good steer on this. It refers to future generations only in relation to the life giving properties of the soil, the water and the air. But the authors were thinking of twenty five years being a generation.
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I am interested to know the bloggers tossing the word fascist about think it actually means.
I wrote a fairly major essay on fascism back in the sixties (largely because it was loosing its real meaning.)
Here is a test question. What was Muldoon? a Fascist or a Socialist?
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I think its time to try something new like violent protest.
Not new here, or anywhere else mate. Being angry doesn’t get you votes and a political party that marginalizes itself by supporting violence isn’t going to last long as a party.
As for doing something to break the monetary hold, violence doesn’t do it at all. Not unless it results in actual overthrow of govt.
Changing the monetary system WILL.
… and not just here.
BJ
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Unfortunately, “technology” and privatisation of State owned assets, competition for private enterprises etc, has resulted in a reduction of labour based and technical trade jobs in many areas. Productivity, growth, and returns (to overseas owners!), paying back loans etc have become far more important (even critical) than keeping goodly amounts people physically employed by our own internal monetary exchange systems.
We do need to put some labour intensive jobs back into the economy. These in turn can could also support other careers and activities for people able and willing to work. We do have a pool of people who require work with their hands,and wider options too. Their parents were brought into this country as cheap and available labour, and now we have pulled the rug out from under their feet, and their childrens’ feet by not maintaining “sustainable” activities.
I for one don’t mind paying much of my taxes to fund productive work for the good of the country, our public systems etc. One day I could well be a more substantial beneficiary (and already have been!) of any of the services we have in place so I can’t really decry the availability and use of these, despite the “rorting” that is impossible to avoid.
In a decent society, we have to accept that to support the genuine needs, there will always be various degrees of “take-up”, just as in paying taxes, there are various degrees of “avoidance”.
We still have to judge ourselves on the level of support we give to those who cannot provide for themselves, whether it’s assistance, an income, or just an operation.
So how do we adress these imbalances? We have to reduce our balance of payments. Much of our gdp is spent on imported crude and crude oil derived fuels. That’s alot of “income” to spend on supporting the transparent operation of our economy and structure.
What would be the situation if we were independent of imported energy, and indeed, were so good at it ourselves that we had a surplus for our population base? That would be an interesting scenario.
Labour, and all the associated work right up to research phds’to support this activity, as well as just the technology would be a far more valued and important resource, and we would be generating our own substantial exchange income purely by *not* siphoning off a constant stream of payments overseas to pay for our transport fuel demands.
This is a bit of a naive and general view, but in principle, I agree with many of the monetary based incentives proposed on this blog, and stongly believe they will help support more a sustainable economy, in turn based on a sustainable fuel and energy system, which we need to have in place anyway! It’s the entire model we need to look at. That’s my axe to grind (!):-)….
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When every day to and from school one walks past a memorial site like this
http://www.ww2museums.com/article/13566/Memorial-Executions-3-April-1945.htm
and then to finds the term facist and violence coined in the same sentence, ones natural reaction is repugnance.
Violence begets violence, solves absolutely nothing.
Our parents and grand parents did not fight and die for the right to more violence.
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Muldoon is dead!
Yes! I was not advocating that the Greens take on the mandate of violent protest and I realise that it is a controversial subject in respect to politics. However there is a real need for drastic change that I do not feel that the current easy as you go policy will achieve.
In respect to violent uprising, history has shown that it does in fact work to a degree. I am not aware of any previous revolution in NZ. We already have a very violent society don’t you know. The violence is somewhat unfocused at the moment. People are becoming more aware of what the actual cause to their misery is: government policy that subjugate the poor and marginalised. I’m not the only one who is unhappy about this.
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2010/hrct721.doc.htm
It seems as though the Maori party is more interested in retaining their appearance of power than making any real change for good in NZ.
Fascism: A system of government practiced by Mussolini in Italy between 1922 and 1943 that was characterized by dictatorship, centralized control of private enterprise, repression of opposition and extreme nationalism.
Perhaps I should use the word Nazism instead? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism
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The construction sector is the most effective means of sweeping up unskilled young males – who are either predators or providers.
The housing sector is the most effective within the construction sector.
Build one thousand houses on separate lots and they will generate about 40,000 jobs over next few decade period.
Our collapsing build rate is a tragedy because we cannot recover full employment while our normal build rate of 24,000 houses a year is plunging towards fewer than 10,000.
Every week the Environment Court turns down proposals to build new towns or residential subdivision on the ground that housing degrades rural character or similar nonsense and without any regard for degrading family life and wellbeing.
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That should read: government policy that subjugates and marginalizes the poor.
This from somebody who spent half a thread talking about how he could simply blow on disadvantaged youth and they would run away and that the government didn’t need to declare war on the unemployed because they were a bunch of weaklings.
My Grandfather’s fought in the war because fascism was trying to take over the world. Well guess what folks… They didn’t fight so that the elite could get paid mega bucks while the poor scrounge around in the gutter. They didn’t pay with their lives so that the poor could subsidize big business and private enterprise with user pays nationalist economics. They didn’t go to Hiroshima to clean up the burnt bodies so that the Labour and National governments could ignore policy and the will of the people and secretly distribute nuclear products through NZ. They sure as hell didn’t fight for our freedoms so that we could complacently role over and let fascism run the show.
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That is violence? No it is a wakeup call for youth to get their act together and stand up for their rights.
As per usual you read in what you may, it does not on my part advance the cause off, or equate to physical violence at all.
Simply that they must educate themselves and organise to change the system. But they are too weak at the knees to do that and I stand by that ascertion.
You are the one advocating violence.
You want to slap a fascist, I suggest that the young people get an education, organise and most of all join political parties, vote for change, and foster the ground work that will make the changes.
I advocate growth through learning and organising, you advocate violence.
The people I know who fought in the war sure as heck did not fight for violence on the streets either.
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Anyone who takes responsibility for their own life, as far as they can, gets respect. Anyone who fails to TRY, and blames everyone else for their failure, gets none.
Responsibility is something you take. Respect is something you earn. Those two things are worth money when you go to find work OR to ask for help to make things better for your community.
Demanding that the business folk get their act together and fix things is futile, as they are as stuck in the quagmire of our broken monetary system as the rest of us. Bankers may have the power to make things better for the rest of us, but no incentive to do anything at all as they already control all the power and money… and their throwing of crumbs would not fix things at all as the broken part of the system is the part where they were given control of all the power and money. The fractional-reserve system.
So save the violence. It may come anyway if we should actually revise the monetary system effectively and prove by example the correct definitions to apply. If they recognize the threat to their power in time the banksters will organize something nasty for us. Internal revolution, external invasion, anything at all to make sure their fraud can continue.
Because when it collapses, so does their power and so does the political machinery they maintain.
We however, don’t need it.
BJ
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Owen
I would have thought military service was the most effective way to “sweep up”… and to upskill them in more varied ways.
Any idea of comparative numbers? … or does it actually matter at all
BJ
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Owen. The construction sector teaches skills to young males and then uses their services. Unskilled workers cannot build a house.
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That may be so during a major war but it seems a high price to pay.
During peace time this was the finding of the McKinsey Global Institute in their major international study “Employment” in the late nineties, and now released as a book “Productivity”.
Kerry, that is true but the construction sector as a whole is what McKinsey were referring to. I worked my way through university by mixing and pouring concrete on site for a hospital or two. When there was no concrete to pour we stripped boxing and pulled nails out of timber.
Did not need any skill.
HOwever, I also worked as a hammer hand for a few housebuilding companies too and put in hundreds of nogs and nailed floors and roofs.
That did not need skills either – except to be able to hit the nail on the head.
When did you work in the construction sector?
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Yes! In the face of fascism I do advocate violence. Just as my Grandfather’s fought so that we have freedom. I see no reason to not label many in Politics fascists, when their ideals and policies clearly point to this fact. Would you like me to point out some of the underhanded tactics that have recently been employed?
The disadvantaged can mobilize and organize and are not as weak as you might think (This is starting to sound like a movie script). Late is the hour blah blah blah! Does that scare you a bit Gerrit? The right wing agenda makers need to realize this and stop being foolish. I’m sure that the government could find the money for more Police and jails etc if it came down to the crunch, but preventative action in the form of equalising wealth so that the disadvantaged do not undertake a violent solution is in my mind preferable. Unfortunately it is not my choice to make. Certainly it is preferable to the current mandate we are seeing implemented in this and other countries; what I would define as fascist idealism! A revolution is at one end of the scale, because of right wing policies I believe some of the population is considering this option.
The cost to Frances infrastructure is worth the money saved through reforms. Not!
So the main issue is what to do with disadvantaged people so that they are productive and contribute to society and the economy and not continue the negative aspects like crime, alcoholism and suicide.
Building more houses and service are two options. Fixing infrastructure like power, phone and the internet, which has comparatively seen very little investment would be another. Repairing what we already have ie state houses and assets would employ many more.
Developing systems of efficiency would be a huge factor in the economies progression and resource management. You need smart people to do this so education is really the foundation to any economies growth. The benefits of all of these to society would be well worth the investment.
Most disadvantaged do try BJ. The system often does not allow them to benefit from their efforts.
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Kerry
I can think of a half-dozen insulting comments to toss at NZ houses from that straight line and I am going to hold them all.
I don’t think that the problems are a failing of the workers. As unskilled workers CANNOT build a good house but even skilled workers can’t make a poorly specified poor design into a good house.
The construction work is a job, and any first job, by itself, teaches a lot of things…
respectfully
BJ
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Todd,
Shakespeare is dead and so is Hitler and so are many other people.
ID does not stop us talking about them and analysing their thoughts.
I was intrigued by the definition of fascism you quote.
It is a very “cleaned up” version and misses out some of the key elements.
My essays on these topics usually begin by stating the Enlightenment/Romanticism debate or tension and then postulating that socialism is the dark side of the Enlightenment and fascism is the dark side of Romanticism. Communism results from combining the dark side of both.
Fascismis not primarily an economic theory – while socialism is definitely econocentric.
The four essays are here. http://www.rmastudies.org.nz/issues/65-the-age-of-environmentalism
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Yeah! You dirty old house! Clean up your act.
Muldoon was not a socialist K. I’ll admit that the work schemes for gangs had a social conscious flavour though. I wonder what Muldoon was thinking about when he urinated in the halls of power and figuratively pissed all over our futures? Certainly not how good-looking Karl was. Just like Rogernomics, Muldoon is a sad chapter in our political history, which I prefer not to talk about. I’m keenly aware of the continuing disastrous effects on this country because of their stupid policies.
It amuses me that the rich cry poor whenever a suggestion of redistributing wealth is floated. “I can’t afford to pay you a cent more, now where’s my brand new Bentley”.
http://thestandard.org.nz/can-we-afford-poverty/
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Bj. I have heard a lot of comments about rickety wooden houses from people from overseas. Unfortunately solid looking brick buildings do not survive an earthquake while the stick houses do.
I do think that rules about building for passive solar energy and insulation need tightening up, (Back on topic) but the rules, for strength and longevity, were perfectly adequate until the 90′s deregulation of the building industry allowed dodgy suppliers and developers to make a killing.
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Owen. That has been the problem. Building companies and developers employed erks to do building work, who were not skilled, to cut costs.
I’m a (Would be if I had kept my registration up to date) qualified builder and spent 13 years running a house building and boat repair business among other things.
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Wish the leaky building problem was as simple as so many like to think.
The problem was highly localised and there were many forces at work.
Unfortunately, the move towards a performance based code system (which was world wide for obvious reasons) coincided with over regulation of land and a move towards even more dependence on permitting processes that were rule based and further away from skill based management. Then at the same the eco city promoted untreated timber because of their chemophobia. On top of that was the pressure in certain cities to intensify which meant higher site coverage and hence eaves were abandoned and decks were allowed to intrude into the building envelope.
And the massive increase in land prices as a percentage of the total package encouraged builders to cut corners and employ cheap labour and methods. Those of us who refused to participate in this density madness and kept building houses with eaves and with decks on the outside and never let flashings penetrate a cladding had no leaky problems. And I have long used sheet hardiflex but with neoprene vertical seals etc and ss screw fastenings.
Contrary to the mythology we need to reduce council liability and put the liability back on the builders backed up by guarantees and insurance. There is no equivalent leaky boat problem and yet you do not need a permit to build a boat.
In the Invercargargill case of 1995 the Privy Council warned us that we were stark raving mad to believe councils should have infinite responsibility for their permitted buildings but we ignored them. In most civilised jurisdiction Council responsibility ends after a certain time (say seven years) or after the first on-sale.
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Aluminum is what you use for beer to ensure that it gets cold in the refrigerator.
…and this is the window design found on 90% of the houses I look at.
Even the new half-million dollar McMansions.
I can’t actually think of words to express my contempt for the people who design and build such things… but it isn’t the guy who physically puts the window in who makes the mistake. That error comes earlier in the piece.
Nor am I particularly fussed about wood-frame vs steel-frame vs masonry. All can be made to withstand a quake… or not.
However, if I stand next to a closed window or door holding a candle, and the candle is blown out by the wind coming through the poorly constructed seal/lack of secondary glazing/lack of a storm door… or I see massive sliding glass doors (still single glazed) opening directly to the south advertised as “good indoor-outdoor flow), the urge to vomit on the guy who designed the house is pretty strong.
Things bend under pressure from the wind. This affects seals. Not one house I ever lived in (until I came here) had fewer than two doors on an entry, inner and outer doors, none were single glazed. Not in New York, not in Southern California…
Obscene housing standards.. no insulation in walls… nothing under the house and often enough damned little even in the ceiling.
It is enough to make me sick, and it often enough makes New Zealanders sick as well… just not the same way. Not the fault of the guys who hammer them together though. Someone a bit higher on the food chain has to take responsibility.
respectfully
BJ
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Muldoon’s general pattern of behaviour was much closer to fascist thought but without the Romantic environmental overturns. His affection for gangs reminded me of the Fascists attraction to thuggery.
HIs Romantism was expressed through his anti intellecctualsm and longing for the day of the average kiwi bloke.
He was a classic fascist in his focus on production as a means of increasing the wealth and strength of the state rather than the welfare of the individual. Winston Peters is his natural descendent.
Winston one sang the praises of Freidrich List (the economist not Lizt the musician) without realising that Lizt was the major Fascist theorist – adored by fascists in Italy and Japan. See Trotter on List here:
http://keithrankin.com/clip/1996726aIndependentList.html
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That’s described my 1965-built house in a Lower Hutt “nappy-valley” suburb down to a tee! At least the sliding glass-doors aren’t on the south side… The black mold loves ‘em in winter time though if it’s not noticed, and that’s without using any moisture producing gas heaters.
If there’s one thing that could be done to improve general health and well-being, it would be to improve insulation and heating subsidies ..
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Todd,
Never been scared in my life of any physical treats from blowhards.
Get scared solo jumping out of a perfectly good airplane or working 30 stories up on the outside of a building, but that is a different kind of scared.
Never scared to face up to bully tactics like you describe. I abhore violence, but dont visit it upon my family for I can extract utu without violence with the best of them.
You celebrate the french for their violence.
You might like to read this
http://in.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-52621220101102
Even the french can see that
Violence is an untenable postion to take for it solves nothing, not even french retirement age levels.
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bjchip
New Zealand is somewhat longer than California and so it ranges over a number of climates.
The light timber framed house, properly designed, and well insulated (as has been required by law for yonks) does not need double glazing in Northland – provided the glazed areas are hung with thermal curtains.
I prefer timber joinery and use it when I can and the fact that it leaks a bit of air is useful given our high humidity.
None of my houses have needed double sealed entrance halls. Cross ventilation IS a benefit in our climate in summer. We have to cope with high changes in temperature over a few minutes and well insulated light framing is ideal. High thermal mass is a curse except where used for specific benefit. For example I surround my wood burner area with concrete filled masonry so as to absorb heat during the day and release it at night – but only where it is needed.
I am a great fan of outdoor showers in the north because they are such a delight (under a verandah of course) and solve most of the mould problem inside. And you can come up from dragging in the net over the mud and shower without going inside – with the dog too.
There are many splendid houses in NZ and it is unwise to apply the standard construction and design theories of southern california or anywhere else to the whole country.
However, the modern fashion for mono pitch etc is an abomination – but I have no idea where it came from.
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It’s OK! Everybody gets scared Gerrit.
Violence was the only response to stopping fascism in WW2 don’t you know? Although I personally don’t celebrate the recent French violence, as you seem to believe, I do understand why the people there felt it necessary to make their position clear. Unfortunately their “elected” government chose to ignore the people. So what else is new?
I believe a major shift in policy is needed in New Zealand or violent upheaval is required to stop the right wing fascist agenda from continuing. I do not see that the National government will see reason and use common sense and personally think that some violence in a revolution is an inevitable outcome. Although a peaceful green revolution would be the best answer to economic and social issues in my book.
Well I hate to point out the obvious, but a leaky boat sinks pretty fast. You simply wouldn’t get away with selling that. The time delay with leaky homes is what the problem is. It’s a bit like a badly repaired panel in a car, the rust isn’t apparent at first. Treated wood was used (although the manufacturer hasn’t paid a cent) and it is more of a quality of material than a building process problem in my opinion. The manufactures really have something to answer to, just as those who were supposed to regulate the system were blinded by dollar signs. Seems to be a recurring issue with economic and social problems in this country.
Fascists effectively use economics to discriminate don’t you know Owen? It’s one of their favourite weapons. Unfortunately the “there’s no money” crap is being used to justify bashing the most deprived in this country. Lets just wait and see what the inevitable outcome of their short-sightedness is then huh?
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“no equivalent leaky boat problem”
You think!
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Please consider the meaning of the word “equivalent”
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While I fabricated aluminum boats at the same time the leaky homes were being built I was not aware of any equivalent issue with build quality in the boat building industry.
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Owen
From Upstate NY to Southern California. Pretty much the same range. Every single house had two doors, the space between them would not be described as a hall… it is the thickness of the wall of the house. The outer door stops the worst of the weather, the inner door has handles the hard seal, but doesn’t get hit, and there is that air space in between.
Just that every house had that feature, and flyscreens in summer so opening the windows wasn’t QUITE so adventurous.
It is horses for courses, but there is no excuse for a south facing sliding glass door (or for that matter ANY single thickness door) in Wellington or most of anywhere but Northland.
…and I like the outdoor showers myself if I have a home near a beach. Keeps the sand out of the plumbing too.
BJ
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Of course we do. We are always making choices. And these choices historically have overwhelmingly been skewed to the current generation at the expense of those to come, not the other way around.
But I still have no conceptual issue with the sort of analysis you propose – it is only proper. That is, so long as you don’t use it just to argue that future generations can simply fend for themselves, as you come very close to doing here. Then it’s just an excuse for being greedy in the present, much as we’ve always been.
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http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2010/11/krugman-on-austerity-ii.html#links
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US visitors who look at our low end housing have to remember that these houses provide the same housing market stock as is provided by the trailer home parks in the US.
NZ visitors to the US notice the trailers. US Visitors to NZ notice our cheap houses.
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