Left by someone on a bench on Wellington’s waterfront.It’s much easier to wear a slogan than live a sloganš«¤
Oh! The Irony!
Eugenie Sage: Our Most Regressive Politician
Before she, thankfully, stood down from re-election in October, Eugenie Sage from the Greens already ranked highly on my shit-list of worst political decision-makers ever.She was the “brains” behind the outlawing of single use disposable plastic bags. A Really Bad Decision-makerShe wasn’t alone in her left-wing appetitite for using public…
Straight Out of ThunderBirds File: The Caspian Sea Monster
Hot from the “Straight Out of ThunderBirds” file, comes the soviet Caspian Sea Monster Look at this baby!It’s called an Ekranoplan. Unlike other planes, this modified sea plane is designed to fly just meters over sea level, exploiting a aerodynamic effect called the Ground EffectThis beasty was created at the…
The Best Stories are Economic
I’m watching These Final Hours. All the best movies are grounded in economics.This wasn’t a Wall Street movie. It wasn’t about money, or greed. It was about economics: choice, constraints, outcomes and uncertainty. It was an apocalypse story based on economics. Wasn’t this an Australian Sci-fi?That’s the thing about sci-fi…
Getting Creative
I’ve gotten myself a new drum kit šIt’s a Alesis Mesh Drum KitLast week, I wasn’t feeling that great on Monday, so I took the afternoon off sick. Of course, with a new electric toy, my first idea was how do I connect it to my computer šA few years…
Unobtrusive and very interesting
More on my current fade of reading signs.Recently, I was working on my boat over at Evan’s Bay yacht club, and I came across this sign:In the early days of flight, landed airports were the exception instead of the rule when it came to flying. More often, planes were amphibious,…
Scoundrels and rogues
Thank you, I have just come back from a very lovely lunch with my H2R recruitment consultant, Sharyn Saxby.And on the way, I came across this sign about Edward Wakefield one of New Zealand’s “Founding Fathers”:Here’s a picture of Ed:The signs are located on a unassuming concrete wall, at 90…
Reading signs
Always take the opportunity to read signs. Here’s one I found on my travels.It’s a very functional sign, devoid of hyperbola or ceremony. It speaks nothing of the time this road took to make, the amount of labour effort which went into it, nor the loss of whatever it was…
Back yourself
Sign o’ th’ times
All of New Zealand is in “the red zone”.Everyone in Wellington is staying away. Here’s Lambton Quay, Wellington’s “Golden Mile”, at 12:15pm today …Businesses are struggling because economic demand is being strangled by the government locking New Zealand down
RNZCGP Medical Director on COVID Fear
FROM THE HERALD – 16 FEBRUARY 2022Dealing with Covid needs a mindset changeLetās keep calm, keep healthy and, more importantly, get vaccinated and boosted. In the end we will get there and back to our ānew normalā.The New Zealand HeraldDr Bryan Betty is medical director at The Royal New Zealand…
A divided country
Today, in Wellington, thousands of normal people peacefully protested the government’s COVID-19 policies.The protest, reported by RNZ as having approximately 3000 protestors, was much larger, and filled Lambton Quay for 45 minutes, as the crowd marched to parliament.Unlike previous COVID protests, this march missed the usual kooks and weirdos that…
…Yes they do…
From https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/457811/regions-hit-hard-as-rents-increase-nationallyArdern ‘determined to see a change in housing’ “No one wants to see our housing market crash,” Prime Minister Ardern said at the post-Cabinet meeting press briefing this afternoon.
Frontier Firms, Entrepreneurial Credit and Housing Inequality
There’s a couple of ideas swirling around my head at the moment, stimulated by MOTU’s paper on New Zealand Frontier Firms, and Bob Jones’s observation here: That fate may still await us if we don’t open the immigration doors.Ā The average age of European kiwis is 40, that is past an…
Another great New Zealand legend bows deeply, and exits stage left…
Sadly, today a New Zealand comedy legend and icon of my early life, David McPhail, died.David joins a sadly long list of New Zealand greats…
Fill your Mind
Back in the day, when the internet wasn’t behind a firewall, you could download and listen to all of Berkeley University’s first year lectures.I used to download all of these onto my MP3 player, and go cycling for 2-3 hours, feeding both body and mind.I’ve found they’ve archived all the…
Finding beauty in the small things
Sometimes…. The morning dishes can look like a Japanese garden water feature…
Permanent Income Hypothesis: a very gentle primer
Revisionist historians and chardonnay socialists find their happy place throwing poo at Milton Friedman’s ideas. Friedman encompasses everything they think is wrong with economics, especially those economic ideas that have changed the world: “The Origin Of ‘The World’s Dumbest Idea’: Milton Friedman”, Steve Denning, Forbes “Milton Friedman: a study in…
When markets operate perfectly
Love this article: https://i.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/business/residential-property/122735434/new-block-of-townhouses-snapped-up-hours-as-prices-soar-in-the-hutt-valleyAt the moment the government is pumping as much money into the economy as it can. They’re pumping the paper stuff – not the legally binding contracts to deliver work stuff (which is called “fiscal policy”) – into the economy.They’re hoping that, with negative interest rates, banks…
… wise words
Never french kiss a lamprey.