Singapore really is, for me, the Land of the Free. It’s big news is they’re just about to repeal Section 377A of the Penal Code which criminalises homosexuality. All good. But the Singaporeans are concerned about the impact of the change on its society and its culture. It’s not worried…
Falling health sector productivity
Productivity – how much output is created from a given volume of inputs – is one of economic’s most important metrics. Productivity captures everything about economic development and economic ordinance. Technological change, process change, labour skills improvement and capital improvement are all get captured in a productivity metric. Countries rise…
Meaty, beefy, big and bloaty
One of the reasons why market solutions are superior to centrally planned solutions is that there tends to be a better match between supply and demand when provision is left to the market. Scarcity or abundance, reflected through price change, is a far better and faster signal of shifts in…
Decolonisation of Periods?
From here: https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/hair-and-loathing/story/2018813537/culture-colonisation-and-the-short-and-curlies Firstly I heard from Ana Mcallister, she’s a artist writer, Instagram influencer and a body positive wahine Māori -@Nope.thank.you.very.much There has been a lot of mahi around wahine and the decolonisation of their periods. Ana said there isn’t the same focus on this in terms of body-hair but…
Lockdown Opportunity Cost and the Statistical Value of a Life Saved
I’m currently watching an acquaintance doing the Tour of Aotearoa on bicycle (https://vicsefton.wordpress.com/). It’s a four week unsupported cycle from Cape Reinga down to Bluff.I tried it last year, but got into mechanical difficulties north of Auckland at exactly the time the government decided to put Auckland into lock down…
Marketing, Government Style
Of course, the government could just announce the next step in its Omicron response….But it would much rather announce its intention to announce the next step in its Omicron response, and get two sucks at the media headlining saveloy…
Testing, public sector style
So, I’m sitting at the Lower Hutt COVID testing center, waiting to get a test. I’ve been here for over two hours now. The government coordinating this is a complete mess, and waste of time. The reason for the long time delay turned out not to be related to volume:…
Injustice
CONTEXT: I WATCH TOO MUCH TV I’m watching a documentary on Netflix called, “The Tinder Swindler” about a con artist. The antagonist is an evil swine who stole what the documentary maker guesses was approximately $10 million dollars from innocent women whom he met over Tinder. My blood boiled. I…
…Yes they do…
From https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/457811/regions-hit-hard-as-rents-increase-nationally Ardern ‘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.
Vaccine passports and Locke’s Treaties on Government
Here’s a little something from the Swedish newspaper, Svenska Dagblatdet, translated into English by the fine app PressReader. I’ve included it in my blog because I haven’t seen or heard debate in mainstream New Zealand media that questions our incoming vaccine passports. New Zealand commentary couches a resistance to passports…
5 strategies to avert identity politics – Guide for New Zealand
From The Strait Times paper, out of Singapore The Straits Times 24 Nov 2021 Linette Lai Political Correspondent linettel@sph.com.sg As Singapore turns the tide in its fight against Covid-19, it must not allow the differences that have emerged during the pandemic to become permanent divides that affect its politics, said…
Making a more responsive primary care health sector
It was with a lot of sadness I read on the Weekend Herald on 13 November 2021, about a grieving daughter whose father died a painful death at home 12 days after contracting Covid-19. The father had tried to get medical help but was told from the sources advocated by…
Totally over mask wearing
I’m so doubley-dosed with vaccine. Why do I need to wear a mask? I’m totally sick and tired of all of the government’s COVID-19 rules, and I’m over labour’s nanny state. The worst thought is there’s another two years worth of her hell before I can cast my vote to…
All Hail Pressreader.com!
Here’s a GREAT app / website: https://www.pressreader.com/catalogI found Pressreader through the Hutt City Library who have a library-wide subscription allowing their members free access to the world’s papers.For all those current-events interested persons who are sick of Radio New Zealand’s sycophantically-biased selection of news content, Pressreader allows readers to triangulate…
Wolves in sheep’s clothing
The government’s Three Waters reform is wiffy. Seriously wiffy that not all looks as it seem, sometimes milk masquerades as cream. Phil Goff, current Auckland Mayor, ex-labour party leader and a long term pinko-socialist isn’t towing the party line over the government’s Three Waters reform. I can imagine this is…
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. The average age of European kiwis is 40, that is past an…
My life is full of non-single use, non-disposable bags…
One of the first things 2017’s Labour / Greens / New Zealand First coalition government did was strongly signal its “green credentials”. First cab off the ranks was stopping new offshore drilling oil permits. The second cab off the ranks was, oddly, single use disposable plastic bags…. Rejoicing in the…
Living on a completely different housing planet
I wish I could tag-out of New Zealand’s property market. What a mess! Here’s something I recently read from Singapore. Not only did their equivalent of our Reserve Bank governer take personal and professional responsibility for an overpriced housing market, but a sniff of an “overheated” housing market is one…
Human Rights Commission: This wasn’t really a report about migrants, was it…?
Here’s a seriously dodgy publication put out recently by the Human Rights Commission: Drivers of Migrant New Zealanders experiences of racismFrom its forward, Meng Foon writes: Findings from Stats NZ’s General Social Survey indicate that people born outside of Aotearoa report higher rates of discrimination compared with those born in…
Fair pay agreements are bad policy for everyone
As Michael Wood steps into his Delorean to take us Back to the Future with this government’s labour relations agreements, he’s setting New Zealand on a crash course to the worst industrial relations policy New Zealand had to offer from the 1970’s and 1980’s. Here’s something I’ve written previously.