During the week someone alerted me to Rod Oram being interviewed by Lynn Freedman on National Radio. One particular moment jumped out as Rod went silent and seemed to wrestle with what he was about to say. It immediately brought to mind a piece I…
Paul Romer is an economist highly respected by his peers, and about to become the Chief Economist at the World Bank. He's also just published a paper rubbishing the last 3 decades of macroeconomics. Starting with "For more than three decades, macroeconomics has gone backwards",…
Donald Trump now accepts that one of the most idiotic unproveable falsehoods ever said by by him, and there are a few, is not true. Barak Hussein Obama was born in America and is entitled to be the President of the United States. But Trump…
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
Daily review is also your post. This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Don’t forget to be kind to each other …
The National Party smorgasbord of measures that will improve housing supply is being rolled out and will make a vital contribution to solving this most pressing of issues. Or will it? The latest measure announced by Paula Bennett is the purchase of a Motel to provide emergency beds. But a…
The government didn't make much of a show of Conservation Week - which was probably for the best the Conservation stories coming out weren't exactly positive for it. The US potentially banning our fish from its market if we don't improve our protection of Maui…
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
Originally posted at Boots Theory. I did a bit of a tweetstorm earlier today, inspired by seeing friends embroiled in frustrating conversations like this one and the decided slant of articles like this about the proposed Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary. https://twitter.com/MorganGodfery/status/777261116011393024 My thoughts resonated with a…
London-based macro-economist Ann Pettifor will speak on this topic at Wesley Church, 75 Taranaki Street, Wellington, on Tuesday 20 September at 5:30pm. Ann is a member of the Green New Deal Group, which drew inspiration from the tone of President Roosevelt’s comprehensive response to the…
Nassim Taleb could very well be the foremost risk statistician/probability philosopher of our age. The best selling author of the Black Swan, Nassim now explains a factor which is degrading the political performance of the bureaucratic Left (and the Right) and opening doors for new…
Local Government ballot papers are being delivered right now. If we follow what happened last time not enough people will vote. Last time in Auckland the turnout was about 35%, one in three of us. I can understand the reasons. Life is so busy and between…
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
It's Conservation Week. Get outside, show the kids nature! Shame that 2/3rds of our rivers aren't swimmable. It's no wonder that water gets into places like Havelock North's drinking supply. Radio NZ have a good comment piece about the Anthropocene Age we now live in.…
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
Daily review is also your post. This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Don’t forget to be kind to each other …
National is very proud of the latest GDP-growth figures (third highest in OECD!), but are they helping you? And are they what they appear? First up Bill English is open - they're not helping you, we're not getting much wage growth. And that's a lot…
NZ's largest union, the Public Service Association, has produced a handy guide for cutting through the buzzwords, just in time for everyone who's getting their voting papers in the mail ...
Neoliberalism, it could be argued, has been a disaster for most New Zealanders. The ‘rock-star’ economy has grown by 3.5% in the last year (which is, in itself, a problem because you cannot have infinite growth in a finite world) but is largely sustained only…
The Dominion Post has been given access to two polls telling slightly different stories about the Wellington mayoral race: Two polls conducted in the past week have revealed Wellington's mayoral race to be a three-way dogfight between Justin Lester, Nick Leggett and Jo Coughlan –…
Auckland Action Against Poverty has launched a campaign to stop children being punished for the sins of their fathers. In this particular case it's where fathers of beneficiaries aren't known, so cannot be named for Work and Income to pursue them. One can see the original intention…
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
Daily review is also your post. This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Don’t forget to be kind to each other …
The Maori Party are threatening to pull out of their confidence & supply agreement with National, as NRT has well-blogged in National's arrogance bites it in the arse. This would leave National with a Hair-thin majority in the House. The legislation in question - the Kermadec Ocean…
Vic Crone said wha? Humans warming the Earth? That's contentious, Vic Crone says Take a look at cycles here on this lovely xkcd comic Vic. Vic's views very backward says top scientist, Dr James Renwick of Victoria Uni. Quite rightly so. I'm going to leave…
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
An old handle flickered back into life briefly this afternoon: https://twitter.com/whaledump2/status/775846536500613121 Rawshark - presuming the account is still held and operated by the hacker who exposed the dodgy shenanigans between the WhaleOil blog, corporate lobbyists and senior National Party politicians - started with a screenshot from…
Daily review is also your post. This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Don’t forget to be kind to each other …
The following snippet has been snatched from an, as usual, negative piece on Corbyn in the Guardian. On Tuesday he (Corbyn) said pledged (sic) to make the Labour membership an “even more active force for good in every single community, ensuring that Labour mounts the…
Thinking of emailing your opposition MP about a matter of sensitivity concerning the government? Well be careful with what email address you use. Because it appears that all emails are being monitored and not just for the usual things such as spam and viruses. From Radio…