America faces a hell of a lot of problems at the moment, but if there's one man with the ability to inspire and lead them through, it's Obama. "when I see the young men on the corners [of the ghettos] I say there but for…
It seems the US want us to commit our elite SAS troops to Afghanistan. I'm not a big fan of the Taliban but I'm not a supporter of occupations either. Morally I think we can supply engineers and the like for reconstruction (assuming that's what…
Business Roundtable chair Rob McLeod has a piece in today's Dom Post motivating the case for amending anti-discrimination laws to allow "affirmative action" in the private sector workforce. As an exercise in intellectual dishonesty it's truly a masterpiece. Selectively quoting the Chicago School academic Richard…
Interesting editorial on National's new Productivity Taskforce in Saturday's Herald. Australia's Productivity Commission (independent, highly successful, and enjoying cross-party support) could have served as a good model, but: That possibility was ditched with the appointment of Dr Brash, whose excellent credentials as a former Reserve…
[At the outset of this, let me restate, once again, I'm all for cycleways. Indeed, I wish the Key government hadn't cut millions from urban cycling in the Budget. What I object to is the overhyping of a few possible cycleways as if they constitute…
Like New Zealand, the UK has had a deluge of 'green-shoots' news from the corporate media and the financiers desperate to jawbone the economy into recovery. The spin became so pervasive that the consensus among economists was the UK economy would have shrunk only -0.3%…
As expected, the Key Government has decided not to listen to the scientists on climate change. Rather than the 40% reduction in emissions by 2020 that the scientists are saying the the minimum developed nations need to achieve to start greenhouse gas levels heading back…