Over the last decade or two there have been some extraordinary claims about the cost of digital copying and counterfeiting on businesses and economies. However there has been little information that hasn’t had some pretty major and almost certainly incorrect assumptions. The upshot is that the cost of copying and counterfeiting has been hugely overestimated.
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European air travel has been grounded for four days and there is no end in sight. What will be the effect of further prolonged disruption? What if the eruption lasts a year or more? Can the current crisis be turned into a constructive opportunity for rail?
Just checked out the latest polling numbers over in the UK. It seems Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg’s performance in the first leaders debate is paying off. Clegg’s party has surged ahead at the expense of the Conservatives, taking the lead in several polls. (Latest BPIX poll, LDEM 32%, CON 31%, LAB 29%). This could have huge implications.
Journos. Obama didn’t meet Key before dinner on a big stage in front of the media because it was just practical. The leaders didn’t stand with awkward grins for the group photo because it was a crucial step in the diplomatic process. This is being done for you. Only you. It is meaningless apart from the fact they know the media will lap it up. They think you’re saps. And you keep proving them right.
Pete Bethune is one of New Zealand’s heroes. He’s been a successful entrepreneur and gone on to use his wealth to fight the […]
A recent report from the US Joint Forces Command states that “By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day”. Are you planning for a post oil future? Why not?
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Vernon Small calculates that if the Cullen Fund had continued getting its monthly contributions, rather than just the one-off $250 million the government gave in July, we would be $30 million better off by now. Predictably, the financially illiterate Key apologists are having a cry about being shown to have stuffed this one up so badly.
If you want to read something vomit-inducing this morning, there’s no need to go any further than Audrey Young’s interview with Key about his overseas trip. Key talks about touching Barack Obama, sharing secrets with Stephen Harper, discussing Berlusconi’s boat, and how Angela Merkel knew Helen Clark quite well. If only Audrey Young were taking the piss, it wouldn’t be so yellow and chunky.
From time to time you hear mention of John Key’s personal fortune of $50M. If you say fiftymilliondollars quickly enough it doesn’t sound […]
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There will be some scheduled maintenance tommorrow from about 10am for an hour or so. This is to move the site to a […]
Voters of the Auckland region should be very concerned with the news that the Auckland City CBD-based Citrat political party looks set to run a single whipped slate of candidates at this year’s supercity election. The fear is that the C&R CBD old boys are gonna do in Waitakere, Manukau, Franklin, Rodney and the North Shore what they did in Otahuhu. Talk about crushing local voice.
Last year, Telecom screws over its engineers. Decides to make them dependent contractors. EPMU wins real jobs for most of them. Better contract conditions for others. But a sh*tload of experienced engineers say screw Telecom and leave the industry. Then the faults start. XT becomes a laughingstock. Customers leave in droves. Next, profit warning.
It’s time to renew the questions about links between the leading advocates of harsher prison sentences in New Zealand, the Sensible Sentencing Trust and GEO Group, a US private prison operation whose former name, Wackenhut Corrections, became a byword for corruption and abuse. Who is really behind this privatisation and longer sentences agenda?
Kelvin Davis: It goes to show how high the aspirations of some of our Maori leaders are. We now aspire to bung the bros in the hinaki and watch the dollars roll in. The longer and more often we can put them away, the sooner we will be able to afford to expand the prison and lock even more away. With the soaring crime rate and high Maori unemployment everything is coming together nicely.
It’s time for the Nats to reverse what Vernon Small (with 20/20 hindsight) has labeled the “dumb, short-sighted decision” to can contributions to the Cullen Fund. We’ve already lost $25 million and Treasury says we’ll lose billions more. If we don’t make this investment now, superannuation will become unsustainable sometime after 2030. Perhaps that’s the Nats’ aim.
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Today is the last day to send in your submission on NAWAC’s draft Code of Welfare for Pigs. New Zealand Open Rescue have put out a new video containing footage from many different farms around the country, to remind you why it is important to have your say. You can send a submission using SAFE’s template at www.lovepigs.org.nz.
Phil Goff is being attacked by John Key’s apologists because he won’t pledge to reverse National’s GST hike given he can’t yet know the state of the government’s books when he becomes PM. How ironic to see the Right, who supposedly want accountable government, pillory a politician for being straight up with the public, rather than telling them what they want to hear.
This is a government that has failed to do anything apart from favours for its rich mates. But it’s still startling to see it all laid out. In his speech to the Grey Power AGM, Goff went through the failures of Key and co after less than a year and a half – an amazingly long list for such a short time. Goff is on the money when he points to the cause: National governs for the few, not the many.
How economically illiterate do the Nats have to be to send the government’s research vessel Tangaroa to Singapore for a $20 million refit when VT Fitzroy at Devonport was ready and willing to do the work here? Sure the bid was a bit lower but did they consider the tax the government would gain, the fewer unemployed and the other benefits from keeping the work here in New Zealand?
National’s apologists say we should let private corporations run our prisons because it will save money. But do Public Private Partnerships (privatisation in drag) really save money? The experience here and abroad says no. To put it bluntly, when you rely on someone else to deliver something you need they’ve got you by the balls and the profit motive gives them plenty of incentive to squeeze.
“Gov-Gen to attend PM’s funeral”. To me, it says a hell of a lot about the state of the media in this country that a sub-editor, or whoever they have writing headlines these days, does not know the difference between a president and a prime minister, and that no-one else at Stuff spotted the mistake before it went up.
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National has announced the location for its first private prison on the same day we find out that they want their working group to look at privatising welfare. Private prisons were signaled by National. Privatising welfare was not. In both cases the victims will be a segment of society that this government and its supporters have actively vilified and the ones with the most to gain will be overseas corporations.
The Federated Mountain Clubs of NZ, Greenpeace, Forest and Bird, Coromandel Watchdog, and the Environment and Conservation Organisations of Aotearoa New Zealand have come together to organise the ‘Don’t Undermine New Zealand’ march on May 1st in Auckland. It should be a great event. Get out there and tell this government that some parts of our country are too precious to mine.
John Key and Rugby World Cup Minister Murray McCully have been at their do nothing best ever since Key dazzled the media with his party central ‘vision’. As the days tick down, they still haven’t made any decisions, and the plans for Queens Wharf have become less and less grand. Now, they’re looking at just chucking up a big tent.
Have you heard of Cyanide and Happiness? A web-comic that walks the line of funny and too far. They have an annual ‘depressing comics’ week. No punch lines. Given our Prime Minister’s aim to restore commercial whaling and the anti-whalers’ success in blocking the Japs from half their target of kills, thought this one would be appropriate [full comic]
Smacking and the reform of Section 59 was one of the big political issues of the last few years. Key’s position on facing down the appallingly worded “smacking referendum” remains one of the very few things that I can respect and applaud him on. Key will not want to revisit this issue, but the evidence from a new study suggests that he should…
Following this masterpiece from Rabid Fire on Key’s F#ck Everybody policy, here’s a lovely summary of Mr Key’s exciting Washington adventure.
… the PM soon brightened, opening the Prime Ministerial lunchbox to show the press gallery his special lunch. “Look! Look! Bronagh’s made me special aeroplane shaped sandwiches for when I go on the aeroplane!”
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How wonderful it is to have a US President that rejects the evil of nuclear weapons. Finally the world is catching up with us. While the powers were locked in the stand-off of Mutually Assured Destruction, New Zealand rejected the madness of that logic and we declared ourselves nuclear-free. Our Prime Minister should be celebrating that fact and pointing to our achievement as a model for the whole world.
The biggest story of the day according to Stuff comes from the Taranaki Daily News: “Cruel taggers deface old goat”
I love that headline: it paints a picture of an almost elemental conflict between the forces of evil as represented by taggers and the forces of decency as represented by an old goat.
We know John Key made up his commercial whaling policy off the cuff. His recklessness has left our allies aghast. Now things are really getting out of control. Korea has said that they want in on commercial whaling too. Key’s declared open season on whales. This is what you get from a government that has no vision, no plan, and no understanding of complex issues.
