Friday, May 20, 2005
Wot, not more Budget!? Yep! 'Cos there are a couple of important/interesting points you might have missed.
Alex Sundakov says the real issue in Budget expenditure is the quality of spending. This is very similar to the question that corporate boards have to grapple with when they decide whether to pay dividends to shareholders, or retain earnings for investment in the company. The rule is the same: if you cannot create enough value, return the cash. ... There is little doubt that there are big chunks of the Budget which would fail the test of money being better spent by the Government than by the people themselves: ongoing investments in low-return business schemes, such as Kiwibank, dubious corporate welfare schemes delivered through NZ Trade and Enterprise, untargeted social assistance programmes providing welfare to the middle classes and on and on. In other words, if the Government had followed the principle of giving back money it could not spend well, there would have been room for both more significant and timely tax reductions, a surplus, and possibly more spending on core services.
Sometimes we can get fooled by the numbers, and not question what they really mean. For instance: the government has just announced that it expects to achieve net savings of $23.2 million over the next four years as more people on the Domestic Purposes Benefit move off benefit to take up work opportunities. According to Lindsay Mitchell, "that is $5.8 million each year - a mere quarter of a percent of the current cost. Or put another way, government expects around 279 people to move of the DPB and get a job."
A $300 million Budget boost for land transport is expected to pay for about 7km of road. [$300 million and we just shift the bottleneck a few kilometres down the road! We pay a lot for our supposed mobility.]
The little things you don't notice: New Zealand will fight the spread of weapons of mass destruction around the world with $3 million over four years. The money will go to a group set up by leaders of the world's biggest economies, the Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction.
Language Line, which offers interpreting over the phone in 37 languages, is to be permanently funded and some $4.1 million over four years will be set aside to hire ethnic advisers in Wellington, Christchurch and Auckland. [Bet Plunket would have loved that money!]
OK, enough of Budget.
Can media use stifle emotional maturity? The lines between home, work and play are blurring as never before. Author Michael Bugeja went online to discuss his new book, "Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age," an analysis of the void that develops between people when they spend too much time in virtual rather than real communities. Pop sociology, but points to some important trends.
China has formed a special force of undercover online commentators to try to sway public opinion on controversial issues on the Internet, a newspaper said yesterday. China has struggled to gain control over the Internet as more and more people gain access to obtain information beyond official sources. The country has nearly 100 million Internet users, according to official figures, and the figure is rising. A special force of online commentators had already been operating in Suqian city in the eastern coastal province of Jiangsu since April, the Southern Weekend said. Their job is to defend the government when negative comments appear on Internet bulletin boards and chatrooms. "They will guide public opinion as ordinary netizens."
A-tissue, firewall fall down. I only post this because a large number of computer owners are using the ZoneAlarm firewall. The latest versions of ZoneAlarm are causing a lot of headaches.
From personal (and bitter) experience, I make two suggestions. a) If you are installing an upgrade of ZoneAlarm, UNINSTALL the old version first. b) Switch to another firewall, such as Sygate (which I use - it's also free).
What's the difference between allowing a male teacher to supervise girls' changing sheds, and a homosexual male teacher being allowed to supervise boys' changing sheds? The Catholic Church in Ireland has decided there's no difference - both are a no-no.
Tail-out: The US government has decided it doesn't want billboards in space. Unfortunately, the Federal Aviation Authority doesn't actually have any means of enforcing that. Reminds me of the old ditty: I think that I shall never see / a billboard lovely as a tree. / Indeed, unless the billboards fall / I'll never see a tree at all.
Alex Sundakov says the real issue in Budget expenditure is the quality of spending. This is very similar to the question that corporate boards have to grapple with when they decide whether to pay dividends to shareholders, or retain earnings for investment in the company. The rule is the same: if you cannot create enough value, return the cash. ... There is little doubt that there are big chunks of the Budget which would fail the test of money being better spent by the Government than by the people themselves: ongoing investments in low-return business schemes, such as Kiwibank, dubious corporate welfare schemes delivered through NZ Trade and Enterprise, untargeted social assistance programmes providing welfare to the middle classes and on and on. In other words, if the Government had followed the principle of giving back money it could not spend well, there would have been room for both more significant and timely tax reductions, a surplus, and possibly more spending on core services.
Sometimes we can get fooled by the numbers, and not question what they really mean. For instance: the government has just announced that it expects to achieve net savings of $23.2 million over the next four years as more people on the Domestic Purposes Benefit move off benefit to take up work opportunities. According to Lindsay Mitchell, "that is $5.8 million each year - a mere quarter of a percent of the current cost. Or put another way, government expects around 279 people to move of the DPB and get a job."
A $300 million Budget boost for land transport is expected to pay for about 7km of road. [$300 million and we just shift the bottleneck a few kilometres down the road! We pay a lot for our supposed mobility.]
The little things you don't notice: New Zealand will fight the spread of weapons of mass destruction around the world with $3 million over four years. The money will go to a group set up by leaders of the world's biggest economies, the Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction.
Language Line, which offers interpreting over the phone in 37 languages, is to be permanently funded and some $4.1 million over four years will be set aside to hire ethnic advisers in Wellington, Christchurch and Auckland. [Bet Plunket would have loved that money!]
OK, enough of Budget.
Can media use stifle emotional maturity? The lines between home, work and play are blurring as never before. Author Michael Bugeja went online to discuss his new book, "Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age," an analysis of the void that develops between people when they spend too much time in virtual rather than real communities. Pop sociology, but points to some important trends.
China has formed a special force of undercover online commentators to try to sway public opinion on controversial issues on the Internet, a newspaper said yesterday. China has struggled to gain control over the Internet as more and more people gain access to obtain information beyond official sources. The country has nearly 100 million Internet users, according to official figures, and the figure is rising. A special force of online commentators had already been operating in Suqian city in the eastern coastal province of Jiangsu since April, the Southern Weekend said. Their job is to defend the government when negative comments appear on Internet bulletin boards and chatrooms. "They will guide public opinion as ordinary netizens."
A-tissue, firewall fall down. I only post this because a large number of computer owners are using the ZoneAlarm firewall. The latest versions of ZoneAlarm are causing a lot of headaches.
From personal (and bitter) experience, I make two suggestions. a) If you are installing an upgrade of ZoneAlarm, UNINSTALL the old version first. b) Switch to another firewall, such as Sygate (which I use - it's also free).
What's the difference between allowing a male teacher to supervise girls' changing sheds, and a homosexual male teacher being allowed to supervise boys' changing sheds? The Catholic Church in Ireland has decided there's no difference - both are a no-no.
Tail-out: The US government has decided it doesn't want billboards in space. Unfortunately, the Federal Aviation Authority doesn't actually have any means of enforcing that. Reminds me of the old ditty: I think that I shall never see / a billboard lovely as a tree. / Indeed, unless the billboards fall / I'll never see a tree at all.
