The NIMBYed gentry

Deborah Coddington is appalled that a wind farm in the Wairarapa is going to wreck the world around her:

With 45 turbines twice as high as the Auckland Harbour Bridge, and blades twice as large as the Westpac Stadium, sited 8km from the town square, this could be the end of Martinborough as we know and love it. The tourism industry our economy depends on - wine festivals, outdoor concerts, homestays, weddings, cycling - will they continue with noise from these turbines?

The township of Martinborough (population 1,300) is home to a lot of well-off Wellington part-timers, not just Deborah Coddington. Madame Prawn has a pad out that way, as does Dick Griffin, who made his displeasure known on an otherwise jovial Panel with Mike Mora on Friday.

Quite how cyclists will be affected by wind turbines up a mountain range has not been made clear. And aren't wine growers fond of using low flying helicopters to keep frosts away in winter? So much for the noise factor. Are the gentry really arguing that you won't be able to hear outdoor concerts becuase of wind turbines 8 kilometres away from the town centre?

Pah. I've got acquaintances in Ashhurst who say the 103+ wind turbines near them are not a noise problem. Even on the very rare occasions when an Easterly hits them, the noise is no louder than a dishdrawer in the next room. Most of the time there's no sound at all.

I put wind turbine opponents in the same category as opponents of cell towers; hypocrites who want all the benefits of the technology without any of the negatives.They are the fairweather mates of the Little Red Hen, wanting the bread without all the effort.

Yet I bet those rich cluckers will raise a hell of a stink and Meridian will end up ditching this choice windy spot for electricity harvesting because of them. What the rich and powerful want, the rich and powerful get.

Signs of the apocalypse on Sunday

Kerre Woodham is the Top Story on Google News, beating Abdullah Abdullah and motorcycle protests:

Michael Lhaws talking sterilisation tops the New Zealand headlines, beating power cuts and scrub fires:

Shuddering Judd

What is it with some faded singers and young kids? Gary Glitter, Michael Jackson and now former Split Enz artist Phil Judd:

Split Enz founding member Phil Judd, who lives in Eltham, has admitted stalking the children since 2004, when the youngest was in year 2 and the eldest in year 6.

Shooting the messenger

The UK Home Office secretary has fired the Chief Advisor on Drugs, David Nutt. He has been a voice of reason in the debate following the drop in classification for cannabis, which resulted in lower usage in teenagers. The decision to raise the classification again was a purely political decision, going against all observational feedback of its success.

Here's the BBC's story. The Guardian's Comment is Free has a post from David Nutt over the issue, which might have been the final straw for the Home Sec. Never let facts contradict a myopic policy. The Guardian's editorial reacts strongly. You can show your support for David Nutt at this Facebook group.

In our own small way, NZ is replicating this fantasy. Media headlines over the last year give the impression that Judith Collins is scaling up the War on Drugs. Let's see how that goes. Boy, wouldn't it be funny if the National government fell because of a failed War on Drugs?

Carbon footprint gone to the dogs

The story behind Time to Eat the Dog has been bugging some small time:

Brenda and Robert Vale are professors of architecture at Victoria University, New Zealand, who specialise in sustainability and they claim the carbon pawprint of a pet dog (roughly the size of an alsatian), is twice that of a 4.6-litre Toyota Land Cruiser driven 10,000 kilometres a year.

There must some absurd assumptions made to reach such a conclusion. What would happen if you threw a blue whale into the equation? Would it conclude that the craptonnes of krill are killed inefficiently and Japan should hunt these gargantuan mammals to extinction to save the planet? Is this a suggestion to trade pets into the SPCA for Toyota Land Cruisers?

Suffice to say that it is complete nonsense. There's evidence-based research and then there's this. Honest to Gaia, sometimes the ecological movement can't stop biting its own tail.

The Super Gorilla gerontocracy is here

That big grey gorilla isn't going away. Earlier in the week, Treasury head honcho John Whitehead stated the obvious out loud:

The underlying message is that if historical productivity growth of 1.5 per cent a year does not improve, and Budget deficits projected over the medium term are not controlled, public debt to GDP could blow out from 106 per cent today to $223 per cent by 2050.

If productivity growth were to improve by 2 per cent a year, labour force participation was 3 percentage points higher than it is today, and new migrants added 15,000 to national population annually instead of the 10,000 forecast, net debt would rise to 146 per cent of GDP by 2050. "This is still an unsustainable fiscal position," the report says.

There's little to disagree with in Whitehead's advice:

These include:
• Linking the age of pension eligibility to national average lifespans, as Denmark has done, with changes not kicking in until the late 2020's.

Spot on.

• For a quarter of all pensioners, Government Superannuation is less than 20 per cent of their income, while for the other 75 per cent, it is more than 80 per cent. Halving or axing eligibility for pension payments to this upper quarter would yield significant savings. A trade-off could be to spend more on health services to meet the growing costs of an ageing society.

Could Key put a cap on the Super sector and get away with it? After his blunt promise on doing nothing before last election, he might try to review his pledge in the run up to the next election and get a mandate on it. If anyone has a chance to review their options, Key has.

• Adopting health system practices which, in other countries, have halved the length of average hospital stays.

In a strange echo of the New Day Dawning theme in the HBO series The Wire, Whitehead wants to focus on what works and not playing the stats game with Health. Personally, I think Ecstacy, LSD and marijuana have a very important palliative role to play in hospices.

• New Zealand's prison population is forecast to rise from 150 prisoners per 100,000 citizens in 1999 to 225 per 100,000 by 2017, and justice system costs have doubled in the last 15 years despite a stable crime rate.
"Given that New Zealand's imprisonment rate is already one of the highest in the OECD, and recent increases have had little impact on recorded crime rates, it is unlikely that further increases in our imprisonment rate will be the most cost-effective way to achieve lower crime rates," the Treasury said.

I really can't believe how Labour are letting the Nats get away with all this expensive law and order mumbo jumbo. There's record incarceration rates, and Labour have agreed with every single piece of draconian nutbar legislation that the Nats have introduced. Labour couldn't find a wedge even if they were wearing bike pants.

• Education funding assistance is indiscriminate and risks not being captured by groups in society who need it most.

Whitehead sez leave NCEA alone. Right now it's good enough, and Dagg knows a bit of natural evolution will settle that beast down. As for Tolley's plan to test the kiddies, the whole point of the exercise is to identify that 20 percent John Key points to who are falling through the cracks. It remains to be seen whether once those kids are identified, something productive is done to help them, or whether it becomes a George W Bush No Child Left Behind mess.

Stuff looks at a different angle of Whitehead's white paper. A stunning little number becomes clear:

Mr Whitehead noted the imminent threat to government spending liabilities from the increasing 65-plus age bracket. A quarter of Government spending currently went towards that group, which made up 12 per cent of the population. "By 2050 the ratio of people 65 and over to those of working age will double,'' Mr Whitehead said.

My billy bold there. Even if NZ doubles its productivity and its unemployment halved, we're still in the shit. No disrespect to Lindsay Mitchell and her stance on the DPB, the unemployed and the unemployable. But these areas are a pittance compared with the copious share of government spending that goes on the aged.

Funds management guru Brian Gaynor touts the big and important success of KiwiSaver. You'd be stupid (or too impoverished) not to be in on this taxpayer funded swindle:

Any scheme where individuals contribute only $35.10 of every $100 deposited in their savings account is a no-brainer - there is a huge incentive to join.

Forget the fact that there's actually less money in there than what has been put in. Put aside all the extra overheads that are hidden in the footnotes, the IRD processing, the divvie for portfolio managers, the transfer of wealth from the state coffers to private interests. It's all good.

At least Brian Fallow is giving the demagogues of management a bollocking for ignoring all the expat Gen X talent does doesn't fit their narrow, risk averse criteria. That same school of thought also gave us Equiticorp, Bridgecorp and Feltex. Whatever happened with that Feltex thing anyway? Still nothing, eh?

Despite today's NZ Herald editorial calling on Key to re-examine his stance on the Super question, Whitehead's tsunami warning, and Tracy Watkins in the DomPost having a go at Key too, it is still not getting through to the vote-wary politicians. One indignant voter bloc of 12 percent is enough to swing to hang anyone who tries to tinker with the entitlement.

Take the latest big gorilla swindle that passed largely unnoticed in the MSM or blogs. TVNZ was onto it though:

Social Development and Employment Minister Paula Bennett says retirees nowadays were not content "to be regaled by the adventurous tales of the overseas experiences (OE) of their grandkids. They want their own OE."

Previously if some needy pensioner wished to take a round the world cuise aboard some luxury liner or whatever, they only received 50 percent of their hand out. Now they can live in the south of France and live off the lifeblood of Kiwi residents and citizens without ever stepping foot in the country again.

No other state beneficiary has such luxury. The unemployed and invalids can't swan off like Rodney on the taxpayer dime and get away with it. But if you're over 65 you can. You might need a free bus fare to get to that job interview across town. You'll have to apply at WINZ for special permission there. But if you're over 65, you can free lunch on the bus off peak with no worries.

Seriously, I'd consider moving to Australia if it wasn't full of Australians. Right now, they're about the only country that looks fit to dodge that fucking big grey gorilla in the room.

Picking up the tab on law and order

A lot of very expensive pre-election law and order promises are coming online. The Nats have given the police everything they asked for. Labour's old idea for an organised crime bureau has been repackaged in friendly blue colours as a Nat initiative. A stack of new crimes have been invented, from recreational (boyracer-like) driving to driving with a cellphone or on drugs.

The prisons are getting kitted out and fitted for double-bunking. At least one new prison on the way and a whole bunch of old ones are being dusted off. We're at a record prison muster already. It is anyone's guess how many will be behind bars and off the electoral roll come 2011.

Everyone arrested for a crime with potential jail punishment, from drink drivers to drunk entertainers in alleyways, will have their DNA taken by the authorities, at least by 2011. The scheme is being staggered in.

The entire reason for this greatly expanded database is to solve current or cold cases, sez the ESR:

Of the 100,000 DNA samples held in the databank, 8,000 relate to unsolved criminal cases or “cold cases” according to the Ministry of Justice.

The Science Centre goes on to quote forensic science expert Dr Anna Sandiford: 

“Personally, I have no problem with the New Zealand Police being given greater powers to collect DNA samples from individuals who will be charged with an offence."

Professionally though, Sandiford has also been assisting the UK government database, so this is not a disinterested opinion. Seeing how the ESR is the business being kept in clover with the expansive new program as well, there's every reason for them to sex this up.

Time will tell. Take this snippet from The Press:

The Justice Ministry forecasts that 4000 more samples than usual will be taken in the first year of the new laws from next July. A further 5000 samples will be taken in phase two, expected to come into force in 2011, when the power to take DNA will be extended to all imprisonable offences for adults.

It will be very easy to see the effectiveness of the scheme. Come July 2011, after one year of that first additional "4000" DNA samples, just pull an OIA on just how many "current and cold cases" got solved. Let's see then whether it is good value.

That's the thing with law and order promises. They aren't cheap and you can't juke all the stats all the time.

MOA One

I'm all for egalitarianism, but Colin Espiner has a point about the lack of Prime Ministerial autonomy of flight. David Lewis at Pundit chips in with the circuitous horror story that Helen Clark went through whilst travelling at the time of the September 11 attacks.

I'm not saying that all non-urgent domestic travel by the prime minister should be sealed and bubble-wrapped from the general public. But when the head of our isolated island republic has to rely on commercial international airlines to get them to their destinations, it leaves the country worse off.

When the PM hits the tarmac on our behalf, I want him refreshed, alert and looking after our best interests. These interests are not well served by having a jet-lagged PM cluttered with anonymous strangers and evesdropped by who knows what on a general flight.

The only drawback of a MOA (Ministerial Office Aircraft) is that if the PM gets use of one, you might have Deputy PM Bill English asking for a MOA too. Then Phil Goff will want one, then Chris Carter. So if NZ does end up getting some independent flight plans for the PM, there will have to be very clear guidelines on what it is used for.

Reserve your Reserve Bank Annual now!

David Haywood has compiled the New Zealand Reserve Bank Annual 2010 for the economist in your life. It goes on sale in a month's time, but you can pre-order your copy now. There's even a few of pages preview to whet the taste buds, featuring a couple Alan Bollard's outrageous exploits. Never mind the Briscoes Lady, pre-order your copy now. $24.95! Cheap!

Back from the Blue

Over the years, the struggle at Oxford University between the establishment and kiwi Vice-Chancellor Dr John Hood ran with remarkable parallels to Tom Sharpe's novel Porterhouse Blue. In both reality and fiction, a new head of university arrives with modern ideas, and departs after stiff opposition from stubborn traditionalists.

At least Dr Hood gets off better than his parallel does in the novel. David Cohen at NBR notes that at least one establishment figure eulogises for the departing VC. Closer to home, Pattrick Smellie at Business Scoop highlights the integral work Dr Hood accomplished in NZ as well as Oxford. He could have been science advisor to Helen Clark.

What now for Dr Hood? I'd like to see him appointed as head of a complete review of NZ's university system. Do unto the entire sector what he did at University of Auckland and almost got away with at Oxford. Dagg knows, it needs it.

Made in New Zealand

Ten of my favourite NZ onScreen goodies so far, in no particular order:

1. The Governor. Special plea to to the copyright holders of this important history lesson, please release the rest of them.

2. Landmarks. Apologies for spamming NZ onScreen for this. It was there all along.

3. Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby. Excellent combination of David McPhail's comedy chops and Tom Scott's wit.

4. Kea - Mountain Parrot. Monogamous clowns of the mountains, but their propensity for killing sheep was why I just couldn't vote them Bird of the Year.

5. Gliding On. NZ's first sitcom holds up remarkably well after all these years.

6. Revolution. Much better than the infuriating Someone Else's Country.

7. Simon Walker and Muldoon. The interview that changed everything.

8. Architect Athfield. For a brief period in NZ, eccentricity was valued.

9. Blerta Revisited. For a brief period in NZ, eccentricity was valued.

10. Britten: Backyard Visionary. For a brief period in NZ, eccentricity was valued.

Small beer tax

The Economist sez Russia is looking at plans to quadruple beer excise taxes by 2012. The tax is to allegedly tackle alcoholism, which is so rife it is almost a prerequisite for Russian citizenship. The slight hiccup? The tax increase applies only to beer, not vodka:

The average Russian already drinks 30 litres of hard liquor a year, six times the amount in the EU, while imbibing a modest 77 litres of beer, a little less than a typical European. Pushing up beer prices is far more likely to encourage drinkers to swallow even more vodka or dodgy but cheap home-made spirits than to convince them to give up booze altogether.

Budem zdorovy!

Labour can't stop making shit up

Opposition Courts spokesman and senior Labour MP Rick Barker has been caught advising Labour pollsters to lie to their callers:

The polls were being run from Parliamentary offices by former Cabinet minister Rick Barker, who has admitted instructing staff to use false names and claim they were calling from a company that no longer exists...

The volunteer said Barker instructed all the helpers, including a Parliamentary staffer, to say they worked for a non-existent company called "Data Research", and to not disclose that they were really working for the Labour Party.

Rick Barker initially lied over the matter. Party President Andrew Little knew nothing about it. Shadow Leader of the House Darren Hughes sez polling companies lie all the time but didn't give examples. Leader Phil Goff refused to answer questions on the matter, despite the polls being run with funds from his office.

And, to rub salt into the wounds, Herald journo Matt Nippert contacts Bryce Edwards from excellent blog liberation for comment:

Bryce Edwards, a politics lecturer at the University of Otago, said that the episode appeared to show a misuse of Parliamentary resources: "I would say that any phone polling at Parliament would fall foul of the rules."

"This is very clearly partisan political activity, and pretty hard to sell as a legitimate use of Parliamentary resources."

This arrogant behaviour is a legacy of the Clark years, when voters were not so much convinced to vote for Labour, but frightened, lied and bullied into submission. This shows no signs of stopping and is a sign that Labour has yet to reach its nadir.

Rich listers ask for tax increase

A group of seriously wealthy businessmen and entrepreneurs are challenging their peers by signing a declaration asking for a wealth tax. Unfortunately, it's not the Tax Working Group or the Business Roundtable suggesting the idea, but a consortium of German rich pricks.

The group say they have more money than they need, and the extra revenue could fund economic and social programmes to aid Germany's economic recovery. Germany could raise 100bn euros (£91bn) if the richest people paid a 5% wealth tax for two years, they say.

The original story appeared in the Tagespiegel here, but the Goonglish translation has further detail:

Lehmkuhl, since he has this ability to read: on income distribution, taxes, capital gains. About the American Fair-Tax Network, a "social business", where profit maximization is banned as a corporate goal and determine the success of social goals. He dreams of a German equivalent of the American Organization UFA, "are United for a Fair Economy", where 700 "organized Responsible Rich... He has rearmed itself with numbers that prove that there has been in Germany a significant redistribution from bottom to top, and that it here to share surprisingly little.

So, how has NZ fared over the last thirty years? Here's the MED:

Click image to embiggerate

The UNDP have released the latest figures, showing NZ as the 20th 6th least equal income share in the world, at 36.2 (Edit: thanks to BH's TTaT). Under Clark's Labour government, the gap between rich and poor grew faster than any time since Rogernomics. This is what the NZ Labour opposition must contemplate if they are ever to have a chance of regaining their support base.

The UNDP NZ report is a very interesting read too. All that high churn immi-emigration keeps NZ treading water.

Long weekend links

# The Economist looks at the prehistoric Shiva impact and the rotten luck of dinosaurs.

# Elizabeth Warren-a-thon. I first tripped over the Harvard Law Professor on the Daily Show back in April:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Elizabeth Warren Pt. 1
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Elizabeth Warren Pt. 2
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

The Huff Post has more from the TARP fund watchdog with out-takes from Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story. Matt Taibbi sez Elizabeth Warren for President.

# On the subject of Matt Taibbi, his latest sketch of the blood funnelers in Rolling Stone almost creates sympathy for former Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld. Along with Bear Stearns, Lehman was a target of vast naked short selling prior to their crash. Here's a sobering morsel. HT Bernard Hickey:

The best way to grasp what happened is to look at the data: On Tuesday, March 11th, there were 201,768 shares of Bear that had failed to deliver. The very next day, the number of phantom shares leaped to 1.2 million. By the close of trading that Friday, the number passed 2 million — and when the market reopened the following Monday, it soared to 13.7 million. In less than a week, the number of counterfeit shares in Bear had jumped nearly seventyfold.

WTF is naked short selling anyway? Here's Matt Taibbi and a whiteboard.

# Mother Jones ponders whether then-Treasury secretary Hank Paulson broke the law with a Moscow meeting in June 2008 with the Goldman Sachs Board of Directors:

When Paulson and the firm's execs got together at the Moscow Marriott Grand Hotel, the Treasury secretary gave the Goldman Sachs crew his read on what was happening with the economy and his department's effort to prepare for handling failed banks. He also previewed for them an important speech he would soon deliver.

# After all this evidence of corrupt insider trading, Fran O'Sullivan's column on NZ's Securites Commission almost seems a bit of an anti-climax. Almost. Just because the US SEC is a piece of shit, it doesn't mean our own companies watchdog has to be a bit shit too:

The commission subjected 20 companies to its latest surveillance exercise. It found a widespread lack of transparency. The commission noted it was "particularly concerned" over the lack of transparency around the under-lying assumptions used to value assets, disclosures over third-party transactions and the composition of unexplained expenses.

Six companies have received "please explain" letters over their related party transactions. But if past practice is anything to go by Diplock will be easily satisfied with a promise by the companies concerned to clarify or make the necessary disclosures in their next set of financial statements.

# NatRad News is reporting that KiwiSaver is worth less than the sum of its deposits:

The scheme is managing $3.039bn of assets, which is $115m less than the total of $3.154bn invested by the public and the Crown in the two years.

# Bill Moyers Journal looks at the life of Justice Justice, the judge who brought Texas kicking and screaming into the 20th century.

# UK Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge wonders what will face juries in the 21st century, when people can't sit still and listen and think for any length of time.

# Dutch law supposedly protects client-lawyer phone calls from surveillance, which is why they are frantic about the inability to delete tapped calls from other data. How the hell NZ's new Search & Surveillance works around this here, Dagg only knows.

# And finally, because you managed to stick in there through all those economics links, here's some real good bullet time photography. HT Daily Dish: