Manukau and Mogadishu

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Mark

I was struck by the following sentences from two different articles in today’s NZ Herald. First this -

“There was a lot of disorder and domestic incidents across the district – more than usual for a Friday night. There was lots of fighting, and groups of people fighting in the streets of various locations over town”

and then this -

“That’s the kind of place it was, incredibly dangerous, and large numbers of men walking around with all kinds of weapons.”

The first is Manukau in South Auckland. The second, Mogadishu, Somalia.

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Good Ol’ Kiwi Optimism

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Mark

It is remarkable that on a day when major news outlets publish articles with the following headlines:

the NZ Herald has an article with the headline:

Posted in Economics, Media, New Zealand | Leave a comment

Friedman on Why America Is Falling Behind

Posted on September 5, 2011 by Mark

Some interesting insights here from Tom Friedman on NBC’s Meet The Press:

Posted in Business, Economics, Education, Society | Leave a comment

Kristof Admires the Military as a Model for Providing Social Services

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Mark

Nicholas Kristof in the NY Times this morning writes approvingly of the US military as a model for the way society should take care of people. A few key extracts…

The United States armed forces knit together whites, blacks, Asians and Hispanics from diverse backgrounds, invests in their education and training, provides them with excellent health care and child care. And it does all this with minimal income gaps
…
“It’s the purest application of socialism there is,” Wesley Clark, the retired four-star general and former supreme allied commander of NATO forces in Europe, told me. And he was only partly joking.

“It’s a really fair system, and a lot of thought has been put into it, and people respond to it really well,” he added. The country can learn from that sense of mission, he said, from that emphasis on long-term strategic thinking.
…
This is a rare enclave of single-payer universal health care, and it continues with a veterans’ health care system that has much lower costs than the American system as a whole.
…
While one of America’s greatest failings is underinvestment in early childhood education (which seems to be one of the best ways to break cycles of poverty from replicating), the military manages to provide superb child care. The cost depends on family income and starts at $44 per week.

“I absolutely think it’s a model,” said Linda K. Smith, executive director of the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies, which advocates for better child care in America.

This is all fine, but it’s hard to tell what Kristof is really suggesting here. Yes, the US military successfully provides a high level of ‘socialized’ services to its members. But isn’t it also relevant to mention that in return for that the military expects those members to be willing to die for their country? And that even apart from that, people in the military are required to give up an enormous amount of freedom over how they live their lives. Isn’t this precisely the reason that many people recoil from efforts to introduce more socialized models of the way services are provided to the US – the impact (whether real or perceived) on personal freedom? And before we get too carried away with enthusiasm for the way the military cares for people, it’s worth taking time to review their record in dealing with Traumatic Brain Injury in personnel returning from the battlefield.

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Are We Really Just Animals?

Posted on June 15, 2011 by Mark

The NZ ACT Party’s Hillary Calvert generated some controversy last week during a discussion about battery hen cages. From TVNZ -

We care about people ahead of silly little chickens,” Calvert said.

Save Animals from Exploitation (SAFE) says the comments are “outlandish and offensive” and is demanding to know if the MP’s statements represent the views of the Act Party.

I don’t find Calvert’s comments inherently outlandish and offensive – in general I think the view that people are more important that animals is both true and widely accepted. However the context of the remarks seems to indicate that she doesn’t think animal welfare is important at all – a position that I think is harder to justify.

However what I found more interesting was the reaction of the Green Party’s Sue Kedgley (emphasis added) -

“I was profoundly offended by what Ms Calvert had to say. We are all animals. What right do we have to force animals to live in cages, just so we can have eggs?“

Evidentely her concern goes beyond just the issue of people causing unnecessary discomfort to animals, but involves instead the whole idea that humans should have any rights to exploit animals for their own benefit at all – including presumably killing them for food – any more than we have a right to exploit other humans for our own benefit. In this view it seems that any kind of animal farming would rank alongside slavery.

Well, I don’t personally agree with that position, but I’m actually more struck by some other implications of the fundamental idea that “we are all animals”. It seems to me that if that were true, then there would be no reason at all for people to be upset with Rep. Anthony Weiner’s recent behavior in sending sexually explicit messages and pictures to women other than his wife. If he is just an animal, why should we be surprised, let alone shocked, at any kind of behavior that he demonstrates? It’s just behavior – not something one can attribute any kind of moral value to. For that matter, how can Sue Kedgley be offended by Hillary Calvert’s behavior – she is just an animal too. And animals don’t have much concern for the well-being of other species.

Posted in Ethics, New Zealand, Politics | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Where You May And May Not Take Your Vacation

Posted on June 9, 2011 by Mark

The Australian Tourism Minister, Martin Ferguson, is quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald as saying that Australians saving vacation time for overseas trips is a “disgrace” and that “We’ve got to change our own mindset [and get people to realise that] a short break is as good as a long break and encourage people to actually have a holiday in Australia.”

The real disgrace is that a Minister of the Crown thinks he has some business telling private citizens where and how they should take their vacations. And the irony is that the reason people are taking more overseas trips is the high value of the Australian dollar, which is primarily a consequence of the very high demand for Australian commodity exports. Far from causing harm to the Australian economy, increasing outbound tourism is actually a reflection of how well the Australian economy is doing (at least until the China bubble bursts :)).

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“Reportedly”, i.e. “Not” – Part 2

Posted on June 8, 2011 by Mark

Seven days ago, the taxpayer-funded global news-gathering resources of TVNZ brought us this important news –

Hayden Panettiere is reportedly dating Mark Sanchez.
…
She was spotted with the 24-year-old New York Jets quarterback in Laguna Hills, Caliornia yesterday where they visited In-N-Out Burger with another couple.

(causing me to post this tweet).

Today Fairfax’s stuff.co.nz brought us an update on this critical issue (emphasis added) -

Hayden Panettiere is reportedly dating American Football player Scotty McKnight.
…
Earlier this month, Panettiere was mistakenly linked to Mark Sanchez, who is a friend of McKnight.

Which kind of reinforces the view expressed in my tweet: #DefundTVNZNow

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NZ Greens Scapegoat Australian Banks

Posted on June 4, 2011 by Mark

The NZ Herald reports that the Green Party is criticizing Prime Minister John Key for lacking “the courage to tackle the big Australian banks which have saddled New Zealanders with billions of dollars of debt in pursuit of profits.” They call for “state-owned Kiwibank to be bulked up to take them on.”

This really looks like a argument driven more by ideological predisposition than by any logical analysis, i.e. “private profits bad, state ownership good.” First, they completely ignore the fact that New Zealanders’ debt is a consequence of New Zealanders’ own choices. No one has a gun to the heads of borrowers. If New Zealanders are taking on too much debt (and I’m inclined to think they are), it’s because of their own stupidity.

To the extent that this may involve poor lending standards for residential mortgages, the banks do bear some responsibility – but it is primarily responsibility to their own shareholders for the additional risks this entails (though arguably the Government also has a stake, given the retail deposit guarantee scheme). However as Gareth Morgan pointed out back in September, part of this responsibility actually belongs to the Government – not for failing to restrain the banks but rather for actively encouraging them through Reserve Bank prudential policy favoring lending for property over other investments.

Further illustrating the silliness of the Greens’ attempt to shift blame for bad borrowing decisions away from New Zealanders themselves, Bernard Hickey had a good article in the Herald a few days ago pointing out that Kiwibank actually relies on risky short term overseas funding to a greater degree than the Australian banks, and has “decided not to compete as hard with the Aussie banks for term deposit funding”. They were also New Zealand’s second biggest mortgage lender in the March quarter, making it pretty hard to paint the Australian banks as the villains of the New Zealand banking industry.

Brian Gaynor also has an article in the Herald today pointing out the huge difference in attitudes towards saving in New Zealand compared with Australia. The same banks (more or less) operate in both countries. But the data Gaynor presents shows clearly that New Zealanders are much less inclined to save and invest locally than Australians, further illustrating the fact that New Zealanders’ financial situation is a result of their own choices. For the Greens to paint the Australian banks as some malevolent force that must be stopped is just absurd.

Posted in New Zealand, Politics | Leave a comment

“Reportedly”, i.e. “Not”

Posted on May 15, 2011 by Mark

Couldn’t quite find a way to fit this into Twitter…

From NewstalkZB and dutifully copied verbatim by the NZ Herald:

Australian tennis great Ken Rosewall is reportedly in a fight for his life after being admitted to the stroke unit of a Rome hospital.

Apparently they didn’t check with the Sydney Morning Herald:

Australian tennis great Ken Rosewall is in a good condition in a Rome hospital after suffering a suspected disturbance of the brain, according to reports.

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Making Up The News

Posted on May 15, 2011 by Mark

Few things annoy me as much as when the news media engage in speculation about the motives behind things people do and say with minimal substantive basis on which to do so. Two examples have emerged in the last few hours in the wake of Mike Huckabee’s announcement last night that he won’t be running for the GOP Presidential nomination.

First, in thehill.com, Jamie Klatell tells us this (emphasis added) -

Huckabee did not mention any other candidates by name in his announcement, but he did make comments that could be a jab aimed at Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, whom many conservatives believe to be among the strongest potential Republican candidate.

“I don’t have an issue with my family being supportive — my wife actually has encouraged me to do it, despite knowing full-well that it will subject her and the rest of the family to some brutal and savage personal attacks,” Huckabee said.

Daniels has not made a decision on running, and his hesitation has been attributed to his wife’s concerns about the scrutiny of the campaign trail.

This is ridiculous. Does it not occur to Klatell that it is perfectly reasonable for Huckabee to make clear to the public the factors that did not lead to his decision in order to emphasize the significance of those that did? Is there any reason to think that Huckabee would want to go after Daniels in the way Klatell insinuates, especially when Daniels has not even entered the race? So what makes Klatell want to paint the picture this way?

Then National Journal’s Beth Reinhard searches the tea leaves and comes up with this (again, emphasis added) -

“[quoting Huckabee] For me, the decision is ultimately not a political one, a financial one, or even a practical one—it’s a spiritual one,’’ he said.

Perhaps, but it must also have been a financial one. While many politicians use money and celebrity to gain power, Huckabee appears to be reversing the equation, using his political clout as a means to fame, riches, and the bestseller list. Running for president would have meant giving up lucrative speaking gigs and a Fox News gig worth $500,000 a year through 2012. Last year, he broke ground on a beachfront home in Florida estimated to cost $3 million.

Really? It must have been? Even though he just told you it wasn’t? Even though he said on Fox News Sunday today (quoted by Politico) that “Up until just a few days ago… I honestly thought I would be in it”?

Claiming that you know what is in someone’s heart when you really have no way to know isn’t journalism. It’s arrogance.

Posted in Ethics, Media, Politics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment