Verse for the week

Luke 6:38

“Give, and it will be given to you.
A good measure, pressed down,
shaken together and running over,
will be poured into your lap.
For with the measure you use,
it will be measured to you.” 

Leaving NZ

The media are going ape over the fact that people are leaving the nation in droves. 

In once sense we should welcome this. Less competition for jobs (higher pay rises), more space for us and improved buisness links with the rest of the world (Just ask any Chinese Immigrant - they still keep in touch with the home land).

But then there is the Human cost. The loss of all of significant investment in training and education. Furthermore we have to find immigrants to replace the lost skills.

Finally there is the social cost. My mother is quite happy having me back at home for Christmas from Ireland.

So what are we to do about this?

Firstly we must accept that we will never stop emigration. People always want to leave and see the world. 

Secondly we must grow the economy. 

This means cutting government spending, getting people back into work and balancing the books. We also need to create more opportunities for people in Kiwiland by encouraging buissness start ups. It is a nasty fact that many good buisness ideas are promptly snapped up by overseas investors because of a lack of local funding. This means introducing compulsory Kiwisaver and getting to grips with the poor savings in NZ. While Dairy/Sheep farming will always be the old reliable we need to expand our product offering and thus provide further opportunities for people to work here. 

Thirdly we must recoup the cost of the educational investment from those who do not return to NZ. We need to bond students to NZ, not by charging them interest when outside Kiwiland but recovering the full subsidy. Student fees only pay part of the cost of the education, we need to recover the whole cost for those who take advantage of the free education but then leave the country (like I have done).

Fourthly the productivity commission is currently undertaking a review of shipping into Kiwiland. If we cut the costs of getting out goods to market then we can sell at a cheaper price and/or get more profit. Along side this we need to deal with the empty container issue. NZ exporters require large numbers of containers thus empty containers must be shipped to NZ at a loss to somebody.

Number 5: Have more free trade deals. We all benefit from this. 

Sixthly we need to increase skilled and educated immigration. Smart people find ways of making money. Smart people have educated children and thus giving NZ an educated workforce. They come with links to their homelands which can be used to create new economic ventures. For example my old landlord in Ireland was looking at importing solar water heaters to Ireland which would have saved Ireland energy. In other countries it is hard to get your foot in the door with western sales methods (In Korea it is who you went to school with and who you personally know) this is one way of breaking down the barriers. 

In addition we are having a large number of baby boomers retiring we will need to replace this skill loss and we will need to pay for their pensions. Paying somebody $14000 or so a year is not cheap. 

 

Warm up the riot police

With the order by the High Court for the Occupy Auckland group to move out it is time to get the riot police ready.

Good bye hippies, you have made your point, now please move on. 

The Dear Leader is Dead

The recent death of Jim Jong Il has resulted in a number of obituaries.

Those outside Korea will be noting his bad behaviour and his despotic rule.

But along with the North Koreas who like him there is somebody else who will be sad that the has died.

God.

God does not want bad people to go to hell. He wants them to repent god loved Jim Jong Il despite all the bad things and even at the last moment would have granted him forgiveness. The same would apply to Hitler, Stalin and any other guy/girl you want to rot in hell. God has taken no joy in somebody going to hell.

I can not Judge but I can guess he his in Hell. Poor guy he got the whole world (or at least North Korea and lost his soul).

So David Won - now what

David Shearer needs to undertake a clean sweep throughout his party to do this requires two things.

1) A root and branch review of why they have lost touch and hemoraged votes to the Greens and Winston.
2) A brand new fount bench. Throw out most of the old guard and let them know it is time to go. Otherwise the back bench will be wanting to know when they will get promoted. It also allows for a new look and a new evaluation of policy because people defend their old polices.

Then go through their policy manifesto and throw out any promise to repeal popular National party policies like three strikes or national standards.

After this lay off the unions. Let them go. Remove them from the power structure of labour and get ordinary members in.

Finally find an issue to take the public attention for the next few years. I recommend asset sales. Start a citizens initiated referendum which will then force the government to defend the issue for the next year or so. Keep the issue in the public mind. 

Un-intended consiquences

It is one of those oddities in life. While I am sure that Len Browne did not vote for Act and does not really want them in power, Act will have done Len a nice service. It has put John Banks back into parliament. Who was the runner up last time in the council elections for Mayor? John Banks. 

Charter Schools

Act got very lucky with their deal with the Nats. Charter Schools or Free schools as they are called in the UK.

And now the Unions are un-happy. How sad they are thinking of their members rather than themselves. Still that is their job. I heard somewhere that more teachers are removed by the police, than fired by their principal.

We must have competition in schools, if the state school model is so great, then the charter schools will fail. But I fear that they will fail because the Unions will demand that Labour kills them off when they get back in.

The unions claim that they take funding from the state schools. Well that is the idea,  how else do you you pay for them.

Cancel the trial and open as many as possible before the teacher unions get back in to kill them.

That said the fine print will be important.

A charter school must;

• A non discriminatory enrolment policy. I could easily see a charter school put in fine print saying that they are for high achieving students (i.e. rich kids only), or give preference to children of previous parents.
• Respect the religion of the students. I have watched how the church schools in Ireland have forced parents to send their kids there because there are no other schools around. 
• National Standards or another good assessment criteria 
• A requirement to admit a student if there is no local school around. I do not want a kid locked out of a school or mum and dad turning up at 1 am in the morning to guarantee their daughter a place.

National United Future Agrement

I like the look of the National United Future Agreement.

The big things I like about it are as follows

1) Not to sell Kiwibank (why do people join it - good deals and they like the owner)

2) And this which is the best part:


The government notes that United Future has been committed to its “FlexiSuperannuation” proposal as a key part of its retirement policy and agrees that a government discussion document investigating this issue will be developed


This will give people flexibility in their old age. Some folk just can not work much after 60, whereas others hit 70 without their body telling them to pack this in.