Island Life by David Slack

Not much work going on there eh?

That space photo with the speech balloon made me laugh so hard. I cannot explain the joke to my international cyber pals.

I spend a lot of the day sitting in front of a computer. At work I toil away, working towards something that will benefit people in ways that, if done right, they won't even notice. At home, I muck around and have fun and do cool stuff. I think the astronauts would be more amused by what goes on at work, but I'm more amused by what happens at home.

Cyber-pulpit guilt rant with a link to mammon,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammon.
At least pretend to do some work.

Nice analysis. It reminds me of when I was a PhD student and sharing an office with another student. He used to sit at his desk with paper in front of him and a pencil or pen at the side (this was 20 years ago and so no computer on his desk, even though it was a computer science deaprtment) and stare ahead (at the wall). I asked him once what he was doing---his reply was: "Sometimes I just sit and think...and sometimes I just sit...". He was a very calm person!

Well i don't know, my idea of work invlves sweat running down my back
On the other hand if we use money as a measure of worth I have made a pot full of money from sitting and thinking, then acting
But I am inclined to view other people doing the same thing with suspicion because I am a farmer who actually produces the wealth that all NZers like to share in by ripping it out of my hands thanks mostly to people sitting at computer screens

have you called 111 yet to report all new zealanders invading your farm and ripping your wealth out of your hands? if you have, when the police arrived, did you help them out by providing the evidence you have of a white-collar crime conspiracy?

4 million people arriving to grab your loot must have caused a bloody nasty traffic jam. or were they environmentally concsious thieves that walked or cycled to your place instead?

Before we get in to the inevitable 'Auckland is draining the country's economy so lets sort those jafas out once and for all by turning off the power cable north' thing, Figures released by the Department of Statistics state that the Auckland region (pop 1,000,000appx) produces 36% of the nations GDP, that with only 25% of the nations population. So we're ahead of the game and have no need to rip anything from your grasp now do we? Where's your righteous indignation now, hunting other such hoary old chestnuts I'd suggest. I stiil don't get how people are ripping it from you, are you implying that beauracracy is to blame? Surprise!

Before we get in to the inevitable 'Auckland is draining the country's economy so lets sort those jafas out once and for all by turning off the power cable north' thing, Figures released by the Department of Statistics state that the Auckland region (pop 1,000,000appx) produces 36% of the nations GDP, that with only 25% of the nations population. So we're ahead of the game and have no need to rip anything from your grasp now do we? Where's your righteous indignation now, hunting other such hoary old chestnuts I'd suggest. I stiil don't get how people are ripping it from you, are you implying that beauracracy is to blame? Surprise! That would be Wellington then.

edit shmedit

Its nothing to do with auckland bashing
But it is simple
NZinc's income comes agriculture,foresty,fishing and tourism
And if you are not in the chain that produces that wealth where the do you think your wage comes from?

Possibly the same place that the subsidies and unreclaimed externalities which make it economically wonderful come from.

Someone didn't get the tonka truck they wanted for christmas.

Although I did jump somewhat to a conclusion there. I know there are some farmers in NZ that are working towards incorporating balance to the externalised costs (largely environmental). If you are one of those brave few, then I apologise, and commend you.

Now, now Greg, not many if any subsidies left in NZ farming

And as for jumping to conclusions guess what I did when you used the phrase"unreclaimed externalities " and I checked your address

But I leave this farm in far better heart than it was, with an absolute minimium of waste and enough trees to soak up my share of my carbon footprint and probably yours

And I had a better Christmas than you can imagine

All this talk about staring at a monitor for a living, and the relative contributions of Aucklanders and farmers to the economy, puts me in mind of my late father-in-law, a man of strong if not entirely logical opinions. Don, a true southern man who never lived north of the 45th parallel, thought that real men should work outside. He and both of his sons were builders, one son in law a farmer and one a lineman – I rather let the side down by both living in Auckland and working in an office (which does involve a lot of staring at a monitor) for a living. Don also believed that women’s role was to provide the domestic support for the outdoor men in their lives, but later moderated that view to concede that some women could work in offices and stare at monitors, thereby liberating the likes of me to do real work.

It does seem that the economic argument that this thread has given rise to confuses GDP with overseas income. GDP – a general indicator of economic activity - is generated by farmers and office workers, as well as by latte-servers and importers of cars, and we Aucklanders are responsible for generating one-third of it. For overseas income, which pays for all those goods and services that we import, we are dependent on farming and tourism. It appears that both GDP and overseas earnings are important. The success of the overseas earnings part of the economy is dependent - perhaps uncomfortably dependent - on our natural environment (both actual and perceived). There have been various attempts to reduce this dependence, both by import substitution/import controls and through establishing export-oriented secondary industries. Those industries cannot compete directly with the low-wage economies of the “third world”, which is why there is the attempt to focus on high-value niches where the price tag is not so important.

My experiences with these high-value niche industries do not, however, give me great confidence that they will get anywhere. Two examples:

A high value industrial electronic product, with a good global market share, was being manufactured by a skilled workforce (of which my brother was a part) in a provincial city. The owners decide to sell out to an international competitor and take the money. The business is closed within two years.

The marine industry has been identified as a market niche whose development should be encouraged - at the same time as it’s being nimbied off the Auckland waterfront by apartments. The local branch of a multi-national marine engineer sought to set up a business in this industry on the opposite side of the harbour. Despite neighbours’ hostility and consent authority resistance, consent was obtained – but in the meantime, the overseas parent lost interest in its local branch which was then closed down.

So it seems to me that we will continue to depend heavily on the farmers and the tourism operators, and try to manage their environmental effects (or perceptions thereof). We just have to be thankful that farmers are stubborn souls who want to keep on producing food for export when a more “rational’ decision might be to subdivide the farm for holiday houses. That is, the farmers are more in the mould of my father-in-law than of the owners of the now-defunct electronic and marine engineering plants.