OnPoint: Like a hole in the head
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Further to your 'common sense' angle, Eric Crampton points out the Treasury guide to cost-benefit analysis:
Have you miscounted the use of real economic resources as a benefit? For example, the costs of building a stadium (materials, labour etc) is not a benefit to the economy. Often the jobs created by such projects are just a transfer from elsewhere in the region or country.
Which I was just gabbing about on bFM.
Who wrote this report?
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You are more on point than the Herald editorial that attempts to cover similar ground.
Faint praise, I know.
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Nuclear facility will bring $1.2b to region, says Collins
“A new nuclear weapons facility to be built in South Auckland will bring $1.2 billion in economic benefits over 30 years, Corrections Minister Judith Collins says.
But she has been criticised for announcing the gains to be had from higher radiation levels and more wars.
Ms Collins told the Rotary Club in Auckland yesterday that the 960-hectare facility at Wiri was expected to bring 1900 jobs to the region in the next five years.
An economic impact report, commissioned by the Department of Defence, expected the facility to bring $1.2 billion to the region over its 30-year lifespan.
The facility, planned to be running by 2014, would be the first in New Zealand to be designed, built and operated under a public-private partnership and was needed to help cope with the extra security threats anticipated by 2019.
Ms Collins said she would like nothing more than to see lower terrorism levels and fewer hostile states.
“But in the meantime we have a record number of rogue states and that number is forecast to keep growing.”
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a permanent hole digging and refilling facility
Suitable locations might include Waterview and Victoria Park.
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The Herald missed Keith's well-spotted point about the cost-benefit analysis being for a publicly-run prison not a PPP one. The proposal's other logic defects are all too obvious. Glad to see the Herald noting the bigger picture.
Thus, rather than applauding benefits to be had from higher crime and more prisoners, Ms Collins should be concentrating on the economic pluses of reducing the jail population. She needs to comprehensively reset her compass.
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Sorry, I'm still fully occupied trying to process this lethal #realityfail from La Stupida:
She disagreed that better access was a step towards full arming of police and as the policy change had been in train for a while it was not a "knee-jerk" reaction.
"We do have a very violent element in society and we've got nine police officers shot in the last couple of years."
You're either a liar or dumb as a sack of pig shit. Collins. Of course, giving Police "better access" to firearms is a step towards full arming of Police. Just because you're too dishonest or politically gutless to make the argument doesn't change that fact.
And could Mrs. Collins, Greg O'Connor or Police Commissioner Howard Broad produce any emprical evidence that this kind of policy change doesn't lead to escalation of gun violence and fatalities?
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And could Mrs. Collins, Greg O'Connor or Police Commissioner Howard Broad produce any emprical evidence that this kind of policy change doesn't lead to escalation of gun violence and fatalities?
Amadou Diallo, anyone?
Suitable locations might include Waterview and Victoria Park.
Better still, Orewa or Paritai Dr.
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And could Mrs. Collins, Greg O'Connor or Police Commissioner Howard Broad produce any emprical evidence that this kind of policy change doesn't lead to escalation of gun violence and fatalities?
Ah, no? But could someone please get them something to read that hasn't got 'NRA' in small print at the bottom.
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Wow. Graham Bell tearing strips off Greg O'Connor on The Panel right now, over the arming police issue.
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Often the jobs created by such projects are just a transfer from elsewhere in the region or country.
Just like all the mining jobs that will be allegedly created if we expand mining – I note the man killed in an ice related crash on the coast the other day (R.I.P.) was an Australian who had just arrived in the country to work at the existing west coast coal mine... will it be any different with future mining? How many Kiwis are employed in mining currently and how many foreigners one wonders...
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will it be any different with future mining? How many Kiwis are employed in mining currently and how many foreigners one wonders...
And even more of a burning issue still, who'll really profit from the big digs?
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The original report is now up.
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Well since they killed the old School of Mines at Otago by moving it to Canty so 'it could be near an engineering school' then finding they had destroyed a carefully built reputation and numbers dropped off. So we are not even training our own mining engineers any more.
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How many Kiwis are employed in mining currently
Urban tittle-tattle would suggest the answer is plenty.... but mostly in Western Aussie.
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John Key talking with Matt Heath on bFM this morning clearly does not support greater access to guns for police. He said 'I'd rather look at increasing non-lethal options like tasers at this stage' (sic).
Here's an idea. Talk to your cabinet ministers before they open their big mouths. Ok, so you were overseas, but, well, it is not an entirely new topic for discussion.
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How is Greg O'Connor like a dinner gong -- he should be hit hard at regular intervals
Two thousand more police could have ready access to guns while on patrol under plans to put firearms in every frontline car.
But the Police Association wants even greater routine access to firearms to protect officers from a sharp rise in shootings – including every shift supervisor routinely carrying a pistol on their hip.
President Greg O'Connor said every officer on patrol should also wear a holster to allow them to be speedily armed if needed, with pistols stored in their cars.
"Every frontline supervisor ... should be carrying a firearm on their person and every patrol car should have a firearm available as a minimum. Any policy that comes up short of that will be an absolute failure to respond to the reality of today's situation, which has seen nine police officers shot in two years, two fatally," he said.
Police Commissioner Howard Broad signalled yesterday that police were likely to be given more routine access to firearms following the spate of shootings, which included the deaths of constables Len Snee in Napier last year and Don Wilkinson in Auckland in 2008.
Serious question: Anyone else want to see Halatau Naitoko getting mentioned as much as Len Snee? Or does reminding people of a 17 year-old man killed in crossfire by a police officer fuck with O'Connor, Broad and Collins' narrative?
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Here's an idea. Talk to your cabinet ministers before they open their big mouths.
Uh, Collins gave the same answer on Campbell Live last night. I may have missed it but have other Ministers been talking or was that a flip-flop from her? Or are her and Key actually on the same page?
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Greg O'Connor as usual seems to be on planet No-Evidence-Needed - but then that's a popular place with the current govt, so he probably feels safe mouthing off.
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Wow. Graham Bell tearing strips off Greg O'Connor
Talk to your cabinet ministers before they open their big mouths. Ok, so you were overseas, but...
All this could have been different if Mr. Bell had stuck to inventing the telephone.
But seriously but.
Cost benefit analysis is all very well until you realise that both the cost and the benefit are abstract and at very best, subjective.
Cost. Cost in human lives or suffering, cost in lost production by way of diversion of resources, cost in terms of finance or cost of finance, in terms of lost revenue through missing more effective alternatives?
Benefit. Benefit to the individual, the community, society at large, voter appreciation. I won't go on, I'm sure you get my point.
The blatant disingenuity of this Government and ,dare I say it, any Government, to bandy figures about to justify their ideologically driven agenda to a gullible voter base is exasperating.
Money, in itself, is worth nothing. It is merely a representation of the amount of effort expended to achieve an outcome, or at least it should be.
If you apply the principals of thermodynamics to economics it makes more sense (well to me at least). Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another. Money is no different.
I guess I'm either up for a good discussion or a good smacking. ;-) -
So when I said to myself having guns in the car would not have made a difference in this case?
Turns out the actual conculsion is: having a gun in the car didn't make a difference in this case.
http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2010/07/tried-and-failed.htmlAnd this is how we make our decisions.
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Or are her and Key actually on the same page?
Maybe by last night, but the article Craig linked to starts with "Police should have easier access to guns by Christmas, Police Minister Judith Collins says."
If she, as Craig rather bluntly pointed out, thinks 'more access' does not mean 'being armed with guns', then good luck to her.
In the car; on the hip; in the hand? Key didn't seem in favour of 'greater access' at all, from what I heard.
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After all, you need to hire hole diggers to dig holes and fill them back up (job creation!)
I knew an enterprising farm lad who wanted to set up a business selling post holes to farmers. He did have a problem with packaging. -
3410,
What a boring job!
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I knew an enterprising farm lad who wanted to set up a business selling post holes to farmers. He did have a problem with packaging.
I needed 25. Found someone to get them for me last week. See it's not the packaging, it's the marketing, that's where they probably went wrong. :)
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Maybe by last night
Thanks - distracted by more constructive affairs
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