Posts by Stephen Judd
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OnPoint: Sock-Puppeting Big Tobacco to…, in reply to BenWilson,
Reckon. The tobacco companies have simply moved their focus to picking up new smokers in jurisdictions with looser regulatory regimes and where they can influence politicians more overtly – Indonesia comes to mind.
Just looking at readily available data for BAT and Philip Morris, they’ve seen year on year profit increases every year for the last five years. They don’t have a lot of incentive to stop whatever they’re doing, I’d say.
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I'd be genuinely interested to know the tobacco company position on marijuana legalisation. Everything they point to as a consequence of tightening up supply is effectively a pro-legalisation argument for other drugs.
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those nasty tobacco company representatives
It amuses me that this was probably meant sarcastically, and yet a great majority of people would understand "nasty tobacco company representatives" as a tautology.
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Hard News: Those were different times ..., in reply to David Herkt,
The interviewees were primarily Maori children around 8 to 10 BUT invariabably they were speaking a very crisp BBC English
Were those kids from Maori-speaking homes, I wonder? I expect that if you were taught English as a second language in the earlier parts of the 20th century in NZ, you were given solid RP models to base your speech on.
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Hard News: Those were different times ..., in reply to Jackie Clark,
I know exactly what Russell means. My aunts speak like that still. In fact Winston Peters speaks like that.
I'm working through some of the older films here. NZBC-style narrators predominate, but there are other voices.
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Southerly: Tower Insurance Have Some Bad…, in reply to Joe Wylie,
Will the private sector deliver fine, or am I just wrong
That’s a misquote that implies the speaker believes the private sector will deliver.
Actually, Jordan wrote “Will the private market deliver fine, and I’m just wrong?” which implies the complete opposite to me, ie that he does not have faith in the private sector.
I'd've thought that "It is time for the people, working together through the public authorities, to take matters into their own hands" was reasonably direct.
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Hard News: Complaint and culture, in reply to Sacha,
Ooooh. Thanks Sacha, really digging that first link.
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Do you guys feel anything about the connection between JB HiFi's prices and the amount they pay their staff? I know at least one PAS reader who actively boycotts JBH precisely because of their problematic pay and conditions. The oddest thing about Ben's story to me is going to the cheapest place in town, cheap because they under-pay their workers, and then making up the difference out of your own pocket. You could just patronise somewhere that was a better employer.
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not being risk-averse enough
Humans are bad enough at comparing different risks as it is, even when the numbers are laid out, and here we apparently don’t even have good numbers. It just seems impossible at this moment to have a reliable opinion. Although obviously I will back my prejudices to the hilt given enough alcohol.
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Jim: thanks for that link.