".. if you have made money under dubious circumstances in the former USSR, and you're looking for someone in the West - in the 'rule of law' states - where you can park that money in a real estate project - which is the great engine of money-laundering - Trump is absolutely perfect."
"He will rent out his name to you, for a cut; this thing that gets built somewhere will be call the 'Trump Tower' wherever-it-is. You will chuck in a load of money. Maybe it does go bust, but money might have come out the other side to contractors linked to you. If you get any return, if you keep any of that money, that's a boon for you, because you stole it all in the first place!"
Hearing the Disorder folks talking about how kleptocracy works, right after listening to Guyon Espiner's 30 interview with Taxpayers Union and Free Speech Union founder Jordan Williams;
"Some commentators are snarking that Microsoft really really wants to make 2025 the year of Linux on the Desktop, and it's kind of hard to refute them right now."
It would be fantastic if Recall is the intrusive, anti-privacy fumble that finally sinks BorgSoft's desktop OS dominance. But they're been rolling out horrific anti-features like this since at least XP. There seems to be a kind of Stockholm Syndrome that keeps people using Windows regardless.
"We’re moving to a more modern, reliable way of storing your data, by using a cloud-based service that operates from Australia.
This change is happening across New Zealand - we're part of a national consortium of public libraries (with 41 other councils) called Kōtui, which is managed by the National Library of New Zealand, within the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA). All libraries that are part of Kōtui are making this change."
> a more modern, reliable way of storing your data
... would be to host it on dedicated server computers located at each library, operating together as a distributed server. With encrypted backups at an onshore datacentre. Hosting on a (presumably) US-owned datacentre in Australia is anything but.
Why are NatACTs obsessed with reducing government spending as a proportion of GDP? It's like indexing tax rates to Goat aBdominal Product (or the entrails of a goat).
What increased public spending does is make more public goods (eg infrastructure) and public services (eg healthcare) available, adding to the real economy. Often by funding people who can do that using underutilised skills and resources. But NatACTs seem to think it takes a bigger bite out of an economic pie that stays the same.
Another thing NatACTs do is talk about taxpayers funding things. This fundamentally misunderstands what taxation does (maybe intentionally?). Just as in the previous example, they fundamentally misunderstandsl how government spending works.
Taxes don't fund anything. What taxation does is remove dollars fron the country's money supply, just as spending adds dollars to it.
We want a govt to tax more than it spends (to 'run a surplus') when the real economy is shrinking. So that the money supply shrinks along with the supply of goods and services, and each dollar can still buy roughly the same stuff (it 'holds it value').
But if the economy is growing, we want govts to spend more than they tax (to 'run a deficit'). So the money supply increases, and there's enough extra dollars in circulation to be spent on all those extra goods the economy is producing.
"... it felt a little bit to me like a cross between a political program and a bit of a game show. The "raise your hands" and all that stuff. I just wanted something a bit more serious I think."
You know what would be more useful during an election than a Presidential-style debate, where the leaders of the two dominant parties spew talking points at each other?
Well anything really. We need those like a fish needs a bicycle.
But I'm thinking a whole debate on each policy area; housing, social wellbeing, corrections, etc. Between the current minister and opposition spokespeople for that portfolio.
If we are to have a leaders debate, the people running it ought to be obligated by election law to include more than the 2 largest parties. Otherwise the news media end up effectively campaigning for those 2 parties, by giving them disproportionate coverage.
What about any party that got over 3% in the previous election gets a leader into anything billed as a leaders debate? For the same reason that all parties get a broadcast allowance based on their vote at the last election.
"If you’re over 18 and below the superannuation age (currently 65), the Government will (if you’re eligible) contribute 50 cents for every dollar you contribute, up to a maximum Government contribution of $521.43 each year (1 July to 30 June). This is paid directly
to your KiwiSaver account around late July each year."
#HatTip to @Daveosaurus for catching my maths fail. I did the division in my head, and forgot to factor in that the government contribution is 50c on the dollar, not dollar for dollar.
"One of my favorite nuggets of writing advice comes from James D Macdonald. Jim, a Navy vet with an encylopedic knowledge of gun lore, explained to a group of non-gun people how to write guns without getting derided by other gun people: 'just add the word modified'."
...a gun person’s imagination gnaws at that word 'modified', spinning up the cleverest possible explanation for how the gun in question could behave as depicted.
I haven't listened to the podcast episode yet, but the excerpt I'm quoting from intrigues me. Are there words that propagandists use to trigger the same effect? Eg a word that conscripts political reporters into adding flesh to the bones of "tax relief"?
"To the extent that this is an argument between left and right, it is the left right now, most often raising the complaint that its speech is being suppressed. They see students arrested on trespassing charges as being denied their right to protest peacefully against Israel's recent action, and for many its record over decades."
"This all sets in relief an earlier debate of ours, where we looked at free speech on campus. It was in 2016 and at that time it was largely the right raising the alarms over free speech repression on campus. While arguing that the pressure to silence was coming from the left."
"We must consider the possibility that what is really happening is that the language of free speech has been co-opted by dominant social groups, distorted to serve their interests, and used to silence the marginalised. All too often when people cry for justice, and are represented as threats to free speech, what is really meant is just, be quiet."