If National wins ...

[winner69]

Does Matt McCarten still have a role to play?

[elZorro]

Does Matt McCarten still have a role to play?

Not sure, looks like David Cunliffe employed him, or recommended him. No recent mention on the web.

[iceman]

Nope, but we now have fibre in the house, so I have more certain access to the interweb. Up until now, our modem would go offline at about 9pm and not be available until 9.30 pm, each evening. Too much traffic on the local server boxes I think. The guys putting in fibre said you can't see the traffic in the fibre, but it's there. I asked what frequencies it used, was it UV or IR? They didn't know. Turns out it's Infrared.

How are you liking it EZ ? They're digging up my street at the moment. Can't wait to update from the current rubbish connection we have ! Traveling frequently back and forth to Europe, it is depressing to come back home to our extremely slow internet compared to what we get up there.

[elZorro]

How are you liking it EZ ? They're digging up my street at the moment. Can't wait to update from the current rubbish connection we have ! Traveling frequently back and forth to Europe, it is depressing to come back home to our extremely slow internet compared to what we get up there.

The Huawei gear is good, they're very organised once the plastic tubing is in place and the fibre is at the outside of the house. From there it's about 3 hrs work for two. The modem is fed from another conversion box under the desk, and the wifi range is good. Speed tests show 30 on the dial, both ways. I'm paying less for this with a bigger data cap than I was paying Vodafone for broadband, as I was being pinged for extra traffic each month (my son is into gaming). Vodafone offered a discount, too late. The fibre link still has short pauses when loading up websites with advertising on them, which might just be my computer being a bit older. On wifi the link is up to 5x faster than with broadband, for us.

[elZorro]

Now that I've had a chance to read the Sunday papers, I feel obliged to have a bit of a moan, so Craic can comment.

Rod Oram wrote another good article in the SST, pointing out that NZ has been too orthodox in its views since at least 1997, when he arrived from overseas with a different perspective. He found that the Business Roundtable had a huge power in NZ, run by just a few people. He then went on to describe a more recent "virulent attack on trust, respect and social cohesion". He confirms he's going to keep saying his mind, and ends with "I say to the Slaters, Grahams, Odgers, Edes, Lusks, Collinses and all their ilk, you are destroying some good people and good society".

I would add that behind all those people, is a basic, verbal, Crosby/Textor instruction on behalf of the National Party.

Jason Ede has a flash new job at TeamTalk, a listed IT firm that has more links to the National Party than you can poke a stick at.

Paul Kane, from Grant Thornton, says that NZ faces a serious productivity problem (SST). In effect, the country is doing more work from the pay rate of 14 years ago. Productivity has barely risen overall since 2000. That's because while it rose strongly under Labour, it fell back under National for quite a while, after the GFC.

Paul Kane says our business culture is too laid back, and it needs some govt incentives to get it moving also.

An example could be our biggest powerhouse company, Fonterra. It reports an EBIT of about $503million, but with revenue of $22.3Bill, so 2.2% net profit before interest, depreciation etc. Not good enough, surely. It might be even lower in the next financial year.

[nextbigthing]

How do you suggest Fonterra increase its productivity exactly?

[elZorro]

How do you suggest Fonterra increase its productivity exactly?

The productivity is probably quite good, it's a highly capital intensive business. It's the profit margin that looks too lean. However, thinking about it, maybe it was a poor example. Dairy farmers own most of Fonterra as a co-operative, so it's a bit like the major oil companies in NZ, who have two bites at a smaller profit. Maybe the milk payout for the last financial year had most of the profit.

Freightways makes about 10% profit on turnover, and the Aussie banks collectively earn a lot more profit than $500mill from NZ in a year.

[nextbigthing]

el Z mate, are you suggesting more companies should be like the Aussie banks? Their workers were just striking for higher pay and better conditions which you mentioned recently so that doesn't make a lot of sense.

I'd think it's pretty likely a large number of freight ways staff such as those in warehousing etc are on minimum wage or near it so that won't fit with your goal of the living wage.

Perhaps not the best examples aye.

My understanding is Norway has a high tax high income system that you admire. However Norway also has vast oil resources which they are using to their full extent. Sure this can't go on forever for them and they will have to adapt eventually. But it's probably going to be easier for them to adapt with their sqillions of Krone in hand to spend on technology. Make hay while the sun shines.

[elZorro]

el Z mate, are you suggesting more companies should be like the Aussie banks? Their workers were just striking for higher pay and better conditions which you mentioned recently so that doesn't make a lot of sense.

I'd think it's pretty likely a large number of freight ways staff such as those in warehousing etc are on minimum wage or near it so that won't fit with your goal of the living wage.

Perhaps not the best examples aye.

My understanding is Norway has a high tax high income system that you admire. However Norway also has vast oil resources which they are using to their full extent. Sure this can't go on forever for them and they will have to adapt eventually. But it's probably going to be easier for them to adapt with their sqillions of Krone in hand to spend on technology. Make hay while the sun shines.

Yes, we've had our Maui, a huge gas field internationally, that was blown away largely at Huntly at 30% efficiency (generating electricity) so we could extract the oil along with it. So far it's been hard finding something to replace it. At least some of the new shopping complexes in Auckland are installing solar arrays with a 10yr payback, that's a start. There's a whole lot more work could be done in that line, and we could be world leaders in some of that technology.

Or, I've seen first hand, a NZ manufacturing business that exported niche medium-tech gear with about a 30% net profit on turnover. That's more like NZ's target.

[nextbigthing]

Sure, businesses like that are great. But being niche they are going to be very limited in how many people they actually employ. And as I've said before, if there are way more options available for businesses like this then we'd be doing it already.

Going back to the topic of the thread, politics, how is a CGT (which will capture innovate new businesses) going to promote kiwis trying to start these sorts of businesses? Answer, it's not. It will discourage exactly what you say we need.

I'm really starting to think you're a closet right winger who is to scared to admit it to yourself el Z