If National wins ...

[craic]

In a mad moment once I worked out that there is enough water going over Victoria Falls daily to provide every person on earth with twenty odd litres of water per day. Could someone who cares tell us how many millions of litres of pure water is coming off the hills and going into Milford sounds each day. Unfortunately the water I'm using at the moment is contaminated with ethanol. Maybe someone else with less time to spare could add a few more like
Niagara and the like.

[Bjauck]

I'm not going to be pedantic, either,but shouldn't.......

"So I agree with eZ's post both as to content and style! There is road usage charge for heavy vehicles to help maintain roads, so why not a water usage fee for heavy users of water, to help maintain waterways?"

...... read, "There is a road user charge for the owners of heavy vehicles....." ?

Pedantic, moi? True (a charge to the owners or a charge for the owners to pay) - so when I wrote "road usage charge for heavy vehicles" "to the owners" was assumed as the vehicles themselves are unable to pay. There is a charge to the owners for the distance travelled by their vehicles?

[Major von Tempsky]

Hmm, how far back we gonna go....Bill Rowling was last in the Cabinet in 1975 and before him you just about run out of Labour Cabinet Ministers with ANY sort of qualifications. So if Cullen's major qualification was in Maths and his minor one in Economic History which is more akin to History than Economics his claim to be an Economist looks dodgier than ever! Although I will concede it's more valid than Muldoon's who only had a soldiers WW2 conceded Accountancy qualification Economics 1 pass.

[elZorro]

Very bad use of the worst cliché of modern times eZ. The phrase 'going forward' is painful and it would make no difference to the sentence if it was dropped, as is usually the case with 'going forward. Don't thank me. My English lessons are free to those deprived of a decent education due to our state education system.

I only put that expression in there to see if someone would notice it, FP. I almost used "going forward", but decided it was already obvious I was 'poking the borax' at the govt. I hope I haven't added any more grammatical or non-fluent expressions into the thread.

Doesn't change the fact that dairy farming and drystock farming is incredibly inefficient. If we let the govt push that aspect of the economy while ignoring the drop-off in manufacturing and other sectors, we deserve what will happen next.

[fungus pudding]

As someone who is perfectly happy with my "state education" please enlighten me as to where you received a "decent education". It may explain your
somewhat superior view of others and your usually irrelevant replies to their posts.

westerly

If my replies are usually irrelevant, I will make your life so much happier by not replying to your question. By the way, I am a humble man with an inferiority complex, which is probably why I consider others superior. Glad you sympathise.

[fungus pudding]

I only put that expression in there to see if someone would notice it, FP.

Yes eZ. Of course you did.

[elZorro]

Yes eZ. Of course you did.

I'll have to have a look on the web and see how many times National politicians used the expression "going forward", but I'm sure they did. All part of this "bright future". Maybe you've seen this, FP.

Craic is almost on the money with his Vitoria Falls quote. At average flow rates, about 12.5 litres of water per person on the planet flows over the falls each day. It's not the world's biggest river volume either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Falls

However, if each person in the world ate 100 grams of beef a day, we'd need 1,540 litres of water to grow each 100g portion, and to keep that going it would be a continuous drain on water supplies. The feed conversion of beef animals is low compared to chickens, pigs etc. Luckily most people in the world eat rice and other plant material, there isn't enough available water for everyone to eat beef every day.

http://www.thecattlesite.com/news/49...-produce-meat/

There will be similar large numbers for the water needed to produce a kg of milksolids. The Selwyn River is testimony to what will happen more widely, if the dairy farming/cattle industry isn't curbed, or its relatively crude production methods in NZ aren't modified heavily.

Similar thoughts at NRT: http://norightturn.blogspot.co.nz/2017/03/too-hard.html

[macduffy]

Everyone please note that, if going forward, I only use the expression "going forward", to see if anyone notices it.

[craic]

If everyone ate rice every day, the funeral directors would be happy. Rice is a common cause of excessive arsenic in the human body. Cattle, and humans drink water and water is used in plant growth, but guess what, all the water used is recycled. If you bury a waterlogged human then the water is returned to the earth to be recycled. If you cremate them then the cycle is faster because the steam is back as rain in no time. elZ's concept of water usage and wastage misses the reality.

[Bjauck]

Everyone please note that, if going forward, I only use the expression "going forward", to see if anyone notices it.

I will notice it. as the expression makes a blip on my "positive spin" radar! However I can sense when it is used in earnest by pollies and CEOs to "fluff up" a point and normally glaze over at the same time and forget what I have read...