Posted on 10/04/2007 1:13:26 AM PDT by bruinbirdman
> In what year did your country fight for her freedom?
You mean in what yearS, surely?
1899-1902. Against the Boers.
1915. Against the Turks at Gallipoli.
1917. Against the Hun at Passchendale.
1939-45. Against the Nazis: we fought for America’s freedom at that time, too: while America lazily slept in, waking up three years into the conflict when most of the hard yards were done.
1948 - 1972. Against North Korea.
1965 - 1971. Against the North Vietnamese.
1966. Against guerillas in Malaya.
1999 - 2002. Against troublemakers in East Timor
2001 - 2007. Against Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan.
2003 - 2007. Against rebels in Solomon Islands.
New Zealand is a tiny country, with the population less than Metropolitan Chicago. But our warriors have between them more Victoria Cross medals, and more casualties-per-capita than any nation on this planet. The Victoria Cross has only been awarded twice ever to one combat soldier: a New Zealander named Charles Upham. And our elite forces, the NZ SAS, are considered to be the amongst the very best in the world.
By dismissing all of the failed socialist utopias as incompetent, you are simply taking the old tired line that all socialists take when faced with reality, i.e. "It just hasn't been done correctly yet by someone as smart as me."
Do you think that a government that spent billions of dollars to construct telephone lines would instantly invest billions more to figure out how to spend yet more billions to make their initial investment obsolete? Hell no.
If government had complete control of telecommunications, you'd still be holding a speaker to your ear and talking into a wooden box on the wall.
> What, if anything, is your country willing to do to solve the “Cuba nuisance”?
Me, I’m quite happy to trade with them, buy their rum and cigars and support their flourishing tourist industry.
> (aside of waiting for someone else..someone more brave to do it)
Bollix — that’s obvious bait and I’m not going to rise to it. If America were “brave” enough to deal decisively to Cuba, you would have done so 40 years ago. You shouldn’t need a small country the size of NZ to show you how to deal to Cuba: if you cannot do that yourselves then there is no hope for you at all.
True - look how much work is involved in establishing land-line phone service at a new residence even today, and the technology used is antique. Without market pressures, we would all still be using party-line phones...or Morse Code over a telegraph. ;)
Still, city-wide "free" WiMax service (when it's ready) wouldn't be a bad idea - beats spending the same tax dollars on paying new homeless people to come live in the city, as San Francisco is doing. It's sort of like paying the bill for street lights, the city didn't and couldn't have helped invent the technology involved, but it's a reasonable use of tax dollars to provide the service to the public.
> If government had complete control of telecommunications, you’d still be holding a speaker to your ear and talking into a wooden box on the wall.
Until fairly recently — say 15 years ago — our government *did* have total control of our telecommunications. Granted, it was expensive, but at the time it worked really well.
Since privatization, Telecom has allowed our infrastructure to stagnate and we have squanderd vast amounts of Value chasing a great return for the investor at the direct expense of the infrastructure itself. Nobody in their right mind would claim that privatization of Telecom has been a resounding success: it has been a punishing failure for all parties concerned (except maybe a few overseas investors).
> By dismissing all of the failed socialist utopias as incompetent, you are simply taking the old tired line that all socialists take when faced with reality, i.e. “It just hasn’t been done correctly yet by someone as smart as me.”
By labeling me a “Socialist” (which I am not) you may think that you are scoring clever points. The plain fact is that not all “Socialist” ideas are bad: there *is* such a thing as a “public good” (that is what Civilization itself is based upon) and sometimes that public good does need to be protected, nurtured, and encouraged.
By way of contrast, there are plenty of “Free Market” or “Capitalist” ideas that should never be allowed to see the light of day. Most if not all privately-held monopolies, for example, tend to be abusive and tend to ultimately fail.
Somewhere there exists a compromise position: I would say that position is to demarcate where innovation and risk-taking take place. Anything before that is a commodity that should be freely-or-cheaply available. Anything after that is where legitimate profit and the free market should flourish and grow.
There is no risk and no innovation to be had in selling electricity. That nut was cracked years ago. So there should be no profit in doing so. And when you think about it in *those* terms, that idea is about as Capitalist as it gets. Only risk-takers and innovators should have the right to make a profit.
Let's try again. It is a really simple question.
In what year did your country fight for her freedom?...or was your independence simply handed to you?
What does your country know about the struggles and difficulties of creating, and building itself from nothing?
I begrudge your country nothing. But; you speak with zero authority on this subject.
Me, I’m quite happy to trade with them(Cuba), buy their rum and cigars...
Rum & cigars. That's how you would deal with tyranical dictatorships....rum & cigars.
Sorry but I don't believe you privatized it. More likely the government outsourced to a private company/s and called it privatization. But do you have cell phones in NZ? Did your government develop those? Did they immediately build cell towers and then immediately again replace all of the analog equipment with digital? You sound like these people that say capitalism has failed in Russia, not realizing that its yet to been tried there.
By labeling me a “Socialist” (which I am not) you may think that you are scoring clever points.
You want government to nationalize everything that you deem to be vital, which is a very long list and sure to grow, and then run it in perpetuity. And all based on the premise that the government will do it better. That would differ from socialism exactly how? If it looks like a manure pile and smells like a manure pile...
The plain fact is that not all “Socialist” ideas are bad: there *is* such a thing as a “public good” (that is what Civilization itself is based upon) and sometimes that public good does need to be protected, nurtured, and encouraged.
Once you get past a military, police, roads, and fire departments, you're on shaky ground.
How about this. You start your government run telecommunications and let the private sector compete against it. Where do you think the majority of customers will end up, assuming that you don't get upset and outlaw the private sector?
By way of contrast, there are plenty of “Free Market” or “Capitalist” ideas that should never be allowed to see the light of day.
Why, because you know better than someone else how to spend their money? Yea I've heard that one. Socialists say it all the time. Are you sure you find the term offensive?
Most if not all privately-held monopolies, for example, tend to be abusive and tend to ultimately fail.
Like the government you mean? Of course not, governmental decisions are wise and pure. Here's a news flash, all businesses in history so far have ultimately failed. That is a sign that capitalism is working.
Somewhere there exists a compromise position: I would say that position is to demarcate where innovation and risk-taking take place. Anything before that is a commodity that should be freely-or-cheaply available. Anything after that is where legitimate profit and the free market should flourish and grow.
Sorry, but only a socialist would dictate that something must be cheap and freely available and think they have the power to make that possible. Innovation is never cheep or freely available. It always starts out expensive and moves toward cheap. No government would have ever spent money on 48" flat panel HDTVs, under a mandate that TVs must be cheap and freely available. Yet private businesses spent billions developing multiple different technologies on TVs that initially cost consumers over $60,000 each. Far superior TVs are now available at less than $2000 each, and they continue to drop in price. THAT is capitalism, and THAT is how innovation occurs. It is also how things become cheap and freely available, not by government mandate. The governments role should be limited to ensuring a standard of use and safety.
There is no risk and no innovation to be had in selling electricity. That nut was cracked years ago.
Retract "electricity" and insert anything else, and you'll find that phrase has been uttered millions of times about every conceivable product. Certainly you must want to nationalize food production as well? Electricity generation is continually being made more efficient and its delivery more innovative. This is done by private companies like GE, not the government. What does a government utility care about costs? They simply pass them on. We have a very open electrical market in the United States that does a fantastic job getting the maximum efficiency out of the grid every day. The only failings we have are created by state governments that have restricted expansion, e.g. California. And when a blackout occurs in California, the politicians blame private industry.
Only risk-takers and innovators should have the right to make a profit.
You are mixing the soup a great deal between government sanctioned monopolies and competitive business. Risk exists in all competitive businesses, yet innovation does not. Efficiency is a factor you have left out, and efficiency is driven by profit.
Taking electricity as an example, it does not have to be a monopoly. If set up a wind turbine and sell power back into the grid, I make money. If I set up a windmill farm, I can sell that power on the futures market directly to a user that wants to hedge against a future increases in oil or coal. Who maintains the grid? Parts are completely private, parts are public utilities. But if the public utility puts out bids for maintenance to private firms, then those firms have every reason to be efficient and minimize costs, while meeting the requirements of the contract.
Interestingly, many people such as yourself find where the government has written bad contracts or failed to enforce them, and jump to the illogical conclusion that it would be best to turn everything over to those same decision makers. If you think privatization failed, you should be questioning why capitalism that works so well everywhere else failed in that particular. You will find that the government was the failure, not a group of enterprises working as hard as they can to efficiently make a profit.
If you are correct about NZ, it sounds to me like the government very unwisely handed over a protected monopoly without removing governmental protections and without adequate governmental restrictions. There is absolutely no reason to expect a government run utility to be cheaper than if it were operated by an open bid contract.
> In what year did your country fight for her freedom?.
1840 with the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. A world-first.
> What does your country know about the struggles and difficulties of creating, and building itself from nothing?
Before the Maori settled in New Zealand, our islands were Terra Nullis. That is to say, nothing and belonging to nobody.
And before the British Crown afforded the Maori protection as a Colony against the French and the Russians, the Maori had nothing save sharpened sticks and a few very brave men to stave off the invaders: again, essentially nothing.
Our Nation was built from nothing, from the ground-up. Based upon a Treaty and a partnership between Maori and Pakeha. And while there have been hiccups with that Treaty over the years, its importance and relevance remains intact.
In short, we know a fair bit about building a country from nothing. And we are quite happy to lend our warriors to countries overseas who need to be freed from Tyranny and Oppression because that is something that we are very, very good at. Heck, when invited we will even help rescue the US from its global-adventures-run-amuck. That’s what friends are for.
> I begrudge your country nothing. But; you speak with zero authority on this subject.
On the contrary: you haven’t the first clue about my country or our place in the grand scheme of things. Just possibly, like many Americans you might struggle to find us on the map: I have met plenty of Yanks who are firmly convinced that “Noo Zeelund” is somewhere over by Europe. I’ve also met a few better-informed Americans who are convinced we’re part of Australia.
But on the assumption that you can at least find us on the Atlas, I really do think you should learn more about us before you begin bagging our History. We are a relatively-new country, but we have never ever ever failed to answer Liberty’s call to arms. When we do, we pay in full on time in blood with interest.
Your posts show a typical American xenophobic world-view: maybe you guys ought to get out more, do some world travel, and find out about the world that surrounds you.
Hell, you probably still think the Wright Brothers were the first people to fly a manned aeroplane: if so you would be mistaken. Richard Pearse (a Kiwi) beat them to it by a couple of years...
> Rum & cigars. That’s how you would deal with tyranical dictatorships....rum & cigars.
You probably do not really want to go there, because if we begin exploring how America has dealt with tyranical dictatorships in the past, you will certainly look rather silly.
> If you are correct about NZ, it sounds to me like the government very unwisely handed over a protected monopoly without removing governmental protections and without adequate governmental restrictions. There is absolutely no reason to expect a government run utility to be cheaper than if it were operated by an open bid contract.
Got it in a nutshell.
I think you’ve just bought into the idea that capitalism has to be controlled and structured by the government, beyond the ethical requirements of the rule of law.
There is absolutely nothing unethical about capitalism. There are only unethical people. These people have far more power to effect our lives via government than via the corruption of capitalism. A man that cheats in capitalism goes out of business, gets sued, goes to jail, etc., and you always have the freedom not to deal with him. A man that is slovenly and uncaring in government knows you have no alternatives and won’t even notice unless it gets very bad. Conversely in capitalism, you notice and go elsewhere. The governmental granting of private monopolies is not capitalist. It is a marriage of capitalism and socialsim, which can be done well or very poorly. The power rests with the government. A lazy government will do it poorly. But that same lazy government would likely run it poorly as well.
> By the way, I never called you a “socialist”. I said you were making the same points as a socialist.
No offense taken. My world view allows that some Socialist policies and philosophies have merit. As do some Capitalist policies and philosophies. As do some Libertarian policies and philosophies.
It’s really tempting to view the world in black-and-white, absolutist terms: either you are “Conservative” or you are “Liberal” for example.
It would be nice if life tidily fit into convenient categories like that — but I am of the view that it doesn’t. Often there is merit in some positions that one is diametrically opposed to. I think it takes a degree of intellectual maturity to at least acknowledge that merit and, if it makes sense to do so, to utilize it.
True enough. It was built by the British, and handed to you. There is nothing wrong, or ignoble about that. No slight, or insult is perceived. That is simply how it is/was.
It is more than coincidence that you also believe others should invent, develop, build massive infrastructures and simply hand them over to you as well.
You have a beautiful country, and are a magnificent people. Your countrymen have answered the call for justice & liberty; and are righteously proud. I am proud to stand beside, and with you.
if we begin exploring how America has dealt with tyranical dictatorships in the past, you will certainly look rather silly.
USA has by far, the best & most noble track record in the history of this planet. An honest exploration would be an enjoyable change. But; alas, ridicule and shame remain in vogue for the international sheep.
What have we done that you have such a low opinion of us?
You appear to see all essentials as a right and therefore something that should be provided, and you're a bit liberal on what is "essential".
I only think the government should provide services that cannot be otherwise be provided. Governments have often provided subsidies to people based on the premise that certain things should be cheap and freely accessable, only to be surprised when people take advantage of artificially cheap products or services. Then the governments make laws to curb the exact behavior they promoted. I can't imagine how expensive your free electricity would quickly become. In college I remember the centrally run radiators running too hot in the dorms. The fast solution for the students, who bore no direct costs, was to open the windows. This went on all winter long. This at a time when the University was pushing for more public support money from the state. There are no natural control valves in socialsim, while capitalism is packed with them.
An amazing number of so called problems with capitalism arise from the unintended consequences of governmental restrictions.
Electricity, gas, telecommunications, water and the Internet are four that leap immediately to mind.
Quite frankly, I can't think of a worse idea than to do exactly what you describe above. By making it so that governent is the only provider of the utilities you list above, you ensure only that those utilities will become poorer in quality, more expensive, and less reliable. I absolutely shudder at the idea of having to rely on an agency like the Massachuetts Fuel Oil Department to provide my heating oil in the winter . . . such a department would be filled to the gills with nothing but politically-appointed hacks with no vested interest at all in providing a good service and/or product at a good price. Because these hacks know that no matter what kind of job they do, good or bad, they get paid, and they aren't going to get fired because they're connected.
Neither can the ordinary Cuban.
You forgot Healthcare, healthcare should be free too :)
ibtz
For some reason it seems like bad sense idea to have my business rely on a government wi-fi system.
yitbos
> True enough. It was built by the British, and handed to you.
That is untrue, and wrong. Any Maori would be deeply offended (and rightly so) at that notion. They like to think (correctly) that they had something pretty substantial in place long before the British ever got here. And they also like to think that they had a fair bit of “say” in what happened to the country when the British got uppity and tried to take over. And they would be right.
The British joined the Maori as equal partners and later, during the Maori Wars, were fought by the Maori to a stand-still: the greatest world power at the time could not and did not defeat the Maori: quite the opposite. The result of the Maori War was for Maori to be permanently granted seats in our House of Parliament.
The British didn’t “hand” the country to anybody: that just didn’t happen. They signed a deal, then welshed on the deal, then had their imperial arses kicked for doing so. Kicked very hard.
> It is more than coincidence that you also believe others should invent, develop, build massive infrastructures and simply hand them over to you as well.
The truth is, our government put up all of the core infrastructure to produce and distribute it throughout our Nation, long ago. And NZ taxpayers paid for it. Later, this infrastructure was privatized by successive foolish governments for a song.
Same deal with telecommunications. Same deal with railways. And the airports. These were core government assets, bought and paid for by the taxpayers, privatized by fools in Wellington for next to nothing for ideological reasons: apparently “business” knows how to run these things better than “government” does.
Subsequent history has proven this to be a tragic mistake.
> An honest exploration would be an enjoyable change. But; alas, ridicule and shame remain in vogue for the international sheep.
An honest exploration would, for example, indicate that the US propped up Saddam Hussein in Iraq and supported the Taliban in Afghanistan, when it suited their foreign policy to do so.
Make no mistake, I am quite happy to see Saddam Hussein hanged last year, and am well pleased that the US had a direct hand in that. But at some point before, during and after the Cold War the US seemed to lose the plot and with it, its moral compass.
> What have we done that you have such a low opinion of us?
I think, in the South Pacific, what the US has “done” might have something to do with bombing a few of our islands into radioactive perdition in the decades that followed WW-II, displacing the natives and rendering the islands permanently uninhabitable.
You see, the people that live on the islands in the vast Pacific ocean are just one big, happy family: and the locals used to cruise around the Pacific in their canoes over thousands of miles of open ocean. So everyone talks and many of them are inter-related. True. The US isn’t alone in this boorish and inconsiderate behavior: the French did the same at Mururoa Atoll, and kept doing it long after everyone else asked them nicely to stop.
You want to know the roots of NZ’s non-nuclear stance — which also happens to be the reason why US warships aren’t particularly welcome in our waters? That would be it. If you let off nuclear bombs in people’s back yards, they might just get a bit scratchy.
Particularly if you do it without asking nicely first, to people who have lived peacefully on those islands for thousands of years, and who have mates all over the South Pacific that they canoe to regularly. They kind of liked their atolls just the way they were — thanks — and didn’t understand the benefits of the nuclear “improvements”.
I don’t know what the US has done to offend other people around the world, like for example, the muslims. But if it was anything like America’s boorish behavior in the South Pacific, then that might go some distance toward answering your question.
So far as I am concerned, I am a vocal supporter of America.
> You appear to see all essentials as a right and therefore something that should be provided, and you’re a bit liberal on what is “essential”.
Yup. Electricity was “invented” many years ago, more than enough profit has been made from the investment, and few households can comfortably exist in a modern society without it. Tick! Essential. Ditto telephone. Ditto gas.
Some things are baseline requirements for an advanced Civilization to exist. And without these requirements the population take a big step backwards toward subsistence.
I contend that such baseline requirements are essential, and that a wise civilization would recognize that and absorb their provision for the common good. Profit should be reserved as a reward for those who take risks. There is no risk in providing essential services. Therefore, there should be no profit in doing so.
In many ways, that viewpoint is excessively Capitalist when you think the implications thru.
> I only think the government should provide services that cannot be otherwise be provided.
And what of services that are eminently to the Public Good? Like an orderly Police force, or a decent army?
Or decent, basic medical care? Or decent, basic education?
All of the above can be provided privately. But all of the above are so essential to the Public Good that it is just as well that the government provides them.
I argue that core infrastructure also belongs in that group. And again on the premise that there is no risk associated with providing core infrastructure, so there should be no financial reward or profit for doing so.
Risk = Reward. No Risk = No Reward. It doesn’t get much more Capitalist than that.
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