Word of the day

Dint – a dent or hollow in a surface; a blow or stroke, typically one made with a weapon in fighting; to mark a surface with dents or hollows; to drive in with force; force; power; as a result of something; because of or by means of something.

 

Sowell says

When Hillary Clinton said, “It takes a village to raise a child,” someone said it takes a village idiot to believe that. pic.twitter.com/3GHR48brdq

— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) September 17, 2024

Misreading not mislabelling

Sigh, Green Red Peace is taking Fonterra to court over what it thinks is misleading labelling:

Greenpeace Aotearoa says it plans to sue Fonterra for what it says are misleading claims the co-operative’s Anchor butter is “100% New Zealand grass-fed” when many of its farmers use imported palm kernel as a supplement. . . 

But Grant Farquhar points out their mistake:

So the muppets at Greenpeace NZ are taking Fonterra to court because the muppets at Greenpeace NZ have issues reading a label.

Anchor Pure Butter
100% New Zealand
Grass Fed.

not

100% Grass fed New Zealand Butter

You cannot make this up. 🤣🤣🤣🤪🤡 pic.twitter.com/sCdDFGQWSL

— 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐅𝐚𝐫𝐪𝐮𝐡𝐚𝐫 (@grant_farquhar) October 1, 2024

The wording isn’t mislabelling, Red Peace is misreading.

Woman of the day

Annie Kenney isn’t The Attagirls’ WOTD but she is mine.

This is not the Woman of the Day post (it will be along shortly) but one of the many reasons why suffragette Annie Kenney, born OTD 1879 in Oldham, was my WOTD a year ago today and will always be one of my all-time heroes is because she was a natural orator with quick and ready… pic.twitter.com/Ro0qMRHGvK

— The Attagirls (@TheAttagirls) September 13, 2024

Govt can’t afford to farm

Pāmu has posted another very disappointing result:

. . . Last year’s results were boosted by a $20 million gain on milk futures, whereas this year, there was a $1 million loss. This was a significant contributing factor to Pāmu recording a net loss after tax of $26 million compared with a loss of $9 million in the prior year. . . 

Even when the company makes a profit, which doesn’t happen nearly often enough, it is a very poor return on capital.

The public are generally averse to the sale of state assets, but Pāmu, or Landcorp, isn’t an asset, it’s a liability. It has far too many losses and far too few, if any, respectable profits.

The government simply can’t afford to keep farming at the best of times and certainly not now when there are so many other calls on public funds.

Some of the company’s land is banked for Treaty settlements but there aren’t many still to be settled and some must be surplus to that need.

Selling a lot of farms at once would not be sensible, but a gradual sell-off and a commensurate downsizing of head office would start to turn red ink into black.

Balloting farms to young people as happened after both World Wars might make sales more politically palatable, as would using the proceeds for infrastructure be it hospitals, roads, schools or any other area where more funding is sorely needed.

But if that wouldn’t work, the farms could be leased which would again allow a considerable reduction in company overheads.

Whichever way ridding itself of this unaffordable burden would provide far more benefits than carrying on farming at too high a cost and too little benefit.

Word of the day

Penetralium – the innermost, or most secret, part of a building; an inner sanctum.

Sowell says

Racism is not dead, but it is on life support — kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as “racists.”

— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) September 17, 2024

Woman of the day

Woman of the Day Muriel Siebert born OTD 1928 in Cleveland, Ohio, the first woman to join the New York Stock Exchange, the first to own and run one of its member brokerages, and – she later described this as poetic justice – the first woman to serve as New York State’s… pic.twitter.com/Pzhr78Qfa3

— The Attagirls (@TheAttagirls) September 12, 2024

All cultures not equal

A call for immigrants to respect the culture and traditions of their new home ought not to be controversial but British Conservative Party leadership contender Kemi Badenoch has upset some people by saying not all cultures are equal.

A proper immigration strategy should start off with three principles: Numbers matter. Culture matters even more. Leadership starts from the top. Our points-based immigration system failed on all three counts.

You cannot police, plan or provide public services if you don’t know how many people are in your nation or due to come. There’s a reason that infrastructure seems to be creaking – despite the amount we’ve spent. It’s because demand has shot up faster. A migrant can arrive with their possessions and their skills but can’t bring a new home, hospital bed or school place.

What they can bring is their culture.

Culture is more than cuisine or clothes. It’s also customs which may be at odds with British values. We cannot be naïve and assume immigrants will automatically abandon ancestral ethnic hostilities at the border, or that all cultures are equally valid. 

She is an immigrant and notes the changes since she arrived in the UK.

 When I moved back to this country 30 years ago, it was impossible to communicate quickly with my family. Letters would take weeks to arrive, I had to schedule calls with the few people who had working telephones let alone mobiles.

Today’s immigrants, even those arriving on boats come with WhatsApp and Instagram. Their feet may be in the UK, but their heads and hearts are still back in their country of origin.

There’s nothing wrong with immigrants retaining affection to and links with their home countries. That’s very different from keeping and trying to impose behaviours, beliefs and practices from their home countries on their new ones where they are unacceptable and often illegal.

Radical Islamist women promoting Sharia law in London.

Supporting Sharia law in Western countries should lead to an automatic deportation.

Do you agree? pic.twitter.com/GZFqNVt9xL

— Dr. Maalouf ‏ (@realMaalouf) September 29, 2024

One could ask if these women are doing this by choice or if they have been ordered to do it by men.

We can learn from other cultures and improve our own in the process but all cultures aren’t equal.

If people can’t leave female genital mutilation, forced marriages Sharia law, other human rights abuses, misogynistic beliefs and ethnic hostilities in their home countries they have no place in those with more enlightened cultures where human rights are upheld and valued.

All cultures are not equal, some have moved into the 21st century and governments have a right to reject people whose mores, morals and practices have not.

Word of the day

Decrement – a reduction or diminution; a lower level or amount; an amount by which something is reduced or diminished; a gradual decrease in quality or quantity; the quantity lost by diminution or waste; the amount of decrease; to cause a discrete reduction in a numerical quantity; the ratio of the amplitudes in successive cycles of a damped oscillation.

Not our business

This week’s political news includes that of Prime Minister moving into Premier House. Given that it’s the PM”s official residence and funded from taxes I suppose that is our business.

But reports also tell us that he sold his Wellington apartment and how much he made on the sale.

That isn’t our business and smells distinctly of politics of envy.

Sowell says

Some of the biggest cases of mistaken identity are among intellectuals who have trouble remembering that they are not God.

— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) September 16, 2024

Women of the day

Women of the Day are the three women who were among the first emergency responders to arrive at the World Trade Center OTD in 2001:

Paramedic Yamel Josefina Merino, MetroCare Ambulance, born 21 October 1976 in Queens. She volunteered to approach the Towers while her partner… pic.twitter.com/npudRjmrde

— The Attagirls (@TheAttagirls) September 11, 2024

No grey in October 7th atrocities

Few conflicts are black and white, but no intelligent and well informed person can think there is any grey in the October 7th atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel.

No matter people’s views on Israel’s actions since and whatever sympathy they have for the people of Gaza, they can neither excuse nor justify the rapes, murders and barbarism that took place on that dark day and which triggered Israel’s response.

So what was Labour’s associate Foreign Affairs spokesman Damien O’Connor thinking when he retweeted this?

Is it official @nzlabour party position that the 07 Oct massacre was justified, as your associate foreign affairs spokesperson has just posted?@chrishipkins @CarmelSepuloni @DavidParkerMP@dbseymour @SimonCourtACT @winstonpeters @chrisluxonmp@theplatform_nz @NewstalkZB#nzpol pic.twitter.com/cwLt2Nv2j4

— Israel Institute of NZ (@IsraelInstNZ) September 29, 2024

The post has since been removed, but as I write this, there has been no apology:

“The retweet has been removed,” he said. “It’s intolerable to see civilians continue to suffer disproportionately as innocent victims in this conflict. We call on the National Government to take stronger action on this situation, including recognition of Palestine and by intervening in the ICJ case brought by South Africa against Israel.”

With no apology, we can be excused for thinking that O’Connor really does support that tweet and thinks the barbarism is justified.

Kris Kristofferson – 22.6.36 – 28.9.24

Singer, songwriter – and Rhodes Scholar (who knew that?) – Kris Kristofferson has died:

. . . Born in Texas in 1936, Kristofferson attended high school in California and initially wanted to be a novelist, later studying literature at Pomona college in southern California and at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. Inspired by the nascent rock’n’roll scene, his first foray into music was in the UK as Kris Carson, though the songs he recorded were never released.

He continued performing music during a spell in the US army, where he became a helicopter pilot, a skill he continued (in the oil industry and National Guard) after he left the forces in 1965 – angering his military family. “I took pride in being the best labour or the guy that could dig the ditches the fastest,” he later said. “Something inside me made me want to do the tough stuff … Part of it was that I wanted to be a writer, and I figured that I had to get out and live.”

He relocated to the country music hub of Nashville, where he worked as a bartender and as a janitor for Columbia Recording Studios. In the late 60s he wrote songs for Jerry Lee Lewis and country singers including Ray Stevens, Faron Young and Billy Walker, but his solo career faltered.

A breakthrough came after he landed a National Guard helicopter at Johnny Cash’s home and handed him a tape of his songs, later describing the incident as “kind of an invasion of privacy that I wouldn’t recommend”. Cash admired Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down and his recording of Kristofferson’s song topped the country chart in 1970 and won song of the year at the Country Music Association awards.

That year, Kristofferson recorded the first of 18 studio albums he would release during his career. He briefly dated Janis Joplin, who recorded his song Me and Bobby McGee, and it became a No 1 hit after her death in 1970. Another Kristofferson song from that year, Help Me Make It Through the Night, became a hit single for Sammi Smith and was later covered by Elvis Presley, Gladys Knight, Mariah Carey and others. . . 

The biography on his website concludes with these words:

On the back cover of The Silver Tongued Devil and I, Kristofferson advised that his songs were “Echoes of the going ups and coming downs, walking pneumonia and run-of-the-mill madness, colored with guilt, pride, and a vague sense of despair.”

Sometimes divine communion, then, is holy hell. Kristofferson brought some of that hell on himself, and he lived through times when guilt and despair were anything but vague, and when pride was hard to conjure. Asked about regrets, he said, “Listen, I have those. But my life has turned out so well for me that I would be afraid to change anything.”

Word of the day

Collocutor – one who talks or engages in a conversation with another.

Sowell says

That people on the political left have a certain set of opinions, just as people do in other parts of the ideological spectrum, is not surprising. What is surprising, however, is how often the opinions of those on the left are accompanied by hostility and even hatred.

Particular…

— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) September 15, 2024

Woman of the day

Woman of the Day Hilda Harding born OTD 1915 in Henley-on-Thames, who became Britain’s first woman bank manager when she was appointed to manage Barclay’s Bank’s new Hanover Square branch on 15 May 1958.

Radical. So radical that the bank issued a Head Office Circular justifying… pic.twitter.com/gQzTpYwL1M

— The Attagirls (@TheAttagirls) September 10, 2024

No one’s saving, all paying

Around 35,000 people marched in Dunedin on Saturday to protest the government’s announcement on the new hospital.

I wonder if any of them listened to Nicola Willis explaining the background in the urgent debate on the issue last week:

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Members across this House agree that the people of Dunedin and its surrounding regions deserve and need a modern, fit for purpose set of hospital facilities. Now, that commitment to the people of Dunedin was first made in 2017, and when that commitment was made, the people of Dunedin had a right to expect that by now that hospital would have been delivered. In fact, in 2018—December of 2018—the Government of the time announced that the hospital would be built in two stages, with the outpatient and day surgery building fast tracked and the larger inpatient building due to be finished either five or six years after that.

But as we stand here today, in Dunedin, on the ill-chosen site for the Dunedin Hospital, there is steel in the ground but not enough progress. And we as an incoming Government have been faced with a significant set of challenges. Because the reality of Opposition is that you observe projects from the outside and you remain hopeful that the Government of the day has things under control. But what we found on assuming office was that the Dunedin Hospital project was anything but in control. In fact, one of the first major capital budget decisions we had to make for the health sector was to put aside an additional $300 million for the Dunedin Hospital. So I would ask members opposite to desist from the false claim that we have reduced funding for this project. In fact, one of our most significant decisions was to immediately increase funding for this project in recognition of the fact that the costs have blown out so significantly that it would be impossible to deliver it without that extra funding.

What we found was a project that has in fact been plagued with problems since, I think, the most ill-fated decision, which was made in 2018. And that was in May when the Government of the day announced that the new hospital would be built on the old Cadbury chocolate factory site and parts of the surrounding blocks. Now, I know that that decision at the time seemed magical, because, for the people of Dunedin, the sadness of seeing that site unoccupied would be met with a new hospital. But, actually, not much work was done to assess whether that was a good site for the new hospital, and what was found, and I reference here the advice we have received from experts, was that the extraordinary cost premiums associated with the land purchase, together with the demolition costs, contaminated ground, piling difficulty, flood-level risk, and an extremely constrained construction site flanked on three sides by State highways made it an extremely unattractive project for contractors and suppliers, which further drove up construction costs. And these numbers I find compelling, so I wish to share them with the House. Since the 2017 business case, the cost per square meter to build the hospital has tripled, from $10,000 per square meter to $30,000 per square meter.

So it is not our job in Government or my job today to lament where those poor decisions have led us. It is our job to get on and deliver a hospital for the people of Dunedin. And we have set about doing that in the most responsible manner in which we can. So, today, you have seen the Minister of Health and the Minister for Infrastructure go to Dunedin to be upfront with the people there about the choices that we face. We have released the Rust report, which has objectively analysed whether or not the Dunedin Hospital project can be delivered within budget. What that report makes clear is that even with the additional $300 million that this Government is committed to adding to the existing appropriation for this project, even with that, the project is highly unlikely to be delivered in budget.

So we do have a choice at that juncture. The choice that we have is that we can, on the one hand, carry on lifelessly ignorant to that fact, or we can take steps to get it back on track. We have chosen the latter course, and what we have presented are two options that we are considering in good faith and that we wish to know from the people of Dunedin that they know we are considering these two options. The first option is to revise the project specification in scope and within the existing structural envelope, and the second option is a staged development on the old hospital site, including a new clinical services building and refurbishing the existing ward tower.

Now, I have absolute clarity from members opposite that they think that there is no amount of money that would be too much for Dunedin Hospital. I put to you that that just can’t be the case, because, actually, when we make choices about the way we spend New Zealanders’ money, there are always opportunity costs and trade-offs. And the advice that we have received tells us that this project is on course to blow out millions and millions of dollars more. Now, those are millions of dollars that we wish to invest in health infrastructure. Mark my words, we will be investing more every year in health infrastructure across this country, because despite their rhetoric, the last Government wasn’t very good at getting new hospital buildings built. It wasn’t very good at actually redeveloping facilities or using money for good effect in the health system.

So what we are going to do is have to do work across our hospital system: in Whangārei, in Nelson, in Tauranga, in Invercargill, where there are suboptimal facilities, where upgrades are required. So the choice that we have to confront is whether it is, in that context, appropriate to let this project continue down its sad, sad path of cost blowout after cost blowout after cost blowout. And the choice that we have made is to be pragmatic and upfront with New Zealanders. That it’s time, actually, for us to take some sensible steps to control those costs.

I’m going to be very interested to see whether Ayesha Verrall will stand up and tell us that she is proud of the decision making that occurred over the past six years in relation to this project. Because what we have found is a pattern of actually completely inadequate planning occurring and a reluctance to confront emerging problems. What we have seen is that the last Government knew this project was going wildly off course and chose not to take steps to bring it back on track. It actively chose not to do that and instead, I believe, ultimately was pulling the wool over the eyes of both the people of Dunedin, but actually us as an Opposition, because we were not in a position to know how badly things were actually going in this project until we assumed office and were given the ability to look at all of the information about it.

One of the facts that has surprised me about it, which I can barely believe, is that the actual business case for the project was still being developed while the project was being built—I’d love to hear members opposite explain to me how that is good practice; that despite the years that had been spent on the project, there was still no clear plan for the pathology lab, no plan for the refurbishment of the existing facilities, no plan for the car parking. And all of that was estimated to cost hundreds of millions more but hadn’t been included in the overall plans.

What we see is a haphazardness. And I’ll tell you something that happens when you do that, which is that those who are building the project and are involved in the project, see you coming. They see you coming. They say this is a Government that can’t even put together a business case. It can’t even be clear about the time lines for this project or what its budget parameters are. So it gives them complete ability to continue down a path of excessive costs. It’s time, actually, that we were realistic, that we were clear that every project, no matter how important, still must face some budget constraints.

I want to finish these remarks by saying this: delivering people really good health facilities so that our nurses and doctors and health workers can operate in modern facilities that allow them to effectively and efficiently deliver services is an important challenge for New Zealand. Dunedin deserves good facilities, other parts of the country too. We will invest more money in this, but we’ll also deliver plans and budgets that work.

It would be surprising if many of those marching understand this, even if they do, they probably don’t care. They just want the hospital they were promised.

The promise was based on too little information, and Labour’s bad decisions – which include sacking the people who were already well through the planning process when they gained power in 2017, and choosing an unsuitable site.

It’s a mess of Labour’s making which this government has to deal with and for which we all – the people of the south who need the new hospital, and the rest of the tax paying country – will have to pay.

Saturday’s marchers carried banners and signs saying They Save We Pay but no-one will be saving and we’ll all be paying.

Quotes of the week

Furthermore, arguments made that public job cuts are the sole reason for business downturn in places like Wellington are deliberately obtuse. Between 2017 and 2023, under the last Labour-led governments, the Public Service grew by 18,418 – a 39% increase. Since then, the number has reduced only by about 6,500. The truth is, there aren’t too few bureaucrats – there are just too many working from their couches. – Sam Warren

Thousands of electronic pagers—and later, hand-held radios—exploded simultaneously, killing dozens and injuring vast numbers of jihadists. This attack, the ingenuity of which cannot be denied, has been widely criticized as a dangerous escalation, as a breach of the rules of war, and most ludicrously, as an act of terrorism. – Sam Harris

But if this Trojan Horse operation was as precise as it appears to have been, then it ranks among the most ethical acts of self-defense in memory. There are no “innocent” members of Hezbollah—whose only contributions to human culture have been the ruination of Lebanon and the modern evil of suicide bombing. –

If the Israelis managed to target members of Hezbollah by turning their personal electronic equipment into bombs—without seeding such bombs indiscriminately throughout Lebanon—then they achieved a triple victory. First, they killed or maimed the very people who have been trying to murder them, and who have displaced 70,000 innocent Israeli civilians from their homes. Second, they marked actual jihadists among the survivors, presumably making them easier to capture or kill in the future—and, one can only hope, reducing their status in Lebanese society. And third, they have stripped away some of the glamour of jihad. The promise of Paradise is one thing; the prospect of living without fingers or eyes is another. – Sam Harris

On balance, as hard as a park might be to find or a bus to catch, I think we are better off in general at work than at home pretending it’s normal. – Mike Hosking

If iwi keep inventing new privileges under Article Two of the Treaty, then the Crown should use Article 3 which says that Maori rights and duties are the same as those of everyone else. It makes no sense to use Article 2 to create special privileges for Maori while then promising equal rights in Article 3.  – Michael Bassett

Sex is not assigned at birth. Sex is established at conception, and it’s recognized at birth, if not sooner… To claim that sex is assigned at birth is without any scientific basis whatsoever… [this claim] misleads people, especially children, into thinking that male and female are arbitrary designations and can change. That is simply not true. — Dr Miriam Grossman 

Gangs are largely the consequence of successive government policy failures. Gangs were a minor social problem until the Muldoon government decided to do something about gangs.

Government Public Employment Programme (PEP) schemes provided work for gang members. It created an economic incentive to join a gang. – Richard Prebble

Auckland Central did not have gangs but we did have five league clubs. Any youth who showed any aggression was recruited to play league. The clubs did not allow the wearing of gang patches at the grounds or clubrooms. After practising three times a week and then playing on Saturday no one had any energy to join a gang. – Richard Prebble

When I was Minister of Police I got the Police a helicopter. The first apprehended were notorious bank robbers. It turned out they were all gang members, all on a work scheme. The taxpayer was subsidising crime.

The Ardern government granted a gang a contract to run a drug rehabilitation programme. I admit there is a certain symmetry. The gangs were able to offer a total service. Some gang members supplied drugs for addiction and other gang members supplied the rehabilitation.

Prison is the gangs’ recruitment centre. Governments start the recruitment process by imposing impossible-to-pay automatic traffic fines leading to eventual imprisonment for non-payment, gang membership and a life of crime. – Richard Prebble

In Japan they have a highly-trained national police force recruited from university graduates able to take on organised crime. The Japanese have a separate community police force that is in every neighbourhood and rural village. The community policeman knows everyone including the naughty boys. If you move into the neighbourhood, within a week the community policeman will introduce himself.

Community police could help with organising neighbourhood watch and guide at-risk youth to sports clubs rather than gangs. – Richard Prebble

The 500 new extra police should be a community police force. Middle-aged women will be best. Young men, who do most crime, are psychologically programmed from birth to obey women who look like their mothers. – Richard Prebble

Entering Oxford. Feeling a rush of emotions.

I just left Amsterdam, where my aunt lives. She told me that my education was revenge.

Vengeance against her father, who banned women of our family from school, vengeance against the Taliban, and those who fear an educated woman.

— Sara Wahedi (@SaraWahedi) September 25, 2024

The contrast with his predecessors could not be more extreme. Whereas the previous Government seemed to ignore the benefits of hanging out with the international business and foreign affairs community, this lot is doubling down in that very important space. – Bruce Cotterill

Former Prime Minister and still Opposition leader Chris Hipkins appeared on Q+Aon TVNZ, where he proclaimed future Labour Party policy would seek to “expand the tax base”. In fact, in a flip-flop that would usually have journalists racing for the exclamation point button on their keyboards, he is now advocating for a capital gains tax. He also said our debt-laden economy “needed to borrow more money” to alleviate the pressure we are under to fund infrastructure and services.

And there we have it. In only a couple of paragraphs, the difference between our previous Government and the one now in office.

While the new incumbents are travelling the global investment community, selling our wares to the world with the aim of growing our economy, their predecessors want to borrow more and increase the tax base. – Bruce Cotterill

One of the single biggest issues in our economy right now is that at every level, we are carrying too much debt. Government debt. Business debt. And household debt. Credit cards, mortgages and second-tier finance. And despite the lessons of the past few years, a Labour government would borrow more money.

In case no one has noticed, we have businesses falling over all over the place. At the centre of many of them is a statutory demand from the IRD. Make no mistake, the IRD is the lender of last resort. And let’s not blame it. It is the Government’s much-needed revenue line and all it’s seeking to do is collect its overdue debtors. – Bruce Cotterill

Our economic woes are not limited to business either. A couple of our local councils have just had Moody’s rating agency downgrade their credit ratings. Surprise surprise, one of them is in Wellington. That will make it harder and more expensive for it to borrow more money.

And so we sit with plenty of evidence that the borrow, tax and spend strategy of the previous Government will kill an economy rather than save it. That approach has left us indebted, insular and exposed. – Bruce Cotterill

If you want to save the economy a few things strike me as obvious. It’s not dissimilar to running a business. Look for ways to grow the revenue line. What can we sell to our customers that they don’t buy at present? Where can we find new customers to buy our products? When we see Luxon, Peters, Collins and McClay knocking on the doors of business and governments around the world, that’s what they’re doing. We should be celebrating every success they can generate from such activities.

On the expenditure front, they’ve had some flak for cutting government staffing numbers. But let’s not forget, the number of jobs being cut from the public service is smaller than the number of people who were added to the public payroll in the two years before they took over. – Bruce Cotterill

One of the challenges of leadership is getting people to willingly do the things they would not ordinarily want to do. The Prime Minister and his colleagues are attempting to do that by painting a picture of a future that sounds more promising than the past.

To meet that future, we must recapture our desire to be better. It was once one of our amazing strengths. It’s now a substantial weakness. Part of it is confidence. Part is ambition. – Bruce Cotterill

One of the key enablers of aspiration is education. While their predecessors led an unimaginable decline in the performance of our education system, by almost every measure this Government is unapologetically serious about turning it around. It’s pushing a new curriculum, changing in-school behaviours and driving attendance. It’s early days, but some numbers are already changing for the better. – Bruce Cotterill

Those who feel that they had it better under the previous Government will continue to protest. That’s okay. That’s democracy.

But right now, our troubled little economy has a very simple choice. Do we go back to looking inward, increasing taxes on the people, borrowing more money, and spending ruthlessly to keep the masses happy?

Or do we cut our cloth, sell our produce to the world, educate our people and create a sustainable way of life that puts us back among the best in the world.

It seems like a simple choice really, and from this distance, it appears we’re finally having a decent crack at it. – Bruce Cotterill