All posts in the topic Garry Moore's rant (Short link)

From: Garry Moore Date: Jun 25 21:38 UTC Short link

I sit reading our papers as they pour page after page of vitriol over our
community. There is a daily diet of doom and gloom and violence and mayhem
filling the pages. I was quoted for many years on their pages, and so I know
that a very large discount rate must be applied to a great proportion of
what is fed to us as "facts".



With this introduction I want to comment on three matters which I have found
especially irksome recently in the Press.



One has been that it has been promoted that we arm the Police. I chaired the
Safer Community Council for a number of years, and got to know all of the
senior officers in this town pretty well. I haven't met a top cop I didn't
like. They work hard in our community, most work way beyond the hours they
are paid for. I had an incredible working relationship with Sandi Manderson
who was our brilliant District Commander (the first woman Commander in NZ).
I know how hard she worked for our community.



I never met a senior officer who advocated giving the Police more arms than
they have now. In my opinion it would raise the level of violence even more.
It would attract a different type of person to become cops. The sort of
person who will get their jollies from being able to carry a gun. It would
be a new form of violence on our streets. Look at the cops in USA. Ghastly
swaggering holster driven individuals whose presence is made more
intimidating by their firearms. We don't want that here. Ever.



Our cops have guns when they need them. Leave it at that.



My second point is regards to our young people. If you believed the paper
the middle of our town is awash with drugs and alcohol and everybody falling
all over the place. I must live in a different city. Yes I know lots have
too much to drink. Many of them didn't buy it in the Centre of the City.
They bought it at the Supermarkets and big booze barns around the City. They
come into the Centre, because that's what you do. Young people will always
congregate in groups. That's life. That's normal. The greater proportion of
our young people are fantastic. They look after each other and they don't
cause any problems. Yes they drink. Often to excess. Let he who is without
sin cast the first stone at them. Isn't the job of a decent society to look
after our young people as they learn how to grow a brain? Why do we rubbish
them through the media? I read many of the stories in the Press and look at
who has written it and smile to myself. I've seen many of them drunk, or
intoxicated, on many occasions.



What is it about our media. Don't do what we do. Let us sit at our computers
and destroy our society. That's our role. Well is it?



Alright I know they also do stories about another cancer kid who has
survived against the odds. Every now and then they celebrate some sports
person who has done well. Then they spend the rest of the time trying to
drag them down. But these stories are the exception rather than the rule. I
have spent a lot of time in the company of our young citizens. I am filled
with awe at their ideas and their passion. I actually prefer the company of
my kids and their generation than I do my own, often. Yes I know they get
drunk and smoke things which aren't good for them. So did I. I finally got
fed up with bad heads and not being able to get on with working as a
functioning human being. What happened in the middle was that the community
kept a watchful eye on me, and my mates. That's what a decent society is all
about. That's why I applaud the Christchurch City Council for its decision
yesterday to put more security cameras in Central Christchurch. That's part
of society taking an interest. The cops being seen on the streets is also a
good idea. That's been happening for some time. Sandi Manderson promoted
that.



It takes a whole village to bring up a child and that old line is as true
today as it ever was. The media fixation on how bad our young people are, is
often from people who have forgotten what it was like to be young, sitting
in judgement on the very few who are out of control. Let's celebrate the
bulk of young people. If they are as bad as portrayed then we have failed
them in the way we have brought them up.



The third point is that of how bad our economy is. I find it interesting to
meet lots of people in business who preface comments about their business
with the phrase "I know I'm not supposed to be doing well,
but..............". I know it's hard at the moment. There is no denying it.
However we have had one of the greatest runs of profitability in the
business community for decades. We are being impacted by the poor decisions
made in USA in an amazing show of greed in that country in the housing
market. Banks and lending institutions have made poor decisions. They are
attempting to recoup their stupidity quickly. We have had a history of not
respecting capital and savings in this community. Financial or human.
However, everything is not doom and gloom. Sure it's expensive to buy a
block of cheese in the supermarket. That's because the world price for this
commodity is high. The income from producing this cheese is flowing into our
economy as well. That bits seldom mentioned. Or celebrated. Many businesses
are doing OK. Businesses are keeping an eagle eye on costs. Cash is king.
Savings are being made. But it's not all bad. The banks are being
extraordinarily cautious. The housing sector got out of sync but that will
right itself. Most people get up in the morning and go to work. Sometimes
they have to change jobs because the old boss has closed down. However new
businesses are opening every day. The media focuses on the difficult bits.
Most journalists have no feel for the complexity of business. Those who
write the most realistically are either self employed, or have done some
time as a free lancer. Business is challenging. It is always hard. But our
society needs it and pouring cold water on it and dragging the entrails of
those who are finding it tough gets us nowhere.



Apart from these observations the weather looks cold, but sunny, out of my
window. My name was not in the Death Notices this morning, so life's a
breeze really.
    

Garry

From: Brian Sandle Date: Jun 26 01:46 UTC Short link

Garry Moore wrote:
[...]
> We have had a history of not
> respecting capital and savings in this community. Financial or human.
> However, everything is not doom and gloom. Sure it's expensive to buy a
> block of cheese in the supermarket. That's because the world price for this
> commodity is high. The income from producing this cheese is flowing into our
> economy as well. That bits seldom mentioned. Or celebrated.
From:
http://www.ecan.govt.nz/NR/rdonlyres/2BD3260B-9591-4182-B1C6-2AC79918D8CA/0/HearingEvidenceTimothyHazledine.pdf

(Donnelly is the Central Plains Water  economist, I quote from Hazeldine
commenting on Donnelly's work at the CPW Hearings)

1.13 So, just in the editions of the newspapers I happened to read when
in this region
I found the following:
• "Irrigating the [Central Plains] region will boost NZ’s exports by $2.9
billion each year." (The Press, 20/02/08).
• "Proponents say the scheme would boost the national economy by more
than $2 billion a year." (The Press, 20/02/08).
• "The Waitaki, Waimate, Mackenzie and Timaru districts will be the
biggest beneficiaries [of Waitaki River irrigation schemes], their
economies boosted by up to $800 million a year". (Otago Daily Times,
12/01/08).

1.14 A full search of other newspapers and media would yield dozens of
examples of
stories such as these. It is a worry because it must be very easy for
readers to
equate a “boost” to a benefit, as indeed the ODT report does explicitly.
And The
Press story of 20 February is in fact a not a correct reading of Mr
Donnelly’s
report – he actually predicts a boost to national GDP of $2.9
billion/year, not
exports.

1.15 It seems that numbers like these are so far outside of most peoples
experience
(including journalists’ experience) that they are simply numbed by them into
suspension of disbelief; people lose their everyday scepticism. Suppose, for
example, a reporter had been told by someone advocating putting in a
roundabout at dangerous intersection that the new roundabout would save
twenty traffic fatalities every year. The reporter would probably say,
as most of
us would: “That’s got to be nonsense. There’s no way a single roundabout
could
save twenty lives.” These are numbers we have some empirical sense of;
have a
feel for their realistic values. But the number reported in The Press is
presented
with no such scepticism, though $2.9 billion in additional exports from the
CPW proposal is just as fantastic as the twenty claimed saved road deaths.

1.16 As for getting the numbers wrong: to move the metaphor down the road,
suppose the proposal was for a pedestrian crossing on a wide and busy
street,
and a reporter had written that this would save several drivers’ lives
each year.
No no, we would cry, pedestrian crossings actually increase motor vehicle
accidents (more collisions from sudden stops) – the lives that they save
are of
pedestrians. Yet a report mistakenly switches 2.9 billion dollars of
national
output to 2.9 billion dollars of exports, and nobody even notices apart
from one
Auckland economist who happened to read The Press that day.

1.17 Hopefully, the Commissioners in this Hearing will be more careful
and toughminded
in their assessment of very large numbers presented with very little
evidential support.

5.4 Mr Donnelly’s suggestion that increased exports from the central
plains dairy
farms would be spent on additional imported goods, which would ‘enable’ NZ’s
national output to be increased by a multiple of those imports, is
apparently
based on a model dating back to the 1960s.

5.5 In this model a very poor country needs to export to pay for imports
of capital
goods that are necessary for it to increase its production. So, if only
subsistence
farmers could export more of their output, they could use the foreign
exchange
to purchase an imported tractor, which would then enable them to increase
productivity and output. (Their problem is that, without the tractor
they are too
poor to produce a surplus that can be exported – they need someone to give
them a tractor first.) This model had some relevance to the underdeveloped
societies of Asia and Africa of the 1950s and 1960s. It even had some
relevance
to the NZ of that period in which import controls meant that there was,
in effect,
a premium on foreign exchange earnings. But it has absolutely no
relevance to
the modern developed market economy in which currencies are exchanged
freely on open markets. There is no shortage of foreign exchange in NZ and
therefore no premium value to be attached to selling something overseas
rather
than domestically. Indeed, if a marginal kilogram of milk fat solids is
worth as
much to a NZ consumer as to an overseas customer, then it is more
efficient to
sell it locally, because transaction and transportation costs are less.

5.6 Mr Donnelly and others who talk-up exports from the supply side are
getting
the causation around the wrong way. It is true that there is an empirical
correlation between high performing businesses and success in export
markets,
but the reason for this is that firms export because they are good, they
are not
good because they export. Here we have a scenario of some additional milk
production, which would be passed through the processors and on to Fonterra,
who will eventually find a market for the product, somewhere in the world,
albeit at the cost of having to slightly shade its price for all dairy
products (the
negative terms of trade effect of an increase in export supply). There is no
particular merit in that.

5.7 As for the macroeconomics of Mr Donnelly’s proposal, whereby the
additional
exports would be of value in reducing our large current account deficit:
I do not
want to get into all the theory here, but will just report that the
economists and
policymakers who are expert in these matters believe that the current
account
deficit is really a capital account issue: the necessary consequence of
a capital
account surplus which is caused by the inflow of foreign borrowings
needed to
make up for our low national savings rate. It is not about a shortfall
in exports at
all.



>  Many businesses
> are doing OK.
A caution from Hazeldine:

3.28 Note, however, that the currently very high dairy prices (well
above even $5.50)
are unlikely to be sustained. This is because these high prices are
themselves a
signal and an inducement for actions which will in the medium term result in
supply increasing and demand falling, as both farmers and consumers respond
to higher returns and costs. In particular, there is a huge amount of
inefficiency
built-in to world dairying industries, including those of Europe and North
America, because of the restrictive regulations dairy farmers have
secured for
themselves in almost every country apart from NZ. At the higher prices,
pressures from the more efficient farmers to break through those regulations
will eventually become irresistible, and the NZ dairy industry can
expect to be
competing with suppliers more productive than they have to deal with at
present.


>  Businesses are keeping an eagle eye on costs. Cash is king.
> Savings are being made. But it's not all bad. The banks are being
> extraordinarily cautious. The housing sector got out of sync but that will
> right itself. Most people get up in the morning and go to work. Sometimes
> they have to change jobs because the old boss has closed down. However new
> businesses are opening every day. The media focuses on the difficult bits.
>
I hope my above quotes have been self-explanatory for this thread and
show that the media is not only wrong for focussing on difficult bits.

I had posted the Hazeldine link on the Resource Consent questions
thread. Just replying to Ron Hooker, there, 1 cumec is 1 cubic metre per
second.

Brian Sandle
    

> Most journalists have no feel for the complexity of business. Those who
> write the most realistically are either self employed, or have done some
> time as a free lancer. Business is challenging. It is always hard. But our
> society needs it and pouring cold water on it and dragging the entrails of
> those who are finding it tough gets us nowhere.
>
>
>
> Apart from these observations the weather looks cold, but sunny, out of my
> window. My name was not in the Death Notices this morning, so life's a
> breeze really.
>
>
>
> Garry
>
>
> Garry Moore
>
>