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anonymous

77 comments · +780 / −513 · rank #3731 of 40,276

Dear StuffCould your headlines about the phoenix be less negative? Phoenix ride their luck. Really? Did they ride their luck or did they play well and beat last years runner ups. Do us a service and be little more positive with your spin, you make it sound as if we barely scraped through the game yet the reality was a solid opening performance with promising signs for the season.

+56−3

Top of the list should be stop the operation of what is starting to look like the intentional creation of a black market economy for criminal organisations to profit from. Who really benefits from the prohibition of drugs? Follow the money.

+39−6

Whats more, theres so much methamphetamine around these days that youd almost consider buying it just to convert it back into cold medicine that actually works. So banning pseudoephedrine medicines has done nothing to the meth trade, and has made millions of peoples lives worse when they get sick.

+26−2

The government is prepared to spend on recruiting teachers from overseas but what about recruiting new teachers here at home?Im studying physics and mathematics right now, I would quite like to be teacher. Give me one good reason to go through with it instead of earning more money with my degree in the private sector. Give my fellow students a reason to consider the profession instead of anything else they could do.There are shortages in STEM teachers all over the world, we need to raise new ones at home and right no there is no incentive for someone with a degree with that much demand to move into the classroom.

+28−4

The $100,000 donation is mentioned in the tape recording, Bridges acknowledges its existence and that he spoke the business men about it.And it appears such a donation did not take place but rather several smaller donations took place instead. That might be legal? But seems shady as all heck and not in the spirit of law at all, effectively concealing donors and it points to culture of such shady dealings being normal within the national party.

+21−7

But I could just not study for another year, not add to my student loan and get paid better in the private sector is my point. Is it a good or objectively appealing decision to move into teaching? No.Also we face a shortage of STEM teachers and as far as I know Im the only one in my year thinking about the profession, in physics anyway.Besides that Im interested in the profession I have every reason not to move into it, and my fellow students who arent naturally interested in the profession and less than no reason to be so.

+17−4

Its pretty likely that well stop driving our own cars for daily transport, but petrol engine human piloted cars will be around for a very long time. There are millions of them, and they have made such an impact on society that they will be collected, restored and raced probably for as long as mankind lasts. And the manual ones will always be better. :)

+8−1

I turned 18 in 2000 and every single one of my peers then knew that leaving the recreational drug industry to the criminals was a ridiculous thing to do. Will all the old people please hurry up and die so we can fix your mess.

+8−2

nexttime - this might be tough to swallow but we allow gangs to exist because for some reason recreational drugs are illegal. Its a hang up from the past that is really getting old for a lot of us and we just want the gangs to go away but people are still too brainwashed by the prohibition propaganda.

+7−1

So just dont use Quinovic? Other property managers might not choose to charge these fees. Or manage your property yourself.At the end of the day this makes sense, the property managers are selling their services to the landlords not the tenants so the landlords should be paying them not the tenants.Seems obvious.

+9−4

We used to... Thats how we got every perk, privilege and right employees have today. From the 5 day work week, to 9-5, to holidays. Every decent condition in the work place today was won by unions years ago. Maybe wages in this county wouldnt be so stagnant if people were still involved in a union advocating on their behalf.

+8−4

I am actually insane, but thats not the point here. The point is that illegal meth is already very easy to get and making it legal will allow us to deal with it in a much healthier way. Drugs are not going to go away but legalising them will allow us to mitigate the harm done to the people around addicts, and allow us to treat addicts far more effectively.

+5−1

There definitely needs to be some kind of incentive for people with STEM degrees to move into teaching. Even if you want to be a teacher the conditions and pay make it less appealing than any other option.I advocate raises by stealth, student loan forgiveness based on time spend teaching for in demand subject areas.That way after a few years those teachers will have no student loan debt and wont have to make to make repayments which reduced their effective tax burden by 12% which is something to consider when thinking about how much better off youd be in the private sector.

+3−0

They might still charge you GST anyway because of NZ credit cards/IP address. But that said you could get around both of those anyway with temporary credit card services and VPNs so kind of a moot point.

+5−2

SteveJenkins - Prostitution, gambling, violence for hire, stolen goods, protection money, goods and services in prison - gangs do all this now, so they wont be replacing drug revenue with any of those. Any increase in these crimes will expose them to law enforcement and these crimes are all much more visible in that regard than drug dealing. The social cost of gangs is MUCH greater than the social cost of a people getting high. Honestly think about what you are saying.

+2−0

Well yeah and thats fine. That is only assuming that you do increase the landlords cost and property managers bill the landlord the same amount instead of competing to provide a lower cost service.The landlord will pass the costs on and thats fine but it should be included in the rent, the letting fees, viewing fees were ridiculous. Now the property managers have an incentive to lower to letting fees because landlords can shop around for a better deal, when tenants were paying it they didnt have that option and landlords had no reason to care.Over all this might lower the costs to tenants, letting fees might go down even if that cost gets spread out over the rental agreement tenants will pay less than if they paid upfront.It might even incentivize landlords to run longer tenancies instead of short terms ones to avoid paying the fees again.

+0−0

Colin - thats correct. The drugs arent killing people, the consequences of prohibition are killing people. If your knowledge of drugs comes from a DARE program and some stuff articles, and you arent familiar with the concept of prohibition, then I dont think I can explain myself to you.

+0−0

I should elaborate for the down voters to my earlier comment - control of black market drug supply is a very easy method to control the behaviour of people for prostitution. If methamphetamine was legal it would not be such an effective leash for prostitution. The cost of drug prohibition is the destruction of the lives of the people touched by the effects of prohibition.

+1−1

Seriously everybody is it really worth all the petty crime, murders, sexual assaults, suicides and car accidents that circle around the enormously profitable black market for recreational drugs? I dont think it is. Prohibition is killing us and destroying our lives...

+17−25

The correct analysis here would be that medicines are not affordable for a section of the population, creating a grey market for the goods. Unfortunately the blame lies at the foot of pharmaceutical companies outside of New Zealand who have a fiduciary responsibility to maximise profits for their shareholders.The problem is economic and will not go away without significant change to the way we organise ourselves.

+6−15

No this is not a new tax. This is just GST actually being applied to goods (the G in GST stands for goods).It removes an exemption to a currently existing tax that everyone in parliament agrees should not exist.You wont see National opposing this, in fact they will vote for it, because they would have implemented the same thing anyway. Theyve been talking about it for years.To call this a new tax is completely disingenuous. It is the same tax being equally applied to imported purchases and local purchases.

+4−18