ACC Motor Vehicle Levy Up

Yep it’s going to cost us an extra $32 per vehicle per year in ACC costs plus an increase in the levy on fuel. This is what it takes to try and fix the bloody mess that Labour left ACC in. ACC should not be a free for all at the physio. Currently all you have to do is say “I Tripped” and you are covered!!! I personally don’t go to physios but have a very good (though slightly odd) osteopath AND I willingly pay the $35 it costs me to go and see him.
Having said that I did go to a physio recently (desparate and the Osteopath was very busy) and she (the physio) had 6 people all lined up in beds at various stages through their treatment. My knee injury was given half an hour of electric shocks and a long rest before the final cursory massage…then sent on my way. I hate to think how much she racked up in an hour for these so called treatments. My osteopath only ever has one patient at a time and you are being treated for the full hour. I only ever need to see him three times at the most for an injury.
Rant over.

Global Financial Crisis Explained

The financial crisis explained in simple terms:*

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Berlin. In order to increase sales,
she decides to allow her loyal customers – most of whom are unemployed
alcoholics – to drink now but pay later. She keeps track of the drinks
consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).

Word gets around and as a result increasing numbers of customers flood
into Heidi’s bar.

Taking advantage of her customers’ freedom from immediate payment
constraints, Heidi increases her prices for wine and beer, the
most-consumed beverages. Her sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic customer service consultant at the local bank
recognizes these customer debts as valuable future assets and increases
Heidi’s borrowing limit.

He sees no reason for undue concern since he has the debts of the
alcoholics as collateral.

At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert bankers transform these
customer assets into DRINKBONDS, ALKBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These
securities are then traded on markets worldwide. No one really
understands what these abbreviations mean and how the securities are
guaranteed. Nevertheless, as their prices continuously climb, the
securities become top-selling items.

One day, although the prices are still climbing, a risk manager
(subsequently of course fired due his negativity) of the bank decides
that slowly the time has come to demand payment of the debts incurred by
the drinkers at Heidi’s bar.

However they cannot pay back the debts.

Heidi cannot fulfil her loan obligations and claims bankruptcy.

DRINKBOND and ALKBOND drop in price by 95 %. PUKEBOND performs
better,stabilizing in price after dropping by 80 %.

The suppliers of Heidi’s bar, having granted her generous payment due
dates and having invested in the securities are faced with a new
situation. Her wine supplier claims bankruptcy, her beer supplier is
taken over by a competitor.

The bank is saved by the Government following dramatic round-the-clock
consultations by leaders from the governing political parties.

The funds required for this purpose are obtained by a tax levied on the
non-drinkers.

The D Word

Someone has finally used the D word,Depression, and I’m not talking about the sort that can be fixed with pink and purple pills. No this Depression was used to express Japan’s economy.
This article states that Japan’s economy shrunk by an annualised 12.7% over the December quarter (interestingly they didn’t use the work annualised on BBC, CNN or TV1 news yesterday which gave me cause for greater concern :-0) AND they don’t state that Japan is actually in a Depression but what they do say is that the economy fits the description

The collapse in growth fits the profile of a depression — a deep recession in which annual GDP falls by 10 per cent or more.

This definition just leaves us to define ‘deep recession’

However another definition doesn’t leave that much wriggle room

A good rule of thumb for determining the difference between a recession and a depression is to look at the changes in GNP. A depression is any economic downturn where real GDP declines by more than 10 percent.

We are just left defining the word ‘real’ in ‘real GDP’.

Truth is there is no formal definition of Depression, the word recession was employed after the 1930’s Depression as previously every downturn was termed a Depression but obviously a small downturn did not fit as a Depression in the minds of those who had lived through a real one. The panic that the use of the D word would have conjured up would have been unsettling too.

Throughout this current economic cycle commentators have been loathed to use the word Depression; I guess it still conjures up images of soup lines and those doen’t fit well with the luxurious positions we have found ourselves in, in recent years. I am also NOT saying that New Zealand is heading for a Depression, nor am I saying that the world is plunging into a Depression, what I am simply  saying is that someone has finally used the D word, correctly or not; and I find that interesting

The NCEA Blues

Child number two has recently received her NCEA level 2 results and while she passed everything it took us a long time to figure out the actual outcome of the results.
English was the bugbear. She ended up with 12 credits and out of a possible 24; so she passed 50 percent of the unit standards (NZQA speak for subjects within subjects e.g. Level two English contains 8 units standards). So I thought she passed however to get UE you need 8 credits in English but 4 have to be from writing unit standards and 4 have to be from reading. Nowhere on the examine results does it tell you which unit standard is reading and which is writing; daughter number one had to find it on the NZQA website!
Solution: please put (W) or (R) next to the result.

I am also a believer in needing to learn from your failures. As a student, when scaling was still around, I got 47% from 7th form calculus. I was stunned as I had only completed 17% worth of questions; yes the exam was that hard they scaled it that much. I learnt lots from that we experience (don’t give up). While I can tolerate the A,M,E marking system it would be much much more beneficial if there were percentages next to the grade. As I have mentioned previously there can be a 10% range in your mark, say 50% to 60%, and you still get a A for achieved.

Another thing I found out is that the exam questions are broken into sections of Achievement, Merit and Excellence questions. The scurrilous thing is that if you get all the Excellence questions right but muck up on the Achievement questions (as can happen) you can only get Achieved.
Daughter number two was particularly unimpressed with her economics results, she passed everything but not to her standard. She just doesn’t know where she went wrong and is querying whether it is the ‘even if you get the excellence questions right you have to pass the achievement questions first’ rule; if it is she is going to be ticked off and I wouldn’t want to stand in her way; feisty.

So please let the child (and parent) know where they sit in their range of grades. They have worked hard, they deserve to have all the information.

Humour in HB

Heh

Apparently some consultant from MWH doesn’t find it amusing…..http://www.stuff.co.nz/4818532a4560.html

Yeah watch out if this keeps happening a wave of smiles may spread across New Zealand.

I’m afraid I have to put this in the Very Well Done basket.

NCEA encouraging minimum targets?

Stuff has just reported that “thousands of students will pass without… entering the exam room”
This sounds fine on the face of it but in actual fact there is a growing trend for the students to do just enough to pass because that is all you need; that’s what NCEA encourages.

These quotes from the Chairman of the Canterbury-Westland Secondary Principals’ Accocaiton Denis Pyatt…

“it was “churlish” to criticise students who “take responsibility for their learning and say, `I don’t actually need to do that (exam)”‘.

Kids just have to pass and that’s all. There is no longer pride in getting 61% instead of 50% as it is not rewarded. All you get is A M or E and the upper and lower ends of those grades are wide indeed. A 10% increase in your performance is not often expressed in your final grade.

and

‘What has changed is that students are far more strategic in their thinking,’

Strategic thinking? Yeah if you count ‘what is the minimum that I need to do to pass’ as strategic thinking.

and

The ones who don’t turn up for exams at the end of the year may well be kids who have set themselves a target for the year of getting NCEA Level One or Two, and by the time it comes around to do the exam, they don’t need any more credits they’ve got there,That happens to a lot of kids, and that’s fine. We mightn’t like it but who are we to grumble? Those kids have met their goals for the year.”

No sorry it’s not fine. It’s fostering mediocrity. Mr Pyatt needs to identify exactly who he is so he can grumble. It’s his job to grumble. The schooling system should be set up so that we empower students to achieve their potential, not just empowering them to pass. I get the impression that Mr Pyatt has passed the power of his position to the students. If he doesn’t like it he can lobby to get it changed. For godsake man GRUMBLE LOUDLY.

I guess this entry can be summed up by a quote from NZQA deputy chief executive Bali Haque

“huge number of students” who had met their minimum targets in terms of credits and did not have to turn up to exams, but did so anyway.”

Yeah sure kids did turn up to exams but please, please do NOT talk about minimum targets. Minimum targets are the problem in a nutshell. It may just a simple matter of giving the students their actual grades, expressed as percentages, and their competitive spirit may resurface.

Summer’s/Life’s Quirks

We have just spent another fabulous week at the Blue Lakes in Rotorua. It has been a short family tradition that for the past 4 years hubby’s family has descended on the Top 10 Holiday park, all 26 of us, and played on the lake. Every year it has rained and has been cold but the reason for the holidays was primarily to teach the next generation to waterski/wakeboard.
You see all of HO’s (him outdoors) family were taught to be towed behind a boat and there is a world famous photo (famous in our family anyway) of the three brothers skiing all at once behind their father’s boat.
This holiday culminated in the students surpassing the teachers. Four cousins wakeboarding behind the boat. There were numerous high fives at the end of that one

There were many other hilarous incidents too.
When you are surrounded by strangers you can hear some funny stuff.

Overheard early one morning in the women’s toilets (to be said with an Irish lilt)

“You know I just want to see the whites of me eyes again. I tell you what we’re gonna do Nora, we’re going to drink two bottles of water tomorrow morning before we start drinking again, dat’ll see us right”

And from a 16 year old member of the family who was playing Risk and had just won overthrown Alaska (to be said in a broad American accent)

“And I can see Russia from my house”

However all the fun and frivolity can change in a split second and after what HO has since described as a ‘technical difficulty’ when coming in to the beach after a splendid slalom ski, (Read Technical Difficulty as being a smidgen too close to shore, ski catching and launching HO head first into the beach at 20-30kms/hr) he now has two slightly fractured vertebrate in his neck and is a very lucky man still to be walking, talking and indeed breathing on his own. After only one night in hospital he is now firmly ensconced on the couch watching any cricket available, sporting a large neck brace and a sheepish grin.

As soon as it’s safe to do so, I am going to kick him firmly up the *&^% for the stress he caused.

So that’s the holidays over and done with. We were supposed to go the Matapouri for a week but oddly enough HO ain’t up to travelling,  so I am just going to enjoy my own slice of paradise. I may also indulge in yet another bottle of Mount Difficulty ‘Roaring Meg’ Pinot Noir. Yummm Yummm, oh and shine the pointy toe of a stiletto shoe….

Note: Very special thanks to the ambulance crew (sorry for getting your brand new ambulance wet and dirty); to the ED staff who took extra special care of HO(poor HO had four women undressing him and he couldn’t do anything about it ) and thanks for the hot, thick sweet tea; to the lovely couple at the lake who offered their blankets, thanks;  to the people who took off over the hill to get cellphone coverage, cheers; thanks to the staff and owners of the Top 10 holiday park who ferried messages back and forth and love to my wonderful family who made packing up in the rain a light hearted and stress free experience; to the nieces and nephews who made hot drinks for the rescuers – you rock;  Uncle Faceplant will be back in action next year. This time however we will be descending on the unsuspecting Ohope Beach….

Agriculture, Biosecurity and Forestry

Well the last government (that feels good to write) gave us Anderton and they gave him all the associated portfolios …”Ag, Bio & Forestry” 

After a fair amount of persuasion along the lines of

and

he did finally take some action on the ‘Apples to Oz’ issue i.e. took australia to the WTO (outcome released Juneish next year)

But what have Labour done now? Well they have split the three portfolios and to the best of my knowledge as their website does not give you ANY information 

Kelvin Davis? has Biosecurity and by all accounts he is not an MP and hence can’t be found on the Labour party website.

Anderton keeps Agriculture

Mita Ririnui has Forestry.  

Two of these people are completely unknown to me and it is difficult to get any info on them.  

You may ask why I would want info on them; well I was just curious as to who was going to be in opposition on these issues and, well, I think I have discovered exactly how much importance labour puts on these portfolios…none.

Explains the hard work we had to go through to get any sort of action….

Finito…

Well Barker’s big red bus has finally been busted.  That mobile billboard which should have been tagged by the EFA.

It’s annoyed the living daylights out of many Tukituki electorate residents (that’s a 7288 majority to Foss )and it appears he has finally got the message.

 

I have to now check and see if this heinous thing has suffered the same fate…

Then Hawke’s Bay can finally be free of these two numpties.

Telecom AGAIN and Farmside’s extortion.

All we want is a telephone line to the house, one that doesn’t crackle, spit and fart incessantly, one that doesn’t ring on it’s own accord, and one that we can rely on to get a fax through unimpeded.  

As I have mentioned and mentioned we have two lines into the house.  One for the home and one is supposed to be for my business, but that second line has been relegated to the fax line as it is so unreliable. Telecom have now given it ‘priority two status because of our problems over the past few months’ MONTHS…more like bloody years. And don’t get me started on broadband…on second thoughts, lets get started.

As a desparate business owner needing broadband we took up the expensive and only option of Farmside.  1GB a month for just over $100. It’s very average but does allow me to download large files as i need.

After a couple of months of going over on our usage we were offered a ‘fantastic deal’ of 1 more GB for the same money the only catch being that we had to sign up for another 3 years (i hate that)

We didn’t

So we were offered the same deal but we only had to sign up for 2 years. (still hate that)

We didn’t.  

Now it appears that because we didn’t take them up on their generous offers they are now going to charge us 15c per MB that we go over; this has gone up from 5c/MB, a 200% increase.

I personally call this extortion.  We signed up for one deal and now they are changing the rules.  

We need cable and we need it now…