What a difference benevolent government policies can make to a society.
Venezuela’s low-cost housing programme is building new homes at a breakneck pace of over 200 a day, according to the government.
Here, Statistics New Zealand figures show more than 21,000 new dwellings were approved last year, 26 percent more than in the previous year.
Went shopping for a hat-rack the other day. No big deal, this was a need rather than a want – my hats had multiplied in direct proportion to my vanishing hair.
I rang a store which stocks everything from rope to paints and plants, and asked for a hat-rack.
“No we don’t sell any” said a South African accent a little too emphatically, the way some people do when they want you off the line.
“Really?”
“I’ll put you through to hardware” she said, and was gone, though Hardware was displeased.
Baby-boomers might just identify with the description of this country:
…’it maintains a welfare state — a set of government programs designed to provide economic security — that is beyond the wildest dreams of American liberals. It provides universal health care; college education is free, and students receive a stipend; day care is heavily subsidized’.
The country is Denmark. The writer is American Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winner for Economic Sciences. And many of those state-funded programmes paid for by taxpayers were once also ours before the 1984 election.
The ends (oops… no pun intended!) that marketers will go to promote that wonder drug, Viagra.
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Just when we had got used to calling the landmark One Tree Hill, None Tree Hill, we hear that nine trees, not just one, will finally be planted on the volcanic cone.
My father in law passed away a couple of months ago. Well, it was his time and at 102, he knew it. Always more a good friend than a relative, he was a bundle of bones in his bed in his last weeks but to his delight, was surrounded by the women he loved (the old flirt!).
Laurie had lived at his little Northland beach resort for nearly 50 years and from his deck had watched the rhythms of tides and currents, much as his loved ones watched life finally ebb from him.
Data is being created all the time without us even noticing it.
Much of what we do every day now happens in the digital realm, leaving an ever-increasing digital trail that can be measured and analysed.
Just how much data do our tweets, likes and photo-uploads really generate?
Bet you didn’t know it but the World – yes the World – is turning Black. Must be true ‘cos the NZ Herald says.
From Hansard, September 21 this year and in no particular order – questions, serious issues, flippant put-downs – and not much else….
What is it about Jeremy Corbyn that sends shivers up the collective spine of his fellow MPs? An alternative to Maggie Thatcher’s, Tina (There is No Alternative) embrace of the Market, that’s what.