Its always food to see new blogs. However if you are going to launch a new blog, like aotearoarenamemovement and newmasses did this week, then please make it easy to read. I don’t mean the content, but the design. White words on black background simply isn’t that easy to read. And for the Aotearoa Movement people, if …
Author Archives: Lance Wiggs
Deliver newspapers only on Thu, Fri & Sun?
Gannett’s Detroit Free Press and Detroit News are apparently thinking of home delivering only on Thursday, Friday and Sundays – the three most lucrative days. On other days readers will be able to buy abbreviated single issues at news-stands, and will be directed to the online offerings. The idea is to get say 70% of …
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TVNZ’s New site – December 08 version
TVNZ launched their new site yesterday. It’s a refreshing change, and a good one. It’s pretty similar to one I look at to get West Australian News Both of those screenshots are the entire height of my little mac portable. You really see very little content, with the focus directed to the main stories of …
Fine the kids not the parents
Fining parents of truants $3000 is only going to cause parents to lie and support their children. Moreover I imagine that the incidence of truancy rises as income falls, so this is a tax on those that can least afford it. How about fining the kids instead? and then giving them the opportunity to work …
Let’s stop MPs drinking and lawmaking
At BHP Billiton sites you have to be able to blow 0.00 on an alcohol breathalyzer before walking into any facility. This is not only to prevent operators of machinery from causing harm, but also to prevent poor decisions being made by anybody that could also cause harm. It’s a very real rule, and jobs …
Rio Tinto: Tiwai Point will be fine, but Kiwis will be affected
With 14,000 workers going from Rio Tinto, the folk at Tiwwai Point’s aluminium refinery are apparently nervous. They have “787 full time staff and 133 contractors” down there in the deep South, a bit under 1% of Rio’s total of 110,000 staff and contractors. So Rio is getting rid of 12.7% of it’s workers, which …
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Trade Me has added at least $3 billion to the NZ economy
A persistent, err, troll over at Bernard Hickey’s blog post on Trade Me and Australia asks an interesting question: “How is Trade Me a productive NZ asset? The answer requires just a little bit of economics, and it is really quite amazing. First – Trade Me sold for $750m, and the money was paid to …
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Never try to lose a French motorcycle Gendarme
Here’s what the French Gendarmerie go through to become proficient on the motorcycle. I wish that this was available to everyone. It makes you want to join up..
Extreme sport and adventure motorcycling
Marathons, Iron Mans, and now Extreme-Adventure travel. It’s all getting just a little ridiculous. I’ve found myself in more than one conversation this week with people that, having completed in these sorts of things (e.g. Coast to Coast, half Iron Man) have now decided to move on. They are still challenging themselves, but will ride …
David Kirk leaves Fairfax
Really sad news. David did a great job running Fairfax Media. The purchase of Trade Me was the highlight for NZ. The Rural Press purchase was at a great price, but probably a bite too far.
A foreshadow of the World’s geopolitical risk?
Take a look at the car (below) in this article. “You are looking at a nano-cosm of a foreshadow of the future of the world’s geopolitical risk. That’s how a friend of mine characterizes the global situation right now. And I though I was bearish. Oh – he works for the World Bank. (His opinions …
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Citibank and the $20 billion bailout
If you are going to spend $20 billion on bailing out a bank that has a market capitalization of about $20 billion, then surely you should end up owning the bank? Not so with Citibank. Indeed, if you owned equity in a company that had debts far great than assets, then wouldn’t you expect to …
Are we in a deep hole that the entire world could fall into?
Jeff Garten, the Dean of Yale School of Management when I was there, and now a Professor of International Finance there, was quoted via a recent NYTimes Thomas Friedman oped: “A great judgment has to be made now as to just how big and bad the situation is.. This is a crucial judgment. Do we …
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Trade Me trounces eBay, and eBay is in real trouble
The evidence mounts against eBay, as they continue to cast away their franchise. It’s really sad to see this happen as they naturally own their space and should be unassailable if they were playing it right. They are not. Over the years the site has increased in complexity and decreased in humanity, until the community …
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Buffet’s biography Snowball
Warren Buffet’s recently released authorised biography Snowball is excellent. It is a larger book, but is extremely well written, and easy to read and a great book for these troubling economic times. You just know he is out in the market right now looking for bargains, which is why my latest strategy with my US …
Lance Wiggs 