Comments for BigCake

Comment on Business Roundtable bosses NZ Initiative think tank kiss by admin

admin — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 02:30:04 +0000

Not sure whether you’d be happy for your point about debate (or lack of) extended this far, but my overriding concern about establishment of the NZ Initiative is that it’ll narrow the economic/wealth creation debate – the contest of ideas will be weaker.

Comment on Business Roundtable bosses NZ Initiative think tank kiss by Jens Meder

Jens Meder — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 08:41:49 +0000

Dr. David Skilling’s vision and initial paper when founding the NZ Institute was “The Ownership Society”, which could be defined through at least a minimally meaningful level of personal (retirement) wealth ownership by all citizens eventuallty, to be achieved through a personal retiremnt capital savings component built into the taxation sytem, or in practical terms (not exactly what he proposed) through the uncomplicated policy of amending the NZ Super Fund into a permanent institution of Personal Accounts PAs – with contributions to them built into the taxation system .
Currently, this should be politically acceptable under the conditiion of the new savings invested immediately in needed NZ infrastructure etc as a priority at least until excessive unemployment has been overcome.
When our NZSF is allocated to PAs, amnd the latter start financing their owners’ NZ Super, they will relase that amionut of taxation revenue for spending in other areas, thus helping to reduce budget deficits from their first year of introduction.

The simplicity of that would be a true NZ Initiative, as it does not exist anywhere in this transparent simplicity. Or the impracticability of this should be exposed and debated – but not ignored.

Comment on How “school local” can bridge our real divide – the social one by admin

admin — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 08:05:25 +0000

Yes, looking to do a follow up post on this. The Sallies appear to say our divided society is down to “a narrow, economic rationalism” that has held sway for 20-30 years. Not sure about this, at least as a sole explanation.

Comment on How “school local” can bridge our real divide – the social one by julie

julie — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 22:24:13 +0000

And add to that the report that came out this morning from the Salvation Army estimating that more than 40,000 teenagers aged between 15 – 19 have disappeared from the labour market. Good interview on Kathryn Ryan’s show this morning talking about how NZ is squandering this opportunity to train all these young people

Comment on How the give and take of migration waters down wealth creation by admin

admin — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 02:38:14 +0000

The skills of social marketing need to be applied here. NZ Trade and Enterprise has dabbled in this area of “business culture”. The negative aspects of the business culture can’t be isolated from the foreground noise of the Kiwi culture overall. So ummm big job. But to keep it in perspective, there are heaps of Kiwi business people unencumbered by our negative traits – we just need to make sure we are not putting unnecessary barriers in front of them.

Comment on What are the creativity lessons for organisations from the rugby sevens? by admin

admin — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 02:25:56 +0000

Not going to argue about the Kiwi alcohol/fun connection, but I’d pick all but a tiny percentage of the costume creativity was done while sober.

Comment on What are the creativity lessons for organisations from the rugby sevens? by mike smith

mike smith — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 22:22:45 +0000

and powered by alcohol. You can’t ignore that fact. NZers are hugely inhibited and are social inadequates without drinking.
Run an alcohol FREE ‘sevens’ and then compare the event with the usual alcohol fuelled ‘fun’. Conclusions would be very different.

Comment on How the give and take of migration waters down wealth creation by Debs

Debs — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:47:43 +0000

Ah these are such fundamental problems for NZ, we have got to get it sorted out! On yet another project in yet another area and I’m finding these very same deficiencies are at the root of this new set of issues I am looking at. We obviously cannot change all aspects of our national character. Is there no way to retain some of these and reverse or lose others the get a better national personality?

I’d keep self-reliance, turn lack of specialisation into generalism (which has benefits in operating in a complex environment and getting out of silos), make need for control a concern about completing the job and paying attention to details, and keep the lifestyle balance. But we have go to lose the short-termism, she’ll be right, and undervaluing relationships. Can we turn she’ll be right into give it a go, get started and then improve it?

Look, what we have is clearly not working as well as we’d like it to, but this is where we have to start from. So what do we keep, what do we change, and what do we have to stamp out?

Comment on How the give and take of migration waters down wealth creation by admin

admin — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:45:08 +0000

Yeah, I think the tall poppy thing is dying out. You don’t see it in the public arena much anymore. The last I can recall was Terry Serepisos who thought he was a victim of it around the time his debt mountain collapsed on him. Not really Terry, you were just a great media story.

Comment on How the give and take of migration waters down wealth creation by Greg

Greg — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 06:52:25 +0000

A further thought, on the tall poppy syndrome: it’s time to stop bullshitting ourselves on that.

NZers are smarter than that, more able to make distinctions. No one begrudges Sam Morgan his money, because he gave everyone something of value. Likewise the Scottish guy in Christchurch who created PDL Industries – Stewart? – and Tait, and Paykel and Hubbard and Tindall. They created value for the rest of us, win-win.

Merchant bankers who suddenly get rich after ‘facilitating’ the sale of public assets? Currency traders? They got rich in a zero-sum game. Finance company executives and directors were likewise enriching themselves at our expense. Property developers … well, we won’t go there.

Tall poppies, value creators, we’re fine with. Tall ragweed or thistles or mountain tutu? Not so much.