Hedging Your Bets

When Hamish parted the curtains in his front room, he could see the Jackson’s place on the other side of the street. Every night their house was a blaze of light and it appeared to him that they switched on every light bulb as a rude gesture of defiance against energy conservation. They were noisy too with their large teenage family coming and going at all hours of the night.

If Hamish was to get any sleep at all he had to use ear plugs to defend himself against the deep booming music resonating out of the Jackson’s old cars and stereos. To his ears it was jungle music. Primitive stuff that provoked undesirable impulses and headaches.

“Not surprising really,” he mumbled to himself, as he washed the dishes after getting hot water from a pot whistling on the wood stove. “Just look at the way they have the telly on most of the time. The poor kids are saturated with the propaganda produced by the false gods of mindless consumerism.”

“When the crash comes, I’ll take them out into the bush and re-educate them in the ways of our ancestors. They can then plug into something that is really good for them. A huge cosmic jigsaw puzzle is coming together as I predicted years ago. All the signs are there. A Holy War in the Middle East, terrorists attacking every Western country and AIDS spreading everywhere like the plague.”

Hamish was well prepared. His veggie garden would help him survive ok. It was so productive that he was able to fill his freezer and pack his garage with preserved fruit and pickles. He took pride in being self-sufficient and spent as little as possible on things he could not make or grow himself. He had such a low power bill that the power company even sent an electrician out to see if his meter was being bypassed.

One day, the power meter reader came unexpectedly to Hamish’s front door. He gave Hamish a new hand held device that the power company was trialing - called the ‘Brownlee Bingo’. He explained to Hamish that it could calculate power consumption and pay household accounts. “And what, might I ask, are those coloured buttons for?” inquired Hamish.

“Oh those ones take you onto the Energy Hedge Market. You can take a punt on the Australian Stock Exchange and invest your savings to offset increased power prices.” Hamish thanked the man and took this new technological marvel into his garden. His face was beaming like a miner who had struck gold.

“All my work will not be in vain!” he shouted. “I once thought that The System would collapse from outside forces, but now I see we are going to do it ourselves by ruinous gambling!”

Across the road, Moana Jackson called out to one of her sons, who was busy fixing his car on the driveway, “Hey Sam turn down your stereo will you. Poor old Hamish is having one of his fits again.”

Don't Bank On It Bill

I was expecting to tackle Bill English’s mid term budget in this article and tell you how surprised I was to see low income earners get a tax cut along with the rich (I suspect a John Key influence in that PR masterstroke). No such luck, the furore over comments made by Bill English on the future of Kiwibank swamped my enthusiasm like a tidal wave.

There always seems to be a group of politicians around Parliament who despise community owned enterprises – no matter how successful they are. These days, state owned enterprises (SOEs) and co-operatives are an anathema to monetarist die-hards.

In their eyes, private ownership (foreign and local) is the only way to go to create prosperity regardless of plain evidence to the contrary - like stock market crashes and massive private enterprise credit frauds that threatened world wide social stability.

In New Zealand, SOEs and co-operatives seem to work very well in our mixed economy. I get a buzz seeing them successfully competing in the market place and assisting kiwi owned private enterprises. Kiwibank is one of them and I am now sad to see its ownership status threatened by Bill English.

It was set up to provide New Zealand owned competition for the Australian owned banks who grabbed over ninety percent of the banking market. Right from the start, Kiwibank performed brilliantly. It has almost repaid all of the Government sourced capital in dividends and most financial analysts agree that it has restrained Aussie owned bank interest rates and their administration charges.

Bill English claims that Kiwibank needs a lot more capital - but Kiwibank management and its Board Chairman, Jim Bolger, deny this. In 2009 it had 650,000 customers, assets of $10 billion, account holder loans of $7.7 billion and had an asset yield not much lower than its Aussie owned competition. In other words, it is well run and deserves its rapidly increasing customer base (passing 700,00 in 2010).

After a period of uncertainty, John Key has apparently decided against the sale of any part of Kiwibank, “as long as I’m Prime Minister”. Any plans to sell other state assets will be announced well before the next election. I wonder if Sir Keith Holyoake’s recipe for winning elections is influencing our Prime Minister?

Holyoake supported SOEs and championed rural co-operatives. New Zealand owned private enterprises prospered and home ownership rose to record levels. He managed Labour’s social reforms and the National Government took a nationalist approach to investment. In my opinion, these policies were popular and contributed to winning four elections.

In sharp contrast, Bill English led the National party to a record election loss in 2002. Obviously, the New Zealand electorate rejected his brand of politics and also those of his monetarist successor, Don Brash, in the following election.

I think a lot of John Key’s popularity comes from his ability to feel the shifts and mood of voter sentiment. Like Sir Keith, he knows he will need to neutralize the unpopular intentions of his colleagues if he wishes to win future elections.

Stairways To Heaven

About seven years ago, it was announced that an American led team had finally worked out the basic structure of the human genome. I remember thinking at the time, “Well, that’s useful. We will now be able to begin sorting out medical problems caused by defective human genes. I might even take up the opportunity (suggested at the time), to one day finding about my own genetic makeup and ancestral origins.”

Since that announcement, I have hardly given the matter much thought. I was therefore quite surprised to see recently that the same team had created a functioning, man made DNA molecule. They inserted it into a living cell (after removing the cell’s own DNA) and successfully enabled the cell to grow, multiply and carry out the instructions given to it by the synthetic DNA.

This important scientific achievement changes the evolutionary game plan that Mother Nature has played out for millions of years. I have heard some Christian speakers explaining the mountain of evidence proving natural evolutionary changes by describing the process as, “evolution by design.” I can well imagine that many of them will be now quite disturbed to see humans getting on with the job without divine assistance in a laboratory.

Are we now able to play God? Should we stop mucking around with Nature? Dr. Craig Venter, who led the genome project and now the synthetic DNA experiments, has been reported to say that we should not be concerned about this issue or any other kind of scientific progress. He believes that most religions want to improve the life of mankind and scientific knowledge will do this. It all depends on how the discovered information is used and that is an ethical matter.

I needed to know more about this man, so I searched the Internet for more information. I came across a fascinating Youtube video, where Richard Dawkins, the famous science campaigner, interviewed Dr Craig Venter in his hi-tech laboratory (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E25jgPgmzk). They chatted as they walked through some of the rooms that were full of equipment and busy staff members getting results from the many millions of dollars of government and private investment.

It was astonishing to see the amount of grunty computer power being used. One room contained computers that were the equivalent of thirty thousand PCs. What is even more amazing is that new machines coming in will cost less, take up less space and have ten thousand times the current capacity. In five years it might be possible to get a precise read out of your DNA for one thousand American dollars.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that I will be around when they can turn off the gene for aging and offer me another 300 years in a new body (minus a few imperfections of course). It remains to be seen however, if Dr. Venter’s research will be a double helix stairway to heaven, or as some religious commentators fear, a route in the opposite direction.

An Udder Controversy

Earlier this month, AgResearch was obliged to release information about the death of young genetically modified cows. Human genes were inserted into the cow’s eggs at the time of their conception and they later suffered from the rupturing of abnormally enlarged ovaries.

AgResearch staff member, Jimmy Suttie, was reported as saying it was no “big deal” and "This was not intended to happen. But, bluntly, this is what research is all about." The opponents of genetic modification were soon up in arms about the experiments failure and voiced concern about the distress and death of the animals involved. Jon Carapiet, from GE Free NZ, not only pointed the finger at AgResearch, but also to the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA) who are supposed to ensure the safety of these procedures.

ERMA has given AgResearch approval to continue its experiments with cattle, sheep and goats. However, anti genetic engineering (GE) groups have succeeded in getting a Supreme Court hearing later this year to challenge ERMA’s decisions. The recent death of GE cows will certainly not help ERMA to defend its case.

No doubt New Zealand’s reputation as a “Clean Green GE Free” country will be claimed to be at risk in the Supreme Court case. It is a very profitable marketing tool that raises the perception of New Zealand agriculture overseas. Geographic isolation has imposed heavy transport costs on all farm products. So the maintenance of this image will also probably be of some concern to hard nosed business interests who want the best returns from top shelf products.

The AgResearch experiment was trying to get cows to produce follicle stimulating hormones (FSH) to treat human infertility. Dr Elvira Dommise, an ex GE scientist, has cast doubts doubt over the need for the experiments in the first place because she says there are other better and more effective methods to treat infertility.

She also said that she thought that research should be postponed until enough was known about the mammalian genome. When questioned during an interview on TV1 about welfare issues, in a closing statement she said, “animals should not be subjected to this sort of treatment at any stage.”

The Dairy industry in New Zealand already has to cope with its negative “Dirty Dairy” image and Fonterra has been working hard to set a higher standard by pushing ahead with its Clean Streams Accord. Hopefully, market perceptions overseas will not also associate it with messy research outcomes. There will be a time when GE field trials will be asked for by researchers and the industry will have to decide if the present GE free status in dairy herds should be maintained.

Another complication will be factory farming businesses introducing the double whammy of combining GE and intensive methods in enclosed spaces. They are likely to argue that these methods are acceptable, as they will have minimal environmental impact. Commercial pressures to follow world methods and technology will always be unrelenting. For those who resist the worst of these, eternal vigilance will be the price of freedom from GE.

Click Image for a larger picture.

Being Googled

How much do you value your privacy? I think most of us need some, but I have noticed lately that quite a few people need more privacy than I do. I guess that is because I am insatiably curious about people and I believe it is only fair that others should have the same right to know about me.

I am fairly sure that I would get along well with most of the folk who run Google. They appear to be a nerdy bunch of ‘techno-zealots’ who seem to honestly believe that the more we know, the more we grow. I rather like that idea, but I am not so sure about the way they got rich selling advertising next to digital packages of information.

I was therefore not very surprised to hear that Google has been accused of blundering into private spaces recently, when it set up its “Buzz” site within Gmail to compete with Facebook. It naively assumed that Gmail users would love to have their entries available all to see. Yeah right! The predictable uproar soon had Google scrambling to patch up that gaff very quickly.

This episode certainly got people asking questions about a company that makes claims, “to do no evil,” in the way it runs its business. The latest Google breaching of privacy issue has been the way they have collected data for their Street View site.

It turns out that 3D pictures were not the only data that they collected while whizzing around our streets. They also picked up wifi signals from houses and then mapped out the location and type of devices being used. Canada’s privacy commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, enlisted the support of similar agencies in nine other affected countries and sent a letter of protest to the managers of Google.

It has been reported that she chided the Internet giant with, “the privacy rights of the world’s citizens are being forgotten as Google rolls out new technological applications.” Google appeared at first not to see the harm being done and then again succumbed to international pressure. They have assured the world that wifi data will be destroyed.

This controversy has stimulated a privacy rights witch hunt on the Internet and now Facebook is being hauled over the coals. They have been accused of allowing personal data etc. to be made available to third parties without the permission of the account holders. Facebook has been increasing the amount of advertising to make the site profitable, but many now see this latest move as going too far. In response, Facebook is reviewing this policy and giving assurances that the problem will be fixed.

Facebook and Google are not alone in probing into our so called “private lives” in cyberspace. I agree with the comment I heard from a media expert, when he said that we should look at internet communication in the same way we write on postcards that we send in the mail. The whole world can see the message - so be careful what you write and do.

Click cartoon to see more details

Coastgate

Some friends have commented lately that my freelance work commitments were making me house bound and I needed to get out more. I had to admit that they were probably right and so I drove over to Mangawhai to take in the scenery and breathe in some sea air.

I know someone who lives there and while we had lunch together on the verander, I looked around at the surrounding hills. I could see that there were even more houses since my last visit, but I guess that is not surprising because it is a very attractive place to live.

In the afternoon we drove out to the Heads for a walk along the shoreline. It had been several years since I had been on that road and on the way I saw something very unexpected. I noticed closed iron gates guarding the access route to a gated community.

For some reason I felt very uneasy about it. I had seen similar set ups in Auckland and I could see security could be a problem there. However, I could not understand why was it necessary here. It seemed to me to be a very ‘unkiwi’ way of living for a beach settlement.

At The Heads I was impressed with car park improvements and it was easy to park. The beach was much the same as I remembered it and quite a few surfers were in the sea catching a moderate surf. As we walked along the shoreline the sea came in and felt surprisingly warm as it swirled around my legs. It felt nice to feel the sea, the sun and the sand under my feet – I felt relaxed and glad to be away from urban clutter.

It was too good to last. I was soon made aware of new houses perched along the skyline and I felt as though I was in somebody’s backyard. Some of the magic went and I felt sad that yet another beautiful piece of New Zealand’s coastline had been plundered. When I learnt that these houses were connected to the gated community, my previous feelings certainly made sense.

Oddly enough, Radio New Zealand ran a Spectrum programme soon after my Mangawhai visit and various social activists (like Raewyn Peart) and developers (Hopper Developments) discussed their viewpoints on coastal development.

Raewyn Peart has written a book the on the history and future development of our coasts called “Castles In The Sand”. In the interview she had this to say, “We’ve just come out of the biggest boom on the coast…it is only the beginning of what we are going to see over the next 50 years or so.”

I hope the Kaipara District Council and our Government read her book and do more to protect what we have left of our unspoiled coasts. The Americans had the scandal of “Watergate”. We might be witnessing our own “Coastgate” scandal where a privileged few can lock up what is left of our coastal heritage.

Sleep Walking

The Recession certainly looks to be fading at last. The dark clouds of doom and gloom parted for me last week as a shaft of golden light came out of the heavens and made my mailbox glow. I looked inside and found an inspirational leaflet claiming - “You Can Make Money In Your Sleep”.

That is just the kind of enlightenment I need right now as I struggle to pay my bills each month. Why sweat your guts out when you can be guided to an easy fortune by a financial guru. Judging by his $750,000 per annum income, I am sure to be rich in no time at all if I sign up for one of his magical mystery tours into the internet.

I can already see from the promotional material that this business guru operates from Australia and his approach has a lot to do with attitude. Now that explains everything. Money quite literally comes out of the ground there from huge mines that operate 24/7. No wonder the door is open for some passive income earning schemes like this one to siphon off some of the billions of mining money sloshing around in their economy.

I read in the NZ Herald that Kiwis are once again being drawn to migrate to ‘The Lucky Country’ in droves after a bit of a slow down last year. I wonder how many are sufficiently prepared for the challenges ahead? Perhaps my new business guru will help me develop an Internet course for migrants to Aussie. I could earn my money in New Zealand while I take my afternoon naps and rake it in worldwide while I sleep in the evening.

I will begin with routine environmental hazards like toilet seat lifting techniques, as you look for the deadly red back spiders. Then move on to direct you to suppliers of boots that will resist snakebites and bottles of serum in case they strike higher. Crocodile Dundee hats will be essential for country folk and I will give instructions on the correct way to do the Aussie salute as you wave the flies away all day.

To be absolutely safe, you will also need my recommended: hail proof helmets, bush fire and ant bite proof clothing, tick removers, dingo and shark repellents and water purifiers. The last item might seem excessive, but remember that some Australian cities have to recycle their sewage due to low rainfall.

Language will come next. Your kiwi accent will be a dead give away, so accent lessons in ‘Strine’ will be necessary if you want more pay. I will teach you how to really believe in mantras like “To win is naturally Australian” and how to play Australian Rules Football with boots that have the words “You deserved this” stamped into the treads.

If all goes well, my grateful students will see my fees as a kind of “Advance Australian Fare” to successful emigration. “Stripe me pink!” and “Stone me crows!”, I will be getting rich while I snooze.