Pike River Coal Mine Disaster: The cost of public administration

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The Pike River coal mine disaster highlights why you cannot rely on government to be engaged in operating or executive roles. There are several problems:

1. They are idiots - they do not know about life. Their entire thought process is antithetical to critical thinking. They are modern-day serfs; not suited to regulation or monitoring under the current system of govt.

2. They have a conflict of interest - The Pike River Mine was owned by the operating & marketing company Pike River Coal. This company was listed in Australia and NZ; but in reality the company was not so independent. It was substantially owned by Solid Energy; a 100% government owned enterprise. You can imagine how little compliance or accountability will result when you have two idiots talking to each other.

In the context of this case - a disaster was imminent:

1. The lack of public oversight

2. The gassy coals

3. The lack of UG mine experience

4. The recruitment of poor staff - those that couldn't get a job in Australia for 2x the wage.

Read this article. The problem here is public adminstration under representative democracy - it does not matter whether it was a Labour Party or National Party government. i.e. Labour cut coal mining inspectors; and National Party could equally care less.

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Author Andrew Sheldon| Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

John Key and suicide prevention

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A number of youth suicides in the Wairarapa region of New Zealand has raised fears of a possible 'mass teen suicide'. The government or police have of course discounted that possibility; though of course they would say that. We might wonder if there are any reasons for people to commit suicide. The simple answer is that - 'life is a value; and there is no value in death', and no prospect of 'turning it around'. The problem of course is that if you have a generalised state of disappointment for your disposition; this is going to manifest in some pretty tragic assessments of your future. What is a person to do, given that:

1. The poor state of education - Yes, John Key says NZ has the 4th best education system in the world. Yeh right, and what are you comparing NZ to---26 OECD countries with the same poor system? Academic relativism is not a very sound basis to assess an education system. Also consider the likely disconnect between wealthy private schools in the cities and rural schools with less aspirational cultures. i.e. Consider that Masterton, the location of this suicide 'pool' or 'pact' is a rural location, and you have some reason for youth to consider the quality of their preparation for life.

2. Job prospects - Here are kids who were probably itching to get a car, get their own job, escape autocrat parents; but they can't because they have no skills or job experience to get traction in the workforce, and even less hope of going to Australia.

3. Complete political denial - Of course we have government in an absolute state of denial; looking to cut costs rather than spend more money. Not that its solely about money; its about values, and pragmatic John Key is a man who can create a corporate spreadsheet, but he is not too good when it comes to personal psychology. Why would he, 'there's no money in it'. Don't expect any better from Labor.

4. Population stagnation: If you want to retain your party control of the economy, then you can't reasonably expect to have a monopoly. You at least need a pretense of choice - a 'two party democracy'. It seems to fool everyone. The price of centralised control of course is slow-paced decision-making. Universal suffrage makes it every harder because there are a lot of scared people in the country, and its easier for politicians to just pander to their every whim, rather than educating them. This kills productivity of course; so you have to look for 'artificial stimulus'. The problem for John Key is that Helen Clark already ran the economy into the ground, driving debt to the ceiling means the country can no longer 'pay it forward'; and no one wants to immigrate to NZ, so the debt per capita just keeps growing. It's a tough gig for a PM. Everyone keeps talking about Australia.

John, I'd get those constant voices checked out mate 'Australia's growth phenomenon', "Australia's growth prospects', 'Australia's $700 billion in planning mining investments'. I swear this is going to his head because he was utterly deluded this past week. In Wanganui, I swear he said NZ's growth was stronger than Australia's in this past quarter. Of course, Australia did have state-wide floods and softer metal prices, but it did not stop him from ignoring a decade of stronger economic data from Australia, and far better productivity. Way to go John!

But John is not a fool. He does listen. For over a year I have been constantly talking up the prospect of an oil discovery saving the country. Finally he is listening, and is encouraging oil exploration. Personally, I would be throwing $50 million a year of government money at grass roots exploration, and then placing all title in a state enterprise; and I'd be encouraging wealthy people to buy stock in projects floated off. Certainly, you don't want government owning such assets, but since there is a concept of 'national sovereignty', NZ may as well retain the value of such oil potential, rather than too readily surrender it to international and local executives, who just profit at the nation's expense. I think I know why these youths are killing themselves. Maybe they just didn't learn at school how to become an overpaid oil company executive. Kids today! They have such high expectations. In my day, we had to drill for our own water supply.

The good news is that - if NZ discovers a large pool of oil....in 20 years NZ might just have a $US1 trillion investment fund to spend up big time. That's a lot of money for 4mil people. Rest assured other people will love NZ a lot more by that time. We just tend to think positive thoughts. You know, like those thoughts for 'good governance' you have been having since the 1840s that never get answered. You know; those hopes that drove people to crusade for universal suffrage, allowing every idiot to vote.

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Author Andrew Sheldon| Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Driving age in New Zealand

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NZ is considering whether it ought to change the driving age for youths. The clear motivation is the high number of deaths. My views are that age is not the issue. The issues are:

1. Consequences: Is a teen over the age of 15 years able to know the consequences of their actions. The answer is yes.

2. Driving experience: Does the youth have adequate knowledge of driving, driving conditions, driving safety to go on the road.

3. Values: Does the child have the intellectual maturity to deal with any vulnerabilities that might impact their ability to drive.

Clearly the intellectual maturity is not an issue solely restricted to youths. The problem is that politicians turn complex issues into simple media placards which does not properly respect the rights and interests of people.

We have a situation now where the government unconditionally grants drivers the right to drive on the basis of a limited test - both theory and practice. This test does not adequately reflect the range of driving experience of youths. In addition, the nature of our political system is destined to encourage youths to challenge the authority of police and more broadly the law. Far from achieving 'obedience', unfair law is a call to disregard it, and to treat it with contempt, making an subsequent difficult.

What we know about youths is that they are over-invested in what others are thinking. They don't have a well-developed sense of their own values, their character, their personal identity. That is a problem in a social context, in which they feel compelled to impress people. It is a problem in a context in which a youth is looking for a sense of control. i.e. They are looking for intellectual control, but if they can't get that, they will seek some sense of practical or concrete control, which inadvertedly might mean through driving, for a sense of efficacy they cannot get elsewhere. Most youths know their limits; however in a social or alcoholic-fulled context, these concerns are subdued.

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Author Andrew Sheldon| Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Safety for tourists in NZ and Australia

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It is not just me, but clearly others have noted a trend for foreigners to die in NZ. There are two reasons:

1. Some locals are just not happy that their country is seemingly being overrun by foreigners.

2. There are a lot of foreigners driving on unsafe rural roads, engaging in unsafe 'extreme' sports.

NZ is actually a surprisingly unsafe country. There is a lot of domestic violence. One gets the sense that there is a lot of tough love, that people suffer a great deal of psychological repression, and on occasion they just explode. Whether it is the tourist who gets shot at, or burned to death in his campervan, you are advised to keep a low profile in NZ. The problem of course is that 'isolated' areas are often more sensitive to your presence than others. i.e. If there is no local business in town making money from you, expect that there will little empathy for you.

Interested in how many foreigners are dying in NZ - apparently its around 2000 for the last 10 years. Wow, that is 200 per year. I might add that there was a period in Australia, where I was inclined to feel that there was some racially-inspired attacks on foreigners, whether it was the killing of a Korean or Indian man, often taxi drivers, or the rape of a Japanese tourist in some resort town, or the knifing of some European backpackers.

There is a lot of bad press in NZ. Though I must say, living outside of Australia, matters seem to have deteriorated there as well. NZ is definitely worse.

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Author Andrew Sheldon| Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

NZ Adventure tourism - a false economy?

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The title of this blog is 'living in NZ', but maybe it should be dying in NZ. No, its not a reference to the local retirement industry, or the lack of domestic activity, I mean actual dying. The local adventure sports industry ought to be doing a lot of navel-gazing at the moment because there are just too many people dying whilst doing adventure sports. Consider the recent accidents:

1. Several light planes crashing

2. Balloon accident

3. Bunge jumping death

4. Canoeing accident

5. Jet boat accident

6. Kite sailing - the latest accident

Some of these accidents were not this year, but last, but regardless, there is too many accidents. People engaging in these sports do not expect to die. Are the rates too high? I think so? Is it an acceptable risk? Well, I would suggest that is something the participant should decide. Perhaps there is a need for immediate disclosure of:

1. NZ-wide statistics on the percentage of people being injured in adventure sports

2. NZ-wide statistics on the percentage of people being injured in the specific adventure sport being attempted

3. Company-specific statistics on the percentage of people being injured in the specific adventure sport

4. Company-specific statistics on the percentage of people being injured in the specific adventure sport - this month, this year, the last 5 years

5. Identification of all the possible dangers that you could be exposing yourself to by participating in the sport. Probably the biggest is someone performing tasks they are not ready for, whether its an instructor who was out drinking last night; or an inadequately trained instructor because most want to take off and travel the world...for bigger thrills.

You might wonder whether anyone gets any business disclosing this information. They might just wonder if its worth it. If you think life is about getting such thrills, maybe you ought to be just taking heroin. They call them 'cheap thrills', I would argue that:

1. They are over-priced

2. They could cost you your life

I am fond of adventure, but I think its silly to take risks; most particularly risks you don't control. I occasionally go whitewater kayaking/canoeing, but its adventure/exploration, not cheap 'adrenalin thrills'. When I go kayaking, it is after I have slowly graduated to more difficult rapids, and also after researching and understanding rivers. I also never go beyond grade 3 rivers, even if they sometimes surprise me with grade 3.5 rapids.

I discount the value of these activities for the same reason I discount taking drugs. Its not what life is about...twitching a few neurons to fill alive for 15 - 60 seconds. NZ seems to have a penchant for dreaming up some new adventure sport. Some form of new board sport, etc. There are plenty of pipe dreamers out there. Some are little variants on old schemes. It might better be regarded as escapism by the inventor as much as the sports participant. I do not however want to discount all such sports. Sport does entail risk. Each ought to be in a position to know just how much risk they are taking.

Perhaps what this industry (kite boarding) needs is an 'air bag' device, so it they get in trouble they can release a valve and an air bubble blows up around them; so they get caught in a tree rather than killed by it. Alternatively, the sport should be conducted a certain safe distance away from trees and other obstructions.

Save yourself some money and engage in some sustainable pleasures!

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Author Andrew Sheldon| Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com