This week: the
great questions of the day are explored; none are satisfactorily answered and
life mimics life.
Well there have
been a few head-scratching moments over the last few weeks and pretty soon some
of us will have dug down to the grey matter – those of us with any left that
is.
The fall-out
from the Dotcom saga, the fall-out from the Banks fiasco, the fall-out from Jianqi’s
ill-timed visit to Hollywood and the fall-out from the Shane Jones/Bill Liu
matter and the fall-out from the Quade Cooper brain explosion are making those
with any hair left nervously clutch their scalps.
I have often
heard it said the Chinese have a proverb that goes, “May we live in interesting times”. I’ve often heard this quoted and
misquoted but have never been 100 percent sure it was a Chinese proverb.
However my most recent research suggests there could be a Chinese connection
and it would seem it was both a proverb and a curse, which makes sense when you
think of the wording. It has certainly
been repeated often enough – some of its more famous users have been Bobby
Kennedy, Hunter S Thompson and Harry Kim from Star Trek. Actually that would be
a good trivia question (what do these three have in common?).
So what does
this rather obtuse phrase actually mean? Well I’m buggered if I know what it was
supposed to mean when it was first uttered/invented/discovered and it seems
silly to even try to discover what such an ambiguous adage could mean.
NEXT!
Another question
that has been on everybody’s minds just lately (yes, people were tearing their
hair about the Chinese proverb/curse); is, have ANZ Bank dropped the ‘National’
from their name to avoid being associated with the Government’s fall in the
polls? Or is it that they didn’t want any Green horning in on their blue hues
and diluting their brand? And given their new logo are they now the bank for
the ‘paw folks’ or do they just want their customers to sit up and beg?
And from banking
to something that rhymes with that – planking - what on earth did you think I
was going to say? Wash your mouth out. Has there ever been a sillier five
minute wonder than planking? I doubt it. A totally pointless act that appeared
to be some kind of desperate attempt by the terminally talentless to achieve
some sort of....well I’m stuffed if I know what they achieved apart from silly
old Peter Dung of course who managed to himself look more dorky than usual when
he ‘took up the challenge’ on Back Benches.
But the
conundrum that has puzzled Kiwis for a number of years now and frustrated the
hell out of those concerned with our failing health profile and our rapidly
expanding obesity stats is why is milk so expensive and coke so cheap?
It has never
been that hard to figure out why coke is so cheap. It is produced in such
enormous volumes there are obviously some huge economies of scale involved in
the manufacturing stage. Then it contains so much addictive sugar and caffeine
that they know they will also be guaranteed bulk repeat sales.
But why is milk
which is produced also in huge volumes and from home grown ingredients is on
average around twice the price of Coca Cola? In theory it contains no added
ingredients, so the only costs involved are those associated with looking after
the cows that produce it, extracting it from them and pasteurising it.
I see from
Fonterrier’s latest report shows they have cutting back the forecast payout to
the farmers again. Notice how the price at the shop never goes down when that
happens? Of course the Fonterriermen will tell you that price is affected by
the export prices. And that is another thing; Stuff carried out a survey last
year and found that hardly anybody else in the world pays as much for their
milk as we do in New Zealand. This is even crazier when you consider the stuff
is produced so close to the back doors of most of us – so there aren’t many
freight costs involved either.
But Fonterrier’s
latest report actually carried the real reason why our milk is so expensive if
anyone cared to read it. It is all down to the costs of staffing and how many
times do you hear employers whinge about those costs? But at Fonterrier this is
not about the ordinary folks that do the ordinary jobs that make Fonterrier its
money like most similar whines. This is about the costs of one or two
(particularly one) members of staff who are paid well beyond anything they are
even remotely worth. It would seem $5.1 million dollar salary that former CEO
Andrew Ferrier got in his last year with them wasn’t enough to support the poor
wee chap and thus the Fonterriers gave him a little something to help him get
by. Nothing major you understand; just a spare $8.2M they had lying around.
I don’t believe
in the death penalty, but I could just about go along with whichever disgusting
capitalist swine that approved that being made to walk the plank. $8.2 fucking
million! That is disgusting especially when he has already been paid $5.1M for
his final year and gawd knows how many millions for each of the other seven
years he was in that job. This kind of obscene generosity is simply rubbing the
noses of everyone in New Zealand who is struggling to make ends meet right in
the soiled nappies of the 1%.
Now I don’t
think I am over-reacting in the slightest here because I have done some number
crunching here and I it is no exaggeration to say that 99% of us will never
earn as much as that bonus in our entire working lives, never mind all the
millions he got in salary over that 8 year gig. I have no problem with skilled
people being paid a salary that is commensurate with their skill levels and
even a bit more. But this is I have worked out that even if you had a working life
of 40 years and averaged $200,000 per annum for that entire time, you would
still wind up $100,000 short of that bonus.
Is this that
brighter future where tossers like Ferrier have their snouts firmly wedged in a
platinum trough while working families struggle to afford a one litre the very
product he is earning so much from?
