Roger Armstrong

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Roger Armstrong

Roger Armstrong

@SumnerRog

No flags, no pronouns,

Christchurch City, New Zealand Katılım Kasım 2019
361 Takip Edilen137 Takipçiler
Roger Armstrong
Roger Armstrong@SumnerRog·
Skip Halong bay, it’s a tourist trap escalator, go to amazing central Vietnam, Hue, Danang and Hoi An (touristy but beautiful with a great beach). There are great caving adventures in Phong Nha national park (Hang Eng is good, with a beautiful jungle walk thrown in for free — but the tours are not conducted in the wet season) between Danang and Hue. Travel from Phong Nha to Hue using a back of a bike service organised by phong nha farm stay, driving through what used to be the Ho Chi Minh trail (overnighting in Khe Sanh) You can fly directly into Danang from Malaysia and work your way up. I’m a huge Vietnam traveller, spend more time there, it’s the best!
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Kiwiwayne3 ex kiwiwayne1/2
Made a start on my bucket list trip for later this year… I’m quite excited after plenty of years of sacrificing ❤️
Kiwiwayne3 ex kiwiwayne1/2 tweet media
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Nick Sortor
Nick Sortor@nicksortor·
🇺🇸 Last night, Gold Star wife @SharrellAnne2 made a plea on 𝕏, asking for a photo of her late husband SSG Alan Shaw’s grave at Arlington And MAN did patriots step up! DOZENS have visited SSG Shaw’s gravesite, including DNI @TulsiGabbard, who left a gift. So freaking proud that we could make this happen! THANK YOU, PATRIOTS! 🇺🇸
SharrellAnne@SharrellAnne2

This is probably a long shot, but if anybody happens to be in DC this weekend and plans on visiting Arlington, I would love to see a fresh photo of my husband’s grave in Section 60. SSG Alan W. Shaw Section 60, Grave 8451 B Co 1/12 Cav, 1st Cavalry Division November 10, 1975 - February 9, 2007 There’s just something about knowing people still stop by, still say his name, still remember. 🇺🇸⭐🇺🇸

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Roger Armstrong
Roger Armstrong@SumnerRog·
I agree more than you do, I look foward to the follow up article on why the government shouldn’t own an airline, a train set etc. the good news for you is that this latest idiocy from Winston has made me switch my vote to your party even though I hate your leader with a passion ( the libertarian who supported vaccine mandates ffs)
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Charted Daily
Charted Daily@Charteddaily·
Between funding cuts and the impact of AI, the job outlook for Policy Analysts in NZ looks pretty bleak. Census data shows the total number of Policy Analysts increased by 283% between 2001 and 2023. In just the Public Service, the number went from 1,776 in 2000 to 3,949 by 2023.
Charted Daily tweet media
Charted Daily@Charteddaily

The New Zealand Public Service was at or below 1% of the population for 22 of the past 33 years - including 8 years under Labour-led governments.

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Roger Armstrong
Roger Armstrong@SumnerRog·
@JenniferSey Side point: Margret court (whose Christian views about gays etc have made her a pariah amongst the media etc) won a lot more slams.
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Jennifer Sey
Jennifer Sey@JenniferSey·
For those dismissing Billie Jean King and suggesting she wasn't even a good tennis player -- that's just silly. She has 39 Grand Slams. Only one other player - Serena - has achieved that. She was ranked No. 1 for 6 years. Only a handful of other players have achieved that many years at No. 1. We don't have to dismiss her tennis achievements because she thinks men should play women's sports. We can just think that idea is dumb. Because it is.
Jennifer Sey@JenniferSey

Billie Jean King is one of the greatest women's tennis players of all time. She knows men are stronger and faster. She said so at Harvard last month. Yet, she continues to advocate for men in women's sports. Why?

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Roger Armstrong
Roger Armstrong@SumnerRog·
@dpfdpf @franks_lawyer Makes is the wrong word. Wine is a very low margin/ low ROCE business. I suspect gold at current prices is far more profitable. In addition, the wine industry pays badly, I suspect mining pays a lot more.
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Joseph Mooney MP
Joseph Mooney MP@JosephMooneyMP·
Nice welcome on the way into Piopiotahi Milford Sound, Fiordland this morning by a kea which is my all-time favourite bird, they are the world’s only mountain parrot, as intelligent as a 4 year old human - and at least as cheeky.
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Roger Armstrong
Roger Armstrong@SumnerRog·
Hi Michael, I was at treasury during the 3% (Muldoon’s actually drunkenly talked about raising it to 9% once) exercise. My division suggested wiping out the entire tourism and publicity department! Selling the national film unit, photo stock unit, travel agencies, tourism hotel corporation, and transferring press office functions to the ministers and the promotion budget to trade and industry. We didn’t win that day but it did eventually happen! We also made the point that the promotional budget only helped if it increased shoulder/off season tourism (ROCE in tourism industry was poor) and there was no evidence it ever did so.
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Michael Reddell
Michael Reddell@MHReddell·
Looks like a threefold opportunity for saving: - no need for a Minister of Tourism, - no need for a “tourism policy team at MBIE, - no need for Crown funding for tourism promotion etc
Michael Reddell tweet media
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Roger Armstrong
Roger Armstrong@SumnerRog·
@HansMahncke This was the theory behind the wildly unpopular UK poll tax proposal by Thatcher. She wanted people to have skin in the game when voting in their local elections. At the time as someone young I thought it disgustingly regressive, these days I see she was a deep thinker.
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Hans Mahncke
Hans Mahncke@HansMahncke·
The problem is that taxing people a few thousand dollars is economically pointless once you factor in the bureaucracy and compliance burden. But if large portions of the population pay zero tax, they become detached from the fact that public spending is not free. Probably the only solution is no tax no vote, but that immediately opens up an entirely different can of worms.
Marc J. Randazza 🇺🇸 🇮🇹 🇧🇷@marcorandazza

you fucking moron... if they don't pay taxes, then they're gonna vote for infinity spending, which means infinity corruption, and eventually they come to your house with a guillotine and an order to confiscate everything you have.

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Roger Armstrong
Roger Armstrong@SumnerRog·
Have a look at the YouTube video “why France is the last Soviet Union of Europe” by the economic historian. Macron is bad but the system has been rotten for years and preprogrammed to select people like him. He’s bad but I reckon the biggest saboteur in the west currently is Carney, accelerating Trudeaus work in destroying Harpers legacy.
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Roger Armstrong
Roger Armstrong@SumnerRog·
@darkwaterjack @aniobrien The government, councils and many others would do well putting these sorts of jobs out to tender. Associates at professional firms, business owners, many others would in many cases be overjoyed to do these jobs at half the price and probably do a better job.
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Douglas Brown
Douglas Brown@darkwaterjack·
High Court Judge $518,000 Prime Minister $484,200 District Court Judge $393,700 DPM $344,100 Cabinet Minister $304,300 Minister outside Cabinet $256,800 Backbench MP $168,600 Nice to be a senior Wellington CC staffer, eh? Poor Andrew Little, though! brashandmitchell.com/post/wellingto…
Douglas Brown tweet media
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Roger Armstrong
Roger Armstrong@SumnerRog·
Mbie could be halved, they write reports on sectors that businesses just laugh at and any work on employment growth/productivity has obviously failed. Stats nz just annoys the hell out of businesses by relentlessly sending out questionnaires which add nothing and legally have to be answered etc. Eliminate scope creep and the odd total ministry and you can eliminate a lot of jobs without AI. Work from home, which is rife in the public sector, has been shown to be inefficient, most private sector employers are pushing back against it now. Milei has reduced public sector jobs 18%, we set the target too low.
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henry cooke
henry cooke@henrycooke·
Where might the 8700 job cuts in the public sector fall? I have a long read with lots of graphs on where the Govt might look to make cuts - and where it will find it hard:
henry cooke tweet media
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Roger Armstrong
Roger Armstrong@SumnerRog·
@gammelvindnz You are right, the government should employ everyone and pay them more. And none of this $24 minimum wage crap, raise to $100.
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ClausGV🇩🇰🇳🇿
ClausGV🇩🇰🇳🇿@gammelvindnz·
How is New Zealand going to grow by laying people off? Their wages go back into the economy, take that away and the local shop, cafe, grocer looses income.
ClausGV🇩🇰🇳🇿 tweet media
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Cam Slater
Cam Slater@kaiviti_cam·
Nicola Willis just confirmed what every taxpayer already suspected: the public service is bloated. .4 billion in savings and 8700 jobs to go. Finally someone’s willing to treat it like it spends real money. nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/bu…
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Roger Armstrong
Roger Armstrong@SumnerRog·
@PronouncedHare @damienmgrant It will be like the USAID workers made redundant not being able to make a fifth (maybe less) of the $350 salaries they were previously paid. The public service pays maybe $150k+ to people with “non commercial “ degrees that would be in the queue for a minimum wage jobs.
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Roger Armstrong
Roger Armstrong@SumnerRog·
@2ETEKA I hate Seymour but after Winston’s bnz idiocy (plus a few other populist positions ) I am left weighing up the lessor of two imperfects, or maybe not voting at all.
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Holyhekatuiteka
Holyhekatuiteka@2ETEKA·
🚩Astonishing. Must watch. Yesterday Laws dismantled Seymour in an interview, and the Act leader completely threw his toys out of the cot. Laws asks Seymour why he didn’t bother reading the Indian FTA before agreeing to support it, an agreement which re-affirms Paris obligations - but also - UNDRIP, which spawned co-governance and has been weaponised by the left & the judiciary. Seymour’s response? “ It was too big to read so I did my due diligence by asking McClay - there’s no naughty bits in there right?” David it took me seconds to use Grok to find those clauses, hell you could even use CNTRL + FIND on word to find it. His excuse is laughable and non serious. He then infers “yeah it’s bad but it’s done now, don’t worry about it” yeah nah David, this is EXACTLY how bad legislation and nasty fish hooks like Treaty Principles got into legislation (which NZF are now finally with great difficulty able to review and remove). The whole “yeah we put this in there but it doesn’t mean anything” argument by lazy or duplicitous politicians has caused extensive damage to this country, What is TRULY amazing is how Seymour readily throws his constituents on the garbage heap, and then gets bitchy at Laws for bringing up “I’m not going to talk to you again” he pathetically snaps. He even channels Chloe by asking Laws to ‘Zoom’ out. Winston Peters, and important figures to Act : Don Brash, Elizabeth Rata, Gary Judd QC all have spoken out how reckless and dangerous these clauses are. These are iconic Act supporters. Seymour has shat on them, and Act voters. Seymour says “They are being pedantic” and dismissed their concerns. This is a senior Politician elected on a platform to stop this garbage saying “shut up and don’t worry about it” If you are an Act voter, you should be enraged, and looking elsewhere to park your vote.
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Roger Armstrong
Roger Armstrong@SumnerRog·
@MarkHubbard33 There is a school of thought that ridiculous overleveraging (margin/futures) by unsophisticated investors in Hong Kong actually precipitated the US and then global 87 sharemarkets crash. Nz was crazy, but those Asian punters: “hold my beer”! AI it, it’s a crazy story.
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Roger Armstrong
Roger Armstrong@SumnerRog·
@nzpoliticsgroup Minimum wage increase, sick leave increase (most taken), an extra holiday, regulations that govern minimum shifts. And, yes, inflation in everything. It’s a death spiral for restaurants.
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Commander DC
Commander DC@nzpoliticsgroup·
EGGS ON TOAST ALERT - CAFE EXTORTION 🚨🚨🚨 Yes, you read that correctly. Two miserable poached eggs on toast now cost a jaw-dropping $18 in New Zealand cafes. EIGHTEEN DOLLARS. This country has officially become a dystopian rip-off. A nightmare for anyone trying to survive day-to-day. Everything is exploding in price — rent, power, food, fuel — and now they’re charging luxury rates for basic bloody breakfast. Kiwis are being absolutely fleeced, broke, busted, and disgusted. “The land of milk and honey” ? What a disgusting, delusional joke. It’s the land of milk and daylight robbery.
Commander DC tweet media
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Roger Armstrong
Roger Armstrong@SumnerRog·
Yep, BNZ makes about 1.5b, NAB trades at about 16x earnings=24b. That’s a 6.25% earnings yield but the dividend would be less as a proportion of earning. NAB’s dividend yield is about 4.6%, BNZ’s as a stand alone company should be similar depending on whether it needs to retain more/less profits because of differing rates of growth in the balance sheet which overtime has to be partially funded by retained earnings.
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Jenée Tibshraeny
Jenée Tibshraeny@JeneeTibshraeny·
NZ First's $7-$15b estimate of how much it would cost to buy BNZ is simply based on an estimate included in a 2020 Stuff article. My estimate (which I've run by Forsyth Barr & others) is $24b, excluding the premium NZ First admits would need to be paid. nzherald.co.nz/business/compa…
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Roger Armstrong
Roger Armstrong@SumnerRog·
@aniobrien Any rational government watching what is happening in the uk and Europe would be well advised to “do something “ in nz now to stop the growth of Islam in NZ.
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Ani O'Brien
Ani O'Brien@aniobrien·
Christianity has largely has largely been neutered in much of the West. Certainly in NZ there is no risk of it impacting women's rights in policy & legislation. I have previously been very critical of the Catholic church & was raised Catholic myself, but it does not pose a credible threat to me personally. Islam on the other hand, is in the ascendancy in the West. Influence is growing & this is resulting in terrible increases in issues like sexual violence, FGM, "family voting", hate crimes against gays, and the return of pseudo-blasphemy laws. In NZ we do not have such a large Islamic population, but Britain (where I was born) this is a significant problem. I understand I am being accused of Islamophobia. To that I say "yes, yes I am afraid of an ideology that wants to oppress me for being female & kill me for being gay". If you have an issue with that perhaps you need to reflect on your own commitment to women's rights & liberal values.
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