What am I supposed to take from this?

A happy ending ... except for those who collectively lost $40,000 through written off debt.

I mean, what is the point of this story? What is it meant to achieve? To send a helpful message about not getting into debt? To make people who haven't lost their jobs feel guilty? To put a human face on the recession? Is it a modern day Aesop's fable?

It doesn't link to any policy-barrow being pushed. Except maybe the socialist clamour over inequality. Good- guys- are- poor- too sort of thing.

They sound and look like a very nice family but they've also had (albeit inadvertently) stuff they never paid for and never will. I suppose that's uncharitable of me. But this "no asset" procedure just sounds like another  safety net that will encourage irresponsibility. Another scheme to transfer financial onus from the have-nots to the haves. Trouble is, sometimes the haves aren't.

IT contractor for teacher payroll can now talk

Adages are derived from eons of experience. Here's a topical example:

There are two sides to every story

The IT company that was contracted to pay the teachers can now speak out. Summarising, the problems seem to stem from school's unwillingness to embrace on-line technology.

I recently worked on a survey project which asked for on-line responses but a large number of respondents submitted in hand-writing via fax or scanned attachments. Accommodating the handwritten submissions was a time-consuming and unsatisfactory process. So I can sympathise with the staff at Talent2 and the backlog resulting from handling large amounts of unnecessary paperwork and labouring over illegible handwriting.

Most of the information required from  school administrators would be numerical. Deciphering handwritten numbers can be a nightmare. As I have discovered.

Perhaps the teachers should have individually been asked to log-in their details. They would have been highly motivated to get it right.

Labour creeps

I've never faithfully followed a virtual reality/elimination competition of the type that features a  few hand-picked wannabes stuck in a mansion, on an island or bound up  in some far-reaching global quest.

But isn't that what the Labour saga is resembling?

People who are under-talented and over-egoed figuring out which equally under/over endowed counterpart is their best stepping stone?

Greens tell PM to heed the children

 According to co-leader Metiria Turei and the Greens:

"The Prime Minister should look to children for advice on running the country, with an international survey showing the first thing kiwi kids would do if they had his job would be to provide the food, housing and necessities everyone needs, the Green Party said today....This should be a reality check for MPs and the Government in particular..."

The same survey shows other priorities:

“Kiwi kids continue to aspire most strongly to be professional athletes...New Zealand children are most afraid of spiders, but also sharks and snakes."

 The  aspirations and fears of children are not particularly rational. But then neither are the Greens'.