Political Progress

I emphatically disagree with the proposition that ACT should once again try to tie their factions together. It shouldn't aim to be the "broad church" that is the National Party. It should declare itself economically and socially conservative. How hard is that?

Then those people who are ecomically conservative and socially liberal know where they stand and can act accordingly.

It still remains for those who reject ACT (or whatever Banks decides to call it) to form a new entity that does manage the differences that will inevitably arise because people are always somewhere along a spectrum. But there needn't be differences as gaping as those between people at opposite ends of the social spectrum.

It'll take goodwill, genuine compromise and committment to discipline. But I ask you, what else is left?

Politically homeless

That's that then. I wanted Catherine Isaac in parliament and voted accordingly. But it didn't happen and I see this morning Catherine has, wisely in my view, ruled out assuming leadership or any other active role in ACT.

Ms Isaac said the future depended on Mr Banks. "Will John Banks embrace Act ideology and its policies and seek to advance them?

"I don't know how John Banks is planning on conducting himself. His history is with the National Party, not with Act, and I don't know to what extent he embraces Act principles."

She said she did not intend to take an active role in the party, but there was a future for a classical liberal party.

Mr Banks' conservative views have rubbed the more socially liberal Act members the wrong way. But he was comfortable because of what he called the "80/20" principle - he agrees with 80 per cent of the party's policies.

But will a leader keep the 20 percent he doesn't agree with? Liberals and conservatives can often agree on a majority of economic policy but are deeply divided on social issues - those that arguably have more impact on individual personal lives.

Catherine is right on one other thing too. There is a future for a classical liberal party. One that attracts all ages. The 'disengaged' who are perenially cynical about self-serving politicians. Young people like my son who baulk at socialism and collectivism, but don't identify with a political brand of any sort. NOT conservatists; and NOT statists.

The Libertarianz can surely not go another election with their ever energetic efforts but disheartening results?

There are rather a lot of politically homeless people out here I am afraid.

And on a related note Oswald asks about The Conservative Party, "Why are they getting even more derision from the so-called right-wing blogs?"

My answer:

Because 'so-called right-wing blogs' are misnamed?

Conservatives are by definition anti-abortion, anti voluntary euthanasia, anti same sex marriage and adoption, pro-criminalisation of drugs, and happy to use the state as an instrument of supression. None of which interests me.

A selection from the Otago Daily Times

The Otago Daily Times is intellectually a cut above other New Zealand papers.

Colin James' succinct pre-election wrap. The Domininion Post stupidly dispensed with Mr James services earlier in the year. They prefer lightweight bias:

What's changed during the campaign? Not John Key's prospects for a second term as Prime Minister even though Phil Goff narrowly bested him in this week's debates. But nor have Key's support parties' problems got sorted. For tactically-minded National-leaning voters, November has been unhelpful.

The trend in the average of the five main published opinion polls points to an overall National majority but not wide enough for Key to be confident in advance he won't need support. That explains Key's late buildup of Peters as a bogey: he needed to scare National voters to the polls after an otherwise soothing campaign.

ACT has come out of the campaign worse than it went in, thanks in part to the awkward, then embarrassing, tea party antics. Published polls, plus a stack of anecdotal evidence, point to its disappearance tomorrow or at best a sickly survival on tenuous life support from National.

Colin Craig's Conservatives have polled better than ACT recently. But to get seats Craig has to win the Rodney electorate.

Peter Dunne is at risk of being an overhang MP, of strictly marginal value to Key.

The Maori party's 2008 party vote is being shared with Mana. There is a real possibility the Maori party gets four seats and three are overhangs, which would mean Key has to get 62 seats for a majority (63 if Dunne is also an overhang). The good news in that for the Maori party is that it just might have more leverage than in 2008 to push its whanau ora flagship policy.

For Labour the anecdotal evidence suggests somewhere in the upper 20s, possibly better if there has been a late swing, as some polls suggest. But Labour has bled to the Greens through the campaign after bleeding to Key from 2007. The solidity of Greens' support will be tested in the next three years if Labour manages a resurgence.

And Peters? The polls have been tantalising but the trend average leaves him short. Still, you never say never with Peters. As Goff, hoping for a (not completely dismissible) shock win that needs Peters, might say.

And this delightful letter from 100 years ago:

Prohibition punishes the whole population

In the Prohibition camp preaching to the converted goes on merrily; the proposition that if my neighbour gets drunk it is against me that a prohibition order must be taken out had never greater acceptance. What percentage of citizens get drunk I am unaware: two in every 100, says a correspondent of the Daily Times. To correct the bibulous error of the two, a prohibition order is to be taken out against the other 98.

According to the same correspondent the total number of drunkards in New Zealand is 8000, which sounds a liberal estimate. For the amendment of the 8000 a prohibition order is to be taken out against the whole population. It is not assumed or assumable that the whole population will agree to this lunatic treatment; it will be held sufficient if one-half agree, or at the most three-fifths. The remaining half, or the remaining two-fifths, are then to be put under duress - guarded, watched, spied upon, policed, dragooned, bludgeoned into submission. This done, New Zealand, it is thought, will thenceforth rank as a vestibule of the kingdom of heaven. And there are ministers of religion who, having despaired of Christianity and gone back from Mount Zion to Mount Sinai, cry Amen! It will still remain, however, that two and two make four; and in my humble opinion there are other truths, fundamental and axiomatic, that may be expected to assert themselves. For one thing Naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurret. "You may drive out Nature with a fork, and yet she will come back."

And finally today's editorial which strikes a chord with me with its criticism of Trevor "stop your nonsense" Mallard:

The Labour Party 2011 election campaign was strategically inept, which is likely to contribute to one its worst defeats when the polls close tomorrow.

Unless Labour can get every single supporter out to vote tomorrow, and the party will try, it has the potential to remain in the wilderness for at least another six years.

Mistakes were compounded on throughout the shortened campaign period and long-serving Labour MP and campaign manager Trevor Mallard might have hard questions to answer on Tuesday if the caucus meets, as it generally does.

Mr Mallard, who spent most of his time on social networks during the campaign, was nowhere to be seen. In fact, first-term MP Grant Robertson was more active on the campaign trail.

Labour made a series of mistakes, and senior MPs should have known better.

Read more

Labour's desperate lies

I generally avoid the word 'lie'.

But the following is a lie.

"New Zealand has the highest youth unemployment rate in the developed world."

If you are wondering where you heard it most recently, NewstalkZB is regularly running a Labour advert which makes the claim.

The rate for 15-24 year-olds is currently 17.3%

This is lower than the US, the UK, France, Finland, Sweden, Chile, the Czech Republic, Italy, Belgium and a few others.

It isn't hard to check these spurious claims. For Labour to be so brazen they must be beyond caring.

Update: Even predicated on the "highest unemployment rate for under twenty year-olds" the claim does not hold up. There are many countries with unemployment rates for 15-19 year-olds higher than NZ's.

Colin Craig - the Big Spender

Has Colin Craig broken the spending limit on electioneering?

We have received his glossy A4 pamphlet at least three times and yesterday 4 copies fell out of the middle of the Hutt News. Apparently his signs are absolutely everywhere in Auckland. He seems to have more radio ads than any other party. "Hi Colin the Conservative here..." always conjures up an image of what the Goodnight Kiwi would sound like if it could speak.

I haven't got time to look up the rules right now but perhaps he can afford the fine as well.

1200 children born today might well be dead if they had been born in the 1960s

I am watching the Bryan Bruce documentary on child poverty and am completely exasperated. So much is left unsaid. He blames Rogernomics for everything that is wrong with children's health. His slant is thoroughly political despite contrary pleading that child welfare is an ethical and moral problem.

New Zealand apparently used to be a socialist Utopia. That is stated baldly. Bryan Bruce, who looks of a similar age to me, grew up in a country where children got a free bottle of milk everyday and so we lived in paradise.

Putting aside non-fatal preventable disease, as I pointed out earlier, in 1960 the infant mortality rate was 23 per 1,000 infants. Today the figure is 4.8.

So let's frame those statistics in Bryan's terms when he says, "150 babies died in New Zealand last year who might well be alive if they had been born in Sweden, Japan or even the Czech Republic."

1200 children born today might well be dead if they had been born in the 1960s. Born into that socialist era when New Zealanders, as he put it, owned everything including electricity and the rail, and our agricultural products had guaranteed access to the British market.

Thank God we have moved on.

Sweden. He shows two Dads with their toddlers at a kindy-like centre. In Sweden parents get 480 days parental leave which they can share. Then they go back to work. Sole parent or not.

Here we have allowed sole parents to make a lifestyle out of benefits with no requirement to go back to work - if they have ever been in work. Mr Bruce didn't illuminate the circumstances of all the children on benefits be detailed. Never did he mention that most are on the DPB.

He took us into homes in East Porirua where the children and parent had moved into the one room that wasn't mouldy rendering them "over-crowded". Why didn't they clean the mould from the other rooms away? I have to do it upstairs in our house. The bathroom curtain has been bleached; then later dyed; and eventually replaced with a cheap Warehouse wooden blind. The bedroom windows and window sills need the blackened grime removed regularly. The walls feature some mould from time to time but I keep on top of it. This all happens because we can't afford to heat the whole house in winter. But we own it and want to protect it. In state houses it looks like the tenants expect someone else to do the upkeep, including cleaning.

I am angry and appalled. Not because the state is failing these people and their children. But because the PARENTS themselves are failing their children. Yes, some of their homes are irredeemable hovels needing attention but I also know that periodically the authorities come in and repair and renovate yet the results are not appreciated or cared for. Thus, over time, they degenerate once more.

Their children resemble their homes. In preventable neglected condition.

Too much input

I suddenly started thinking about sensory stimulation. The only reason is, we had another mild escalation in our house over why the heck is Master Chef on when nobody watches it? It's just a load of sound and emotion with no gain. None of us is interested in cooking. I hit the off button.

Now I am standing here in the quiet thinking. Another family member is reading. Another is drawing, and the last is listening to House music in a different room. Peace. PEACE.

I am thinking about young men who hurt babies. I, and probably you, can recognise and deal with multiple sensory imput and subsequent overload. It's prevalent across society. Can others? When young men have channels of input prioritised (eg watching a DVD, playing Xbox, texting) being compromised by an additional stream from an unattended baby, can they respond with reason? Do they have the faculties?

Newborns need dedicated attention. The degree of attention diminishes with age but when they come home after birth their need is the only one that matters.

I am sure that rather a lot are surviving against the odds, and that very act of survival will later manifest in unhappy, self-destructive adulthoods.

Labour's scare tactics regarding the DPB

Interesting to see the reaction to Labour's scare pamphlet about not seeing your child's first birthday. It intrigues me because the right tend to talk tough and then get all indignant when the opposition paints them as such. Nevertheless the pamphlet sensationalises what is in fact a sensible policy to discourage people from adding a child to their benefit.

But my view is that Labour are doing National a favour. They are drawing attention to one of National's better and more decisive welfare policies; and it does the very job the policies themselves are meant to do - send a message.

Mothers on welfare need to be getting the message that welfare is changing. That the DPB isn't going to be the free ride it has in the past (no disrespect intended to women who are on it with very high demands dependants, be they disabled children or others that would be institutionalised if not for their care.) And that they need to start making decisions based on those changes.

Is this sensationalism?

Here is the angle documentary-maker Bryan Bruce is putting on New Zealand's child poverty rate:

More than 100 New Zealand children who died last year would probably have survived had they lived in Japan, Sweden or the Czech Republic, a new documentary shows.

But not if they had lived in Australia, the United Kingdom or Canada which all cluster around similar infant mortality rates as New Zealand.

Canada 5.2
NZ 4.8
United Kingdom 4.6
Australia 4.1

The Stuff report continues:

"Last year, more than 25,000 children were admitted to hospital for respiratory infections. Doctors routinely treat cases of rheumatic fever and scabies – diseases now rare in Europe.

The reason behind these preventable diseases were appalling rates of child poverty that New Zealand could not afford to ignore, Mr Bruce said."

The biggest contributor to these diseases is, in my view, the environments children live in. These unhealthy environments are often due to nobody taking responsibility for safe standards of hygiene and cleanliness. Mould can be cleaned from walls; floors that babies and toddlers crawl on can be vacuumed and mopped; food refuse can be removed rather than left to rot and attract flies and maggots. Overcrowding is frequently a symptom of choice. Choosing to share accommodation to reap more income and choosing to have children.

Returning to the opening suggestion that 100 more children would have survived had they been born in Sweden that isn't necessarily down to lower child poverty. For instance, child death in the immediate post-natal phase can be due to premature birth. Premature births can be due to very young maternal age. Sweden's teenage birth rate is much lower than New Zealand's. So the reason for this particular difference is largely cultural.

The Children's Social Health Monitor comments:

"While infant mortality rates are generally higher for Pacific>; Māori> ; European / Other babies, males, and those in the most deprived areas , total infant mortality rates are of limited utility in guiding population health interventions, as the causes of mortality differ markedly with the age of the infant. During the neonatal period (birth–28 days) extreme prematurity, congenital anomalies and intrauterine / birth asphyxia are the leading causes of mortality, while in the post neonatal period (29–364 days) sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI) and congenital anomalies make the greatest contribution . Thus any interventions aimed at reducing New Zealand’s infant mortality rates must, in the first instance, be based on an understanding of their component causes."

The good news is, in any case, the infant mortality rate is dropping every year. In 50 years it has dropped from 23 infant deaths per 1,000 to 4.8.

I doubt Mr Bruce will provide some reasonable context for his claims. Perhaps he should stick to investigating unresolved New Zealand crimes.

Green's cynical exaggeration of child poverty

The Greens are riding the child poverty issue for all its worth. According to Stuff , quoting Meteria Turei from yesterday:

There were 275,000 children living in severe poverty and two out of every five of those children came from households with parents in work but whose pay rates were too low, she said.

The figure seems to grow at each turn. That's the highest I have seen yet.

What do official measurement sources say?


• In 2010, there were 1.07m dependent children (under 18) – on the measures in Table S.2, between 170,000 and 270,000 children were in households with incomes below the low-income thresholds (ie ‘in poverty’).
• In 2010, on the Social Report measure (AHC ‘fixed line’ 60%), there were 230,000 (22%) children in households below the low-income threshold (ie ‘in poverty’), down from 380,000 (37%) in 2001.

Note though Turei's use of the word "severe".

Severe poverty would be indicated by using not the After Housing Costs (AHC) 60 % threshold but the AHC 50 % threshold which is 16 percent.

That produces a number of 171,200.

But what does it matter if you overstate a problem by one hundred thousand plus when you can trust the media to accept anything you say?

Another sad sack

Just another sad sack who thinks the world owes them a living.

Yes it was incompetent of New Zealand authorities to miss his deliberate deception. But systems are set up based on most people's propensity to be honest.

I have been ripped off by someone I did a lot of work for this year and who now refuses to pay me. I could be described as 'incompetent' for doing the work up front. But isn't that how most people operate? On trust? And I don't plan to change my modus operandi because of one toe rag.

This WINZ fraudster is just another example of someone who promotes an utter inversion of values. He should be held up as such. He is the embodiment of the enemy of honesty.

"Labour welfare policy a sham"

A variation on an earlier blog post published in today's NZ Herald on-line opinion page.

Insight into how OECD operatives think

I have mentioned before that James Bartholomew is writing a new book about welfare. Researching it he recently spent some time at the OECD. His observations about concepts that are currently influencing the thinking in that organisation are not very encouraging:

"As part of the research for my new book, I visited the OECD last week and interviewed eight people there. The concept of low inequality being a ‘good thing’ was referred to explicitly or implicitly a remarkable number of times.... There are certain concepts that were taken for granted as being valid and important at the OECD. In addition to low inequality, there was the idea that women should work because of both economic efficiency and equality with men. The concepts that did not get so much of a look-in were personal freedom, personal responsibility and the idea that families headed by the natural, married parents might be good for the children."

Two little boys...

...had two little toys.

Sorry. There is no relevance to the poignant song Rolf Harris used to sing. Regardless, the lyric and melody entered my head as I read about two little boys. Now dead. The first a one year-old and the second aged two. One from Otahuhu and the other from Orakei. Both families known to Child Youth and Family Services.

The Mexican stand-off that is Epsom

According to Stuff:

The ACT Party is facing an election wipeout – with a new poll showing Epsom voters have been turned off by last week's tea party.

A Fairfax Media-Research Media International mini-poll of 200 eligible Epsom voters showed National's Paul Goldsmith easily winning the seat on 45.5 per cent.

ACT candidate John Banks trailed on 29.1 per cent, while Labour's David Parker had 14.6 per cent. The snap poll, taken on Tuesday, showed last Friday's meeting with National leader John Key shifted support away from Mr Banks.

Almost 30 per cent said they were now less likely to vote for him. Just under 23 per cent said Mr Key's public endorsement made it more likely they would favour Mr Banks. About 43 per cent said it made no difference. However, the poll also showed almost 40 per cent were undecided over the blue-ribbon seat, suggesting voters were waiting to see if National needed ACT as a support partner.

And the rest of us potential ACT voters are waiting to see if you will put ACT back in. This is a classic Mexican stand off.

If John Banks can't win Epsom I am not wasting my vote and effectively giving the Left another tick. My voting priority is making sure Labour can't form a coalition with more seats than National.

But the results also tell us that John Banks was the wrong choice for Epsom and the wrong choice for ACT.

Now it's National's turn to tell porkies

I try to be even-handed and give credit where it is due. At least National are talking about criminals who continue to receive welfare (in the thousands) and women who add babies to their benefit (also in the thousands) but in their latest Welfare Fraud document they make this patently untrue statement.

"Labour did nothing to stop fraud and abuse of the welfare system, allowing it to largely go unchecked."

Look at the facts (as I pointed them out to Larry Williams last night):

In 2005/06 under Labour there were 937 prosecutions for fraud.

In 2010/11 under National there were 690.

The following details the number of investigations and reviews completed:

table IS.1: Trends in fraud and abuse investigation statistics¹

Financial year2	Number of investigations and reviews completed	Number of overpayments established	Value of overpayments ($)
2004/2005	55,632	8,203	41,455,851
2005/2006	45,992	7,299	35,757,865
2006/2007	39,141	7,084	41,935,634
2007/2008	26,736	4,407	33,702,275
2008/2009	26,400	3,327	33,780,453
2009/2010	19,935	2,996	39,336,133

And why has it taken National 3 years to get around to doing something as straight forward as stopping the benefits of people on the run from the police?

World Socialist Website puts the boot into Mana

What an interesting read about the "pseudo-radicals" that make up the Mana Party.

"Harawira’s posturing is entirely bogus.He was a member of the Maori Party caucus that went into coalition with National after the 2008 election, and voted for all its anti-working class measures. The Maori Party supported National’s agenda of attacking welfare beneficiaries and youth, “downsizing” the public sector and increasing the regressive Goods and Services Tax (GST). The government gave tax cuts to the rich and imposed drastic cuts to living standards. The Maori Party’s principal initiative, the Whanau Ora welfare program, opened the door to the privatisation of welfare.

In his own electorate, Harawira oversaw a social disaster. According to a New Zealand Herald report in June, unemployment in the Northland electorate was at “crisis levels,” hitting 9.8 percent in the first quarter this year—the highest since 2003 and almost 2 percentage points above the next-highest region. A fifth of the working-age population, 29 percent of young people aged 18-24, and 48 percent of working-age Maori were on welfare....

Mana’s policies are steeped in nationalism and profoundly anti-working class. While replete with empty promises to abolish the GST, raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour, and lift welfare benefits to pre-1991 levels, the party proposes to abolish the dole for the unemployed and to discriminate against immigrants by “prioritising the employment of New Zealand residents.” Its opposition to the Key government’s planned further asset sales is rooted in New Zealand nationalism—asserting that “NZ lands” should be protected from foreign ownership. It has published no foreign policy platform, and only belatedly called for NZ troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan following the deaths of two SAS troopers last month.

The party’s program centres on identity politics, which has been used for decades to divide the working class on ethnic lines. Mana calls for Maori “self determination,” which is an orientation to the business interests of a privileged layer. The Mana Party is demanding that multi-million dollar land claims under the Treaty of Waitangi be extended, further enriching tribal leaders. Recent research by Berl economist Ganesh Nana puts the combined asset base of Maori tribes at $NZ36.9 billion—a fortune built up on the exploitation of workers of all ethnic backgrounds."

Well Hone certainly doesn't cut it with the true Trotskyites.

Why Phil Goff should never get near government again

Labour is going to scrap any work-testing of the DPB if it returns to government. Annette King says that there shouldn't be an arbitrary age for requiring a parent to find a job.

They are also refusing to deal with the problem of women adding children to their benefit by limiting how long they can stay on the DPB thereafter. Yesterday, when tackled about this, Phil Goff told Mike Hosking (21:04) that most women on the DPB were there for a short period of time only and came from a marriage break-up.

He doesn't know where most come from actually. The Social Statistics Report used to record whether someone had been divorced, separated, separated from a de facto or single. But they stopped doing that in 2001 and I have a letter from the MSD confirming this.




So he doesn't know what precipitates an application for the DPB.

Next he doesn't define a short period of time. 6 months? 2 years? Three years? That's a subjective quantification.

But DPB statistics can be twisted to distort the picture significantly and nobody explains this better than Michael Tanner in The Poverty of Welfare:



So it is possible to say that most people go on the DPB for a short period of time AND most of the people on it have been there for quite a long time.

MSD research highlights this phenomenon:

On average, sole parents receiving main benefits had more disadvantaged backgrounds than might have been expected:

• just over half had spent at least 80% of the history period observed (the previous 10 years in most cases) supported by main benefits
• a third appeared to have become parents in their teenage years.

This reflects the over-representation of sole parents with long stays on benefit among those in receipt at any point in time, and the longer than average stays on benefit for those who become parents as teenagers.

Had the research considered all people granted benefit as a sole parent, or all people who received benefit as a sole parent over a window of time rather than at a point in time, the overall profile of the group would have appeared less disadvantaged.

But what does Phil Goff do?

Uses the picture that paints less disadvantage because it suits him politically.

Which is exactly why he should get nowhere near government ever again. He has no intention of fixing a huge problem when he refuses to tell the truth, and the whole truth, about it.

Significantly more Aussie births are to married couples

The Melbourne Age has a piece about the record number of babies born in Australia in 2010.

One interesting fact:

Of the new parents, 66 per cent had made the trip down the aisle or had registered a marriage before the birth of their child.

The relevant statistic in New Zealand would be 51 percent (2009), a big difference probably largely accounted for by the low rate of marriage among Maori.

On the lighter side the article also gives New Zealand a mention:

Across the Tasman, New Zealand is expected to experience a mini-baby boom of its own sometime next July.

The last time the All Blacks won the Rugby World Cup in 1987, there was a surge in births nine months later that statisticians explained away as a country in celebration - and copulation.

And typically I wonder how many of these predicted births will be to people able to support a child?

Why is Winston climbing the polls?

I make no secret of being a big fan of horse racing - both codes - and horsebreeding. The industry has been struggling recently with low stakes, high ACC charges and subsequent loss of NZ talent - trainers, breeders and jockeys - to overseas, particularly Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong. I don't profess to know exactly what Winston Peters did for the industry as Minister from 2005 to 2008 but his record is one that the industry applauded. At the same time Roger Douglas attacked the industry because they received tax breaks. Privilege. But it wasn't as simple as that. The racing industry wasn't getting the same treatment as other gaming industries and argued its case accordingly. My view was that they should all be on the same footing obviously but instead of attacking the racing industry, which began to thrive under Winston, Douglas should be using it as an example of how lower taxation allows business to flourish to the point where they produce more income and jobs for a country.

Douglas wrote in 2009, about what families were paying in tax:

“Given the current economic climate, this robbery must stop. What have families got for their $30,000? How has the Families Commission helped? Or introducing tax breaks for the racing industry?"

I wrote to Roger:

"Actually the racing industry is thriving and becoming more globalised. Which means the agistment, breeding and export industries are thriving. This is NZ doing what it does well. In fact it is probably a super example of how industry blossoms with lower taxes and it is entirely possible that the government is now collecting more tax because of that growth.

Of course the tax breaks need to be right across the board otherwise the concession is privilege. But it would be worth highlighting the industry positively rather than negatively."

He replied, "The last thing nz needs is govt picking winners ie taxing some nzers to give to others. Roger"

I countered,

"I agree. That's what I said. But the racing industry is a good example of why tax breaks should be universal; it provides tangible proof that the govt shouldn't be picking losers. Or do you think that the racing industry can only prosper at someone else's expense? Lindsay"

No further response was forthcoming.

I still maintain Roger missed an opportunity. Libertarians often argue this point and mostly agree that politically they should support any tax reduction but push for equivalence.

So what is the point of my post?

Winston appears to have spent all of (or damn near to) his advertising budget on Trackside TV. And the industry loves him.