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Socialism

My electricity supplier has announced a new tariff; daily supply charge up 13 per cent and power up 17 per cent. This will swallow up Jacinda’s election bribe handout before we even get it.

Actually the cost of handout to the Government will be more than truly covered by the extra GST across all consumers, without the Government’s share of the dividend the power price increase will generate.

The more stupid socialism gets the more rotten capitalism gets to profit from it, with the muggins masses screwed between the two.

Give people money so they can buy more electricity and if there isn’t more electricity to buy, what do you expect to happen but power prices to rise and power companies increase their profits?

How do we rid ourselves of promising politicians and profiteers? I’ll be burning coal. Mervyn Cave Manapouri

Official languages

Of course the language which most people speak in their homes in this country should have recognition as an official language. However it’s not exactly correct to assume its the same English, as for example, international students are examined in to gain entry to tertiary study in this, and other English-speaking countries.

We speak a dialect of English which the experts in linguistics have named NZE (NZ English). We speak and understand it 100 percent, but even people from the UK and the USA have to often ask us to repeat sentences because they only understand about 75 percent of the dialect of English we speak here.

So why not do the legislative job properly and name NZE as an official language of our country? Carl Stapleton Invercargill

Valuing Kiwis

I was moved, at a number of levels, by the 2018 New Zealander of the Year Awards. Achievers with humility getting things done in a quietly understated Kiwi way.

It is easy for some of us to forget that the fundamental unit of Aotearoa is the ‘‘person’’ and not the ‘‘dollar’’.

Until recently it was implicit that the ‘‘kiwi’’ was the dollar and not the person.

Currency originated as a means to facilitate exchange between people. Somewhere, a few decades back, that relationship reversed and the ‘‘person’’ became the currency.

A commodity – and the manipulation that goes with that.

Devaluation of a currency can be unfortunate.

Devaluation of a person can be tragic.

Sadly we do not have to look far for examples in our own backyard. Or look overseas to Uncle Sam for the consequences of misplaced values.

Let us keep to our own path and ensure that the economy remains our servant and not our master. Kristine Bartlett saw injustice and, with the backing of others, used the system to see it gone.

This was a serious test for both Kristine and the system. Both came out winners.

We have a functioning democracy, if often rather slow.

Maybe our new government can find a legal high that keeps our system buzzing 24/7 in its search for better more timely service? Daniel Phillips Invercargill

Say what?

Utterings from the President and his White House staff have become alarmingly bizarre.

Some time ago threats were made to obliterate North Korea with apparently no thought given as to what the consequences would be to the rest of the world.

Any perceived threat to the United States gives the president an opportunity to be at his belligerent best.

Now he is saying the terrible shootings are a mental health issue rather than a gun one. Perhaps mental health issues are affecting the White House. He says that shootings could be avoided if teachers and security staff are armed. The fact that so many young people are holding rallies protesting at the lack of gun control is an appalling indictment of politicians who have no will to confront the NRA. Perhaps it is time a Dump Trump lobby is set up. James Wilson Invercargill