#1 - Andrew Atkin said:
2009-05-29 18:00 - (Reply)

Dear John and National, *Education:* You can reduce education spending by giving parents the option of taking back their ~$5,000 per child and homeschooling. Then results will be better academic achievement and reduced education costs, as I have stated too many times. You would probably have enough cross-party support to still win the next election even through the giant teaching profession will punish you at the polls for daring to force them to compete with superior alternatives. Countless voting parents will greatly respect your party for providing that liberal option. *Health:* You can also reduce health expenditure by migrating to a system of self-abuser pays. This means that people must pay a compulsory premium to the state to cover their increased health risk from unnecessary personal health abuse. Imagine the far-reaching savings from incentivising people to take better care of themselves. Why do we forever ignore these obvious and potent options? *Silver bullet?* I know they're not supposed to exist, but I think that there's a potential silver bullet for NZ productivity growth today. I suggest using the new and now implemented transport system ULTra for "exotic property development" in New Zealand. http://www.atsltd.co.uk/ ULTra is about as cheap to build as a footpath (non-elevated) so it can provide exceptionally economical practical access to 'exotic' and beautiful locations for new property developments. The developments are also extremely quiet because ULTra is an electric system (and very eco-friendly). If built as a one-way system for exclusive property developments you're looking at about a 10th of the cost of a conventional road (or less) to build, especially on hills. This means low-cost for high-yeild with respect to a major asset that has [or can have] very high *global* demand. Other countries would struggle to compete with us, because they just don't have the same kind of topography and climate that we have so close to the major towns and cities. Making more for less relative to our competitors on such a high-value item can ultimately allow us to bypass the global meltdown, maybe even completely I believe. There is nothing pie-in-the-sky about what I have just written. It is commonsense that a revolution in an access system (ULTra) can achieve maybe a massive increase in the [market] value-added in residential land, which can in turn found a second major construction boom. (and huge for NZ tourism for that matter).