Your view: Readers letters

More to life than growth

The salient point in Frank Greenall's column ("Full house at the global village", January 26) is surely the concept of economic growth.

It's not just a nonsense, though, it's disastrous.

A country is not seen as being successful unless its economy is growing. The gross domestic product must be forever expanding or the country is deemed to be in recession.

My view may be simplistic, but we live on a rare, possibly unique, life-sustaining planet in a vast universe.

We are plundering its precious resources at a rate that is increasing exponentially and we replace these taonga with waste byproducts - much of them toxic to life in one way or another.

And yet we must be endlessly growing, fouling our biosphere and depleting its finite resources.

I know bugger all about economics, but someone may be able to point me in the right direction. Is there an alternative (and authentic) branch of economics that does not have this crude concept of endless, mindless growth at its core?

If there is such an alternative, it is likely to embrace quality and sustainability - how this would work I do not know. Whatever else it is, though, it will not be politically attractive because it will mean sacrifice of some kind to our consumer mindset.

I think it was the Values Party from the 1970s that had zero population growth as its central tenet. What happened to that movement?

These aren't rhetorical questions - I want to know. Time is running out.

BARRY GARLAND
Kakatahi

Sea service

I was interested in a brief mention that you made in a recent radio interview on Radio NZ about a ferry service between your fair city and Motueka.

The idea of such a service, which I thought was more about a freight service than passengers, was mentioned by somebody after the earthquake that devastated Kaikoura as well as the overland route, rail and road, to Christchurch from Picton - and therefore the North Island to the South Island. It affects the whole country.

That part of the South Island will always be vulnerable.

A brief look at the map would show that a sea service such as you were talking about - and including Nelson maybe? - has a certain logic to it.

Back in the 1960s, I used to drive trucks in Auckland. For a too brief period, a barge service operated around the coast and the barges were towed by a large tug. They used to come into Onehunga on the Manukau Harbour - and the Manukau has a dangerous bar at its entrance.

I had to back the truck down a ramp on to the barge, a forklift would remove my load in about three minutes, and I would drive off. The barge had a large canopy over it.

It left a lasting impression on me because it seemed so ideal for this country, with many ports now disused.

A few years ago my wife and I were on a cruise down the Danube River and saw huge barges travelling up and down that river.

You could build a barge big enough to take four truck-and-trailer rigs along the lines of the Inter-Island ferry service now operating.

The barges would, of course, be built in Wanganui (with or without the "H").

One further point - Bluebridge, who operate a shipping service out of Wellington to Picton, are an innovative bunch, and they may be interested in driving it.

SELWYN BOORMAN
Waikanae

Ratepayer value

The Whanganui senior stormwater engineer, Kritzo Venter, is quoted as saying, "It could have come from a thousand sources, some of them natural", about the orange emission into the Whanganui River.

Faced with front-page coverage and a big mess, I would expect the council chief executive to say: "Come along, Mr Engineer, this is a long way short of good enough. Surely we could have a sample taken, get it analysed and see if we can narrow down the likely sources."

I would be wondering about the ratepayer value of the senior engineer - an occasional analyst engagement might be adequate, and the health inspector could easily carry out the dye testing.

I was a chief executive for 25 years and I got my job as town clerk as a result of working for the government Audit Office.

I was told I got selected by reason of my attitude to the spending of public money.

What I see today frequently leaves me unimpressed.

FG ROSE
Retired town clerk and chief executive

Trump a clown

President Donald J Trump is a clown! If this clueless orange buffoon was a kindergarten teacher you could possibly laugh things off, saying: "Never mind, my kids will be going to school soon."

As the leader of the free world things are a bit more serious, like the size of "The Donald's" hands.

To be fair, he has fulfilled one of his election promises to "drain the swamp in Washington" by replacing millionaires with Goldman Sachs billionaires.

For his delusional supporters who say at least give him a chance, give him a tweet and ask if he has found President Obama's birth certificate yet.

GRAHAM LEWIS
Whanganui

Negative press

Donald Trump is being castigated by the left-wing press for tweeting on crowd size; the press had photos on their front pages of Obama's and Trump's inauguration crowds, as if that was important in the scheme of things.

Just their childish reaction to Trump's victory.

They cry that he didn't win the popular vote.

My guess is that he would have if they did not have the strange early vote system.

Clinton had a lot of votes in the bag before people woke up to what she was.

His inaugural speech has backed the Congress and House reps into a corner, if there are legislation delays he can blame them and the voters surely will.

GR SCOWN
Whanganui