Hard News: Life Goes On
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the country where people walk on their hands with hats on their feet
I convinced a North American that the reason a dryer was hung upside down was that it was a northern hemisphere model and they didn't work in the southern hemisphere unless you inverted them.
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Though I did hear an American friend of mine (recently arrived in NZ) say proudly the other day that he was nearly able to distinguish between the New Zealand and English accents...
Hee. I can't really blame them for that, actually. Particularly given that some of them only ever hear that generic American telly accent. It's just a question of familiarity. I mean, to *us* it's clear who's from Paeroa and who's from Colchester, but we do sound very similar to the untrained ear.
Oh, oh, another one. Several people I met thought that you could ride a commuter ferry to Australia and/or there was a 'causeway' between the two countries.
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Questions asked of me/my mother/other foreign friends while living in Texas and/or Louisiana:
'So, y'all have Christmas in July?'
It was no better in the UK in the 60s & 70s. Spending a year back there after 4 years in NZ I was asked mostly
"Is it hot?" I ended up getting sick of describing temperate climes not unlike parts of britain & just saying "Yes"
"What's Australia like?" I'd never been there at that point, the disbelief from a class full of people who'd never taken so much as a day trip to Calais was palpable. "A thousand miles from NZ? No way"
They nicknamed me "Abo", and invited me to critically analyse and explain "Waltzing Matilda" in English class. No one believed I'd never seen a "coolibah tree".
Oh, and on first learning we were moving to NZ, my great grandfayther warned my mum that she was used to electricity, and upon hearing we were to live in Lower Hutt, we were asked who would be living in the Upper Hut and were they far away.
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That toeing the line. But yes.
noooo... my eggcorn is much better. especially when you're talking about a room full of blokes pulling the rope together.
You want "interesting" questions, try travelling Greyhound non-stop from NY to LA with a funny accent.
i'm amazed the SPCA didn't put you in prison.
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I was asked this month by two separate and equally intelligent persons whether in NZ we called the northern winter months "winter" or "summer".
That's the kind of question a programmer would ask when reviewing a specification document.
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It's slightly arbitrary that when northern hemisphere people visited or lived in the southern hemisphere for the first time they chose to associate seasons with the suns angle.
The Maori had a word for "spring", and spring is the season when certain things happen, and not certain others (my trusty dictrionary explains that koanga means both planting time and spring). It would be very silly to call winter our hot season and it would lead, among other things, to extreme confusion whenever Vivaldi is performed locally.
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That's the kind of question a programmer would ask when reviewing a specification document.
Heh! One of the askers was a programmer.
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You'd expect (assuming some return to normality) that the NZX total market cap would have increased substantially by 2025, so the Cullen Fund money would be less of a proportion of this?
Yes, one hopes the NZX will grow in the next 17 years. However, it's distinctly undesirable for any investment fund to be holding anything vaguely close to even 50% of the market, never mind something that looks more like 100%. The NZX-50 would need to grow by 100% and Fonterra would need to list before the Cullen fund's projected 40% was less than half the market value of the top listings. That's not going to happen, unless some kind of economic miracle takes place over the next five Parliamentary terms. And if you believe that's going to happen, I've got two bridges and a tunnel going cheap. Right now we're staring down the barrel of a National government that's more concerned about stoking the fires of consumer spending than about encouraging businesses to develop valuable, exportable products. So that's at least one term wasted, probably two, though hopefully not three. Short version? We're fucked, with a capital rogering!
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and upon hearing we were to live in Lower Hutt, we were asked who would be living in the Upper Hut and were they far away.
People still ask that question.
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Questions asked of me/my mother/other foreign friends while living in Texas and/or Louisiana
I spent an evening in a bar on Long Beach Island, NJ in 2006. The bar was owned by one Mr Batista, who was running for the local mayoralty. His son was behind the bar serving, granddad apparently used to run Cuba before Castro ran him off.
I was introduced to a group of locals (tradesmen mostly who knew each other through being volunteer firemen) as coming from New Zealand.
One asked me if we had tractors in New Zealand. At least, what he actually did, was say "Tractors?" and move his hands in a driving on the steering wheel type motion.
After he did it two or three times people had recovered laughing enough to tell him that Kiwis spoke English. I just looked at him like he was mad the whole time.
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**Starter for ten: what do you get when you have too much money chasing too few goods?**
A tax cut?
Bzzzt! The answer is "inflation" - and specifically an asset bubble. It would do for stocks what we've just seen happen to housing, with the Cullen Fund picking up the tab.
Next question: who would benefit from such an asset bubble?
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Excuse my ignorance, but what actually is a "robocall" ? I assume it's an automatically-generated phone call that indiscriminately rings loads of people and recites dodgy messages to whoever answers ?
Exactly -- and just to add insult to injury, it's one form of spam nobody is interested in regulating in the United States. Surprise surprise... But I can't see how they're anything more than a very expensive way to piss off potential supporters...
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On the deposit insurance scheme, I don't see why finance companies should be covered at all. The whole point of their higher rates of interest is that it's meant to reflect the higher risk associated with where their investments lie. Banks pay lower interest, but they're meant to be lower-risk. If banks go under, it shouldn't be because the managers have been dishing out dollars like candy to anyone with a shonky development plan.
If the finance companies have to be secured, make the bastards pay through the nose for it. And make sure that their ratings from S&P and the other usual suspects actually reflect the reality of the investment plans and trust deeds, not some notional degree of risk. Some of the first wave of finance companies that went tits-up here were given ratings that would've allowed them to enrol in the insurance scheme.
Some of Bernard Hickey's analysis is a little hysterical for my tastes, but he's dead right when he asserts that it's a total no-brainer to invest in finance companies for a 10% return (vis the sub-8% return offered by banks), if that investment is just as secure as that low-return bank deposit. That's bad business. It's especially bad for the stock market, since you're in for the very long haul right now if you want a 10% return on a share investment, not to mention praying that the company will still be around in 18-months' time.
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However, it's distinctly undesirable for any investment fund to be holding anything vaguely close to even 50% of the market, never mind something that looks more like 100%. The NZX-50 would need to grow by 100% and Fonterra would need to list before the Cullen fund's projected 40% was less than half the market value of the top listings.
Exactly. Which is why it won't happen like that. Which is why I say that ultimately most of the 40% represents your tax cut. One way or another this fund is being raided, along with the R&D tax credit and Kiwi Saver contributions.
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The whole point of their higher rates of interest is that it's meant to reflect the higher risk associated with where their investments lie
But the rates they actually offered to investors were not that much higher than the banks... many of them maybe 1-2 % higher from recollection... So having heard that return reflect risk, you might assume that a return "close" to a banks would also be a risk close to a banks.... which as history has shown, was a poor conclusion to draw.
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The Mexican stall holders in Tijuana can pick a Kiwi accent pretty quickly and with a smile you will happily buy from their stall.
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Next question: who would benefit from such an asset bubble?
Ooo oooo I know this one - John Key and his compatriots?
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I was in LA for 3 months earlier this year & can't recall any particularly stupid questions - but I was very happy when the cashiers at Macy's, when realising I wasn't "from here" from my accent, deducted the sales tax from my purchases!
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Exactly -- and just to add insult to injury, it's one form of spam nobody is interested in regulating in the United States.
Actually the US has a pretty good anti-phone spam system -p certainly better than here. The "do not call list" is a list of phone numbers that phone spammers are not allowed to call (with a few exceptions) - anyone can sign up on a web site. Cell phones have always been on such a list (because in the US the owner pays for incoming calls).
However the "few exceptions" sadly includes political calls (after all guess who writes laws ...)
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However the "few exceptions" sadly includes political calls (after all guess who writes laws ...)
When canvassing, I've always refused to consider political material "junk mail". I'm sure that didn't reflect the opinion of at least some of the dwellers.
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total no-brainer to invest in finance companies for a 10% return
Except that if the finance company is rated below BB, then they would have to pay a 3% insurance premium. Plus (I think) they'll be putting half that money in the Reserve Bank at base (7.5%). Which means that to pay 10% on $10,000, they'll need to make $925 in interest from $5k, which is 18.5%. Plus margin, plus an allowance for defaults.
I don't think that'll work, so there won't be any below-BB rated firms around. Maybe the higher rated ones will stick around, but like I say they'll be essentially banks.
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But the rates they actually offered to investors were not that much higher than the banks... many of them maybe 1-2 % higher from recollection... So having heard that return reflect risk, you might assume that a return "close" to a banks would also be a risk close to a banks.... which as history has shown, was a poor conclusion to draw.
Yes, that's true. Hence my point about not letting S&P et al just rubber-stamp an "investment grade" rating onto these cowboys. The best solution would be to make the ratings agencies subject to hefty penalties if an "investment grade"-rated outfit turns out to be doing dodgy deals. As things are at the moment there's no risk to them for being overly optimistic in their ratings.
And if people then want to invest in an outfit with a BB grade, for a return of 10%, there's a saying about fools and money.
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It was no better in the UK in the 60s & 70s.
I was asked a question about keeping the Maori tribes out of the settlements in Slough circa 1990.
But it's very easy to get righteous about all this. I'm overwhelmed, but no longer surprised, in NZ by the amount of ignorance I encounter towards Asia when in the country. If I could count the number of times I've had to correct a comment about Bali being in Thailand, or, once, Queensland. Or, and I guess it's related, but had to field questions as to if Bali has recovered from the Tsunami.
I asked a guy who said he'd spent a couple of months in Bali if he'd been to Java..no only to Jakarta.
Then there are the endless questions as to how we deal with those wily, dangerous, Muslims....a very common enquiry but little different from the UK one I quoted above.
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I don't think that'll work, so there won't be any below-BB rated firms around. Maybe the higher rated ones will stick around, but like I say they'll be essentially banks.
Which is why including finance companies is a bad idea in the first place. If they're as safe as a bank, they should be a bank. And that means they won't have the room to lend to projects that have a good chance of success but are distinctly marginal in terms of meeting "investment grade" lending criteria. That means a reduction in available capital to fringe borrowers, and potentially damages the economy.
There's a place for low-grade lenders. Shunting them out of the way isn't desirable. What's needed is for the returns paid, and the ratings given, to be an honest reflection of the level of risk. If I want to risk my money on a third-ranking mortgage, but get 18% for it, then so be it. But that 18% is a good reflection of just how risky the investment is. If I'm only getting 11%, I'm being sold up the river but quite possibly won't realise that it's a very risky investment.
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Interning for a tabloid in NY, I was asked, on more than one occasion, when I'd get around to speaking with an American accent.
"I'm only here for two months," I'd tell them.
"So? Speak like an American," one replied.
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