Posts by Jim Cathcart
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Pavletich supported me on a debate regarding the relevance of mid- to- high-density housing over at Macrobusiness. The Texas model is extremely important for nzers to be aware of, especially with regards to death by bureaucracy. The risks in NZ are now so precarious because of the housing bubble that people should be concerned, yet they're not.
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How about non-honky, non-Maori perspective? How does that fit in?
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Ironically, the Lange Govt was against the Keynesian tendencies of the Muldoon regime and soon become the poster child for economic liberalization. Now, NZ is leading the charge for a global monetarist system where current account deficits are a mere annoyance and where MMT is the new religion (for every astronomical private debt is an asset and where government spending ends up in the hands of the private sector). With a floating exchange rate and carry trade speculation (where the banks can hedge their bets and not lose), NZ is the "rock star" of the global economy and living within your means actually translates as "well at least we're not as bad as Europe, the U.S. or Japan."
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Some people might be interested in this blog post on communicating statistical uncertainty, which came to me through Linkedin this morning.
https://gss.civilservice.gov.uk/blog/2014/06/uncertainty/ -
I notice that the North Shore has been ragged on a little about the quality of curry restaurants. I met the people in Highbury, Birkenhead who run this place and I thought it was great for time-poor people http://www.spiceneasy.co.nz/
Also, the Curry Kitchen (boil-in-the-bag curries) was born on the Shore. The taste quality of the curries was good at a time when nobody too much notice.
Nissin curry-favored instant noodles from Japanese would probably turn up a few noses, but the product was tested in India, and the organo evaluation was astounding.
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That’s interesting. I bought one Onkyo receiver because it it was incredibly cheap for what it offered (like, $400 cheap) and then another one when I wanted a stereo for my office, and that was only $300 – cheaper than any purist stereo amplifier. They’re both powerful and well-featured amplifiers.
Actually, Onkyo was the first CE manufacturer to be approached by Apple to integrate the iPhone into home audio/home theater. The Onkyo engineers could sense the opportunity to really take this home, much you like expressed in the article. And Apple wanted Onkyo because they knew their old school approach to sound and perfection in analog output. Next minute, Microsoft was banging on the door trying to drag Onkyo into their integrated home entertainment dreams. Onkyo was too small and earthy to deal effectively with these guys and would rather move at Japanese pace.
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Great post. After years working with Onkyo in Osaka, it's encouraging to see that people still care and can express audio output with clarity. Onkyo external DACs and audio boards have gained cult-like status in Hong Kong and mainland China. Strangely, these devices have never been available outside Japan, except in the grey market.
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Auckland is so diverse that the ASB has Migrant, Asian and Korean Banking Units. Those bankers aren't stupid.
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As for the government’s pressure, you’re confusing opening up land with affordable housing. The two are not the same. The government has no interest in the council’s intent to use intensification as a way to improve affordability, and has said as much; their perspective is that the only solution to housing affordability issues is to open up more greenfields land and sprawl, baby, sprawl. This negates any influence Brown might have on policy at the national level, too, because what he believes is directly opposite to what the numpties on the Treasury benches believe; same issue with the Core Rail Link.
Is the govt really against intensification? To be frank, that is a more important part of the solution that falls under the urban planning framework. It is not simply about land release on the fringes. However, intensification and land release are not mutually exclusive, and my interest in the problem is partly driven by the fact that I have been living in more densely populated cities in Asia where the cost and quality of high-density living is far superior to Auckland. And I believe that the local governments of Japan have been crucial in enabling high-density living for low- to mid-incomes. And it appears that in Auckland, this has barely developed beyond superficiality. All the credit bubble and property boom were able to produce in the 2000s were a collection of cheaply built, lifestyle deprived apartments in Auckland Central.
And whatever Len Brown's solution is, it appears that the power brokers and general public seem unwilling to make the sacrifices and effort to make it work.
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Those last two words speak a lot to the irrationality of your position. Brown is a mid-size fish in a very, very large pool, one where the biggest fish are parochial buffoons like Joyce, English and Brownlee. His ability to actually influence the factors that are making Auckland housing wildly affordable is very, very limited, especially since he’s got a council heavily composed of people who are thoroughly in the thrall of the “we’ve got our leafy suburbs, you new entrants can fuck off to the edges of suburbia” crowd. He can try and get the council to support intensification, which is really the only thing the council can do to meaningfully improve affordability (knocking $30k in consent costs off the price of a new build is rapidly becoming an invisible rounding error), but he’s one voice and one vote. The macro policies, around jobs, foreign ownership, tax incentives, they’re all out of his hands.
So you think Brown is worthless because he’s not doing anything to address housing affordability (amongst other things), then you come out and explicitly recognise that he can’t do anything about housing affordability in any meaningful way because he’s a regional politician in a country where nearly all the power rests with central government and the current occupants of the national capitol are morons who wouldn’t know good housing policy if it got dropped on their heads by a witch on her way to a date with a falling domicile.It's quite odd to consider my position as irrational, and then sketch a narrative that more or less reiterates with what I said. And I'm interested to know more about the power balance between central and local government. Are you saying that LB has no influence on meaningful change in urban planning policy and legislature? I actually though that pressure was coming from the central government on ACC to free up land and construct affordable housing. Correct me if I'm wrong.