Posts by Paul Campbell
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Smller pay rises? I'm a consultant, I own a company with one employee (me) - it's not a tax dodge honest - it's almost a non-profit in the sense that at the end of every month I look at the bank balance, subtract a $4-500 float and throw the resulting number into some spreadsheet formulas that calculate my kiwisaver and paye, and then write cheques ....
I'm sort of the ultimate bad employer as I pass my higher costs on to my employees every month - take away the kiwisaver tax credit and my employee gets it in the neck at the end of the month - god I hate that boss!
Since I largely earn US$ I haven't seen a pay increase in years - no 4% wage growth for me more like negative 30% in the past year or so - I'm in it with the farmers and I can't even change the way I count my cows to rort my taxes
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You all will remember "Little boxes" written by Malvina Reynolds in the early 60s that started
Little boxes on the hillside,
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Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
....It was originally written about a new development in Daly City just south of San Francisco (where that big gas explosion was last year) .... now days in the US they mostly have developments where all the houses are painted the same base colour and the same trim colours with covenants that stop you painting .... leading us to a rewrite ....
There's a brown one and a brown one
And a brown one and a brow-en oneAnd given the leaky homes saga
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same -
Southerly: That CERA Rumour, in reply to David Haywood,
Thanks for some fascinating comments, Paul. The thing I've never been able to work out about the floating system is how you relevel it after a quake. I'm sure there must be a way -- but I can't seem to find anything about it.
A great question - since the liquefaction continues after the 'quake one assumes that there's a tendency to self level - but a spirit level and "kids all run into the laundry, pull the big telly with you" before it sets might help do the trick.
As I mentioned a lot of earthquake safety in California seems to be more aimed at surviving and walking away to claim your insurance rather than preserving the structure of houses when "the big one hits". The same 'floating houses' were being fitted with breakaway safety gas lines (we all had earthquake gas shutoff valves). Our old neighbourhood in Oakland was settled by people who had moved there from San Francisco after the '06 quake leveled the city - our house was built then - of course they moved right on top of the next fault line over, the one supposedly scheduled to go next.
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Living in Dunedin the underside of my (100 yr old) house is scary - we're sitting on brick piles (piles of bricks) - to be fair we're close to being on bedrock most of the way up a hill - but when the alpine fault goes off piles of pricks turn into individual bricks .... what to do?
In California we did earthquake remediation on every house we bought - in one case (another 100yr old house) we spent $20k, replaced large chunks of the aging foundation, bolted the house to it, added shear walls etc - we lived about 1km from the Hayward fault - supposedly where the next big one will hit. All that not to save the house, it will be a wreck, but so that we can walk away.
In CA people will cross the road rather than walk past a brick wall or building, there's a history of people and cars being crushed, no one builds in brick, they're scared of it (just wait until the New Madrid fault next lets loose .... ).
Like Dunedin, San Francisico has little natural flat land, what we do have is built on fill (all of South Dunedin is built on sand, dig a hole in the back yard and you can see the water, that shiny new stadium used to be a swamp/lake) - we're about as far from the Alpine fault as you can get, but not far enough
One thing I saw being pushed after the Loma Prieata 'quake was 'liquefaction proof houses' so they could keep building in these reclaimed spaces by the Bay. The basic idea is that you build your concrete foundation like a boat - it's closed and deep enough that it will float when the surrounding ground turns liquid, add a gas connection that will safely break away and when the big one hits it's "avast me hearties!" and you're off, for a metre or two
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well no policy concessions away from ACT's policies ....
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Actually I see that same Key smile all over town, on real estate hoardings
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(to be fair it would go down equally well for the Greens)
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Hard News: Some Lines for Labour, in reply to Sacha,
well it's "John Key helping the Americans chipping away at our social welfare system" sort of billboard .....
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actually I think that the selling out Pharmac et al would be a really great wedge issue if only they'd apply a hammer to the other end
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Hard News: Some Lines for Labour, in reply to Paul Campbell,
(BTW I was referring to the bank's accounts for various political party functionaries, not yours in particular Craig, which I'm sure is full to overflowing)