Posts by BenWilson
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Hard News: Unwarranted risk, in reply to insider,
What a strange concept. If I sell my business, NZ has no 'ownership' of it. Only I do. How is that giving away the 'ownership of NZ' if I happen to sell it to a foreigner?
What a strange question. If you are a NZer and you sell your business to someone outside of NZ, who is not a NZer, then the ownership has moved outside of NZ. What is actually hard about that to understand?
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Hard News: Unwarranted risk, in reply to insider,
comfortably ahead of demand over the same period of 20%.
I'd like to see you prove that was the "demand" increase. I'd also like to hear how you explain power prices steadily increasing, if supply has increased faster than demand.
What would you prefer: we build power stations for the hell of it just in case?
Yes. I would prefer that. Power is a major part of the cost of life for most NZers and a great many NZ businesses. We have a responsibility to grow our economy by growing the infrastructure that enables it.
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Hard News: Unwarranted risk, in reply to Russell Brown,
I don't actually see Telecom/TranzRail-style looting here.
No I haven't got a crystal ball either. But I have seen Telecom/TranzRail-style looting here, and once bitten, twice shy.
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Hard News: Unwarranted risk, in reply to Russell Brown,
It might also have the effect of deterring investment in New Zealand altogether.
Yes. I have mixed feelings about that. Investment in NZ isn't always all good. Practically, it means giving away a little piece of the ownership of NZ every time.
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Hard News: Unwarranted risk, in reply to Rob Stowell,
Cunliffe came pretty close..
He's still around...
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Hard News: Unwarranted risk, in reply to insider,
You must live in a completely alternative reality Ben because you seem to have completely missed the 1500MW of new generation commissioned since about 1998. Given we only have about 9500MW of generation, it seems a fairly decent level of market investment.
I'm completely underwhelmed that in 14 years our electricity generators have reinvested to improve their generation by a total of 15.7%. So far as I'm concerned that's "killed reinvestment". It's a truly pathetic growth rate, and if you can't see that you're the one in the alternate reality. Electricity production is a key driver of economic growth, and 0.88% growth per annum is hopeless, and all the reason anyone needs to see why costs are constantly mounting.
Edit: Math fail. Make that 18.75% growth, and 0.89% growth pa.
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Muse: The Good Word, Bad Numbers and The…, in reply to Steve Barnes,
Which, in the not too distant future, will be replaced by pictures of girls in Briefs with big Tits.
Yes, the Truth has never struggled to survive. From what I've seen, the sporting commentary in it is really quite good, too. Most of the rest of the writing is ridiculous, and it's obviously mostly purchased for the huge section of advertisements for prostitution, but they do actually seem to have fun making that paper. That's entirely absent from the Herald.
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Hard News: Unwarranted risk, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
but, really high power bills now it's all privatised.
Yes, I only said there's almost a case. I would not actually advocate the sale at all, but the damage of a sale would be a lot less if we had a very powerful super fund sector here. It would still not be fair, people with much bigger funds would profit disproportionately, but at least most people would get some kind of a look in.
I actually think that it's already bad enough that our utilities are structured as SOEs, required to turn a profit. That's killed our power generation investment all on its own. It cripples the ability of the government to invest, because blue murder is screamed by the entities that can't compete with the government.
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Hard News: Unwarranted risk, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
I’d suggest that Labour should be working with the other opposition parties to put together a plan to acquire these firms back for the NZ people
That is only going to make them even more profitable to buy into when they are sold off, because it means there is a buyer out there with incredibly deep pockets.
Labour could, however, head that off at the pass by saying that they will insist on buying back at the original price - this could deter investment altogether, indeed it would be a very aggressive move to block the sales outright, casting uncertainty over the whole deal. Or they could make it their policy that they will cap power prices, and pass laws that force the utility companies to reinvest a percentage of their profits into maintenance and new development. Anything that frustrates the ability of investors to strip this incredibly valuable asset right down will bring the price down to what it is actually worth as a sustainable business.
But I would never ever expect such a move by them. It's no more outrageous than saying you're going to repeal a controversial Act (like National said about the F&S Act), and it could also be quite populist. The supposed mandate held by National is not actually popular at all, every survey shows that. It could easily be a crippling move. But I believe that Labour are far too cowardly to do it.
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Hard News: Unwarranted risk, in reply to Luke Williamson,
And as for the "Mum and Dad" investors crap . . . most of the population is struggling to keep food on the table and the mortgage paid, and will not be chucking a few spare thousands at SOE shares
Totally. Did anyone not get this?? The reason we have low investment in our own stockmarkets is NOT because there are no stocks worth buying, but because NZ does not have a culture of saving and investing in anything except property. Australia is exactly the opposite, has the highest rate of Mum and Dad investors in their local stockmarket in the world because they have compulsory super savings. If any such thing existed here, there would almost be a case for the asset sales, because the super funds would snap them up and they would fund retirement. Then foreign investment driving the prices up would actually make most NZers richer (until it came time to pay power bills). But we don't have that, and we bloody well should. First. While there still are state assets that we could all be in the IPO bonanza for, instead of buying into them after all the fucking capital we have already sunk into them after years of paying the interest on the loans it took to build them has been sucked out by foreign investors.
There's nothing good about this government's economic plans. Nothing at all.
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