Posts by George Darroch
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you didn't exactly have to be Ron Paul at his ding-battiest worse to ask whether eye-watering levels of low-quality-debt-fuelled consumption -- cheerfully enabled by banks who I can't believe didn't know better -- wasn't going to leave one hell of an bitter aftertaste
It certainly helped. In the mid-2000s the only types I can remember talking seriously about these things were deep-greens, communists, and Cryptonomicon types.
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I've only been out for dinner in Auckland twice this year (Wellington is another story), but one of them is a place worth mentioning.
I took a visiting friend at SkyCity across to the Midnight Express cafe across the road. The food was absolutely wonderful, Turkish done very well, service at a high level. Slightly more than the low-end we've come to expect, but it's worth it. And their Turkish coffee is of course exceptional.
Keith also took me to dumplings at Barilla on Dominion Rd. The food is hardly groundbreaking, but if you get more than a single plate of dumplings ($8) you'll be stuffed. So much food.
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student loans mostly, it seems.
hardly an impulsive splurgeAnd all the subprime lendees, with the temerity to try and buy for themselves houses.
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I should note, for fairness, that the former Finance Minister chairs the board of a bank, and many other similar examples. Skilled people need challenging jobs, and that's fine. However, the differentiation should be clearly marked - and it's up to the public to enforce that. I would say media, but the purpose of the media is to sell real-estate advertising.
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Speaking of overlap...
Simon Power is going to head Westpac Private Bank
Patrick Gower, Twitter, about 10 minutes ago.
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The first makes you a worthy philanthropist who came unstuck, the second an Evil Manipulator, right?
To the extent that you use those derivatives to leverage (which is what they indeed became synonymous with), then you are creating a problem. It’s too hard to say no. In your case, refusing to lend because you’re not going to be able to cover your debts is going to see your customers walk down the street to the next bank, who will.
If you start from the assumption that there’s not enough capital in the system, then leveraging derivatives is fine or even praiseworthy. If you think that there’s sufficient or too much, then they’re problematic from the get-go. I don’t blame banks too much for exploiting these arrangements for profit – that’s what they do. But I do blame governments for failing to regulate them. That is a difficult thing to do however when you have the kinds of collusion that Matt Taibbi has written extensively on, and the firm ideological convictions of academics and their institutional counterparts that the market is both strongly rational and works in society’s interest.
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In NZ, with a conservative banking system and no financial markets tradition, these loans were provided by accountants in rural towns shovelling money at their mates, Elsewhere, more sophisticated stratagems were used. Either way, it was a bubble with the government, media and mainstream population wholeheartedly engaged. (How much of TVNZ's 2007 output was house pr0n?)
Indeed. Friends in Labour are upset when I criticise their last Government as inflationary, reckless, and based in large part on a property bubble that was bound to collapse. Right until the end they were resisting slowing things down through direct and indirect measures. It wouldn't have been easy, but it would have been worth it (of course, you do such things before the bubble, not when it's ready to pop).
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There is a huge disconnect between Auckland's north facing harbour suburbs and the rest of the country. I was shocked to drive through on my way from Tamaki to Newmarket recently. But it's not sufficiently pronounced to stir the level of class angst that's arisen in the United States. I do think that skilled agitators can use it to drive general discontent in their direction.
The "evil bankers" were simply meeting a demand. The ordinary traders, administrators and geeks were just doing a job no different to people in similar jobs at Google, or Apple. (Both of which rely on complex financial markets for their existence).
Oh rubbish. There's a difference between lending and long/medium-term investment on one hand and complex instrumentalisation and derivative trading on the other.
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Line up's pretty weak, so far. Girl Talk is excellent for such an event, and Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All would be interesting to see (although I'm always curious to see how similar groups fit stadium events).
Didn't dig the 1979 remake as much as I liked... you start to wonder if you're getting older when you hear someone play a song that defined a decade for you (that album, really), and dismiss it within a few seconds.
Who I'm really enjoying and who's playing the BDO? David Dallas. This is the standout off his album.
He's giving the entire thing away on his site; you have to admire his bravery and ambition. Apparently it's paying off. MTV, 90210, supporting Talib Kweli and Mos Def next week...
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I'm on a boat.