Posts by Jim Cathcart
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Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to Swan,
Certainly the idea of promoting owner occupiers being desirable in and of itself is popular, but what are the reasons? Remember that idea was one of the major causes of the GFC.
The main cause of the GFC was not the purchase of homes for owner occupancy.It was not a supply / demand impact on price. It was the result of low interest rates to resuscitate the U.S. economy after the tech bubble and the impact of low interest rates globally. Mix that in with an over leveraged financial system bordering on criminality. Then you want to add a banking / govt cartel, particularly in the Anglospehre, keen on asset appreciation in housing as the next driver of economic wealth. NZ and Australia are particularly prone given that we run persistent current account deficits and the nations’ debt loads are largely carried by the private sector (primarily households). That is partly why govt debt is comparatively low (OK, Australia has benefited to some degree from commodities, but household debt load is north of 100% of GDP). The banking system in Australasia is able to borrow from wholesale debt markets; basically, which has been a steady flow of cheap funding that can be available to drive property prices.
Yes, supply is an issue, but without the financial resources, it is irrelevant. Wealth in NZ has not been driven by some great economic miracle or the dairy sector. People are not really thinking this through. -
Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to Mark Graham,
Yes, one of the problems looking through a consideration funnel is that you still need an outcome to make an accurate estimate. As for BNZ, I would their estimate is based on their own customer base, which they then extrapolate based on their estimated relative share of customers by ethnicity.
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Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to Michael Meyers,
Similar narratives being bandied about in Vancouver.
This issue is not defined by race. Twyford doesn't bother to go down that road because he knows that without such capital flows, the economy is likely to be toast.
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Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to Russell Brown,
To some degree but it's all rather lightweight. Hell, when was the last time you heard the NZ govt or media schooling the public on what the carry trade actually means? It's easier to take the scenic route and appreciate why people want to invest or live in NZ based on the positive aspects. Grappling with the instability that the massive distortion of capital flows creates is rather too much for most people to worry about.
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Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to Katharine Moody,
Yes Katherine. The biggest beneficiaries out of all this are likely to be the Australian-owned banks and the real estate industry. Money for jam as they say,
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Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to Sacha,
Not that the NZ public has taken much notice, speculation on Chinese equities has taken a hit this week. There is much fear and deep uncertainty (outside NZ anyway) about the wider implications of all this. Of course, if for some reason, this triggered asset deflation around the globe, the Labor party would be the first to claim to have done something about it. And whether people find it politically inconvenient to say or not, capital flight from China has been happening for quite some time.
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I thought this was going to be an explanation of your methodology that I read was based around Bayesian analysis. Surely instead of estimating house buyers based on the proportion of the ethnicity they belong to, wouldn't it make more sense to more accurately weight the sample by characteristics such as age, income, etc? Drawing your benchmark from total population seems to a less than robust considering the sensitivity of the how the data is to be used by a political party.
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Would be great if you could and the smart urbanists could have your 'Imagining Auckland' ideas transferred to those who cannot afford to go to wonderful events like Splore. Those are really the people who it matters to.
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Hard News: Some reprehensible bullshit, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I’m sorry you don’t like the outcome of a free, fair and legitimate election. The Herald has made it abundantly clear it doesn’t. But it’s not Brown or Auckland City’s responsibility that the only daily newspaper in Auckland is exercising the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages. It would be really nice if your moral indignation was turned in that direction for a few moments.
Where did I say that I didn't like "free and fair elections"? It should not be my moral indignation that you should be concerned about; it should be the sensitivity of those who live in your fair city. As I alluded to before, if Aucklanders are ambivalent to this, then the council has nothing to be concerned about. But the point that Russell seems to making is that people's perceptions are easily manipulated by the MSM for all the wrong reasons. If that is the position shared by the Council, it makes you wonder about their sophistication in communications and how public perception is factored into the decisions that are made.
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Hard News: Some reprehensible bullshit, in reply to Gareth Swain,
Well considering you live in Japan, you might be aware of Yasuo Tanaka, the governor of Nagano, who was a champion of reform and transparency. He was the guy who transformed his private office into a glass-walled room as a symbolic representation of transparency. Tanaka was a champion of the people; yet despised by the political establishment and bureaucracy for his drive and commitment to his constituency.
Sure, you may argue that it was just for show, but appearance do mean something to people.