Author: Default User

This system is broken – House values vs wages

Default User

You know this system is buggered when just a single investment propery alone (e.g an average 3 bedroom stand alone / single family house) one happens to own is appreciating in value faster than what one earns in their main job. And that is before considering the taxman coming to take his take off of my salary.

Sadly, none of the politicians I spoke to in the lead up to our last elections gave a hoot. National Party candidates in particular – they didn’t seem to care about the social impact of house price speculation and in fact seemed to be incredulous that I would vote against my own financial self interest.

Yeah well, what pride is there to live in such a socially and economically divided society? We’ve already long since lost our our egalitarian identity and we are already losing our social cohesion.

This system is broken – House values vs wages

TastyTrade: “Account locked due to excessive failed login attempts”

Default User

Not sure if any other people who have TastyTrade profiles are getting these account locked messages (Doesn’t look like it’s widely reported if at all). Really unsure what those people whom are trying to gain access are even hoping to find. I don’t even have any money with TastyTrade let alone an active trading account.

Had contacted TastyTrade support before about the alleged repeated attempts to gain access but found the response a little non-committal instead assuring me that my profile was somehow safe. Recalled they declined my request to delete my profile/account with them for some reason I’m not quite clear about.

If a TastyTrade Rep would like to contact me to discuss the matter, they are welcome to. For now, I’m not going to waste anymore time – Have resorted to filtering the messages.

TastyTrade: “Account locked due to excessive failed login attempts”

Auckland Funnel Cloud

Default User, ,

Funnel cloud spotted from Grand Drive, Remuera as I was nearing home yesterday. First time I’ve ever seen such a thing with my own eyes. Thankfully it never developed into a fall blown twister / tornado.

Funnel cloud formation coming out from dark clouds against the blue sky behind
Funnel cloud spotted in Auckland

Admittedly, I was initially concern that it was headed for my home. Turns out the thing was quite a bit away fortunately (out in the Harbour). The formation did resemble almost precisely the tornadoes I’ve been repeatedly seeing in many of my apocalyptic dreams.

Auckland Funnel Cloud

Economic Caution (invalidated)

Default User

A lower high and a lower low so far in 2023 Q3 (Right most shaded column at the right end of the chart) – Whether anything will come out of this, who knows.

All I feel is, things are a little odd. High interest rates, yet asset prices appear to be stubbornly high and all the economic and business news appears to be overly lofty and positive, but I digress, what do I know?

 

Update 14 January 2024: Would be fairly safe to say that the original concern has now passed and nothing ultimately happened. Seems economic sentiment is still positive and in some cases exuberant. Previously held convention wisdom has pretty much been invalidated.

I still struggle to understand the widespread optimism though. Very little of the reports make sense or actually corroborate. That said, have invested in TQQQ last year and will allow it to ride for the time being to take advantage of the current mass exuberance. I still strongly assert that the markets have detached itself from reality and seems to be operating under fabricated spin in the run up to the US elections and wouldn’t be surprised there is astroturfing involved by the power elite as really nothing is marrying up to me as a lay man.

Economic Caution (invalidated)

Facebook now requiring login to view business pages

Default User

Update: Original functionality has been restored it appears but it does feel like Facebook keeps pulling this periodically probably in order to pull in more sign ups.

Meta / Facebook are at it again, requiring you to login to Facebook just to view business pages and public community pages…

Seems phones may still have uninhibited access to pages marked as public. Desktops and Tablets appear to be affected.

I know this is in vain… Internet users of the world, please stop supporting these misbehaving tech behemoths. So tired of these corporates trying to monopolize and seize control of our lives.

Facebook now requiring login to view business pages

Ti-Rakau Drive and Trugood Drive Traffic light issue

Default User, ,

Reported this issue to Auckland Transport. With “return to office” mandates and the lack of Travel choice in much of the East Tamaki Employment zone, thought this should get looked into.

Saw traffic backing up along Ti-Rakau Drive (West bound traffic) and all the way back to Botany and up along Harris Road as well (when returning back home from the In-office day on Wednesday)

Update: Auckland Transport have since come back to me and confirmed the issue and have kindly made adjustments to the phasing along with thanking me for report this.

From what AT have implied, this was the first report of this they have received. As far as I know, this issue has existed for months so it did leave me wondering why no one else has report this? Even if it’s to inquire if the current programming / phasing of the lights are correct. (This isn’t the first time this has happened, are people just assuming someone else will pipe up and report these issues?)

That said, with the Trugood lights now “fixed”, the congestion will likely be moved further down (e.g Ti Rakau / Revees Rd interchange) so overall travel time savings for my route will probably only amount to around a few minutes.

Ti-Rakau Drive and Trugood Drive Traffic light issue

Cancelled my CostCo membership (for now)

Default User

Ended up cancelling my CostCo membership as I couldn’t make it work financially and I’m frankly too far away from CostCo Westgate. Once they open up more stores, and there is one available on my regular weekly routes, then will look to re-establish my membership.

That said, it was good to at least pop in to have a look and I’m still appreciative of them bringing in much needed added competition. I believe a CostCo membership is still beneficial for those who reside nearby and have an actual need to buy in bulk, be it for their family or community group.

One of the issues is that they rotate stock out frequently and it’s currently difficult to know what they have unless you physically visit their store (or go out on a limb and ask on the Westgate CostCo Community faceborg page and risk a barrage of snark). That’s until they open up their online store for New Zealand. For example this weekend, went to look for a dehumidifier and a new home gym (which I had seen on prior visits) and discovered CostCo Westgate had neither for sale.

Despite trawling all the aisles, I couldn’t convince myself to buy much, if anything this weekend. Arrived early, and parking was easy, but it feels as soon as I turned my back around, the place was absolutely slammed with people. Ended up only buying something for Lunch and having to navigate the checkout queues, then past the over crowded food court and then navigate the Car park traffic jam to get out. Ended up parking up in a spare parking bay along Gunton Drive and walked back in to get my Membership cancelled/refunded. Sorry, I just couldn’t do it anymore.

On other aspects…

  • The staff can be mixed. Checkout staff were efficient. The sign up staff were friendly and I did feel sorry for advising I was here to cancel my membership. The door staff can be a bit like drill sergeants however.
  • CostCo may not always be the cheapest, unless it’s on rebate, so still pays to compare pricing with your local supermarket.

Overall, CostCo is good for what it is I guess, but really only works for specific situations. I at least did appreciate the chance of just having a look around to see what it was all about. To close, I end with a cliche “It’s not you, it’s me” but “it’s not forever” and I plan to have another look in a few years.

Cancelled my CostCo membership (for now)

Consumer packaging

Default User

Early spring clean. Photo of product packaging that I dug out from the closet.

Product Boxes

Issue is, some of this packaging is so elaborate and fancy inside the box, that you don’t want to throw it away. It does make me wish there was a practical way to send such packaging back to the manufacturer to reuse.

Consumer packaging

Crystal Ball: House prices to stabilize? Economic inequality to increase?

Default User

High level hunch is that house prices are likely to stabilize and may even go back up a little across the country. That said, my emotional desire is for them to (continue) to fall because frankly house prices I feel are still ridiculous.

Sensing there is still a lot of FOMO (Despite recent price reductions) along with excess liquidity in the system and a lot of people “waiting”. This “system” seem to have an insane fascination of rewarding property investment instead of those investing in productive enterprise / endeavors (including paid employment) and I state this as being a Landlord myself.

Without wanting to sound conspiratorial, I will admit to having some personal concern we are perhaps sliding into some sort of neo-feudalism longer term as wealth inequality continues to accelerate unabated and unchallenged by the ordinary working class.

Will further admit that I’ve lost faith that I can single-handedly stop or meaningfully influence (by rallying up the populous or otherwise) this turn of events. In the meantime all I can do is continue to air my concerns to those with a modicum of power in a vain attempt to see change.

Addendum 6th August 2023: Across the ditch in Reddit Land in the Australian Sub-reddit, There has been increasing amount of discussion regarding the effects of economic inequality where people, especially younger people are losing their respect towards the ‘system’.

“For a lot of people, even if you work hard, live modestly, and try to be a good citizen, you’re seeing your purchasing power go down steadily over time due to inflation and stagnant wages, you can’t afford to go to the dentist, and you will never qualify for a mortgage on a house within reasonable traveling distance from your job in Syd/Melb/Bris.

I’m honestly surprised there aren’t people throwing rocks in the street.”

– MortalWombat1974

Crystal Ball: House prices to stabilize? Economic inequality to increase?

Half price public transport Adult fares ended in Auckland

Default User

For me personally, a return to full price adult fares is a deal breaker and will likely result in a substantial drop in my utilization of Auckland Public Transport. Half price fares did compel me to at least try out public transport to get around Auckland predominantly during the weekends (including picking up groceries at Pak n’ Save Glen Innes).

That said, it was a shit show of cancelled services, missed connections, helping out fellow public transport users who were lost, avoiding the derranged, taking two hours to get to your destintation when a car could do it in a third or even a quarter of the time. Frankly, I felt like a second class citizen and that the powers to be really couldn’t give a toss about Public Transport users.

My place of employment (East Tamaki) is poorly served by public transit so I don’t have the opportunity to use public transport regularly (even though I have longed for decades for being able to do so) and subsequently it doesn’t make sense for me to buy a monthly pass. I have to join the throngs of other single occupant cars to make the 16 km journey (32 km return) to and from work as the only pragmatic balance between cost, personal safety, and time.

Will be going back to using my car more in the weekend, even accounting for the 30c tax and excise being added back on. A bus fare of $2.37 for one way one zone travel just isn’t compelling for me in many situations. More so for short journeys that cross a zone boundary. That said exceptions where Public transport could still work for me…

  • $4.20 to get into the CBD, with a $8.40 round trip, Cheaper than driving (single occupant) and paying for parking. That said, I don’t find myself needing to go into the CBD very often at all.
  • Travel from the end of one zone to the other end (e.g Eastern Suburbs to New Lynn), typically using Bus 75 and hopping on the Western Line trains at Newmarket. The Same journey in an ICE car would probably be $6-8 one way  inclusive of wear and tear
Half price public transport Adult fares ended in Auckland

Property Manager Turnover?

Default User

More of a shower thought question, but how often do Property Managers at any given agency usually turn over? The particular rental I have managed on my behalf down in Rolleston has had it’s assigned property manager changed out like clock work every ~6 months due to resignations.

This can present challenges to both myself and tenants if the point of contact is constantly changing. It also means that I have to “fill-in” the incoming property manager each time about any given property and it can be difficult as a landlord to build a business relationship with the agency.

—

Update 27 June 2023: I have written to the Business Owner and she has agreed to put management of the property under herself directly.

Property Manager Turnover?

Review: Ray White Lincoln Red Chili Property Management

Default User

I am a property owner who has a rental property managed through Ray White Lincoln Red Chili Property Management (Canterbury)

Overall, service has been generally good (for the 2020-2022 period)

Cara Callister has been friendly to deal with and responsive to any queries I had as a property owner. Kylie Gordon, Olly Drew, and Kalib Christensen have similarly been great when they were assigned to my property. Especially appreciated Kylie’s ability to build rapport with the tenants. Thanks to Paul Clement for the initial on-boarding and working with suppliers to ensure the house was ready to be tenanted.

A “Con” I’ve noticed is that property managers seem to turn over regularly (~every 6 months) and the point of contact keeps changing requiring me to individually brief the incoming Property manager each time when this occurs.

With that said, planning to continue to use them.

 

 

Review: Ray White Lincoln Red Chili Property Management

Opinion: It’s time to Disband Auckland Transport

Default User, ,

9th June 2024: This was originally posted before I got the chance to actually talk further in depth with some of their consultants face to face regarding my concerns in the months that followed and would be fair to say my view expressed in this post perhaps isn’t as strong. That said, there is still improvements that AT could be making and much faster than they have. Plan to update this post in due course.

—

Admittedly, I’m at my wits ends. Auckland Transport as an organization I feel have persistently failed to deliver for the people of Auckland and has shown little willingness to reform their ways. This organization I strongly feel no longer has the social license to operate. It’s time to disband the organization, integrate it’s functions back into the council and get leaders in who are willing to do their jobs and deliver for the public.

They’ve thrown excuse after lame excuse for their failures, taken a hands off approach and attempted to cast blame on other entities for delivery of frankly a crap end-product (service) to the public. I think it’s time the organization (that is, should this organization wish to have any hope of continuing to exist) took a long look at itself and actually own up + acknowledge the transport issues facing Aucklanders and take the lead to champion delivery of reliable, timely, efficient and cost effective transport networks rather than shrug their shoulders to say “not our problem / fault”.

Services are still being cancelled en masse. Yet they want us to change from our cars and seem to be very keen to roll out enforcement cameras to use against the public – the very people who pays their wages – in order to coax us to change. How on Earth (or Mars) is that modal shift going to happen when passengers turn up to their stop only to find repeatedly their train, ferry or bus service has been randomly cancelled with the list of these cancelled services running all the way to the moon and back?

I invite anyone who defends what Auckland Transport has achieved to actually convince me what we currently have is even usable, practical, dependable and caters to the day to day transportation needs of most Auckland commuters.

At this point, I will admit to harboring a lot of animosity (I loath to use the word “hate”) towards Auckland Transport, more specifically towards their ongoing performance (or lack of) to date. I’m still figuring out how to channel (Positively harness) this anger as an ordinary individual rate-paying Auckland resident. It may be that I have to seriously look at forming my own Lobby / Advocacy group to hold Auckland Transport to account for their actions?

I’m aware that Greater Auckland is perhaps the biggest existing advocacy group already in this space but will be the first to admit while I strongly agree with their vision to reduce dependency on cars, and opening up travel choice, I don’t necessarily agree with the way they appear to be approaching this (which seems to be more to retrofit — at great uncertain cost and great disruption to those neighbourhoods potentially for years — new infrastructure in those existing neighborhoods).

In my view, we are probably best to encourage the majority of new housing be 6-10 story apartment blocks right beside existing high capacity public transit corridors and with day to day amenities and services within walking distance — See my separate article where I detail my thoughts further. Auckland Council and Auckland Transport should be working in lock-step with respect to urban planning and transport planning – to be frank, I’m not convince they are. If they are, then why are we continuing to sprawl well away from major transport infrastructure (Rail lines, Bus ways, Motorways)? Look at the area east of the Tamaki River.

As a complete aside, I wouldn’t be surprised Auckland Transport have purposely modeled their Logo on a Tortoise (With the ‘A’ forming the shell and the ‘T’ forming the neck and head). May be the organization should just be called “Auckland Tortoise”?

It’s important to note this post is not aimed at the many hardworking grassroots frontline employees both within AT itself and those of their contractors (e.g Bus Drivers, Train Drivers, Train conductors, Ferry personnel, public counter staff, etc).

Opinion: It’s time to Disband Auckland Transport