Societal Issues

New Zealand is in social and economic trouble

Fergus YoungLeave a comment

…If we don’t manage to change tact and turn this nation around.

“Oh it’s not that bad, other countries have it worse than us”

It may not be that bad now. But the trajectory together with the longer term pattern isn’t looking at all favorable.

Key issues facing our nation include…

  • Housing Affordability – Houses in New Zealand are ludicrously overpriced and it’s locking out many of our younger most productive citizens who become despondent and leave New Zealand. I even say this being a landlord myself. I acutely see the negative impact this is having on our society in the longer run. I am deeply angered by our governments (past and present) for their failure and lack of willingness to tackle this issue. Sadly during the run up to last election’s I found few politicians cared despite me emphatically reaching out explaining why it’s an issue and asking what they are going to do about it
  • Proliferating illicit drug use (as reported by way of wastewater analysis)
  • Low productive output – As one example of many, It’s magnitudes more expensive to build the same critical infrastructure in New Zealand than it is in other countries. We regularly see the waste when we drive through road works that take for ever to complete and see no one is there working a lot of the times. Examples of this include Waikato expressway which seems to require perpetual repair and the City Rail Link that can never quite get to opening stage (to the point revenue train services can run on it)
  • We don’t have a lot to export that is valuable. Our main exports are Diary and Tourism which frankly aren’t high value exports.

I fear at this stage, if we don’t tackle the above issues, all we will become is nothing more than a larger version of our Pacific Island neighbours.  We’re already seeing gradual social decline, increasing division and a slow erosion of what made New Zealand a great place to live.

New Zealand is in social and economic trouble

Facebook now requiring login to view business pages

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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

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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

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

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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?

Waikato Expressway Ngāruawāhia remedial roadworks.

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Drove down the Waikato Expressway. Turns out this was not the best move (for my mood) admittedly.

There’s a section of the Waikato Expressway north of Hamilton that has been reduced to 1 lane each way and 50 km/h for what feels like coming to a year. This is the Junction between SH1 and SH1C. The issue here northbound is that 4 lanes effectively go down to one.

I don’t drive down this route regularly as I live out in Auckland, but the lack of progress each time I do drive down that way is particularly striking. And each time I come to a complete halt in that section, I have time for my eyes to wander and noticed a lot of this equipment (barriers, porta-loos, diggers, rollers, etc) is hired. I’m picking it will be us, the taxpayer who is ultimately picking up the tab for all this hired equipment to be laying dormant.

I feel the situation with our infrastructure works now warrants a more urgent look in. This isn’t the first and this certainly won’t be the last. I feel it’s is entirely appropriate to question what is going on and for the likes of Waka Kotahi to explain to the public in layman’s terms what is involved and what is perhaps blocking up the progress.

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Edit 1: To add, just found this pamphlet. It looks like those at the grassroots / front line workers have been getting all the heat from the public. This is not where the indignation should be directed at. It should be directed at Management overseeing these projects. That said, I totally understand the public frustration and Waka Kotahi / Higgins absolutely need to be grilled on this – but I certainly don’t condone abuse to the front line road workers.

Edit 2: 9th June 2023 – Just Heard back from NZTA , they’ve said the leasing is done by Higgins and is their own business (arrangements). NZTA agree that the works have been slow and under resourced. Will try and reach out to Fletchers / Higgins and see what is up with that project given the national significance of the road.

 

Waikato Expressway Ngāruawāhia remedial roadworks.

Opinion: It’s time to Disband Auckland Transport

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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.

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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

Opinion: Google Reviews should be shutdown

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Google should completely shut down their Google Review platform. Why? Because Google have a completely useless and inadequate way of assessing and vetting the Authenticity of any given review submitted to their platform.

For Google to keep their review platform running in the state as it is only provides a disservice to the public (and to the businesses whom have no way of opting out) and wouldn’t be surprised Google as a Review platform could be found in direct violation of consumer protection laws in many jurisdictions if any consumer protection agency decides to investigate.

I have caught numerous businesses posting or buying Fake 5 star reviews. Similarly with Competing businesses buying 1 star negative reviews to throw shade on their competition. Any business I have caught out often turns around and say that “our staff and associates are customers as well!” in a frankly futile attempt to justify running reviews under false pretenses.

Google in their latest round of shitfuckery have unleashed some AI / Machine learning algorithm which is completely off the mark as to kill off legitimate reviews as well (by way of shadowbanning or hiding reviews) with no way to otherwise appeal or upload evidence (by way of invoices, receipts, communication or otherwise) to support the authenticity of a given consumer experience.

Same deal with reporting fake reviews. There’s no way to upload evidence of such and you are left to simply “flag” a review with no other action able to be taken which is completely and utterly useless.

Frankly, without any such way of uploading documentation or other evidence to support any of the above, Google attempts to fix their fake review problem on Google Reviews is completely and utterly foolish and futile as well as an adverse and shameful display of incompetence for a tech company.

Opinion: Google Reviews should be shutdown

New Zealand cost of living crisis, Standard of living and economic outlook

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This is more of a generalized hunch, but get the feeling the cost of living in New Zealand compared with other countries is becoming more pronounced. Many things can be sourced overseas for cheaper even accounting for GST and Shipping. Continue reading “New Zealand cost of living crisis, Standard of living and economic outlook” →

New Zealand cost of living crisis, Standard of living and economic outlook

Auckland Speed Limit Reductions – All stick but no carrot

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TL;DR: Speeds limits are being reduced across the board. Driving is increasingly stressful as others will object to you following the speed limit. There are implications if you do receive an infringement. Driving is technically a privillege but alternative transport options for getting around Auckland remain disappointingly poor and impractical for many situations.

Noticed that Speed limits on some streets around the CBD have been further reduced. Now Wellington Street in Freemans Bay is down to a mere 30 km/h.

Entrance to Wellington St, Freemans Bay, Auckland (CBD City side)

I can say that no cars whatsoever were doing 30 or even 40 km/h. In fact I had to pull over to allow a car to pass because they were right on my bumper while doing an already rule breaking 40km/h down Wellington Street. Walking back up Wellington street, I had observed basically every car were clearly ignoring the 30 km/h speed limit.

I’ve come to terms it’s only a matter of time that I’m going to end up with my first ever traffic infringement at this rate (basically not a matter of if, but when). Why? Because the agencies (including NZTA and Auckland Transport) by way of their “Vision zero” programme are dropping speed limits across the board and not just around the CBD. They’re also pledging to deploy more enforcement cameras everywhere and dropping enforcement tolerances and it only takes a momentarily lapse in judgement (e.g accelerating a touch too much in order to move safely into traffic or change lanes while looking over my shoulder to check a blind spot) right at an inopportune time and I will be done for.

The issue as well with infringements is that even if it’s only $30 low level speeding fine without demerits from a speed camera, apparently this still goes on your record somewhere for 5 years and apparently in many cases, you are supposed to declare this to insurance and needs to be declared in other areas as well (applying for a fire arms license, etc) so pays to avoid getting them where practical.

While I’ve continue for decades to express a strong desire to see alternative, more environmentally friendly and safer travel options opened up particularly in car dependent areas such as East Tamaki Industrial, the anti-car and climate activists have been exerting an increasing influence on Government policy and various government to make driving purposely more difficult and attempting to strong arm the motoring public out of their cars before we even have available working and viable alternative transport options that are able to realisitically cater to people’s day to day and household transportation needs in this city.

With the likes of Auckland Transport playing hard ball over Bus lane infringements and being inflexible even to those who have an otherwise squeaky clean driving record, the state will lose the goodwill of the public. Day to day life is already stressful for families as it is and the state to start ramping up the enforcement, widening the net, and pinging people over an increasing array of infractions while being out to disrupt people’s livelihoods is only going to accelerate the erosion of public goodwill and respect particularly if we continue to find excuses not to run the trains.

While I see we are building seperated cycle ways slowly (which admittedly, I’m generally infavour of should they go where people need to go and can be implemented in a cost effective fashion), however until we begin to see viable transport options able to meet Aucklanders’ day to day transportation needs emerge, I will as an individual ratepayer be vigorously and assertively pushing back at attempts by the more ardent climate activists who unrealistically demand we stop driving our cars immediately.

Auckland Speed Limit Reductions – All stick but no carrot

Auckland Rail Closures 2023 – A Stark Wake up call to NZ regarding our infrastructure projects

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Admittedly, initially had to actually check whether or not it was in fact April 1st. This afternoon, I learn that whole sections of Auckland’s Rail network is to be closed for lengthy periods during the coming 2023 year. Please read the details about these Line Closures here on AT’s Website.

Greater Auckland have already expressed their own dismay and concerns about this on their “GA” Twitter account.

I feel this ought to be a stark wake up call to New Zealand and the need to look into the way we do things in this country. Needed is an urgent nationwide inquiry into our infrastructure works and why everything gets done so glacially slow in this country and continues to get slower. Is it the project management process? Too many differing (unconnected) sub contractors making scheduling and coordination difficult? Overzealous Health and Safety? Too much needless bureaucracy? Lack of Will? Lack of incentive? Same questions go for our Roadworks as well which seem to take forever.

So just what were KiwiRail doing during all those Rail Closures and shut downs in the preceeding years? Did they only just discover the work needs to be done now? Were AT only informed of this now? It’s as if the rail line closures during the prior years (including during the weekends) weren’t already a sizeable inconvenience, It’s going to be just that more difficult promoting Auckland’s faith in the Public Transport network and enacting an effective modal shift away from dependence on the Private Motor car.

Would we be better off being served by Bus ways rather than any sort of Passenger rail if this sort of rather disruptive and lengthy ongoing maintenance is required of rail? What assurances are KiwiRail and Auckland Transport able to provide to the public that there won’t be yet another round of hugely inconvenient, costly and lengthy disruption to the rail network in the years to come after all this work is supposedly complete? How do other countries manage to do it? Or is Auckland simply too small to pragmatically run a reliable and dependable Passenger Train network due to the lack of redundancy in the system (afforded to bigger rail networks in larger municipalities)?

Rightly or wrongly, I am forming an impression that the people in charge of these organizations aren’t serious enough about doing their job properly nor delivering for the public and hold very little, if any, sense of duty/responsibility or accountability to New Zealand. I will admit this is just my opinion as a lay person / ignorant armchair critic who undoubtably won’t have the full picture, but something almost undeniably and certainly seems amiss and some hard questions need be asked of those in charge.

Auckland Rail Closures 2023 – A Stark Wake up call to NZ regarding our infrastructure projects

Roast this post: High rise apartments in greenfield sites near train stations

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Update: 25-05-2023 – I never got a response from Greater Auckland regarding this.

I will declare that I’m only a mere (curious) member of joe public, with little in the way of any Urban planning experience, however, with so much controversy over bus lane enforcement, Retro-fitting light rail, and removal of on-street parking in Auckland. An idea that came to my mind is…

Would it or would it not be an easier idea to build high rise apartments at the likes of the empty / unbuilt greenfield sites of Albany and Drury where frequent and high capacity separated public transport links already exist (provided the ground at such sites are actually able to take high rise apartments)

Some of benefits (should this be able to be pulled off) I potentially see as a layman include…

  • Facilities such as shopping, medical, recreational, etc being within walking distance, allowing households to conduct most of the day to day household necessities within the local vicinity reducing the reliance on cars and allow households to reduce the number of cars they subsequently need to maintain.
  • If you need to go elsewhere in Auckland, you have a ready to go Train station or Bus-way station nearby where fast and frequent services exist.
  • As a starting point to ultimately curbing our current rate of sprawl across productive food producing farmland.

It’s just I see so much opposition to the current aims of Auckland Transport and Greater Auckland (Advocacy organization) and their plans extolled frankly on paper just seems so disruptive and unsettling to people’s existing living arrangements and livelihoods. To boot, the risks of retrofitting new initiatives to existing established neighbourhoods such as light rail just seem fraught with huge cost over-runs as we’ve seen with the Auckland City Rail Link (or Loop) depending on what they call it these days.

I’ve sent the Greater Auckland blog people the above idea via their contact form with them hopefully coming back to me for my own edification as a member of the public with their feedback along with their rebuttals of why they feel the general idea is not better than their current aspirations. Currently awaiting their response.

With this idea penned, I totally understand there will undoubtably be cons to my idea above and I invite people who may be more versed in urban planning than I, to actually come and “roast this post” as it were and present some arguments against the idea (road blocks and problems) which I’ve undoubtably missed.

Roast this post: High rise apartments in greenfield sites near train stations

Do Auckland’s trains ever run in the weekends?

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The answer is most probably a “yes”, but every time I hatch the idea of taking the train in the last 3 years during a Saturday or Sunday, it has been my luck that without fail I find that Rail Bus Replacements are running instead for the route I’m planning to take.

I recalled a few times now I’ve taken a connecting bus from Auckland Airport to Papatoetoe station only to find the trains are not running and have been repeatedly frustrated at waiting at the designated make shift Rail Bus Stop for a Rail Bus replacement bus to never arrive (over half an hour in fact). Ended up calling an Uber (or Ola as is may be) out of frustration on all such occasions.

And still on the topic of Auckland’s transport system, I now learn that multiple scheduled buses across Auckland have been cancelled due to COVID which is ultimately going to present further challenges in encouraging a modal shift of getting Aucklanders out of their cars.

Wondering if Auckland will ever achieve this modal shift? I reckon it will take at least a few generations to transition to become a city where Fast, Frequent and Well patronised Public Transport services become a reality. Auckland Transport trying to enforce a modal change, particularly in established neighbourhoods is frankly trying to push the proverbial up the hill. Better to work with Auckland Council and other government departments to build high density neighbourhoods in greenfield sites with well connected passenger and personal (scooters, bikes) transport networks before forcing their ideology down the throats of residents in existing neighbourhoods.

Do Auckland’s trains ever run in the weekends?

Auckland Light Rail – My own thoughts

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Dropped in to the Auckland Light Rail marquee at the Balmoral Flea Market to try and get a better understanding as to what this project is all about. The current focus they have advised is that the project most certainly is going a head and we are now choosing between “Light Metro” and “Modern (street level) trams”.

Promotional brochures can be found here.

Overall, they’re a friendly and approachable bunch manning the stand and were found to be willing to at least provide their take on any questions and concerns I had about the project.

They were at pains to note that this project is not about trams alone, but a transport and urban building project initiative combined where development will be intensified along the Tram routes. Continue reading “Auckland Light Rail – My own thoughts” →

Auckland Light Rail – My own thoughts

Corporate collection of personal data

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Discovered this page in the privacy section of the Microsoft account page…

Microsoft’s Private information slurping. Windows 10 really is bad as they say.

Seems there were collecting a lot more data than I originally thought in spite of turning off the Telemetry (including Advertising ID) on all Window 10 systems I use.

Many of these queries seemed unique to the queries I threw in to TradeMe’s search. Went to view TradeMe’s privacy policies and apparently they do have some data sharing arrangement with the “Big Tech” companies including the likes of Google and Facebook.

I guess my concern is that the more information that these Big Tech companies know about us, the more powerful (in a concentrated way) they essentially become. I’m not sure how I feel about the continued concentration of power in the hands of a few profit companies. May be some form of ‘Serfdom’ would come out of it where we lose our “individual agency” or “Self determination” and become subservient to the Power Elite… I don’t know.

Corporate collection of personal data

Sub-reddit /r/newzealand headed for far-left extremism?

Fergus Young1 Comment

In the same way that far right extremism (actually any sort of extremism) is undesired and troublesome, the “/r/newzealand” subreddit on Reddit I would say is fast approaching an example of far-left extremism cultivating very divisive pile-on attitudes by way of epic group think and will admit, I’ve started to be become troubled by some of the views expressed in that forum recently.

It’s been a while since I last visited, but I think I will continue staying away (just as I stay away from far right extremist sites). New Zealand society I feel can ill afford to tolerate groups that seek to cultivate an “us versus them” and “all or nothing” mentality. The Echo chamber effect I feel is accelerating.

An example of this (out of several) is the unrestrained carte blanche hatred for anyone who so much as declares as being an owner of even a single investment property. Further more, I’ve noticed many members are taking the most extreme example of poor landlord conduct and using that to tar all investors with the same brush. I can assure you landlords most certainly are not all like this, far from it and would urge people not to let the conduct of a minority colour us all.

I will caution that the /r/newzealand subreddit I feel is getting less and less representative of the views held by mainstream New Zealanders in general and would further plead that people please engage their brains before being swept up by the mob mentality and jumping on the bandwagon.

Some balance, please, people. Surely we are not savages and should not aspire to become such. We’re better than this.

 

Sub-reddit /r/newzealand headed for far-left extremism?

Hidden (Undisclosed) Fees in Hire car company agreements – Not a myth unfortunately

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Update 7th December 2021: NRMA’s master license for Thrifty expired earlier this year and they have now changed their branding over to be SIXT Australia which includes Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd’s network of outlets throughout Suburban Victoria.

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In short, less than upfront (“shady”) behaviour from rental car companies does exist. This is in spite of people, particularly on various online travel forums who are often quick to come to the defence of car hire companies through pointing out that the hirer raising a complaint is the one in the wrong and who simply didn’t read and understand the agreement and/or contracts. From personal experience, this is certainly not always the case.

Ending up deciding to send Lawrence Vic Pty Ltd Originally trading as Thrifty Car and Truck Rental Victoria (since changed over to be SIXT Car Rental Victoria as of 2021) a fairly stern and direct Email over the weekend firmly stating that due to their lack of disclosure, they are not entitled to retain the 3.5% Administration fee that they had applied to my account (over the top of the damage/repair charge from a small roo jumping into the side of the vehicle) back in 2018 and if they did not refund that portion of the administrative fee by the “close of business 5pm AEDT, Friday 19th March 2021”, I would be instituting further recovery proceedings under Victorian State and Australian Consumer Law in order to have the amount in question returned back to me. To recap, in 2018… Continue reading “Hidden (Undisclosed) Fees in Hire car company agreements – Not a myth unfortunately” →

Hidden (Undisclosed) Fees in Hire car company agreements – Not a myth unfortunately

Cold calling investment boiler room scammers

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I had another call from these scammers. This time purportedly from a number called +61 2 7147 0151 (or 02 7147 0151 if in Australia)

They keep changing their company name. First, the lady said they were calling from “Yahoo Finance” offering sophisticated investment private placements.

Then a man calls from “Elite Capital” saying he was referred from the above and they are offering retail investment opportunities. If you receive these calls…

DO NOT confirm your personal details. Hang up immediately.

The Email address they quoted back to me was a “honey pot” trap (used for trapping and detecting Scams and spam) confirming they had indeed gleaned the Email address via a shady source.

Given the amount of time wasting calls I get from them, it is getting to the stage where will be tracking them down.

Cold calling investment boiler room scammers

Unusual Economics

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The original bull trap assessment is well and truly dead I believe. If a down leg as part of a great depression type scenario were to have happened, it should have occurred by July and no later than the middle August. Coming to the view that COVID-19 was a mere interruption to the previously assessed larger trend.

The financial markets from many accounts appear to mostly now be sentiment (emotionally) driven and would not be at all surprised to see Asset prices continue to drive higher as a result of the FOMO affect (before possibly abruptly pulling back), helped along by Federal Reserve support and other interventionist (as opposed to classic free market) policies.

The ‘Efficient Market’ disciples can argue blue in the face that the markets are forward looking and the market is factoring in that things will drive back to normal before we know it, but this argument simply isn’t stacking up for me… at all.

I see a forming Technology bubble, driven by the likes of TSLA whose prices are being driven far beyond what facts, fundamentals and underlying data could ever justify.

While this certainly seems like a classic bubble with the usual tell tale signs including Taxi drivers talking about their gains in Property + stocks, and phases such as ‘Permanently high plateau’ + ‘This is a new paradigm!’ being banded about (i.e this time being “Modern Monetary Theory”), these bubble signs and anecdotes have been going on for an extraordinary long time, considerably longer than what would have normally occurred in a text book bubble. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that I feel the last secular bull run from 2009 to today is highly unusual.

Nothing can be said for certain as all I can see is that much of the information coming out to date is simply too poor to base any meaningful longer term decision making off of (have long held the view that Economics as a discipline is in disrepute), and that the markets in my view have most certainly been interfered with.

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Current personal investment focus is towards NZ Farm Land where prices on average have not shifted a huge amount over the last decade (See Farm land price Graph at interest.co.nz and REINZ Rural + Lifestyle property data). How one might be able to partake in this may be through funds such as the Booster Private Land and Property Fund, however, the types of properties they appear to cover are rather limited. In regards to other investment related thoughts… Continue reading “Unusual Economics” →

Unusual Economics

Australian Consumer Protections + Regulatory frameworks

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Update: 15 July 2020 – Rewritten to correct some of my own views and information.

I concede this is more of an unquantified feeling at this stage and this post will likely be added to or otherwise edited…

While Australia has both Consumer and Retail investor Protection regulatory frameworks in place, the supervision and enforcement of I feel of is rather weak and probably weaker than anyone, even Australians actually realise. This extends to their financial sector as well In terms of retail investments and retail banking. Continue reading “Australian Consumer Protections + Regulatory frameworks” →

Australian Consumer Protections + Regulatory frameworks