Switching back to 100% growth focus (from balanced) because stonks (a meme spelling of “stocks” / “Shares”) only go up apparently.

I can’t make heads or tails of anything frankly as a lay person.

We’ve been in the longest ever secular bull market starting around 2008 Global Financial Crisis and don’t understand why there is so much overflowing optimism.

• Something bad happens stonks go up
• Something good happens stonks go up
• Nothing particular happens stonks go up.

Fundamental analysis is dead and meaningless.

I think some of it can be attributed to easier and cheaper access to the stock market adding additional money flow into the market.

As an aside, I learn that my Facebook shareholding (now Meta Inc.) which I bought to try and take the edge off of burning disdain towards Facebook has since quadrupled in price since I rage-bought them. Yes, may be I should feel good, but I don’t. I’m jaded, just incredibly jaded to see their stock price so high.

Picture of southern lights

 

Lanterns hanging from the trees

Robinhood in reverse. Slashing and burning essential public services in order to give tax cuts to the landlords.

The optics surrounding this are not good and do not at all reflect positively on this National party led government – and I say this as (confessingly) a Landlord myself.

I’m far more concerned with seeing policy to support us living in a cohesive society and struggle to see how the carte Blanche slashing of important services (and capping wages of those working in those services) is in any way conducive to this.

And it was the National Candidates in the run up to the last election whom showed complete disinterest (compared to other parties, even ACT) when I raised the issue of housing affordability and the negative affects it was having on our nation and our society.

Update 5th February 2024: Have now tested negative. Apart from sleeping for much longer and a dry cough, symptoms are largely gone. Overall, for me, felt like a longer acting but milder version of the flu.

Symptoms initially appeared mid last week sometime but daily Rapid Antigen testing only began showing positive 4-5 days after symptoms first appeared.

So far symptoms have been rather mild (so far). More like a mild / low grade influenza with mild fever for only a day and a tickly / itchy throat for the rest of it,

That said, it’s appears to affect everyone differently and quite vastly so. Have had APAC Development team members at work being knocked out for weeks at a time.

As previously advised. Have shutdown the services originally operating off of the domain mana.nz. Services terminated…

• NextCloud (Cloud storage)
• Matrix Synapse (Chat)
• AW Web

Witnessed an incident a few weekends ago, where I saw someone was walking out with tons of meat and alcohol. Tried verbally telling him to stop (Can’t physically put your hands on perpetrators it would seem these days), rang the police, but in the end, was told to just let him go. It seems petty thefts are no longer deemed a priority and there is nothing that any body can do to stop them. The little scrawny runt blurted out to the store staff “You can’t do anything!!” while he brazenly walked out with several expensive goods.

He then threatened to attack me, then ran away saying I would likely do far more damage to him. If the law wasn’t so slanted towards the rights of perpetrators, would have no hesitation in tackling the runt.

I’ve recently read around the place that petty thefts are now twice as common and have heard of further anecdotes of similarly being met with apathy when other members of the public attempt to ring in to report burglaries and thefts.

It gets harder to accept this situation when we see ordinary folk who accidentally drive a few metres too long in a bus lane are being slapped with $150 fines while perpetrators who do more social harm are getting off with merely a slap with wet bus tickets. The state has to be very careful about this because the longer this state of affairs continue, the state will lose the respect of the people whom they are supposed to be serving.

It looks like the saying “We have a legal system, not a justice system” is quite true these days.

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.

Discovered that my Huawei was bypassing my Pihole and ignoring my DNS settings resulting in ads being servering up in some apps. Symptoms was that upon initial launch of apps, the apps begain serving ads after 30 or so seconds.

Had to set “Private DNS” to “dns.adguard.com” and this appeared to stop it. Who knows if this fix will still be valid a week later.

Temporary notice: Will be decommissioning any remaining services on kaha.nz and mana.nz over the next few months. This does not affect services (Predominantly mail) situated on nui.nz which I intend to keep running for the foreseeable future.

The NextCloud instance hanging off of cloud.mana.nz has been shutdown. I am supportive of the NextCloud project, but just couldn’t get it stable enough for the intended use cases unfortunately.

Full moon photo from Auckland’s night sky…

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.

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

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.

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

The surprise take away advice I got from attending Fieldays as a townie was “Don’t get into farming (at least not full time)”. It would appear from those I’ve spoken to is that If you’re in a cushy desk-bound / office job “then stay in it” was the advice of many surprisingly.

Specific comments received chatting to both attendees and stallholders from those actually farming include…

• The pay “is crap”.
• The days are long – “You’re working up to 10-16 hour days a lot of the time” (depending on what role you’re undertaking of course).
• Social interaction is limited. “You’re isolated and alone for much of the time”.
• Mental well being is generally lower. “Depression throughout the industry is rife”
• “The job is stressful for the amount of remuneration / compensation you receive”.
• “Smaller farms are struggling to survive and are being bought out by larger scale corporate operations”.
• Government regulations stifling their livelihoods.

Admittedly overall I was a little taken back by how negative and upfront farmers themselves perceive of working in the farming / rural sector.

The more positive aspects of Farming mentioned…

• Get to spend time outside.
• Great views / scenery.
• Less people / Solitude.
• Opportunity to use a wide variety of equipment and drive heavy machinery.
• Opportunity for a more laid back and quieter lifestyle.

The idea fantasy of getting hands-on in any sort of farming work (even part time) has been quashed at least for now I guess. That said, I anticipate vocational roles may make a come back at some point. When? I don’t know. Farming as a career choice has been in the doldrums for a few decades.

It does explain why every time I walk into the Fieldays Careers hub, I find it’s completely empty and when I did talk to a roving representative, I get the strong vibe of “why would you even ever so much as entertain the thought of a career change from IT into farming?”

With that said, I will admit this post reads rather downbeat and may be unfairly so. I invite those who actually enjoy their farming role (and I’m sure there are many) to perhaps pipe up and tell their story.

Away from the Business / Career aspect of Fieldays 2023…

• In terms of shopping. There wasn’t much in terms of deals quite frankly. The only thing I actually bought was a $50 Swazi Bush Tee to replace my one that I currently have which is near the end of it’s life. (To be couriered out for free as they didn’t have it available at the time)

• The “Rural lifestyle” tent, car dealerships and the Clothing stalls were the most popular. The actual Farming equipment areas were dead quiet, but mind you this was on a Saturday – Traditional “Townie” day.

• There were somewhat less interactive displays at the various stalls this time. The giveaways were also less this time than in previous years. A few new hubs such as the Forestry hubs and the sustainability hub were established which were worth a look. Good conversation at AgDrive/AgWork. Good experiences at the Bank sites, Sanford and power equipment sites.

• Most stallholders were friendly though many didn’t have the answers or information I was seeking about their specialty and was instead directed to look online. None of the fencers really wanted to chat. Exceptionally bizarre experience at the Zespri marquee

• Despite the slightly downbeat vibe received from attendees and stallholders this time around. Getting to the event was quite easy with only a short time queuing and car parking was a breeze (we were directed to a spot near the entrance) arriving in at about 8:30 AM Saturday Morning. National Fieldays Society did a fairly good job orchestrating the event (though did see complaints to the contrary from other attendees saying parking was actually instead difficult)

Entry tickets cost $30.00 per adult + 0.90c Booking Fee. If you scan your wrist band at enough places (and you’re happy enough to provide your personal information to the exhibiting companies for marketing purposes), chances are you’ll win a prize at one of the stands that effectively redeems the cost of the day.

Worth it to attend at least once every now and again though there hasn’t been much change between each Annual Fieldays over the last decade. There does seem to be a slow change to more of an Rural version of the Auckland Home Show Expo with more focus towards being a family day out.

 

More of a shower thought only. But currently trying to understand why I get an unignorable sense that we’ve recently entered into a slow but accelerating and now unstoppable / irreversible slide into some form of Neo-feudalism or serfdom.

Granted, I don’t believe we are anywhere near in a state as bad as it was in history, but I don’t see what we have in the way of sufficient safe guards that would stop / prevent the eventual re-emergence of the above mentioned.

I guess as long as the masses are fed a steady diet of bread and circuses to distract them from civics, then we’re all good… right?