Watermelons
The Libertarianz don’t have a lot of cash, something we empathise with, so they’ve been circulating their election ad around the internet for free. And in the spirit of community and cooperation, oops, sorry, profitable self interest, I thought I’d support them by showing it here too. Plus it’s got lots of photos of some great people to vote for in it. And, you know, we wouldn’t want people to think we are against free speech or anything?
You’ve got to appreciate the Libertarianz. Not just their interesting choice of Michael Jackson to represent them, but they have must to be the only people who honestly claim that they want their own personal nuclear power stations and the right to consume toxic chemicals at will, as though they intend to knowingly use those rights.
August 24th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Well the great Libertarian ex-Presidential Candidate Ron Paul got a cheer tonight in the theatre when he appeared in the new documentary movie I.O.U.S.A.
I just wish the US people had embraced a candidate that was telling them the truth instead they are going to be deciding between Obama or Mcain.
Of course the movie theatre was empty since nobody cares about the US financial problems and in NZ we have the green party who tells us we need to worry about peak oil and global warming but remains very very quiet when it comes to the US debt. I believe the US Debt will have a much bigger impact on NZ than global warming or peak oil.
Of course we all need to be very careful of the national party since they seem to be pushing a Bush policy of tax cuts without spending cuts, a receipe for disaster of course NZ’rs are stupid and will vote the National party into office. Just as the US citizens will continue to vote in Democrats/Republicans who spend and reduce tax.
The only policy the government should be allowed to borrow for is war spending and Infstructure spending, of course a truly free country should maintain a war fund to pay for un-expected war and an infrastructure fund and it should strive to never be in debt since debt represents a release of sovereignty something no free nation should ever allow. I think we should have a law in NZ that stops parties like the greens from releasing policy that hasn’t been independently audited to account for how the country is going to pay for it, will we borrow, raise taxes, or cut spending. Its quite obvious the people are too stupid to decide if the country can afford a parties policies so we need to stop parties from lying to the NZ people, either that or we need to take away the voting rights of New Zealanders who are not economically responsible enough to decide if the country really can afford a parties policies.
Note a truly good polictical party should have members who when ever any other member presents a policy they instantly ask in unison how much will this cost and how are we going to pay for it. Something which obviously doesn’t happen in the green party.
August 24th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Take the USA how can a generation of good for nothing human beings (I am referring to the EVIL baby boomers) be allowed to live on this planet, they burnt up all the oil, they ignored global warming and ran up huge debt.
Now they intend to retire and once again stick out their grubby gready hands and expect their children and grandchildren to pay them vast amounts of money.
The smartest thing we could do is round up all the baby boomers and put them on icebergs and send them out to sea.
The baby boomers are the laziest, greedest, immoral, irresponsible generation to have ever lived, I mean trust me they are going down in history for what they’ve done/not done.
Can anyone actually name anything good that the baby boomers did?
August 24th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Well done on doing this post.
Do you actually have anything to say to refute the charge that the NZ Green’s are “water melons”?
August 24th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
And the fact that they can legitimatly make all those claims is why we are going to loose the election.
August 24th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Haha for a party that supposedly believes in property rights, they’ve breached Michael Jackson’s property rights pretty clearly (Yankovic had rights from Jackson to use the song). Perhaps they’re now advocating copyleft
“Can anyone actually name anything good that the baby boomers did?”
The Beatles?
August 24th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
“Can anyone actually name anything good that the baby boomers did?�
Made the next generation so that they can moan about our selfishness.
Without us baby boomer males and females getting together and making whoopy, there would have been no further generations.
That should be casue to ponder, turnip.
August 24th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
I doubt the legitimacy of any particular claims is what shapes people’s voting patterns, to be honest, Sapient. As we get closer to the election the more virulent green-hating I come across, unshakeable, it seems, by any rational argument. Mainstream NZ’s political sophistication is pretty much non-existent. It’s “I likes the blue team, I hates the red team, and those damned greenies won’t let me beat my kids”. One can only hope that the Libz message of unfettered self-interest diverts 4.9% of voters who would otherwise vote Nat or Act!
August 24th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
I agree with you on the issue of the political sophistication of mainstream NZ, though I would rather have ACT in than the Libertarianz.
That one thing about Bradfords bills that I support; Civics Education, it is one of the many things that we need in our schools, though the V16 part was over the top.
People are stupid; that philosophy has never failed me, I constantly find myself over estimating peoples mental ability, myself included, lol.
August 24th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
I don’t think the Libertairnz have heard of Godwin’s Law
“As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”
Basically whoever mentioned the Nazis/Hitler automatically loses whatever argument was in progress.
August 24th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
The 5% of the boomers who are responsible for the mess certainly deserve all the hate you can muster, but as a boomer who has not only twice voted for a winning candidate (Clinton, twice) I don’t think I can be tarred with that same brush. However, a hell of a lot of money has been stolen from me too, and I had to come here so my kids could have a future.
Not something I am proud of having had to do.
BJ
August 24th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Extra “not” should be left off there… I have only twice voted for…
Hmmm… nice video, and some good points made. Not enough to actually make the point they’d LIKE to make, but enough to keep people thinking ill of us…
BJ
August 24th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
bj did you see this?
http://www.interest.co.nz/ratesblog/index.php/2008/08/21/opinion-remov e-the-tax-incentives-for-housing-investors/
and
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2008/08/hickey_says_end_the_property_tax_bre ak.html
August 24th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
after watching that , well, no need to worry about THAT lot as credible, what an all round appalling video..and as for the ‘music’ WTF !!!
that was HIDEOUS ! who on earth is that supposed to appeal to … a
tone deaf, musically stunted, no-life red neck ??.
It looks like it was made by a 90 year old trying to be kewl… tragic !! But can’t wait for the next installment - gee i hope its a barry manilow tune.
best laugh all weekend !!!
August 25th, 2008 at 12:04 am
“a tone deaf, musically stunted, no-life red neck ??. ”
There’s only one of them, and he doesn’t have one of them TVs with a typewriter attached, so they’ve really missed their target audience.
August 25th, 2008 at 3:08 am
JH I have been going on about the thousands of New Zealanders who are not paying tax by using negative gearing. Of course the Green party is silent on this and doesn’t what to close this loophole, is that because the Green party doesn’t support FAIR taxation. Maybe certain Green party members who are making use of this law don’t want to start paying TAX.
August 25th, 2008 at 3:56 am
Off topic but after reading that article on interest.co.nz It shocked me just how stupid landlords in NZ are. One guy posted and send he was renting an apartment for like 550pw and it was costing him 1100pw, he was just going to raise his rent to 1100pw if the government got rid of the negative gearing, I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time at reading that post.
My landlord here in NY raised my rent by 200 dollars a month, do you know what I did, I moved into a bigger place and reduced my rent by 100 dollars a month. Landlords do not set rents, rents are determined by the free market, if you own property and you can rent it for 550pw.
Also if their is property in NZ with the above disconect from rent vs cost, then NZ property prices are going to have to fall a very very long way.
Now if NZ property prices really start falling do we have the greens word that they wont step in and try and keep the bubble inflated, I mean if the left loves to do anything its to step in and try and keep bubbles afloat, Come on Toad surely even you wouldn’t advocate keeping a bubble a float with green policy like “save our homes”, and “lets keep the bubble going”.
Or my personal favourite new green policy i know its just around the corner, “I wont tax the wealth in your house, in fact i’ll help inflate it but at the same time I’ll slap a 39% tax on interest earned on peoples money” policy. Hell lets slap a 50% tax or maybe even a 90% tax.
August 25th, 2008 at 7:01 am
Turnip,
“I have been going on about the thousands of New Zealanders who are not paying tax by using negative gearing.”
There have been numerous explanations why LACQ exist. They are not just for rental housing. They are used by businesses and individuals for numerous other investment enterprises.
Irrepsective of what csued the housing bubble, the afforability of housing will not come down until the price of new housing comes down. Currently around $400,000 for a new Fletcher group house down the end of our street in darkest Manurewa.
Now until you can get a new house down to $200,000 you wont see house prices drop significantly.
After all if you have spent $400K on a new house you wont be selling it for $200K anytime soon.
Maybe you should start looking at the housing market from that angle and ask why are new houses so expensive (availability of land is a good start place along with coucil costs, etc).
Also ask why the investment in housing not in infastructure, sharemarket, or managed funds.
Housing is permanent, infastructure is goverment controlled and owned so no investment opportunities. The sharemarket is OK if you are good at picking winners, while managed funds is full of bridgecorps and shonky operators, taking more in fees than you will see in dividends.
August 25th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Gerrit LACQ isn’t needed to negative gear a rental property.
Income is what will drive the price of homes down Gerrit not new housing.
I know this might come as a shock to you but you actually need income to buy a house and service a mortgage. If you look at the increase in peoples income’s over the last few years and then compare it to the rise in home prices you will see a massive disconnect between the two. The moment that you witness this trend Gerrit is the instant that you know you are looking at a property bubble.
This means that banks have eased lending rules and that people are spending more of their income on debt servicing. This can only work in an enviroment of cheap easy credit, it also has a side effect as it produces lots and lots of inflation. Since the NZ government needs to start fighting all this inflation we need to keep rates high and we can’t bring the interest rates down to low so that means the cheap easy credit is gone.
The other thing you need to think about is how many people are going to be able to continue servicing there loans in an enviroment where you can no longer refinance away the debt and more of your income is being eaten up by the inflation. Also as the economy starts to decline it will cause a cascade effect people will loose jobs which will lead to foreclosures which will lead to price declines. Its much harder to handle debt if you’ve loaded your self up with 50% as opposed to the traditional 20-25%
Gerrit you sound like an American from about 1-2 years ago coming up with excuses, I no longer hear anyone like you here in the states and most people seem to have started to accept the huge price declines, CA,FL,NV housing market + State are history.
August 25th, 2008 at 9:34 am
turnip, No you dont but it is an effective vehicle. Removing it wont do a thing.
People wil always be able to claim back losses.
When I see a decline in new housing stock I will believe that house prices are coming down.
As you dont live here, you wont see it, but locally here in Manurewa, and further away in the eastern suburbs of Botany, new houses are going up at a a slightly reduced rate then the peak, but still going up.
When they stop I will believe housing prices will come down as the second hand stock is sold through at prices the market will sustain.
I guess there must be a lot of suckers in New Zealand who are buying new houses at a rate that in your opnion is not sustainable.
Having had a 100% inceae in property value over the last 5 years, I dont worry about a 30 to 50% drop.
Nor will the new house owners if they are not overly morgaged. The prices will come back up when housing numbers decline due to no new building but the population increases as the kids leave home.
So where are you putting your retirement savings?
August 25th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Can anyone tell us what constitutes a (genuinely) green political party?
1. Recognises that economic growth is limited because resources are limited.
2. Aims to maximise well being by recognising and promoting policies that utilise factors such as good urban design and architecture that make living cheap and enjoyable. [promote new urbanism put tolls on roads so that suburbanites pay for their own roads. Promote space as a public good and peace and quiet].
3. Frugal spending. Form clusters for those who want to help raise other peoples children and are prepared to contribute funds [just musing on that].
4….?
August 25th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Of course there are a lot of suckers/sheep in NZ, look in order to get NZ’rs to part with their money all you need do is start a finance company and make sure an ex-all black is involved, people will part with all their money for the chance to shake hands with an all black.
Not living there is a very good thing Gerrit since it removes me from the emotion and emotion is never a good thing. House prices in NZ are going to stay flay, the may even increase the problem is that it will be less than inflation, the market is going to use inflation to do the dirty work of getting the price to income ratio down from 6 and back to 3.
“Having had a 100% increase in property value over the last 5 years, I don’t worry about a 30%-50% drop.”
All i can say to that is ouch, what a bad investment, why don’t you sell now and place the money somewhere else so it can earn, even a NZ banks term deposit is going to pay you 7-8% return.
Buts that just it Gerrit the new house owners MUST be overly mortagage, infact the whole of NZ is overly mortagaged, the income to property price is so out of wack in NZ, i believe its the highest in the world meaning NZ had the largest property bubble.
Of course the finance companies and home owners are going to start screaming for the government to step in and socialize the costs and pass them onto the taxpayers and we all know which party likes to mess in the free market, that prize will have to go to the Greens, as i’m sure they will come up with some stupid left wing policy designed to prop up the market and delay the inevitable.
I keep my retirement savings spread all over the place to avoid risk. Property is just an inflation hedge, you can use gold, silver and even TIPS to hedge inflation. Note the thing about inflation hedges is you don’t want to be stuck in them in a deflationary enviroment and i don’t know yet if we are going to face high inflation or deflation. I certainly wouldn’t want to be trapped with all my money tied up in an illiquid investment like property in a deflationary enviroment.
August 25th, 2008 at 11:53 am
turnip,
I would have thought that an at least 50% increase in my proporties value is not too bad.
Much better then the sharemarket (except for my Air New Zealand shares bought at a low of 28 cents - now worth 5 times that ) or any other institution.
In fact much better then Gold.
Still whatever turn you on.
August 25th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
It appears one thing the Greens do not want to ban is homosexuals donating blood.
Blood Screening Rules
http://www.stephenfranks.co.nz/?p=542#comments
Below is a quote from the link to Stephen Frank’s Blog
August 25th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
I agree with the LibertariaNZ clip …. but only in the respect that there’s not much difference between the extreme left (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist-Trotsyist or whatever) and the extreme right (Nazi - Fascist etc).
Jsut underlines the point many have made on this blog that the left-right political axis is not linear and that you really nheed two dimensions to reasonably assess political parties positioning.
Pretty hilarious that they’ve pinned the Green party at the extreme left and extreme right of the spectrum though.
August 25th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
excuse my ignorance, but what is so bad about LAQC? Is it the ability to offset it against ones income? apart from that I dont really see anything to shout about, infact I think all companies should be obligated to pass losses onto the shareholders with the shareholders able to sue the managers if it can be shown to be the fault of those managers.
August 25th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Well my only problem with the LAQC is that if you sell the property and make a gain, you MUST report this to the IRD, now i was under the impression that the IRD didn’t chase this kind of fraud.
August 25th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
So if you make a gain in real value it must be reported to the IRD? that makes sence to me. Are you saying that people dont report this and that the IRD tends not to chase people up about it? couldint you fix that by making every transaction of land go through the IRD as part of the title transaction in terms of nominal values and have the IRD work out if there is Real profit or Real loss and then add that to the tax owed by that individual/trust/company?
August 25th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Turnip, I read an article by Bernard Hickey in yesterdays ‘Herald on Sunday’ which echoes your coments about the artificial nature of the NZ housing market. It matched my feelings exactly.
This is one of the problems caused by having such a large group as the ‘baby boomers’ setting policy…it is hard for them to avoid setting policy that directly benefits themselves.
It has become a habit for them, as a result of being such a cherished group of youngsters overloved by the mothers who saw them as the only good thing to come out of WWII.
They never really got over the feeling of being the best thing that ever happened to anybody.
They have spent their whole lives believing that what they want is necessarily valuable.
Unfortunately we are going to have to wait at least another 20 years before society throws off their influence.
I think the US financial crisis has a lot more to do with the artificial accounting of the baby boomers, than it has to do with the ordinary citizen paying their bills.
One thing the Libertarianz have in their favour is that their policies really would allow true ‘market forces’ to affect things. Not just what baby-boomers define as ‘market forces’, which always seems to be what benefits them.
As a matter of interest…do you have a clear idea of which way you will vote this election? I’m interested.
August 25th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Good to see property developers enjoying the environment:
…………………
Owen McShane
August 25, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Spring is sprung, the grass is riz,
I wonder where the birdies is. (Nash)
They say turkeys don’t vote for an early Xmas but the flock of eight on my property seem to doing just that. They normall wander round making strange turkey noises but in a reasonably tight group.
Now, with spring, they have taken to roosting at night on the fend lined up like sitting – well turkeys.
As Xmas approaches I should be able to sit in the spa pool at sunset, with my 404 g Shotgun, and take them down, one at a time, with clean head shot. No pellets in the flesh.
Maybe they are now genetically programmed for clean kills.
[from Ponekes blog]
August 25th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Here’s a green issue:
This is a discussion topic at The Visible Hand
‘Ecological economist Bill Rees started teaching at the University of British Columbia’s School of Planning three decades ago. When he gave a presentation showing how British Columbia’s Lower Mainland had already exceeded its ability to support its population and suggested that humanity as a whole might also be approaching its global carrying capacity, he wasn’t expecting the reaction waiting for him.
One of UBC and Canada’s best-known economists told him, in the most collegial way, history had proved Rees wrong and that carrying capacity was irrelevant.
“He told me economists had all but abolished the concept of limits to growth and that if I persisted in this line of research my academic career at UBC would be ‘nasty, brutish and short,’� Rees recounts to me as we sit in a campus coffee shop. “Ironically, that was the stimulus that led me to come up with the ecological footprint concept.�
http://tvhe.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/posting-trouble/#comments
August 25th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
I, for one welcome our new Green overlords.