Thursday, November 29, 2012

Economic madness in housing policy

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The economic damage caused by these crazy policies is what needs to be hammered home: HughP has been very focussed on the 'broken-recor...

Tribes...

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A village/tribe (direct descendants of the monkey clans - see ' Before the Dawn ' - Nicolas Wade) may well be the default setting if...
Thursday, November 22, 2012

A common tater complains about Housing Material Costs

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Oh, it gets better, Boatman. •Duopoly in materials (see the Productivity Commish on this) •Massive front-loading of fees on the land by Rap...
Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Councils and Cluelessness

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The issue with Councils (I used to be a Treasurer of one back in the day - the title says it all) is quite simple to state, and very hard to...
1 comment:
Monday, March 19, 2012

LTP season is upon us again!

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I occasionally take an interest in the Long Term Plan of of the local Council. It's my money they're spending, and they are obliged...
Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Licensed Building Practitioners

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This will quite simply cause a polarisation in the market. Most repair/maintenance can be made to look as though it's always been there...
Monday, February 27, 2012

Councils and Time Value of Money

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The issue with Councils and bureaucrats in general can be traced to three interlocking aspects, which together have over the years created t...
Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Housing yet again

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Housing affordability has five components: 1 - cost of land. 2 - cost of building - and as NZ is well under scale, and hence has hopelessly ...
Sunday, February 05, 2012

Urban Land prices in GodZone

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A word about Development Contributions. I'm an old grizzled ex-County Treasurer who actually used to administer these babies in the goo...
Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Christchurch - Strangled by CCC staff

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The old, traditional delivery areas of Local Government - roads, bridges, hard services such as drainage, sewers, water - are doing just fin...
Sunday, December 18, 2011

Spengler hits another one out of the park

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The best quote: "the transformation of universities into Maoist re-education camps with beer kegs" I'm struggling thorough Gol...
Friday, June 03, 2011

Arab hunger

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Spengler, once again, nails the essence of what is really going on in MENA. Implosion, in a word. These countries will simply become flyov...
Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Mushy Peas

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Read the comments thread - LOL. Disclaimer: I did not have English Peas for my evening meal.
Tuesday, May 03, 2011

Has Bin

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'Spengler' pulls another superb grain of wheat from the mass of chaff being talked about OBL's demise. To precis: the poor old...
Friday, March 25, 2011

Reynold's Law and Christchurch

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Reynold's law (bolded in the quote below) is one of those delightful discoveries that one stumbles across. Reynolds argued that societi...
Saturday, January 29, 2011

Artists as canaries in the coal mine

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This was one of Kurt Vonnegut's phrases from his later years. But I've realised that it has a major flaw: 'artist' is a mu...
Sunday, September 05, 2010

Sitrep from Chch's Untouched North-east corner

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Sitrep from the absolutely untouched north-east of Chch at Waimairi Beach: 100% habitable, no liquefaction, no problems, power, water on (w...
Saturday, September 04, 2010

Rock and Roll by the sea

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Yup, the Big One (well, 7.1, anyways) has hit. Total damage at the WayMad household: one preserving jar on the pantry floor, and (boo hoo) ...
Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Housing and the New Normal

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A good site for US housing bubbular info is Dr Housing Bubble . A few of the noobs here could do with a click over there, methinks. And yes,...
Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Innovation in EV's - a Cambrian Explosion

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Motoczysz has won the Isle of Man TT, just short of the magic 100mph lap speed, on an all-electric motorbike. Wheee! As the Mogambo Guru l...