Hard News: Slumpy Cashflow
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i'm in the construction industry... we've noticed a few developers and contractors are struggling for money, due to the various finance company problems lately. i think private development will definitely slow down. infrastructure projects (i.e. central govt) are still providing a lot of work though, and will continue to do so for at least the next 5 years
as for the housing market, bring on the slump! if my rent goes up it may finally make sense to get a mortgage and buy a house.
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This post is on a completely unrelated topic, I'm sorry, but is in response to Act's stirring of the education voucher pot on behalf of the Education Forum. I think it was Roger Douglas who came out with how social democratic Sweden has adopted a voucher system. I went digging a little further and found that there the private schools are mostly start up ones in response, offering alternative models of education, as there were virtually no private schools there before. Although introduced by a conservative government (still seeming somewhat to the left of Labour here), there is political consensus and union support as there are considerable safeguards around the system such as having to use registered teachers, the schools not allowed to charge top up fees, and a first come, first enrolled basis, so no cherry picking of students. Even so, there is some nervousness in the sector that segregation may yet arise. I'm not convinced that this is the model that Act, Key and the Education Forum have in mind. Any thoughts? I'll try to supply a link to the article I found: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/3717744.stm
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I got around the food price by putting a steer in the freezer. Average price / KG is $2.64 for everything from porterhouse to sausages. But I had to buy a 700 litre freezer to hold the 300kgs of beef. Better than broke even on the first steer and saving sh*tloads on the second and after. For the rest, I buy lots of veggies. Green stuff and some roots (potatoes, onions, etc...). It's all the OTHER, packaged stuff that costs an average of $5 / item. So I buy few items. Amazing what you don't really need. As for petrol, I sold the ute and 4x4 and we now drive a 1.3L Mazda Demio (1998) that does 7 litres / 100kms. That effectively put us back to $30 / week for petrol. The rego was $183 thanks to the smaller engine. We have a Honda 1.6L too, but rarely use it. Our house is almost sold, so we should be sitting pretty with no debt shortly. Renting seems to make sense right now. The banks have had more than enough of my cash over the years. Time to get interest rates working FOR me.....not against me. When i do buy a house, it will be an old, cheap one with a small mortgage, hopefully at the absolute nadir of the present downturn...and I'll pay it off fast.
Loads of room to save money in the present downturn. I can't say how long its going to last because it took 3 years longer to arrive than i thought it would. But the combination of US wastage with the debt cliff approaching meant it was almost certain to come.
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A friend of mine has started making his own cheese
Out of interest - is he getting in the milk, or does he own animals of some sort?
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Linda - interesting. Thanks for the link. This private schools for profit thing just won't go away. Makes you wonder who EXACTLY the people are behind it as a constant goal. It can't just be an ideological tick off the list.
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Rich said <But the NZ economy has a massive imbalance between those who live off earned income and those who live off capital (not helped by the way our "Labour" government has unaccountably maintained a tax system biased towards rentiers)>
This fascinates me too. My thought is that in the income bracket that being an MP puts you in, MP's and buddies are likely to be the ones doing very well out of it. Likewise, the way that the accommodation benefit tops up (keeps up) rents. No easy way out of it, people need a roof over their heads and I don't begrudge the topup to the people who need itto stay housed but it seems to me it could act to stop rents decreasing by artificially making it look like "the market" can support them. More money in the same middle class- plus pockets.
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I got around the food price by putting a steer in the freezer.
Bastard put up much of a fight?
Ahhhh nutmeg - the one that needs absolute-shit-loads to get you high and absolute-shit-loads-plus-just-a-tiny-bit-more to kill you. Perhaps it's the danger adrenaline that does it?
Catnip! If you dig up and carefully microwave-dry the entire bush, then skin it and smoke it, you may get mildly buzzed, and with a pleasant minty aftertaste.
But then, y'know, 'for this u die in sleep'.
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absynthe - I tried what I think was the "old stuff" in Barcelona many years ago in the late 80's. You could only get it in 3 bars in the city because it was banned everywhere else (makes you go blind, I heard).
It came in an unmarked bottle. It was like Pernod - clear, but cloudy when mixed with water. It served by pouring it over a sugar cube, with a touch of water.
And after three of them I was definitely hallucinating. The fact that we were in a very old very dodgy backstreet Barcelona bar with a lot of weird-looking people and straw on the floor added to the confusion I'm sure, but visual hallucinations they definitely were.
We went back a couple of times then the bar was closed for "Vaccaciones" which lasted for two months - probably the best thing for our health...
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This post is on a completely unrelated topic, I'm sorry, but is in response to Act's stirring of the education voucher pot on behalf of the Education Forum. I think it was Roger Douglas who came out with how social democratic Sweden has adopted a voucher system.
What got my back up immediately was Hide touting it as "a scholarship for every child". Pah.
And no, I think there's very little chance of Act favouring the Swedish safeguards.
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I find it hard to believe recession in the USA won't flow down here.
Property has to take a hit, whether through an actual drop in price or years of no growth. That's not a factor of the recession though - property just went through a bubble. Why it went through a bubble may explain the recession, though. Too much damned debt available.
I expect our stock market to suffer too, as putting money into cash or on the mortgage is a much better investment during these times. Margin loans will seem like insanity, so all that leveraged investing will just disappear.
Inflation will be interesting to watch. Will it go negative? That will be truly scary.
Time to just knuckle down and work, folks.
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"Slumpy Cashflow" sounds like the name of a hobbit or an elf or something...
Or a porn star. A really amateur one.
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Loads of room to save money in the present downturn.
i now drink swappa crates of bushman draught, $22/doz at The Mill. bargain. goes well with home kill
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And finally, Pete Darlington came out of the digital hat for the MarchFest prize pack.
Thanks Russ, I'm well chuffed with this.
You won't regret drawing my name out of the hat either as, unlike with most people, beer makes me more charming and interesting. :)
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the one they really want to keep an eye on is nutmeg.
back in the day i remember being 3 days into a trip and thinking... "fck... i'm going to stay like this..."
Years ago, a friend of mine got bored and decided to see if the spicerack could get him high by trying them in his bong. He swore that the nutmeg gave him a mild high, ditto the poppy seeds. But when he claimed that he was feeling something from the thyme and the cinnamon, that's when I realised that if you inhale any kind of smoke, you'll feel a bit light-headed.
But stay away from allspice, man. That stuff will eat your conscious expressionism, man.
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re: Alternative Highs:
This one's really whack, I've been trying it recently. You stay completely sober for a few weeks. I've noticed a dramatic improvement in mood that no mood altering pills have ever matched. Also I'm having dreams again, which are far more detailed than any trip I've ever had. Energy levels are high. It's like being on Prozac without the psychosis.
If that's too soft and you want to take it to a higher level, exercise seems to work wonders on endorphin levels. This one has to be used carefully though, it's really easy to overdose, then you feel tired and crappy again.
And for the real over-drive, the one that's only for the hardened, I've found that hard work has amazing benefits too. Again, be careful with this one, you can easily get addicted. 4 hours seems to be enough for me - anything after that is really just coasting (not to be discouraged, just advising you not to push it). The benefits are mind bending - you get a stronger, faster mind. You sleep well. And things get done all around you - it's like having your own slave.
I can honestly say that no combination of uppers or downers or mind benders has ever had such strong or lasting effects for me. It's also really cheap, just the ticket for the recession.
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Years ago, a friend of mine got bored and decided to see if the spicerack could get him high by trying them in his bong.
getn wasterd, ur doin it wrng.
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History shows this [gold] to be the safest way to go.
http://www.research.gold.org/prices/annual/
Depends entirely on the period, like anything else. As the above chart show, if you bought gold after it peaked in the early '80s, then you'd have taken a very long time to get level, and that isn't even inflation adjusted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:DJIA_historical_graph.svg
The Dow has at least been reasonably consistent, at least until GW Bush got elected. -
But stay away from allspice, man. That stuff will eat your conscious expressionism, man.
The New York Times goes in search of the grand daddy of experimenters
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Out of interest - is he getting in the milk, or does he own animals of some sort?
I think he's using ordinary milk.
My copy of The Destitute Gormet (number 2) says you can make marscapone from non-fat milk, cream, and white vinegar. Maybe I'll try it next time I go overboard and make tiramisu.
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"Small children, single income family, rising food/fuel prices, renting with little hope of owning....I am not confident. Mainly I am worried about rental rpices going sky-high."
This is the story of a lot of worry out there. Mortgages are crazy here in Auckland and have been for a while. There's a feeling that home ownership has moved out of the reach of a generation of citizens. Adding further to the frustration is that movement accelerated at such a speed that many were completely caught out , pegged to a hardworking moderately paid job and a house full of children or compromised by our insanely low wages.
And the single income issue is the elephant in the room when it comes to talking about families and mortgage payments as most mortgages are tailored around the problematic notion that both parents will be working.
The herald used to run extremely scary stories about two years ago how “if you didn’t buy a house now you’d never have one in New Zealand .' Over the page would be quite happily worded financial advice that property prices were unlikely to drop even when historically the housing market was a notorious overheater.
Labour will have to take the blame on housing. They were strangely quiet as the bubble grew .All evidence suggested that at the end of the “housing correction” there would be a mess or at least an inefficient concentration of capital in housing.
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Don't the French insist that a certain quota of champagne MUT be sold in France? The sheepmeat industry is supposed to be in a tailspin but that doesn't seem to be reflected in the price of a roast at my supermarket. I am deeply suspicious that price gouging is going on over agricultural products in New Zealand. The first party to suggest that some sort of price control/local quota system for our local agricultural produce be introduced would be onto a vote winner. To me there is self-evidently something deeply wrong and deeply shameful that in a country as rich and as bountiful in food resources as ours most people can't afford fresh fish, decent meat and - now it seems - dairy products.
The Irish starved in 1848 while grain was exported from Ireland because the poor had no money to pay the price on the international market and I've got not a shadow of a doubt the global corporate warriors of our agri-business would happily step down the path to the export pier created through the rioting poor by a new generation of Massey's Cossacks if it meant they could get a few extra shekels for their milk powder in China.
Personally I am quite well set - I lived through the Rogernomics & Ruthenasia 80's & 90's and I swore two things: 1) I would never be beholden to any job, frightened that to lose my job would ruin me and 2) never to fund my lifestyle out of debt. When I want something, I save up for it. So now I am no modern serf, a debt slave to our modern version of an absentee rentier lord - the banks. It also stops me turning into one of those whining and debt ridden members of the mortgage belt so beloved of TV vox pops, who demand the government privatises their capital gain and socialises their losses...
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My copy of The Destitute Gormet (number 2) says you can make marscapone from non-fat milk, cream, and white vinegar. Maybe I'll try it next time I go overboard and make tiramisu.
making cows-millk cheese is easy.
making it *well* is another matter.
all this kerfuffle is probably a good indication that we need to start milking some of these millions of sheep.
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Isn't it great to have this wonderful blog. This is where you get loads of laughs, discussions take their own meandering course, and most importantly, people are civil with each other and don't belittle others' opinions. Well done Russ!
Now where do I vote...
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There will be a few people on the North Shore thinking Cromwell looks pretty good at the moment ...
We looked at buying a house in Cromwell awhile ago but the bank manager said it was out of our league.
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when he claimed that he was feeling something from the thyme
those were high and heady thymes. not like your modern thymes.
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