Posts by Paul Campbell
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err 'Murray'
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what's really scary is that you can just bet that they'll start using 'Murry' from FoC as a celebrity spokesperson for NZ exports turning brilliant self parody into sad reality
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here! here! - I too am a small hi-tech exporter - I export my labour and get paid in US$ - I watch that puppy every day and cry.
David, I suspect you and I fly under the economic radar as do a lot of other techy self-employed bodies for hire - but I bet we bring in a huge amount of foreign exchange per person - probably a lot better than many farms.
The previous government had a campaign to lure skilled people back from their OE - now's an even better time to be doing that - a lot of us can work anywhere in the world, NZ's a great place to choose
Rather than railing about how high our taxes are maybe they should go out of their way to advertise how LOW our taxes are compared to elsewhere, free healthcare (in the US if you're self employed this is a godsend), a very low cost of doing business, less red tape than elsewhere (screw the BRT, they have no idea, it really is so terribly easy here) - a little handholding from MED when the self employed techy sets up shop in NZ would be useful (how to set up a shell company to handle this stuff, invoices forms, pay income taxes, GST and when NOT to pay it, best ways to move money in/out of the country ....) a couple of web pages full of tips would go a long way
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hmm the initial magnitude estimate's working its way down now - 7.8 still a really big one and scary scary
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one of the problems with moving from California back to Dunedin is that while used to live just about on top of the fault and now feel we missed the really big one .... we're also very aware of what a house should be like to survive and the piles of bricks our old villa sits on scares the shit out of us ......
The 8.2 magnitude (will probably change) quake we just had a few minutes ago scared the shit out of us - it was probably a 2 here in Dunedin but it went on for maybe a minute - we've been through a lot of quakes over the years and we know what's not good it had us up and almost out the door - they don't last that long if they're not bad somewhere. Hopefully the people in Te Anau, Milford and Invercargil are OK
Maybe it's time to think about proper shear walls, a proper foundation and actually bolting the house to it
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I should add to my comment about buying US real estate - in California at least most houses are in essence sold "by tender" - but as I said the buyers mostly have realtors on their side to help figure out their bid - no lawyers are involved (unless something goes bad) instead a neutral title insurance company manages escrow, researches ownership, etc etc
I say "in essence" because most bids are encumbered with contingencies (like termite reports, building inspections, banks actually making loans) - in some situations the bidding process can turn into a sort of auction.
When we sold our house to move back to NZ we paid for a building inspection from a very reputable inspector - to encourage unencumbered bids - we packed up most our belonging, and moved out for 2 weeks while the place was on the market - the market was hot and when the time came for bids to be presented we were on tender hooks - what an eye opener - bids are presented by the buyer's realtors, to our amazement 9 of them, the realtor cautioned us to keep poker faces - we got written notes from the potential buyers, a cake, chocolate, pictures of and by their kids, letters to our cat, plans to turn our back yard into a tiki-bar ... and an increasingly large sets of bids - fortunately the highest was also unencumbered so the choice was not hard - we offered a backup position to the second highest bidder just in case - we got to keep the cake
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I don't understand what the baker's problem is - is it expensive? make the bread taste funny? not rise? turn green?
I understand they'll have to change the labeling, is that all this is about (from their end) - just think that can include "with added vitamins"
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Congrats! of course that's the easy part - wait 'till you buy the next and have to do the sell one and buy another before we're kicked out dance - twice the stress. As far as inviting your friends around to show it off - that's what house warming parties are for - do it in the empty house when you take possession, get them really drunk then hit them up to help with the move.
Most of us don't buy or sell houses very often - we don't really know or understand the ins and outs of it all - we honestly need someone we can trust to hold our hands - after all the seller does. And that's one of the great things about the US system - both sides have realtors rooting for them, who know the rules and the pitfalls, who know how to read a builder's inspection and can walk through a house and show you the things that might go wrong.
Coming back to NZ and trying to buy a house was a nightmare - tenders and auctions were quite scary and something we actively avoided - but we rented and gave ourselves 6 months to find somewhere
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People have to remember that what you see on TV are "Television Personalities" - not actual people but people playing a role, actors if you will - the sit up straighter, enunciate, choose their words or read a script - say scandalous things for effect, are forced to wear clothes that only Winston would be caught dead in (did anyone see Mark Sainsbury last night?)
They're different in real life both nicer and/or more evil - Russell seems OK though
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I've simply stopped buying music - I used to spend $1-2000 a year - but the local Real Groovy bought out the competition andthen went belly up - leaving us with the warehouse and one of those top 40 mall hole-in-the-walls - my weekly trip to browse music is no more.
itunes doesn't work for me (I don't use macs or windows) and my RIANZ instigated paranoia means I want to make sure I can prove I bought stuff "sir, you have 60Gb of music on your ipod, you couldn't possibly have bought all that" "here come and look at the big CD shelf on the wall, I challenge you to find something on the ipod that's not there"