Posts by WH
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Hi Chris,
Which should not be taken as some mad Luddite rant.
None taken - this is something everyone will have a view on.
My experience is that there are many situations where the existing 50km/h - 100km/h limits are unnecessarily low. I know there are situations where they are completely suitable.
Also, it doesn't matter what fancy technology you've got, the same laws of physics still apply when you crash. There's no substitution for driver skill
I don't entirely agree with this. Anti-collision systems lower impact speeds and they work by overriding the driver's judgment. That said, I'm not suggesting that drivers should be less vigilant.
here's the obvious issues around fuel consumption and GHG emissions
While I'm excited about the prospect of petrol-free cars, I don't think climate change is strictly relevant to road safety. I do take your point, though.
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Firstly, I would like to congratulate NZTA on its effective and well made advertisement - it really is excellent.
You've asked about the challenges I've experienced around driving at safe speeds. My view is that we should use technology and good design to increase the speeds at which traffic can safely travel on New Zealand's motorways, arterial routes and other non-residential roads. I would like to see New Zealand's speed limits increased to reverse the effect of the reduction of the Police's enforcement tolerances.
While I welcome your efforts to improve situational awareness and decision making, I think New Zealand's drivers should be able to travel at speeds above 105km/h on motorways that have been built for this purpose.
Lastly, I hope that further efforts will be made to address Auckland's severe traffic problems - the most frequently challenging road use problems in my home city don't involve dangerous speed.
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Hard News: A Big Idea, in reply to Andrew C,
I did a quick chart of NZ/US exchange rate vs OCR since 1999 and I am not convinced they are highly correlated. As an example, the last 5 or so years has seen an increase in the x rate but the OCR has remained almost flat.
This is a bit above my pay grade unfortunately.
The New Zealand dollar is a well known carry trade currency, and it follows that some proportion of the demand for NZD is driven by ROI differentials. I'm not sure that a plot of the OCR vs the NZD/USD rate would capture the complexities of this.
Bear in mind that it's a multi-factor relationship. For instance, page 7 of the paper Russell linked to has the relationship between the terms of trade and the TWI.
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In broad terms, while I'm sure it's not perfect, this proposal has a lot of good things going for it.
I don't think the items that concern Kiwisaver should be allowed to distract people from how good the change would be.
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Hard News: A Big Idea, in reply to Andrew C,
This is the bit that prompted my previous question WH, can you explain why? I'm not arguing the opposite side, I just don't understand.
When a New Zealand resident earns a profit - whether from their own business or from the receipt of dividends - they are likely to spend a proportion of that income on goods and services within New Zealand. Whatever amounts are spent become the revenues of other businesses, boosting the domestic economy.
You can imagine a simple example of a New Zealand resident using dividends from shares in ASB Bank to buy a yacht from a New Zealand based boat builder. The purchase of the yacht provides income to the boat builder, provides work for his staff and helps the New Zealand economy. As a result of the purchase, the boat builder and his staff have more money to spend and the cycle begins again.
When profits are repatriated overseas, another country's boat builder gets the order and the cycle of profits to spending to income to profits within New Zealand stops.
You can get a sense of the "circular flow" model of economic activity here (I found this by doing a Google search for "circular flow with repatriation of profits", so it may not be authoritative). It's more than you need but you'll notice that "The Overseas Sector" section states that overseas investments by Australians will tend to boost Australian national income in the long run, and that the repatriation of profits out of Australia is a kind of "leakage" from the economy.
There's more to it but that's the basic argument.
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Parker has noted that New Zealand has low general inflation but high house price inflation. The Reserve Bank has historically responded to house price inflation by raising interest rates for everyone. These high interest rates reduce demand by hurting households with mortgages and businesses with variable rate loans; they also tend to increase the exchange rate.
In short, Parker is proposing to lower house price inflation with a view to allowing the Reserve Bank to lower interest rates and the exchange rate (see 6.10 of policy document). I think this is exactly what is needed, and it feels like we've been fumbling around something like this proposal for the last 20 years.
It's good to see anti-tax avoidance measures and CGT in the mix as well (see paragraphs 6.5 - 6.9; 6.15 - 6.18 of the policy document).
There are a couple of other things we could do:
Our lax overseas investment rules allow vendors to sell their assets to foreign owners at higher prices but the repatriation of profits abroad tends to weaken our economy.
Because most of the banks that operate in New Zealand are owned overseas, most of profits made on the loans that finance the housing sector leave the economy. The re-establishment of a mix of domestically and government owned banks within the industry would tend to mitigate this.
Some of our core markets, including our power and telecommunications markets, seem uncompetitive and generate high prices. These prices lower disposable incomes and make all locally produced goods and services more expensive (by increasing the costs of production). Intervention in these markets would tend to make New Zealanders better off. (Parker has this at paragraphs 6.19 - 6.23.)
I don't know if we'll ever get all this but it's good to see that the discussion is on the right track.
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Politico has an extended interview with Al Gore here.
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There's a new nine part documentary series about climate change called 'The Years of Living Dangerously'. The first part is available on Youtube and features Harrison Ford, Don Cheadle and Tom Friedman.
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Legal Beagle: All of these things are…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
I doubt this proposal is even intended to have actual policy value. I think it's a pretty transparent play for sympathetic media coverage TBH.
New Zealand is fortunate not to have the kinds of problems you read about in the US media. It's good to see things evolving there.
I'm reading The Great Tax Robbery at the moment. The author outlines a single acquisition structure that is said to have cost UK taxpayers between £6 - £8 billion pounds (see page 110 of the book for the reference). That's between $12 - $16 billion NZD, at current exchange rates, for just one transaction.
I think it's worth bearing these sorts of numbers in mind when people start talking about longer jail terms for people who steal televisions.
ACT's website states that:
The government must review its asset ownership, expenditure, tax structure, and regulatory environment with new zeal. It short, the country must reverse its policy stagnation to reverse its economic stagnation. Short to medium term goals should include reducing the level of government expenditure below 28 per cent of GDP and lowering the top tax rate to no more than 20 cents.
These certainly aren't my economic priorities.
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I can understand your desire to engage with this proposal in a sincere way, but this looks like one of those election year trojan horse jobbies.
ACT is pretty hostile to the interests of most New Zealanders, and I'd be careful about giving it or any of its policies an undeserved endorsement.
Incidentally, you can read about Texas' recent efforts to reduce prison populations here.