Posts by George Darroch
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Rich, the distances between Asia and South America are beyond the range of even the longest distance airliner (the 777-300ER), so they need somewhere to stop. However, if you were flying Beijing - Santiago it would make sense to stop somewhere less out of the way like Honolulu.
Still, the routes are long and thin, and AirNZ doesn't seem to think the hub model works here. Emirates uses NZ as a minor hub, as does LAN. I think that's the extent of it.
So, better as a tax-haven then.
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encircled by an unforgiving desert
It's the desert of the real I'm more concerned about.
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Corruption, torture, slave labour? What’s not to like?
Simon Grigg sent this link a few months ago, and called its description of Dubai cruel, but accurate. Wonderful reading, spectacular pictures.
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If we're going to have a Dubai, it should be in Queenstown. Playfields for the rich, better scenery. Zurich of the South.
Although doing that with the current runway and approach limitations would be hard. You couldn't run ninety six a380s from ZQN, even if you tried. I don't know if you could run one.
Auckland does make a little sense as a transit hub, and acts to a minor extent as a transfer point between South America (~400 million people) and Asia (~4billion people). I'm not sure who else would use New Zealand, other than deliberate visitors to this part of the world. And they already come here, including a rapidly increasing number of Chinese.
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An open thread you say?
Let me talk about a recent study that shows screening for breast cancer has shown little appreciable contribution to reductions in mortality rates. A family member was just this weekend telling me about how the health trust they're a board member of had bought a very expensive new screening machine. I haven’t had the heart to send them the link yet.
Perhaps not. Let’s frame that as a question: what role should evidence have in policy-making – none, or very little?
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I did not see the game, so can only say that the uniforms are very pretty.
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failed test...
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Banks don't make lending decisions based on whether their secured asset is appreciating in value, they lend on the basis of whether they think their loans will be repaid.
Yes, but they base at least part of that assessment on the assumption that if the loan-holder is no longer able to pay, the property will have held or appreciated in value sufficiently that they will receive their money back after the property has sold. To extent that this is assumed to be true, they're seen to be a very safe asset class, as you note above. Banks lent wantonly in the US on the basis of this truth. It almost collapsed the banking system. Thankfully New Zealand lenders have mostly avoided such practices.
If speculative investment (as any investment predicated primarly on the basis that it will increase in value should be treated) was to decrease substantially, the equation would change.
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Can someone please explain how CGT will suddenly encourage people to move out of property investments and invest in more “productive” areas of the economy?
I can see where you're going there. While this is true - that dollar for dollar a speculative asset is the same whether it's a house or a factory. The difference is that while share price inflation and capital gains on (real) capital assets are are one way a company makes money, they also make profits which are distributed as returns to owners, shareholders (dividends), and lenders (as repayments).
Small investors have bought housing rather than shares because dividend plus capital gain plus risk meant less to them. The banks have chosen to lend to housing over businesses, on the basis that housing inflation is better for their returns than a business trying to run a profit. That made sense to them now, it will make less sense in future.
As I understand things.
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proof that Radler was a common or generic term in New Zealand in 2003
Oh rubbish. Lies.
That wasn't directed at you, by the way, but at IPONZ and
DB.By that standard, almost anything that is made overseas is neither common nor generic. The first person to start making it gets a default license to use the name, to the exclusion of all others. The first company populated by upstanding white New Zealanders with intellectual property lawyers to sell gulab jamun or bal mithai under those names gets their name. Forever. (they're sweets, by the way).
Peter, the problem is that Ugg/ugg was a name created by Decker that had become generic, and therefore they lost the trademark. Radler is a generic name created by Germans, and for which a specific company which at no point had exclusive use of the term has been given a trademark.