Posts by BenWilson
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Hard News: RNC 2016: A literal shitshow, in reply to Moz,
that is not atypical, nor is it “a small effort”.
It's a small effort compared to trying to overthrow a fascist regime. Which could be what is at stake here.
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Polity: The most important graph in the world, in reply to andin,
Really! So the sales pitch was what?
That globalization is good for the developing world. I've heard that claim many times and it seemed plausible.
I'm not sure I can clearly see everything happening in this graph as a result of globalization, though. The high growth in the developing world could also simply be a function of them being so far behind. A bit like how my church can double in size by the time I get my first convert, but it needs a hundred million new followers to grow by 10% if it's already got a billion.
To that end the spike in the upper end is even more worrying. To spike so much upwards when already in the most primo position in the world.
It's a pity that the graphic can't convey the "top 1% captured 29% of the growth". The y axis only shows proportional growth, not absolute growth. It would be possible to show absolute growth, but the graph would be one of those unreadable hockey sticks, in which the growth in wealth of the wealthy of, say, 50 million dollars each, makes it impossible to even see the growth of 1000 dollars of the poorest people.
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I can only hope this is frightening enough to the people who don't usually vote to make the small effort required to save their country and their lives.
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Speaker: Sprawled out, in reply to Kumara Republic,
A crash would definitely jolt the economy out of something, but I don't know what it would jolt it into. It could something much worse. There are often big time predatory winners from crashes, those guys waiting with their cash in something else for a chance to switch in at the bottom. Banks are likely to become hyper conservative to new lending so those locked out could be locked out even harder. Depending on the government, a likely outcome of a crash is austerity measures.
Ironically a crash also goes a long way to restoring faith in free markets, the much vaunted "correction", setting everything to rights again.
What is scary about our spiraling prices that it's not driven by the overstretched financially. Measures have already long since been taken prevent that. It's much more people like me, who have significant equity. A correction would not ruin us but it could trigger a very long recession.
Once again in a property debate I'm left thinking we've become very good at seeing the problems, but unifying on a solution just isn't happening. My own feeling that we need new levers of economic control. An asset deflationary one seems like one of the few that could actually tackle house prices. I keep coming back to a UBI. It's looking more and more essential as we slide into shocking inequity. It's the only solution that seems to align with what the future work is really shaping up to be.
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Having grown up in both of NZ's 2 million dollar suburbs, St Mary's Bay and Herne Bay, the first of which gentrified beyond recognition since I padded those streets barefoot on my skateboard on the way to the predominantly brown schools I attended, it's quite a bizarre experience to be considered a part of the gentrification of New Lynn, from which my father escaped in the 60s. I sensed a certain disapproval emanating from him that seemed strange until I realized that nothing brings the concept of our generation's downwards mobility home more clearly than the prodigal son having a half million dollar debt in a suburb that he but recently sold his own deceased working class mother's freehold estate. Her Crock-Pot and her husband's BBQ that we salvaged during the clean up have crossed back over the Whau, and grace the characterless timber on cinder block on a cross lease that we consider ourselves extremely lucky to own.
But to me it's my mansion, my castle, replete with nearby high tensile power cables. And how's the serenity? It is, despite the ridiculous price, also far more house than I've ever lived in before. That includes the Herne Bay mansion which is, after all just another drafty villa. I grew up with that "character", shivering and getting sick in a tiny cottage in St Mary's Bay that recently went for millions. What I'm in now is ugly, but well built and functional. And the local township is rapidly reconfiguring. With the actual underground station with its bike lockup under the high rise apartment block and bus station, you could easily wonder if you'd been transported into some European town. It's a punt we're taking, I had to weigh up that precious extra kilometer from the city that we've moved. I can't any longer pretend to be a central suburbs boy, this is full West.
Not that West is the poor white petrolhead country town of Dad's day anyway. My neighbors are mostly, ironically, my colleagues, the next wave of immigrants, still brown but less Christan than my childhood compatriots.
Who have we displaced? The tradies that we used to look down on from the central suburbs have moved to where they always actually wanted to, to country mansions in the hills, charging fortunes for labor our entire schooling trained us to see as second class. Because one thing about a trade is that it's hard to offshore it, and in a booming property market, it's the one kind of work you can't dispense with.
But I do feel guilty that I displaced a tenant from the downstairs flat. That was always going to happen, as others note, but I had to feel like the bad guy. On the other hand it was actually done because flat was disgusting, and I've spent thousands on waterproofing, carpet, lino, heat pump, ventilation, wiring, so that I don't have to be a slum Lord. Is it bad that I will then price the improvements into the rent?
A 40% correction would take almost all of our equity. We'd just hang on. There would be a certain justice in it, since that 40% represents gains that we made for nothing more than buying back in the noughties and holding on. It might bring property prices back to the affordable range for young families. So long as they still have jobs, something it's hard for me to see as likely if the economy had just taken a hit of that magnitude.
I don't know whether to wish for it. But in the interests my family, at the moment, I'm not betting on it. I think prices will continue to rise. I literally have all of my money that happening.
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Cute that they made a whole category just for Uber, though. It's almost romantic. They might get to be upgraded to partner status too!
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Yes NZ might eventually buy into mangling the word in that way, if this goes through Parliament before some passenger dies.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber Driver…, in reply to goforit,
That’s the influence of Uber in our regulatory process that the words used take on Orwellian spin and sensible discussion is made more difficult. We “partners” have got used to this.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber Driver…, in reply to Sacha,
Not sure how they feel about that now :)
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Ben I bet they are regretting hiring you now. lol
Possibly so. They certainly can’t claim to not know me any more, since I had one of the association members serve Richard Menzies a letter personally inviting them all to a discussion. Apparently, in the “roundtable” meeting, which was for selected drivers to air their grievances, when pressed, many of the Uber staff present would not even give their full names.
But I’m not aiming for them to regret it in the long run. My aim is for it to be of mutual benefit, for a better business model to emerge, one that takes their excellent app but engages with NZ working conditions, processes and pay standards.
I’d hope that it might lead to an organization that is still highly profitable, but doesn’t have the stink of a corporate culture of secrecy and fear that you see when employees are literally too afraid to give staff their names. I actually feel sorry for people who think they are saving the world, but can’t look their own drivers in the face and say their own name. There’s something really wrong with that.
I would never, ever work for a company that made me feel afraid to use my own name when doing my job.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber Driver…, in reply to goforit,
in other words ride sharing is sharing a ride with the driver
That means the driver is going where you are going. Which is what carpooling is. By "sharing" is meant "sharing the cost of", not "being in the same vehicle as". To call a taxi ride-sharing makes as much sense as calling a cafe "room-sharing", because the cafe has more than just the owner in it. You don't share the cost of the rent with the cafe owner. You pay them for the service of using the room that they are bearing the cost of. "Room sharing" would be having someone back to your house for a coffee, and possibly getting them to bring the coffee.
But Wiki explains this so I don't have to.
