Here are my Top 10 links from around the Internet at 10 past 10pm, brought to you in association with New Zealand Mint for your reading pleasure. Many thanks again for your patience today.
It's been another one of those days. I welcome your additions and comments below, or please send suggestions for Friday's Top 10 at 10 via email to bernard.hickey@interest.co.nz.
I'll pop any surplus suggestions I get into the comment stream
1. A leaky delay - Andrea Vance at the DomPost reports that governnment negotiations with the banks over solving the leaky homes crisis have stalled. The government may also have to pass some legislation to cap the bill for councils. A package which was supposed to be agreed by late this year may not now be ready until May next year.
The basic problem here is that the banks are facing a hit of some sort and want some government help to ease the pain. Under the current proposal, the central and local government will bear half the cost of rebuilding or recladding. The home owner bears the other half of the cost. But, of course, most cannot afford to pay for it out of savings and will instead need to borrow the money from their bank.
The real problem is most of these borrowers are already in debt up to their gills and don't have any equity left in their properties. The government is offering a guarantee, but the banks can't grant the loan under existing criteria for equity and serviceability. Many of the homeowners simply can't afford to take on more debt. So what is the way out?
The banks could take part ownership of these houses, or engineer some sort of help from the government. The end result is that many of the banks are sitting on unrealised losses on these loans, which could easily get bigger. How big a hole is anyone's guess. The total cost of leaky buildings could be NZ$10 billion. It could also be NZ$20 billion, according to a PwC report. Here's more background here in Gareth Vaughan's story.
The government is estimating its 25% share of the cost of planned package is around NZ$1 billion, which suggests the banks have to front up with up to NZ$2 billion of borrowing. I suspect it's a bigger problem than that. Labour's Phil Twyford says the following:
Labour building and construction spokesman Phil Twyford said there were questions over what it would cost the Government to make it worthwhile for banks to provide loans.
"The banks approach it from a commercial perspective ... With the slowdown in the real estate market and some of these houses needing huge repairs, there is a question whether some of the houses have enough collateral value to secure the bank loans."
2. Key's 'scaremongering' on land values - RBNZ Governor Alan Bollard has rejected John Key's claim that blocking foreign buys of local land would force land prices lower and hit farmers, NZHerald's Adam Bennett reports from Bollard's appearance before the Finance and Expenditure Select Committee yesterday.
Mr Key this week warned Labour's policy restricting foreigners from buying farms in this country meant land prices would fall.
"Those farmers that have a lot of debt on their property will find that they owe the bank more than their property is worth and will be forced off the land and I don't think that's healthy."
Yesterday, however, as Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard appeared before Parliament's finance and expenditure committee, Labour MP Shane Jones asked if local banks would face challenges if New Zealanders only were able to buy dairy farms.
Dr Bollard said he doubted that would be "particularly significant" in terms of the value of the assets against which banks made loans.
3. Hubbard's kennel full of dogs - Chalkie has an excellent column in the Dominion Post about exactly what speculative stocks Allan Hubbard was investing Hubbard Management Funds in. It's not pretty.
Before moving onto the liquidation problem, the portfolio confirms what the statutory manager has already stated. HMF has a whole number of relatively small, but annoyingly difficult-to-shift stocks. The fund looks as though it has "taken a few" shares in all of the new small company listings that have occurred over the past decade and held them - companies like Ecoya, Pike River, IRG (formerly Viking), Jason's Travel, Solution Dynamic.
This is not the look of a particularly well-run funds management operation, with so many irrelevant positions. There has been no regular spring clean and it is difficult to see how this small cap portion of the overall HMF portfolio could have assisted in producing high returns.
4. Even rarer earths - The New York Times is reporting that China has started blocking the export of rare earths to places other than Japan. It's all part of the deteriorating currency, political and trade outlook. HT Rob via email.
China, which has been blocking shipments of crucial minerals to Japan for the last month, has now quietly halted some shipments of those materials to the United States and Europe, three industry officials said this week. The Chinese action, involving rare earth minerals that are crucial to manufacturing many advanced products, seems certain to further intensify already rising trade and currency tensions with the West.
Until recently, China typically sought quick and quiet accommodations on trade issues. But the interruption in rare earth supplies is the latest sign from Beijing that Chinese leaders are willing to use their growing economic muscle. “The embargo is expanding” beyond Japan, said one of the three rare earth industry officials, all of whom insisted on anonymity for fear of business retaliation by Chinese authorities.
5. 'Stop the whinging and get on with it' - The SMH's Eric Johnston reports Australia's banking regulator, APRA, has told the Australian banks to stop complaining about the toughening up of bank capital rules under the international Basel III rules.
All this means higher funding costs and lower lending growth. Those Australian property prices may be about to feel a sinking feeling as one of the great props is kicked out from under them.
The chairman of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, John Laker, has also put the nation's banks on notice to end calls for a watering down of Australian bank rules where they exceed new global regulations. Making his first public comments on regulation since new global banking rules were unveiled by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision last month, Mr Laker said Australian banks should be able to meet the proposals that have been designed to make the sector safer.
''Nonetheless, we are still being counselled that Australia should somehow distance itself from these global reforms and avoid so-called 'one-size-fits-all' solutions,'' Mr Laker told a Finsia conference in Sydney. In the lead-up to the new rules, Australian banks had been among the most vocal in calling for an exemption, arguing they did not suffer the same problems as their counterparts in North America and Europe. But Mr Laker suggested these comments did not help their cause.
''The days when the Australian banking system can operate in splendid isolation are long gone,'' he said, noting they trade actively in global financial markets and borrow funds from offshore investors. ''These banks are global citizens, and investors and market analysts judge them accordingly,'' he said.
6. End stage debt cancer - Iceland imploded before the rest. Now it's at an end stage, Bloomberg reports. The banks are arguing with the people about whether debt can be restructured. The debt won't go away by itself. It can't be wished away and the creditors won't let it be forgiven.
Iceland’s government will water down plans to forgive overdue home loans after the country’s pension funds argued the proposals threatened to deplete the value of their mortgage assets. After meeting “financial companies, the pension funds, the municipalities and members of the labor and employers’ unions, the Prime Minister noted there was slim support” for blanket debt relief, Finance Minister Steingrimur J. Sigfusson said in an interview yesterday.
“This process will take some time.” The compromise dilutes government pledges prompted by mass protests outside the Parliament on Oct. 4. The unrest, which attracted bigger crowds than in the weeks before former Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde was ousted last year, prompted his successor,
Johanna Sigurdardottir, to indicate she may support a proposal to forgive $2 billion in mortgage debt, or 17 percent of Iceland’s 2009 gross domestic product.
7. So what next? - Ryan Avent writes at The Economist about what should replace Bretton Woods 2, the current situation where big trade and capital imbalances between Germany, China and America are causing the currency wars.
8. Obama's love affair with the big six banks - James Kwak talks about the real problem in the fraudclosure crisis.
The scary possibility is that what they’re really afraid of is systemic risk: the possibility that, as Konczal and others have pointed out, the mortgage securitization trusts (the entities that bought mortgages and issued mortgage-backed securities) could sue the investment banks, forcing them to buy back the underlying mortgages at the original cost. Since those mortgages are now worth far less than before, this would impose huge losses on the Big Six banks.
Big banks losing money isn’t what’s scary. What’s scary is that the administration may be pooh-poohing the foreclosure fraud crisis because it wants to protect the big banks once again. In other words, it’s minimizing the problem because it’s hoping that the banks will finish “reviewing their procedures,” say that everything has been fixed, and go on with their business; in that situation, it would be awkward for the administration to have come out strongly on the side of homeowners. This would basically be the operational equivalent of “it’s just a liquidity problem.” But why? If this really could damage the big banks, why not let them take the hit and clean up afterward–especially if “orderly liquidation authority” is really the bazooka they claim it is?
Why protect them now after being stabbed in the back repeatedly during the financial reform debate and in the current campaign finance cycle? Why not take this opportunity, if there really is one, to undo the mistakes of 2009?
9. Steve Keen is always a must read so here's a link to his latest column at Debt Watch
10. Totally irrelevant video - John Stewart on Kim Jong Il's son.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Rally Dos and Don'ts | ||||
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49 Comments
I think we have talked of MAD...or a mutual death hug before.
Maybe its a circular argument.....China is selling something of value to the US who is borrowing off China to do so...the US really has nothing of real value.
Another way of thinking, in a "war" both sides will lose....however maybe if one side can see its going to lose less than the other.....its going to go for it.
China I think is the winner, it has plenty raw materials and cheap labour and a lot of USD (which it floods non-USA countries with to buy more raw materials)....the USA has little raw materials, not so cheap labour and limited USD (ie conventioanlly as it has to borrow) unless it prints like crazy.. Who in the longer term is hurt more? To me China will stagger, sure but it can sell elsewhere it can and will recover...if the USA cant borrow and if its currency is worthless why would China care about it? What can the US do? its destroyed its currency so oil and raw materials are expensive for it plus its labour is expensive....it used to sell domesticqally but now as it recovers some of that has to be sold abroad, competing with China...
and the counter argument is the US wins?
regards
Bob Guccione , founder of Penthouse magizine has died at age 79 years . A great loss for those of us who have enjoyed the ............... ummmmmmm ....... articles in Penthouse , over many years .
His body is to be folded in half , and placed into a plain brown coffin .
Heres an interesting read; http://ampedstatus.com/the-road-to-world-war-iii-the-global-banking-cartel-has-one-card-left-to-play
Have this with your kornies!
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article23652.html
PREPARE FOR TARP-2
The mortgage world is collapsing quickly. The big US banks are facing a fall over the precipice again. My expectation is for a grand TARP-2 initiative to bail out the big banks, soon to come, already introduced as a topic of discussion. The USFed will do its usual denial, then in a few months mention its urgency. This second chapter program will cause much more problems and generate extreme anger even with the USCongress. The first TARP was caused by market declines. This TARP will be motivated to aid in contract and securities fraud. The same old arguments will be trotted out about Too Big To Fail Banks, systemic failure, depression, and an end to American society as we know it. The constant is continued dominance of the USGovt finance ministry and Congressional finance committees by the banking industry and war industry, intertwined. Insolvent if not bankrupt entities control the USGovt finance, including its Printing Pre$$. The TARP-2 will pass but not before at least three or four months of haggling. The focal point will be Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, two important banks. Part of the political cover will be that Bank of America did the USGovt a favor by taking on the Merrill Lynch and Countrywide toxic load of debt, and is weighed down by its burden. Part of the political cover will be that JPMorgan Chase is weighed down by the burden of size and broken businesses. They control the USFed because they run it. The USFed will come out with research on why the TARP-2 is necessary and how the world will end without it, written by JPM analysts. So the USGovt will come to their rescue with TARP-2, perhaps a $1 trillion package of bank aid. One must wonder if Treasury Secy Geithner is being set up for a fall. The put-backs of large blocks of credit portfolios have been demanded by PIMCO, Blackrock, and the Federal Reserve of New York (the Wall Street front). Geithner led the FRB of New York during the entire mortgage bubble episode, the sumo regulator overseeing the bond fraud. The bank mostly on the damaged receiving end is Bank of America.
haha
And Karl Denninger wites a good summary of the issues
Aren't we different?
If people willingly enter into a loan contract to borrow money and they can afford the interest over the life of the loan and they agree to pay 1.8 to 2 to 3 times the price than they would if they paid cash then caveat emptor applies. It's their free will. Surely?
The gripe I have is that the central bank thinks that it can "fix" the price of money, when in a free market the price should be set by those that have the money, and I've banged on about that enough and written to Bill English about it, and got a standard reply.
More recently I've realised that a loan extended to buy an existing house is not actually adding any real investment to the economy. How can it? The house is there before the loan and it's there afterward, and yet there is more debt money circulating in the economy. The winner of course is the person who sold the house, and pockets the proceeds as a fresh deposit. The result is that the whole economy is using the existing housing stock as an ATM. We had 9 years of it, the Government was a winner, it was able to run surpluses (ie extract more than their fair share of taxes) for 9 years without those surpluses being deflationary. The gap was made up with zero interest created money from Japan aided with the "9 moving parts" Uridashis (or whatever they are).
Call that a filthy game, call it stupidity, or call it a failure of the "system". I think if you ask the players each one thinks they are doing the right thing eg. Teabagger yesterday and the posters that defended securitisation some weeks ago when the discussion was about setting up the heartland bank.
Restrict the banks to lending on real new investment. Make it a "once in a lifetime of the asset loan" attached to the asset created. That way the money in circulation is sound, it's backed by the thing.
"Restrict the banks to lending on real new investment. Make it a "once in a lifetime of the asset loan" attached to the asset created. That way the money in circulation is sound, it's backed by the thing."
Again....
Fred - has anyone other than you discussed this anywhere?
What have I missed.
I'm calling it AV (actual value) in my one person conversations.
Obvious question - How do transition from what we have to this?
Even the appearance of 'AV' on documentation would start people thinking more realistically about housing values and the somewhat unique pricing structure it seems to have.
Not that I have seen. Sounds pretty brutal though and I'm not sure whether it would work.
The transistion would be simple. No new lending on an existing house, if there is a loan when the house is sold, this can be transferred, with the purchaser taking it over. But would you allow vendor financing and would you allow the resulting note to be sold? I don't see why not.
My version was seemingly more ridiculous...
Allow loans to be made for 'improvements'.
The 1930's $4000 build cost (guess) plus, for example, structural work done in 1970 ($30,000) gives you an AV of 34,000 - no account to be made for inflation/interest paid(!) whatsoever.
i.e. Actual Costs at the time genuine works are incurred, loans allowed!
If I buy a car, do I expect it to go up in value?
Usually not - but if I stick in a new engine, I may hope to hold value.
Enough... you've got more important things to do.
Bernard....it's time to ask Bollard the following: Is it your intention to let the Kiwi follow the US$ down the hole?....and if he fluffs sideways we will know the truth.
The above link article at Oracle has me thinking the RBA will opt to stay strong based on rising US price for gold and commodities..ditto the loonee....but what about our currency!
It is time for Bollard to make it clear to the market where the RBNZ stands on a falling US$. We have a bloody right to know!
For those who cannot make that link...this is the guts of the finish!
Why do we put up with this?
We have heard empty promises for years. Instead of real action what we get is dog and pony shows, exemptions from the rules, regulators who are left in their positions after they help banks back-date deposits (and thereby increase FDIC losses), regulators willfully ignoring bad lending and government lawsuits to prevent the states from doing their job of protecting the citizens. Instead of regulating our Treasury Secretary and Federal Reserve Chair corral Congress in a room in the dark of night and threaten literal tanks in the streets if they do not bail out the very firms that committed these acts and are now about to fail as a consequence!
If the government is going to be part of an organized looting operation, including literal threats of martial law imposed on the citizens, then for the citizens to ask the government for help and protection is nothing more than a waste of time.
We keep hearing about "Task Forces" and "the government is looking into it." They've had more than three years to look into it, and more than six since the FBI warned. There has been no effective action and I maintain that so long as we the people allow the government to say things instead of doing them, that's exactly what will happen and you, the common citizen, will continue to get hosed.
If the politicians and law enforcement will not act on the above abuses and in fact promote and protect them then one must ask: Do the people have effective non-criminal recourse on their own?
I believe they do.
What if you refused to do business with the banks - at all - until actual, effective action and redress of these grievances occurred?
There has already been a "Move Your Money" attempt. That's good.
What's better is refusing to pay.
At all.
Think it though folks - a huge percentage of people in this country are, from a Bankruptcy perspective, judgment proof. They live hand-to-mouth, their house is underwater or they rent, and they have little or no assets other than in a retirement account - which can't be seized in a Bankruptcy. In some states wages cannot be garnished, and in many cases a Chapter 7 bankruptcy can clear your debts. It's the dirty secret that corporations use to restructure or clear their debts whenever they get in a bind - even if the reason they're there is their own foolishness.
Why shouldn't you do the same thing?
If you're in that position what's to be lost if you tell the banks to stick it where the sun doesn't shine? Your FICO score? That's going in the toilet anyway if you can't pay, right? If you're $100,000 underwater on your house, have no equity in anything beyond a retirement account and live hand-to-mouth what's to lose? While taking on debt with no intent to pay is fraud, choosing not to pay at a later date is not a crime, and in a Bankruptcy much - if not most - of your debt is in fact wiped out.
Yes, you will lose the house you can't pay for anyway. You might lose the car that you're probably $10,000 or more upside down on. But you'll also lose the debt. Declaring bankruptcy is a serious matter (and giving the finger to your creditors is likely to wind up there) but if you're scraping by with your fingernails, given what we know about the banking institutions in this nation and our government's refusal to protect consumers and stop the screwing you are taking literally on a daily basis, why are you putting up with it when you don't have to?
Consider this - why would you continue to do business with an entity you judge to be unethical?
Whether you agreed to pay isn't material any more than it was for the Mortgage Bankers Association, which appears to have jingle-mailed their headquarters building!
Again: Why should you behave any differently than the example they set for you?
I argue that you have no ethical or moral requirement to behave ethically with an entity that intends to screw you via any means it can manage to legally get away with.
If the government won't stand up and perform it's duty, then it's up to the people to decide - do you want to keep being ripped off on a serial basis along with having your retirement repeatedly trashed while the so-called "regulators" laugh with the banksters and thumb their noses at you, or are you going to go get some legal advice to figure out if you really are judgment proof (for a whole lot of people the answer is "yes") and if you are stand up and say "No More Damnit!" - and pay NOTHING?
One of the two most-liberating words in the English language is "You." I'm sure you can figure out what the other one is.
I believe it is time for each and every one of us to individually, having consulted with professional legal and accounting advice, to evaluate the above, it's impact on our lives, the costs and benefits of telling the banks to go screw, and whether we, personally, are going to allow it to continue - or whether we're going to send back our bills for debts to those institutions with a picture of our middle finger enclosed.
I went to the HB A&P show yesterday. Holy mother where is everyone? Even the horse show was small.There was no one there. Only a few exhibitors and no people. A mate told me that Wanganui Collegiate has 155 students leaving and 13 starting. I take it rural NZ has collapsed, it shocked me. Talked to an Orchardist friend who said his industry is in Crisis so SCF mr Apple may be harder to sell than is thought. The $ is a concern but its really about costs.
How have we got so expensive, $16 to get into the show. Has anyone else noticed how expensive fuel is? My wife tells me its because we are a pissy little island run by moron's. Maybe she has a point. My daughter needs braces the last daughter cost me $3,500 this time not that much later 7k. I read Elly's post asking 'how do people survive', well its a mystery to me. My car dealer mate at the show said this is starting to make the tough times around the Douglas-Lange fiasco look like a walk in the park. Anyone else out there with the BNZ jumping on them, they appear to be giving borax to the farmers around here. Heard of a dairy farmer up to his neck in it, taken the winter off to visit Europe, Westpac must be overwhelmed with joy.
I recently did the maths on stocking our new block - signed leases with the neighbours instead... only way I could guarantee a return on hill country grassland. And you're right... it's the input costs that are the killers - and if you shop only the specials for your meat, the sad fact is, you can't raise it yourself for cheaper.
For me looking at "things" working, I cant see how many ppl are making money in a business unless their margins are large and tahts rare.....I see complaints from some that its Govn tax, but for me its a) the private "tax" happening, ie interest rate charges and fees etc etc charged by banks to do business are just as bad....b) The input costs....and again it looks like the financial sector is buying in here and effectively double dipping....ignoring the fact that its costing more to extract and ship raw materials every day....
So really land price appreciation for me is really bad news, yes its great for the original owner but for future owners its gets harder and harder and at each point the banks are there taking a nice and indeed a bigger cut.....and from lots of angles...
Steve Keen summed it up well, in that as bank profits rise the rest of the economy declines....that has to be fixed.....too much short term and individual greed is doing damage to us nationally...As a society we have to decide to curb that.......
regards
Give the wife 9 out of 10 AJ...."we are a pissy little economy run by morons".....dentists need their new Bentleys.!
The only solution is found in telling the banks to take a hike when they turn up selling credit...when the rural sector cottons onto that, from that day on they will see a better future.
Stop the bloody borrowing....watch the prices fall....see the bank bosses run for the dunny....you have to accept, it will be oh so funny.
'how do people survive'?
Where the hell have YOU been? DEBT is how many survive and that option is nearly up! Many have said "NZ has become a rip-off country for about everything", blaming it on our isolation (which is a scapegoat), BUT the TRUTH is WE (as a nation) SOLD OUT! We sold our most strategic assets over the last 20 years and we continue to 'sell out' on a personal level because we ALL wanted to live like the Americans! Well, LOOK AT THEM NOW!
We have too much "red tape" around any local development or constructive ideas, YET someone from overseas comes over bringing their mega bucks and watch as Politicians and Councils and anyone willing to take a 'back hander' rolls over to allow the sale etc. While Mr. Joe Bloggs (excluding the victims forever crowd ie Maori elite) local kiwi entrepreneur takes a back seat filling out 100s of forms and meetings to justify his simple plan or idea.
So Justice, you got any answers? I think we need to slash the state sector and I mean slash. Did you see what the Education head honcho gets nearly 500k. Hell if she didn't turn up to work for a month would anything change would anyone notice. They get paid a fortune and in their work time blow all our futures.
This frustrates me to no end. Gareth Morgan has already outlined the solution - the Big Kahuna - major reform of both tax and welfare systems hand in hand ... wipes out the entire WINZ departmental operational budget in one fell swoop and significantly reduces the need for armies of IRD personnel who at present are a 'sunk cost' policing the loopholes in our totally broken tax/welfare system.
And why did Big Kahuna not get any serious consdieration - well, it wants to tax capital - and we couldn't have that under a capitalist system, could we?
Better to tax labour and profits - the engine of the REAL economy.
It's gonna be OK.
The answers are obvious. OUR land is "strategic", OUR infrastructure which has taken decades of public money to build is "strategic". The sale of either to foreign owners should be outlawed , this INCLUDES private and residential property UNLESS you are a nationalised or NZ born citizen. Now many will argue (John Key for example) that "kiwis simply don't have the cash to make some of these bids realistic or worthy" . Well why is that? Could it be because we are 'overtaxed', we encourage personal debt and NOT saving via stupid policy like RWT's (resident withholding taxes), we pay the real "productive" working sector peanuts while the most useless who just sit at desks all day get paid $100k plus to wear a suit and look important (Bollard for example).
In other words i agree with your sentiment
yeah good call kate. the kahuna i think was more meritorious than was acknowledged...
i wonder if the webmasters here could come up with a tool that would allow all us contributors to enter our policies and see where we stand, on average... i'd love to see what commonalities there are between us....
touquoy, this will be the first industry to go down
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/4258377/Villa-Maria-vineyard-pr…
"Johanna Sigurdardottir, to indicate she may support a proposal to forgive $2 billion in mortgage debt, or 17 percent of Iceland’s 2009 gross domestic product."
So.....who will pay then? Everyone including those Icelanders who NEVER had a mortgage or lived beyond their own means via some new government tax? Those who did all the RIGHT THINGS now must take some of the pain? Sound familiar? NZ 2.0
"The real problem is most of these borrowers are already in debt up to their gills and don't have any equity left in their properties. The government is offering a guarantee, but the banks can't grant the loan under existing criteria for equity and serviceability. Many of the homeowners simply can't afford to take on more debt. So what is the way out?"
Ah...simple, don't get involved in the first place! These people bought a 'dud' asset (leaky home, chch earthquake, no insurance etc) so they must either 'take it on the nose' or take legal action themselves with THEIR OWN money!
Since when did Government and taxpayer money become a charity organization for everyone who suffers a mishap in life related to THEIR OWN choice of bricks and mortar? What a pathetic bunch of losers. Oh... you want "compassion?" I'd rather spend that on people who REALLY are suffering from things that are non-materialistic
Consumer rule 101: "buyer beware"
I'm starting to agree with you Justice, this situation is getting ridiculous. Unfortunately I believe that the government does have some level of responsibility with the whole leaky home thing - stumping up for half of the repairs though is where it should end to my mind.
The government guarantee is stretching it in my mind and VERY generous. But I'm sorry, for people who are so indebted that they can't even afford the repayments on the other half, well I'm sorry but it's tough. Bancruptcy awaits, whatever.
At what point does the government stop playing "nanny"? Heck, why not just pay for the whole damn lot, eh?
@ Justice:
These people bought a 'dud' asset (leaky home, chch earthquake, no insurance etc) so they must either 'take it on the nose' or take legal action themselves with THEIR OWN money!
How hard would it be for the govt to legislate so that home owners can pursue the builders and/or material suppliers and/or the bodies who wrote the standards?
why can builders change the name of their company and somehow escape liablity?
Because that's what being a 'limited liability' company is all about. Finance companies have done alot more damage than "builders".
Oh.... and builders (don't believe all the shit coming out of the Master Builders Association) weren't really the problem. Even the claims around substandard materials is abit of a lie as any material can be used as long as you keep the water out. Even mud huts keep people dry! The 'blame' should sit with the architects who designed the plans that the builders followed (even some MBA builders but they won't tell you that) and the councils who signed off on those dodgy plans. Councils (or ratepayers) pay insurance for this reason.
#1 - "Many of the homeowners simply can't afford to take on more debt. So what is the way out?" Hmmm, sell and walk away?And if the proceeds from the sale are not enough to pay off the initial mortgage, declare bankruptcy? I mean, borrowing even more to repair and as a result getting into the red even more isn't gonna be a very wise course of action for people who are "already in debt up to their gills", is it?
#2 - "Mr Key this week warned Labour's policy restricting foreigners from buying farms in this country meant land prices would fall." Sorry, what's the issue with land prices potentially falling and therefore becoming more affordable for young, entrepreneurial, local farmers? (I'm a bit slow).
Re-braces, I'd better try harder to stop my daughters suck their thumbs. By the time they need some, it'll cost 15K per child, eek.
Kate, I'm afraid if you do want real change you may need to set up your own political party and run for office yourself. You never get served better than by yourself I reckon.
Good point about increasing foreign competition in the previously protected services sector. We're seeing more of this in accounting (Xero), dental (holiday trips) and medical (holiday trips). If only we could outsource the ultimate non-tradeable sector -- government.
cheers
Bernard
…and I’m concerned that in many cases businesses in this country needs foreign capital because the top management is earning big money in stead of first and a longer period of time reinvesting into the company.
...and in general why are businesses not more often strive for complete independency of banks, new investors and foreign capital ?
Never known for pulling her punches , Fran O'Sullivan ( NZ Herald ) has a lash at actor activists Lucy Lawless , Keisha Castle-Hughes , and Robyn Malcolm . The first part of her article slams Malcolm's foolishness at destroying the livelihoods of many in our struggling film industry , purely to Malcom's own notoriety . She's addicted to being in the limelight .
Helen Kelly of the Council of Trades Unions comes in for a well deserved slagging too . Her " get Key at all costs " is unprofessional , and frankly , childish spite . Unions never change !
"Labour's new economic masterplan is far more hands-on - and makes no apology for being so. This is not some panicked response to Labour's and Goff's sluggish poll ratings. A year in gestation, the economic framework document released at the conference is the blueprint to guide Labour over the next decade and beyond".herald........................
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahah
But Wolly , " It"s all about Phil now " . ............ Does that not give you a warming inner glow that all will be right in our world , after 2011 ? Goofy and the Goofettes stand a real chance of cobbling together a coalition government . ........... And do will expect a single peep out of any union in the land , if that happens ? Nor those on WFF , interest-free-student loans , .......... So many are still recipients of Labour's previous election bribes ......... the lame ducks are all lined up , expect Goofy to mis-fire ?
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