You can only sell your table and chairs to buy groceries, ONCE

I’ll be interested to see how the lure of cheap energy (ie coal and oil) plays out on the world stage in resurrecting the world economy*. I note one of Todd Muller’s early statements is that he wants to use NZ’s water resources to push us towards de-carbonising and an electric powered future. That may gain him some votes with people concerned about climate change but uneasy about the other baggage that comes with an ‘environmental’ party. But building dams is a long term, energy intensive process in itself.

I’m disappointed, but not surprised, at the usual SJWs that have emerged from under their rocks and are pushing the same barrows that they were in pre-covid days. Even having the cheek to add “now it’s more important than ever that we....(insert appropriate policy here).”

*When health or economic concerns become pre-eminent, nice ideas about saving the planet will be set to one side until we have the luxury to consider them again. I believe this what China and the USA will do, so what the rest of us do won’t make much difference. Stand by for goals to be moved further into the future.

tdgeek:

 

Really? Whose fault is that? You are justifying the plight of Air NZ and its soon to be unemployed employees and the now lack of dividend on what? A horrific event has caused the lack of dividend. Had this not occurred, taxpayers will be receiving these SOE benefits. Now its a bad idea to hold such investments? 

 

No, just that holding onto SOE shareholdings wouldn't have meant a guaranteed source of income and not a reliable source of funding for helping us right the ship. 

And HNZ got lots of acknowledgement for their work to upgrade state houses the financing of their building program was a way of keeping the debt in HNZ and off the government books when the debt thing was still a hot potato.

I don't really have an opinion about that as we badly need more state houses but probably at around 10x - 20x the 8,000 that have been promised. 

Plus non-state houses are badly required too.

GV27:

 

 

 

No, just that holding onto SOE shareholdings wouldn't have meant a guaranteed source of income and not a reliable source of funding for helping us right the ship. 

 

And HNZ got lots of acknowledgement for their work to upgrade state houses the financing of their building program was a way of keeping the debt in HNZ and off the government books when the debt thing was still a hot potato.

 

I don't really have an opinion about that as we badly need more state houses but probably at around 10x - 20x the 8,000 that have been promised. 

 

You can only right the ship once if you sell the assets. Reliable income occurs most years

Yeah, no doubt we need a lot more social housing. Why are we short? Was it fine till the last election and now it isn't? Thats the issue, yes there are many problems, why is it that we can conveniently ignore why, yet target the current Govt to fix it in short order? 8000 is better than none, and there is a limit as we dont have unlimited builders here

quickymart:

 

Plus non-state houses are badly required too.

 

Agreed. 

About 37000 annually

• In the year ended February 2020, the actual number of new dwellings consented was 37,882, up 11 percent from the February 2019 year.

https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/building-consents-issued-february-2020

NZ is building homes, now at increasing levels. Maybe unaffordable housing has meant many settle into cramped subdivisions, and that's fine, thats the way it has to be. These builds allow the old home to enter the market as an extra home, or in effect, adding a new rental. Some will be lower priced for first home buyers. 

It appears to be tracking ok.

tdgeek:

 

You can only right the ship once if you sell the assets. Reliable income occurs most years

 

Yeah, no doubt we need a lot more social housing. Why are we short? Was it fine till the last election and now it isn't? Thats the issue, yes there are many problems, why is it that we can conveniently ignore why, yet target the current Govt to fix it in short order? 8000 is better than none, and there is a limit as we dont have unlimited builders here

 

Very true. I suspect many would support the current Kiwibuild (whatever it currently is, who knows?) policy being changed to focus purely on state housing and scaling up at the same planned level. 

Lots of the 'Kiwibuild' homes ended up being very small and not fit for use by HNZ. We also need to get away from the idea a two bedroom home is a 'family home' when a lot our most vulnerable are bigger family groups by nature.

I think a fully resourced state building programme building 3 - 5 bed pre-fabbed terrace homes would be a great way to reset the local NZ market. Throw in a rent-to-own scheme and just keep building and building. 

And priced reasonably too! Despite what Kiwibuild (and probably a few people on here think), $650,000 is nowhere near what I would call "reasonable". Knock $150,000-$200,000 off that amount and I would be much more interested (and could afford it!).

GV27:

 

 

 

Very true. I suspect many would support the current Kiwibuild (whatever it currently is, who knows?) policy being changed to focus purely on state housing and scaling up at the same planned level. 

 

Lots of the 'Kiwibuild' homes ended up being very small and not fit for use by HNZ. We also need to get away from the idea a two bedroom home is a 'family home' when a lot our most vulnerable are bigger family groups by nature.

 

I think a fully resourced state building programme building 3 - 5 bed pre-fabbed terrace homes would be a great way to reset the local NZ market. Throw in a rent-to-own scheme and just keep building and building. 

 

100% Im not sure what the public build program can do (or does Govt use the usual builders?) A problem with intensive housing such as terraced homes, is that the may turn to slums? If there were medium to upper market, in a nicely landcaped subdivision, that may work, and it frees up the "ex" house for sale or rental

If "a" Govt can build a scheme where it builds and builds, it can focus on social housing and feed the excess that it cannot manage to the building industry as needed. Maybe a free flow of labour between them to help the building industry in times of high and low production. Doesn't matter who employs builders as long as they are many and employed, the Govt Builder Dept can take on spare labour and social build, feed some back if demand is needed for the private build market. 

Where employment is going, the new trade courses that are being implemented will be a huge source, in 2 or 3 years.

tdgeek:

Really? Whose fault is that? You are justifying the plight of Air NZ and its soon to be unemployed employees and the now lack of dividend on what? A horrific event has caused the lack of dividend. Had this not occurred, taxpayers will be receiving these SOE benefits. Now its a bad idea to hold such investments? 

quickymart:

And priced reasonably too! Despite what Kiwibuild (and probably a few people on here think), $650,000 is nowhere near what I would call "reasonable". Knock $150,000-$200,000 off that amount and I would be much more interested (and could afford it!).

tdgeek:

quickymart:

Plus non-state houses are badly required too.

Agreed. 

About 37000 annually

• In the year ended February 2020, the actual number of new dwellings consented was 37,882, up 11 percent from the February 2019 year.

https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/building-consents-issued-february-2020

 

NZ is building homes, now at increasing levels. Maybe unaffordable housing has meant many settle into cramped subdivisions, and that's fine, thats the way it has to be. These builds allow the old home to enter the market as an extra home, or in effect, adding a new rental. Some will be lower priced for first home buyers. 

It appears to be tracking ok.

Handle9:

tdgeek:

 

Really? Whose fault is that? You are justifying the plight of Air NZ and its soon to be unemployed employees and the now lack of dividend on what? A horrific event has caused the lack of dividend. Had this not occurred, taxpayers will be receiving these SOE benefits. Now its a bad idea to hold such investments? 

 

Please stop. There was a blanket statement that asset sales were bad and the government needed that income. It's clearly not that simple. Solid Energy and Air NZ are cases in point. Picking winners isn't something the crown is particularly good at.

The Air NZ ownership is only due to a previous bailout. The airline business is particularly volatile so it should be questioned why the NZ government was still involved.

Asset sales generally accompanied debt reduction. That debt reduction meant that NZ had relatively low levels of public debt and could deal with this crisis a bit better than other economies.

The 80s asset sales program was a joke with asserts sold for a song. That doesn't mean that selling assets is bad, it depends what the asset is and what you do with the money.

The blanket statement was that Air NZ is not now declaring a dividend so therefore assets are bad to hold. And that its now bad as the virus has crippled it. Yes you can sell assets to reduce debts, but you can only do that once. NZ had been reducing debt prior to the virus, thats didn't require a wholesale selloff, it required a conscious effort to reduce debt to circa 20% of GDP, that was done. Maybe the issue is should any Govt hold these forms of assets? If they generate a worthwhile income, thats probably acceptable. 

tdgeek: The blanket statement was that Air NZ is not now declaring a dividend so therefore assets are bad to hold. And that its now bad as the virus has crippled it.

Handle9:

Not for long. Spec building will fall off a cliff as a result of this crisis.

Where I am, spec building was a problem, over supply (ChCh) While many have been directly affected by this crisis, and more to follow, many haven't. Real estate activity seems rather high at the moment. Perhaps thats delayed demand due to the lockdown. Mortgage rates are super low. The next 3 months will tell us if its batten down the hatches and consumers hunker down and cease building, or whether the recovery slowly gets on track. If Level 2 doesn't last long, and it will clearly see less restrictions added each two weeks, it will be positive. Scanning daily news tells me that its going to be bad for a long time for all of us. I'm not so sure.