“accusation” — bah! Try reading my first paragraph back over.

Then what you find very hard to believe does not make it so. As Carl Sagan might have put it — the absence of evidence (to a beholder) is NOT evidence of absence.

Of course you may not be a beholder, you impress me with finding excuses to avoid further – deeper – inquiry.

As for ACC, if as you say they are into ‘securitised’ paper, why don’t you take a look. Else influence another to do so. [not my field, as I said]

BTW: did you pick my clear inference that investment losers and actual losses amount to bad spending as well as the types ts smithfield sought to highlight.

I suspect you’re making an unfounded accusation against LA’s investments. If there was surplus cash in our local gov’t coffers for international investment (and I find that very hard to believe!) it would most likely be invested in US T-Bills and their equivalent of out Gov’t Bonds. As a defensive investment, they’ve probably done quite well recently.

The idea that LA’s would be buying up USRMBS is very far fetched. You’d be better off looking at someone like ACC – they’re a big purchaser of securitised paper on the NZ market, from what I understand.

About 90% of the actual cost of delivering bulk water is in fixed capital and overhead costs. A typical wholesale price of bulk water supply (into distribution reservoirs) is about 50c/m3. The actual marginal cost of producing each extra m3 of water at a treatment plant is around 5c/m3.

The vast bulk of costs are fixed in terms of servicing capital. There is relatively little opportunity for a lean mean private operator to reduce this cost. (Besides experience assures me that most local water operators already run on the smell of rag that was once in the same room with closed bottle of turps.)

There are only two effective opportunities a private operator has to reduce production costs:

1. Reduce quality standards, reduce compliance monitoring, and poorer treatment control, Use the least qualified staff, with minimal training and safety standards.

2. Reduce maintenance standards to a minimum of essential work only. Contract out anything that is done to the “lowest price of the day” bidder, ie the new guy who was most desperate for the work or who had cocked up his pricing. Allow the plant to gradually run down so that you spend as little as possible during the term of your contract. Leave the biggest possible back-log of deferred maintenance and obsolete equipment for the next sucker to pick up the tab on.

A contract can be written to cover these aspects, but the price goes up accordingly. Capital intensive water supply systems are a rather poor match for private operators, because public sector entities will usually be able to source funding at a lower cost and are willing to run to a 50 year design life/depreciation schedule… and not have to return a dividend to shareholders.

Private enterprise cannot compete head to head with public water utitlites. The only reason why private enterprise would ever want the business, is to exploit an essential service monopoly position to unilaterally hike prices at the first possible opportunity. It makes no business sense otherwise.

Identifying wasteful spending and refocussing it towards more productive ends for ratepayers is a good thing, right?

LG is not my field of interest, but I think your comment particularly apt in regards to any/all enzed LGs whose prior ‘investment’ endevors included the purchasing and acquisition of US bonds.. like the ten year deals in whose term investment banks like Merrill Flinch went awol before galloping identity loss along with ‘obligations’ in Bank of America.. and other inter-arresting activities.

BTW, and to all readers here, have there been any updates on the folks who willingly ‘sold’ this bond (-age) to LAs here. Were they hailed and welcome visitors to our Douglas-deregulated shores or onshore surrogates both able and capable of shafting their own kind..?

Couldn’t say though can suspect that above are laid out reasonable grounds for further inquiry into the new Minister’s appointment. Who, for instance, might he seek to hide in the dispensation/s of favors.. that only cabinet collegiality bestows..?

As it stands now, most definately. Whenever I see it go past, it has virtually no passengers. Therefore, it is not surprising it is making a huge loss. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t be run profitably if some attention was paid to the price of travel so that it was more fully utilised. You may not like the “profitability” argument. However, managing things profitably is the best way to ensure survival in the long term. A bit like those snails on the West Coast. The best way to ensure their survival as a species would be to commercialise them as a delicacy (like the French do) and breed them for food. A requirement of breeding them could be that 10% of all bred commercially would be returned to the wild.

So Quoth, what do you think of the council bailing out Henderson with his properties? More rate-payers money down the toilet do you think.

Here is another example from Christchurch: Ferrymead.

That receives a lot of council funding, yet according to someone I know who recently worked there, many of the exhibitors hardly ever open their exhibits up to the public. Apparently they have been offered people to keep the exhibits open, but they have turned that down, preferring to use the facility as venue for them to play with their own toys at the rate-payer’s expense.

I think the council should threaten to remove funding unless the stakeholders actually run the facility in a profitable way. As it is, it is just a black hole for rate-payers money.

Your right when you say councils are just as important as central government. But sadly not that many vote. Barely over 50% and councillors are never held accountable anyway. Sure Auckland turfs out their Mayor each term because they see a new candidate that offers so much better. But elsewhere most Mayors and councillors are voted in each and every time. Even when everyone complains about them. Being that I’m in Christchurch. The fact we supposedly have a huge surplus and are actually saving money and yet council rates keep increasingly. Our rubbish service is turning into a bureaucracy. I really think three wheelie bins is excessive. And I don’t personally agree that council rates should to go pay for public housing. And then there’s the mayoral fund which is given away to people that can’t buy groceries or firewood and yet have two pretty good cards, flash televisions etc. And then there’s the roadworks, needs to be done. But why is it that the street where one of the councillors lived got a huge makeover and got thousands spent on it.

If Hide should do anything as Local government minister. Make councils accountable. Because yes we can vote them in but there is little accountability whatsoever.