Author Archive

Who could build social housing?

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 6:47 am, July 25th, 2016 - 226 comments

The plan to have the private sector build social housing appears to be a flop. We need a large, well resourced organisation to take on the task of building these desperately needed houses. Wherever will we find one?

Roy Morgan

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 6:40 am, July 22nd, 2016 - 359 comments

Time to move to Planet Key?

NZ wins nuclear war

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 12:45 pm, July 21st, 2016 - 19 comments

Nothing like a good clickbait headline eh!

WINZ sends families to live in garages

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 7:05 am, July 21st, 2016 - 204 comments

The government is demolishing and selling state house while WINZ sends families to live in garages. This is New Zealand in the Eighth Year of the Brighter Future.

Auckland without workers

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 10:53 am, July 19th, 2016 - 73 comments

The unaffordability of Auckland housing is now seriously impacting even moderately well paid professions. As these trends continue, how is Auckland going to cope without without workers?

China trade realpolitik

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 1:45 pm, July 18th, 2016 - 137 comments

We can’t afford to be using sub-standard steel. We shouldn’t have to buckle to pressure to do so, but we have no leverage at all.

A target we can celebrate missing

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 8:38 am, July 16th, 2016 - 72 comments

Anne Tolley has conceeded that the Nats will not meet their objective of getting 65,000 people off the benefit in the next two years. Good. It is the wrong goal.

The death of comments

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 9:35 am, July 15th, 2016 - 47 comments

RNZ and The Spinoff both turned off the ability to comment this week. Many other sites have done the same. It’s not really a very cheerful landscape.

Nats abandon social housing target

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 7:03 am, July 15th, 2016 - 22 comments

As part of their “comprehensive” response to the housing crisis, the Nats are backing off their promise to increase the number of social housing places. Great news for those families sleeping in cars tonight.

Democracy vs efficiency

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 9:15 am, July 14th, 2016 - 116 comments

Events in England really highlight the different processes of the two main parties. The Conservatives have completed their leadership transition, Labour’s contest has barely begun. Which model is best?

Vote for Helen!

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 7:04 am, July 14th, 2016 - 55 comments

Yesterday 10 of the candidates for the UN’s top job faced off in debate. For the first time this was a public event, hosted and broadcast by Al Jazeera.

Panama Papers – Nat U-turn complete

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 1:11 pm, July 13th, 2016 - 28 comments

Having ignored the IRD and other advice, having insulted calls for transparency as “barking mad”, today the Nats’ U-turn on disclosure for foreign trusts is complete.

Corbyn is in

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 10:54 am, July 13th, 2016 - 139 comments

With a rush of sanity to the head, the UK Labour Party has ruled that Jeremy Corbyn is automatically on the leadership ballot, as a straightforward reading of the rules suggests.

Do you pray to take on crushing debt for the rest of your life?

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 8:58 am, July 13th, 2016 - 89 comments

housing-crisis-silly-question Pathetic tinkering with loan limits does nothing realistic for first home buyers, but it does add more fuel to the debt fire. We need to actually build some affordable houses. If only there was a party that would do that…

Nats on HNZ dividend – Yes! No! Maybe!

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 7:01 am, July 12th, 2016 - 62 comments

That’s three positions in 2 days. Stay tuned to see what these headless chooks come up with tomorrow!

What – you mean – the lefties were right?

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 10:19 am, July 11th, 2016 - 141 comments

Inequality, poverty, the rise of the working poor – people are pissed. Lefties have been saying it for a long time, but now Serious Market People can see it too.

A tale of two housing policies – Steven Joyce writing National’s on Twitter

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 7:01 am, July 11th, 2016 - 106 comments

In some kind of panic over Labour’s housing policy package, Steven Joyce was writing Nat policy on Twitter yesterday. The promise to forego 2 years of HNZ dividend appears to have been made up on the fly.

The housing crisis and Key’s combustible pants

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 9:16 am, July 6th, 2016 - 35 comments

2007 Key vs 2016 Key on the housing crisis. Someone is telling lies!

Housing bubble inflating faster – Key’s panic now obvious

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 7:01 am, July 6th, 2016 - 157 comments

The housing bubble is inflating faster than ever, and Key is visibly panicking. His political problem is insoluble and his electoral problem is about to get worse.

The silence of the lambs – media (not) on McCully

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 11:10 am, July 5th, 2016 - 21 comments

Interesting discussion on the silence of the lambs. Where have all the journalists gone?

Chilcot report – Blair’s bad week

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 10:02 am, July 5th, 2016 - 44 comments

Even before its release the Chilcot report is drawing attention to the hubristic warmongering that will forever stain Blair’s time in office.

National to seize privately owned land

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 7:01 am, July 4th, 2016 - 57 comments

National is now proposing to extinguish private property rights and seize land. Cue political and media outrage? Yeah right.

Billion dollar boondoggle

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 3:00 pm, July 3rd, 2016 - 112 comments

In an effort to be seen to be doing something about a housing crisis that they say doesn’t exist, the Nats have offered to lend councils $1 Billion that they can already borrow. Homeless families will also be offered a free deckchair on the Titanic to re-arrange as they please.