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6:00 am, April 29th, 2021 - 65 comments
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The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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Landlords have really been covering themselves in glory lately, haven't they?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/aucklands-main-street-is-a-disgrace-auckland-council-official-sued-over-queen-st-pedestrian-trial-saga/ZHUA6Y6JOIWDRTS6EODA5I27VQ/
Now I get it – commercial property is almost entirely valued on the amount of rent you can charge. Whatever building O'Connell street bistro was in was worth whatever the rent says it is worth – $250,000 PA apparently was the ground rent for just that restaurant. Cut the rent by 20% and the building value drops the same. So I get that these fat cat commercial landlords would rather sit on an empty, increasingly tatty building theoretically worth one price than drop rents and take a bath on their assets.
Queen street was dying before COVID. These landlords still can't even organise a continuous veranda along the entire length of the street, for crying out loud. What we are seeing here is a bunch of entitled bastards grumpy that capitalism, for once, is not a one way street.
A different Herald writer is unamused (and his story is not behind the firewall this time):
https://twitter.com/simonbwilson/status/1387493789195857921
When a property can fetch 250.000 in annual lease why bother with having a nice downtown. Auckland downtown has looked like rubbish since 98 and the black out there. Gosh, have a look at the Facade of St. James Theater, which once you get inside is a beautiful gem in an oasis of rubbish building and greed induced tackiness.
But yeah, these guys are not there to help. And fwiw, people will still not go to AKL down town, car or not, who can afford to a. shop there and b. park there? Fairly few.
Yes, the centre of gravity in Ak's city centre had already moved down the hill before Covid took away Q St's cruise passengers and students.
In 2004 a boss of mine – quite a succesfull pastry business in town – was thinking of moving down town.
He came back to the shop and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed, and when he got his breath again he told me that the rent on Queen Street is equal to the Rive Gauche of the Seine in Paris. That is where Chanel, Hermes etc have their shops.
Deluded, arrogant and the worst people to complain about hte uglyness of a City. The City got ugly because of them in the first place. But hey they are landlords, architects (must have more empty towers to build) etc. This is simply a joke among many.
This is an eye opener as to the state of much of mid to upper Queen street –
https://boilerroom.substack.com/p/whats-going-on-with-aucklands-imax
https://boilerroom.substack.com/p/an-imax-update-its-much-worse-than
You can only hope the CRL will see an improvement around Aotea.
from your second link
And this is what i and many other 'leaseholders' have asked, begged even for. A government that legislates to the best of all its citizens at the beginning of the fucking plague. Legislate that they at the very lest can not increase rent during lockdown – any level – currently we are in Level 1 just as a reminder. They did not. We asked, begged that they put responsabilities to the landlords when they got their defferred mortgage payemnts etc last year so that the lease holders could manange during full lockdown. WE – the small and larger businesses got f uck all.
All the businesses got – and i exclude the very big ones as they are treated differently to any of us micro, small and medium sized businesses, was the money to pass on to their staff and a payment for ourself. Not enough to pay rent or lease, but hey its not as if anyone really cared. If we fail cause we don't have several years of rent and rates and insurance and GST tucked away we should just die silently.
This government has done nothing for commercial leaseholder to make sure they a. can survive or manage to nurse their business through, or .b get out of a lease they can not service without being punished by the Landlord for a fucking plague they had not hand in creating in the first place.
And this government, like any of the previous ones have never held commercial landlords to account, have a look at Rotorua where empty shop fronts are an eyesore, empty for 10s of years, dirty and filthy and nothing can be done, it appears.
So essentially the country gets what the government allows. And currently the biggest hinderniss to small business creation is the lack of affordable business spaces – and that has been so for a while. And the government is asleep at the wheel.
Amazing that piece you have linked to Sabine. The owners of many commercial buildings are sucking the life out of the small businesses that rent them. A maker of great German sausages had a small shop in central Nelson but was forced out by the rental cost. That lost him his wee rented space and us his excellent product. I have forgotten what is now where he used to be – probably selling jewellery.
This problem of rising rents happens in inflationary bubbles – the big landlords can get their properties revalued monthly, six-monthly, annually and push up the rent accordingly. The rent is not based on a percentage calculated using the value of the property when the lease began, no it is just usury using the inflation of values in the area to maintain a set percentage income from the inflated value of the rented space. And the values see-saw up as surrounding landlords do the same.
Centrepoint in the 1970's in a prime area of London stayed vacant for a year? while rents shot up and it was being revalued constantly. The empty building stood as a golden piece of collateral enabling further borrowing for other mendacious bits of business acumen.
Centre Point – Wikipedia
Constructed from 1963 to 1966, it was one of the first skyscrapers in London, and as of 2009 was the city's joint 27th-tallest building. It stood empty from the time of its completion until 1975, and was briefly occupied by housing activists in 1974. Since 1995 it has been a Grade II listed building.
Architecture firm: R. Seifert and Partners
Town or city: London, WC1
(Mod – Sorry about the image – cleared that away. Forgot the horrendous amount of code required.)
You recall it was Winston who blocked planned govt action on leases on the grounds that commercial contracts were sacred. Proud lazy fool.
Not a commercial building. But part of the building commerce which seems to throw up shysters to the point one wonders who is reliable, legal, has probity etc. There needs to be a record of companies and people who are involved in shonky and shoddy dealings that people can do a credit check on before committing themselves to anything. Leopards don't change their spots, and short of being imprisoned, the cunning so.s will just find a way to repeat their crimes.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/441406/fines-handed-down-to-those-convicted-over-bella-vista-housing-development
A judge has handed out $165,000 in fines to three Tauranga men and a company convicted over the botched Bella Vista housing development.
Twenty-one homes were eventually declared dangerous or not up to scratch and had to be abandoned.
Bella Vista Homes director Danny Cancian has been ordered to pay $60,000 for breaches of the Building Act, with the judge describing him as a bully by nature who was arrogant and entitled.
His failed company was also convicted in a reserved decision last year but has not been fined.
(Cancian is on a jobseeker benefit for now, so unlikely to be paying anything to anybody and just waiting to slip, slide away.)
Anyone remember the film The Money Pit which played up all the things that can go wrong with building work.
This from The Detail on Radionz at 5 am. Some practical informed talk which I haven't come across much.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018793290/why-it-costs-so-much-to-build-a-house
Before work even starts on laying the foundations and nailing up the timber framing, a new home has already cost hundreds of thousands of dollars…
Today on The Detail, professor of construction management at AUT, John Tookey breaks down the cost of building a house from buying the land, gaining resource consent, and putting in sewerage to fitting the windows. He also explains the complexities of fixing the sector, and here's one clue: we have to lower our expectations of the house we want to build…
But Tookey also says the government has to be the major player in the mass house building plan by putting in large scale orders to build ahead of the market place…
"We're dealing with a small economy. The costs associated with supplying a small economy are substantial compared to anywhere else."
Take two comparable economies, with roughly the same population, New Zealand and Sydney. The similarity ends there.
"They have about 13,000 square kilometres for Sydney and the district around. We have a couple of hundred thousand (square kilometres) we're spread over multiple islands, multiple locations, we expect to be able to build at the same price everywhere."
The "little island of Sydney" can be supplied through about 400 builders' merchants, New Zealand needs 850…
He forgot ticket clipping
Care to support that comment with a link ?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/labours-plan-to-force-rent-negotiations-said-to-be-blocked-by-nz-first/ZNVEE6RPLKHKSAAYRABPORQCNY/
well that is actually interesting, and for what its worth, also makes sense.
from the article linked
so since then the government has changed, Winston has retired and we still have no plan nor law in place to deal with landlords like the above mentioned.
I get it its easy to blame NZFirst but i don't think that the points raised in this article put shame on NZ first, but rather on the government having done nothing at all in regards to this since they won a majority and a 'man -date' to change all sorts of things.
but maybet he truth really just lies in here
Its always easiest to blame those that have left the building. But this again, seems to be where Labour came up with a solution that would not have stood the test, and then well, did nothing at all, and here we are a year later, and businesses still closing down because Landlords still don't have to work with their tenants. And next lockdown – and there will be another one for sure – people will again pay rent to a business they are not allowed to access and that clause 27.5 will still be unusable.
Horses have left the stables, Sabine. Action was needed at the time.
@ Sacha,
horses have left the stables….
so very kind, so very gentle, and so very callous towards to fellow Kiwis who sacrificed their businesses to people who don't care and a government who can't get things done.
Horses have left the stables indeed.
I hope you find your own kindness.
Gosh Sabine yours at 29/4 7.03pm is sure a gobstopper.
I can see why the mods are trying to limit the cut and paste you put up. I think it is useful to have some detail that illustrates concerns and make a point. But this one is more than what Morrissey and I have had cut down to anorexic size.
Don’t give the Mods any ideas 😉 They’d be accused of censorship, shutting down, cancelling, or being party poopers and spoil sports 🙂
In hindsight Peters was correct. Once government starts messing around with commercial contracts all sorts of unintended things start happening. Some of the ideas being floated at the time would have helped some tenants, but would have allowed other tenants to try and have one over their landlord. For every arsehole landlord there's probably three shyster tenants and plenty were trying it on.
The bluff of implied clauses and subsidised arbitration worked for most people, us included, and the arbitration subsidy was hardly taken up.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/the-government-will-roll-out-changes-to-make-birth-certificate-sex-changes-easier/VFJDXW3B7PRF4JTBYMUKBAUKEE/
Tinetti and Labour have no mandate for this.
this is a significant piece of legislation. My understanding is it was not presented as a remit for party members (although I will stand corrected on this).
vote compass at the time of our last election showed only 29% supported this. Stand up for women also commissioned a poll, which showed a similar level of support.
I hope to post a comment soon about the disgrace that was Wellington pride this year, due to the trans gender radical exclusionary practices against a group of older/elderly lesbians. Weka, if you read it when I post it, feel free to post it as an article.
Anker, i doubt the current ruling class gives a piece of fudge about having a 'man – date' or not. And support or lack there of has never stopped a party from doing what it believes will 'benefit' them.
Thanks for calling out attention to this Anker.
When there's a will there's a way for some, but for most people needing change that benefits all, there is little done as slowly as possible. But hey there's moral outrage that has created comment and disturbance attracting attention to an area of malaise. So some pollies have picked on that one area of life and elevated it to VIP status to the point of changing integral legal provisions for us all.
I note urgent requests for concern, support and action for other areas of human need that are eternal yet have slid down the priorities; not a 'today' thing, 'sorry you've had your day we're moving on' seems the response.
Hi Anker. It's interesting that this move pushes beyond self identification of gender to 'sex', which is widely recognised as (in almost all humans) biologically binary. This does seem an extreme position.
Sorry to hear about the Pride Parade stuff. I'd love to know what is behind this shift.
KSayshi, I can't say what is behind the Pride Day issues, but what happened was disgusting.
A group of older lesbians, some of whom are elderly were banned from Pride because they amongst other things weren't prepared to go along with the line that "Trans Women are Real Women". They protested outside the Michael Fowler Centre where the event was held as part of the resirected group the Larvas. Another women who is not a member of the Larvas, was inside staffing a stall. During her break she went out to offer support to the Larvas and took them some tape and scissors to mend their placard. She tried to get back into the centre, but was accosted by four Pride people, one a "big burly man'. They man handled her and accused her of carrying an offensive weapon (the scissors) and then when she refused to leave they called the police, who came. This woman is very frail and actually has terminal cancer.
Next thing there was a counter protest to the Larvas. A group of young people which grew to about 100 started chanting "fucking terfs". I find this completely disgusting.
and i guess we can file this too under
'we don't know how lucky we are / were / and please to godess, god, minor deities etc will be/
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/covid-19-coronavirus-border-officials-had-name-of-traveller-from-perth-before-he-landed-in-nz/P25JR4WZHVHRR4R752KKVY6E3E/
so they knew the name of the guy, did not stop him from leaving the airport to travel on his merry ways. But its all good, eventually someone thought that might not be a good look so now the guys is in MIQ and may even get a fine, err prison time, or something.
IT actually does not matter if he is a low, casual, or flashing siren red case, the fact is he could do what he did and thus showed that others can do that too. Feel safer already?
…they knew the name of the guy, did not stop him from leaving the airport to travel on his merry ways.
Read that early this morning. Added it to our list of 'shit that simply does not add up/make sense' regarding Te Virus. I'm betting he's a 'noter' of some ilk. Fact that he's now in MIQ is immaterial. The lack of consistency has been appalling.
Those lucky enough to survive this shit show will look back in wonder at the amount of bull the general population have swallowed.
The Immigration Dept has been incompetent for years so theres no reason to expect them to become become competent overnight because Covid.
Hopefully it remains only incompetence and hasnt descended to corruption.
What about the border guards? Incompetent to? IS that now the excuse, oh they are incompetent? Do we feel saver now?
No, not safer…but not surprised.
ditto.
Given that folk with accounting diplomas are getting working visas for skilled migrants, and working as cleaners, the corruption is clearly already here.
Agree there are some worrying signs (and an odd reluctance to inquire) but I hope that is not the case as if so then we are really in the shit….corruption is harder to unwind than incompetence
Hanlon's razor has been getting some use lately…
In its application or in its misuse?
should only work for the first few times……
"he fact is he could do what he did and thus showed that others can do that too. Feel safer already"
They were able to identify around 70 people from Perth who were stopped from boarding ( they would have flown first to Sydney or Melbourne as 1 stop flights are cheaper than non stop and give more options)
This one person had unusual travel arrangements as his trans tasman flight was cancelled and he re-booked at last minute so was missed during the plane boarding. Only knew about after he arrived in Auckland and had left the terminal before the cross checking was complete. Of course they knew his name as they do for every passenger on every flight.
he was coming from Perth with about 2 community cases in 2 mill people , not Mumbai
Well then, its all good and then they can release him from quarantine and also from any eventual charges. Cause why not. j
oh, btw, the Indian mutation has been found in the UK
and the US and other places
So you might just want to think about how glib you want to be about these lax rule enforcers and the idiots that can break rules and get away with it as really that is a good way to get killed in these plague times.
Yep, 16 billion dollars later and we are ok with having infected people in the country. We could have had this without having debt to the eyeballs for the next 2 generations. I would like to have the rule breakers named and shown on the news. I think this would reduce the behavior significantly. Also, it seems that iwi groups can call the government out and justify those checkpoints.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/covid-19-coronavirus-checkpoints-to-return-iwi-group-says/DRINS54PIY4IGTVLEPUZ22HR54/
Were he Australian would that have made a difference?
would it make any difference?
the rules were clear, they were broken, and thus…..we again got lucky that that person was not a carrier, and did not infect anyone he came in contact with on his way to Northland once out of the airport.
would it make any difference?
Not to being a carrier, but when it came to immigration here.
i think flight manifests go to migration irrespective of the planeload being kiwis or ozzies or a whole bunch of mixed peas.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/governments-winter-energy-payment-not-enough-some-say/5Z5RKPE6TUZO3HKF7PXV36UDJM/
well if we take that comment from Hill to the extreme, we don't need any heating assistance as the poor old ones can just go to the heated library, or the card afternoons, and heck, why not open these places for the night too, add a few cods and the dear oldies can sleep in a warm place.
https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/eligibility/living-expenses/heating-and-power-bills.html#null
My annual power kW is around 4500 thats for 2 people, with 2 heat pumps, one of which is used a lot in summer for night time cooling. Theres auto dishwasher and washing machine. We are both home a lot.
I only turn the hotwater on for about 1 hr per day as thats enough for 2 ( the top half of cylinder is where hottest water is) and heat pumps are mostly used at lowest settings during day and a bit higher at night. Dehumidify is the low setting for cooling.
Heating costs have gone up considerably. But then hey, just don't use electricty and you won't have a big bill. Fixed, you are so awesome!!!!!! Between you and that lady from the grey power that is worried about olds not going to the heated library they sure have it good.
Sure , Ive been on a power saving thing for around 15 years
But the link for Work and Income specifically mentions 'help with power costs'
You mean a special needs grant, which has to be paid back. Plus Work and Income has a limit to what they will lend so tough shit if it's been a bad year and you've needed other things like emergency dental care, clothing, repairs etc which also need paying back.
Not everyone has the good credit rating needed to access cheaper power too. It's costly to be poor.
Using less power is the cheapest way
Other wise Globug is a prepaid method
https://www.globug.co.nz/pricing-calculator/
Would be good if we could get back to having really cheap electricity for the hot water system at night-time off-peak rates. On my bill there doesn't seem to be a great difference from the 24 hour rate. I'm with Trustpower – I'm reluctant to be changing power suppliers, forced to shop around, a power bargain-hunter. But fair dos for fair systems is what I expect.
I sometimes read about huge spikes for business and it underlines that our small country must be being screwed to keep so many profit hungry businesses going. Are we being milked?
Powershop peak rates 36c kWhr, off peak 27c which includes fixed charges ( but not daily charge) they also have 'specials' about 1 a week which are lesser price via an app.
off peak is 11am-5 pm , and 9pm- 7am and all weekend. My hotwater comes on at between 5 and 6 am for 1 hr ( using timer)
Thanks for that gww I may have to bring this up with my power company. They do react to concerns that consumers bring up.
i put my water on gas just for that reason.
Does Hill seriously believe the winter allowance comes close to covering winter power bill increases? Surely live pensioners are way more likely to head down to the library of a morning than dead ones.
Just wondering, if that person has a disability and/or looks after their spouse etc…
Perhaps some solar power panels connected to central heating/hot water should be considered and funded by need instead of doubling payments. It would keep homes warm and dry and increases the value, being an alternative to power grid supply (renewable). Win win win all around….
Washington is not stopping at the destruction of journalists
Now the fury of this outlaw regime is being directed at businesspeople….
Policewoman: [chortling] "Bodycams are my favorite thing to watch!"
These monsters need to be not "defunded", but abolished and replaced.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=5563273463744867
something wrong with american cops !!how can they be this stupid ?? ive seen so many vids like this they seem to have their own form of dementia i guess too many cheesy movies ?rotted their brains ?
Thank you Morrissey.
I really enjoy your contributions to this site.
Ed, thank you.
Agreed.
Biden makes a good speech. Calling out the 1%'s deliberate non-contribution to society was a nice touch. Probably put a target on his back, but there'd already be a line, it being Murica and all.
A most unusual tone with such an empty House: no declaiming, almost conversational in tone.
And full to the brim with full-throated public policy goals and utterly massive public interventions:
Don't know if this has already been covered, but this is the latest that I have seen on the fight for Julian Assange. Fight the good fight Jennifer Robinson – she has that special interest in progression of all people which is so admirable.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018792915/jennifer-robinson-fighting-for-assange-west-papua-and-public-education
…Standing by her clients Julian Assange and Amber Heard in the full glare of international media, she is based at a top London law firm Doughty Street Chambers…
"These publications are immensely important, and he faces 175 years in prison in the United States for those publications. The injustice of it could not be more stark so I think it’s really important people remember this.”
One of the accusations levelled at Assange and WikiLeaks is that publishing the documents unredacted risked harm for people, but Robinson says that has never been backed up by evidence and, thus far, no harm came to anyone as a result of the publication.
“That material had already been published online by other publications as a result of a security breach by the Guardian newspaper. The decision by WikiLeaks to publish that material unredacted was because it was already circulating online.”…
On the 4 January, Robinson won the case against extradition for Assange, but she says it was the right outcome for the wrong reasons.
Her latest mission is to improve educational opportunities for public school children. She recently founded the Acacia Awards, in association with the Public Education Foundation in Australia, in which prominent people who were educated in the public system will sponsor a student from their former school or area, providing mentorship and a small scholarship…