Tom Scott on housing

20 comments on “Tom Scott on housing ”

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1. weka 1

   28 August 2015 at 12:30 pm

   Who is the guy on the left?
   • b waghorn 1.1

     28 August 2015 at 1:04 pm

     A tenant that pays the rent s my guess.
2. greywarshark 2

   28 August 2015 at 1:03 pm

   That’s efficiency folks. Not-for-profit charities concentrate on covering costs so there is a small surplus. Government making a profit from providing necessities to needy citizens is a sort of oxymoron, out of gas.
3. mary_a 3

   28 August 2015 at 1:49 pm

   As appalling as the situation is re children becoming sick and tenants dying, as the result of deteriorating state house conditions, this cartoon is right on the button. Summed up well by Tom Scott.
   • whateva next? 3.1

     28 August 2015 at 4:52 pm

     If Paula Bennet had her way they would be harvesting the mushrooms and making a business of selling them, using their kiwi ingenuity and “turning their lives around” just as she did???? Yeah right
4. rhinocrates 4

   28 August 2015 at 2:54 pm

   Still waiting for Hoots to say again that this is a lifestyle that Henry VIII would have envied.

   …crickets…
   • lprent 4.1

     28 August 2015 at 4:10 pm

     Henry VIII died at the age of 55 (ie a year younger than I am now)

     This is a pretty accurate analysis of his life over the last decade. Any takers for the life of Henry Tudor Jnr?

     Late in life, Henry became obese, with a waist measurement of 54 inches (140 cm), and had to be moved about with the help of mechanical inventions. He was covered with painful, pus-filled boils and possibly suffered from gout. His obesity and other medical problems can be traced from the jousting accident in 1536, in which he suffered a leg wound. The accident re-opened and aggravated a previous injury he had sustained years earlier, to the extent that his doctors found it difficult to treat. The wound festered for the remainder of his life and became ulcerated, thus preventing him from maintaining the level of physical activity he had previously enjoyed. The jousting accident is also believed to have caused Henry’s mood swings, which may have had a dramatic effect on his personality and temperament.[137][138]

     The theory that Henry suffered from syphilis has been dismissed by most historians.[139] A more recent theory suggests that Henry’s medical symptoms are characteristic of untreated type 2 diabetes.[138] Alternatively, his wives’ pattern of pregnancies and his mental deterioration have led some to suggest that the king may have been Kell positive and suffered from McLeod syndrome.[140] According to another study, Henry VIII’s history and body morphology may have been the result of traumatic brain injury after his 1536 jousting accident, which in turn led to a neuroendocrine cause of his obesity. This analysis identifies growth hormone deficiency (GHD) as the source for his increased adiposity but also significant behavioural changes noted in his later years, including his multiple marriages.[141]
     • rhinocrates 4.1.1

       28 August 2015 at 4:53 pm

       I don’t think that Hoots is one for accurate historical knowledge – his chosen profession being to rewrite the past and he’s likely to be one who slept through most of his lessons at school anyway.

       For those who don’t know, a while ago well-known political commentator and shitstain Matthew Hooton declared from the comfort of a nice warm studio that today’s beneficiaries have lifestyles and amenities that would be the envy of Henry VIII, by which he meant a typical Renaissance monarch. He was quite aggressive in insisting that this was so.

       Lately, since news of the horrible conditions in which Housing NZ “clients” have been enduring, deaths by pneumonia and so on have emerged, he’s been peculiarly silent on the issue.

       Maybe he’s going to say that these people are getting sick and dying in strange underwater jousting accidents?

       Maybe he’s going to continue to insist that they should be grateful for the conditions that they enjoy?

       Maybe Hosking will come along and have something to say about the glass being half full, even if the water is cold, murky and disease-ridden?
       • southof40 4.1.1.1

         28 August 2015 at 11:17 pm

         “He was quite aggressive in insisting that this was so”

         From my experience whenever he’s least convinced that what he’s saying is true (or in this case relevant) he’s most aggressive and forthright. Week after week you can hear him on RadioNZ and when he starts getting in peoples face you can be reasonably sure he’s got his fingers crossed under the table.
   • mac1 4.2

     28 August 2015 at 7:00 pm

     So what were the conditions of Henry VIII’s time?

     Life expectancy was 30 years. Poverty was widespread, disease outbreaks common, living conditions were unsanitary and smelly.

     So, in a way, Hooton is right. Life is better than during Henry’s reign. Henry would have been treated for his conditions, his son would have probably survived and the world as we know it would have been different, in ways of which counterfactual history writers can only dream.

     But it does not excuse that our life expectancy, living conditions, health and safety are not what they should be in a world so much more advanced in knowledge, wealth, technology and communications.
     • rhinocrates 4.2.1

       28 August 2015 at 7:22 pm

       “But it does not excuse that our life expectancy, living conditions, health and safety are not what they should be in a world so much more advanced in knowledge, wealth, technology and communications.”

       Exactly, and yet over and over again the parasites are saying “Be grateful for what you have and admire me for what I have – things could be worse in North Korea/Hell/Venus” It’s smug, disgusting, shows a contempt for everyone else and a philistine contempt for the project of civilisation itself which is to make life better for all.
       • mac1 4.2.1.1

         28 August 2015 at 7:41 pm

         It’s the ‘admire me for what I have’ which is just so false. The idolising of falsity, Mammon, earthly pleasures and artifacts which is so shallow and pathetic. The lack of recognition of art, spirituality, intellectual excellence, the non-understanding of what it is that makes us human beings special, unique, and capable of so much.

         Indeed, the ‘project of civilisation’ is as you state so well. And it is galling that the people who have the power and resources just don’t get that; and worse, stand so belligerently in its way.
5. George Hendry 5

   28 August 2015 at 7:28 pm

   So.

   It seems that , even though incredibly ill in his later years, Henry VIII still managed to survive nearly twice the contemporaneous life expectancy, thanks to an extraordinarily high standard of state-funded healthcare for the times.
   • Rodel 5.1

     28 August 2015 at 8:31 pm

     Personally I think Henry’s problems were genetic…and still it goes on.
6. weston 6

   28 August 2015 at 8:52 pm

   what a great cartoon reminds me of the listner days when scot was king and his cartoons and excellent articles and editorials of a once dynamic magazine socked it to the government on a regular basis, printed on non highgloss paper u could wipe your arse with it or light the fire with it after a damn good read !
   • Barbara 6.1

     29 August 2015 at 8:13 am

     I quite agree, the Listener is now a lifestyle magazine and it’s the last straw for me, I am going to cancel my subscription, this week’s issue was full of gardening, cooking and media/film star rubbish. Everything in paper form is boring these days.
7. gsays 7

   29 August 2015 at 8:13 am

   There are some things we shouldn’t profit from, housing is one of them.

   All the people with a property portfolio, receiving rents for sub standard dwellings will sleep a little sounder.
   Waking in their warm dry homes, knowing that housing for the most vulnerable is deliberately kept in a poor condition.
   Thus.making their dilapidated investment look
   good.
8. vto 8

   29 August 2015 at 11:07 am

   This Housing NZ situation is the most appalling indictment on our society.

   bar none

   But at least the South Canterbury Finance investors got their shoddy investment back eh

   At least Rio Tinto could keep going eh

   At least the farmers got their $400m irrigation money eh

   At least Warner Bros got their deal eh

   At least more money was able to be given to private schools eh

   At least the highest income earners got a tax break eh

   . . . .

   We should all be embarrassed to the high heavens. The fact we are not is a further indictment on our society and how it is structured.

   Hopeless. Lazy evil.
9. Smilin 9

   29 August 2015 at 11:35 am

   Housing is just another Ponzi scheme designed by those who never have to live there in state housing on a generational basis .
   The govt continues to show us how useless they are and actually admitting that they have no real desire to see things improve unless it is in the manner of the free market doctrine of progress, ie the end of socialism .
10. Treetop 10

    29 August 2015 at 4:07 pm

    The state housing experiment is a total failure.

    WHY?

    It has distracted needy people from being housed, (a basic function of the state housing system).

    90 million will make no difference to a handfull of near term women living rough on Auckland streets who are due to give birth in several weeks.

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