Who’s zooming who?

27 comments on “Who’s zooming who? ”

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1. marco 1

   5 April 2009 at 12:22 pm

   The sample size is so small this statistic could not possibly be given any credence.
   • Bill 1.1

     5 April 2009 at 12:52 pm

     Agreed macro.

     Nevertheless, the very rich ( as a class) prosper in recessions and depressions.

     Take a boat builder who has, up to now, made mid range yachts. Chances are they will go belly up because of dropping demand. Absolutely no point in targetting the bottom end of the market, it’s gone. But if they shift production to high end they will probably prosper.

     In that scenario, the reality is opposite of what JK is claiming.
     • the sprout 1.1.1

       5 April 2009 at 1:12 pm

       marco – yes a valid point.

       but you’ll see if you follow the link to the article that sales of Mercedes have also increased, from 147 – to 164, much higher absolute values suggesting the change is not just statistical noise generated by a low baseline.

       the ‘BMW 7 Series Index’ is really just a point of interest because it’s what our supposed financial whiz PM has used for his analysis. a ‘Mercedes Index’ is more robust and less likely to be just methodological artifact.
2. Tim Ellis 2

   5 April 2009 at 1:47 pm

   Sprout I appear to have been reading a very different article to you. I note you only quoted the BMW seven series to support your claim that the richer are getting richer.

   The article you quote from doesn’t support it though. In fact, there are really only two lines in the article that support your claim–all the rest of the article refutes it.

   Motor Industry Association figures show sales of sports cars worth more than $200,000 and large cars worth more than $100,000 fell 43 and 46 per cent respectively in the year to February. Each category represents about 0.2 per cent of new passenger car sales.

   The figures showed the most expensive cars fared worse than average in a bad year for the car industry overall.

   I don’t think you’ve been deliberately dishonest here sprout but you have been very sloppy in your attempt to score a political point.
   • the sprout 2.1

     5 April 2009 at 2:03 pm

     no i’m also talking about increased Mercedes sales, while drawing attention to Key’s reference to BMW 7 Series sales in the US.

     the article i’ve linked to shows sales of Masseratis are the same as they were this time last year. Aston Martin, Bentley, Ferrari and Porsche sales are down but Key never talked about those marques.

     the point i’m making is that Key’s ‘BMW 7 Series Index’, when applied to NZ, shows the people that can afford them are buying more BMWs than they did this time last year. but as marco fairly points out, that’s from a very low baseline. the Mercedes index is more reliable and show people that can afford Mercedes are buying more of them now than they did this time last year.

     overall sales of luxury cars might be down, but those who can afford them are still buying more BMWs and Mercedes now than they did last year.

     maybe you’re right and the recession is affecting the very wealthy and they’re being more careful with their ‘tight’ budgets too, as in:

     “I’d love to upgrade the Porsche to this year’s Turbo R model darling, but you know in these hard times we may just have to slum it with a BMW 7 Series. I suppose we all have to make our sacrifices in these difficult times Pookums”.
     • Tim Ellis 2.1.1

       5 April 2009 at 2:26 pm

       Sprout, I don’t know if you’ve ever studied statistics, but your intepretation is simply unreliable.

       The sales of individual makes and models mean zilch. The entire article is about how the sales of luxury cars have fallen. You somehow managed to pick two tiny references to support your claim that the rich are getting richer under National, by ignoring all the evidence.

       Are you being deliberately stupid here, or are you so blinded by your ideology that you think it’s funny to misquote as you have?
       • the sprout 2.1.1.1

         5 April 2009 at 2:58 pm

         Timbo

         “your intepretation is simply unreliable”

         I think the word you’re looking for there is ‘invalid’. Reliability in a statistical context refers to whether ‘my interpretation’ can be replicated, and I assure you it can and will be.

         I agree that Key’s use of the BWM 7 Series example does, when you look at it, “mean zilch” as you say.

         While you rightly point out that luxury car sales overall have fallen, the John Key example of BMW 7 Series shows an increase in sales in NZ. But you’re right, that is a stupid example. Sales of Mercedes in NZ have also increased and that’s a more valid measure.

         You’re also right that two tiny measures to support a claim would indeed be ridculous and stupid. It’d be like John Key using the BMW 7 Series sales in the US to make a point. For real evidence of the rich getting richer and the poor getting nothing as a result of National’s tax cuts I rely more on the facts of National’s tax cut policies.

         “Are you being deliberately stupid here”

         Darn. You got me on that one! I am being deliberately stupid. I am but a humble vegetable after all. But thank you for your attempts to enlighten me and I beg you continue.
         • Tim Ellis 2.1.1.1.1

           5 April 2009 at 3:32 pm

           sprout, if you’ve been caught out misquoting a source to score a political point as you have here, the best thing to do is not relitigate it. Don’t keep digging. Otherwise you’ll come off as intellectually dishonest.
         • Felix 2.1.1.1.2

           5 April 2009 at 3:50 pm

           Tim I’m confused. Are you talking about Sprout, Key, or Granny?
         • mickysavage 2.1.1.1.3

           5 April 2009 at 8:51 pm

           Tim

           Take a big breath.

           Key chose to use the BMW Series 7 measure. Sprout was merely saying that it was not a good measure.

           He also said:

           “Not everyone’s hurting in this recession. And with National’s new tax cuts things just keep looking up and up for New Zealand’s very wealthy.

           National’s plutocracy means those who least need money get the most, those who need it the most are getting nothing.”

           This was a very fair statement.

           Care to disprove that

           1. National’s tax cuts will help those who earn (or declare) the most income? After all if they are paying this sort of tax they have to be doing fine.

           2. Those on the lowest levels who receive the lowest tax cuts tend to be the poorest. Maybe we should support them the most.

           Any other incidental attacks that you want to make on a generalised post?

           The really interesting issue is that the amount of tax paid does not necessarily equate with wealth. The very wealthy may have aggressive tax avoidance measures put in place, such as the use of LAQCs.

           Capital gains tax anyone?
3. Brett Dale 3

   5 April 2009 at 2:05 pm

   And yet he still doing well in all the polls, if only the majority of the public were educated as the extreme left wing bloggers.

   Im guessing he has already got a second term sewn up.

   I also feel very very sorry for our dear communist friend, Kim Workman, the world leaders aren’t turning to communist, things are getting better and people wont suffer like you want them to, so they wont be turning to you and Keith Locke’s idea of what the world should be.

   [lprent: The last paragraph has nothing to do with anything in this post or the comments. I can’t see what prison reform has to do with anything here. I’ve struck it off because it appears to be a troll type line or threadjack. I’ll start watching for this behavior and if I spot you using it again on this site, you’ll get a holiday.]
   • lprent 3.1

     6 April 2009 at 1:10 am

     And yet he still doing well in all the polls

     Ah yes – the ultimate answer to everything? I wonder if it will survive the revelation about how much debt he is passing to our kids in the budget on May 27th.

     At present it seems like a un-staunched bleeding wound pouring out of such stupidities as a cycleway and fibre to the home. Neither have any realistic likelihood of raising income for the country that will ever cover their costs (including the debt interest). They are purely done because Key had a idiotic brainwave for a spin phrase.

     You’re foolish to think that polls have any significant meaning over the long-term
4. PaulD 4

   5 April 2009 at 2:12 pm

   The latest Series 7 BMWs were due for US release early March. The sales figures for March would be a more reliable index.
5. The Baron 5

   5 April 2009 at 4:35 pm

   This post, and the ensuing discussion, is utterly pointless. I can’t believe that there is a debate here about the statistical validity of equally vacuous points.

   Standard, if you really think you can make a difference to the outcome of the next election*, find some real issues to discuss. As a hint, this isn’t one.

   * As an aside, you do realise how improbable it would be for the Nats to lose in 2012? NZ doesn’t really do one term Governments… well, apart from Labour, twice…
   • The Baron 5.1

     5 April 2009 at 4:49 pm

     Ooh and now have made a tit of myself too… make that 2011… erp.
     • getstuffed 5.1.1

       5 April 2009 at 6:06 pm

       So rather than defend the fact this topic is more pathetic than today’s warriors loss in the final 10 mins (and it truly was pathetic!!!), you pick at a simple mind blank.

       Wow you’re a clever cookie . . . You and the rest of these substandard commentators.

       Who gives a tinkers toss about BMW sales or how that relates to the rich poor gap in NZ.

       You people hate those who have money, simply based on the fact you don’t have any yourselves. You know what, i have no money, i mean nada, zilch, zero and yet i applaud those who worked their asses off to make a dollar, because in time i will move myself from this position.

       Stop the whinging!!!!

       [lprent: Another idiot without a real argument and no understanding. Key raised the issue. Ask him why he is whining about luxury car sales]
6. rolla_fxgt 6

   5 April 2009 at 4:42 pm

   This post has zero credibility in anything approaching reality. Yes our BMW 7 series sales might be up, but did you know that BMW’s sold in NZ can only be sold in NZ, and to move them they need to knock down the prices, dramatically in some cases?
   Also there is a new release 7 series coming out soon, which in most people’s opinion is better looking, so that may play a factor in the US market.
   You then go on to try back up your argument by saying that Masserati sales are constant, guess what they’re a niche brand that people need to save for (yes even those evil rich people), Using your logic then Sweden and the US are far far to wealthy because they have super car manufacturers, along with Italy, Germany, Britain, Australia, oh & NZ. And further reinforcing this is the fact that people in most of these countries own super cars such as Lamborghini’s, Koenigsegg’s, Aston Martin’s, etc etc.
   Oh and they sell these in most countries, in fact come to think of it, lets say any country that has any BMW 7 series in it is too rich for its own good, and full of rich fat cats. I imagine that the number of countries that don’t have newish 7 series BMW’s is so few you could count them on one hand.
   Lets just put a BMW 7 series tax on those who own them, in fact why not execute them, those filthy rich bastards, how dare they spend there hard earned money!

   Oh & that link includes Chevrolet and MG in the luxury car list, well Chevy is pretty much the working class car in the US, and owned by a lot of working class people in NZ. And MG are out of business, brought by the Chinese, and haven’t redesigned a model in years. Do you not realise that how new a model is influences its sales? And for some high end cars there is a waiting list to buy, hence its pot luck when you actually get your car, sometimes 2 years after you’ve paid for it
7. RedLogix 7

   5 April 2009 at 5:04 pm

   Funny how the topic of flash motor cars generates plenty of heat. Very tokenistic methinks.
   • the sprout 7.1

     5 April 2009 at 6:03 pm

     yeah pretty funny RL.
     they don’t seem to have any argument with “By the Rich, For the Rich”.
     • The Baron 7.1.1

       5 April 2009 at 6:34 pm

       “By the rich, for the rich” is simply a pithy summary of your perceptions of the Government. It isn’t an argument to begin with, so difficult to argue against.

       I could point out that your “by the rich, for the rich” position has been expoused solely through postings such as these, which even yourself must admit is simply vacuous posturing. Its hardly worth putting any contrary view to that “argument” because it requires stepping down to this level of “commentary” and “analysis”. (Oh look at what I’ve regurgitated from the Herald – wanna hear about how it means that National is evil?)

       I respect your opinions – it is for them that I keep coming back to this site. But they are just that – opinions, which are pointless to argue with blind idealoges (sp?) such as yourself.

       I’ll give you an argument when you present an argument yourself (which is usually more than a slogan, a JPG, and regurgitation!).
8. Realestateagent101 8

   5 April 2009 at 6:26 pm

   I have sold Miss Clark and Mr Davis many residential properties. I think they are both very rich.
   
   IrishBill: and I think you are a troll. Goodbye.
   • Killinginthenameof 8.1

     5 April 2009 at 6:57 pm

     I guess that what happens when you work hard.

     A, you can afford to buy lots and things, and;

     B: Raise the irk of right wingers when you get there on the basis of merit not the old boys club.
   • archdupe 8.2

     5 April 2009 at 8:33 pm

     Better a troll than an EE PPPP M U doctor of spin.
9. daredtodream 9

   5 April 2009 at 8:06 pm

   Silly post for one important reason: you don’t know who bought the cars. For instance the Government bought a fleet of 7 series BMWs in 2008. The car sales here could part of or additional to that package. Alternatively other public or private sector organisations may have purchased these cars to supplement or upgrade their existing fleet since the Government has clearly “greenwashed” them.

   Given this your “rich prick” meme is spurious and contemptible.

   [lprent: Looks like another troll. Our system seem to know the author.. But it is kind of pathetic how sensitive these clowns are to Key raising this topic as an indicator of ostentatious disposable wealth]
10. Gooner 10

    5 April 2009 at 9:28 pm

    So what? Car sales keep car sales’persons’ in employment. What do you have against that?
11. tommy onions 11

    6 April 2009 at 11:39 am

    Ok – it’s a ranting sort of day.

    There’s little that is sadder than working class people who are hanging on by their fingernails – in debt up to their eyebrows – desperately consoling themselves with the belief that one day they’ll manage, through hard work and natural talent, to claw their way up the ladder of success and get their true rewards in capitalist heaven.

    Like the small business people who think that the free market is meant to benefit them and see themselves as having more in common with the obscenely rich than the relatively and absolutely poor who comprise the bulk of the world’s population, they have bought into the greatest con ever created – and – having bought into it, they feel obliged to defend it.

    They dutifully blame society’s ills on whatever moral panic the media is currently promoting and direct their anger (at what they know in their hearts is a monstrous injustice) at those they see as being ‘beneath’ them. They hurl abuse at ‘dole bludgers’ and other members of the ‘feral underclass’ that is portrayed as ‘leaching’ off the productive sections of society.

    These sort of phrases are powerful ideological tools – no different from the rhetoric used to justify the brutality of that most detested of British institutions – the workhouse. The ‘feckless and indolent poor’ of the Victorian era – for whom life in the workhouse had be as made as dreadful as possible so that any sort of working conditions and pay – or emigration – were attractive alternatives.

    Through this labelling process people are reduced to being less than human, a faceless, amorphous mass that doesn’t have relationships – but ‘sexual unions’; it doesn’t give birth – it ‘spawns’; it doesn’t receive benefits, it ‘bludges’. And it is never a victim, it suffers ‘collateral damage’.

    Instead of focusing anger on the massive tax avoidance and outright evasion of the rich and big business, the ladder climbers whitter on about how much ‘dole bludgers’ cost the country.

    This tax burden is portrayed as weighing down the ordinary / productive working person and preventing them from clambering up the ladder of success. The climbers don’t see, or choose to ignore, the fact that the ladder they’re on only goes a little way up and that the few to the top are designed to carry only a very small number of people.

    They also choose to forget that when it gets too crowded at various points the ladders are always pushed off or pulled up by those who are already up there.

    Where’s the outraged rhetoric in the media about what the vile and avaricious bastards at the top have got away with? Whinging about dole bludgers in this context is like obsessing about a mosquito bite on a gangrenous limb.

    The propagandists and apologists for the banking sector try to argue that the system failed because it wasn’t free enough – and others whinge that the reason it failed was because government didn’t regulate the industry enough – ‘it’s your fault because you didn’t tell us we couldn’t create trillions of dollars of toxic debt’.

    Key made his money right in the belly of the beast – he got out before the worst of the shit hit the fan- that may have been just luck or maybe he knew what was coming.

    Who knows? What is certain is that he’s already got a very comfy position a fair way up the ladder and, although he’ll tell people they too can make it to where he is, he knows that the ladders never could carry much weight and that right now they are dangerously unstable.

    He also knows there are those who want to make the ritual sacrifice to the god of profit and pull the ladders up or push them away and let the poor do what the poor have always done – suffer and die.

    Having been dehumanised, they don’t even register on the moral radar of the obscenely rich.

    4 million dead so far in The Congo -one of the most minerally rich countries on earth; 6 million children dying every year from effects of poverty; millions of others living on the edge. The Red Cross having to provide Kiwi kids with breakfast.

    And the ladder climbers continue to stare up the skirt or trousers of the person above them and dream about all the stuff they could buy if only the ‘bludgers’ didn’t have a grip on their ankles.

    Sad eh?

Links to post

1. Sweet rides at The Standard: posted on 1 June 2009 at 10:48 am

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