Posts by Stephen Judd
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to Mark H,
overly-sensitive PC white middle-class middle-aged soft pinkos
And now that I think about it: where do Keith and Tze Ming fit into that analysis?
-
Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to Mark H,
overly-sensitive PC white middle-class middle-aged soft pinkos who don’t have the stones to ask hard questions
As I said upthread, the hard questions are about who benefits: current house owners. Mostly older people, say 50 up, who’ve experienced decades of capital gains, want to retire on them, and vote for the policy settings that will make that possible. But point out the obvious about that and you’re a boomer-hating class warrior who hates ordinary Mum and Dad investors. Now who doesn’t have the stones?
-
On this shortage of supply thing: seems like shortage of supply started a cycle of rising prices, and it may actually be still that there's not enough houses in Auckland for notionally reasonable prices. And then on top of that, a bubble, which as Rich says is basically mass belief in the greater fool theory. It's not contradictory to say Auckland doesn't have enough houses AND that there is a property bubble in Auckland.
-
Yeah, I get a squiggly line under Labor. Because my desktop is correctly set up for NZ English.
-
Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to talkie_toaster,
“Legitimately concerned about” is not the same as “responsible for”.
OK, I regret putting that in a flowery way.
Phil, a dude I generally like and respect, was not compelled to say what he said. He chose to.
If your speech has predictable consequences and you decide to go ahead anyway, to me that makes you responsible. You could be right, and you could in fact be justified, but you're still responsible, because it was a voluntary choice. And other people can argue about that choice, and whether you were justified, and attach moral weight to it, and all that crap.
-
Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to talkie_toaster,
Well, you could have asked that interesting question in the beginning instead of deciding up front that people disagree that foreign money is an issue, that their feelings are bogus, that they ignore "real issues", that they're been suckered by Nats, or any of the other claims you made straight up. You've confronted people, and been answered accordingly. A smart domestic appliance like yourself could probably adjust approach without losing intellectual integrity if desired.
-
Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to talkie_toaster,
Phil Twyford and the analyst do not control and are not responsible for racist idiots deliberately misinterpreting this data to suit their own agenda.
Aren't they? Why not? That seems like a very legitimate concern for prominent persons to have about what they say.
-
PC gone mad? Identity politics run amuck? It's like Keith and Tze Ming didn't write anything at all.
Personally I feel obliged to show solidarity with our Chinese-descent comrades. Their feelings matter. They are us too. As a member of another sinister minority I know how toxic this shit feels, but at least I can hide from the ignorant if I want to, an option which is not available to people who look and are named differently.
And I can't help but feel that if this is the best alternative to identity politics then we really are failing.
Apparently we'd rather put the analysis spotlight on foreigners than clarify that the beneficiaries of current policy settings are existing Auckland home-owners. Everyone who already owns a home (or more than one) in Auckland has a strong economic interest in not having any more built, and in doing whatever it takes to keep prices high, unless they are very old and lack the income to pay rates. The root causes of the current bubble have been known for a long time: constrained supply caused by NIMBYist planning restrictions, cheap credit, a favourable tax regime, and the dream of a rentier retirement. That's what's created a situation that's attractive to foreign buyers as much as it is to people who want to live here. More participants in the market obviously doesn't help calm it down but the latest arrivals didn't create the current situation. The relative unimportance of foreign buyers is one of the things that leads credence to the dogwhistle theory. You don't have to be a Marxist to see that our local capitalists have got us most of the way here on their own.
(Can we dispense with the straw man that the racist reading is born fear of what Nats might say, which I don't believe anyone has actually expressed? It is a genuine concern that the label is deserved.)
-
Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to talkie_toaster,
On this particular case, I guess no one wanted to write a blog about it, and as a mere commenter, I think we’re mostly cued by blog post topics. A quick search on “site:publicaddress.net housing Auckland ” suggests that housing issues in Auckland have been the topic of blog posts since at least 2013. You really, really need to read the back catalogue here before making ridiculous claims that bloggers or commenters here ignore “the difficulty young people face in owning a house, or any other issues that matter to the people who vote for Labour (rather than the volunteers who work for Labour).” You might like to check on my commenting history before leaping to conclusions about my normal stance on Labour too (hint, I am mostly defending it to people who don’t belong and don’t vote for the party and don’t want to give it time or money).
The point of pleasing your activist base is that they are somewhat necessary to running a party that relies on volunteer labour and has no money.
It’s also worth considering who Labour’s base are. By definition, they are not people who sometimes vote Labour, or might vote Labour. They are people who always and forever vote Labour. It may or may not be that the current base is similar to the membership in composition and opinions. I would be interested to know, in fact.
In any case, what I learned from some actual profession political consultants with form at workshops in the last year or two is that ideally, you build on your base by devising messages that are consistent with their principles but resonate further out. You don’t shit on your base to prove you’re not extremists, (triangulating, or more graphically, “hippy punching”), and you don’t fire your base up with messages that alienate other people who are basically sympathetic but not core voters. The matter at hand seems like something of a self-wedge to me.
And here I am, lured into debating prudential matters of success in politics, where, as noted, my irritation is fundamentally based on ethical principle. There are places we should hesitate to go irrespective of whether it would be helpful, and for me, this is one of them. Opinion only, you don’t have to share it.
-
Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to talkie_toaster,
Why, in other words, isn’t it the controversy?
Um, because it's something we basically agree about?
you’re defending the Labour party on charges of racism,
No, you're defending the Labour party on charges of racism. I'm attacking it.
And that’s why Labour loses elections.
I think that's a complex issue with many causes, not least of which is that losing is itself a demoralising condition that promotes internal conflict. And I'm more annoyed on a basis of principle than tactics. Having said that, laying yourself open to charges of hypocrisy through poor framing AND pissing off your own activist base probably aren't helping. That's what I would call an unforced error.
Personally, I have devoted many hours and dollars to basic grunt work for the party, with little impact that I am aware of on its strategy, patiently accepting what I see as problems, and I hardly think the party is hurt by slavish compliance with my opinions; in fact quite the reverse.
Is the Labour party Public Address commentators and their views, or is its caucus and the statements they make? Who is to blame for the party losing, Public Address commentators, or the people in charge and who are its public face?