Posts by talkie_toaster
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Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to Hebe,
The problem is that this analysis is fatally flawed, and not much better than anecdata.
That's your opinion and you are certainly entitled to it. My opinion, as someone who uses stats every day, is that it's not at all flawed. I see a lot of claims about the analysis that were not only not made in the analysis, but were actually explicitly rejected in the analysis. Example: the claim that the analysis can identify the residence status of individual buyers based on surname. It's an obviously stupid claim, which has been pointed out many times in this blog.
Except that this claim was never made and was in fact explicitly rejected.
First, and to get it out of the way, these data to not – repeat, not – 100% prove the residency status of any particular buyer.
This is what I mean when I say "faux-outrage" and I'm sorry if this term offended or was misunderstood. I mean: putting words in people's mouths, and getting offended at those words.
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Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to Stephen Judd,
1. I think the methods provide a pretty plausible conclusion. The idea that unregulated foreign buying is causing problems is not the controversy here.
It's good that we agree here. From the posts on this board, the statement that
The idea that unregulated foreign buying is causing problems is not the controversy here.
is quite clearly true. But, in the wider world outside these political blogs, this absolutely is the controversy. So, the question becomes: why, on this blog, is perceived racism the issue, and not unregulated foreign buyers? Why, in other words, isn't it the controversy?
Percieved racism is the controversy on this blog because the right predictably screamed "racism" and, like a flock of sheep ready for slaughter, you uncritically accepted this framing, penned yourself in, and loaded yourself into the back of the truck.
The idea that this analysis is racist is an opinion. That's all. So, you find yourself in a position where you're defending the Labour party on charges of racism, instead of attacking the National party on charges of blowing out the Auckland property market, failing to collect vital information, and screaming "racist" because they have no other argument.
And that's why Labour loses elections.
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Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to Stephen Judd,
Here the logic seems to be: because some racists like this analysis, we should ignore it.
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Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to Sacha,
If your response to new people trying to have an opinion is to accuse them of being whale oil trolls that's sad. I vote green and have never posted on any of those blogs.
You do not seem to understand that all statistics everywhere is a guess. The logic seems to be: it's stats, stats is a guess, guesses aren't absolutely guaranteed to be right, so it must be wrong. This fundamentally misunderstanda what stats are.
I've seen you state that you think the analysis is wrong. I have not seen you state that Chinese foreign investors aren't a major driver of the Auckland housing market.
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Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to Stephen Judd,
FYI: to discount the lived experience of thousands of Aucklanders of all races and the open and honest testimony of Chinese citizens (see NZ herald interview) absolutely is fundamentally patronising. And they are all saying the same thing. Chinese money is flooding the Auckland (and Sydney, and Vancouver, and many other cities) market.
The strange idea that it's a good idea play less-racist-than-thou while ignoring the elephant in the room... just silly.
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Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to Stephen Judd,
Stephen, yes or no, do you think the CONCLUSIONS of the analysis are fundamentally incorrect?
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Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to Sacha,
You are just wrong. All statistics is guesswork, otherwise it would be called “addition”, but the methods and evidence behind the guess is the issue. The methods and evidence behind this “guesswork” is statistically robust, and I know since I have twenty years of experience working with statistics.
I’m still waiting for to unequivocally state whether you think the conclusions of the analysis are right or wrong. Why can’t you just say it?
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Sacha, in response to your first point: this weakness is openly and frequently acknowledged in the analysis, and the result still stands from a statistical point of view. This is like saying polls are worthless because they aren’t a 100% guarantee of how people actually vote. But, as I said, if you think the analysis comes to fundamentally incorrect conclusions, just say so. Why can’t you just say so?
In response to your second point, Labour is talking about one nationality (NOT ethnicity) because that’s what the data shows. If the data pointed to another nationality, they’d be talking about that nationality. But it does not. Talking about “all foreign investors” happens all the time. But this analysis clearly shows massive overrepresentation of people from one group. The fact that they have to do this in a roundabout way using data on ethnicity just proves why we need a register of foreign investors.
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Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to SHG,
And, here's a perfect example of the faux-outrage about statements that were not made and conclusions that were not drawn.
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Hi all. Created an account just to comment here, because, Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, (with notable exceptions) the responses to this analysis encapsulate everything that's wrong with the Labour party.
I see a lot of discussion about how this is a bad strategy, framing, it's too complicated, blah, blah blah.
I see almost no discussion about whether the analysis is actually true.
Can anyone on this blog, Keith Ng included, claim that the conclusions of this analysis are fundamentally incorrect? You should at least attempt to keep a straight face while making this claim. Here: you can cut and paste my text.
"The conclusions of this analysis are fundamentally incorrect. Chinese investors are not a major driver of the Auckland property market."
I dare you. Make the claim. Because to do so is to ignore:
1) This analysis, which uses very standard statistical techniques and comes to very reasonable conclusions based on hard data
2) The lived experience of thousands of Aucklanders of all races in the property market
3) The obvious marketing of Auckland property in the Chinese language to Chinese investors in China using Chinese media
4) The obvious crowing of real-estate investors about non-resident, non-citizen Chinese investors bringing in Chinese money from China in leaked emails
5) Statements made by Chinese investors that confirm this analysisMany people disputing this analysis are the people creaming money off the situation so their opinion is worthless. Most of the other disputes rely on the old trick of faux-outrage at statements that were not made and conclusions that were not drawn, by making your own statements and conclusions. Another strange idea is the idea that any analysis that looks at race and ethnicity must therefore be racist. Then there's the statement "if you're explaining, you're losing". Please.
If I was Phil Twyford, I'd call a press conference on Monday morning, state that he absolutely stands by this analysis, state that he is not a racist and that he will sue anyone who claims he is, dare the Nats to actually start collecting hard data on the citizenship of property investors in Auckland, and state that he will resign if the CONCLUSIONS of this analysis are shown to be incorrect according to the hard data that we are currently not collecting.