Posts by Stephen Judd
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Auckland has hills
Feh. My Wellington commute makes those hills look like plains. :-)
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Joanne: yeah, that Adelaide/Riddiford/John St clusterfuck is pretty scary on a bike. I'd be abandoning the road code for the footpath if that was my regular route too.
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Personal bug-a-boos in Welly near my route:
- the cycle lane on the Evans bay road disappears at Greta point, only to reappear a few 100 meters later. Apparently you're supposed to use the shared path. The shared path there is vy dangerous because of the heedless residents coming out of driveways.
- Oriental parade gives you a choice of hitting pedestrians on the shared path, or having an angleparked car back out in front of you, or a cruising motorist cut in front getting into an angle park.
- Most of the corners on the slopes of Mt Vic/Roseneath could do with some painted centre lines, just to cue motorists that they really shouldn't be in the middle when they come around a blind corner. There are a couple of strategic mirrors, but there could be more.
- Where I grew up in Hamilton, the curb was slightly curved in profile so you could take evasive action up on to the footpath easily. The high right-angled curbs in Wellington make this impossible, except maybe for the most athletic mountain biker.
- Did I mention I don't like shared bike paths? 1, 2 -
people in AKLD think you are suicidal to have travelled by bike, and -- when you deny this -- compliment you on your bravery in awed tones.
Too, too true.
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I have practised that quixotic pastime, cycle commuting, in Auckland and Wellington in the last few years. My (perhaps very wrong) impression is that even though Wellington has a far more inhospitable terrain, it has more cyclists. And I have a theory about this.
In urban design, there's a well established principle that there is a maximum distance or time beyond which most people can't be arsed walking. I think it's about 10 minutes.
My bet is that there is a similar limit for cycling. Maybe it's 20 minutes.
Anyway, Auckland, having had decades of car dominance, is sufficiently spread out that a cycle commute is just too much for the average punter, who lives at a distance from work and grocery shopping that is dictated by what is practical in a car. So while cycle lanes and paths are useful and welcome, they won't be full of happy cyclists until the city itself has become dense enough that a 20 minute ride takes you somewhere you want to go.
Having said that, I know for a fact that on a bike I can beat a car at rush hour into town from any of the middle ring of Auckland suburbs, paying nothing for petrol or parking. If you didn't take your life in your hands negotiating inner-city intersections (eg try getting through Newmarket up onto Symonds St) maybe more people would try it.
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With respect to the current account deficit: there will be a one-off win as New Zealand shareholders sell their shares.
Thereafter, there will be a stream of smaller losses as AIA earnings leave the country, which ultimately will be equal to or greater than the original sum paid. (Otherwise those Canadian pensioners are not going to get value for money).
Now, if the New Zealanders who sell their shares reinvest in some other productive enterprise (preferably more productive), it will all even out. If they sink it into houses and champagne and fur-bearing trout farms, it won't.
Hickey asks "What on earth was the government thinking? Clearly, it was not thinking clearly at all."
Well, look at the long term consequences of Kiwisaver and the Cullen Fund: an ever-increasing pool of investment capital, some of which will stay here to fund local businesses, some of which will earn investment income overseas. The kind of thinking that really likes that idea may be the kind of thinking at work here.
Now, of course shareholders should be able to exercise their property rights and sell to whomever they please. But if Hickey and the Herald care that much about the current account deficit, and can take a longer view than next week, they would see this as a rational policy, albeit a very badly timed one.
I come back to the point that there are two kinds of foreign investment, and the Herald deliberately confuses the two.
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insider: no, they wanted a 40% minority stake.
As to why the fuss: good question. I suspect the loss of a large income stream overseas does figure in the Government's thinking though.
Certainly if the Canadians want to pay such a high price, it makes you wonder what they see that others don't. NZers have a history of taking apparently high offers from foreigners for assets that over time turn out to be worth even more. We seem to have a very high discount rate in this country.
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insider outsider, unless they have directors on the board, how does their merely owning shares enable them to make the business more productive? (I read today that the Canadians are content not to have board representation).
If they were buying more shares in a capital raising, and AIA was going to use the capital to do something, then sure. But mere passive ownership can't possibly have any effect.
Gareth, I have not read anything which suggests the Canadians are offering new capital, only that they want to buy already issued shares from existing shareholders. Please correct me if I'm wrong, because that would make a big difference.
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Re keeping dividends here: sure, I take both Rich and Gareth's points. I myself have a fair chunk of my assets in Australia.
But the context was the benefits of overseas investment to New Zealand, and an investment that does nothing but hoover up our profits and repatriate them to some foreign domicile doesn't bring any benefit and has a (maybe) small negative. And hence Hickey is flat out wrong about this case.
I am all for foreign investment that builds things here or employs people here. Let those foreigners enjoy a return on their capital, I say. And I actually don't really mind the other kind, which after all I would like to practise in other countries. But it's dishonest of the Herald to be wringing its hands over the loss of benefits which don't actually exist.