One of the generational flaws and strengths of Gen Xers is our pragmatism. Cradle to the grave Boomers demanded a State that subsidised their lives while Gen Xers had to pragmatically adapt to the reality of a user pays Government.
That pragmatism taken to the Liam Dann extremes however leaves one spineless and gutless while standing for nothing.
Liam Dann is the Gen X Business Editor of the NZ Herald. The NZ Herald is owned by NZME who in turn are almost 90% owned by large banks, so the economic narrative that always emanates from the Herald champions the free market with the zealotry of suicide bombers on tour.
In his latest column, Liam highlights cynical insight after cynical insight to argue that current under investment in our infrastructure has led to such a perilous position that we should just let China move in and build our roads for us.
May as well….
Traffic in the past few weeks has been horrible. The city has been in gridlock for all sorts of allegedly exceptional reasons.
Sorry, commuters, but the students are back at university … a popular British singer was performing at Mt Smart Stadium … it rained a lot and, ironically, there is a lot of infrastructure work going on.
The bad news is the work – whether it is the Waterview Tunnel, the underground city rail link or the endless widening of small sections on the Southern Motorway – isn’t going to solve our traffic problems.
It’s not even going to come close.
Auckland’s population is growing by nearly 50,000 a year. According to Statistics NZ it will hit two million by 2033 but that seems conservative and based on immigration rates that have already been surpassed.
Last week the Productivity Commission dropped its 500 page report on urban planning.
The commission’s charts show traffic congestion actually improved slightly in Auckland between 2003 and 2012 but that it has been on the rise for the past five years – hardly surprising given the population growth.
All-day traffic – as opposed to the morning rush – is where traffic flow has really deteriorated.
As most Auckland drivers already know, the rush hour is stretching further and further in both directions of the day. Abnormally bad traffic is becoming the norm.
…this is horse shit being sold as our only way forwards and we should stamp on it with the contempt it deserves.
Firstly: It’s National’s inane economic addiction to cheap migration to keep the property bubble in Auckland inflated that is driving this stress upon our infrastructure. Reduce that and you immediately take the pressure off rather than capitulate to it.
Secondly: A tourist tax would generate huge amounts of revenue to immediately start building our own roads with our own workers being paid living wages while creating jobs in the very regions crying out for the infrastructure. The only reason the tourist tax is ignored is because National are ideologically driven to mutilate the State’s ability to generate revenue so that it’s not responsible for having to use that money to service a need. National turn off the tax idea because they are all about limiting Government, not expanding it. Dann doesn’t even mention a tourism tax.
Thirdly: By not investing in our own workers and upgrading our own engineering skills we hand over our roading to Chinese mega corporations who have a terrible reputation for corrupt lowest cost capitalism building practices and Union unfriendly work places.
That’s not a solution, that’s a suicide note to sovereignty. Sometimes pragmatism has its limits and agreeing to property bubble migration settings to justify rupturing our domestic engineering market seems to be that limit.
liam dann’s piece on graeme hart was gag worthy. Another awful little creep from the paul henry/mike hosking stable of useless short arses.
paid lackey?…the only way to deal with this is to cancel subscriptions to The Herald ….and never buy one as a matter of principle….this hits the traitors where it hurts…
(maybe borrow or have them passed on after being read…I have already cancelled our msm newspaper…despite it have some good journalists and good local pieces…I will not renew until it renews loyalty to New Zealanders and New Zealand…and is worth paying for)
Yep . You let the Chinese infrastructure teams in here at your peril and boy will you pay in more ways than one down the line.
Look at the trains they built. Defyed the no asbestos specification sheet and are still having on going ‘teething ‘ problems.
Joyce threw the long running Dunedin Railway Workshops under the bus by not giving them the contract because the Chinese were supposedly marginally cheaper.
A penny wise pound foolish strategy if ever there was one and just look at the crap we’ve ended up with.
Then there’s the reinforcing steel that is certified by the factories that manufacture the stuff in China…. classic fox guarding the hen house situation…a recipe for disaster.
And as it turned out, due to the vigilance of our own engineers, it was found to be sub standard…..result ….massive urgent redesign of the overpasses and tunnels currently under construction. Massive reboxing of all the affected pillars so extra concrete could be poured to beef up the strength to acceptable levels…. result…Huge cost overruns.
The unregulated Chinese plumbing systems coming into the country is another disaster in the making. …failing all over the place..Australia have a ‘watermark’ standard where everything is rigorously tested in an Australian laboratory .
If it doesn’t pass, it doesn’t get the’ watermark’ stamp, it doesn’t go any further.
We have no such checks and balances here.
The Aussies think we are are a reckless cowboy culture and they are right!!
I would say the National Party are in over their heads … just plain ignorant and stupid.
+100…and China has a huge problem in gender imbalance…30 million more males than females
…where is it going to put the surplus males if it does not want to risk internal social unrest?
… send them out of the country to big construction projects around the world? …spread the problem!…and create problems for other countries’ workers and economies…and maybe they will also get residency in those countries
Thanks National Party….New Zealand and New Zealanders are so naive!…and National supporters so greedy
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/14/opinion/china-challenges-one-child-brooks/
Indeed, Martyn. Make NO mistake, the country known as New Zealand is most definitely on the way out. Liam Dann is not governed by some generational identity, he is governed by the fact that he owns a home; the haves versus the have nots; the us versus them…. this is what will wipe No Zealand from the map.
Ha! Who IS this turkey? Corin Dann’s younger brother?
The infrastructure in Auckland (as in every other conurbation in NZ) has vapourised because of intentional National policy. It was NOT accidental or due to ‘unforseen circumstances’.
The importing of large numbers of immigrants, specifically done to ensure an over-supplied labour market (workers at rock bottom pay rates), has been the major contributing factor to Auckland’s excessive and unhealthy growth rate.
Don’t worry about the poor fucking tourists, TAX THE FUCKING RICH. The same National government that deliberately killed off the infrastructure has been intentionally easing the tax loading on the wealthy while shifting it onto the poorer earners. Those least able to contribute to the infrastructure are charged with paying for it the most, Get the money back from the penny-pinching arseholes at the top.
I’m not convinced that this is an example of Gen X pragmatism, but if it is, it is as equally ineffective as the late Maori Party’s pragmatism. Let them pragmatise themselves into a black hole.
It is strange indeed, but the longer I live and watch Godzone dragged from the 19th Century to the 18th Century, the more I realise that Karl Marx’s observations and ideas are even more relevant than they have ever been.
Of course we will never see it come about here because Kiwis don’t like thinking or doing anything about problems, at least as long as fuckwits like Dann (either of them) keep feeding them regurgitated Chicago School of Economics rubbish.
You get what you deserve…
Cut GST by 5% and re-introduce progressive taxation. Develop a Captial Gains Tax to dampen the overheated housing market and to ensure taxation fairness -why should capital not be taxed yet income can be? In addition, those who are able to accumulate capital are clearly a lot better off than the vast majority – it’s about fairness and rebuilding a decent society – not the Maggie Thatcher version either!
Do we want to go the Canadian way? ( I say “NO”…protect New Zealand jobs and infrastructure for New Zealanders and their democracy and economic sovereignty…as NZF would argue)
‘China May Import Its Workers To Canada As It Seeks “Total Access” To Canadian Market’
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-02/china-may-import-its-workers-canada-it-seeks-total-access-canadian-market
“China’s ambassador to Canada, Lu Shaye, told the Globe and Mail that Beijing is seeking full access to Canada’s economy ahead of free trade talks, a move that could result in Chinese state-owned companies bringing their own employees to work on projects in Canada. Charles Burton, an associate political science professor at Brock University, said bringing their own workers abroad is “normal practice” for Chinese companies. “It’s not as if [the Chinese] would be asking something of Canada that they don’t expect from other countries,” he said.
Earlier this year, Canadian and Chinese officials held exploratory talks on a free trade deal and another meeting is set to take place this month, Lu told the Globe, just as the US prepares to renegotiate NAFTA with Canada and Mexico…
While China has recently pushed to adopt the mantle of the “world’s biggest defender of free trade” following Trump’s threats to impose protectionist measures, and has been among the most vocal countries in response to Trump’s proposed trade practices, critics say the country is itself a bastion of protectionism. They note China allows almost no foreign investment in banking and telecommunications. Many argue the country has not lived up to the commitments it made to open up its economy when it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.
China’s interest in Canada lies primarily in energy, and in the possibility of exploiting Canada’s oilsands. The country will push for a reversal of Harper government-era policies that restricted the ability of Chinese state-owned businesses to invest in Canadian energy.
As Daniel Tencer writes, the vast majority of China’s largest corporations are state-run enterprises whose executives are often hand-picked by government. They also note that China’s notion of “full access” to an economy could be very broad. As the foreign policy blog OpenCanada notes, China’s 2015 free trade deal with Australia includes a provision that allows Chinese companies to bring their own employees into the country to work on projects, so long as those projects are worth more than AUD$150 million.
With the specter of being displaced from their jobs by imported Chinese workers, opinion polls suggest Canadians are split on the issue of free trade with China. One poll carried out for the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada last August found 46% support for a deal with China, and the same percentage opposed. However, that was a stronger showing than a poll six months earlier, which showed only 36-per-cent support for a China trade deal at that time.”
This story was on the news today:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/91137493/Rail-link-to-create-work-for-more-than-a-thousand-Kiwi-construction-workers
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/328034/city-rail-link-build-to-create-hundreds-of-jobs
Oh, that sounds to wonderful, a bit like the endless headlines we got in 2004 and 2005, where there appeared to be endless “opportunities” for decades to come, in construction and so much else.
But only two years later, bang, the boom turned to bust.
I heard on Radio NZ today, that in the past construction in NZ has been a boom and bust business. When things take off, they suddenly discover a ‘shortage’ of workers, and as it usually takes time to train people, and as there are not necessarily always the kind of workers that are so desired, the employers will then call for more relaxed immigration rules, and bring in thousands of workers from overseas.
So like in Christchurch, that goes for a while, and one day the boom slows, ends and turns into the next bust, in NZ Inc.’s usual boom and bust cycle.
I bet we will learn more once the contracts have been signed, and if it is a Chinese construction company that gets a major job, prepare for them bringing at least some of their workers in, as the supervisors and managers may expect workers to understand ‘Mandarin’ or ‘Cantonese’.
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