The Daily Blog Open Mic – Monday 16th July 2018

1. https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/105505633/serious-crash-between-truck-and-car-closes-roads-in-pukekohe-south-auckland

   Campaign for safer roads project.
   Again an everyday event
   One dead after crash between truck and car in Pukekohe, south Auckland

   One dead after crash between truck and car in Pukekohe, south Auckland
   6:32 AM – Jul 16, 2018

   James Baker/STUFF
   Traffic is diverted from the the cordon at Monday morning’s fatal crash in Pukekohe.
   One person has died and another is injured after a car collided with a truck in the south Auckland suburb of Pukekohe.
   A police spokeswoman said they were called to the incident on Stuart Rd, at 4.45am on Monday.
   “One person died at the scene, another sustained minor injuries,” she said.

   Emergency services rushed to the scene where a truck and car crashed in south Auckland.
   A section of Waiuku Rd, which intersects with Stuart Rd, was closed and motorists were asked to avoid the area if possible.
   Auckland Transport said there was a short detour in place and to allow extra time if travelling nearby.
   Fire and emergency were also in attendance and police’s serious crash unit had been called.

2. ADVANTAGE over at The Standard asks: “What would happen if the house prices of Auckland, Queenstown, and other centres of very high debt went into substantial and long term decline?”

   It’s no mystery, the developers would start demolishing all the unsold houses to try and keep the prices up. Just as they did in *Ireland and in *California and in *Spain and in *China.

   When the speculative housing bubble burst in those respective countries, the decision was made to demolish thousands of perfectly good brand new dwellings.

   Here, just as over there all these houses aren’t being built for people to live in, but for the capital gains that can be made from them. When that capital gain disappears, these houses will have to be left empty and let fall into disrepair, or demolished.

   It’s only a matter of time.

   No matter that there are 30 thousand people in this country without proper shelter, who could do with one of these houses but who cannot afford them. That is not the concern of the property developers, or the speculators, or the banks, who will order the demolitions.

   *Ireland

   Ireland Is Tearing Down Thousands Of Empty, Brand New ‘Ghost Homes’.
   Phoenix, Madrid: These are the cities we tend to hold up as examples of the havoc that construction booms — and busts — can wreak on a housing market. Ireland is in the news less, but its situation is just as dire; an estimated 300,000 brand-new Irish homes have sat empty for years. And now the government is demolishing them.

   *Spain

   Time to swing the wrecking ball on Spain’s vacant homes?
   In the wake of the crisis, the country has been left with 800,000 unsold properties
   Demolishing unfinished buildings might be the only solution, say experts.Five years after Spain’s property bubble burst, hundreds of thousands of new and unfinished properties remain unsold throughout the country.

   *China

   The massive destruction prompted protests from residents living in the area, according to the report.

   They complained it created a lot of noise and destroyed the environment in the area.

   They are demanding compensation from the developer, according to the article.

   Heyuan’s government was quoted as saying that the developer was able to tear down the buildings it did not sell, but should reach an agreement with residents in the area first.

   The developer said the demolitions had been approved by the city government.

   And finally:

   More than 11m homes lie empty across Europe – enough to house all of the continent’s homeless twice over – according to figures collated by the Guardian from across the EU.

   In Spain more than 3.4m homes lie vacant, in excess of 2m homes are empty in each of France and Italy, 1.8m in Germany and more than 700,000 in the UK.

   There are also a large numbers of vacant homes in Ireland, Greece, Portugal and several other countries, according to information collated by the Guardian.

   Many of the homes are in vast holiday resorts built in the feverish housing boom in the run up to the 2007-08 financial crisis – and have never been occupied.

   On top of the 11m empty homes – many of which were bought as investments by people who never intended to live in them – hundreds of thousands of half-built homes have been bulldozed in an attempt to shore up the prices of existing properties.

   Housing campaigners said the “incredible number” of homes lying empty while millions of poor people were crying out for shelter was a “shocking waste”.

   https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/23/europe-11m-empty-properties-enough-house-homeless-continent-twice

   Maybe we will do it differently here, Maybe we will have political leaders with the courage and vision to stand up to the banksters and speculators, who will act to save these dwellings from being bulldozed into landfills – by nationalising them. And then providing them to the homeless at affordable rents. Who knows, it is possible.

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsgOaCZ2Lag

3. ‘Canada legalises recreational marijuana’

   https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/359464/canada-legalises-recreational-marijuana

4. Keiser report : Episode 1253

   https://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/433019-episode-max-keiser-1253/

   “In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max and Stacy discuss Donald Trump’s unique twist to the ‘madman policy’ which was first weaponized by President Nixon in his dealings with both North Vietnam and the Soviet Union.

   In the second half, Max interviews 15-year-old Python coder Oliver Morris about his crypto journey, which began at the age of eight when he first heard about bitcoin on the Keiser Report. Seven years later, Oliver is being homeschooled so that he can concentrate his learning on a field for which he is passionate – cryptocurrency. These days, Oliver is part of the ‘dev team’ working on MaxCoin, a small market cap with big tech including SHA-3 and Schnorr Signatures. This ‘alt-coin’ has provided the perfect sandbox to do a deep dive into blockchain technology.

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