As usual, maninthemiddle, you’re not much more than a mouthpiece for National and Act.

As usual you can’t address a single point Frank has raised and documented.

As usual, your pro-National ignorance shines through.

If they stopped corrupt money, rich immigrants and our speculators blowing money into the Auckland property bubble ….. the thing would go pop….

Like Ireland where key used to work with merill Lynch ….

Ireland:

all of Ireland had become subprime. Otherwise sound Irish borrowers had been rendered unsound by the size of the loans they had taken out to buy inflated Irish property. That had been the strangest consequence of the Irish bubble: to throw a nation which had finally clawed its way out of centuries of indentured servitude back into it.”

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Perhaps the only detailed academic examination of Ireland’s regulatory laxity comes from Professor Jim Stewart of Trinity College, Dublin. The IFSC, he reveals, formed a core element in the toxic global “shadow banking” system that led to the global financial crisis. For example, hedge funds would typically be listed in Dublin, managed in London and domiciled in a classic tax haven like the Cayman Islands.

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Simply put, the Irish miracle was a mirage driven by clever use of tax-haven rules and a huge credit boom that permitted real estate prices and construction to grow quickly before declining ever more rapidly.

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Lastly is the area of offshore trusts, a means of avoiding tax so common that even the dogs on the street could tell you what they’re used for. The users of trusts enjoy relative anonymity which makes it difficult to ascertain who owns them, what assets they control and thus how to tax them.

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Merill Lynch” ………..

“Ken Lewis, the CEO of Bank of America, agreed to swallow one of the country’s most toxic investment houses.”

“Tucked into the press release was the news that Merrill Lynch had lost a staggering $15.3 billion in the fourth quarter.

Merrill’s losses were now $12 billion. (By the end of December, they reached $15.3 billion.) Lewis later said that what he mainly remembered from the conversation with Price was just the “staggering amount of deterioration” in Merrill’s financial performance.”

“provide protection against further losses” on $118 billion in toxic assets, primarily taken from the Merrill Lynch balance sheet.”

“$15 to $20 every blog response”?!

I thought I’d be worth more, Cleangreen… 😉

You are right, it leaves the whole country at huge risk. A drop in prices will leave many with debt they will struggle to pay off.

100% Bert that statement will come around & bite him in the arse come election time.

I heard from a birdie that these trolls get $15 to $20 every blog response so we shouldn’t give it any money for the dribble.

Spent some time tonight on your blog, for the first time, and I agree with each item on your list of how to heal New Zealand.
I knew we were kindred spirits and I am honoured that you like the quickly put together poem cuz I enjoy questioning and exposing those who dwell in untruths and biased ignorance and just plain ole Tom Foolery ==>> myself included sometimes ! !

Bert, here’s the link to that piece: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0708/S00336.htm

And thank you for bringing it to my attention. It fits perfectly with a story I’m working on tonight.