Why You Should Join A Gang Instead Of Working

New Zealand now has over 7,000 gang members, an increase of some 13% from a year previous. Many theories have been put forward to explain this sudden rise, but none of them are adequately grounded in economic psychology. This essay makes a seemingly preposterous argument: that it makes more sense to join a gang nowadays than to work.

According to the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand, the average New Zealand house price is now $810,000, up 19% from a year earlier. According to interest.co.nz, the ratio of this average house price to the median household income is now 8.43.

This ratio was 5.87 as recently as July 2016. Even back then, it meant that a working couple able to save 25% of their total wage could expect to take over 23 years to pay for the average house. That was considered “severely unaffordable” by all honest commentators. But it’s now almost 50% worse than even that.

These are terrifying statistics for anyone at, or near, the bottom of the educational ladder. The average household income, according to the stats mentioned above, is $96,114. That means over 33 years for the average couple, saving 25% of their total wage, to pay for the average house. Any household with a minimum wage earner will likely have it much harder than this.

This means it’s now realistically impossible for a significant, and growing, proportion of New Zealand workers to ever own a home on their wage. It’s even more difficult for those who aren’t part of a steady couple.

Historically speaking, those at the bottom of society have always had one universal method of radically improving their position: crime. And the bigger the crime, the better. Many people say that crime doesn’t pay, but this is only true for the lower classes. Pull off a big enough heist and you can go up an entire league.

As Chuang Tzu once observed: “The petty thief is imprisoned but the big thief becomes a feudal lord.” Petty thievery won’t get you into a house that you can raise a family in, but full-time drug running is another story.

A young New Zealander without an education might have no chance of ever owning a house by working for one, but there’s a ready alternative: to join a gang, and get $810,000 through crime.

It’s common for dedicated meth users to go through $1,000 of meth in a week. Someone supplying it need only have a dozen customers with this level of demand and they could sell $600,000 worth of meth in a single year. Assuming $400,000 of expenses in precursor/bulk wholesale costs, rip-offs and fees to one’s own gang so as to keep covering for your operations, this means an income of $200,000 per year – tax free.

The only major downside is a small risk of getting killed or imprisoned.

Gangbanging is relatively dangerous, but the vast majority of gang members manage to conduct their affairs without getting killed. In recent years, New Zealand has averaged about 61 homicides a year. Even assuming that the majority of those were gang-related, it means that a person in a gang has little more than a 0.5% chance of being killed in any given year.

Even if this risk is 50 times higher than the risk of being murdered if one isn’t in a gang, it’s still a fairly low risk. It means that, after four years of selling meth and saving $4,000 a week, one would have earned enough to buy the average house, with a mere 2% chance of getting killed (approximately).

The risk of being imprisoned is also relatively minor. Furthermore, as shit as prison might be, it’s not a whole lot worse than busting a gut for 40 hours a week and being left with nothing after taxes, bills and rents are paid. At least rent is free in prison, and while there you can easily make the contacts that will help you sell meth more discreetly once you get out.

In the cold light of day, a young New Zealand man, one with ambitions to own a home so that he can raise a family in it, is better off joining a gang and getting taxed at 0% than getting educated, earning a professional wage and getting taxed at 39%. He can actually own a house the first way, whereas the second demands decades of work for partial equity in one. Even if he does manage to own a house the second way, he likely won’t have enough spare energy to raise a family in it.

What many middle-class people – especially those who inherit wealth – don’t realise is that few people join gangs purely out of malice and spite. Some of them join gangs because, on balance, they can have a better life in one. The prospect of working for 50 years to merely own some equity in a cold, damp house is a miserable one. It’s not surprising that the more daring of the country’s young men are tempted to gamble for a better life.

The solution to New Zealand’s rising gang problem will inevitably be a multifaceted one, but the basis of it must be enabling even poorly-educated workers to own their own home and raise a family. As long as workers aren’t getting paid enough for this to be possible, they’re better off joining gangs.

If you enjoyed reading this essay/article, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2020 from Amazon for Kindle or Amazon for CreateSpace (for international readers), or TradeMe (for Kiwis). A compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2019, the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2018 and the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017 are also available.

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Could New Zealand Legalise Cannabis On Maori Land?

The outcome of last year’s cannabis referendum was bitter for many Maori people. Despite that some 80% of Maoris voted in favour of changing the law, heavy anti-cannabis sentiment among Pacific Islander and Asian voters saw the referendum ultimately fail. Fortunately for all, an elegant solution exists overseas, and we could copy it.

The 2020 cannabis referendum was close. 50.7% of eligible voters wanted to continue with cannabis prohibition, and 48.4% did not. There was a significant positive correlation between being New Zealand-born and voting Yes in the referendum, so within that 50.7% were a large number of recent immigrants, particularly Chinese ones. Some 80% of Chinese voters voted in favour of locking Kiwi cannabis users in cages.

There are roughly 250,000 ethnic Chinese in New Zealand. Assuming that 80% of them were eligible to vote in the referendum, and assuming that 80% of those did, that gives us 160,000 ethnic Chinese voters. We know from above that 80% of those voted in favour of cannabis prohibition, which gives us 128,000 Chinese No voters opposed to 32,000 Chinese Yes voters. This represents a majority of around 96,000 for the No side among Chinese voters.

In the cannabis referendum overall, 1,474,635 people voted in favour of the continued persecution of cannabis users, and 1,406,973 voted to end it (for more detail on who these people were, see Understanding New Zealand 3). This means that the No side won the cannabis referendum by 67,662 votes.

So a little bit of primary school-level maths shows us that non-Chinese voters wanted to change the cannabis laws. But the native Kiwi majority that wanted reform was forced to endure further prohibition because of the wishes of recent immigrants, often from totalitarian political systems, and with little understanding of our culture.

For someone born in New Zealand, with centuries-deep roots in New Zealand, it seems outrageous to me that voters who came to New Zealand in the last decade took away our right to use cannabis. The voters who have flooded into the country since John Key threw the borders open have no real loyalty to, or respect for, the New Zealand people. They shouldn’t be deciding what rights the rest of us have.

That mostly rural-dwelling Maoris wanted legal cannabis, but got trumped by city-dwelling Pacific Islanders and Asians, has worsened existing social tensions in New Zealand. Maoris already had reason to resent the cannabis laws, which were forced on them by outsiders in the first place. The Sixth Labour Government’s response to their 80% support for legal cannabis has been, so far, to tell them to go fuck themselves.

One obvious, and obviously superior, solution presents itself.

In 2014, the United States Federal Government stated that it would not interfere with any Indian reservation or territory that wanted to legalise cannabis on its land. This declaration was a formality that followed from their already declared policy of non-interference with legal cannabis in Colorado.

One tribe, that of Squaxin Island in Washington, opened a legal cannabis store called ‘Elevation’ in 2015. First nations peoples in Canada have also allowed for legal cannabis sales on their lands. Native tribes in the Americas are generally pro-cannabis for the same reasons that Maoris are: they know it’s much better for them than alcohol is and that cannabis prohibition was pushed on them by outsiders.

This article proposes that the New Zealand Government allow individual Maori tribes to legalise and sell cannabis on their land.

There are two major benefits to this proposal.

The first, and most major, is that it shows some respect to the 48.4% of Kiwis and roughly 80% of Maoris who want a legal respite from cannabis prohibition. Currently, these two groups of people are told that they just have to eat shit, because neither a Labour nor a National Government will do anything about the cannabis laws.

Legal cannabis sales on Maori land would allow for the pro-cannabis half of the population to freely access and to use cannabis there, away from the judgment of those who think they’re scum. This would allow for the custodians of that land to build cannabis dispensaries, cafes and accommodation for the cannabis tourists. If the anti-cannabis half of the population doesn’t like it, they can stay in the cities and drink booze.

The second major benefit, or group of benefits, relate to the tourism potential of this proposal.

If you’re a young Western tourist, and you can choose between travelling to the American West Coast and using cannabis and alcohol, or travelling to New Zealand and using alcohol only, it’s an easy decision. About as easy as choosing between travelling to a Western country and using alcohol or travelling to a Middle Eastern theocracy and using nothing.

Legalising cannabis on Maori land would create a massive tourism boost in rural and impoverished areas like Northland and the East Coast of the North Island. These areas would benefit from both domestic and international tourists, and it would also create a spillover tourism effect for non-Maori businesses who catered to the international tourists who would otherwise have gone to a country with legal cannabis.

The idea of legalising cannabis on Maori land is a sure win for the first party to propose it. It’s the kind of solution that New Zealand needs. Unfortunately, our current parties are either bereft of imagination or more interested in grandstanding than making positive, practical solutions.

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How Long Until Wages Catch Up To The Housebuying Power Of 1992?

The long-term strategy for building economic wealth appears to be holding house prices steady while waiting for wages to catch up. This article does the maths to answer one question: how long until the average wage has the same housebuying power of the average wage in 1992?

In 1992, the average New Zealand house price was $105,000. The average wage at that time was almost $15 per hour. This means that most Kiwis found themselves able to buy a house after 7,000 hours of labour.

By 2021, the average New Zealand house price has climbed to some $750,000, while the average wage languishes at around $34 an hour. This means that most Kiwis today are looking at putting in 22,000 hours of labour before they can get to the position of homeownership.

Economists predict that the average New Zealand house price will increase by double-digit percentages in 2021. 5% increases are expected for the two years after that, up until March 2024, which is as far ahead as anyone responsible will try to predict.

Let’s make two assumptions: firstly, that these forecasts are broadly correct; secondly, that house prices stop increasing after March 2024, allowing wages to catch up.

This suggests that house prices will top out at a national average of about $910,000 ($750,000 x 1.10 x 1.05 x 1.05). This assumes that they increase by around 10% in the year to March 2022, and then 5% for the two years after that, before remaining stable thereafter. The reality is, of course, anyone’s guess, but let’s say for simplicity’s sake that house prices reach $910,000 by March 2024 and then stay there in perpetuity.

To buy a $910,000 house with 7,000 hours of labour, a worker would have to be getting paid $130 per hour. Assuming that all other things (labour share, taxes, rents, non-rent living costs) are equal, $130/hr is what the average wage would have to be for the average worker to have the same housebuying power as the average worker in 1992.

As mentioned above, the average wage in New Zealand is around $34 right now. This means that it has to increase 3.82 times for the average worker to have the same housebuying power that the average worker had in 1992 – without house prices increasing beyond March 2024.

Wage growth over the past 28 years in New Zealand, from just under $15 an hour in 1992 to around $34 an hour at the end of 2020, has run at about 3% per annum.

If we assume future wage increases of 3% per annum, and no further house price increases beyond March 2024, then we will have to wait around 48 years for the average wage to catch up to the housebuying power that the average wage had in 1992.

In reality, it’s unlikely that house prices will remain exactly the same for the next 48 years. When the Boomers start dying off en masse, beginning in about 15 years, the demand for housing will rapidly fall all across the Western World. At that point, house prices could go in any direction depending on how much immigration takes place.

Of course, if house prices continue to increase beyond March 2024, then wages will simply never catch up. The West will become more and more verticalised until we effectively regress into a feudal-style economy where 99% of people are renters for life.

What can be said with confidence, however, is that it will take around half a century, at current rates, for wages to catch up to the point where the average worker has the same housebuying power they had in 1992. And that is even if one assumes that house prices don’t continue to increase.

If you enjoyed reading this article, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2019 from Amazon for Kindle or Amazon for CreateSpace (for international readers), or TradeMe (for Kiwis). A compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2018 and the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017 are also available.

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Intergenerational Rape

Young people today are starting to realise that the economic system isn’t what it’s claimed to be. Although Boomers keep saying that anyone who works hard will be compensated enough to own a home and raise a family in it, few young people still believe them. The truth, now widely understood, is that the entire system has been rigged to benefit the old at the expense of the young.

What the Boomers have done can rightly be termed intergenerational rape.

The “postwar generation” has taken advantage of their political power over the younger generations to subject those young people to a degrading level of servitude and hopelessness. Young people nowadays have found themselves effectively enslaved, working long hours and then having to fork out so much in profits, taxes and rents that they have little left for themselves.

The Boomers have tilted the scales so that every operation of the economic system favours them to the exclusion of everyone else. They are sucking the life energy out of the younger generations, and for no other reason than their own greed. Nowhere is this more evident than in the fact that the Millennial generation controls less than a quarter of the wealth that the Boomers controlled at the same age.

The intergenerational social contract, according to which the elderly sacrificed their wealth so that their offspring could be strong, has been annihilated by the Boomers. Instead of nurturing the following generations, the Boomers have plundered them. Boomers credit themselves for working hard and investing prudently, but the reality is that they have built their wealth on the impoverishment of those to follow.

They have done this by using their voting power to elect politicians who were willing to pass laws dispossessing the young. Everywhere that a balance needs to be struck – employer or employee, landlord or tenant, pension recipient or taxpayer, borrowing and spending now or saving for the future – the law favours the Boomers.

This intergenerational favouritism is stark if one considers house prices.

Boomers in 1992 were able to purchase the average New Zealand house for $105,000. As the average wage was above $14 per hour back then, it means that the average house cost about 7,000 hours of labour. It means that, if a person was able to save about a third of their income, they could buy a house after ten years of full-time work. Good times.

By today, when the Boomers own all the houses, the average house price has increased by seven times from 1992 levels, but the average wage only slightly more than twice. The average New Zealand house now costs more than $740,000, whereas the average wage is around $34 per hour. It means that the average house now costs 22,000 hours of labour. Hard times.

Intergenerational rape is when the Boomers charge 22,000 hours of labour for entry to a circle of wealth (homeownership) that they themselves were admitted to after only 7,000 hours of labour. Whereas the average Boomer was able to buy the average house after ten years of labour, young people are looking at thirty years of labour to get to that position.

All of this economic exploitation serves no other purpose than to keep Boomers in a luxurious state of retirement, with regular holidays, plentiful rich food and first-class medical care.

The Boomer generation has inherited an enviable level of wealth from their predecessors and then pulled up the ladder so that none of their descendants can share in it. The Boomers have behaved in this manner because they are the single most selfish and godless generation to have existed in human history. Never before has there been a generation of people willing to put their own whims and fancies above the physical needs of their own offspring.

Their actions could be compared to those of a meth addict who passes out on the couch while their children run around in the streets looking for food. It’s a degree of reckless neglectfulness that ought to be criminal.

The Boomers, however, will get what they deserve. They are mortal after all, and the eldest of them are already 75 years old. Within three decades, almost all of them will be gone. As this column has written previously, God will return to Earth when the Boomers finally die off. They represent peak godlessness, and their passing will result in a new spiritual age.

It is unlikely that intergenerational rape will end owing to any action taken by younger people. The generations following the Boomers are too divided, too demoralised and too apathetic to do anything about their situation. They will have to wait for the Boomers to die off – which means that the rape will continue for another 30 years yet.

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