The Auckland Housing Crisis is Because New Zealand is a Pack of Whores
Every day, someone is pointing a finger at someone else to blame them for the unaffordability of New Zealand housing. Many fingers are pointing in many directions: at John Key, at Chinese investors, at developers, at Auckland Councils, at greedy speculators and at the world economy.
What the media isn’t willing to admit is that the housing crisis is a natural consequence of the culture of New Zealanders. What we have to accept is that we’re not actually a very nice people.
This country was essentially founded by the sort of person who sells other people’s land out from under their feet, and the sort of person who buys the land anyway. Some parts of Wellington were ‘sold’ by people who didn’t even live there. We’re still like this – when we sell a house, we don’t give a fuck who is moving into our old neighbourhood, as long as they bring the cash.
Our current record immigration levels are also a natural consequence of our culture. The land-owners are in power, so if we open the floodgates to everyone demand for housing will increase, which means the value of the land-owners’ assets increase, which means they can sell them for the highest price.
We’re a pack of whores in this country. Let’s just accept it so that we can make sense of what’s happening.
Nowhere is the short-sighted, greed-crazed mentality that defines the New Zealander of 2016 more evident than in Auckland. The “Auckland housing crisis” (as it is dubbed by the Auckland-based media) is an outgrowth of that same mentality that South Islanders refer to when they say that Auckland has no soul.
Because it doesn’t. It’s just a bunch of whores trying to get rich at each other’s expense. Auckland is like Los Angeles: a superficial, shallow plasticland of hustlers, grifters and straight out bullshitters. No-one there trusts anyone else, and neither should they. Pull out a bunch of cash in either city, though, and you can have someone sucking your dick within seconds.
New Zealanders are whores because we treat each other like whores.
We don’t build decent houses because that costs more money, so we let our kids get asthma instead.
We don’t have a capital gains tax because that would inhibit our ability to get rich from property speculation, so we have empty houses owned by foreigners while our young people live in cars.
We close down rape crisis centres and slash mental health funding because we’d rather have tax cuts.
If we take an honest look at our own culture, we have to accept that there is no real housing crisis in Auckland – it’s merely another great chance for some of us to get rich at the expense of other New Zealanders. If we are honest we have to accept that we want it that way because it gives us profitable avenues through which we can exploit our countrymen.
Could the Black Caps Run a Four Man Pace Battery?
With the Black Caps to begin their South Africa leg of their tour of Africa with the first Test on 19 AUG, attention turns to the composition of the team ahead of the main challenge of this tour.
Three of the positions in the batting order are as certain as they have ever been. There is no doubt about Tom Latham opening, about Kane Williamson at 3 and Ross Taylor at 4.
With the bowlers there is no doubt about Tim Southee and Trent Boult, and the middle order is certain to feature both Mitchell Santner and wicketkeeper BJ Watling.
Regarding the second opener’s position, Martin Guptill probably did enough to retain his incumbency as an opener, and is therefore expected to start over Jeet Raval. The 27-year old Raval, who is yet to play a Test, has a first-class average of 44 and is probably the strongest first-class opener yet to play Test cricket since Mark Richardson.
Henry Nicholls will probably continue to bat at 5, with New Zealand unlikely to put Luke Ronchi in the position. Nicholls might have the most tenuous claim to a place in the team, but the Black Caps management seem willing to give him a decent run in the side because he is only 24.
Regarding the bowling options, New Zealand might find itself in a good position to gamble on a four man pace battery, on account of that the spin doesn’t look threatening enough to help take 20 South African wickets.
Ish Sodhi took eight wickets at 25 on the Zimbabwe leg of the tour but was far from convincing. Although he occasionally bowled a dangerous ball, he put down a haul of full tosses and long hops that even Zimbabwe’s batsmen could easily put away. His economy rate of 3.29, compared to Mitchell Santner’s 2.15, is evidence that he does not yet have the control to tie down an end.
Santner, for his part, seems to be improving as a bowler. His economy rate reflects that his bowling was tight against Zimbabwe, rarely straying away from an off stump line, even if the spin was gentle.
Given that Santner will almost certainly be chosen for his all-round value, and that Martin Guptill has shown himself capable of tidy spin bowling should the need arise, it may be that Sodhi is deemed to have very little value to the team for the South Africa leg.
Neil Wagner has become indispensable as the Black Caps’ third seamer. His Test bowling average has come down to 30.43, which is lower than that of Tim Southee. Wagner also has the quality of being able to pose a threat with the old ball, which gives him value in the same conditions that Southee and Boult are less dangerous in.
This leaves a fourth seamer spot open for either Matt Henry or Doug Bracewell. This column believes that Bracewell is unlikely to possess the application to develop much further as either a bowler or a batsman, and that neither is true of Henry. Although Henry is yet to impress in his four Test career, he has 51 ODI wickets at a world-class average of 22.17, and so his potential appears much higher.
If Guptill is capable of bowling in the case we need two spinners, and if Santner is capable of bowling a large number of tidy overs as he did against Zimbabwe, the best team choice for the Black Caps might be to drop Sodhi and go with a four man pace attack.
This would give us a Black Caps side of:
1. Martin Guptill (6)
2. Tom Latham
3. Kane Williamson (c)
4. Ross Taylor
5. Henry Nicholls
6. Mitchell Santner (5)
7. BJ Watling (wk)
8. Matt Henry (3)
9. Neil Wagner (4)
10. Trent Boult (1)
11. Tim Southee (2)
– DAN McGLASHAN
Weekend at Hillary’s
The black comedy Weekend at Bernie’s was the story of two young insurance agents whose boss dies. For a variety of reasons, all related to the agents’ short-sightedness, stupidity or naked opportunism, they have to pretend he is alive, at a party hosted by him, for the rest of the weekend.
The outcome of the current political shitshow in the USA, to be decided in November, may be that Hillary Clinton becomes President. If this happens – and at the moment the outcome is only paying $1.31 on BetFair – then she will assume the Presidency at the age of 69. In all of American history, only Ronald Reagan was that old when he became the President.
This is bad because Ronald Reagan was crippled by Alzheimer’s by the middle of his tenure, and was basically brain dead by the end of it.
Hillary Clinton’s physical health is not believed to be the best, as is suggested by the attached image of Clinton’s assistants helping her stand and negotiate a set of stairs. She is widely thought to be an alcoholic, which, to be fair, is common of political types.
As for Clinton’s mental health, let the following clip – in which she talks about the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was sodomised to death with a knife after a US-led invasion not long after announcing plans to expand a billion-dollar national engineering project that was not funded by borrowing from international banks – summarise her personality.
Hillary is clearly not a woman in good health. 69-year old alcoholics don’t tend to live much longer, and there is a very real chance that Hillary will die on the job.
Would the Establishment let Hillary simply die? Or would they, in preference to the instability created by a change in leader, keep Hillary Clinton’s body alive?
It ought to be possible to hollow a person’s body out and replace the bones and muscles with a robotic endoskeleton, which, when combined with modern audio technology and AI controlling for realistic facial expressions, could create a realistic imitation of a human being, especially when viewed through a television.
Those of us out here in meatspace now have to contend with the very real possibility that the US President is some kind of android, and will simply do and say what it is programmed to do by unseen handlers. The suppliant mainstream media will naturally go along with this, as the few of them with the wit to see through it will be paid off like the whores they are.
Bonus: