If National wins ...

[craic]

Being a woman could be a plus or a minus, who knows? Being a Maori, the same.Being related to the "Maori King"? Well thats a bit like being related to Oliver Twist - looks good in a novel but thats all. Still, I'm sure my mate JK will be happy with whatever they come up with. P.S. When did they decide to rule Russell Norman out - I thought that he was a front runner?

[fungus pudding]

Being a woman could be a plus or a minus, who knows? Being a Maori, the same.Being related to the "Maori King"? Well thats a bit like being related to Oliver Twist - looks good in a novel but thats all. Still, I'm sure my mate JK will be happy with whatever they come up with. P.S. When did they decide to rule Russell Norman out - I thought that he was a front runner?

No. Meteria Turei is the Greens leader. David Parker is the fill in leader of Labour apart from Annette King, and Russell Norman is the leader of the opposition when Winston isn't.

[nextbigthing]

el Z re your earlier post, if people don't want to go out and get a better job and earn more because they are not motivated, then they deserve to earn a low wage. It's not up to me or the state to motivate them. And it sure as hell isn't fair for me to pay more taxes to subsidize them either.

[Xerof]

NBT, would you like to borrow the .270 ?

[nextbigthing]

NBT, would you like to borrow the .270 ?

Don't tempt me!

[elZorro]

Don't tempt me!

Don't shoot the messenger?

[Okebw]

I found this extremely amusing.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/poli...ething-at-snub

It makes sense that you would have to be honourable to use the title

[fungus pudding]

We'll have to wait and see. Good on her for giving it a go.

Bob Jones has written an article about the living wage which I'm sure you'll agree with FP.

It amazes me how you always seem to think you know what I think, and how seldom you're right.

[Major von Tempsky]

Ok, let's hear EZ moan about this - 1,2,3 Moan! We had a good quote in the Army about people like him "you'd moan if yr a**e was on fire and you'd moan if I pi**ed on it to put it out!"

"New Zealand's wealth has grown more than that of any other country in the world since 2000, according to a new report released by Credit Suisse.

It ranks NZ top, just ahead of Australia, in wealth growth per adult in the past 14 years, with both countries ahead of China.

The report says New Zealand has benefited from "favourable currency movements'' and when measured at current exchange rates, the average wealth of New Zealanders has grown by more than 300 per cent since 2000.

The New Zealand dollar was trading at around the 40 US cent mark in 2000. This morning the local currency was trading at 78.33 US cents."

[elZorro]

Ok, let's hear EZ moan about this - 1,2,3 Moan! We had a good quote in the Army about people like him "you'd moan if yr a**e was on fire and you'd moan if I pi**ed on it to put it out!"

"New Zealand's wealth has grown more than that of any other country in the world since 2000, according to a new report released by Credit Suisse.

It ranks NZ top, just ahead of Australia, in wealth growth per adult in the past 14 years, with both countries ahead of China.

The report says New Zealand has benefited from "favourable currency movements'' and when measured at current exchange rates, the average wealth of New Zealanders has grown by more than 300 per cent since 2000.

The New Zealand dollar was trading at around the 40 US cent mark in 2000. This morning the local currency was trading at 78.33 US cents."

I think you've described me like that before, MVT. Here is the source of that big report.

http://www.documentcloud.org/documen...ml#document/p1

Sure enough, at current exchange rates NZ is top of the growth in wealth list for our region. When adjusted for constant exchange rates, we are in the middle of the list. And that appears to be how the Figure is graded too.

In 2000, NZ was listed among the millionaires table as inside Other, but by 2014 we had our own sliver, a sliver of numbers much smaller than in Australia. The average wealth per adult in NZ is around USD$200,000, and in Australia it is more like $350,000. From the shape of the charts, much of NZ's is driven by house and land prices (note strong growth up until 2008 also), and I suspect that many became wealthier on the back of their own living spaces, be it suburban homes or farms. This confirms that NZers who were able to get on the property ladder since 2000 and stay there, had a good period on average.

The report also mentions inequality a lot, and these are all average figures. I think the challenge now is to encourage people to free up their capital, borrow against those paper profits in housing, and build startling new export businesses in NZ. I know investing on the stock exchange in startups is one way of doing that, but a more direct way is to morph existing businesses into growth areas for NZ Inc.