The intergenerational 'Boomers vs Millennials' debate was discussed vigorously on TV3's The Nation Saturday, with a panel of Stephen Franks, Ella Henry, Jessica Palairet and Morgan Godfrey followed by Jonathan Boston on his policy ideas to make government more accountable to future generations.
Interest.co.nz's Alex Tarrant was alongside Jenna Raeburn and Simon Wilson on the programme's panel to discuss their points. Also discussed was the Jacinda Ardern vs Nikki Kaye coverage, John Key and David Cunliffe's decisions to leave Parliament next week, and homosexual law reform.
Watch the Boomers vs Millennials debate here.
Watch Jonathan Boston's interview here.
Watch the panel discussion here.
15 Comments
From The Landlord Says:
Meanwhile the National Party released its immigration policy. You may wonder what this means for the property market. It is clear from research that immigration is one of the key drivers of house price growth.
The logic is simple. If you import more people into the country, then you need more houses. Supply and demand means that prices are then pushed up, this is particularly so in Auckland.
While the latest immigration numbers show the number of people coming into New Zealand is starting to rise, the Nat’s policy looks like it wants to increase immigration levels even further. (Although it is unclear what sort of number they are targeting.)
This policy is, arguably, a plus for people who want house prices to rise. (But may be not so good for first home owners wanting to buy.)
My guess has always been that property investors lean heavily towards the right rather than the left. (This was made clear in an email newsletter I saw from one developer this week.)
Let's blame Baby Boomers
Here is Nationals Immigration policy
http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/nationalparty/legacy_url/166/immig…
Long on rhetoric - this is what's happening
What is noticeable by it's absence is any support to the regions to enable them to provide the necessary infrastructure needed to accommodate the extra burden imposed by Central Government's policy
Not one single mention of Foreign buyers of homes. This is the biggest issue. The boomers never contended with foreign buyers The average net salary in NZ is 55K. For anyone who’s been to the auction rooms it’s obvious that foreigners pay upwards of 1.5 million dollars for average kiwi homes in Auckland. That’s 27 times the average salary.
The boomers inherited socialised health care, education, and a production based economy. They also had a global gold based monetary standard back then. What have we got now? A depleted user pays system with a FIRE (finance insurance and real estate) service sector economy, and a debt based monetary system in a terminal death spiral. Worse still, a government making policies that are exacerbating the wealth divides..
You could call it globalization or financialization but the abovementioned transitions are “once only”. We’re not going off the gold standard twice. The potential for wealth accumulation that accrued through those economic transitions will never be available gen X & Y.
fat pat,
You are quite wrong on one important point. There was no post war gold standard. let me quote from The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson; "Exchange rates would be fixed(Bretton Woods July 1944),as under the gold standard,but now the anchor-the international reserve standard-would be the Dollar rather than gold.
@ Pat, You're absolutely correct to bring up Foreign Buyers who have completely distorted property markets in the larger cities around the globe. The Boomer have so mostly benefited from this huge wave of capital that has washed up in the larger more popular cities such as Auckland.
How on earth can we expect young Kiwi's to complete with such a glut of capital pouring in from else where in the world? We really need a Foreign Buyers Tax, as most the developed Western World has put these in place to protect their larger economies and their people.
We may have a bit of breathing space at the moment with falling house prices, that are obviously resulting from that flow of foreign capital being blocked. But we have no idea how long that will last for?
Business Insider article: The rise in China's foreign exchange reserves is bad news for global real estate
http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-capital-controls-effect-on-real-…
Quote from article: Impact On Global Real Estate
Mainland Chinese investors are now the world’s largest buyers of overseas real estate. It’s actually sprung up multi-billion dollar businesses like Caimeiju, and Juwai that sell billions in overseas property, often sight unseen. These buyers added fuel to the fire created by over enthusiastic domestic buyers with massive mortgages, sending property rates soaring in Canada, Australia, England, France, Hong Kong…actually, pretty much everywhere.
Yes it's mind boggling just how much impact Foreign Buyers have on global property markets. Though it looks as though most of that has been from one main source in the last few years from credit fulled top end buyers from China.
This recent article highlight quite nicely how much impact there has been on NZ since 2003.
Apparently New Zealanders had the highest rise in prices of the group comparison. The average benchmark home is now NZ$612,527 (US$443,797), a whopping 84% increase. Again, that’s 9 times the median income.
Article: The $6.6 Trillion Dollar Real Estate Bubble Brewing In The Commonwealth
https://betterdwelling.com/the-6-6-trillion-dollar-real-estate-bubble-b…
Something that needs to be clarified is things like the average household income, median household income, average salary and the likes. The numbers that get thrown about seem wildly off to me. I had a laugh a while back when Mike Hoskins thought the average salary was like $75K and it was actually the median household income. Shows he is earning way too much and is totally out of touch.Last time I checked the average salary was like $48K, its actually very low. Are there any official figures to be found ?
Gross average (73.5K) -> Net average (55.5K) http://www.averagesalarysurvey.com/new-zealand
What a load of Tat, shadow banking and its derivatives are. No wonder houses are so high, borrow to the hilt...from anyone...mug enough. Then disappear without a trace...Russian Jimmied Bonds. Its Irish, but Missed Money-Penny would be the livid.
Then orf to good old New Zealand...the money laundering Housing Capital of the World. You wouldn't write about it.....but true. Money sucks...from suckers..then ends up in NZ...OIO..or not....then it turns up in NZ...clean as a whistle. No regulation, no one to point to the finger...towards out corrupted National institutions and theirs.
What is a few billion between friends...Hardly worth mentioning here....
Particularly liked this snippet.,,nearly collapsed with out a doubt, laughing all the way to the Bank.
“Normally banks aren’t able to issue bonds just days before losing their license,” said Roehmeyer, who helps oversee 12 billion euros at Landesbank Berlin Investment GmbH in the German capital. “The banks in Tatarstan are more or less interwoven with the government of the region, so we expected some form of government support due to this responsibility.”
(Some hopes).??
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-17/russian-bank-raised-…
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