patrick.net

HARM,

I have cousins who are first generation Kiwis, and I hear them complain about the weather ALL the time. When I was there in Oct and Feb, I just couldn't stand the hourly weather changes with rain and sun alterating every 10 minutes under a terrible wind chill.

While education and healthcare is free, the quality is very low, especially that of education. NZ is known among Chinese as the "trash haven", meaning that usually the students who fail in Hong Kong, Taiwan or China, and are denied access to US, UK, Canadian and Australian universities end up in NZ. I didn't check out any schools there, but I have yet to meet any world class scientists coming out of the NZ system, there are plenty from Oz. Both of my cousins left NZ for Oz precisely to give their kids a better education.

Yes, I admit that the scenery is stunning. But I am a city person, and I can't stand living among too much nature, especially if it is inconvenient to do so. I would rather head for Canada for that kind of stunning beauty, saves me 18 hours of flight.

Old people need 1) warm weather 2) high quality healthcare and 3) good public infrastructure to get around, NZ has none of that.

Again, I think OO is overstating the cold weather meme. As far as the healthcare goes, can't really say from personal experience. Of course, the U.S. is really in no position to judge, as we have something like 40 million uninsured and still pay the highest rates per capita in the world for rather mediocre-quality healthcare. The fact that they cover 100% of their population for considerably less should count for something, IMO.

On the subject of public infrastructure, I would agree --especially where the roads are concerned. Most of the country is accessible only by little windy 2-lane country roads. Even the major cities (with the exception of AUK & Hamilton) aren't linked with anything remotely resembling our freeway system. I was amazed to see how many bridges --even on the relatively populous North Island-- were single lane.

HARM,

I think the US has a much better chance of fixing our healthcare than most people think.

First, the boomers will put a stress on our system, forcing it to add capacity while enhancing efficiency, not to mention we do have the best healthcare that money can buy. There are parts of the world that money cannot buy much of a healthcare. What we need to figure out is how to get our money stretch further.

Second, size matters. A big population means scale economy. It also means innovation, competition, and more free market pressure to make things work. A country needs to reach a critical mass for population.

Third, if you are in below 40 or so, we are actually going to be the luckiest age group when we reach retirement. Why? Because the bigger boomer wave will pass by the time we retire (hopefully in late 60s or early 70s). So while they were being shoveled through the medicare system forcing it to expand, by the time we reach there we will have more beds per person and more doctors/nurses per patient left over by the legacy system.

So if I were to retire today, I would want to avoid competing with other boomers for that limited resources, probably I would head for some other choices like Spain, Oz or Chile. But if I am going to retire in another 30-35 years, I think the US will again become an attractive place for retirement.

Owneroccupier,

In America, I don't expect to have any government/healthcare coverage when I'm ready to retire, in 20-30 years. Thus, even a pretty basic healthcare system is fine by me. Kiwis live pretty long and healthy lives, compared to Americans. If it's bad, I can afford to supplement my healthcare with out of pocket visits at lower costs (since local wages are lower) than in the BA.

The bottomline is: In America, if I'm uninsured (and I am currently uninsured, I pay my dentist appointments and clinic visits out of pocket) and get really sick, I would have to file bankruptcy. In most OECD countries, I would be able to recover financially because of universal coverage. Even if I get private coverage, I would worry that the insurance company can try to kick me out or try to deny coverage.

Healthcare is something 40M people in this country has almost no access to, except for emergency care. A good chunk of those people are children, who don't get proper care early in life and suffer for it later in life. I bet NZ has a superior conception to 10 care on avg., compare to this country. On the other hand, old people lingering on respirators...maybe that's not the best way to spend healthcare dollars. If they want that, maybe it's most economically efficient if they pay for it, if they can.

As for infrastructure. The reason why America has relatively good infrastructure in the boonies is because Californians and New Yorkers and Bostonians subsidize them for it. NZ has nobody to subsidize them for the infrastructure so they go without.

@OO,

Well, given that you've visited more than I and have close relatives living there, I'll defer to your expert opinion, sir. :-) Personally, I'd rather take living close to nature over dense urbanized living (though I too need to have some basic technology & modern plumbing/electricity/internet, etc.). To me NZ represents high Q.O.L. over high GDP, which counts for a lot in my book. Too bad about the education system & employment situation, though --sounds like they just need to start investing heavily in education, R&D and roads/infrastructure.

Alterego,

Sounds like some locals decided to go the self-employment/consulting route. No doubt you hung out amongst the elites there. ;)

astrid,

it is very difficult to speculate on situations 35 years down the road. As I said, if you are retiring today, then perhaps NZ is not a bad choice (but they want 2M NZD if you want to retire down there). Well, with $1.2M USD (2M NZD), I think you will be just fine retiring in the US. No free lunches here.

Now, if you are looking at NZ as a place to work and build your career today, forget about it. There is no career to be built, the income distribution in NZ is like Peter Jackson and everybody else. After the Bush re-election, lots of disgusted Californians look at NZ as an utopia, so I went down with an open mind to see what it is about, not that I was serious about thinking going there. I was just genuinely curious in living situations around the world wherever I went.

The key for younger people like ourselves (not that I want to pretend to be as young as you are) is, opportunities come first. Perhaps when you get beaten up enough later in life, then you go to a lower-cost, lower-earning place. But as Joe Schmoe once said it, mental stimulation and working with the best people is also part of the intangible. You really get none of that in NZ.

Also, many so-called lower-cost places are deceiving in the true cost of living. Housing usually skews people's perception. If you look at just the rental situation in the Bay Area, the cost is relatively reasonable. Housing in NZ compared to wage is even more outrageous than here! Since NZ has a tiny housing market, a few SoCal or NorCal specuvestors can easily bid up the market 100%. Healthcare is a big plus, but again no free lunches, you pay with your tax. And because of the smaller healthcare market down there, you get even less efficiency. If a country has exceptionally good healthcare, it may either not last, or something else has to give.

If gas price keeps climbing, countries like NZ will suffer a lot. It is too isolated from the rest of the world, even hopping over to Oz will take 3 hours of flight. I would want to see the sustainability of their model under higher energy cost.

SP,

NZ feels colder than it should because of the wind chill.

What happens here is, the wind coming down from Arctic is mostly blocked by the huge mountains range up in Canada, yet down in NZ, there are no big mountain ranges in the south stopping the wind blowing from Antarctica. The wind chill effect usually adds another 20-30 Farenheit on the negative side.

Owneroccupier,

"the income distribution in NZ is like Peter Jackson and everybody else"

Hehe, even after King Kong?

Fair enough. I'll just have to gather together my frequent flier miles and go see it one day. :)

Thanks for sharing your knowledge and thoughts. You've definitely given me a lot to think over.

RE: NZ

Where is Gabby?

As bad as the income inequality/distribution is in NZ, it's even worse here. Scroll down to "Figure 14: Income Inequality (Gini Co-efficient)":

http://www.forfas.ie/ncc/reports/ncc_annual_05/ch02/ch02_01.html

@Peter P,

Gabby occasionally lurks, but has little time for contributing these days. I actually met her dad when visiting NZ --really nice guy, btw.

US is due for a big reset, perhaps starting as early as this Nov.

The income distribution issue worsens much more under Bush's terms. I would say the 90s boom benefitted most people one way or another, the housing bubble is a simple transfer of wealth leaving a big sector, and the most promising sector of our society, disenfranchised.

I really don't know who belong to that 30% that still gives Bush a thumb up.

FAB,

When SF and Marin homes start dropping by $100K + per year we are going to see people running for the doors…

If and when this happens, stop by my blog and email me to arrange for a delivery of your favorite indulgence. Especially if you share when your buy signal triggers that you described some months ago.

I'm counting on a 15%-25% nominal drop in south Marin. If it's anything close to 50% I'll be buying everyone rounds.

OO

I really don’t know who belong to that 30% that still gives Bush a thumb up.

Visit the plane of reality my in-laws inhabit if you want to observe, first hand, the lower-middle/working-poor who support Bush with unparalleled passion and vitriol.

Owneroccupier,

Glib answer.

Those promising people are most likely to already be alienated by Bush.

More glib answer.

CEO of corporate subsidy recipients, muslim extremist, and people who think they'll be raptured up soon.

Randy,

but why? What did Bush bring to them? Their living situation deteriorated precisely because of Bush's policy, how can you support someone who robs you of your future?

I understand perfectly why rich people vote for Bush, I have a hard time understanding why poor working class would vote for him, what for???

Owneroccupier,

Religion, hatred, and fear are great irrational motivator/opiate of the masses.

Yes. A.ka., "culture warriors", conservative one-issue voters (gays 'n guns 'n God), Bible-belters, etc.

For further research, see Thomas Frank's excellent "What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America"

Short but very interesting news report

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,1774162,00.html

They are talking about PPT, how US Govt may acytally like decline of US$ and a highly likely meltdown in stock markets.

astrid, I have two messages stuck in the pipeline, somehow cannot be published. Please delete either one of them if you happen to be able to retrieve them.

A different angle to the bearish view.

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1774740,00.html

This fellow (Larry Elliott) says US housing market and US$ is in trouble. But says falling US$ means falling oil and commodity prices. Logic seems to be is US$ falls, exporting economies will slow down and demand for commodities will drop. This was also given as one of the reasons in many news stories today about the drop in commodity and gold prices.

Interestingly at the end he says, sell US$ and buy bonds ? Huh ? If US$ is going to devalue, why should I buy bonds ? Maybe he means UK bonds ??

OO-

Well, I voted for him and still support him. I think he's doing an excellent job all things considered, and will go down in history as one of the greats.

With respect to income inequaltiy, that has been increasing largely unabated since 1967. Anyone who claims that the current administration is responsible for this, or has worsened matters in any appreciable way, simply isn't aware of the facts. See the Census Bureau income inequality figures at:

http://www.census.gov/prod/2000pubs/p60-204.pdf

(these are through 1998, the data lag by quite a bit.)

Notice that the trend did not reverse at all during the Clinton and Carter administrations. The gap just kept on widening.

The trend toward increasing income inequality is not something that can be viewed along party lines. It has been happening for the last four decades.

Surfer-X
You took your pics off your blog!
I was gonna leave a comment!
Oh, well.
At least we know now that your outsides
aren't nearly as rough as your insides. ;)
Well, thanks for the glimpse, anyway.

OO,

Astrid put it more eloquently, but it's the big 3 G's that motivate voters in that region: God, Guns & Gays. If you think I'm kidding then let me take you on a tour of my hometown.

My father-in-law is a farmer. A grain farmer. He effectively loses money farming, only staying afloat with tax breaks and never ending gov't guaranteed loans. He's seen farm subsidies decrease for family farms while increasing for factory farms during the past 6 years. He's seen Dutch dairy farmers move in an drive out virtually all the local family dairy operations. This list goes on.

He still is a fervent supporter of Bush. He'll tell you with an air of nothing but pure innocent honesty that Bush is the only man to do something about foreigners taking advantage of America. He'll tell you about how Bush has helped to spare Toledo from being burned to the ground by sacrilegious Islamists. My mother-in-law will tell you that "Bush simply has a good soul", with a self-enlightened righteous smile on her face.

I seldom venture into the domain of politics, but I'll say here that this phenomenon is the failure of the Democrats much more than the triumph of the Republicans. If the Democrats cannot win over a working poor, family farming, screwed by big-everything, Wal-mart hating Midwestern farmer who thinks that unions were a good thing (and that they're waning today only because of unfair Japanese competition) then they just don't deserve to run anything more important than a minor league school board.

And just for the record, I am aggressively non-partisan; I'm an equal-opportunity critic.

FRIFY,

I like your reasoning, but warn you that the interjection of facts and logic into the conversation is hazardous. You may yet feel the wrath of a postmodernist deconstruction of your argument that will leave you drinking shots of Jameson alone in the dark.

Nothing can be done about this trend. Don’t even think about reversing the Bush tax cuts, that will only make things worse.

Huh? What is it about growing income inequality that's so inherently sacrosanct? Income inequality has always existed to varying degrees in every society and under every economic system yet invented by mankind, true --I'm not disputing this. But what makes the recent trend towards greater inequality so inevitable? Aren't governments, compensation schemes and taxes purely artificial human-created constructs that we can re-design and tinker with as we see fit (in theory anyway ;-) ) ?

And if there really is some kind of natural law that predestines all societies to invariably progress towards more inequality over time, then why should I even bother worrying about it? According to this (suspect) theory, then all the world's wealth will eventually end up in a single pair of hands, regardless of what we as a society do or I do as an individual, right?

Sounds a tad too fatalistic for me.

Owneroccupier,

I saw nothing to erase. Wordpress must have triggered an auto-delete.

@FRIFY,

Ok, got it --D'oh!
(in Emily Latella voice): Never mind...

Surfer,

you da man. Did anyone tell you that you actually look like John Travolta? Rock on.

astrid,

ok, what are the things that I should do to avoid triggering auto-delete?

I wish I knew! A couple of my comments had been scrubbed out.

ok, what are the things that I should do to avoid triggering auto-delete?

@OO,

Avoid the terms "always goes up", "new paradigm" and "permanently high plateau". Those'll get your comments deleted every time :mrgreen:

HARM,

Are you forcing me to delete your last comment? ;)

LOL - those were for demonstration purpose only!

Surfer-X Says:
My new blog is here:
(erased per surfer-x's request)

very good, puts mine to shame... mine is missing that edge, that certain je ne sais quoi...

btw, people can feel free to visit my blogspot as attached on my nick and put lots of comments murmuring in agreement to make it look busy, so I don't have to make lots of sock-puppet IDs and do it myself -- I only created it to scare local politicians (they'll never read this), but will do a BIG website before the next state election in 1 year -- they are quaking...

Good news: I actually got a call on the mobile yesterday from a Labor Senator in person re a Hansard comment I queried concerning the Greens (sensible) affordable housing policies, and she listened to the WHOLE STORY for half an hour, from low interest rates, permeability of markets, OECD reports, liberalised credit, increasing rates of investment, looming micro- and macro-economic disaster, problems with BTRs, etc etc. So you can just bet that the gubmint will start building thousands of cost-controlled affordable places from this moment on, and pretty soon the impetus and ideas will spread to the whole world and prices will come down everywhere. No, don't thank me, it was the least I could do...

Seriously, tho, is there any value in creating a co-op or similar group to try to develop affordable housing as infill or greenfield? either that or use it as a political lobby -- write a petition to some politicians requesting they do something useful. I'm tempted to try to create an umbrella company where the state govt more or less grants you land to do an affordable housing project...

OK, let me try again. I promise there will be no more aforementioned terms.

I was just commenting on the comparison of various up and coming countries as a response to astrid's comment on free healthcare and education. I was saying that if I were forced to leave this country for any political or economic or personal safety reasons, the only other country I will be looking at is Australia, and here is why. Oh DS is here, so he can comment on my reasonings.

Downside first: Australia is a beach country, flat as a pancake. Avid skiers will feel more fulfilled by hopping on a plane ride to Queenstown across the strait. There are also thousands of yet-to-be classified bugs and scorpions with enough venom to kill you within seconds. You get the picture.

OO
The wind chill effect usually adds another 20-30 Farenheit on the negative side.

Is that like housing prices having a retrograde price appreciation? "Prices went up at a negative rate this quarter"...

Since many multinationals place their Asia Pacific HQs in Australia, so the job aspects are quite good given the 20M population base. Now of course you cannot compare the job aspect of Australia to that of the US, because the population size is not there. However, this is the largest quarry, gold mine of the world with more than enough natural gas and uranium to go around, plus a substantial agricultural base, so QOL in terms of self-sufficient survival is guaranteed.

While Australian universities are not as good as the first class American colleges, I would say the Great 8 (or is this the term?) rank along with the likes of UC Santa Barbara, UC Davis etc. There are more than 10 home grown Australian Nobel laureats in science subjects, more than half of them in the area of medical science. For some reason, Australia is particularly strong in biological research and medical science, they rank right after the world class research institutes here like UCSF, Harvard etc.

Downside first: Australia is a beach country, flat as a pancake. Avid skiers will feel more fulfilled by hopping on a plane ride to Queenstown across the strait. There are also thousands of yet-to-be classified bugs and scorpions with enough venom to kill you within seconds. You get the picture.

oh, timing is everything...

altho there is the 'great dividing range', aka the blue mountains, the snow mountains, on the east coast that runs from qld to victoria, that creates ski fields within a day's drive of some of the major cities. 'global warming' [sic] is making them a bit mushy these days, though...

every major city is on the coast near beaches. perth is meant to be very pleasant, good weather, nice size, just the most isolated city on earth by distance... commodities in western australia keep the perth economy buoyant...

melbourne has been voted world's most liveable city several times in the international visiting executives thingy...

healthcare is fairly benevolent, as is the welfare system...

i dunno -- has its downside as well... small popn, insular, anti-intellectual, colonial...

Another surprise for me is, Australia's road system is amazingly good. Public transportation is well developed in metro areas, just like Boston and NYC. You can get away with not driving at all if you live in the top 5 cities.

People are genuinely nice, mostly middle class, and laid back. Australia has also benefited tremendously from imported talents from UK, India and China, particularly those from UK. Lots of 20 somethings were priced out in UK in their housing bubble so they head for the former colony in search of a new life, and based on my observation, most of them are quite happy with their new motherland. Australia is also bordered by ocean, so there is no issue of massive inflow of illegal immigration, if one can make it through the poinsonous stingers and sharks to set foot on Australia, I think the country should give him some credit. Poverty is mainly confined to the aboriginals, which is a very small part of the population.

If Aussies play their cards right, I think they have a hell of a future ahead of them. The biggest problem facing Australia is the lack of water, which is the main constraint on population growth on areas beyond the two coasts. If desalination can be economical going forward and the natural limit on population growth can be lifted, Australia can obviously accommodate far more people.

Also, the best parts of Australia,IMHO, are not Sydney or Melbourne. The fastest growth areas are Perth and Brisbane. Perth's weather is almost identical to the bay area, except a bit drier, so you may be put on water rationing every summer. Sydney is probably the dirtiest and most polluted part of Australia.

So what I am saying is, if you want to look for examples of well-run countries elsewhere, Australia may be a good speciman to study.