Two Americans emigrate to New Zealand from Colorado,
USA.
We talk about
our life in Nelson, New Zealand.
February 2010 | Blog home | April 2010
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Before I get lambasted, I guess I should clarify that Canada, as a country, isn't too bad. But Canadian hockey sucks. DAMMIT!! The USA team was sooooo much more deserving, I'm gutted! How exciting was that last minute goal in the third period??? Damn. Gutted. Damn. F*^&ing Canada. If you win on a fluke goal like that, eh, not so special. Just lucky. All luck. I hope your medals are gold PLATED!!! Silver is way cooler a metal anyway.
Perhaps I'll be in a better mood about it tomorrow, but somehow I highly doubt it.
Happy birthday to Don who passes a momentous one this year.
We caught a story about this part boat, part plane on the news last night. The designer / builder / current owner is from good old Nelson and he is now selling it on Trade Me (like eBay in the US). This is a great example of Kiwi ingenuity - the news story said the engine is built from parts from the engines of five different cars. I say, has Mythbusters even tried this?
Now I know this is sounding to good to be true but before you get your credit card out, check out the 3news story just to make sure it will suit your needs. The news story even reported that Demi Moore's husband is interested and Twittered about it (wonder who that guy is?). Guess he saw the YouTube clip.
If you are interested, the top bid as I write is $25,500 but hurry as the auction closes on Saturday. Here's the Trade Me link, the question and answer section is especially interesting.
I caught this story on 3 News about handguns being carried into Starbucks in California, check out the video. Here's a bit more on the story in the NY Times.
I cannot understand American's obsession with guns. Ok, so some people like to hunt, it's not my thing but I get it - there are those that love the power of killing defenseless animals for sport. Whatever. I can also understand some people feel the need to have a pistol for protection. Fine. I start to lose the plot when I hear of people stocking their house with an arsenal worthy of a Rambo movie (they still making those). As if they are preparing for war with a small country. (like NZ you say, yes, opened myself up for that one - I'm sure some of the more "enthusiastic" owners would give our army a bit of worry.)
I know the answer from those who love them - "ITS OUR RIGHT" they emphatically state then proceed to cite the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Well true enough. The intent of the Founding Fathers can be debated but I think I can safely say it is one of those "rights" that had a whole different intent back in the late 1700s (I don't envision England or France invading anytime soon).
More recently there is a worry in America (from what I've heard) that Obama is going to clamp down on guns and push for stronger gun laws. He's said nothing about it. My guess, it's a rumor put out by gun manufacturers to sell more guns. I even heard stories about stores running out of bullets right after Obama was elected due to this fear. It's good for business.
Now it seems things have gotten completely ridiculous and out of hand. Gun owners are now walking around town with their pride and joy strapped to their waist. Yep, playing wild west. I mean COME ON. Is it that they just want to show off? Making up for some inadequacy or overall lack of confidence? I'd really love to know.
Just watching this story on the news I can think of few things better than heading out for a cup of coffee and encountering a bunch of caffeinated hicks with glocks jammed in their pants. What's will guns be permitted next? A school, a bar, a bank? Tell me, what is to be gained. Seriously, how does this make society better? The article goes on to talk about making a case for a liberalised concealed weapon law - who cares, the real point is people shouldn't be allowed to walk around in public with guns.
Most American's are already scared to death of terrorism hitting their home town, do they not see the issue here. The problem will arise when one of these gun toting cowboys turns out to look slightly Middle Eastern - uh oh. A lady in this clip even wondered, rightly so, how she is to know who is just carrying vs who is there to shoot the place up. I won't even get into the mounds of evidence supporting this scenario (in fact, wasn't there a shooting recently in Ohio).
Absurd? I think yes. You can't even carry a tube of toothpaste on an airplane in the US anymore yet you can walk around in public with a gun. Crazy.
I know I harp on this a lot, but it really is a key question that I get from potential immigrants who write me. It still amazes me that migrants come here and purchase a house right away - it works for some I know, but the housing market here is much more expensive in so many ways to the US, it's worth staying educated on the topic. Below, another installment courtesy of last weekend's NZ Herald.
It's hard labour to own a house
By Alice Neville
NZ Herald, Sunday 14 March 2010
The average Kiwi has to work nearly three times harder to pay off the average house than they did 50 years ago.
Figures compiled by Bernard Hickey of interest.co.nz show that to pay for the average home of $350,000, someone on the average wage has to work for 17,680 hours.
Based on a 40-hour working week and not allowing for spending on anything else or taking interest into account, that works out to about eight-and-a-half years' hard slog.
In 1960, by comparison, the average home cost just $6,639. Although the average wage was a measly $1.05 an hour, compared with $19.79 today, paying off a house would take 6332 hours, or just a little over three years.
The numbers prove that "those people who say 'in the old days, we had it much tougher than you young punks' are wrong," Hickey points out.
It is now becoming untenable for average New Zealanders to buy an average house without taking on "an awful lot of debt", he says.
"Housing remains unaffordable and over-valued, especially in the big cities."
Owning a house has become out of reach for most of us for a variety of reasons, says Hickey, but in essence it basically comes down to "a combination of restricted supply, tax changes and easy money pumping up house prices".
Migration, a shortage of land in Auckland and the leaky buildings saga have also affected affordability.
The increase in people investing in rental properties to avoid paying tax is another factor that has pushed prices up, as is banks gaining access to cheap overseas funding after interest rates were slashed after 9/11.
Overseas, house prices are closer to three times the average wage as opposed to the 8 times we have in New Zealand, says Hickey.
Prices will have to come down eventually, says Hickey, but a change in the tax system to remove incentives for property investing has to come first.
Professor Laurence Murphy of Auckland University's real estate research unit says houses have become less affordable because banks have changed the way they give loans.
"Over time we've seen the emergence of more double-income households ...," says Murphy. "You've got larger incomes coming in so banks can give out more money. When they're working out loans, banks and mortgage brokers used to multiply incomes by 2.5 and now they multiply them by three or four."
HOMEOWNERS TOO BROKE TO GET OUT AND SOCIALISE
Double-income couple Kylie Geddes and Simon Allard will be paying off the $320,000 mortgage on their North Shore home for the next 25 years.
"It's really hard," says Geddes, 25.
At least half the primary school teacher's take-home pay each week goes on mortgage repayments.
"I've also got a student loan and with that and KiwiSaver, there's not much left for anything else. It is hard to pay the bills."
Geddes and Allard, 32, who works for an internet company, plan to have children but can't afford to think about that yet.
The couple's lifestyle has changed since they bought their home last November.
"We used to eat out a lot and go to pubs," says Geddes. "Now we hardly ever go out."
While looking for a home to buy, Geddes and Allard moved in with their parents to save money.
MORTGAGE WOES
* Average house price:
1960: $6639
2010: $350,000* Average hourly wage:
1960: $1.05
2010: $19.79* Hours of work needed to pay off average house:
1960: 6332
2010: 17,680
I was going to post about my recent outing on a sailboat but a couple recent news stories have caught my attention. Here's the first.
I followed this story with minor interest since it burst onto the scene back in April 2008. In short these 3 normal everyday blokes (you draw your own conclusion after seeing a photo of them - yes, real pack of gems) broke into spy base near Blenheim (about an hours drive east of us) and slashed the inflatable domes covering a satellite dish. Hold off on all the jokes about NZ even having a spy base please.
Now I still haven't sorted out how deflating the cover has done anything except expose the dish. From what I've read it sounds as if civilian folk that weren't already aware of this spy base are now aware of it. That's it, no real harm done. Not like these 2 big white bubbles didn't look a bit out of place in the first place and people couldn't draw their own conclusions. I mean if these 3 guys knew what this base was, it's safe to assume most people did as well.
Who cares if people do know what they are, that doesn't make them inoperable. I guess now real terrorist could show up in Blenheim and, after doing some wine tasting, blow them up. I'll be sure to blog if that happens. Here's some additional info about the base and a couple pictures.
So here's the case, you be the judge and jury. The three guys admit to trespassing with the intent of damaging property. They succeed and get caught. Here are more of the details if my description is a bit too simplistic. Sounds like pretty open an shut case. Guilty, of course.
BUT...NZ jury says not guilty. Really? Turns out the defence argued that these guys acted lawfully because they BELIEVED they were protecting people overseas who might be harmed by the data gathered and passed on to military forces in places like Iraq. The jury bought it...I'd love to sell them a bridge. This is not a joke, it is actually a defence that worked. Absurd. A NZ editorialist agreed with my assessment however there were some who supported the decision.
No surprise as to the US response claiming this bit of vandalism helped al Qaeda (if our website wasn't on some US watch list before, i'm sure it is now). Well, that's probably right. Lucky these guys did this in NZ, if they did this in the US they would be labeled terrorists, shipped off to some "interrogation" centre in eastern Europe, and we'd never hear from them again.
