Compare two housing plans
It must be election year, because National has admitted that the market has failed, and swallowed the dead rat of state building. A useful graphic summary in The Herald lets you compare National and Labour’s housing plans…
invisible hand
Free market efficiency in health – not
The idea of free market efficiency is not nearly as powerful or universal as its (often fanatical) proponents would have us believe. The sorry state of the USA’s health system is yet another compelling example of its limitations.
The ghost house epidemic and the invisible hand
Last year there were officially 22,000 unoccupied properties in Auckland. This year 33,000 are officially classified as empty. “Auckland’s 6.6 per cent vacancy rate is higher than either Sydney (5.2 per cent) or Melbourne (4.8 per cent), where there has been an uproar over “ghost houses” deliberately left empty by speculators trading on a soaring market”. This is madness.
Ghost houses and the invisible hand
Auckland has an urgent deficit of 20,000 to 30,000 houses. Meanwhile 22,000 houses are sitting empty. Behold the efficiency of the market!
VTM Bill passes – rejoice!
Grateful citizens rejoiced this week at the passage of the VTM (Voluntary Taxation Mechanism) bill.