I sometimes lie awake in bed working through arithmetic problems.

Admittedly, there must be better ways to put one’s mind to sleep but this is me; I enjoy doing sums.

Recently, I was remembering how, years ago, regarding a potential solution to the New Zealand ‘child poverty epidemic’, I believe it was a naive young Green MP by the name of James Shaw who maintained something along the lines of, ‘The reason the poor are poor is because they have no money, therefore, the best way to make them not poor is to give them more money – hey, why not give everyone more money? Across New Zealand, financial woes will be no more – we’ll fix it – we’ll just get the Reserve Bank to print more money, everyone in New Zealand’ll be rich!’

That memory went back to better times, when John Key’s National party were in power and, perhaps understandably, with transcendent financial revelations as aforementioned, James Shaw’s Green party along with Andrew Little’s Labour were in Opposition; also, this was seemingly at a time before people understood that ‘epidemic’ is a term to be used not only in metaphors.

The thing is, from my perspective, lying in bed, pondering, calculating; idealistic as Mr Shaw’s plan was and, to the less educated economist, maybe, viable as this concept may have appeared, I was aware that it would not work – I had enough financial knowhow to understand this is not how money works.

The mathematical difficulty increased, and I recall feeling that heat of frustration; I recall at one point almost falling asleep and having to snap my mind back into focus.

Task at hand and all that.

I knew MP Shaw’s idea was nonsensical, I just wanted to work out specifically why; how?

How, if the New Zealand Government handed out money across the populous thereby rendering every person wealthier, why, would it not work?

What was the rudimentary logic that I was missing – where was the folly?

Truth is, I have attempted in the past to perform this very kind of logical reasoning, often in bed, sometimes while half asleep; usually resulting in an immovable mental block…

Not tonight.

Start simple; person A provides a service for person B, person A is then paid by B and B subsequently receives money from the company above them, C.

This is the basis of economy; currency is awarded value, where it is then given in return for goods or services.

The amount of currency given obviously depends on the value of the goods or services; the value of goods and services is determined by people, in relation to comparable factors.

This value can also vary, though, according to supply and demand; a good or service will become more valuable when supply is less and similarly, more valuable if demand is more.

One hypothetical day, one wayward political leader had a brilliant idea; a short time later, New Zealand’s Reserve Bank began printing an excess of money and the Government started distributing it to the people via supplementary package; household income across the nation increased by around 5% and the people were overjoyed.

Few weeks later, person B calls back person A to perform a similar task but, when the bill comes, B is surprised to see, reportedly due to increased cost of related supplies, A has had to raise their prices by 3.5%; fortunately, B’s company has recently given them a 4% wage increase though, so they can easily afford to pay the increased bill.

Person C, at the company, is currently struggling under another Government-imposed minimum wage increase, which has forced them to effectively raise wages across their entire employee base to maintain wage equality, costing them millions of dollars annually, leading to a general rise in commodity prices to cover the company’s financial shortfall.

Under Government instruction, the nation has been flooded with new money from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and, in the beginning, the people are loving it.

Six months later, particularly in the impoverished regions of the country, the people’s excess of money doesn’t seem to be going as far as it once did; everything costs more now and, ultimately, nobody is any better off than they were six months ago.

With people again struggling, this misguided and terribly short-sighted political leader instructs the Reserve Bank to print more money and prepares the people for another cash injection.

Few months later, money comes in, people are elated; prices go up, everything costs more, new money becomes devalued, people are again demanding wage increases.

A short time later, precipitated by yet another Government-imposed minimum wage increase, wages across all sectors are increased; retailers are forced to raise the cost of commodities to cover their increased wage bill while, of course, producers are also suffering under the burden of increased expenses, so now, everybody is paying more for everything and again demanding more money.

Meantime, official inflation figures are out of control.

Interest rates have become similarly high and even house prices are increasing steeply; despite exorbitant interest rates, financially astute people can appreciate, with national inflation having risen to over 4%, money in the bank is rapidly losing value thus property investment is the only prudent option.

The above (strictly hypothetical) scenario will only deteriorate, leaving the above nation in financial disrepair; yet there is a solution.

Rather than behaving like a short-sighted ignoramus and, in the hope of reducing national poverty, doing something as misguided as printing more money or worse, mandating repeated minimum wage increases, which will only result in inflation thus the devastation of a nation’s economy, if a government genuinely wants to eliminate poverty it needs to shift its focus to domestic business; it needs to support the prosperity of those businesses and remove the obstructions impeding a business’s success.

The intention here is to gradually restore or to boost a nation’s economy which will, in turn, increase overall national wealth; in the future every other sector will benefit from a prospering business sector – health, education, transport etc – without lifting inflation terribly.

Thriving local business leads to stoic consumer confidence resulting in financial fluidity and a strong stock market; as any competent financier will agree, ‘A healthy stock market is a healthy economy’.

The National party have always employed the above strategy, it’s just that many of New Zealand’s voting public appear more interested in immediate results, subscribing to the old Labour strategy of money-in-pockets now; the above is a long-term project which John Key was in the process of accomplishing – global recession notwithstanding – when he stepped down to be succeed by the Labour party.

The other facet to this issue is that in New Zealand we have a comparatively small population (less custom per capita) of whom, over half expect to be wealthier than the rest; do the math, that does not compute.

This next bit’s important, so please pay attention.

Simply raising prices to make more money than the rest is never going to lead to success; money needs to be earned – if you are receiving more for doing no more, you are doing nothing but contributing to inflation.

Ultimately, anyone who claims that ‘printing more money’ is the best way to remedy poverty, clearly has not given the issue enough thought.

…I should really get some sleep now.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Prinda Money

Photography by Ian Flate/E C’Namy

March 2020, while I was making my way in Vietnam, in New Zealand you were experiencing your first nationwide ‘lockdown’ and with that, so began the COVID viral lingo.

From my residence in Buon Ma Thuot, Dak Lak, central_Vietnam, via my stalwart HP laptop, plumbed into Vietnamese WIFI, channelling ROVA, streaming New Zealand Rock Radio, during the months of March and April 2020, from what I was hearing, somebody had overhauled the English language and, from across the world in my COVID-free paradise of Buon Ma Thuot, seemingly, I had been left unaware of this.

March, April 2020, despite advertising throughout my adopted Vietnamese town ‘English Lessons from a Native English Speaker’, regarding the supposedly Kiwi radio broadcasts I was receiving, it felt almost as though I was tuning into a different language.

Never could I recall hearing groups of people referred to as ‘clusters’, or a group’s personal space classified as a ‘bubble’, or how, if not part of that cluster’s bubble, one must practice ‘social distancing’, use ‘hand-sanitiser’, ‘wear a mask’, or sometimes even ‘full PPE’.

The ‘global pandemic’ initially named ‘Coronavirus’, or ‘Corona’, was presently followed by ‘COVID-19’ or ‘COVID’ for short, before earning the decidedly less official title ‘Covid’, which was followed by a sobriquet of unnerving familiarity ‘the virus’; the virus inspired a unique vernacular, probably more akin to ‘epidemiologists’ and ‘virologists’ or people – ‘infected’, ‘symptomatic’, ‘asymptomatic’, or otherwise – languishing in ‘managed isolation’ or ‘quarantine’ (later to be given the trendy pseudo-espionage abbreviation, ‘MIQ’, not to be mistaken with ‘QR codes’ with which everyone in your bubble needs to have ‘scanned in’).

As a global populous, during these unprecedented times, most of us had little trouble adhering to a set of similarly unprecedented standards; alas ‘cases of COVID’ have fluctuated with ‘new waves’ caused by ‘outbreaks’ of ‘community transmission’ which often leads to ‘isolation’ then sometimes ‘lockdown protests’ from people who are not ‘essential workers’ resulting in higher ‘case numbers’ at the ‘testing station’.

With ‘border closures’ in effect, the ‘travel bubble’ bursting repeatedly, and ‘MIQ spots’ running short, if nothing else, COVID-19 has produced a rapidly changing, always interesting and often entertaining, dialect.

Coronavirus, Corona, COVID-19, COVID, Covid; Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and now the ‘Delta variant’ has exemplified ‘viral evolution’, and now the ‘Pfizer vaccine’ might be our best hope of returning to normalcy, as we await the ‘vaccine rollout’.

Think about it, now is the only time one can utter the words freely and without offering affront – ‘get vaccinated’.

What a time to be alive.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Wad A Tame

Photography by Toby Alive

In fifteen years, when the bulk of New Zealand’s transportation is powered by electricity, what’s going to happen – how’s it all going to work?

New Zealand has a multitude of renewable sources from which to generate electricity – wind, solar, hydro, geo, bio – and through these we currently have over 100 power stations around the nation yet, be it through ‘low lake levels’, ‘excess usage’, ‘nationwide shortage’, or some other tenuous reason, at some point each year, without fail every year, power companies claim ‘insufficient generation’ and through this, they justify raising electricity prices to ridiculous levels.

The above might suggest there is a shortage of electricity being generated around New Zealand but, here’s the thing, in no way can this be the case; having seen the facts and studied the figures, across our existing 100-plus power stations and over the previously stated methods of generation, even if our hydrogeneration fell to half its usual megawatt output (for example, in an unprecedented nationwide drought event), at least on paper, there would still be sufficient megawatt generation to balance this shortfall through wind, geo, bio, and solar.

Why, then; how can power companies claim electricity ‘shortage’, and thus charge consumers higher rates, when there is no shortage?

Aha, this issue is more sinister than it first appears.

Not so long ago (presumably trying to slide by unseen behind the veil of the nation’s COVID concerns), major New Zealand power stations were found to be ‘spilling water’ from their reservoirs, claiming ‘low lake levels’ then, obviously, they were charging consumers higher electricity prices; this patently unscrupulous act is indicative of a rapacious sector that clearly requires greater Government regulation and, in the future, that requirement for regulation is only going to grow.

This is the control we have already afforded New Zealand’s electrical industry and, in fifteen years, when the nation becomes doubly reliant on electricity, what do we think is going to happen?

Like oil companies and the fuel prices they dictate across the nation (the world), we are unwittingly preparing to give New Zealand’s utilities that same power; ten to fifteen years’ time, sure, our petrol bills will have reduced but, guaranteed, Kiwis will be paying double, maybe triple, even maybe an exponentially increased cost per electrical unit.

To the above question, ‘how is it going to work?’, this is how it’s going to work; much as they like to push the ‘friendly’ image, power companies are not your buddy, they are businesses, and they will screw out of you as much money as they can for as little effort as possible.

Fifteen years in the future, once we have afforded our utilities the power to essentially dictate people’s finances through electricity prices, if that electrical dictatorship is not heavily regulated by the Government, consumers can be certain, these rapacious power companies are going to continually push up prices until what you are paying to charge your car overnight, will be little different to pulling up at a petrol station forecourt throughout the day.

Turns out the New Zealand electrical grid does have adequate generation capacity, it can produce sufficient megawatts to keep its people powered up for years to come; our utilities just need to utilise that capacity and not be duplicitous about it.

Kiwis need to keep in mind, the New Zealand Government wants us to drive EVs to save our world, not to save our dollars.

Utilities are big businesses, high profit, very high taxes.

Amid a Socialist Empire, Government always wins.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Holden Bach

Photography by Max Power

 

 

2013 I was running the pseudonym ‘Mit Reklaw’ and had about 12 followers; skip forward to 2021 and Tim Walker has over 1000.

Couple of instalments ago I wrote a lengthy piece combining two of my more learned topics – politics and farming in New Zealand.

Compare that to, months prior, I undertook extensive research into the soulless Jehovah’s Witness religious movement then produced a series of articles which, I believed, outlined the deplorable nature of this, supposedly charitable, Christian organisation.

My recent instalment was a change-up, more of a piss-take, looking at the sometimes loveable but usually irritating, well-intentioned but foolishly compassionate, also eco-orientated-to-the-point-of-internal-combustion, Kiwi Eco-warrior; while the aforementioned documentation was written tongue-in-cheek, I do wonder how many tongues were jestingly thrust into cheeks and how many brows were furrowed over eyes in distaste.

The point is I have developed/was born with the ability to write with relative coherency over an eclectic spectrum of topics but, as opposed to 2013 and my 12 followers where I believed I was sufficiently familiar with each of my readers to enable me to tailor my eloquence into what I supposed was relatable wordplay, nowadays, such is the vastness of my demographic, I essentially have no idea what the people want me to write thus, regarding choice of topic, I often find myself floundering (exhibit ‘A’).

Few months back, under subtle encouragement from Facebook, I published a plea ‘Feedback is appreciated…’ and, although I am sure it was viewed by many, there was in fact only one reader who took the time to deliver any of the besought ‘feedback’ (incidentally, this one reader was a constituent of my original 12 so, you know, what is it they say, quality not…), which was awesome, but I feel I was already aware of the bulk of the feedback this reader proffered; it’s the other 987-plus who I don’t know, the preferences of whom I would be interested to know.

Everybody has their own idea of what makes entertaining reading, engaging topics, and captivating candour; a lot like politics, one decision will never please everybody, whatever new initiative Prime Minister Ardern unleashes upon the nation is never going to be embraced by everyone, not unless ‘everyone’ is a single mother living in Auckland.

Oh, I’m sorry, I expected most people would have long given up reading so, you know, the above inflammatory statement wouldn’t have been picked up by anyone who cared enough to formally condemn the point, querying if that kind of slur is covered by the Freedom of Expression clause in New Zealand’s Bill of Rights act, 1990, and all that.

Huh, here is the thing about Freedom of Speech, which modern-day Democracy fights so hard to protect as though those three words still stand for something, you’re still only free to say it providing it doesn’t offend anyone, therefore, given the ease with which modern-day people take offence…

In a statement regarding appearance, intellect, race, religion, creed, gender, sexual orientation, living preferences, most people will take a deliberate moment to consider if what has been said might in some way maybe have the potential to upset them or someone hypothetically related to them; surely though, if it doesn’t cause unavoidable offence, why would anyone take offence?

…It’s really no liberty at all.

We all have our preferences.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Prof R Rinse

Photography by Noah Liberty