Chinese Investors spending up big in NZ

[Wayne]

If pedantry is your desire, yes, I suppose so.

maybe you are right because you said it - my bad.

[Perry]

A Common Logical Fallacy

It is always a worry when some people seek to suppress discussion of cogent
topics of concern by branding the person as racist or the topic as xenophobic.

[TheLiberalLeft]

It's also a concern when a person says something blatantly racist, is called to task, then the caller is then shot down for doing so, accused of suppressing the argument.

Accusations of racism when the accusation is clear cut and obvious is not political correctness.

[PC]

Have the Chinese discovered Tokoroa yet?
Might be time for running a few seminars in Mandarin!

[muppet]

Have the Chinese discovered Tokoroa yet?

Yep. But a longer message is required.

[Wayne]

It's also a concern when a person says something blatantly racist, is called to task, then the caller is then shot down for doing so, accused of suppressing the argument.

Accusations of racism when the accusation is clear cut and obvious is not political correctness.

most of the problem is comments around the edges of blatant. Not many comments are blatently racist IMHO

[mortgage broker]

I think we need all the investment we can get right now, in farms and other productive industries. I don't think now is the time to worry about inflating values, every time I see a deal with farm or commercial property in it, the prices have been heading south. I would describe some areas as stagnant almost crashing, outside of the main city centers.

[Bulldog]

I wouldn't suggest that the views expressed are racist or xenophobic. Some of the concern centres on the flow on effect this will have on property prices. If it does, so be it, most investor's stock will increase in value anyway, posssibly even rental returns.

Not all doom & gloom however, some of you may remember the concerns of being swamped by Chinese in Howick in the late 80s, early 90s. What did happen was that a lot of savvy developers made huge profits & good on them for seizing the opportunity.

As a migrant myself, I must admit to having specs that are a bit more rose coloured than the average Kiwi. I am a minor shareholder in a local business that suffered through the recession, lost clients & suffered a huge drain on cashflow when our Chch branch was damaged in the earthquake. The opportunity this Chinese investment presents is too attractive to us to ignore. We kept all our staff (50+) through the recession, earthquake by foregoing dividends so are a bit "hungry" at present. We have been doing some work "pro-bono" for a group that are talking to the Chinese, we can really do with some cash injection as can many small NZ businesses like us.

I'm pretty sure that the Chinese investment will have a positive effect on the job market, the economy as a whole & on rental returns.

[donna]

We're not going to be able to stop a giant like China - they will get what they want either directly or indirectly and NZ will hopefully do nicely out of any investments made here (just like Australia) however there's talk of a Chinese Sub Prime market crash as they do as USA do etc over time i.e. debt levels beyond reasonable. (see my link in my first post in this thread to the 'china effect').

[Perry]

And the interest/dividends on all that foreign
investment will go just where, I wonder?

[speights boy]

And the interest/dividends on all that foreign
investment will go just where, I wonder?

And when we have sold all our food producing land to foreigners, they won't have to bother stripping the supermarket shelves.

Busloads of tourists swoop on baby milk

The formula is sold at a profit to Chinese parents worried about contamination in their locally-made formula, and shortages have deprived many New Zealand mothers.

Shoppers at the Countdown supermarket near Auckland Airport said busloads of visitors would arrive weekly to buy formula.
Led by a tour guide, groups of about 40 tourists took their shopping baskets straight to the baby section and "literally stripped the shelves of all baby formula within minutes", said a regular shopper, Steve Marshall.

"Luckily for me my daughter has just got off formula, but I feel sorry for anyone living nearby that would need to make an emergency trip to the supermarket," Mr Marshall said.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10720286

[speights boy]

Ai Weiwei's detention suggests the bad old days are returning in China

A brutal crackdown on dissenters seems to signal a return to totalitarian repression, says Peter Foster.

The knock on the door was a long time coming, but it seems that Ai Weiwei's luck has finally run out.
On Sunday morning, the Chinese artist – whose tiny porcelain sunflower seeds have filled Tate Modern's Turbine Hall for the past six months – was about to board a flight to Hong Kong for a business trip, when he was stopped by officials.
Simultaneously, teams of police raided his studio-cum-home in north-east Beijing, removing computers and documents. No one has heard from him since.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8430169/Ai-Weiweis-detention-suggests-the-bad-old-days-are-returning-in-China.html

[Perry]

No Wonder Chairman Mao's Mates Have So Much to Invest

Three years slave labour for "Illegally petitioning" central
government about corruption?

Chinese Prisoners Forced to Play Online Games

27 May 2011

A Chinese labour camp detainee says that after days of manual labour
he would spend nights ‘gold farming’ in online games. Liu Dali* was a
prisoner at the Jixi labour camp in north-east China, and spent his
days breaking rocks and digging trenches in the open cast coalmine. At
night he would slay demons, battle goblins and cast spells – to build
up online gaming credits that prison guards would then trade for real money.

Liu, a 54-year-old former prison guard who was jailed for three years
in 2004 for "illegally petitioning" the central government about
corruption in his hometown, told the Guardian prison bosses made more
money from the games than off the manual labour. He says there were
300 prisoners playing games in 12 hour shifts.

“I heard [the guards] say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb (around NZD
$1000) a day. We didn't see any of the money. The computers were never
turned off." While in the labour camp Liu worked in the mines, carved
chopsticks and toothpicks out of planks of wood until his hands were
raw, and assembled car seat covers for export.

Wonder if any of those car seat covers are in Tweedle Key's BMW?

As for the socialists . . .



Nothing? Well, actually . . . , got any slave labour dosh to invest?

[damage]

I think we need all the investment we can get right now, in farms and other productive industries. I don't think now is the time to worry about inflating values, every time I see a deal with farm or commercial property in it, the prices have been heading south. I would describe some areas as stagnant almost crashing, outside of the main city centers.

We should be pleased that prices are stablising or heading south and we should not pleased that China is planning on spending big here. In the longer term all the returns on the money invested will just disappear offshore.
We keep celebrating how well the farmers are doing with their massive payouts, shame most of the pay out pays overseas interest debt.

[Davo36]

Perry, I read a book some years ago called Grass Soup. It was written by a guy who had had 2 long stints in Chinese labour camps. He was a journalist who said the wrong things.

These labour camps are basically just like concentration camps. There are around 10 million people in them at any one time in China - even today I think. People are routinely worked and starved to death.

And so yes, when we buy cheap Chinese goods, they may well be made with a zero labour cost. Not just low wages, but actual indentured labour. And this is the country we have a free trade agreement with.