I admit, I have occasionally given Bernard Hickey a bit of a hard time, although not for a long, long time.  Bernard is a fabulous marketer who drives enormous amounts of traffic to his website, which is how he makes money and good on him.  HE does this by carefully manicuring his profile and often saying things to get people annoyed enough to comment.  People like me I guess .

I do laugh sometimes at his reputation as a property oracle however as he seems to be consistently anti property and as far as I can tell based on his writings, has no or little actual experience in property.

Anyway his article in the Herald LINK is without doubt the funniest thing I have ever read from a commentator.  At first I thought it must have been a spoof but apparently he really wrote it.

His main points, (and my comments) are as follows:

~  A capital gains tax is not economically bad. (Because somehow he knows?)

~  This property boom created a generation of wealthy farm owners. (A global economic bull market had nothing to do with it?)

~  This property boom created a legacy of foreign debt. (Previous Government and banking policy had nothing to do with it)

~  This boom drove house prices beyond the reach of young people. (Low wages have nothing to do with it)

~  John Key has no real intention of addressing the structural imbalance that is killing our economy. ( BH knows better than the PM I’m sure)

~  Because of the collapse of finance companies and the slide in bank deposit rates, investors buy houses to make tax-free capital gains. (Yes we were all sitting there waiting for those 2 events before we bought any more houses because money was so much easier to get after the finance industry collapsed.   Maybe he was really drunk when he wrote that one?)

~  House prices are rising again because Key ruled out a capital gains tax or land tax. (Supply and demand curves are evil dreams created by National party supporters)

~  The property boom caused the currency to rise from US70c to US83c. ( Pardon? Hello? )

~  Because Key won’t introduce CGT he is anti young people. (ROFL)

~  Key is not interested in the people; of New Zealand, only property owners and old people. ( Yes he fancies grannies all over the country)

~  Labour’s decision should be welcomed but it doesn’t go far enough. ( No of course not, if you hate National, anything Labour suggests must be good right?)

~  We should have land tax as well. (And old age tax and no tax for young people so they stay here)

~ If we don’t become more socialist, communist or any other way of being more left lots of  young person will leave New Zealand. ( You could lead the way BH and show them how to leave  )

I am afraid I just can’t stop laughing long enough to say much more about this, maybe BH is getting ready to take over the Greens?

Get Going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus