Honestly I can’t remember if anything interesting happened recently. I had a holiday 😆. We updated to the latest version, Lemmy 0.19.3. @BlueEtherdislocated his shoulder. I think some stuff happened in the news 🤷
ended up spending all week in Waikato waiting on CT then MRI to find out if they would operate on it, only to have the surgery put off today at lunchtime and then sent home foe the weekend - will get a date on monday when they will glue me all bac together.
Running damage:
Dislocated shoulder twice in under 3 days, second time was just turning over in bed
fractured collarbone
bankart lesion/fracture
torn rotator cuff
Kids, have someone stabilise you ladder - they can f you good
Another day resting on the bed. Hopefully tomorrow I will get to go outside and see how my swan plants did when I was away. From the glimpse of it I saw the other night, they one grow really high!!! :)
The good news is MSD have silently reinstated my disability allowance. The bad news is there is no back pay, and the last letter I had from them was the one from back when they randomly cancelled it. I wish I had more ability to sort it out, but I might have to just take the hit on this one.
Yes, theoretically there are “advocates” from grassroots charities, but I think up here they must only be for much bigger stuff (like people who are made homeless or having their kids benefit taken and can’t feed them etc).
I’ve never been able to get an advocate here for my issues, despite asking Citizens Advice and the legal aid people, and phoning the Auckland poverty action for recs. And to be honest I wouldn’t for something like this when there are people who need it much more.
Oh right, there are so many people having major issues with WINZ that there aren’t any advocates left for the ones having more ‘minor’ problems. What’s that saying, “The measure of a civilization is how it treats its weakest” or something.
I like to think that’s not the case. Most people are not bad people, and don’t wish harm on others. However, there is power in how things are presented, and certain groups (including certain political groups) present beneficiaries in a certain way. As a mob, people will have certain opinions, but if they knew the individuals, their opinions would be quite different. I think that’s a good reason not to take things personally, despite what people may say about beneficiaries as a group.
One reason (of many) why I want a UBI. They reckon breakfast clubs (free breakfast at school) can risk missing the kids that need it most, because kids don’t want other kids to know they need to go there to get breakfast. More effective is giving everyone breakfast, so no one feels like they are the odd one out.
This is one of the reasons why I like KidsCan, when they give out raincoats etc everyone in the class gets one.
I have some reservations about UBI because it seems to me that income inequality is a larger driver of poverty in a monetarist system and it might just prove inflationary. I’d like to see data from long-term trials. (On a personal level it would be better for me I think, but that’s not enough to go on).
I don’t think there are trials outside short term, small group studies. One of the reasons I want it so badly!
In my mind, you adjust taxes to offset the gain of cash from the UBi, with an intention of leaving everyone about even. This way it shouldn’t be too inflationary, if at all.
I also question whether inflation that’s driven by handing everyone money equally would actually drive inequality, as opposed to the normal process which is for the businesses to increase prices and give the average person nothing.
After having some post stolen I’m putting up a 4g security camera later on when it cools down. Last year, someone knicked our neighbours’ post box. It had to be 4g as the mailboxes are about 400m from the house.
That’s cool. I’d also wonder if it not being visible makes it less effective (you don’t really want to catch someone stealing your post, you want them to not steal your post to start with). I’m wondering if a duel approach would help. Hidden real camera up in the tree, cheap fake plastic camera on a pole or something where it’s visible but not close enough that people can tell it’s fake.
Though I’m no expert, I live in a quiet street where packages can stay on the doorstep in view from the street all day and I’ve never had an issue
Also what I was thinking. There’s an honesty box setup from when they used to sell avocados, and there was a fake camera there so I was going to put it back for this exact reason.
House went on the market this week and had first open home today. Really not looking forward to spending every Saturday and Sunday morning cleaning/tidying and then being out all day at open homes.
That’s the dream but probably not reality. We’ve noticed a lot of places being relisted after their auction dates so assume there’s a high volume being passed in.
Hopefully we’re a bit more realistic. The council was smoking something when they did the last RV and our minimum is about 25% lower than the valuation.
The council valuation doesn’t mean much. They don’t care if it’s accurate, the idea is the make sure that the relative value compared to other houses is right. If everything is over or under valued, it doesn’t matter for rates purposes.
Also, a year ago a very high proportion of auctions were closing without meeting reserve, and even without any bids at all. As a buyer, I don’t like auctions and have never bought at one. I want to put in conditional offers so I don’t waste my time.
I know auctions are more popular in Auckland but I avoid them when I see them.
Fully agree that the CV doesn’t mean anything but a lot of people seem to cling to it. We know our place isn’t that great, was ok as a first home and that’s probably who it’ll go to assuming we get any offers.
We somehow managed to pick our place up at auction but it was a nightmare as we had to try and coordinate the KiwiSaver first home withdrawal and the home start grant from housing nz. We’re pretty much skipping anything that’s advertised for auction as you can burn through cash quickly trying to get building reports and valuations only to miss out on the day.
Fully agree that the CV doesn’t mean anything but a lot of people seem to cling to it.
If I was looking at buying a house, I’d tell the agent “oh you’re expecting that much! But the CV is only XXX”, but when it came down to it, if the amount I was offering seemed too high then I’d just make a registered valuation a condition, it wouldn’t put me off.
We somehow managed to pick our place up at auction but it was a nightmare as we had to try and coordinate the KiwiSaver first home withdrawal and the home start grant from housing nz. We’re pretty much skipping anything that’s advertised for auction as you can burn through cash quickly trying to get building reports and valuations only to miss out on the day.
Exactly! Was talking to a friend who owns zero houses but has been looking for a while, and they were saying they had a company they normally use for building reports. I was a bit surprised they had got so many reports and not bought any houses, I’ve never got a building report done on a house we were looking at buying until after a conditional offer had been accepted, otherwise it’s an awful lot of money for nothing.
I’ve had a busy day at work, though it should taper off this afternoon.
Also, last night my wife and I won Pandemic on the hardest difficulty (vanilla, 6 epidemic cards, one role each). It’s the first time we’ve tried it, last week we lost 2/3 on the normal difficulty. I think the secret this week was to actually pay attention to your super powers and the cards in your hand.
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