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Moving away from Crucial for a moment.
I’ve been reading way to much glee and enthusiasm from people keen to use this crisis to rework the economy to be more in line with their political leanings.
Pointing at businesses saying “see, it’s all broken, tear it all down”
Take away customers, then of course a business will fail. It’s a testament to how resilient they are that they so many have been able to survive for six months in this stupid system where the government picks the winners.
Only a matter of time though, a few lockdowns caused by an incompetent border policy and we are going to see more gone.
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@canefan said in NZ Politics:
Universities might be next
Universities already hard hit. I have heard they are actively looking at selling land to shore up income, due to lack of overseas enrolments. Seriously people, it's tough out there, and it's only the start of the downturn. Things will get much worse before they get better.
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@nzzp said in NZ Politics:
@canefan said in NZ Politics:
Universities might be next
Universities already hard hit. I have heard they are actively looking at selling land to shore up income, due to lack of overseas enrolments. Seriously people, it's tough out there, and it's only the start of the downturn. Things will get much worse before they get better.
No overseas students next year unis are suffering big time. And all the businesses that depend on them, such as landlords, and service businesses nearby are in trouble. There has to be a way to get these kids in
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The talk about SMEs on the edge pre covid is a bit disappointing. They can be turned around and weren't all doomed to fail in a recession. Mine was a breakeven type enterprise when I got it a couple of years ago. It is now profitable and we have added one staff member. It's about doing things differently not necessarily a bad business model that was going broke.
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@Snowy said in NZ Politics:
The talk about SMEs on the edge pre covid is a bit disappointing. They can be turned around and weren't all doomed to fail in a recession. Mine was a breakeven type enterprise when I got it a couple of years ago. It is now profitable and we have added one staff member. It's about doing things differently not necessarily a bad business model that was going broke.
The comment wasn't meant to be a catch all that referred to all SMEs or a criticism of business acumen. It was more about how some business models served a purpose but were unlikely to sustain much of a hit.
The comment in full context was an attempt to open a discussion on whether businesses that are only viable on low wages are actually as valuable to the economy as they are made out to be. -
There is some truth in most of what has been said above.
There were companies that were obviously on a knife edge already, and the lockdown was the tipping point - was it Burger King and another large business that went into receivership in the first week?
I think other organisations have used this as a chance to do restructures, citing Covid as the reason, when in fact it has just been an opportunity (Tower is one such company)
I know of plenty of businesses that have started post Covid, people buying businesses that were and still are profitable post Covid (owners just had enough of the stress) I also know of ones who have struggled and continue to, while some have had thier t/o increase despite lockdown, one of these was in hospitality too.
It is a shit storm all round.
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@Crucial said in NZ Politics:
The comment in full context was an attempt to open a discussion on whether businesses that are only viable on low wages are actually as valuable to the economy as they are made out to be.
I guess the alternative is mass unemployment, so there must be some value there? I don't know what the "dole" is these days but it must be lower than minimum wage, so we still need those businesses. People earn more, lives are more rewarding, social interaction, etc.
I only have one staff member on minimum wage, the rest are well above it already, so it doesn't affect me much. An extra holiday would, extra sick days would (for the one youngster on minimum wage that abuses it).
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1/3 of businesses fail in the first two years so COVID is definitely going to amplify that. Especially as many of the businesses that fail do so because of poor cash flow rather than a poor business model.
There are some businesses that are doing really well - even some in the sectors supposedly hard hit like hospo. But most are suffering to some extent and it's going to get worse, much worse for many.
When politicians talk the big numbers and congratulate themselves that unemployment is only 7% that is ignoring the human tragedies behind the numbers Hundreds of thousands doing it really tough. Treasury don't forecast unemployment to peak until Q3 next year and it doesn't start to slowly decline again until the end of 2022.
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@canefan that is interesting given the teaching shortages many areas have. So there are a lot of jobs around even if our international market is closed/constrained for a time. Those schools are likely to relax their zoning (if they have it) to attract more local students, so that's going to impact local schools who could lose kids to 'fancier' schools nearby.
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@dogmeat said in NZ Politics:
1/3 of businesses fail in the first two years so COVID is definitely going to amplify that. Especially as many of the businesses that fail do so because of poor cash flow rather than a poor business model.
Absolutely this. Look at Amazon, they were well funded and the business model was sound.
I was also fortunate that I could fund the lean times, in cash flow without the debt that will cripple you - even with low interest rates.
As @dogmeat says 7% unemployment, just wait for a while...
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So a brief looks shows more than 77,000 people have now taken out some form of income support benefit since the pandemic began. Almost 200,000 getting the wage subsidy (which will end).
Those are awful numbers. The long term effects on NZ will last for many, many years.
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@Kirwan said in NZ Politics:
Moving away from Crucial for a moment.
I’ve been reading way to much glee and enthusiasm from people keen to use this crisis to rework the economy to be more in line with their political leanings.
Pointing at businesses saying “see, it’s all broken, tear it all down”
Take away customers, then of course a business will fail. It’s a testament to how resilient they are that they so many have been able to survive for six months in this stupid system where the government picks the winners.
Only a matter of time though, a few lockdowns caused by an incompetent border policy and we are going to see more gone.
I get that many businesses fail, but if there's going to be an assertion that most of the businesses that have closed were going to soon anyway, I'd like to see some evidence for that. Just because a business runs tight margins doesn't mean they are destined to fail, and why should they be expected to take a hit as big as a draconian lockdown where the government sends all of their customers to their big corporate competitors? It's been so unfair on small business owners it's not even funny, my heart genuinely breaks for them.
Also worth bearing in mind many of the business owners don't actually want to turn into massive companies. Their business is their passion and they are perfectly happy with the income it generates to sustain their lives already. Owning a business is not solely about making as much money as you possibly can, for many it is their baby and having it ripped away from them due to government lockdowns is just heartbreaking.
Watching the debate it really looked like Adern was completely out of touch with the pain NZers are feeling at the moment.
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@No-Quarter said in NZ Politics:
@Kirwan said in NZ Politics:
Moving away from Crucial for a moment.
I’ve been reading way to much glee and enthusiasm from people keen to use this crisis to rework the economy to be more in line with their political leanings.
Pointing at businesses saying “see, it’s all broken, tear it all down”
Take away customers, then of course a business will fail. It’s a testament to how resilient they are that they so many have been able to survive for six months in this stupid system where the government picks the winners.
Only a matter of time though, a few lockdowns caused by an incompetent border policy and we are going to see more gone.
I get that many businesses fail, but if there's going to be an assertion that most of the businesses that have closed were going to soon anyway, I'd like to see some evidence for that. Just because a business runs tight margins doesn't mean they are destined to fail, and why should they be expected to take a hit as big as a draconian lockdown where the government sends all of their customers to their big corporate competitors? It's been so unfair on small business owners it's not even funny, my heart genuinely breaks for them.
Also worth bearing in mind many of the business owners don't actually want to turn into massive companies. Their business is their passion and they are perfectly happy with the income it generates to sustain their lives already. Owning a business is not solely about making as much money as you possibly can, for many it is their baby and having it ripped away from them due to government lockdowns is just heartbreaking.
Watching the debate it really looked like Adern was completely out of touch with the pain NZers are feeling at the moment.
I agree with that last statement.
I would say that if the tables were turned she would be able to turn on the empathy tap big time and make Collins look hard.
She has spent so long having to make dispassionate decisions around alot of this (or at least being continually presented with dispassionate information) that it has placed her in the 'out of touch' basket -
@Crucial said in NZ Politics:
@No-Quarter said in NZ Politics:
@Kirwan said in NZ Politics:
Moving away from Crucial for a moment.
I’ve been reading way to much glee and enthusiasm from people keen to use this crisis to rework the economy to be more in line with their political leanings.
Pointing at businesses saying “see, it’s all broken, tear it all down”
Take away customers, then of course a business will fail. It’s a testament to how resilient they are that they so many have been able to survive for six months in this stupid system where the government picks the winners.
Only a matter of time though, a few lockdowns caused by an incompetent border policy and we are going to see more gone.
I get that many businesses fail, but if there's going to be an assertion that most of the businesses that have closed were going to soon anyway, I'd like to see some evidence for that. Just because a business runs tight margins doesn't mean they are destined to fail, and why should they be expected to take a hit as big as a draconian lockdown where the government sends all of their customers to their big corporate competitors? It's been so unfair on small business owners it's not even funny, my heart genuinely breaks for them.
Also worth bearing in mind many of the business owners don't actually want to turn into massive companies. Their business is their passion and they are perfectly happy with the income it generates to sustain their lives already. Owning a business is not solely about making as much money as you possibly can, for many it is their baby and having it ripped away from them due to government lockdowns is just heartbreaking.
Watching the debate it really looked like Adern was completely out of touch with the pain NZers are feeling at the moment.
I agree with that last statement.
I would say that if the tables were turned she would be able to turn on the empathy tap big time and make Collins look hard.
She has spent so long having to make dispassionate decisions around alot of this (or at least being continually presented with dispassionate information) that it has placed her in the 'out of touch' basketShe should be playing with waitresses’ ponytails and practicing her 3-way handshakes like normal Prime Ministers.
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@canefan said in NZ Politics:
@nzzp said in NZ Politics:
@canefan said in NZ Politics:
Universities might be next
Universities already hard hit. I have heard they are actively looking at selling land to shore up income, due to lack of overseas enrolments. Seriously people, it's tough out there, and it's only the start of the downturn. Things will get much worse before they get better.
No overseas students next year unis are suffering big time. And all the businesses that depend on them, such as landlords, and service businesses nearby are in trouble. There has to be a way to get these kids in
Oddly enough, UK universities have had record overseas enrolments for the new academic year, which started in September.
NZ Politics