Will the last person leaving Wellington please turn out the lights?

Commercial vacancies are at their highest in Wellington since the early 1990s, when the city was still reeling from the fallout of the 1987 sharemarket crash, and since then there's been considerable head office and industrial drift to NZ's largest city, Auckland, where most of the big jumbo jets land.

The public sector purge has had a noticeable divider effect on Wellington, and making matters worse is the jump in insurance premiums following the Christchurch earthquakes, which has hit many inner city residents and businesses in the pocket. The increased focus on Auckland's super-city status and the Christchurch rebuild have also drawn attention away from Wellington. Diversification into the film, arts, technology and finance sectors has picked up some of the slack, but even then, more jobs have still been lost than created.

And despite what the Government would have us believe, the public sector purge has proven to be false economy, and the money supposedly saved has instead been channelled towards a small number of expensive private consultants who are basically paid to say what the Government wants to hear. It goes to show the cuts aren't so much about returning to surplus, but more about blatant anti-intellectualism and Ministry of Truth-iness.

To add insult to injury, our normally optimistic (or should that be Stepfordish) PM John Key remarked that Wellington was a "dying city" and that he "didn't know how to turn it around". While Wellington is undoubtedly fighting an uphill battle, it's hardly dying by any means. Even Auckland's public figures thought the remarks were bollocks. By the sounds of it, he's never been to a properly dying city like Detroit, more of which will be mentioned below.

Working in a bricks-and-mortar based retail and services company right now, I can very much sense the entire sector is under assault on multiple fronts.

• Shopping malls and big box retailers, which have considerable funds, often foreign and/or private equity, to draw upon.
• Online resellers, who don't have to pay commercial rents.
• Commercial rents rising faster than inflation, which have been driven up in large part by rent-seeking insurers repackaged as 'quake insurance' and leaky building claims.
• The industry has seen numerous closures in recent years, and those companies that remain in business are chasing a mature market.
• And of course, the public sector cuts which have made people in the region a lot more cautious overall with their wallets.

Since we can't compete on price alone, we have attempted to make up for it with proper customer service,  and diversifying what we sell and do. Even then, it's an uphill battle against a flat customer base. And if worst comes to worst, going back to study towards a future-proofed qualification in a sector with skills shortages increasingly looks an option, even though I've gotten my fingers burnt to ashes before.

Many cities have lived and died on a single dominant industry, and ghost towns near abandoned mines are just one example. Take the case of two major American cities, Seattle and Detroit. Both cities made it big as heavy industry outposts, in aerospace and motor vehicles respectively. Both cities stagnated in the 1970s as the major companies they depended on hit the rocks. U-Haul reported that it ran out of trailers because of the sheer numbers of people moving out of Seattle following the Boeing Bust, and Detroit was reeling from the 1967 riots and the Big Three facing foreign competition and moving more of its operations out of Detroit.

Yet Seattle eventually bounced back, while Detroit remains in the doldrums to this day. It helped that Seattle always had a more diverse economic base than Detroit, and Boeing had a higher proportion of highly educated workers than the Big Three. It also helped that a young man named Bill Gates moved a small company called Microsoft to Seattle's outskirts in 1979, which much of Seattle's know-how would go on to work for. And this know-how in turn fostered the likes of Amazon.com, Valve Software, and Nintendo of America. By contrast, industrial giants like Boeing and the Big Three had very limited spin-off effect.

Closer to home, the late science professor Paul Callaghan had a vision of New Zealand as 'a place where talent wants to live'. Right now, we seem to be a place where talent wants to leave, and where making it big is largely about who you know instead of what you know - the sign of a patronage economy. PolarBearFarm founder Layton Duncan's move to Melbourne is a microcosm of why such talent is leaving. Pegasus Mail creator David Harris - a favourite son of Dunedin - warned 10 years ago that it would happen. Recent deals like that of the Sky City pokies-for-convention-centre deal give the impression that the nation is being run from a golf cart in a North Shore country club, or from the back seat of a Rolls-Royce.

With every man and his dog moving to Auckland for work, the city is experiencing a shortage of housing which the Auckland Mayor Len Brown and Environment Minister Nick Smith are locking horns over - Mayor Brown wants Auckland to build taller, while Minister Smith wants Auckland to build fatter. It's an issue that major cities the world over are grappling with, and in NZ it has the added layer of political polarisation and a powerful property speculator lobby.

One obvious solution to Auckland's housing shortage is to foster regional development, which went out of fashion during the Rogernomics reforms of the 1980s. Another is a longer airport runway for Wellington, which local business leaders cite as the biggest roadblock to Wellington footing it with Auckland. The big challenge would be how to finance it. So far, the city council and Wellington Airport have taken the first few steps.

Despite the gloom pervading Wellington right now, I refuse to give in to the temptation to up sticks and move to Auckland, where the glamour jobs supposedly are. While Auckland is NZ's best hope for a global city, a close family friend - originally from Wellington - who lives and works up there tells me that it's a rat race. And I'm not about to further add to Auckland's growing pains in a hurry. There are those among us who still keep the faith.

Next exit: Never Never Land

I turned 34 years old in the wake of the New Year.

I still look young for my age. In fact, I sometimes get asked for ID when I buy alcohol at the supermarket. And I don't really consider myself a Generation X-er - I personally identify more with Generation Pacman, which was reinforced with a recent visit to the Game Masters exhibition at Te Papa. My only complaint was that the home computer phenomenon was largely glossed over - no C64, no Amiga, no Atari 2600 - with the arcade game pioneers section skipping straight to the consoles section.

Not all that long ago, people were lucky to live to 34 before public health measures and the Industrial Revolution took effect - if they hadn't otherwise been conscripted to fight in far off lands. Now, 34 is considered relatively young in this day and age, and for the most part I don't feel any sign of an impending mid-life crisis. Neither do Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp for that matter. Or Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, in spite of all the illicit substances they've ingested over the years. Maybe they've all mastered the art of the distinguished rogue.

I currently remain single, but eligible - the trick is where to start. As a modest-earning nerd of Cantonese extraction, I'm not quite Brad or Johnny, but neither am I Jay or Silent Bob. Still, there's plenty of time to get lucky. There are lots of guys in a similar situation who are older than I am, and I count a few of them in my inner circle.

Fairfax NZ journalists Nick Churchouse and Lane Nichols posted the Lost Boys blog series during 2008 and 2009, which chronicled their experiences as single 30-somethings making their way through the vagaries of early 21st-Century life. In a way I personally identified with these still-young men, who may or may not still be single.

Which brings me to the question: is Joe Average surplus to requirements in this day and age of advancing technology? Jet fighters, tanks and UAVs have made conscription obsolete, and hence no more (hopefully) World Wars to fight. Manufacturing and other physical jobs are now heavily done far more reliably by robots (and increasingly 3D printers). Software has replaced certain clerical occupations. The likes of Silicon Valley entrepreneur Martin Ford have theorised that ICT has broken the disruptive technology cycle where workers easily transitioned from producing horse-drawn buggies to motor vehicles, and supposedly contributing to the phenomenon known as the "jobless recovery".

Even without technology being a factor, Spain and Greece now have unemployment levels eclipsing that of America during the Great Depression, and Britain and America are still feeling the effects of the GFC's fallout. Even post-grads have struggled to find gainful employment.

In a way, the rise of the Internet - itself a disruptive technology - has allowed people to reconnect with what they grew up with, in the face of a tidal wave of uncertainty over what the future holds. Kurt Andersen of Vanity Fair certainly thinks it's the case.

2012: the year in review

2012 has come to a close, and we're still waiting for the doomsday predictions in the Mayan calendar. With all that aside, here's to 2013.

The Mega Conspiracy & Pacific Fibre

Kim Dotcom appears to have started turning the tables on the MAFIAA and its hangers-on. He's won the right to sue the authorities involved, And his latest venture, simply named Mega, is not too far off.

More interestingly still, he's thought out loud of resurrecting the Pacific Fibre proposal, which was abandoned by its original backers due to insufficient capital. One of my customers has theorised, with some justification, that Pacific Fibre was just an elaborate warning shot to Telecom's Southern Cross Cable. Given that NZ's internet traffic is largely global, a second undersea cable is probably a more pressing priority than a domestic fibre network. Dotcom's proposal to enact it in practice remains to be seem.

Journalism vs churnalism

The Leveson Inquiry reported back its findings on the Hackgate affair, and it's recommended a new independent regulatory agency. Needless to say, it's caused some polarisation. Hacked Off, the NGO representing those whose privacy has been invaded by the News of the World and other tabloid outlets, are in support. More interestingly still, support for Hacked Off came from the most unlikely quarter - Salman Rushdie. Reporters Without Borders favours a proceed with caution approach. Closer to home, the Law Commission has explored similar territory but for different reasons.

Critics of the Leveson Inquiry suspect it's a slippery slope to state control of the British media, and therefore, censorship. Such negative reactions have tended to come from those profiting handsomely from sensationalism, who argue they're just meeting public demand. Additionally, they tend to gloss over the incestuous relationship between politicians, law enforcement and tabloid reporters that characterised Hackgate. Kenan Malik has a far more nuanced argument against the Leveson Inquiry - that it attacks the symptom rather than the toxic culture underpinning publications like News of the World. Sir Joh's Queensland is a case in point of what could happen when media regulations are misused for outright censorship.

A free Fourth Estate is vital to holding public figures to account, but Hackgate has exposed the ethical bankruptcy of many media proprietors. In fact, Hackgate was exposed in the first place by Nick Davies of The Guardian, through good old-fashioned investigative journalism. A Press Council/BSA structure with much sharper teeth would be ideal, particularly where rulings tend to be buried on a sidebar in page 9. The closest match would probably be Denmark and Finland, which have been ranked at the top of Reporters Without Borders' Press Freedom Index but still have official statute underpinning it. The rise of the blogosphere adds another dimension into the mix, but chances are it won't displace traditional media just yet.

Gun politics

The spree killing of primary school kids in Sandy Hook, Connecticut by a mentally unhinged young man re-ignited the gun politics debate in America - still raw from the Aurora shootings and the Trayvon Martin incident - with conflicting reports on whether the National Rifle Association was gaining or losing members. It was too much for even Rupert Murdoch. And the Sandy Hook shooter's mother - herself one of the victims - was a 'prepper' survivalist who died in the most ironic manner - her own cache of guns ended up being used against her. And preppers are the very people that NRA president Wayne La Pierre appeal to.

Things came to a head when CNN anchor and former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan went ballistic on Gun Owners of America president Larry Pratt. Morgan isn't renowned for his subtlety or good character, but he wasn't afraid to call a spade a fucking shovel on the Sandy Hook tragedy. Despite a petition to have him deported from the States, Morgan has refused to get cold feet. And if it's anything to go by, Pratt makes the NRA look like Mahatma Gandhi. He's hobnobbed with white supremacists and religious fundamentalists in the recent past, despite denials to the contrary.

Video games and movies have long been scapegoated by gun lobbyists for spree shootings. Yet other industrialised nations play the very same games and watch the very same movies that the Americans do, and still have much lower gun homicide rates - and general homicide rates for that matter. Michael Moore had a point in Bowling for Columbine when he observed that Columbine shooters Eric Harris & Dylan Klebold were ten-pin bowling enthusiasts, so should bowling be banned because it makes people go on spree shootings? The classic Hitler Ate Sugar fallacy never seems to go away.

It's also far easier to kill with an automatic rifle than with a knife. A deranged man in China attempted to stab a couple of dozen school kids earlier this year, yet there was not a single fatality.

So why are automatic firearms legally allowed to be purchased domestically in America, but not other industrialised nations? Certainly not for hunting - even a powerful enough 12-gauge can bring the angriest grizzly bear to heel. And not one of these rifles has known to be used in self-defence - pistols usually have that covered, and even then that's been the exception rather than the rule.
Outside of the battlefields of Afghanistan and Normandy, there's a school of thought that the real purpose of possessing assault rifles is survivalist paranoia. Specifically two reasons: overthrowing a "tyrannical government", which was a real threat when the 2nd Amendment was drafted in 1776, but comes across as conspiracy theory fantasy today; and race war, one of the primary fears of a chauvinist born-to-rule order facing the weakening of its monopoly on power.

2 + 2 = 5

The Novopay debacle continues to leave teachers in the lurch, and for good reason. Already, the Education Secretary Lesley Longstone has resigned, not long after she was parachuted into the role from Britain. Education Minister Hekia Parata effectively continues to deny responsibility, blaming everyone but herself.

In true Orwellian fashion, the ruling Government's promises to reverse the "brain-drain" in 2008 with tax cuts has been double-spoken into a "brain exchange". NZ has always had restless youth visiting and working overseas, and often returning and bringing back valuable know-how. But to imply that taxation alone drives talented NZers overseas is a cynical exercise in saying black is white, given we're at the lower end of the OECD taxation scale. Even if NZ reduced its taxation levels to that of, say, Monaco, NZers would still go overseas. For the simple fact that there are only 2 degrees of separation among us, and we've long been a couple of small islands in the middle of a large natural moat. We'll never be London or Los Angeles or Sydney, and nor should we delude ourselves that we can pray to the cargo cult and become them.

We can, however, carve our own niche in the wider world. The Internet has reduced our distance to the world and fostered innovation somewhat, but it's still at the whim of a cartellised communications sector. And the prevailing economic orthodoxy in NZ goes a long way to explaining NZ's relatively high living costs - it's not really pro-business, but pro-cartel. Those who conspire to keep it in place would do well to read Book I, Chapter X, Part II of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations:

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty or justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary."

A Titanic discussion

Last Sunday's Voyage of a Lifetime seminar, hosted by the local Fabian Society, went down well at Wellington's Downstage Theatre. I had hoped to video the whole thing, until my camera displayed a heat warning and powered off - the first time it's ever done so. But with about 250 people crowded into a theatre on a sunny day, it probably wasn't surprising. Russell Brown was MC for the event, and Keith Ng - fresh from his exposé of unsecured WINZ kiosks - was also in attendance, as were Zippy Gonzales and my workplace's landlord. Michele A'Court kicked off the event as a stand-up comic would and should.

(Note: the video is from the Auckland event from several months earlier, but the themes were similar for Wellington.)


Voyage of a Lifetime (10.06.12) from Voyage of a Lifetime on Vimeo.

The seminar drew on analogies between the ill-fated Titanic voyage and New Zealand's struggle to achieve its full economic potential. There were various topics discussed that have barely been debated in mainstream media:

• Rick Boven (formerly of the NZ Institute) explored ecological limits and resource depletion, and the seeming inability or refusal of major organisations - governments and businesses alike - to adapt.
• NZMEA's John Walley explained the Dutch disease, in context of NZ's dairy industry and the property bubble.
• Bernard Hickey raised the issue of household debt in the midst of an obsession with public debt, as well as quantitative easing, and the world's billions of hoarded wealth not being put to productive use
• Rod Oram recounted NZ's over-reliance on agri-business, and the 'good' and 'bad' types of foreign direct investment
• Selwyn Pellett related to the disconnect between innovation and commercialisation, from his own experiences as a tech startup founder
• Arena Williams (Auckland University) and Rory McCourt (VUWSA) touched on intergenerational and wealth disparities.

Afterwards, I got to ask the panellists some interesting questions. I had the opportunity to suggest The Pine Tree Paradox to Selwyn Pellett, and the author's suggestion of Stanford University setting up shop in NZ.

I also caught up with Russell Brown again, this time to discuss the finer points of demographic vagaries. Some of us had come to the observation that Fabian attendees tend towards the (shrinking) comfortable middle classes, but there are still people like myself who don't quite fit the income bracket and yet still identify with Fabian ideals. He concurred with my view that there's no point in keeping up with the Joneses because they've been declared bankrupt, their McMansion foreclosed, and their Range Rover repossessed.

I told Rod Oram about a David Smick column in the Washington Post in which the prevailing globalisation model was breaking down with nothing obvious to replace it, and asked him what he believed the replacement would be. He didn't pretend to have all the answers, but we both agreed that 3D printing was one potential avenue for re-localisation, and hence a reduced dependence on the globalist model.

We also discussed where the line should be drawn between New Deal-esque regional development and pork-barrel politics - both of us agreed that the Puhoi-Wellsford Holiday Highway and the Gravina Island Bridge are pork-barrel projects with poor returns on investment. I theorised that the big difference is whether the benefits of such projects are shared by the many or the few, with Oram saying the Clifford Bay ferry terminal proposal was a complex case.

Bernard Hickey reliably informed me that his new Journalism.org.nz project isn't too far off, with an expected launch early in the new year. He's a particularly relevant player in the economic debate, given that up until a couple of years ago, he was an unabashed apologist for the Wall Street globalist orthodoxy.

Seminars like these have been done before, but they've never been more relevant in light of the Great Recession, and the turning of the global financial system on its head.