The Problem with AI

Today one of my managers asked ChatGPT to draft a template rent demand letter to tenants. Yes it took 10 seconds, well a bit longer as he didn't like the first draft as it patted the tenant on the back of being a great tenant then asked for money!

The second version was fine, not brilliant, didn't talk about the consequences of not paying and if it became a template would remain mediocre and probably wouldn't help getting the rent paid.

My manager was delighted because it was produced in a millisecond and he didn't have to think about what to write. And that is the crux of it ... The thinking that we want AI to do will be lost as a skill for humans. Instead we will continuously edit ChatGPT productions and eventually will lose original thought based on education, experience and skills and then we will all have to rely on ChatGPT mediocracy. (The good news is we won't know it's mediocre as we all will have been dummed down as we marvel at the speed of GPT producing reports, information etc)

I bet if I asked ChatGPT to summarise the downside of using ChatGPT it wouldn't come up with this blog. Go on, waste some time and try it!

Just what we need - more ocean pollution....yeah right!

Read this article from the NZ Herald.

We are busy cleaning up the ocean of plastic but it's quite alright for space junk to be directed into the ocean, other than the times it hits land by error!

This lawless space business seems impossible to stop.

Dear Auckland Council

Auckland Airport

I note that Auckland Airport is wanting to construct a retail centre on its land at the airport.

Who paid for the recent upgraded roads to the airport, and was it envisaged that it would also have to transport shoppers??

It doesn't make sense to further congest the roads to the airport, when an outlet shopping centre could be located anywhere else in Auckland. 

Please advise.

regards
Kerry Knight
Equinox Capital Ltd

Vote for Equinox!

If Equinox became a
political party,
stood in the elections
and won….

This is what we would do:

1. Agree a crime and immigration policy with all other political parties and adhere to it for 20 years. Crime and immigration shouldn't be politicised!

2. Employ the best CEO to run the new New Zealand Health Department and totally shake up health delivery to have access to all drugs, equipment and fully embrace technology. Health should not be run by a Minister of Health or Board Chairs.

3. Education needs a shake up. Schools and universities should have morning and afternoon sessions, and be able to accommodates twice the amount of students. Half of the school curriculum, when not at school, should be sports, socialising and learning values which are equally as important as Maths and English. Having morning and afternoon school sessions would decrease traffic congestion.

4. Housing and construction. Remove housing, zoning and infrastructure from all local Councils and leave it to the Government to deal with it. Resource consent will be eliminated if land is zoned. Prepare a 20 year plan earmarking different towns and cities as specialist places for technology, education, sport, manufacturing etc. Move appropriate Government departments to such towns and cities to underpin that use. Large Government projects will only occur during economic dips to ensure construction companies have consistent work always, and can develop and maintain a decent training program.

5. Tourism. Work out what the infrastructure we have to cope with xx number of tourists per annum, and then target that number rather than the previous policy of let them come and we will sort it out later.

6. Exports. It's clear that whatever we produce in New Zealand has to travel a long way to sell it. Let us use our high tech skills to get New Zealand goods to markets with minimum planetary effect. This does not mean planting trees to offset!

7. Agriculture. Over 20 years farms must eliminate reliance on sprays, fertiliser and imported feed. Yes it means dairy herds will have to reduce but this will clean up our waterways and methane exports!

8. We would reduce MP' s to 50 people only, as the majority of interaction with constituents is now digital. All Ministers would have to employ an expert CEO to oversee the bureaucracy and political vision. This would overcome Minister’s appointments to areas they have zero experience with.

9. Social Welfare. A hard one, but something to work on when we are in office. Making a political promise before an election makes no sense.
   We promise to make a promise regarding social welfare after our first term.

Bearing mind that New Zealand spends approx. $B100 a year on crime, education and health we would like to think we could spend the same amount, but ensure it was twice as effective.

So that's our platform.

We won't get in, however posting positive things feels better than the constant criticism of political parties.

Social Media Flickering

social media overload

So, like me you are probably a social media flickerer too. Flickering means you scan social media by flicking the screen almost continuously, and only occasionally stop to read the second line or look at a picture .

You have to get through the top 4: Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok 2 or 3 times a day so that is a lot of flickering - and a lot of time.

We just launched our wellness retreat, Parohe Island Retreat and like all business, we were "advised" that social media was the way to go. After 3 or 4 months we have had very little conversion to bookings from the likes of our gorgeous pictures, activities and food.

It stands to reason, if you are flickering through social media you don't have time to stop, exit to another site and book yourself a retreat. You distract yourself and might not get to the end of that sessions feed! Shock Horror! It's very clear you need to go on a retreat as the big 4 have you addicted to flickering - and at Parohe Island Retreat we can detox you away from your phone .

So, social media is great fodder for us flickerers and keeps our addiction relevant, but the reality is if you have a product to sell then you just have to be traditional and push adverts on all mediums, including social media which costs lots of money, time and energy .

Sure you can get lots of likes and followers from the flickerers on social media but unfortunately likes and followers don’t pay the wages!

Our take on the housing market...

Thank your bank for the see-saw property market (and the Government!)

Maybe I'm giving banks too much credit but try and borrow for a project these days. Even though they blame Government policies, in reality they just want to lend to home buyers and yes government capital retention policies do dictate this .

But with home buyers able to buy - but developers not able to get funding the inevitable see-saw action happens. Not much happens… not much supply…soaring prices…not much happens…not much supply …soaring prices etc. A total broken record on repeat .

In addition in the great times when the Government prints and gives away money, they compete with private projects for construction. Inevitably the Government wins, as they grab the majority of firms. Why wouldn't you as a construction company work hard to get - say the Auckland train set. Initial price $3.4b. Current forecast completion cost. $4.4b. So if you don't have your calculator that's a 30% increase.
Or tender for the Puhoi to Warkworth motorway. Does it really take that long to build a road?

The final issue is immigration. If we could just reach an accord between the political parties, or create a reserve immigration bank that called the shots and allow the number of immigrants we need each year to easily arrive. This turn the tap on and off immigration policy comes with huge pressure on property.

The point is that house prices are just the result of Governments and bank policy, and everything else is just noise. Once the banks view real estate like a business manufacturing a product (i.e. they will fund it continuously) and the Government has a steady immigration policy and decides to build massive projects, in the lows we may get some changes. Until then enjoy your house gains every 10 years. You haven't earned them. They are a gift from banks and Government!

Apologies, it's much easier these days to blog negativity than positivity!!

Parohe Island Retreat Review - the biased edition

Parohe Island Retreat's new GM

Our letter to Jacinda

15 March 2021

Dear Jacinda

RE: Forward Planning Please

We have had a year of uncertainty, but let's face it things are on the improve and if you want the economy to keep on bouncing along then we all need confidence.

Giving us the “How To Open The Border” plan now would be helpful. Surely with 75% of the country vaccinated (even though I'm sure you can tell us what date that would be let's assume ) in October 2021, the can border open to every one without having to quarantine as long as they have been vaccinated?

Seems logical and straightforward and would give us something to plan for. Otherwise will it be business as usual; where we are only told at the time that Government will make a decision and let us know? Or, do you need NZ 100% vaccinated and the entire world to also be vaccinated?

Whatever the decision is, please treat us like a team - where we are involved with the game plan long before we have the match, and not as it currently feels with telling us whats happening at half time!

Regards

The Equinox Team

PS: we are opening a wellness retreat called Parohe...want to visit?

Battle of the Covidors

I might be missing something here, but if you return to New Zealand from overseas with no confirmed evidence of being in close contact with a Covidor (a new term that I invented which means a covid spreader) you have to be quarantined and guarded for 14 days in a hotel; i.e. the Government doesn't trust you!

However, when you are confirmed as a close contact in the community in New Zealand then you are trusted to self isolate.  And, if self isolation doesn't work the government is disappointed and the entire city goes into lockdown. 

Wouldn't it make sense (and cost far less) to put close contacts of Covidor’s in MIQ?  Because when you know they are close contacts and then when invariably it seems covid seeps out further into the community there are no repercussions.

Disclaimer: I'm not an immunologist, doctor, vaccine researcher or a cousin of Ashley's nor have I had covid.  I'm not an expert so I will just be ignored.  However, I am  in a business that loses a lot of money every time we have a level change!

EQ preditions for 2021!

Equinox is prepared to predict what is due in 2021, even though our Government won't!

2021 will see continued leakage of Covid in New Zealand and continued Covid horror stories from around the world. A vaccine may become available next year, however it will still need a huge amount of testing and won't be available in New Zealand until 2023.

Personal relationships will be under stress as the underlying frustration of not really knowing what's going on will swell. The flow on effect will result in much bigger problems within families, marriages and business partnerships.

Housing will not be every second headline we read like it is currently, due to low interest rates meaning it's cheaper to own (whatever the value) rather than rent. We have never experienced this in recent New Zealand and the Government has a dilemma as rising house prices keeps society pacified and on the straight and narrow. However, the same old same old way of how to tackle the problem of those who can't afford to get a deposit together is still under the rug! No one has come up with a clear solution except for Equinox, who promoted shareholding whereby the Government owned the land and the first home buyer just had to have a deposit to build or buy the house, and over a period of time acquired the land. That concept was probably too easy for the Government to understand and would not have required them to set up multi departments and a plethora of consultants!

The economy. Hopefully the Government or Treasury will come out with some figures that proves the New Zealand circular economy just like in the 60s and 70s is self-sustainable and we don't need overseas tourists to balance our domestic books. Perhaps the world doesn't need the global village concept and we are reverting back to the 50's, 60's and 70's. It would be great to know that our team of 5 million can be self-sufficient, in which case it will take some of the worry out of 2021.

Finally the weather, yes we will have weather in 2021!

A Rant about the Political Parties Hopeless Housing Policies!

Have you looked at https://policy.nz? It's just depressing! Not one political party has a comprehensive idea as to solve the problems they talk about when trying to influence voters.

So do we or do we not have a housing  problem?  Depends if you own or not?  With interest rates so low it's clear occupying a home is half  the cost it was 2 years ago and one third the cost of 10 years ago.  So existing home owners don't see a problem.

Sure houses and land are going up and it's so simple as to why.  Holding land and obtaining consents for large projects costs a fortune.  Those costs can be close to 30% of the sale price of each dwelling.  30% is absurd when land is zoned, and supposedly has infrastructure to cope. 

Here is the main problem.  Council still controls consents and cannot supply infrastructure.  Any large project needs to pay for this infrastructure and usually the Council hasn't even planned it. It's not unusual for Councils’ to demand new road upgrades, water supply, stormwater and wastewater that services an entire catchment not just the developers block.  The developer has to pay for it otherwise no resource consent and yes, you the buyers pay for it as part of house buying.

Let's be realistic, this is the real reason housing is so expensive.  The RMA should be renamed the Home Buyers Pay for Resources Act!

So political parties, it's time to get real - and don't, election cycle after election cycle, give us the same lame excuses and even lamer solutions.

Council's just won't pay for infrastructure so home buyers have to. 

End of story!

Dear Team of 5 Million,

It occurs to us that the 5 million Kiwis are being locked up, locked down and locked into various degrees all over the country.

These days this seems to be due to  people coming into New Zealand with Covid, as they haven't proven that it comes in on frozen meat!

Surely those people coming into New Zealand should be made to have a Covid test before they travel?   If travellers test negative for Covid then by all means come and visit, or live here (still do 14 days quarantine though).  If they test positive then sorry, but wait until a negative test result is produced.  We are entitled to stop anyone coming into our country with a communicable disease. 

As well as providing more safety to airline crew and frontline workers,  the team of 5 million wouldn't need to stop-start in their tracks every 5 minutes, and this would enable a much better business environment in New Zealand.

Surely this is easy to set up and administer?

---

Here we go again...

So it must be very clear to all that the next 2 years are going to be very stop start; with no overseas travel and our Government’s money printing press working 36 hours a day.

New Zealanders have had our choice of living with or without Covid made for us. Corporates can work from home, Government and Council employees get paid regardless, students don't really care, the seniors dont work and just want to be safe, and essential workers are fine too.  

That leaves a minority affected who can't run their business on a stop start basis. That minority operate shops, gyms, tourist businesses, bars, restaurants  - the places we all go for socialising and relaxation and to satisfy our capitalist tendancies of buying stuff!

Its clear that for short periods society can operate without supporting that minority group, but that minority group can't survive.  

So Government, you dont have to allocate that freshly printed money evenly,  you just have to allocate it to the minority of New Zealanders that provides majority of  New Zealand with its social, spending and leisure activities. It’s shops and small business that really suffer yet there is no targeted help for them. Stop supporting big corporates  who may make a slightly lesser return for their shareholders and start supporting small business so they dont go broke. Small business didn't choose to live without Covid…you did. 

Dear Jacinda,

Dear Jacinda, 

Just trying to plan ahead a bit.  It's great that we and 34 other countries are Covid free (sorry, it's not just us as the headlines suggest) but how does anyone ever come to NZ  for business or a holiday in the future from other countries? 14 days in  quarantine isn't attractive when other countries won't be requiring this.

For many years most countries will still have Covid 19 & Covid-20 etc. and will use self- responsibility  and social distancing (plus loads of handwashing) to keep the curve flattened.  NZ and a few other eliminated bubbles are on our own.

Oh ....the vaccine is the answer.  Silly me of course but what's plan B if there isn't a vaccine?

Just asking as it is important to me and the other 5 million in the team?  

Perhaps you will let us know next week... or the week after... or next year in what cabinet meeting you will decide this, and when you will tell us that you are having that meeting, and of course when such decision will be communicated! 

That will be fine.  Thanks.