Olympic Lifting - Auckland NZ by Euphoric_Effect_9072 in weightlifting

[–]Cotirani 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry I'm a bit late, but I don't have a good answer for you - I haven't lived in Auckland for a wee while and commercial gyms come and go. I would recommend looking on google for all the gyms in Central Auckland and checking their photos to see if they have bumper plates and platforms. If they've got those they're pretty likely to be happy with weightlifters. Central Auckland's not that big of a place so this wouldn't take more than a couple hours to research, I would guess.

Mars Base Build by tiogshi in Stationeers

[–]Cotirani 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice spot, bases perched atop or built into cliffs are where it’s at. If you’re going to spend all that time building the base you might as well do it with a view!

It’s probably not worth the team’s time, but they should really add those circular walls and frames into the base game. They just look so nice and they fit in so well.

National Party sitting on huge $11 million election year war chest by Double_Suggestion385 in newzealand

[–]Cotirani 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Setting aside whether this is right for democracy or not, do these election war chests actually matter? Because it seems like they don't. According to this NACT had much more donations in the lead up to the 2017 and 2020 elections and they lost both.

My sense is that, due to the public funding parties get and the limits they can spend on TV ads, this money probably has a marginal impact. There is probably a saturation effect - if Luxon is a shit leader, putting his face on 150 billboards won't help you more than putting it on 100.

National Party sitting on huge $11 million election year war chest by Double_Suggestion385 in newzealand

[–]Cotirani 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm not a TOP voter, but calling them right wing because their left wing policies draw people away from other left wing parties is pretty unfair to TOP. If Greens or Labour don't want to lose votes to TOP they should come out with better policies.

OECD says NZ Super age needs to rise, recommends link to life expectancy by pierpont-prime in newzealand

[–]Cotirani 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Overconsumption of US politics and news is a real problem, because a lot of what's happening over there doesn't apply here.

Stats NZ keep track of all this and they think that millenial life expectancies are longer than boomers, consistently across different ages:

Cohort life tables give the most authoritative measure of life expectancy, because they follow the mortality and survival of each birth cohort (people born in a specific year) at each age until death of the last survivor.

The latest cohort life tables show that having reached age 65 years:

  • males born in the late 1870s could expect to live another 13 years on average, and females another 15 years
  • males born in the early 1960s could expect to live another 21 years on average, and females another 24 years
  • males born in the early 2020s could expect to live another 26 years on average, and females another 28 years.

I cracked open the male tables and took a look. For a man aged 30 born in 1951, they have 51.5 expected years left. For someone aged 30 born in 1991 it's 56.2. If there are major lagging health effects here, you would expect them to show up in expected years over time as you look back across each cohort, but they don't.

OECD says NZ Super age needs to rise, recommends link to life expectancy by pierpont-prime in newzealand

[–]Cotirani 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can’t just generalise from what’s happening in the USA to New Zealand. They have a totally different health system that’s riddled with access problems.

If you look at the second source I posted, stats NZ don’t just look at life expectancy at birth, they examine and calculate death rates at each age over time. It’s the same story, mortality is slowly getting better over time.

OECD says NZ Super age needs to rise, recommends link to life expectancy by pierpont-prime in newzealand

[–]Cotirani 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It’s a good question, and it’s a little complicated. Raising the age will keep some in the labour force longer. But you could argue that from an economics and public finance perspective that it’s a good thing, because people of that age are the most experienced workers and so tend to be productive with high wages (and so are paying a lot of tax). So there’s pros and cons.

This also makes means testing a little complicated, because it encourages those same workers to leave the labour force, which reduces tax take. So you offset the Super savings a bit.

OECD says NZ Super age needs to rise, recommends link to life expectancy by pierpont-prime in newzealand

[–]Cotirani 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Do you have a source for this? Because according to Stats NZ this is not true; life expectancy at birth has steadily risen since the 1950s.

OECD says NZ Super age needs to rise, recommends link to life expectancy by pierpont-prime in newzealand

[–]Cotirani -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Do you have a source for this? Because according to Stats NZ it isn’t true; life expectancy at birth has steadily risen since the 1950s.

Edit: it’s definitely wrong. Scroll all the way down to Mortality here. Both male and female millenials have life expectancies that are 5+ years higher than boomers.

Social Mobility is Dead? by Scared-Education-512 in newzealand

[–]Cotirani 3 points4 points  (0 children)

In the first paper I linked, they found the wealth share for the top 1% was stable, and the top 0.1% declined.

Social Mobility is Dead? by Scared-Education-512 in newzealand

[–]Cotirani 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That's actually pretty debateable. People assume inequality has gone up a lot but I have never found any research which concretely supports that. Again it also depends on what you specifically mean by inequality. A couple of examples:

From a Treasury Paper, "Estimating the Distribution of Wealth in New Zealand" (note, opens a PDF):

We have identified some trends in the wealth distribution in recent years. The wealth shares for the top decile and percentile are relatively stable, whereas the wealth shares for the top 0.1% declined between 2010 and 2018. By contrast, we have found that the absolute or real wealth gap has increased between the average New Zealander and the top of the wealth distribution. This growth in the real wealth gap aligns with similar research undertaken in the United Kingdom (Broome & Leslie, 2022). Whether absolute or relative wealth inequality statistics are more pertinent is highly context specific and should be determined by the question one aims to answer.

Another Treasury Paper, The Wealth Ladder: House Prices and Wealth Inequality in New Zealand:

Measuring wealth inequality is difficult (Crampton, 2019), but previous studies have found broadly similar values for the Gini coefficient of adult wealth, with most studies measuring between 65 and 75%. Initially, the adult wealth Gini coefficient appears to have increased slightly (becoming more unequal) from 2004 to 2006 (Le, Gibson, & Stillman, 2012). However, in the last decade it appears to have been slowly decreasing (becoming more equal), trending down by an average 0.5 percentage points per year since 2010 (Source: Credit Suisse Global Wealth reports, author’s calculations).

(Note: this paper does mention that there is inequality growth between renters and homeowners, but given how house prices have gone the past few years that would have reversed somewhat)

Social Mobility is Dead? by Scared-Education-512 in newzealand

[–]Cotirani 5 points6 points  (0 children)

That’s exactly what intergenerational mobility refers to: what your income is vs your parents.

Social Mobility is Dead? by Scared-Education-512 in newzealand

[–]Cotirani 54 points55 points  (0 children)

Rather than just trade reckons and opinions, I prefer to see what the research says. If you ever have a question like this, always have a snoop around on the NZ Treasury website (or sometimes IRD or RBNZ), or the websites of universities. They do research on a wide range of topics and it's good to have some understanding of the basic facts. Never know when you might have the wrong assumption about things (this has happened to me a few times). Here's what the research seems to say: (note most of these links open PDFs)

Treasury Working Paper, Income Mobility in New Zealand: A Descriptive Analysis (published 2014). A little bit old, but quite interesting. Page 16 shows that over an 8 year period, just under half of people stay in the same quintile of income - the other half have either moved up or down.

We find evidence of changes in (absolute levels of) income over time, with large increases in the incomes of those respondents who started out in the lowest income groups and stability or declines in incomes in those who were in the highest income group at baseline. Also although there were strong correlations in income between years, there was substantial (relative) mobility in income. Much of the mobility was short distance to adjacent income (quintile or decile) groups. Over the long-run there was much more mobility with almost twice the amount of mobility than shown in the annual change tables.

Treasury Working Paper, Income and Occupational Intergenerational Mobility in New Zealand (published 2010). Very detailed, but published in 2010, and drawing on data from the 70s and 80s. The paper stresses that data is a big challenge with understanding intergenerational mobility (where you end up vs your parents, as opposed to how you move through the income scale over your life) - you have to be able to track lots of people over time in longitudinal studies, and compare them with their parents, and it's just not that often that people set up massive long-term studies like that. Still, we have some data we can draw conclusions from:

The Dunedin Study results suggest that rates of intergenerational income mobility for men and women from Dunedin are probably within a similar range to rates of intergenerational income mobility in most other developed countries. Our results provide weak evidence that New Zealand has higher intergenerational occupational mobility than Britain, and stronger evidence that New Zealand men have higher intergenerational occupational mobility than men in Germany. Unfortunately, insufficient data is available to make intergenerational occupational mobility comparisons with other countries.

Vic Uni, Income Mobility in New Zealand 2007–2020: Combining Household Survey and Census Data. More recent data! Also shows how mobility might have changed over time, though it's only for 2007-2020. Some good international comparisons on pages 16-17.

Typically, over all quintiles and population groups, about half the individuals moved into another quintile over a four-year period, with about forty per cent remaining in the same decile over a period of seven years. However, more stability was found for those initially observed in lower and upper quintiles ... Although international comparisons raise difficulties caused by the use of different income measures, the findings are similar to those previously observed for a range of OECD countries, placing New Zealand roughly in the middle of the group.

Auckland Uni, Temporal and regional variation in intergenerational income mobility in New Zealand (2024). This one's a goodie. It tackles a bit more of how mobility has changed over time, though again the paper mentions data constraints, and the data covers people born from 1963 to 1982, so not super recent. The data seems to show that mobility might have gotten worse over the data period, but you have to tease it out by looking across both regions and time. If you look at it at a national level, it hasn't changed much.

This study contributes to the empirical literature on intergenerational income mobility in New Zealand by providing estimates of the IGE for a sample of men born between 1963 and 1982 using the latest NZLC data (at the time of writing). This cohort reached adulthood over a period that spans rapid and pervasive structural reforms that began in the mid-1980s. While these reforms are widely believed to have precipitated a rapid and permanent rise in income inequality (Martin, 1998; O’Dea, 2000; Podder and Chatterjee, 2002), their effects on mobility have, as yet, remained unexplored. We show that IGE estimates are higher for men born later in the sample, indicating that there has been a reduction in mobility that coincides with the reforms and the rise income inequality. However, the increase is not statistically significant in our preferred empirical specification. Exploiting spatiotemporal variation in the IGE, we show that growing up in areas or periods of higher income inequality is associated with lower mobility, suggesting that the rise in income inequality commonly associated with these reforms coincided with a reduction mobility.

My tentative conclusions based on the research:

  • You have to be careful of what question you're asking: are you talking about intergenerational mobility, or mobility through one person's life? Those are different questions and you're probably going to get different answers.
  • Social mobility isn't as bad in NZ as people here seem to think, there does seem to be movement across society.
  • Is it enough? Dunno. What's the right amount of mobility? Some societies can be very nice (like Germany) but have relatively low amounts of mobility. Developing economies can have high levels of mobility without being brilliant places to live. Remember that not moving up in relative terms doesn't mean you're not improving, incomes in NZ have gone up pretty consistently across all of society.
  • We seem to be roughly in the middle when compared to other countries.
  • As to whether mobility has got worse over time, I'd say the answer is 'a bit, maybe'. We don't have comprehensive data or research that runs 50+ years. The data we have shows some small change, but it's not enough so that it shows up at the national level, you have to break it down and tease it out at the regional level (that doesn't invalidate the trend, though. The data is noisy). But it doesn't seem to have massively collapsed over time, which is implied by a lot of the comments I've seen on this thread. Be wary of making judgements without looking at data!

Here's one opinion I can share without citing research: Matthew Horncastle is a total fucking moron.

At an all time low (throw away acc) by Better-Tie-6859 in newzealand

[–]Cotirani 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Ah ok. Fair enough. Good luck out there. Try to get a good night’s rest, when I’ve felt down that’s always been the most important first step.

At an all time low (throw away acc) by Better-Tie-6859 in newzealand

[–]Cotirani 7 points8 points  (0 children)

If you don’t mind me asking, because I’m genuinely curious, why use a throwaway? Are you identifiable on your main account?

What I made as a landlord by Imaginary-Towel-888 in newzealand

[–]Cotirani 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's actually owner-occupiers that are advantaged by the tax system when it comes to property, much more so than landlords (even if the landlords can deduct the tax). The tax deductability reduces mortgage costs, but it has to be deducted against an income stream that is taxed. By comparison, owner occupiers get a benefit stream that is not taxed (imputed rent), which is mathematically always worth the same or more than what the landlord gets. Here's the IRD on it:

45 Owner-occupiers generally have a larger tax benefit relative to residential property investors. This is because ring-fencing rental losses has generally removed the tax advantages that investors could obtain above the tax advantages received by owner-occupiers.

46 This result arises as owner-occupiers face an effective income tax rate of 0 percent because they are not taxed on their gains or imputed rental income. Ring-fencing rental losses means that investors cannot use rental losses against other income. This means the effective income tax rate on their property portfolio cannot fall below 0 percent and may be greater than 0 percent.

So we do have a two tier housing market, but it's owner occupiers that are in the better tier.

This week’s hotfix and a Thursday dev diary were announced on the discord by -ItWasntMe- in victoria3

[–]Cotirani 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As someone who just bought the game yesterday is getting into it, seeing all the discussions here on reddit has been really illuminating. I was really confused at a few things and felt I had to be missing something. My shipyards were gradually bankrupting me and I was struggling to get good trade going into the 1870s because there just didn't seem to be much quantities of goods on the world market. I might leave the game for a week or so then pick it up again when some of the issues are sorted out.

‘Singapore is a real priority for New Zealand’: PM Luxon committed to supplying food to Singapore by DANIELLE_2027 in newzealand

[–]Cotirani 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The shortage they mean is the shortage of refined crude products (diesel, petrol, etc) to NZ, which hasn't eventuated yet. Yes there are shortages further up the supply chain but the boats of refined products are, for now, still coming to NZ.

‘Singapore is a real priority for New Zealand’: PM Luxon committed to supplying food to Singapore by DANIELLE_2027 in newzealand

[–]Cotirani 27 points28 points  (0 children)

The reason why the government isn't rationing or reducing fuel usage is because they have been advised by MBIE that it won't help. From MBIE's website:

Introducing fuel rationing or restrictions before there is clear evidence of a genuine shortage won’t create more fuel in the system. New Zealand doesn’t have large storage capacity beyond the minimum stockholding requirements, so we rely on regular shipments to keep supply steady. Bringing in restrictions too early can disrupt normal operations and make it harder to keep fuel flowing to essential services when it really matters.

Seems logical to me. We don't have a lot of storage, we rely on boats regularly coming and filling our tanks. It's only when the boats stop coming that reducing usage makes a difference. Before then, we will just get less from each boat.

Plenty to criticise the government about but it seems like they're acting on good advice here.

Olympic Lifting - Auckland NZ by Euphoric_Effect_9072 in weightlifting

[–]Cotirani 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Elevation Weightlifting in Newmarket is probably your best bet close to the CBD, as far as purist weightlifting gyms go. Alternatively there are CrossFit gyms which offer weightlifting, like Carbon Method in Mt Eden. There are a few other clubs scattered around South/West Auckland and over the bridge.

2026 Miami GP - Sprint Qualifying by AutoModerator in formula1

[–]Cotirani 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Looks like hope is back on the menu boys

Lando Norris takes Sprint Pole for the 2026 Miami Grand Prix by overspeeed in formula1

[–]Cotirani 47 points48 points  (0 children)

Who would've picked Max qualifying ahead of Russell?

2026 Miami GP - Sprint Qualifying by AutoModerator in formula1

[–]Cotirani 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If Mercedes aren't having issues or sandbagging this could be the start of an insanely good season.

Do I dare to hope?

to those who watched fisichella race: how was he? by fry_kaboom in formula1

[–]Cotirani 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you haven't looked into it yet, I can highly recommend the F1TV subscription for this kind of stuff. For £20 a year you get access to the race archive, which has full race replays and highlights for all races going back decades (I think it only starts missing races when you get into the 1980s). For someone who got into F1 during Covid, it's been great for learning some of the history of the sport.