Its ours, but can we get rid of it already?

Customer service comes with paddle included.

What is all the fuss over national wanting to sell that monstrous failure Kiwibank.

They said they were not going to sell any Taxpayer "assets" in the their first term and they wont.

Will they sell it should they get a second?

Who cares.

The architect of this black hole for more taxpayer funds, Jim Anderton, says most Kiwis don't want it sold.

Really?

Then why are there only 500,000 low value customers then?

Kiwibank has been a drain on the taxpayer for 7 years now. It has been propped up by an initial NZ$125 million injection of taxpayer money, then subsidised by that other great sucker of taxpayer funds the highly inefficient NZ Post.

Typical customer service at a Kiwibank

Its minute "profit" in 2006 and 2007 was creatively accounted to make Anderton look good.

Its CEO Sam Knowles was at the Bank of New Zealand to "fix it up" after it collapsed under Labour's watch in 1990 and then was one of those overseeing the collapse of Databank.

Lets face it the lending book of Kiwibank is high risk and poor quality, much of it revolves around beneficiaries, the low paid and State involvement through taxpayer subsidised or sponsored home loans.

Kiwibank is a high risk possibility in the future for it to go under,taking our taxpayer money with it.

Lets sell it for what we can get for it.

c Political Animal 2008

Labour Party's anti growth stance reckless

"Mr Key is being reckless and gambling with the country's future".

Ms Clark, New Zealand Prime Minister, for 3 more months, is talking about the National Party's plan to borrow, for investing in New Zealand's crumbling infrastructure.

Helen and the Labour Party of course borrow at present. The bulk of it though goes on wasteful spending of the socialist nanny State ilk. State houses, banks, railways, free student money, Working for Families welfare, yadda, yadda, yadda. You get the picture.

Borrowing to build a nation is eminently sensible. We have seen over Winter how a lack of spending on electricity infrastructure has cost the nation NZ 3 billion dollars-in lost production due to power cut backs and billions more due to a lack of faith by prospective companies investing in New Zealand.

Labour has been using cashflow to invest in the wasteful state apparatus that they run and that has led to kiwis paying more and more tax and individuals ending up with high personal debt. A well run country needs to invest in growth rather than socialist dictum's and not to borrow to invest in growth is a highly dangerous agenda.

That is essentialially the socialist way though. According to Cullen himself his government is there to "redistribute wealth" and by default this means that any growth of wealth comes way down any list the Dr of History-not economics-might have on his wall next to the hapless Mickey Savage.

We need to look forward, rather than the backwards way the moronic, dangerous, socialists look at things.

The path to prosperity lies in investing for the future. Borrowing to effect that is eminently sensible and National should be praised for going out on a limb on this.

To continue along the present path, as Helen Clark rightly says, "is being reckless and gambling with the countrys future" and means New Zealand is headed, as we have been over the last 9 years, towards certain financial ruin.

Labour's socialist peril
Labour's State countrol out of control
Pointing fingers in the playground
At least Robin Hood was honest

c Political Animal 2008

For a taste of your Whisky

"You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away and know when to run". Kenneth Donald Rogers -The Gambler

No truer words have been sung about gambling but Ken's advice is quite appropriate to today's investing environment as well.

I have been working my way through Benjamin Graham and David Dodd's 1934 investment bible Security Analysis and have rediscovered and sometimes discovered for the first time, some of the basic investment strategies that one should use when looking for good stocks at a good price, or Graham calls his "Intrinsic Value" approach and the relationship with the market price of a stock.

In today's turbulent marketplace these basic investment strategies are even more appropriate and will help an individual decide what to do when one is put in the position of the individual in the song that Kenny sings about.

Security Analysis was written at a time, in 1934, when the questions an investor had to ask themselves, in relation to buying good stocks at a good price, were more central to the decision to buy stocks at any time in the history of stockmarkets. The time of the Great Depression.

From that perspective then, lets take a look at some of the factors that Benjamin Graham has highlighted in terms of the relationship between intrinsic value to the market price of stocks.

The relationship of intrinsic value to market price is best explained in the chart from page 23 of Security Analysis.

Relationship of Intrinsic Value Factors to Market Price
I.General market factors				} Attitude of public toward the issue (leads to) } Bids and offers (lead to) } Market price
II.Individual factors	A.Speculative	1.Market factors	a.Technical
			b.Manipulative
			c.Psychological
	A.Speculative B.Investment	2.Future value factors	a.Management and reputation
			b.Competitive conditions and prospects
			c.Possible and probably changes in volume, price, and costs
	B.Investment	3.Intrinsic value	a.Earnings
			b.Dividends
			c.Assets
			d.Capital structure
			e.Terms of the issue
			f.Others

What Graham calls "analytical factors" determining the market price of stocks; company management, company earnings, long-term outlook for the company,returns for the shareholder, etc, are at odds and in competition with speculative factors influencing market price; the stock price, traders manipulating large tranches of stock artificially, and the general schizoid nature of "Mr Market" at times, and these factors, analytical and speculative, clearly influence stock prices in opposing directions.

Graham has called this approach to the stockmarket a "voting machine". That is, individual investors are making choices on the basis of part reason and part emotion.

As many stockmarket investors have found over the last year, speculative sentiment or emotion has reined supreme, while the analytical,reasoned approach seems to have gone the way of the dinosaur, Rubik's cube and backwards baseball cap.

The writers of Security Analysis have pointed out, lamentably so in my opinion, that the market should be more perhaps a "weighting machine", where the value of stocks is evaluated by a precise and unemotional means in accordance with the actual qualities that a company or stock has; positive or negative.

I would have to agree with the latter, although having said that I have made various emotional stock purchases in the past. Most of them much earlier on in my 11 years of stockmarket investing.

It is clear to most long term investors such as myself that the role of emotion and other speculative factors plays a big influence on stock investors when they are buying and selling stocks.

If investors took Benjamin Graham's intrinsic value approach to investing I think they would be more likely to buy and sell stocks at a reasonable and fair price for them.

Given that the stockmarket is currently volatile and in a technical bear market, with emotions on every investors sleeve, now is a better time than ever to grab the right stock for a good price and considering stock prices are at good price levels, now is a better time than any to use Benjamin Graham's intrinsic value approach to stockmarket investing.

Security Analysis was written at a time where stocks were at historical lows after the great depression, it seems to me that Graham may have been inspired to invest and write about the intrinsic value approach to investing, first, because of the frenzied great speculative bubble of the late 1920s, and the subsequent need in the years after 1929 stockmarket crash to take such a analytical and unemotional approach to investing in the stockmarket.

Graham's intrinsic value method of stock investing is just as relevant today as it was in the 1930s and will remain so for many years to come and will indeed help you to decide to whether to, hold em, fold em, walk away, or run.

Just don't count your money while your sittin' at the table though.


Related Share Investor reading

Some Bedtime Reading: Graham and Dodd's Security Analysis
10 Basic Buffett questions to ask before investing
Be an active investor
Stick to what you know
Investors can learn from my stupidity
Hard times make great businesses
Fear and Greed are lovely things
Research, Research, Research
Learn before you leap
The Intelligent Investor: Book review






c Share Investor 2008

Roy Morgan Poll: 1 August 2008

For the first time in months the Roy Morgan Poll has shown a drop in the National Party polling.

This is a one-off and by no means a trend. A trend would result if similar results were polled after 3 polls or more.

3 separate polls 2 weeks ago showed a similar outcome as today's Roy Morgan.

Finding No. 4311 - Roy Morgan New Zealand's Latest Polling Results: August 01, 2008

In early August 2008 the New Zealand Roy Morgan Poll shows National Party support at 47.5% (down 4.5%) still well ahead of the Labour Party 32.5% (up 1.5%), if an election were held now the National Party would win.

Support for the Greens was 8% (up 0.5%), NZ First 5% (down 1.5%), Maori Party 3% (up 2%), United Future 0.5% (down 0.5%) and ACT NZ 2.5% (up 2%) — to its highest level since March 2007.

New Zealand First has lost some ground in recent weeks likely due to the funding scandal surrounding leader, Winston Peters, while ACT NZ’s increase is likely due to the strong performance in Parliament of ACT NZ leader Rodney Hide in questioning Peters about where the funding has gone.

The Roy Morgan Government Confidence Rating is up from its record low to 91.5 (up 4.5 points) mirroring the rise in the Roy Morgan New Zealand Consumer Confidence Rating which has strengthened slightly up 2.1 points to 87.8, and up 5.8 points over the month.

Continued at Roymorgan.com.au

Related Political Animal reading

TV One Colmar Brunton Poll: July 20 2008

TV3 News Poll: July 20 2008

Fairfax Neilson Poll: July 19 2008

Roy Morgan Poll: July 18 2008

c Political Animal 2008