The seismic events in Christchurch

Initial thoughts on a major disaster► Monday 14th March 2011

The Christchurch earthquake has caused significant casualties and urban damage

The recent large earthquake in the New Zealand city of Christchurch has caused widespread devastation, significant loss of life, and many injuries. A particularly violent impact was delivered to the central business district, via the outright collapse of buildings, whilst suburbs to the east suffered major effects with much damage to infrastructure such as sewerage systems.

Summing up we have a dramatic mess that is likely to take many years, and many $NZ billions, to repair. At www.nzgold.org we think that if there is one word that sums up what lays ahead it is this - consequences. Some of those consequences are readily apparent, such as the potential non-viability of rebuilding large scale subdivisions in parts of the city where the underlying instability of land has been so cruelly exposed by nature. Other consequences will be more difficult to discern but they may well be of equal or even greater importance than those occupying our minds in the immediate aftermath of the quake.

In our view what has happened is a crushing, but by no means terminal, blow to New Zealand. Looking forward the worry must be that 'opportunists' within the country's political and business elite (yes, elitism is alive and well in NZ) will seek to exploit the financial, social, and logistical consequences of the disaster in ways unfavourable to the average Kiwi. Already we have seen the dash to cut interest rates, on the basis that injecting yet more debt into a country already sinking in debt is somehow going to be helpful. The cynic might suggest that the only people this is designed to help are the bankers. After all, how much over-priced loan 'collateral' was destroyed in that few seconds of nature's anger. How long, we wonder, before New Zealanders have to directly 'socialize' any 'banker losses' that emerge from the quake - consequences, consequences, consequences?

We are also concerned that the people of Christchurch, and quite possibly those more distant, will discover that they have a diminishing opportunity for any say in the planning of their communities going forward. We worry that the maxim: "never let a crisis go to waste" will be exploited to the maximum by those who huff and puff about representative democracy but who really hold such high ideals in contempt. Be honest dear reader, especially if you live in Christchurch, are you confident that 'Joe Public' will have any real say in how the future unfolds?

At www.nzgold.org we are also suspicious that the opportunity to 'expunge' the hitherto residual 'Englishness' of Christchurch will not be missed. Could 'the garden city' give way to something hideous, cooked up in the Leonid Brezhnev school of architectural monstrosities? We have argued previously at www.nzgold.org that the move to eliminate Anglo-Saxon and associated Judeo-Christian ideas/culture from Europe is actually begat of an assault on property rights and individual liberties as opposed to an attack on religion per se. We are strongly persuaded that New Zealand is on the same path to "serfdom" as that described for Britain by the great Freidrich von Hayek in 1944. Essential to that outcome is the debasing of established culture and its replacement with crass materialistic vulgarity. We are thus most anxious to be proved wrong but it would not suprise us, some years hence, to be confronted with a profoundly ugly Christchurch, promulgated on the basis that those who live there are simply 'units of human capital'. Think we are crazy? Then we suggest a little 'due diligence' on some of the appalling acts of architectural vandalism that accompanied Britain's rebuilding of London after the second world war.

At this stage, of course, a state of emergency remains in force throughout New Zealand (surely an emergency in Auckland is when your favourite Pinot Noir is on backorder?). Quite why it is necessary to have such draconian provision throughout the length of the country leaves us rather bemused - we could offer a suggestion but we don't wish to appear cynical. Joking aside, we are highly suspicious of this National government. After all, at www.nzgold.org we are capitalists, libertarians and doyens of the free market who run a website with an intense disdain of usury. Thus we do not 'do socialism' - whatever Chameleon name it may give itself these days such as 'National' or, for our British readers 'Conservative'. Christchurch resident beware. We suspect that all sorts of undesirable but 'elite-benefiting' things could be done under the pretext of emergency legislative fiat.

Of course, time will be the arbiter of how things work out for Christchurch, and New Zealand, as the rebuilding process advances. Eighteen months from now we should know a lot more. We do think it would be prudent though for our readers to reflect on some of the potential financial and social issues that may arise going forward. Within this we hope to offer additional periodic commentary, particularly if we become suspicious that New Zealand is moving towards a Weimar style debt default. The country's impecunious financial position was already extremely concerning - before this latest disaster. For a government that is supposed to be fiscally prudent Messrs Key and English et al appear to have an extraordinary penchant for borrowing money on behalf of New Zealanders and their children. Ultimately all that debt must be repaid or defaulted on and, in our view, the Christchurch quake makes the later option all the more likely.

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