Friday 4th of June 2010

There’s a saying that taxi drivers are a good barometer of what is happening in the world and that they have a good idea of what people are talking about. Why do I mention this?

Well on Wednesday I took a taxi out to Auckland airport to catch a plane home and the driver asked, as they do: “What do you do?”

Since this chain of cabs had magazines for their customers I mentioned the NZ Property Investor Magazine.

“I’ve read that,” he said. It turned out this chap, who I guess was getting on towards retirement age, owned four properties. Two in Auckland and two in Australia.

From here to the airport we had a good yarn about investing.

In many ways my driver was probably typical of a lot of investors. Started out not knowing too much; learnt along the way and was doing it to prepare for retirement.

Just an ordinary bloke who had the wherewithal to get off his butt and look after himself.

Of course our discussion turned to the Budget and what it means for him and his wife, as property investors. The answer was that he wasn’t too worried. Clearly not impressed with Finance Minister Bill English, but the changes won’t derail his property investing activities.

The story is interesting as this driver, as I said, is probably pretty typical of many investors. They are not speculators or people trying to rort the system as many suggest.

Are these people, the ones Rob Muldoon would have called Kiwi Battlers really the people the government should be picking on?

Hell no.

These politicians spend plenty of time in taxis (at our expense). Maybe they should engage with their people and see some reality.