There is a rather strange poll being run by Bill English HERE asking us to vote on whether we support the tax changes to property.  (PLEASE GO AND VOTE).

But the reason I say it’s weird is that I can’t figure out why he would do it.

Firstly it is going to be vested interest groups like ours that drive traffic to the site voting against the changes and he would have known that from the get go. The poll is increasingly not in support of the tax changes which is to be expected.

Secondly it is also a given that he will take no notice of the poll.  It is on his site but not promoted until the likes of Property Talk and myself tell others about it, so there is obviously no genuine intention to discover the opinion of the people.

So my conclusion is that the budget is going to be quite punitive and by having this on his site but deliberately not promoting it Bill will be able to say: “Well we asked New Zealanders what they thought and there was little response at all.  If people felt so strongly about it why didn’t they vote?”

I don’t know, am I overly cynical?

What do you think?? Why would a cabinet minister run a poll about ill formed and unpopular tax changes and then not advertise the fact or make any effort to genuinely canvas public opinion.

Maybe I’m overthinking this but it just doesn’t make sense to me.  What do you reckon??

Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus

PS: Looking for sustainable fast cashflow without buying another property??

Well then join Shaun Stenning and I next week in

Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch!!

and we’ll show you how to get it!!

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(You’ll love the guarantee)

Check it out HERE

Tax changes

Our 14 year old dog, Abbey, died last month. The day after she died, my 4 year old daughter Meredith was crying and talking about how much she missed Abbey.. She asked if we could write a letter to God so that when Abbey got to heaven, God would recognize her. I told her that I thought we could so she dictated these words:

“Dear God,
Will you please take care of my dog? She died yesterday and is with you in heaven. I miss her very much. I am happy that you let me have her as my dog even though she got sick.
I hope you will play with her. She likes to play with balls and to swim. I am sending a picture of her so when you see her You will know that she is my dog. I really miss her.
Love, Meredith”

We put the letter in an envelope with a picture of Abbey and Meredith and addressed it to God/Heaven. We put our return address on it. Then Meredith pasted several stamps on the front of the envelope because she said it would take lots of stamps to get the letter all the way to heaven. That afternoon she dropped it into the letter box at the post office. A few days later, she asked if God had gotten the letter yet. I told her that I thought He had..

Yesterday, there was a package wrapped in gold paper on our front porch addressed, ‘To Meredith’ in an unfamiliar hand. Meredith opened it. Inside was a book by Mr. Rogers called, ‘When a Pet Dies..’ Taped to the inside front cover was the letter we had written to God in its opened envelope. On the opposite page was the picture of Abbey &Meredith and this note:

Dear Meredith,
Abbey arrived safely in heaven.
Having the picture was a big help. I recognized Abbey right away.
Abbey isn’t sick anymore. Her spirit is here with me just like it stays in your heart. Abbey loved being your dog. Since we don’t need our bodies in heaven, I don’t have any pockets to keep your picture in, so I am sending it back to you in this little book for you to keep and have something to remember Abbey by..
Thank you for the beautiful letter and thank your mother for helping you write it and sending it to me. What a wonderful mother you have. I picked her especially for you.
I send my blessings every day and remember that I love you very much.
By the way, I’m easy to find, I am wherever there is love.

Love,
God

and Love Dean Letfus

Stay Inspired and Stay Safe

(Many Thanks to Joy for the story

A Big heart in the US Postal Service

If you are my Facebook friend you will know that my laptop fried itself over the weekend.  Given that I live on my computers this is only the second one to seriously die in about 5 years so that isn’t too bad.  However the amount of crashes, viruses and updates I now continually need have been driving me mad.

So the decision has been made, we are going Mac at last.

It’s funny when you talk to people about it, it’s a bit like the Ford/Holden thing.  People have such strong opinions about it.  What I do know is that I am yet to meet a Mac who went to PC person. Not one, ever.  But everybody I know who uses Mac’s definitely thinks they found the fountain next to the fountain of youth.

So once the forensics guys get my data off my hard drive and I can recover my PST file I will reply to your email.

In the mean time I am rebuilding my online life and realising just how many passwords, URL’s and fingers I really need.

So excuse the brevity of blogs this week while I get reenergised

Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus

The Ethical Investor.

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Tekanology again

NOTE: The following is NOT written by Dean Letfus and does NOT necessarily reflect his views on the subject of prisons and rehabilitation.

However I like this guys courage and we could learn something from his take on prison as punishment.  Besides it’s Friday in New Zealand, time for a laugh and some information.

(To the best of my knowledge Sheriff Joe is a real person and this article is news, not fiction)

Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus

The Ethical Investor

SHERIFF JOE is at it AGAIN!

You all remember Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona , who painted the jail cells pink and made the inmates wear pink prison garb.  Well . . …

SHERIFF JOE IS AT IT AGAIN!

Oh, there’s MUCH more to know about Sheriff Joe!

Maricopa County was spending approximately $18 million a year on stray animals, like cats and dogs..  Sheriff Joe offered to take the department over, and the County Supervisors approved.

The animal shelters are now all staffed and operated by prisoners.  They feed and care for the strays.  Every animal in his care is taken out and walked twice daily..  He now has prisoners who are experts in animal nutrition and behavior. They give great classes for anyone who would like to adopt an animal.  He has literally taken stray dogs off the street, given them to the care of prisoners, and had them place in dog shows.

The best part?  His budget for the entire department is now under $3 million. Teresa and I adopted a Weimaraner from a Maricopa County shelter two years ago. He was neutered, and current on all shots, in great health, and even had a microchip inserted the day we got him. Cost us $78..

The prisoners get the benefit of about $0.28 an hour for working, but most would work for free, just to be out of their cells for the day.  Most of his budget is for utilities, building maintenance, etc.  He pays the prisoners out of the fees collected for adopted animals.

I have long wondered when the rest of the country would take a look at the way he runs his jail system, and copy some of his ideas.  He has a huge farm, donated to the county years ago, where inmates can work, and they grow most of their own fresh vegetables and food, doing all the work and harvesting by hand.

He has a pretty good-sized hog farm, which provides meat, and fertilizer.  It fertilizes the Christmas tree nursery, where prisoners work, and you can buy a living Christmas tree for $6-$8 for the Holidays, and plant it later.  We have six trees in our yard from the Prison.

Yup, he was re-elected last year with 83% of the vote.  Now he’s in trouble with the ACLU again..  He painted all his buses and vehicles with a mural, that has a special hotline phone number painted on it, where you can call and report suspected illegal aliens.  Immigrations and Customs Enforcement wasn’t doing enough in his eyes, so he had 40 deputies trained specifically for enforcing immigration laws, started up his hotline, and bought four new buses just for hauling folks back to the border.  He’s kind of a ‘Git-R Dun’ kind of Sheriff.

TO THOSE OF YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH JOE ARPAIO:  HE IS THE MARICOPA COUNTY , ARIZONA SHERIFF AND HE KEEPS GETTING ELECTED OVER AND OVER.  THIS IS ONE OF THE REASONS WHY:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio (in Arizona ), who created the ‘Tent City Jail,’ has jail meals down to 40 cents a serving and charges the inmates for them..

He stopped smoking and porno magazines in the jails, took away their weights, and cut off all but ‘G’ movies.

He started chain gangs so the inmates could do free work on county and city projects.

Then He Started Chain Gangs For Women So He Wouldn’t Get Sued For Discrimination.

He took away cable TV Until he found out there was A Federal Court Order that Required Cable TV For Jails.  So He Hooked Up The Cable TV Again Only Let In The Disney Channel And The Weather Channel..

When asked why the weather channel, He Replied ‘So They Will Know How Hot It’s Gonna Be While They Are Working
On My Chain Gangs.’

He Cut Off Coffee Since It Has Zero Nutritional Value.

When the inmates complained, he told them, ‘This Isn’t The Ritz-Carlton . . . If You Don’t Like It, Don’t Come Back.’

More On The Arizona Sheriff:

With Temperatures Being Even Hotter Than Usual In Phoenix (116 Degrees Just Set A New Record), the Associated Press Reports:  About 2,000 Inmates Living In A Barbed-Wire-Surrounded Tent Encampment At The Maricopa County Jail Have Been Given Permission To Strip Down To Their Government-Issued Pink Boxer Shorts.

On Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing boxers were either curled up on their bunk beds or chatted in the tents, which reached 138 Degrees Inside The Week Before.

Many Were Also Swathed In Wet, Pink Towels As Sweat Collected On Their Chests And Dripped Down To Their PINK SOCKS.

‘It Feels Like We Are In A Furnace,’ Said James Zanzot, An Inmate Who Has Lived In The TENTS for 1 year.  ’It’s Inhumane’

Joe Arpaio, the tough-guy sheriff who created the tent city and long ago started making his prisoners wear pink, and eat bologna sandwiches, is not one bit sympathetic.  He said Wednesday that he told all of the inmates:  ’It’s 120 Degrees In Iraq And Our Soldiers Are Living In Tents Too, And They Have To Wear Full Battle Gear, But They Didn’t Commit Any Crimes,  So Shut Your Mouths!’

Way To Go, Sheriff!

Maybe if all prisons were like this one there would be a lot less crime and/or repeat offenders.  Criminals should be punished for their crimes–not live in luxury until it’s time for their parole, only to go out and commit another crime so they can get back in to live on taxpayers money and enjoy things some citizens cannot afford to have for themselves.

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New Prison Solution

I taught on one of my passions, the subject of forgiveness, in Phuket recently and explained my experience in seeing people often healed physically when they forgive another.  There has been lots of medical and clinical research into this and it is a frequently observed result as our bodies chemical composition changes when we let go of bitterness and grudges etc.

Anyway I just received an email from an attendee who had an issue with unforgiveness and dealt with it during my session.  They wrote to thank me and say that they had a long term condition involving loss of smell that had supernaturally corrected itself since Phuket.

I love training investors and helping people improve their financial positions but nothing compares with seeing people made completely whole as they deal with the real issues of life.

Figuring out what is important and doing something about it is a skill we are losing as a society.

If we ever wanted an example of that look at this unbelievable drivel in the paper today.

Mouldy-pancakes

Can you believe that this makes the news??

As my dad used to say:  “What that woman needs is a good world war”

Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus

The Ethical Investor

Get my newsletter HERE

Healing

I freely admit that it is an almost impossible task to create a perfect system with imperfect people, however I can’t help but shake my head in wonder at the amount of interventionistic (?word?) policies and structures that we are developing as a society.

I was reading about the new REAA and how it was designed to protect consumers etc., yet you look at it after 5 months and it has processed 320 complaints, 11 of them serious.  Now that is great but the organisation probably costs millions to run and like many other “bodies” exists solely to try and stop people’s dishonesty.

And that’s my point, not that these organisations are bad, generally they are very good I guess, but how sad is it that we have to spend probably billions of dollars a year protecting ourselves from each other just because people won’t follow the golden rule.

For some reason “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” is impossible for the majority of society it would seem.

How did we get so far away from how we were created.  How did society get so far away from sound principles, that happen to be Biblically based in the West especially, to a point where we all look to the government to solve

Violent Crime, Child Abuse, Teenage Drinking, Teenage pregnancy, Illiteracy, dishonesty in business, the list goes on.

Think about it for a minute, are any of those things that should require laws to fix? Of course not. People who treat others with dignity and respect wouldn’t be doing any of them.

So the real issue is how did our own self esteem and characters get so decimated in a world that has more self help books and therapists than any other time in history?

Now there’s a question worth pondering!!

Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus

The Ethical Investor

Regulation and Responsibility

I’m reading a fabulous book at the moment written by Garry Kasparov, generally considered to be the greatest chess player the world has ever seen.  The blog title is one of the chapters in the book and Garry is discussing shifting from one phase of play to the next and highlighting the fact that different stages of play require different skills.  What works well in an opening may not help you in an endgame.  The skills required can be very different.

Man this is so true when it comes to investing as well.  The knowledge and strategies we employ when we buy our first rental or trade our first deal will need changing or improving when we have 20 rentals or have be come a regular trader.

One of the main reasons for this, and my point today, is that as we get more experience our fear levels drop.  And as our fear reduces we subconsciously take more risk.  So if our experience is only doing the same simple thing over and over again we end up taking significantly more risk without any more skill.

Does that make sense?  We have conquered our fear by taking action but if that action hasn’t increased our education we can become a slowly ticking bomb.

For example let’s say you are a brand new investor and you are terrified at the thought of making a written offer on a property.  So you get some mentoring or do a course and drum up the courage to make an offer on a property.  Much to your surprise your offer gets accepted and when you apply for finance the broker and your solicitor tell you what a fabulous deal you’ve bought.

Suddenly you FEEL GOOD because you bought this great deal and you did it yourself!!

When you met with your broker he said you were basically preapproved now and could buy another 2 million dollars worth of property.

So you make 5 offers in the next week utilising your new found confidence and the words “what a great deal you bought” ringing in your ears.

For the sake of brevity you buy another 3 properties and now you consider yourself almost an expert. After all most investors never get to 4 properties, especially in under a year.

So right here is where you are in trouble.  I know because I was here myself.

Right here you need a really good slapping and some serious accountability.  Because we are about to leave the opening phase and move to the middle game. And the middle game has totally different rules.

Now you need to be able to assess a deal against your existing portfolio so the rules for a good deal for you has changed. And you have to start considering lost opportunity cost. If I put 50K into this trade then I can’t do this deal over here, so the level of analysis and skill required goes through the roof.

And for some of us we may have several mid phases all requiring different skills.

So remember on your journey, the day you think you know it all,  you’re in BIG trouble.  Get educated, surround yourself with people further up the tree than you and invest in yourself if you can’t get it for free

So remember the rules for a gunfight…………………………

Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus

The Ethical Investor

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