I saw Andrew King speaking up again in the NZ Herald recently.
Good on him.

He’s also fighting the good fight for oppressed landlords (in some circles they’re being painted as villain of the month/year/generation) in comments threads on interest.co.nz — that bastion of reasoned argument (now, where is that sarcasm emoticon when I need it?)

While there are honest, plain-talking people like Andrew who THINK and say things like:

In reply to Bernard’s housing report, I do have a few comments. I have been involved with these statistics for 14 years since using them with a property investment magazine I used to publish. Just because the number of bonds increases, this cannot be extrapolated into increased demand for rental property. Firstly, an increase in bonds being listed is an indication of turnover rather than demand. Secondly, I have spoken to the Bond Center officials regarding Marches results and was told that a shortage of data input in February is the reason for a larger number of bonds entered in March.

In other words: “Hang on a minute Bernard. Tenancy services bond lodgements figures reflect TURNOVER of rental properties, not necessarily an increase in the ‘pool’ of rental properties available, and apparently the data was held up for a month … so if your argument rests on that misinterpretation, well, consider the following points.”

… we can count our blessings.

That’s a far better response, in my view, than those (are they merely lazy?) who just smear commentators they don’t agree with as ‘crazed sadistic bashers‘ or ‘jealous’ or driving a ‘vendetta’ … while implying by their lack of (decent) argument that any criticism and discussion is somehow ‘corrupt’ in origin, therefore not worth pursuing, or answering.

Instead of personal abuse and threatening letters they should argue the point (as Andrew is doing) as I have said before.

However, I notice sometimes that one’s efforts to engage in a discussion with some ‘types’ is a futile endeavour as they don’t seem to consider a rebuttal worth their time, so revert to abuse and nonsense. I saw a slogan in someone’s forum signature that said it well:

Don’t argue with an idiot. He’ll drag you down to his level, then beat you with experience.