Quote of the Day - 31 August 2013

A "rich American" has done a runner from New Zealand, with a parting shot at the Government; and a response from Steven Joyce:

James Dale Davidson's $1.6 million mansion on the Wharekauhau Lodge estate will be sold in a mortgagee sale after he stopped paying his bank, despite having funds in the United States.
"In my view, it was more important to pay my children's private tuition than the bank . . . so that was that," he said from his Florida home yesterday.
He blamed the mortgagee sale on a break-up with his second wife, Taciana, who he says was a former Miss Brazil.
"I made the mistake of marrying a woman I thought was in love with me but who wasn't," he said. "When she divorced me she took a lot of money."
But he believed New Zealand was also to blame, with its hostility towards rich foreigners making it a terrible investment prospect. "I've made millions in Argentina. I've made millions in Peru. I went to Brazil and made millions . . . and I've gone to New Zealand and lost millions and millions. I think your country is run by idiots."
He claimed he lost $5m investing in New Zealand and still owed about $1m. "I love the house, I love the place. I think New Zealand is a lovely place to live, but it's just not a place that you can make money."
Instead of putting up barriers, it should be focusing on becoming a wealthy "retirement haven", he said.
But Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce said he wouldn't be losing any sleep over Mr Davidson's investment opinions.
The World Bank ranked New Zealand as the third-easiest country in which to do business, and other wealthy Americans, such as Hollywood director James Cameron, had invested in Wairarapa and elsewhere quite happily, he said. "But we are old-fashioned - we like people to pay their mortgages." 

Davidson sounds like the kind of "rich American" that New Zealand is far better off without; he's the kind that gives "rich Americans" a bad reputation.

But if he thinks there's hostility towards rich foreigners now, then it's probably better that he's gone before there is ever a change of government, because then he'd find out what hostility towards the rich REALLY is, be they foreigners or locals!