TIM HAZLEDINE: Scraping Paint and the Meaning of Life

TIM HAZLEDINE: Scraping Paint and the Meaning of Life
Raise high the roof beams, carpenter! Ralph Lattimore and Tim Hazledine admire the view from the new barn, Wanaka, February 1995
Tim Hazledine
When I’m down in Wanaka, up on my nifty portable scaffold, scraping loose paint off the weatherboards of my barn, I feel sorry for rich folk who can’t afford to do this. Why can’t they? Because their time is too valuable. An hour on the scaffold is an hour not running your company or billing your law firm’s clients or doing dental implants, and if you are such a person this means your paint scraping is costing you hundreds of dollars an hour in lost income.The ‘opportunity cost’, as economists call it, i...

More Opinion

The reasonable terms of the methane debate
Opinion

Adrian Macey and Dave Frame: The reasonable terms of the methane debate

Promoting methane reduction policies that would make the world warmer make no sense.

Hopium is not a strategy
Opinion

Dileepa Fonseka: Hopium is not a strategy

Unjustified optimism is everywhere, and it’s not helping.

Your mid-year investment health check
Markets

Simon Robertson: Your mid-year investment health check

What should you really be looking for from your fundie? 

Simon Robertson 05 Jul 2025
Cleantech: Burst bubble or our biggest opportunity?
Opinion

Peter Griffin: Cleantech: Burst bubble or our biggest opportunity?

A thriving cleantech sector could be NZ’s ticket to a sustainable, high-value economy.

Peter Griffin 02 Jul 2025