The most obvious manifestation is the cost of housing.
Recent information says the rate of inflation for housing has outstripped the CPI since 2001.
And no Government since then has shown any motivation to act on behalf of the people they supposedly represent.
What is required is regulation to put the brakes on greed and limit manipulation of markets and make things affordable for ordinary people, but advisers to Governments are telling them that will cause a collapse and cannot happen.
They have told me as much. I neither accept nor believe their position. They are too wedded to theory that is flawed.
MURRAY SHAW
Bastia Hill
Planet update
Interesting happenings in the evening sky for the next couple of months, with both the planets Jupiter and Saturn visible at the same time.
Looking up at the stars about 7.30 pm, Jupiter is the brightest object, high above in the sky. Jupiter is always an interesting planet to look at through a telescope, with its bands and four visible moons.
The planet Saturn is not as visible as Jupiter, and at 7.30 is low down in the eastern sky.
The easiest way to find Saturn this year is to look for the constellation of Scorpius.
As Scorpius is about the only constellation that resembles its name, look for the shape of a scorpion in the sky.
It is in the east at the moment, a large group of stars, easy to find, and at its heart is a bright orange star named Antares.
Just a bit east of Antares is another object that appears similar, and that is the planet Saturn.
Saturn, with its spectacular rings, is worth observing, and there is nowhere better than the Ward Observatory in Cooks Gardens to look at it.
The observatory is open some Friday evenings when the sky and weather are suitable.
The Astronomical Society has a Facebook page, and also the Information Centre can be contacted re opening dates.
As a postscript, the bright object in the eastern morning sky is the planet Venus.
It will slowly get dimmer as it moves away from us in its journey around the Sun. When Venus reappears in January, it will be an evening star.
Readers sometimes contact me re these letters. Our landline number is now 281 3616.
Happy observing.
JOHN CARSON
Springvale
Hope for papers?
Re Bevan Conley's editorial (Chronicle, May 26): I loved it and agreed with all he wrote!
I have seen those people in the Chronicle office for whom the local paper is so important that if for some reason (very rarely) the paper is not in the box, the whole day starts off on the wrong foot!
I am hopeful that, like the revival in real book reading, newspapers too will come back into fashion before the dire ending predicted by Bevan.
I, for one, hope I am long gone by then.
FIONA DONNE
Aramoho
Starts the day
Dear Bevan Conley, your view in the Chronicle (editorial, May 26) made my day.
I think I'm the little old lady you were describing. Now I know I'm responsible for other people getting free news!
The Chronicle starts the day and is a good reason to walk out to the gate.
I love the regional news about real people. Sometimes I'm cutting out articles to give away.
Some of us actually manage without computers!
Thank you for your article.
ISOBEL LOVELOCK
Marton
Bagging plastic
This statement from the Secretary General Antonio Guterres at the first United Nations conference on oceans, June 6: "If nothing is done, discarded plastic could outweigh fish by 2050".
Doesn't that make your hair stand up?
Doesn't that make you feel like you want to do something about it? Doesn't it make you feel angry and puzzled about our way of living?
Our convenient lifestyle will kill us if we don't make a few changes.
Not using plastic bags is not hard to do and would be an important start. We can all do that.
I want to take this opportunity to thank the local "plastic bag free Whanganui" group who have been quite active and presented some mind-boggling facts. They are trying to get district council to introduce a plastic-free policy.
What is the hold-up?
ANNE MOHRDIECK
Whanganui
Superb theatre
Seen in Whanganui, Gloria's Handbag was an absolutely wonderful performance by a superb actress with great virtuosity.
To use a cliche phrase and concept, what a national treasure Helen Moulder is.
I saw Meeting Karpovsky two years ago and came away with the same sense of imaginative rendition that required an imaginative effort in response from the audience.
In both plays there is the sense of an orderly, somewhat sterile life becoming subject to the incursion of external forces bringing physical and emotional turmoil; in one the woman is approached by man and love; in the other by family and death.
Both so beautifully conceived and executed.
And what of the handbag? It is a last fling, a final defiant embellishment of her life, of what she may have been, or would like to be.
An $11,000 gaudy Italian handbag bought for $81 and made in Indonesia.
ROD SACH
Castlecliff
