Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit
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It’s a flow on from declining incomes – baby boomers also earn proportionately less now than they used to, but they mostly have assets that have grown.
Maybe that's a factor. But mostly growing wealth disparity is a 'flow-on" from trickle-down economics, a series of deliberate decisions to move a lot of taxation from the wealthy towards the middle and lower incomes. Accompanied by a move towards 'user pays' for social services.
At the risk of repeating myself :) if you look at the top tax brackets in most western countries right up through the 70s, you see rates of taxation that are almost nowhere to be found now. 66% in NZ was the top rate, I think. In the US I believe it went into the 70's. UK into the 90% range.a hand-operated printing press in the room at the bottom of the tower with the observatory dome on top
One of my very earliest memories is waiting for dad and hiding in the little alcove under those stone stairs. And of the printing press, which I think he shipped out from Vermont. Excess baggage be damned :)
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BenWilson, in reply to
Islander, what you describe does sound like what she lives on when she is here. But of course the "demonstrated their skills and commitment" part has to be administered by someone. Which means basically a bureaucrat (or panel of them) deciding if her art is good, on a fairly frequent basis. For any art that is right on the fringe, like modern dance, finding anyone who has the first clue about it that wants to work for the government is not easy. It's likely to be lumped with other forms of dance, like ballet, which has very different standards. If she ends up before a panel of established practitioners in small country like NZ with a tiny pool of money for such things as dance, we're talking about being judged by one's competitors, hardly fair.
It's an emotionally grueling process. Naturally it's going to be the production of accolades that leads to the main part of a panel deciding that you're any good. So your work simply being unpopular counts against you. Which does make you wonder why even bother having such a system - the popular stuff is self funding anyway.
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Ben W – there are several ways of demonstrating “skills & committment” aside from relying on bureaucrats – and a living wage as I saw it is certainly NOT ‘working for the government!’
There is your peer group (as you point out, these could be other established practitioners, so it is ‘being judged by competitors’ BUT that neednt always be the case – I’m thinking of Malvina Major’s initiatives, and some of the very quiet assistance done by Joy Cowley and Margaret Mahy.)There is also – recognised works (recognised by audience & critical acclaim, or by prizes, here & elsewhere.) An audience for modern dance (for instance) will be limited but very knowledgable, whether here or overseas.
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Andin, whilst I appreciate that the generalizations about baby boomers might not apply to an artist like yourself,
I just fell off my chair Sir! You flatter me.
it’s worth comparing what the life of artists my age is like. My sister is a professional dancer (arty, not sleazy), and has been on the bones of her arse for … ever. Her student loan passed the $100,000 mark years ago, now I don’t even ask, I think my parents are paying the interest, and will subtract that from her inheritance. She’s not lazy, quite the opposite, she’s one of the most driven people I know. But the year you topped $26,000 is an unthinkable dream for her.
It was for me too. And I got fringe benefits Woohoo.
Sorry I'm an irrepressible print comic. As Simon said the downstream effects of student loans are horrendous or something...There is just NO MONEY in the arts, unless you are lucky enough to crack the big-time, which does also seem to mean “selling out” as well. She’s only able to do it because of support from Mum and Dad. The subculture she dwells in is very much an underclass, bearing all the hallmarks of lumpen proletarianism, lots of scamming, abuse, and a generally grasping attitude, as you’d expect from people drowning in poverty.
I thought we were at the "waving as we go down" stage.
But Im always jumping the gun, just like the weatherman. -
__Quite a few received a well funded education__
Sure they did. By their parents, or by scholaships. But not by the state. None of that has changed.
Per Equivalent full time student government funding in 2002 NZ$:
1980: $11,293
2002: $7,367A 35% cut.
What you’re ignorant of, willfully or otherwise, is that there was no student allowance prior to Goff’s introduction of user pays in the late 80s. Those without private means had to work part time and holidays to support themselves. The dropout rate was rather higher than today.
Well for starters, my postgradute study was on user pays and student resistance to it in NZ tertiary education. And I spent a number of years working in student associations, so it's an area I know a fair bit about.
Prior to the 1976 there was no universal system, student support was largely based on bursaries and scholarships. Some baby boomers would have ended up in that camp. In 1976 the government funded bursaries were introduced and included a living cost grant that was available to most students.
Currently about 25% of students under the age of 25 receive an allowance while studying. That's dismal student support.
__Please point out anywhere where I scapegoated baby boomers.__
Are you being cute? Everything you’ve posted on this topic has been selectively presented as an intergenerational blame game. Until this:
The one quote you can provide is where you say I wasn't scapegoating them? I mean it, provide a quote. I was quite carefully not scapegoating them. My parents are baby boomers and benefited tremendously from the changes that I've described. Yet they would have voted against many of them if they had had the chance. It's not necessarily their fault, but it's a distinctive line drawn in our history (another one which went the other way was the creation of the welfare state, when people who were earning and hadn't had welfare support, funded it for the generation that followed them).
Things do tend to focus that way once you step back from convenient self-serving generalisations.
If you could focus on what I'm saying rather that continually attacking me personally that would be good. It's simply ideas after all.
I must say Kyle you have certainly worked yourself up into a tizzy about all this.
I have no tizz. The intergenerational shift between those born in the 40s-60s and those born in the 70s-80s isn't particularly controversial. Brian Easton isn't the only economist who was written on it.
Ben and Jimmy have outlined pretty good examples of stories that I heard dozens of time when I worked at a students association - my parents/grandparents/uncles/aunties don't understand how the tertiary funding system has changed. Taxpayers tended to have very little understanding of just how little they were supporting tertiary students compared to 'back in their day'.
I’m still paying off my student loan which means the amount of money to put towards a house, marriage and kids is reduced – i’m hoping to have it sorted by the time i’m 35.
My loan zeroes out later this year. I couldn't have brought my first home or first car without my parents providing a money - saving isn't really an option.
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Re: the "universal student allowances" - 1976 til what- 1989? Gosh, how short that time seems now. I had no idea how lucky I was :)
And I'd wager most of the student body were unaware how much we owed Muldoon. He got scant credit for it from students!
Only fits in the tail end of the 'boomer' demographic though, and rather more of the next lot, whatever we are sposed to call them. -
Joe Wylie, in reply to
My parents are baby boomers . . .
And every misogynist just happens to have a woman for a mother.
If you could focus on what I’m saying rather that continually attacking me personally that would be good.
You seem to assume that the sort of parental help you claim to have received is somehow the norm in this country. It's not. You're part of a privileged minority. Then you attempt to score cheap feel-good points by attacking an entire generation, the majority of whom are far less affluent than yourself. And on top of that you expect to be taken seriously. I'll pass thanks Kyle, that's your job.
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Prior to the 1976 there was no universal system, student support was largely based on bursaries and scholarships. Some baby boomers would have ended up in that camp.
A big fast tick in that box for me.
The intergenerational shift between those born in the 40s-60s and those born in the 70s-80s isn’t particularly controversial. Brian Easton isn’t the only economist who was written on it.
No quite right, There are many economist's and journalist's getting ready to blame a generation for being born, and the faults of a few. As I said if birth control had been more readily available there wouldn't be this problem.
Its not hard to realise after years at war, fucking would have been high on the agenda in many minds.Ben and Jimmy have outlined pretty good examples of stories that I heard dozens of time when I worked at a students association – my parents/grandparents/uncles/aunties don’t understand how the tertiary funding system has changed. Taxpayers tended to have very little understanding of just how little they were supporting tertiary students compared to ‘back in their day’.
I dont doubt it is more difficult to be a student at present, and maybe your extended family has difficulty grasping the changes. Was there anything else?
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Danielle, in reply to
And every misogynist just happens to have a woman for a mother.
I don't get why this is such an awful argument that Kyle's making. It's honestly not all that controversial to note that *in general*, those born in the years following World War II were relatively prosperous compared to those who had come before and those who were born after 1965. IN GENERAL. Due to the confluence of a number of factors, many of which had nothing to do with the tax burden. Which doesn't negate the experiences of those baby boomers who were not prosperous or became less so (see: my divorced mother) or, indeed, negate my bizarre non-Gen-X-typical experience of randomly being pretty prosperous myself. It merely means that those experiences are less common. I don't understand how this is 'scapegoating' on Kyle's part, unless I missed a post of his where he said 'it's all your fault, you dirty boomers!' I think he's discussing it as just... something that happened.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
There are many economist’s and journalist’s getting ready to blame a generation for being born . . .
They keep hinting at a soylent green-style solution, but none have yet displayed the cojones to actually propose it. Far easier to scold the unwashed for such moral slackness as their low level of savings, while writing fawning pieces about bank CEOs who profit from encouraging personal debt.
"Phosphorus recovery," explained Henry telegraphically. "On their way up the chimney the gases go through four separate treatments. P2O5 used to go right out of circulation every time they cremated some one. Now they recover over ninety-eight per cent of it. More than a kilo and a half per adult corpse. Which makes the best part of four hundred tons of phosphorus every year from England alone." Henry spoke with a happy pride, rejoicing whole-heartedly in the achievement, as though it had been his own. "Fine to think we can go on being socially useful even after we're dead. Making plants grow."
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
I don’t understand how this is ‘scapegoating’ on Kyle’s part, unless I missed a post of his where he said ‘it’s all your fault, you dirty boomers!’ I think he’s discussing it as just… something that happened.
If Kyle had made it plain that his beef was with the selfishly affluent, rather than an entire generation, I'd have no problem. It's disingenuous to claim that you're simply discussing ideas and talking in generalisations when the supposed "facts" that you present unfairly caricature entire generations as possessing certain shortcomings or qualities. Forgive my raising the obvious, but it's about real people. When the blame game net's cast that wide then I for one feel unfairly maligned.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
They keep hinting at a soylent green-style solution, but none have yet displayed the cojones to actually propose it. Far easier to scold the unwashed for such moral slackness as their low level of savings, while writing fawning pieces about bank CEOs who profit from encouraging personal debt.
Or otherwise work out how to make the security walls and razor wires blend in with the McMansion shrubbery.
If Kyle had made it plain that his beef was with the selfishly affluent, rather than an entire generation, I'd have no problem.
Specifically the ones who became what they rebelled against in the first place.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
Danielle, this is the bit that really got me:
Baby boomers were at the most 40 years old when the 4th Labour government hacked taxes. During the following 25+ years - their peak earning years when people pay the most in income tax, they did not fund the care of their elders as per the social contract that had built up for several decades. Within a few years their parents and grandparents were having to sell their homes to fund their hospital care.
A sweeping generalisation: "baby boomers" - not just some, but all, no qualification - habitually drive their elders to penury, and deny them life-saving medical care to fund their own selfish lifestyles.
BTW we also bite the heads off babies, but we're sufficiently discreet about it that Kyle hasn't picked up on it yet.
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Sacha, in reply to
I don't get why this is such an awful argument that Kyle's making. It's honestly not all that controversial to note that *in general*, those born in the years following World War II were relatively prosperous compared to those who had come before and those who were born after 1965. IN GENERAL. Due to the confluence of a number of factors, many of which had nothing to do with the tax burden.
I take Joe's point about not unfairly maligning individuals who don't fit the trend discussed. Given the sheer size of that generation, most we can say is going to be true only for some.
However it is true that the big picture here is marked by a dramatic change in the 1980s of the overall distribution of income and wealth. And at a more specific level, the balance of who pays for services like retirement, health and education.
The inadequacy of class or other traditional ways of analysing that shift led NZ academic David Thomson to write Selfish Generations (reviewed by Ann Reeves of MSD's Social Policy team and by economist Brian Easton). I won't delve into their assessment of the work, but feel free to.
What we're discussing also reflects the thesis of Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers - that the relative success of individuals is sometimes best explained by being born at the right time and place to take advantage of larger social trends. New Zealand even gets a mention as producing the safest pilots - because our national culture encourages challenging authority, which prevents crashes.
Gladwell also considers the richest 75 people throughout history, and notices that 14 of them are Americans born in the same 9 year period.
What's going on here? The answer is obvious, if you think about it. In the 1860's and 1870's, the American economy went through perhaps the greatest transformation in its history. This was when the railways were built, and when Wall Street emerged. It was when industrial manufacturing started in earnest. It was when all the rules by which the traditional economy functioned were broken and remade. What that list says is that it really matters how old you were when that transformation happened.
If you were born in the late 1840's, you missed it. You were too young to take advantage of that moment. If you were born in the 1820's, you were too old: your mindset was shaped by the pre-Civil War paradigm. But there is a particular, narrow nine-year window that was just perfect for seeing the potential that the future held. All of the 14 men and women on that list had vision and talent. But they also were given an extraordinary opportunity. . .
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Sacha, in reply to
During the following 25+ years - their peak earning years when people pay the most in income tax, they did not fund the care of their elders as per the social contract that had built up for several decades. Within a few years their parents and grandparents were having to sell their homes to fund their hospital care.
That was a political decision, much like the ones that will be presented for support during this election year (or just done anyway like GST changes and stripping Canterbury's democracy).
In a relatively short time in the late 80s/early 90s - and with little or no renegotiation of social expectations - tax revenue was cut and surcharges and asset tests were added for retirement and aged care services.
In general it is true that different generations benefited from and were harmed by those changes - but they only happened because poltiicians were able to make them (which in turn led to pressure for MMP, another chapter to be revisited this year).
Individual boomers may not have made those decisions about their own grandparents. But all voters and other civic actors share responsiblity for what's done in our name. And the relative loudness of our voices are affected by factors like wealth, social capital and access to influence and organising ability. Demographic trends affect that too.
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Selfish Generations (reviewed by Ann Reeves of MSD’s Social Policy team and by economist Brian Easton). I won’t delve into their assessment of the work, but feel free to.
Easton sez
‘… the big winners … have been … those born between about 1920 and 1945. Throughout their lives they will make contributions which cover only a fraction of the benefits. For their successors the reverse is true.’ (p.3)
Much of the book is a rambling attempt to justify this accusation, based on anecdotal rather than systematic argument.Reeves OTOH
I was wrong. Firstly, the book does not attack any generation. It simply records the gradual shift in State assistance from a focus on children and young families, with minimal assistance to older people, through a stage where assistance to young and old was fairly evenly balanced, to the present focus on older people while assistance to those with young children has progressively been whittled away. Thomson notes that this has systematically benefited those he calls the "welfare generation", born in the 1920s, 1930s or early 1940s, while those who follow have faced cuts to current or prospective forms of support for themselves or their families. However, he acquits the "welfare generation" of greed or event intent in this.
So...um....yeah.. Back to working on the Time Machine.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
Individual boomers may not have made those decisions about their own grandparents. But all voters and other civic actors share responsiblity for what’s done in our name. And the relative loudness of our voices are affected by factors like wealth, social capital and access to influence and organising ability. Demographic trends affect that too.
Nicely said Sacha, but the claim of widespread incidents of older dependents of callous “boomers” needing to sell their homes in order to pay for life-saving medical treatment is unsubstantiated, and in the context of the argument it’s been invoked to support, downright risible.
I believe that we in NZ can take a certain amount of pride in how our elderly are currently treated, though I’m not placing any faith in Tony Ryall. Certainly we’re doing a lot better than Australia, where the kind of means testing introduced under Howard, in collusion with the age care industry, is downright shameful. Experiencing the older generation pass away is a rite of passage at this stage of life, and provides ample opportunity for reflection on the looming problem of my own generation’s impending decrepitude. I’d be delighted to engage in a constructive discussion about this, but disinformation, deliberately provocative or otherwise, is the last thing we need.
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The boomer generation experienced very different social and financial circumstances here compared to Canada – where I was born in 1957 – so I am not sure how relevant Kyle’s argument was in the first place, though I have to say of all the people I’ve met in NZ born between 1946 and 1965 I’d have to say there was quite a range of… types of people and standards of living.
But the thing that interests me was Sacha’s quote (hullo Sacha!) of Malcolm Gladwell’s -
What’s going on here? The answer is obvious, if you think about it. In the 1860’s and 1870’s, the American economy went through perhaps the greatest transformation in its history. This was when the railways were built, and when Wall Street emerged. It was when industrial manufacturing started in earnest. It was when all the rules by which the traditional economy functioned were broken and remade. What that list says is that it really matters how old you were when that transformation happened.
If you were born in the late 1840’s, you missed it. You were too young to take advantage of that moment. If you were born in the 1820’s, you were too old: your mindset was shaped by the pre-Civil War paradigm. But there is a particular, narrow nine-year window that was just perfect for seeing the potential that the future held. All of the 14 men and women on that list had vision and talent. But they also were given an extraordinary opportunity. . .
Gladwell is correct about having to be born at the right time in the right place, but he is wrong about the reasons for “America’s greatest transformation in history”. The huge leap in prosperity in the US at that time was mainly due to one piece of legislation in Britian – the Emancipation Act of 1833. The loss of both the highly profitable slave trade and cost-free labour, the great rubber, tobacco, sugarcane, cotton and mining barons were suddenly playing 2nd economic fiddle to anyone in the USA with capital, as slavery was not abolished there until 1864.
The loss of economic advantage (in Britian) was the greatest reason the Emancipation Act was argued so long (decades) before passing into law. With the abolition of slavery in the UK the USA suddenly had enormous capital flooding into their economy. And very cheap labour. Well, free labour once the initial investment was made.
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@ Rob Stowell
BTW, do you have any connection with a Bob Stowell? American, in Chch in the late 60s.
...and possibly the Laurel Stowell I went through my later school years with?
(Chch in the early-mid '70s)...at the bottom of the tower with the observatory dome on top
I dread to think what the plonkers currently mismanaging the Arts Centre will do about the Observatory Tower, it is still closed to the public...
I'd also love to know how much of the Arts Centre Trust's money, that should have been spent on earthquake strengthening, went on their flash Auckland lawyers during the Music Centre debacle... -
I touched on this much earlier in the thread, but I wondered if anyone wanted to think about it again now.
However we got here, and whoever is to blame; in the next decade or so there's going to be lots and lots of the baby boomers heading into retirement where they will begin to pay less tax, and require more assistance whether that be pensions, health care or whatever.
What happens if / when the following generations of taxpayers don't bring in the same amount of tax revenue to be spent?
Do some need to miss out, and if so who? Do we begin to start questioning some of the health spend on the elderly? Do we follow the UK and start hiking University fees higher? Do we just hike taxes for that generation so we can keep spending the way we are now?
This is the sort of stuff that worries me about how future Aotearoa will look.
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It worries me too Jimmy Southgate – not least because the younger members of the whanau way outnumber my mother’s generation, my postwar generation (includes my siblings), and the next one along (those born in the mid- late 80’s/v.early 90s.)
This is very good in several respects – but the continuing lack of creation of real jobs here means quite a few of them will be headed overseas – or are thinking about it.There has been – for quite a few years now – an unofficial triage carried on medical care for the old-elderly (my mother’s generation.) It goes sort of like this:
*is this person able to take care of themselves once procedure is carried out?
*Does this person have sufficient funds/health insurance to pay privately for the procedure?
*Does this person have family support/or sufficient funds to pay for care-givers afterwards?
*Has this person sufficient overall good health to enjoy a reasonable quality of life after successful procedure?
More than one “No” means a procedure will be carried out to relieve immediate pain & suffering – but the quadruple bypass wont be…Please dont misunderstand this kind of triage: we arnt anywhere near an USA system! But it is used discreetly, and does determine certain kinds of health responses.
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Jimmy S:
The last rise in GST was sold as an attempt to meet the decline in income tax by moving the overall take to consumption. While it doesn't suit me personally as I don't earn a lot these days, in principle it seems a fair response.Islander:
Having lost an elderly relative a few weeks back, and spending a lot of time as a visitor through their slow terminal decline, I couldn't fault the standard of palliative care they received. In terms of pain relief they certainly needed it. It was pretty moving when a couple of the rest home staff came to the funeral in their own time, of their own volition, simply because they'd developed a genuine personal attachment.All of this was funded by the state.
Around half of the carers these days seem to be from somewhere other than NZ. -
Joe - having also had 2 old-elderly relatives die over the last 2 years, I can also say that the palliative care received was absolutely as needed. And, yes, state-funded.
(They were not in resthomes, but were hospitalised for the last few/2 weeks of their lives.) And I was very grateful for the completely anytime-access given to whanau at a southern hospital.)Re resthome workers: yes, I understand a large proportion of these wonderful workers are now recruited from overseas a)because few ANZers will do that work for that kind of pay, and b)it suits the owners of such resthomes to have workers who arnt yet aware of the full extent of their workers' rights. If these Filipinas et al use this as a step towards citizenship - why, we've all gained-
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Sacha, in reply to
Here's a few suggestions for repositioning the country for impending demographic changes without slashing and burning. You're dead right it's a conversation we need to be having - so where's the leadership?
We must improve productivity to increase business and personal incomes with fewer workers. Research tells us that NZ's management and governance skills need boosting. Business cheerleaders need to get over themselves and accept that rather than whining about red tape (newsflash: NZ once again 4th most economically "free" country, prominent libertarian investor Peter Thiel sees our potential).
More flexible and supported arrangements for part-time work will tap the efforts of larger numbers of semi-retired older people, disabled people and parents with school-age children. Well-organised volunteering will also be crucial.
There is scope for changing the tax system so that the wealth in personal assets and investments makes up a higher share of the tax base. We need to encourage investment in export-earning and import-substituting businesses instead. Exports make up far too small a proportion of our economy compared with other developed nations.
Economic development should focus on strengthening sectors that return high revenues for their input costs (where those costs properly include carbon in a modern global economy) - like software, fashion, screen production, science, education and professional services. Hands-off is simply not good enough and we need to put silly laissez-faire notions back where they belong in the dustbin of history. They're one big reason Australia has streaked ahead of us over the last few decades.
Sadly, current political timidity and unambitious 'leaders' suggest a preference for 1950s industries like farming and mining, privatising existing state assets rather than investing in new enterprises, and a continued reliance on importing migrants and screwing down employment costs like wages and ACC levies rather than smarter management and investment.
We don't even have the balls to implement a capital gains tax to make crystal clear to everyone that speculative property gambling and bigger and flasher houses are not productive investments for this country's future.
The national conversation about this needs to help everyone think about our grandparents and our grandchildren; about the sustainable wellbeing and wealth of this country's future residents and environment, not just what's easy or comfortably familiar for us right now.
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Sacha, in reply to
If these Filipinas et al use this as a step towards citizenship - why, we've all gained
Not if it suppresses the standard of care, we haven't. As an example, language barriers already attract many complaints. That industry has poor development partly because the workforce has little to aspire to, though there have been some moves to establish a career structure.
But there's no sign that paying decent wages will be happening anytime soon despite surging demand. and the industry has been largely propped up by the generosity of older workers - who, you guessed it, are retiring in large numbers.
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