Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: Aiming for the feet

Kumara Republic

Wed, 12 Feb 2014 21:51:12 +1300

For lack of a better analogy, are Paddy Gower and John Armstrong the political journo equivalent of James McCullen Destro – an arms dealer who sells weapons to both sides of the same war?

Matthew Poole

Tue, 11 Feb 2014 08:15:04 +1300

But I don’t see why the Herald would’ve uncorrected it in the process of reposting the ODT’s report.

As much as I'd be tempted to say that Granny's sub's thought that their brand of what passes for English was "correcter" than ODT's, the total lack of any kind of editorial…

Chris Waugh

Mon, 10 Feb 2014 20:26:20 +1300

Well, the ODT has it correct now. But I don't see why the Herald would've uncorrected it in the process of reposting the ODT's report.

linger

Mon, 10 Feb 2014 20:17:16 +1300

rite of passage [ sic, for “right of passage"] – Is that typo the Herald ’s, or was it already in the ODT source article?

Answering my own question – the online ODT version has the correct phrasing.

ETA: snap.

Chris Waugh

Mon, 10 Feb 2014 12:06:50 +1300

Kinda OT just a lot, but Labour's not the only ones aiming for the feet:

Vessels had a rite of passage

I'm sure the do. And many other rites besides.

Matthew Poole

Mon, 10 Feb 2014 10:27:02 +1300

pays a fee to google Ireland for the use of the google brand and software and so on. That fee is always roughly big enough to eat up each year’s operating profits.

Bumped into an acquaintance on the train home the other day, and we were talking about something similar.…

tussock

Sun, 09 Feb 2014 23:37:10 +1300

As I understand it, google nz is owned by and pays a fee to google Ireland for the use of the google brand and software and so on. That fee is always roughly big enough to eat up each year's operating profits. google Ireland pays some pathetic tax on it…

Rich of Observationz

Wed, 05 Feb 2014 11:02:35 +1300

My understanding is that an FTT is not meant to catch ordinary business transactions such as import/export payments, but to tax global speculative capital flows, which form the majority of financial transactions of all kinds.

Sadly, even if all the OECD countries were to participate, this wouldn't stop speculative transactions…

Rich of Observationz

Wed, 05 Feb 2014 10:56:12 +1300

Here's an example of the type of tax avoidance that goes on:
Apple pays $3.9mln in NZ tax on $500mln plus turnover

Matthew Poole

Tue, 04 Feb 2014 09:36:56 +1300

Much as I favour an FTT, it really needs backing from at least one or more G8 nations to be meaningful.

It needs the backing of, at a minimum, the EU. If European businesses have to take their banking right out of the Union in order to avoid an FTT,…

Matthew Poole

Tue, 04 Feb 2014 09:26:31 +1300

You and I pay tax on our earnings on a progressive basis. So do most businesses

Minor correction, companies pay a flat tax rate not a progressive one.

Joe Wylie

Tue, 04 Feb 2014 09:13:26 +1300

I think DeepRed was drawing on items like this Joe.
With respect, that appears to be a prediction of wasting away rather than becoming unsustainably bloated.

Tim Michie

Tue, 04 Feb 2014 08:58:21 +1300

I think DeepRed was drawing on items like this Joe. But whatever the next MyFace is, I expect more of the same, both for privacy and profits.

Hebe

Tue, 04 Feb 2014 08:00:55 +1300

The Cunliffe announcement looked rather like the sort of slight chaos that can happen when a new team is still being formed: lack of co-ordination, haste, and a lack of detail thinking by those with strategic oversight. (Nitpickers are an essential part of any campaign). The timing was dreadful: worryingly…

Joe Wylie

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 18:48:24 +1300

FB is already showing signs of collapsing under its own weight.
Got a link for that? Because without knowing what you mean by "collapse under its own weight" it's a little reminiscent of Robert Metcalfe's 1995 prediction that the entire internet would go “spectacularly supernova” and “catastrophically collapse” within a…

Kumara Republic

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 18:05:15 +1300

If anything, David Clark's proposal to revoke Facebook's Internet access would probably have been redundant. FB is already showing signs of collapsing under its own weight.

Much as I favour an FTT, it really needs backing from at least one or more G8 nations to be meaningful.

Rich of Observationz

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 15:40:02 +1300

An FTT as usually proposed would be trivial for large companies to evade. It would only take one jurisdiction not to participate or to set a smaller rate/flat fee/etc. Banks would then simply structure transactions such that they nominally took place in Vanuatu or the Cayman Islands between shell companies…

Rob Stowell

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 15:13:20 +1300

Treasure Islands by Nicholas Shaxson
There's a Teasure Islands website too :)
(It should come with a warning – can cause rage and helplessness)

Sacha

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 15:03:24 +1300

EU nations introducing FTT should help us follow suit.

TracyMac

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 14:58:44 +1300

If anyone thinks NZ-homed companies aren't doing tax avoidance and other financial jiggerypokery via offshore banks (or places like Ireland and London that might as well be termed "offshore"), then they are being stupidly naive.

If Labour formulated a plan for cracking down on our businesses first, then they might…

Sacha

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 13:45:50 +1300

A modest universal financial transactions tax might be harder to avoid.

sandra

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 13:44:36 +1300

So so dumb to be manipulated by Tova O'Brien into phrasing it the way he did though.

Yeah, right blame the media. This guy may be new to politics (I hadn't heard of him before but that may not necessarily mean much, I'm getting older) but he should know enough…

Rich of Observationz

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 13:09:38 +1300

a long time and a lot of complex negotiation

And will be opposed down the line with all the resources of multi-national businesses, making arguments such as "it's all to complicated", "it'll break the internet", "how can we ban websites".

Tax isn't actually complicated. You and I pay tax on…

Chris Waugh

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 12:50:07 +1300

Ban Facebook! And Twitter, the New York Times, the Guardian.... Ban them all! It works a treat for China. It's also great news for providers of VPNs – more countries banning more websites means more customers for them.

What Craig said about the complexity of these MNCs and tax issues…

martinb

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 12:45:31 +1300

Or they've seen John Key go full bat-shit attack 'dishonest!!' 'misleading New Zealanders!' over something which wasn't actually WMD's, but a clarification of policy which was going to benefit the people it was meant to benefit either way.

Some may also have compared the media reaction, and the strangeness of…

Rich of Observationz

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 12:32:32 +1300

The problem is that the current basis of tax (declared profits), while fine for a corner store, doesn't work well when a company can manipulate its accounts so that profits pop-up in a no tax/low tax jurisdiction, like Ireland.

(Facebook is a poor example – they don't pay much tax…

Craig Ranapia

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 12:08:57 +1300

Exactly. If Progressive refused to pay tax, we’d shut them down, however much people needed groceries. Somebody would buy the stores from the receiver and start them up again.

Which is not a terribly good analogy. Unless I’ve really missed a lot of somethings, not even Clark is claiming outfits…

Keir Leslie

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 12:05:39 +1300

I can't say that the highly autocratic and controlling aspect of Clark's leadership are those I miss, no.

Sacha

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 11:52:54 +1300

Wendy Brandon sounded promisingly high-powered as Cunliffe's chief of staff but I don't know who's leading that party's comms or strategy functions. Others here probably do.

Raymond A Francis

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 11:51:09 +1300

Does anybody on the Left long for H2 and why has a replacement not been found

Sacha

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 11:49:55 +1300

Labour’s been quite happy to relentlessly paint this government as all spin, no substance and enough bullshit to double New Zealand’s mushroom production.

"Relentlessly"? If only.

If you’re a minister of the Crown or party spokesman who can’t clearly articulate matters of policy and handle press interviews, perhaps Tova O’Brien…

Rich of Observationz

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 11:49:52 +1300

Exactly. If Progressive refused to pay tax, we'd shut them down, however much people needed groceries. Somebody would buy the stores from the receiver and start them up again.

Of course it wouldn't come to that, companies usually write a tax cheque in the end. (Unless they are "Apprentice" presenters,…

Craig Ranapia

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 11:49:23 +1300

spelling

Sorry about that – my internal spell check needs another coffee. :)

Sacha

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 11:46:54 +1300

Sasha

spelling

Peter Darlington

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 11:45:38 +1300

Not sure that either party, Labour or National, are in favour of Internet freedom. The guilty until proven innocent anti-file sharing law, the "voluntary" Internet filter, the online bullying moral panic legislation, TICS, you name it: not much in that soup of silliness that promotes and protects the rights of…

Craig Ranapia

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 11:24:57 +1300

So so dumb to be manipulated by Tova O’Brien into phrasing it the way he did though.

Oh, balls. Sorry, but I get as terse about that as Kiwiboggers ranting about poor Hekia Parata being “manipulated” by the evil media into arias of incomprehensible edu-crat gibberish. If you’re a minister…

Craig Ranapia

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 11:14:49 +1300

I’m pretty sure the key message that most non-wonks will have got is “Labour is promising more money for babies” and details of how much more are lost in the wash.

Possibly. Then again, plenty of non-wonks may also have seen the guy who very seriously would like to be…

Keir Leslie

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 11:11:55 +1300

To be fair, "yes we would stop that company trading in NZ" is pretty much the underlying principle behind all company taxation. Of course we'd be prepared to stop Facebook operating here if they weren't willing to pay their legal tax obligations, in exactly the same way we'd stop Microsoft…

BenWilson

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 11:06:35 +1300

I'm pretty sure the key message that most non-wonks will have got is "Labour is promising more money for babies" and details of how much more are lost in the wash.

Juha Saarinen

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 10:56:44 +1300

Joe Wylie

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 10:51:33 +1300

But countenancing a state ban on a website used by more New Zealanders than any other? And not just individuals, but whanau and groups and organisations, many of whom rely on Facebook as a platform to support and stay in touch with each other?
Clark would have done well to…

Craig Ranapia

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 10:48:39 +1300

Even little things like the scheduling clash with the Grammy’s where surely a large part of the electorate they’d like to be engaged only had eyes for the Staples Centre.

I’ll grant that, but regardless it was still a heavily covered political story in an election year. And like it…

Sacha

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 10:42:40 +1300

John Key and his ministers have had a week to smugly declare that Cunliffe couldn’t be taken at his word.

A line worthy of Karl Rove that would have been delivered at the first opportunity if not this one. Definite strategy to attack opponents for your own weaknesses. Those Transrail…

Russell Brown

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 10:39:09 +1300

Even little things like the scheduling clash with the Grammy’s where surely a large part of the electorate they’d like to be engaged only had eyes for the Staples Centre.

Ironically, the Labour MP who got 100% positive coverage that day was DJ Jacinda Ardern of the Laneway electorate.

Peter Darlington

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 10:37:11 +1300

But what's even harder to explain is why this happened in your first major set-piece speech of an election year

Even little things like the scheduling clash with the Grammy's where surely a large part of the electorate they'd like to be engaged only had eyes for the Staples Centre.

Craig Ranapia

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 10:34:55 +1300

Because, frankly, making a statement about how many families would be covered by the baby bonus that is contradicted by the policy paper you’ve posted on the internet is just too dumb to be a cunning plan.

But what’s even harder to explain is why this happened in your first…

Public Address

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 10:34:55 +1300

Discussion from blog post.