OnPoint: Budget 2013: Bringing Down the House (Prices), but not really
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
Which means in turn that people with good *science* degrees (not BAs) are working as shop assistants, school leavers are unemployed and former casual workers are sleeping on the street. (The number of street people in downtown Wellington has ballooned in the last few months).
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Sacha, in reply to
these people wouldn't know good faith if it bit them on the arse.
So true. Opposition could make some mileage about character.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
it's all a glib shillen (anag 4, 7)
...these people wouldn’t know good faith if it bit them on the arse.
I quail at the gall of Bill English's glib Gotcha! :
"...he expects discussion with councils about the supply of more housing will be tense, because they were not headed in that direction."
Bill, I think you can add the Education Sector and most of the sentient populace to the list of folk who had no idea what 'directions' you and your morally rudderless buddies might divert us in...
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Brilliant chewy data. Makes the news commentary a bit facile.
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BenWilson, in reply to
Which means in turn that people with good *science* degrees (not BAs) are working as shop assistants
How long before a doctorate is really the bare minimum you need before you can be trusted with a cash till.
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Considering the budget surplus of 75 million, I wonder if banking wide boys and Treasury has considered the impact of the likely defeat of the Australian Labor government this coming September (beyond whooping and back slapping each other that a right wing government is elected, that is).
No one really knows what the coalition is going to do economically, the fight between Abbott’s aspirational goal of tax cuts linked to less-than-austerity tighter spending (though not for defense, which looks set for another mini-bonanza spend up under the coalition) vs Hockey’s slash-and-burn desire to end “the age of entitlement” has yet to occur. But an attack on organised labour, wages and conditions and some sort of economic contraction is likely; And the slightest hint of an Aussie cold is bound to set our economy sneezing. Given the “surplus” is a derisory 75 million dollar smoke and mirrors exercise, the merest hint of an Aussie economic downturn will wipe it out.
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And who's driving this policy?
"We've had a robust discussion with the Auckland Council because they're not consenting enough sections," he said.
"They need to get off their bums and do it."
Joyce said the Government would prefer not to have to intervene in the process but it wasn't prepared to let the housing supply shortage remain unchanged.
"People expect us to do something," he said.
The government is introducing new legislation to formalise the Housing Accord until further changes are made to the Resource Management Act.
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Moz, in reply to
The student loan issue is an ugly one. Not least because of the huge sovereign risk that's been demonstrated (viz, you have a legally binding agreement where one party can, and does, change the terms at will... it's as though they're taking tips from FaceBook).
I went through the process a few years ago because I could see that it was just going to get worse. It was better to borrow off a bank (who can't easily change the rules mid-loan) and focus on paying that back quick smart. In the end the process of arranging payment was so slow that I had saved enough by the time the IRD could give me a straight answer about how much I owed.
the likely defeat of the Australian Labor government this coming September
I expect an austerity program like the ones currently failing everywhere from the UK to Queensland. Which could easily send a flood of unemployed kiwis back across the Tasman. Those who can afford it, anyway - there are quite a few unemployed, homeless kiwis here with no entitlement to welfare. The ozzies are disturbingly happy to deny even the most basic sustenance to foreigners and aborigines. I got citizenship* a few years ago when it became clear that whipping up xenophobia was a blight that was not going away.
* for what that's worth - the ozzies are also happy to strip citizenship from dual citizens then deport them. They dumped a heroin addict into eastern europe a few years ago despite the fact that he'd lived in Australia since before he was five years old and didn't speak the language or know anyone there. From memory he slept in the embassy doorway and begged for food until the local media shamed someone into doing the absolute minimum necessary to make the problem go away.
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81stcolumn, in reply to
How long before a doctorate is really the bare minimum you need before you can be trusted with a cash till.
Unlikely:
i) The snobbery and misunderstanding around a doctorate will probably work against this in the long run. By way of a heuristic it was interesting to read here what value people did and did not find in a first class degree.
ii) Who would pay for a qualification that requires an effective suspension of earnings for up to four years on top of Masters study and concludes with a debt that may not be much less than $100,000? The previous budget killed maintenance for higher study. Modern postgraduates don't earn enough at completion to mitigate this, if they can get a job at all. Consequently a substantial re-packaging of the whole system will be required for any intelligent person to want to try this. From an moral point of view I struggle to encourage anyone to pursue a qualification beyond Masters.
iii) With major employers in areas like accountancy and law looking at running their own degrees it is a small step for a large employer to contract for vocational degrees with PTE's. The relationship between UNITEC and IBM has benefits but is also a little bit scary for a broad socially driven model of HE. Cast in this light equivalent funding for PTE's makes sense.
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Rob Stowell, in reply to
hordes of very highly educated youngsters being unable to find work, unable to pay back any debt, flooding out to wherever there is work
This isn't already happening? The unemployed PhD is a fairly new but all-too-common thing, I fear :(
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BenWilson, in reply to
Unlikely:
Of course. I was using hyperbole. I don't know how anyone could possibly afford a PhD unless they were already rich, or had a master plan for the use of it (probably in academia, but maybe in some specialist industry).
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Moz,
One ugly part of the fixed repayment is that there's no flexibility. If you go overseas to find work, or become unemployed while there the IRD doesn't care. They'll happily ask for money you don't have and charge you penalties for not supplying it. Which means you're often better off on the dole in NZ than overseas working for minimum wage while looking for work. I'd like to think that's not the design intention, but I am afraid that it is.
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81stcolumn, in reply to
Of course. I was using hyperbole.
I figured as much but I thought I'd have a whinge anyway.
I am serious about how quickly the postgraduate landscape has changed though. My partner (far smarter and more diligent than I) has been looking to re-enter academia for the last three years. At the moment she is in two part-time roles, neither of which look like they will eventuate in a tenured post. In one role she is effectively being paid part-time to train up a cheaper replacement for herself. With no growth in EFT's and what amounts to successive years of cuts in funding Universities will look to extend the exploitation of part-timers and graduate assistants in much the same way that the American institutions have done for the last twenty years or more. Current doctoral graduates are looking at a very bleak future unless something changes.
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
You'd be much better off getting somebody to smuggle you out of the country by boat or whatever. so as to stay booked as resident.
Maybe that'll be the real reason John Key's imaginary boat people come to NZ, to load up with student grant refugees for the return trip.
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BenWilson, in reply to
I figured as much but I thought I'd have a whinge anyway.
It's a whingeworthy topic.
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
Which means you’re often better off on the dole in NZ than overseas working for minimum wage while looking for work. I’d like to think that’s not the design intention, but I am afraid that it is.
Nah, I reckon it's better living in a third world country earning a wage that pays for an alright life in a third world country. 'Cept, of course, it's not easy to pay off the loan, specially with the current exchange rates.
Back in '99 I phoned IRD to tell them I'd be going to China and to explain that I'd be earning the then equivalent of about NZ$500/month and I couldn't see how I'd be able to make the minimum repayments. I was told, tough, you have to pay anyway. About 6 months later a friend got a job on the outskirts of Shanghai earning about the same. She'd phoned IRD and had been told she could apply for some financial hardship thing and get off the compulsory repayments.
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"chris", in reply to
Nah, I reckon it’s better living in a third world country earning a wage that pays for an alright life in a third world country. ’Cept, of course, it’s not easy to pay off the loan, specially with the current exchange rates.
Yeah, it was almost tolerable until that announcement Chris. I feel they’ve pushed the barrow too far this time. I will most certainly be resisting, so bring your best taser you fascist capitalist exploitative fucks.
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"chris", in reply to
Pretty sure I had to sign something to get a student loan. Marginally sure that something said that it was a loan, and that I had to pay it back.
Pretty sure that at 17 I signed something to get a student loan without parental consent, marginally sure that the current minimum age to sign any other kind of loan agreement in New Zealand was and is 18 years of age, fairly sure this loophole was sewn up 6 years after the fact, entirely sure that my repayment obligation is 45% of my income. 99% sure I can't make all of that, 100% sure that will incur late payment interest, pretty certain the loan interest rate is already higher than the mortgage rate, quite certain my interest already outweighs my loan, pretty sure the loans the kids are getting these days are interest free, quite sure more socially endowed friends from affluent families entered into marriages of convenience to qualify for allowances, fairly sure mates who gave the tertiary system a miss and instead rinsed the welfare system for a decade owe nothing, and in all probability aren't facing any kind of threat of arrest (for that), so yeah at least it makes sense in a lot of ways. I probably still won't be able to fulfill my repayment obligation after the court date nor the fine but it'll be a laugh, a tale to tell the Jehova's Witnesses and hey, at least it doesn't not make a lot of sense to 周扒皮, aye, buddy, cos this tripe, this fiscal irresponsibility, is bullshit:
Education is more than a luxury; it is a responsibility that society owes to itself.
Robin Cook -
getting pretty aggressive indeed.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
getting it off your chest...
Well said, sir!Education is more than a luxury;
it is a responsibility that society owes to itself.
Robin CookWhat size T-shirt does Hekia Parata take?
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"chris", in reply to
hehe, yeah I’m pretty torn up Ian, we’ve never seen much in the way of the symbolic self-immolation in ANZ but everyone has their limit, and having spent half a life as little more than fuel for the barbie what’s the difference.
As Willy Loman said to Charlie: "After all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive."
So sad but true, and with these loans, it’s not after years on the road, but straight out of school in most cases.
China gets a lot of deserved shit for the way the workforce is exploited but there’s a lot to be said for exploiting workers and actually paying them compared to our case where we’re rinsing the life out of students before most of us have even earned a cent. We are quite literally worth more dead than alive...until they also amend that piece of legislation.
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As a young man fresh out of school, I incurred 2 major debts. The first was my student loan. The second arose from a very poorly managed property development that I undertook. The debt left after all the dust settled from this development was more than my student debt, which was substantial. It was pretty shit at that age for that to happen, but I was determined to pay my debts. The people I owed money too demanded it, but in the end, we cut the debt in half, settling for a payment no more than all I could borrow from another source. They were happy to get it - there was a good chance they might never see any of it, I could have gone bankrupt, and I was definitely going to leave the country. After the settlement, we went our separate ways and I gradually paid the other source off on from the very high salary I earned in Australia. My student debt hung around for about 15 years, and was paid back in full, with a lot of interest, at market rates. There really was no other option.
The point I'm making is that despite the size of that property debt, the whole thing could be sorted out within a few years - the rub of moneylending can, and should, always be that the borrower can't pay, and the moneylender actually does lose. For that reason, they have to be reasonable about how much they lend, they should make efforts to ascertain that it can be paid back. There is absolutely no diligence of this kind whatsoever with regard to student debt. In that case, the deal is very different. It's "we have the power to persecute you for your entire life, because we are a government and you are merely a person. We will never let this go, until you die. We could even change the deal and shift debts beyond the grave, if we found we were losing out too much. We don't take it personally, you're just an entry in a ledger to us. No one can be appealed to about this, and no threat will move us. We will get our money, or you will die. That is what you signed up for, kid".
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"chris", in reply to
Thanks Ben, that's so much more coherent, I feel I can get some sleep now, cheers!
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
There is absolutely no diligence of this kind whatsoever with regard to student debt. In that case, the deal is very different.
I remember one of my Russian lecturers likening student loans to the redemption payments the newly emancipated serfs in Russia had to make. The redemption payments were like student loans, owed to the government, but to pay for the land that had been taken off the landlords and given to the serfs. Some managed to pay it off, and some, like Lenin's family, got rich, but the majority couldn't and the outstanding debt ballooned to the point were the government simply had to cancel it all. It would be nice if our government did the same, but to do so they'd have to actually properly fund education, including, shock, horror, "useless" things like the humanities.
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And another aspect of the budget that should've been done better:
This budget is all about balancing the books. So let's take a quick look at our fair nation's biggest income generating activity: tourism. This alone is worth $23 billion to our economy, making it really quite important.
So why do so many people come here to visit? In reality, for the vast majority it is not so they can hang out in a convention centre and eat McDonald's while they gamble at a casino. Most come to enjoy our unique natural resources and our so-called "clean" landscapes.
But if we don't look after our natural resources now, in years to come our prize location will become about as popular as visiting Aaron Gilmore after a few wines.
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