Posts by Sacha
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Another still, small voice: The Law Society expresses concern over the Gerry-mandate (sorry, "wrings its hands").
How cute. They think the consequences are "unintended"
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What timing. Bernard Hickey is tiring of the kool aid.
I feel like a priest who has been wrestling with his belief in god and has now decided god does not exist.
It's time for me to recant and to say what I've been thinking for months: the economic god of completely free markets and capital flows is not worth believing in anymore and we must look for other things to believe in and do.
I think New Zealand needs to have a debate about capital controls, about foreign ownership of assets, about measures to control our currency and about being openly nationalistic rather than internationalistic about our economic policy.
I think the Global Financial Crisis and the preceding decade of debt-driven instability in global capital markets and trade flows have demonstrated the failure of the economic model most New Zealand policymakers have adhered to for nearly 3 decades.
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As others have said, this is really about generating attention around a core political difference, not primarily about whether it's the best solution. We're talking about it, so I guess it's working already in those terms.
The public and media discussion too often drops into being framed only in neoliberal terms, yes. PAS being a hotbed of geekery, we have naturally added a focus on how technically implementable such a system would be. I'm enjoying hearing more about food pricing signals.
This seems part of a broader conversation about how to source state income, including the 2007 local government rates review and this government's last Budget adjusting some tax sources including the rise in the GST rate. Savings policy changes will add an impact soon. Local Government Act changes and the Supercity and Christchurch experiments show another part of the picture. Expect further local government tinkering if Hide's wheels stay on long enough, unless strategists suggest delaying until after the national election.
If the problem is poverty, then let's address it. And not (as the last Labour government quietly did and this one more proudly) retain some destructive core policies from the 1990s including benefit rates deliberately set below subsistence levels and tanking the economy by slashing public spending when private sector debt is the issue. English did that in the late 90s and it looks like he's succeeding again - remarkably consistent performance. At least Labour in government focused on job creation and investment in working families but there are an awful lot of children, young people and striving adults not reached by that.
There has been some good work on tax-free income thresholds, including by the Greens and I think the Child Poverty Action Colalition. Would be good to hear more discussion of that as another approach to managing redistribution like Working For Families and a myriad of other systems do. Keith Ng's post comparing NZ and Australian tax systems showed the impact their larger tax-free threshold has.
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dots joined
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"Further supercity job cuts" after the current ones depend on how short sighted voters - and the representatives they elect now - are.
About 300 managers would be involved in the transition process, but by July 2012 they would no longer be needed, meaning the total staffing number would be reduced to 7907.
Mr Hide said the transition team considered that cuts could go further, but that would depend on whether the people of Auckland wanted to keep their rates down.
There is a reason for Auckland's dodgy footpaths and leaky sewers - decades of voters and politicians deciding their short term interests are more important than the city they leave their children and grandchildren.
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Unhusked peanuts are presumably exempt , but salted ones are not?
Is a peanut a fresh, unprocessed fruit or vegetable?
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Is Slicing processing? how about Washing?
Yes. No.
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GST already has exemptions, note 'activists'.
Vaughan Gunson of the Tax Justice campaign says claims the GST system is universally applied is "not true".
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Revenue Minister Peter Dunne said in July it is "simply… not New Zealand's policy to have a non-universal GST".
But Mr Vaughan [sic] lists several economic activities exempt from GST, primarily financial services such as "dealings with money; certain dealings with securities; provision of credit and loans; provision of life insurance; provision of non-deliverable futures contracts and financial options; the payment and collection of interest, principal and dividends; and issuing securities such as stocks and shares".
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Disclosure with humour even - bravo
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DPF getting merrily stuck in to Len Brown again.
Further spreading the lie with that conflation of Council with Mayoral decision-making power, just like the dimwitted Herald story as I noted upthread:
"Auckland City is the only Council to be transparent on this issue. why won’t Len Brown reveal the size of the golden handshake he agreed to with the Manukau City CEO?"
Of course Mr Farrar knows exactly what he's doing.