Posts by Rich of Observationz
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Matthew, I welcome any change that might make housing more affordable. It would be nice if a six figure salary was enough to pay for more than a shoebox.
However, that doesn't change the fact that our system has a *huge* bias in favour of taxing workers over capital owners, and I'm not going to shut up about it.
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people on the trading floors there would run over their grandmothers with steamrollers to get a 7ms reduction in trading latency
Things have clearly changed. When I worked in the City of London 10 years ago, latency was the time it took you to yell down the phone.
I still can't believe that 7ms is going to make that much difference - someone still has to read a deal and hit the button. That takes several seconds. If it's a fully automatic system, you'd put it right there in London/New York/Singapore and remote control it, really.
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If the CAP were abolished, "open market" food prices would presumably go up as Europeans bought more on that market. (Just as Chinese open market purchases sent the price of food rocketing before 2008). Total global food production would fall as European food production dropped (because farm land would be converted to lifestyle blocks and suburban sprawl).
So food would become scarcer and people in developing countries would pay more for it.
On the other side, commercial farming outside the EU would become more profitable. Which *might* help farmers in developing countries - although it's more likely that the slack would be taken up in semi-developed countries like NZ, Argentina and Thailand.
The real problem in Africa isn't a lack of market for crops, it's that governments and infrastructure are utterly fucked to the point where many people can't sustain enough economic activity to feed themselves.
For the reason I gave, there is never going to be a good selfish reason for Europe to abandon the CAP. Possibly the best route for Europe, rather than following the discredited path of globalisation is to introduce "fair trade" into their food supply systems, ensuring that the benefits actually go to developing countries.
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If the law deemed a purchase to have been made "with the purpose and intent of resale" if the house were sold within x (say three) years of the date of purchase
Why three years? What difference does the term make?
Rents in NZ are at a discount to mortgage costs. If I buy a house, rent it out for twenty years and sell it, then I've lost money on the rent vs costs. The difference is more than made up by the capital gain. So why shouldn't I be taxed on the actual profit?
It's like saying that I shouldn't be taxed on a bonus from work, because I didn't take the job expecting to get the bonus.
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The CAP costs Europeans 100billion Euros against a GDP of 12 trillion, so something under 1%.
Hence it's pretty sustainable, and a reasonable trade off for food security (one must remember that starvation is an actual living memory for people in Europe) and maintenance of landscape values.
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Or to someone who's back from overseas, or just moved to Auckland, or was living with their parents, or has split from their long-term partner...
Which, aside from net migration and intra-national population movement, gets balanced by people who move overseas, leave Auckland, die, or get it together with someone.
It's likely that the load of more tax would be taken by prices falling rather than rents going up.
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My understanding is that Southern Cross has substantial unused capacity, but its owners ration that to keep prices high.
Given that, it's questionable how the new cable is going to pay its costs back.
However, that might not matter if enough <strike>mug punters</strike> visionary investors can be persuaded to pay for it. The model of having a business borrow to the hilt to build new infrastructure, go bust, and leave that infrastructure to be rented out cheaply by a successor isn't a bad one for the community. See Global Crossing, et al.
Just so long as it isn't taxpayer dollars.
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The flip/hold rule is a rort.
If I buy a property and rent it out, I'll be having to put a substantial amount of money in to cover the mortgage, or forgo interest on that money, which still works out as a loss.
The only conceivable reason for doing that is to make a capital gain one day, so the property is *always* being bought for the capital gain. Even if I plan to live in it eventually, I'm still making money (against banking the cash and buying a house when I need one) so it's still a capital gain.
In our tax system, if I work my ass off and earn $100k, I pay around $35k of that in tax. If I sit on a house and make $100k, I pay no tax.
Why is that fair? Because most MPs own a rental property?
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Anyone on PS got any shares they want to part with?
Yours for 220c if you're buying, my son.
Although a broker might get you a better price:NZX
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Can we talk about cars now?
if they have to drive Holdens and Fords, they think it's worth the price.
And they won't see it coming when GM and Ford get it together to shutdown simultaneously. Although the V8 racing organisers have seen the future, and it's German. This will *not* go down well in Westie suburbs everywhere.
It's a worry when the object of one's fetish is a foreign multinational..