Posts by Rich of Observationz
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Every UK government since Thatcher has been elected with the support and connivance of Murdoch. When the Tories were so useless and divided they couldn't get elected, Murdoch got behind a Labour leadership that was as right-wing as the US republicans*
* ok, on a bunch of cosmetic social issues, like foxhunting and gay rights, they gave out a veneer of liberalism. But they enthusiastically invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, privatised schools and rolled forward the UK police state. -
When you fire large numbers of people, there's a good chance they'll take their passwords with them, not to mention knowing which passwords the remaining sysadmins might forget to change....
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I could discuss conspiracy theories, but won't.
Instead, I'd note that the UK government has the power (similar to statutory management here) to wind up a company that is being run counter the public interest. I'd say News Corp meets that definition.
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Hence it is welfare.
So if it was offset against PAYE instead of paid in cash, it wouldn’t be?
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Why do people describe WFF as "welfare"? It's a tax credit based in circumstances (number of children to support). If it was netted against tax rather than paid as a cheque, would it be welfare then?
Is someone who sells a house (sorry, famileee home) at a $300k profit receiving a $100k welfare cheque?
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Can you elaborate on this fear?
So an imaginary nation, call it Smugland, has a prudent but aging population that saves well for their retirements. They’ve got large pension funds amassed overseas. Then they start wanting to bring the money home and convert it back into Smugs. The inflow of funds sends the value of the Smug rocketing, and reduces the purchasing power of their money. (It also increases demand while supply is falling due to workers retiring, and hence fuels inflation).
[ We are seeing this in a small way as insurance money for Christchurch is sending the dollar and inflation up ]
improving productivity and strategically supporting smarter industries
Something which governments, and not just in NZ, have conspicuously failed to achieve. It’d be nice if industrial policy worked, and I’m sure it has a place, but by and large, it just doesn’t.
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The thing which people miss about retirement is that basically, the section of the population that works has to produce the goods and services that the retirees consume.
Having a big pile of money "saved" by those retirees doesn't actually change that, except insofar that it can buy imported goods. I strongly suspect that any nation that does try to live a rentier existence off its accumulated pension funds will find that inflation and currency changes erode the value of those funds.
For NZ, the real solution to the demographic problem is to take advantage of the unpopulated islands we live on and encourage more young migrants to offset the ageing population. (environmentally unfriendly - not really - by encouraging people to move from more crowded areas we reduce the overall environmental stress on the planet. Not to mention that more populous cities would force us into more sustainable ways of living).
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I'm sure this has been pointed out elsewhere, but selling SOEs and repaying government borrowing isn't "paying off debt" in any meaningful sense.
The net debt stays unchanged, and the return on capital is lost. Only if the SOE makes a lower ROI than the interest on government stock will spending on debt interest be reduced (and bear in mind that if the shares are sold to <strike> mum and dad kiweees</strike> stags out to flip them to foreign pension funds the day after the float, they'll go for less than they'd otherwise be worth).
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Field Theory: It's not yours, but you…, in reply to Tom Beard,
I understand that a lot of the independent beer labels get some or all of their product contract brewed, right?
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besmirching Treasury’s reputation as neutral, competent public servants
That would be kinda hard..
IR is currently looking at means to increase compliance, but they’ve been doing that for years
Depends on the means. If they are just looking at more effective means to chase people down, then sure, that suffers from diminishing returns. If we talked about restructuring the tax system so that businesses that obviously make money (or why would they exist) pay their fair share in tax, then there's a long way to go.
[Cue a big whinge that businesses with no hope of ever making a bean are the backbone of the weightless economy, and NZ needs to cherish and subsidise them, or we'll be forced back to the horrors of the 20th century.]