Posts by Stephen
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I figure it's probably going to take me at least another day of my time to find a private insurer
Can't you stay with ACC then?
It is rather the Tall Poppy Syndrome writ large - let's try not to create any excellent students
This measure may be a response to the unacceptably high numbers who are not learning much literacy, numeracy or *anything*. There are plenty of excellent students but also far too many failing ones.
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For me it's one of those things I don't really care too much about because now we have to put up with arrogant England supporters (at least they're further away).
I was talking to a Scottish guy who couldn't believe I was going for the English, but we eventually agreed that what it boils down to is your general proximity to the tossers that inhabit the victor nation.
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The unemployment benefit is conceived as exactly that. It's just that it was deliberately lowered to the poverty level in the early 1990s (see Alastair Barry's still relevant In a land of plenty ) and never raised since, so we don't think of it in that way.
High unemployment benefit with higher taxes or individuals paying for their own unemployment protection insurance with relatively low taxes - is there a difference? Insurance (actually banking too) companies too cutthroat to be trusted?
I see Denmark requires actual targeted contributions (subsidised) in order to get their money:
<quote>With respect to the 80% of salary unemployment benefit encouraging 'bludgers' - it should be pointed out that this entails making contributions (a form of insurance, ableit subsidised) and a one year qualifying period. Denmark also has a regular less generous safety net benefit for people not covered, with no other resources similar to NZ.
Hmm. Sounds like both ideas really aren't that dissimilar, but until we turn into Denmark I wonder if people would be better off if they knew about the *existence* of income protection...
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...you can't force people to take it, but it sounds good in principle...
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just fire this off before i exit for several hours - what about the income protection insurance idea?
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But since they're eligible for 80% of their former income for up to a year, up to particularly high income levels, it's not something employers are afraid to do.
Might be tricky to sell politically ('more money for bludgers' and all that - you don't have to be a nat/act voter to feel that way either) - would taking out income protection insurance provide the same effect? It's 75% in NZ from the few examples i've seen. Course a tax cut would need to fund this or people might grumble about the extra cost.
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Employers are also more reluctant to offload staff, as they don't want to send their staff into poverty.
Not sure I follow the bit about employers being afraid - why would they care what conditions their ex-employees are subject to? Not saying they don't care, but surely it varies too much to generalise about...
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Eddie, yes I agree! More from NotPC, which seems to be your point:
But if government is inefficient at managing prisons themselves –- and no one knows this better than Barry Matthews himself -– then why should we expect it to be any more efficient at producing the contracts to run private prisons?
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NotPC is actually <i>against</i> privatising prisons, perhaps summed up best by:
“In anarchy (and indeed, any private market) the good or service is being supplied in response to the demands of private individuals,” whereas when the demand comes wholly from monopsonistic bureaucratic management financed out of the taxpayers’ pocket, the services provided are quite different.
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=11906042&postID=3516299869632975384
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Kyle, that number was just pulled out of my arse as an example, should've added a disclaimer. There's the cost (sounds like 20,000-40,000 a year), but more importantly would be the profit that can be made - incentives would have to make sure that it is more rewarding to limit reoffending than to imprison someone, which does actually sound tricky when long-term prisoners would bring in the most money...maybe that can be accounted for too...
Details...pfft!
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Yeah Eddie my post was very much an un-educated theory. How expensive could it be when we already have criminal records - a crime is added to the record/no crime is added to the record over 5 years, this registers against/for the prison - bang?
Otherwise some sort of effort would presumably have to be made to keep on eye on lobbying activities at the very least, but I can't even get theoretical on that.