Posts by Bart Janssen
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Up Front: Just Like Unicorns, in reply to Tom Beard,
"have they done nothing that could lead to babies?"
Part of the issue there is about being certain any child is in fact the progeny of the husband - hence the importance of virgin bride.
I like the idea of virgin territory, it invokes the sense of wonder that comes when you do something new and exciting. Logically you'd want to be virginal every time then wouldn't you ... perhaps that's a state of mind.
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Hard News: A Big Idea, in reply to Kumara Republic,
you basically have a banana republic.
milk-powder republic
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Hard News: A Big Idea, in reply to James Littlewood*,
While mortgage profits go to banks’ coffers, so do KS profits.
The difference is in what the money is doing. For mortgages most of the money is going into raising the price (not value) of houses in NZ. For KS most of the money is invested in businesses which have a chance of improving the economy.
I agree there is nothing inherently evil about banks - they serve an incredibly valuable function in economies. It's not the banks fault that NZ has so much of it's internal economy tied up in land and housing with very little return on the investment. But there is a cost to that in that a couple of billion dollars flows out of NZ each year for very little return on the investment. The house or farm is still the same but the price of the asset has gone up and the mortgage has gone up and the interest payments have gone up, and the banks benefit.
By shunting the money into KS the banks will still take a cut but there is a chance that the return on the investments from KS will be greater.
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Hard News: A Big Idea, in reply to Deborah,
Just as a side observation, it’s amazing to see so many people, here, there and everywhere, talking about the economy, and how it works, and who it should serve.
Which again is such a refreshing thing to see as a result of a political party releasing a policy.
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Hard News: A Big Idea, in reply to debunk,
Bad enough with these Australian banks profiting from household debt.
The banks take a couple of billion dollars out of the NZ economy every year! That is the real cost of the housing market, every mortgage with those banks is money that disappears from New Zealand.
That's not to say that overseas investment in NZ is always a bad thing, when it build assets and businesses it is very good, but to simply fund a churn in the housing market it's very difficult to see the value for NZ.
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Hard News: A Big Idea, in reply to Gareth Ward,
the OCR also is ... a tax whose revenue collection lands disproportionately in the overseas accounts of large global financial firms. I don't buy it.
This!
The exciting thing about this policy is that it actually seems to be trying to address problems in our economy rather than trivially grabbing for votes. It is very exciting to see a political party attempting to do something other than play political games.
As for whether it will work - I really don't know. I actually can't see how it can do much harm long term. More money into the investment pool as opposed to into the overseas banks can't be a bad thing can it?
I still want to see someone deal with the tax free capital gains that are a fundamental issue for our economy. But one step at a time.
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Hard News: Jones: The contender leaves, in reply to Pete George,
According to McCully the job was created and then Jones was identified as the top prospect for it. Jones says it was purely his’ decision to leave Labour
So you believe what politician say?????
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Hard News: Jones: The contender leaves, in reply to TracyMac,
He’s saying the right things, even if they’re not all the things
Exactly.
Not being able to fix all the problems is no reason to stop trying to fix some of the problems. And who knows maybe if you fix the problems one at a time you might find someday there isn't a next problem.
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Hard News: Jones: The contender leaves, in reply to Russell Brown,
I’m inclined to go with Paddy Gower’s assessment: it has McCully’s pawprints all over it. I would not be surprised if the timing was McCully’s.
If correct, it is a spectacular misuse of taxpayers money for National Party political gain.
A salary in the order of half a million plus expenses and a staff of how many?
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Legal Beagle: All of these things are…, in reply to WH,
Incidentally, you can read about Texas’ recent efforts to reduce prison populations here.
That was an interesting article. The aim was to save money, but the method was to reduce re-offending rather than simply punishing. Pity it took them so long when that approach has been in place in other countries for decades. That means it will only be another decade or so before NZ tries it.