Posts by Gareth Ward
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Hard News: Is that it?, in reply to BenWilson,
It could mean youths getting paid a minimum wage, but it means that the employer is really paying less than a minimum wage and the government foots the bill for the difference.
Yes but you realize I'm referring to a youth minimum wage yeah? The arguments for tend to be "youths will only be hired if they are cheaper for employers" while the against is "youths shouldn't be paid less".
IF (and I accept the big if) we accept some need for employment of new-to-the-workforce youth to be incentivised, can't the Govt take that on as a job subsidy rather than simply allowing youth to get paid below adult minimum wage?
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Hard News: Is that it?, in reply to Phil Lyth,
So Vodafone classifies NZHerald as international as well? Its an interesting mix of sites I am having trouble reaching
I suspect you're a 17y/o beneficiary and Paula Bennett is deciding on appropriate internet usage for you...
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Hard News: Is that it?, in reply to BenWilson,
It does encourage businesses to set up and run profitably without even being able to pay the minimum wage. They become the actual beneficiaries, and the youths have to do all the work. People who are not youths would simply not be hired at all, so it would put huge downwards pressure on wages.
How does that differ from an actual youth minimum wage? (But entirely open to the fact I've misjudged something here, because it was a 2sec thought!)
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43y/o finance directors are good rational economic actors who must be given freedom over their finances because Govt would get it completely wrong
17y/o people unable to land a job in a recession must give up freedom over their finances because only Govt knows how they should be spending it.
I was considering the youth minimum wage arguments the other day and thought why don't we run a Govt job subsidy program that effectively provides employers with cheaper youth employment but allows the yoof to receive regular minimum wage in total? Horribly costly perhaps? -
Hard News: Fixing Auckland, in reply to Russell Brown,
In theory, yeah. But these residents seem to have no street life. Nothing happens there.
Oh absolutely, my point was more that Wynyard Quarter will need some form of residential done right - mixed in with other uses properly rather than just all filled in behind the Viaduct etc. The overall urban design vision for the whole area (from Vic Park up) certainly includes that though...
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shabby, expensive terraces and apartments that basically shut down the neighbourhood where they were built
And yet this new neighbourhood will really need some form of residential living to keep it alive outside of Mon-Fri 9-5. Certainly the working wharves and the proposed hotel will help but you need to have people living around these areas to really keep their heart beating IMHO. I really look forward to the "Point Park" development at some point in the future and I understand there are residential aspects to that, as well as to the "Central Precinct" piece in around the existing Beaumont St.Re the red fences - I really don't know that any of them east of Queens Wharf will get pulled down now. It strikes me that the Council has finally understood that the Port are going nowhere, hence the whole reorientation west - both of things like Wynyard Quarter and the focus on Victoria Quarter etc...
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Field Theory: All Blacks v South Africa…, in reply to Glenn Pearce,
Does that include the one on Smit in front of the goal posts ?
Actually, no. Those stats don't include slipped tackles in the completed stats. Carter missed two of the total six missed tackles so it shows just how many tackles he was attempting (and completing 85% of them).
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Field Theory: All Blacks v South Africa…, in reply to Hadyn Green,
his last minute passes terrify me
He seems to have been showing his teammates how they work too - I spotted at least 3 0r 4 different ABs trying something pretty similar.
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OnPoint: Easy as 1, 2, 22.8 billion, in reply to giovanni tiso,
Means testing is like user pays. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Guarantee a decent minimum to everybody, including the CEO of Telecom, and incentivise people to supplement that. Getting people to save and then take away what they would have got if they hadn't is just wrong.
I'll disagree. You are guaranteeing a decent minimum to everyone by making super contributions compulsory under Kiwisaver - you're just changing the mechanism. Universal super then becomes a topup to reach that decent minimum from general taxation - for that to work you have to "test" what you need to make it up by. At the very least, base it only on their Kiwisaver account and topping up that to meet a reasonable decent minimum.
We can't afford to keep loading a universal decent payment on the general taxation of future generations. Numbers simply don't work. I'd argue means-testing in itself is far from dumb (I'd actually say it's the reverse of user-pays personally) but the awfully strict and nasty implementations of it in the past have been. -
OnPoint: Easy as 1, 2, 22.8 billion, in reply to Islander,
Kiwisaver hasnt been around long enough for my generation (hint: born 1947) to accumlate anything.
Oh I totally agree - it probably needs at the very least a 20yr run-in - but I think you need to make the statements now, otherwise we end up in the same argument again in 15 years. You need to give long long notice given the long long nature of the decisions required.
But I have to assume Cullen/Treasury et al always intended this with Kiwisaver - it does NOTHING to fix our Government pension blowout problems as it currently stands and only makes sense when it follows Australia's model and makes it compulsory and the univeral pension payout means-tested. Then it transfers the costs of my retirement off my children/grandchildren's general tax bills and recognises that I shouldn't need to receive a payout from the Government given I should be self-sufficient on the savings I've made. Make it a genuine safety net for those who haven't been able to accumulate the savings they've needed for retirement and not a general payout of our grandchildren's tax take to the Don Brash's and Alan Gibb's of the world.
The necessary delay is also a huge driver for continuing smoothed prefunding of Super via the Cullen Fund btw - that is what will help in around 15 years or so when the bulge hits under this alleged social contract...