Posts by Paul Campbell
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There's another approach that's used in the US - food stamps - these are in essence $ valued vouchers that can be spent as money in supermarkets but only on food - if you want to address at least the food side of child-poverty they're a way to target benefits more finely
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Craig: I'll happily add to that "or move the tax steps" making the lower steps wider - as I said I'm definitely in favour of a progressive tax system, I just think that GST is not the way to do it - I've had to file Californian sales tax returns - NZ's system is so wonderfully easier to deal with
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James EVERYTHING we buy has GST - that means when we spend our take home pay we all spend 12.5% of it on GST (except for the guy who writes it off which IMHO is wrong but that's another issue)
What is different is that it's 12.5% of you take home pay, not your gross - you can subtly argue that the rich guy is paying less because the GST tax is on take home pay - if your marginal rate is 40% then for every $1 you earn you take home 60c and the added tax is 12.5% of that 7.5c, while if you're on a 20% marginal rate the added tax on that $1 will be 10c - but the rich guy still ends up paying 47.5% total while the poor guy pays 30% total so the total tax system is still progressive
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I'd disagree - GST is equally fair on everyone since it's the same for every transaction - when you buy an X it doesn't distinguish between rich and poor - and because it's on absolutely everything it's pretty much impossible to avoid no matter how much you earn
On the other hand I think that we do need an overall progressive tax system - you're right it's a matter of social fairness- currently we do that with income tax (and benefits) because that's the one place where actual income is available to trigger differential taxation.
The big thing we don't have is a capital gains tax I think if you want to make things more progressive that would be a better place to start - it's the one major tax break the rich get that the poor don't - the problem is that there are always 2 easy numbers - 0 and everything (ie no tax or tax at the income tax rate) - I like the US mechanism that: taxes at the income rate for short term investments, at a lower rate for long term (3+ years - 25%) holdings and an exemption for family homes under most common circumstances) - that doesn't screw the middle class and encourages money to go into longish term investments rather than real estate and/or quick bucks
One thing that I do think is broken is 'fiscal drag' - I'd love to see a law that automatically pegs the steps in the tax system to some standard inflation index.
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I have to chime in on behalf of the status quo - the current GST returns are so wonderfully simple - having to go over every purchase and sale and decide "is it food?" would make things so much more difficult
I think that if we want to subsidise food we should raise the dole or increase WFF
(and for something completely different I bring you: Police in southern China have discovered a factory manufacturing Free Tibet flags)
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Talking about such things we were just last week pining for the days you could spend an afternoon in the Robbie Burns with a jug of whiskey sour - I wonder if they would still sell you one (and what it would cost) ....
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I believe that pouring cheap beer into pokies rather than money has been known to make pubs a more pleasant place
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There are several that have Emerson's on tap - Eureka down by the campus, the bar attached to the tourist restaurant in the Railway Station are the 2 I can remember off the top of my head - not all (nor even most) the bars listed on their web site for Dunedin have it on tap though
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The best idea of course is Emerson's on tap ..... mmmm ...
I've always considered darts at the pub a mixed blessing - especially after the people next to you have been at it for a few hours and their aim is getting a tad flaky .... recently we've actually started werewolf in the pub - but by the fire downstairs so as not to scare the regulars
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I suspect that if you get your city council's ass into gear laying fibre in competition to Telecom they'll get their ass into gear - competition does that for you - Telecom has nothing to lose by not being all that nice to you if they're the only game in town
Shep: like or not phones are going digital - a good thing IMHO - I can contract with anyone to get my phone service over my internet connection - it means that your phone provider doesn't have to live in a big gray bunker close to you - it also means you can make new sorts of phone services that Telecom doesn't approve of - I have an Asterisk home telephone exchange (really just some free open source software running on an old pc I'd otherwise junk) - calls my local NZ phone ring on my phone, so do ones to my old US phone number, when I'm travelling I can call home over wifi/internet and my wife's phone rings - with an iPhone or equivalent in the future whenever I'm near wifi, anywhere on the planet, I'll get my NZ (or US) phone calls there - Telecom or Vodaphone won't be involved, I'll just pay internet charges - not roaming cell rates - my phone exchange can call yours direct - or maybe to skype - again no Telecom, it's all internet traffic - the best part, I haven't had a telephone solicitor call in 3 years
What I'm trying to say is that if we play our cards right we're all going to get to own the telephone system, or at least our part if we want to - I think Telecom is running scared - they want to get their VOIP boxes into everyones homes before someone else does - otherwise they'll lose control
BTW: did you know you can call Auckland from any little village in India for about 1/10 the price it costs from Dunedin? (look around on the main street there'll be a guy there with a VOIP phone he'll let you use for a price ....) there's no magic there - that guy on the street in India is making money, so is the service he works through - it's just that someones making a killing here in NZ - we all get to become that guy in India when we we control that little box that connects the phone to the 'net