Posts by Bart Janssen
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Hard News: The Political Lie, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Mark Burton and Phil Goff sitting next to her
And Key and McCully
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I think one problem that leads to the political lie is that politicians are expected to talk to wildly disparate groups of people and tell each group what they want to hear. Eventually the groups become so dissimilar that the politician finds themselves needing to either piss off a whole group or say something explicitly different to different groups.
Imagine telling a meeting of grey power what they want to hear and then going to a local PTA and telling them what they want to hear and next morning talk to the local business association, all in the name of getting votes.
At some point it becomes a case of lying to each group. My guess is that for some politicians it becomes a habit.
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OnPoint: Budget 2011: Now with 70% less wordiness!, in reply to Matthew Poole,
absolute refusal to impose a levy
Yeah I've seen various discussions of why it's a bad idea mostly centred around the cost in administration of such a one time levy.
But to me the value of it is that it emphasizes the direct nature of how we give our money to the government. Most folks just pay tax blindly and then ask the government for money equally blindly never really connecting the two activities. But the levy would be crystal clear ... money comes from my salary and goes to CHCH.
Hey what if all my taxes were so obvious?
<conspiracy theory> The cynical side of me suspects that's the real reason the government don't like such a levy because it only leads to more direct levies/taxes which ultimately take control away from the powerbrokers </conspiracy theory>
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OnPoint: Budget 2011: Now with 70% less wordiness!, in reply to Matthew Poole,
pre-loading debt
Worth noting debt in itself isn't bad. It's just that the use National made of that debt was ... well .. useless. Instead of using the debt to stimulate the economy they ... heck I'm not certain wtf they did with the money but it's gone.
The Spanish example suggests that the only way out of this mess is to increase govt spending particularly in welfare areas but also in infrastructure projects. That may mean more debt, but may also mean some more taxes - but more taxation tends to depress economies. It won't be easy finding a balanced path.
Note the Spanish got called all kinds of dipshits for their approach ... until it worked.
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OnPoint: Budget 2011: Now with 70% less wordiness!, in reply to Greg Dawson,
Yup, dogma says, in a recession government spending should increase, decreasing spending causes an even bigger drop in taxes which leaves everone in the poo.
Dublin's policy of ferocious cuts to public services, pay and welfare were the model to be emulated
What I find sad is that in NZ we never seem willing to believe that what is found to be true in other countries - we have to learn it for ourselves :(.
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Hard News: Budget 2011: While you wait, in reply to Sacha,
And the second graph on this associated post is quite chilling.
At the local level every year our senior executives have predicted revenue increases that are exponential. Every year revenue tracks exactly where it tracked for the past 20 years. Every year at the halfway point in the financial year there is a panicked e-mail, saying revenues are below forecast and we (you) will have to sacrifice. In our case that means no travel to conferences and no new equipment.
This National government appears to have gone to the same seminars as our managers. sigh.
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4% wage rise (predicted)
Inflation 5% (real)net earnings -1%
And that assumes the 4% is real. The result of that is lower spending and reduced tax take. I can't see how the numbers add up and my belief is they don't. National, if they are allowed back into power, has just released a budget that cannot balance unless a miracle occurs.
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Hard News: People Take Drugs, in reply to BenWilson,
You’re not really selling it to me
Ok how about this then, the folks there decided that some people didn't like walking through clouds of smoke to get into buildings. They put a proposal to the city council, it was put out to public ballot and the majority imposed their tyrannical will on the minority.
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Hard News: People Take Drugs, in reply to BenWilson,
I can’t agree with this sentiment. If it’s not shown to be harming anyone else, and it’s a public place, this seems like undue meddling to me
Littering doesn't harm anyone either.
Davis is an odd town, but don't knock it until you've experienced it. The smokers figured out where they could go and that was fine. Nobody objected to them smoking so long as they didn't inconvenience anyone else. The definition of inconvenience in Davis amounted to breathing someone else's unpleasant smell.
Note this is also the town where there was a noise complaint upheld for snoring, they built a tunnel under the freeway for the frogs and they refused to repair the potholes in a dead end street because they felt by that time the potholes had become an ecosystem that should be preserved.
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Hard News: People Take Drugs, in reply to Russell Brown,
One of the problems with the legal trade as it stands is dodgy marketing via Facebook et al. And one of the fake-pot companies has an incentive scheme going with retailers – rewarding those who can sell the most in a month. But that’s small beer compared to what the big guys might do.
Yup and a valid concern. But the current situation sucks. So personally, however risky the proposition of allowing Mark Hotchins to sell party pills, it is better than what we are doing now, essentially leaving drug distribution in the hands of career criminals that we have failed to control.
It may not work but we have to try something different.