Posts by Kyle Matthews
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Having followed that back to the other blog, I feel the need to quote OMC. A plagiarism argument over the word 'muse' and the colour blue?
-
Craig R – whichever way your political spectrum sways, John Key is increasingly an embarassment.
Clearly you never saw that video of some top Labour ministers breaking down on the dance floor.
John Key does a wee fashion turn with RWC uniform? That's what makes him an embarassment? We really are reaching aren't we, weren't the asset sales enough?
-
No, it isn’t. Vote for what people say they will do, not because it’s “someone else’s turn”. I cannot grasp how a reasoning adult could find that reasonable.
I could see a reasonable (but weak) argument for it along the basis of:
1. NZ doesn't have a real centrist party.
2. If you were between Labour and National you might find that Labour pushed the country too far to the left for you, so you voted National to bring it back to the right. After a term or two of that you thought it had gone too far, so you voted Labour again.It wouldn't be a particularly sophisticated voting system, because governments don't necessarily move you slowly along the spectrum, they take big jumps in particular areas so you'd swing wildly from left to right.
And I also doubt that many people swing vote for that reason. -
No, nor does a phone talk. But they help with that.
I'm reminded of an argument that I saw two history professors have about the significance of the development of European maritime technology in the 'discovery' and settling of the Americas.
Which is to say that arguments about the role technology plays in major social changes are nothing new, and not quickly resolved.
My point-of-view is that from the longer perspective of history, we tend to assign greater roles to technological change as we are able to take a wider view of them. You look for causes that related to significant social changes and assign them as causative.
I predict 25 years from now we'll probably be talking about facebook and twitter (and whatever follows them) as '21st century revolutionary tools' of the developing world.
-
You’ll need to fill in the gaps of your story, how exactly CGT causes a cost that needs to be passed on to people who don’t even own property?
Well I think that's true. Part of the return for investing in property for many people is that they'll cover their costs with the rental income, but they'll make their profit X years into the future when they sell. I know a family member who did those very calculations and bought a rental property for that purpose.
If there's less profit at the end then a number of people will be wanting to make more from the rent since they'll be making less at the end.
-
I'm not arguing about the value of the asset or how its distributed. I'm saying that if the proceeds from an asset sale were used to retire foreign debt and the equity was held by NZ residents, there would be a reduction in the outflow of the current account. The improvement in the current account makes us better off.
I don't think you're carrying the picture far enough.
The NZ residents have to get the money from somewhere. If they sell assets (other shares) to pay for these new shares, they're going to be selling them overseas. If they take out their savings, the banks/investment companies are going to need to find money elsewhere to replace it so that they maintain their equity, and they'll look overseas.
The only way that this money all stays in NZ is if the government sells the shares in the SOEs, and then uses all of the money inside NZ - retiring local debt, investing in infrastructure. Because a lot of the money to buy them will inevitably come from overseas.
-
As DPF frequently points out in, there is urgency, and urgency and urgency.
Yeah. I don't really see 'extending sitting hours' as requiring urgency. There's nothing urgent about sitting for another two hours so that we can progress these things in the normal process of parliament.
I would imagine if urgency was abused less, they'd be more likedly to get the support of other parties and the general public when they did use it - when stuff actually is urgent.
-
it seems at a first hack at the problem I’m better off if the govt owns the shares because if I own them I have to pay tax on any income from them
No difference there. The government pays tax on them if they own the shares.
Assuming same dividend: same tax income for the government, the difference is where the net dividend goes - you or the govt.
So as Keith points out, it really comes down to the relative difference between you owning the shares and the govt in relation to your taxes, user pays on services, and what they use the income from the asset sales on compared to what they used to use the dividend income on.
As im not much of a financial person, could you give insight into which would be the more appropriate figure to use in this case?
(my amateur understanding) Return on capital = income from capital - cost of getting capital (in this instance dividend income from shares - interest cost of borrowing money to buy shares. 2% would indicate that on the face of it, it's financially worthwhile to borrow money and buy shares, as you'll come out with money left over after you pay the interest. So 7.6, 5.5, and 2% would make sense as figures.
As Gareth points out, there's other factors and complications.
If there were clear policy objectives that could be met by doing so, then there would be an argument for owning fashion stores. That’s why we own a bank, for example. The fashion stores idea strikes me as wrong basically because I can’t think what important policy problem that would solve.
Jeans hanging down around your thighs. I'd be in favour of the govt investing in fashion stores if it solved that.
The point about the government owning 51% is interesting. That would give them a controlling interest and presumably enable them elect the majority of board members.
I do wonder about other legal constraints. Isn't there a rule about companies having to return maximum reasonable return to shareholders? Could a minority sharesholder sue the company board if they tried to do anything other than return as much money as possible to shareholders?
-
Yah, that’s how it works. There’s now no need for a separate printer version – it will automatically strip the side column, header and images just print the content.
I discovered this change the other week, as I have to print to pdf web pages quite a bit for my new job.
Fan-diddly-tastic to whichever bright spark got that into browsers.
-
Or the way the Electoral Act was fucked around with under extreme urgency, for no other reason than because nobody wanted a by-election in New Plymouth.
I could see an argument for a movement into urgency requiring a higher proportion of votes, which would mean that in order to do it you'd basically need a significant sized party on the other side to agree. 60% or something.
There would probably need to be exceptions which someone who has more of an eye on parliament would raise. I could imagine that some tax or commercial changes need to happen instantly or people will take financial advantage of them in between them being announced and passed.