Domesticated

Written By: - Date published: 6:27 am, May 22nd, 2010 - 38 comments
Categories: budget 2010, humour, tax - Tags: , ,

Amongst all the budget reaction, there is a group of people that I don’t understand. They are the small group who are very well off, and who are nevertheless exulting about tax cuts that give them a few tens of dollars a week. Is your allegiance really purchased so cheaply? For some reason it reminds me of this cartoon:

(With apologies to the author, go buy his excellent DVD or books.)

38 comments on “Domesticated ”

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  1. Dave 1
    22 May 2010 at 6:48 am

    The thing that really gets me about this whole ‘tax cut’ thing is why the public aren’t clamouring as much for higher wages? I know my taxes are spent on society as a whole and I accept that. But what would make the biggest difference to my pay packet is if the business owners in lil ol NZ would stop being so greedy and pay us all a decent wage. $12.75 is a pittance, you can dress it up however you like with statistics, but the amount is still pitiful.

    • Galeandra 1.1
      22 May 2010 at 7:42 am

      Because we are aping the States? They seem to keep their lower orders in a state of serfdom.

  2. Descendant Of Smith 2
    22 May 2010 at 7:57 am

    I still waiting for the first employer to come out after some tax cuts to say – “Thanks for the tax cuts. It’s been really difficult to pay my staff more but because I now have to pay less tax I can now afford to do so. Thank you staff for working so hard for me while times were a bit tough. Now things are easier I can increase your pay.”

    Didn’t see it last time they cut tax – haven’t seen it this time.

    Isn’t the (stated) point of this government’s direction, including this package, to help lift wages to match Australia.

    I thought this government would be looking high and low for an employer to come out and do this. They’d be talking to their mates saying “Come on just one or two of you, lift your wages and say it’s cause of us. Please. Pretty please. Let us show the public our policies are working”

    • Tigger 2.1
      22 May 2010 at 10:07 am

      Exactly. A tax cut isn’t going to keep me in NZ when I can go to Australia and earn 30% more for doing the same job.

      So where is the ‘wage lifting’ vision? There isn’t one. They don’t want wages lifted. They’re happy to throw scraps as bribes.

      • really 2.1.1
        22 May 2010 at 10:13 am

        Yup, “they” secretly are oppressing you Tigger. When you sleep ‘they’ also steal your blood.

        • Tigger 2.1.1.1
          22 May 2010 at 10:26 am

          So secret about it, ‘really’. The Nats are very open about the fact that they’re not interested in lifting wages. Our PM said he wanted wages here to drop, remember.

          Oh and take your pissant attempts to paint lefties as looney conspiracy theorists to Kiwiblog. That type of spin might work in the MSM but not here.

    • Lanthanide 2.2
      22 May 2010 at 11:23 am

      I would like to see Paul Reynold’s pay cut in line with the tax cut, such that he receives the same after-tax renumeration. Seems fitting, given how he’s driven Telecom’s stock price to the lowest ever.

    • Draco T Bastard 2.3
      22 May 2010 at 12:25 pm

      DoS, you’ll never see that. You will see them screw wages down more though. Really, we need to get rid of the owners and start operating cooperatively.

  3. really 3
    22 May 2010 at 9:52 am

    Reminds me of flea bitten curs stalking around the fire pretending they don’t want it. But thats just my h.o.

    • Galeandra 3.1
      22 May 2010 at 10:49 am

      Yeah ,Kiwiblog reminds me of that too. Jackels, really.

      • Get thee 3.1.1
        22 May 2010 at 10:53 am

        Jackals? Nah they don’t have the nobility of jackals. They’re flea-bitten little chihuahuas yapping away from behind the safety of a fence.

        The kind of annoying ignoble little mutts that are best dealt with via a swift kick in the arse.

        • BLiP 3.1.1.1
          22 May 2010 at 11:49 am

          I doubt they’re flea-bitten – more likely pampered with frequent visits to a tut-tutting vet who gently admonishes the owners for feeding them too many tidbits. Yapping behind a fence, for sure, but only for the half hour or so they are let out to shit on the environment.

          • pollywog 3.1.1.1.1
            22 May 2010 at 1:36 pm

            I do like poking a stick through the fence and giving them a prod every now and then though…

            • Pascal's bookie 3.1.1.1.1.1
              22 May 2010 at 1:45 pm

              I’ve seen you do that. Though I’d probably describe it as walking up to the fence and spraying them with a mace/pcp mixture, then lighting a spliff and having a good laugh at the ensuing bloodbath.

              Well played, ’tis.

              • pollywog …
                22 May 2010 at 10:19 pm

                heh ta…

                When i was a kid i used to have to go past this house with a big scary dog in the front yard all the time and no matter what i did, walk fast, walk slow, hum, whistle, look at it sending out the good vibes, not look at it and ignore it, it would always come charging up to the fence and scare the shit out of me.

                One day i was walking past and saw it was right by the fence asleep. So i stopped, leant up to the fence and barked like a crazy man. It jumped up, yelped and shot off round the back of the house. I pissed myself laughing. So everytime i went past i’d call it to come up to the fence but it never did. It used to stay by the side of the house and look at me funny. Sometimes i’d just growl and it would hide.

  4. just saying 4
    22 May 2010 at 10:56 am

    I remember the highly unionised workforce when I first started out as an adult.
    We knew our employers quite literally owed us a decent living. But now saying that last sentence probably sounds to many ordinary people like some kind of extremist radicalism.
    If people need or want a little more in 2010 they demand some of their tax back. Much better to suck the resources out of our own communities than to make any demands on employers ay?
    After all, the rich are being more than generous in just providing any kind of job. What more could we possibly ask of them?

  5. aj 5
    22 May 2010 at 11:00 am

    I’m still struggling with the lack of reaction to National’s election promises vis-a-vis tax cuts. They campaigned on ‘north of $50’ for the average worker.
    They quickly gave cuts to the top few then canceled the ones that would have benefited lower incomes [recession!!!]
    Now that times are ‘better’ the top few get massive cuts again and the average guy gets a tax break that is swallowed completely by the GST rise, ACC rise, ETS, and inflation. Apart from here, where is the outrage?
    My reading from the man in the street is that while they aren’t happy they just accept it. Although I’d think it’s going to erode National’s vote, I think they are more at risk from F&S outcomes and evening thinking about Asset sales. Buy share in something we already own? with the previous history of asset sales in this country?

  6. Olwyn 6
    22 May 2010 at 11:25 am

    The thing is, there is a presupposition in NZ that failure to be middle class is shameful, and to claim to be middle class without the financial backing to “ratify” this is contingently shameful. Hence, it seems more “dignified” to shout for tax cuts rather than higher wages. Shouting for higher wages suggests that one belongs to a “shame” category, while shouting for tax cuts does not. It is not entirely silly, since to show oneself as powerless is to open oneself to further exploitation, but so long as we buy into this game we remain instruments of our own oppression.

    • prism 6.1
      22 May 2010 at 1:53 pm

      Yes Olwyn
      I think voting Labour may not be the thing for a well-set-up bloke or blokess, bit down market, less being shameful as not being modern and upwardly mobile and thinking about things that provide personal status. National have a Gloss despite everything they do, the smuts just slide off their backs. I could do with a car polish as good. People vote National for status reasons I think.

      I got an example of this when I was on a Labour stall at a weekend market and offered a leaflet on policy to a man passing by who said something like ‘Oh Labour, that’s for the working man’. And this was after Roger Douglas was taking Labour away, far away from workers and us everyday bods in the street. I myself don’t support Labour any more, though I have hopes they will gain traction soon. I supported Jim Anderton for a while, he has worth and I didn’t hold the dissolution of the Alliance against him. (I know that he is autocratic).

      Talking about sliding off – I thought this riposte after the Tuhoe dinner debacle was good. That John Key could never be anyone’s dinner, because he is too slippery to stay on the plate.

  7. just saying 7
    22 May 2010 at 11:49 am

    Exactly Olwyn.

    Shame is turning ordinary people against each other. It’s divide and conquer.

    You don’t see the doctor’s union losing any mana when they make demands.

  8. prism 8
    22 May 2010 at 1:24 pm

    Wages – it’s the market. The Book of the Market is probably suited to electronic rendering, as the story changes all the time, though the broad structure is constant.

    The whole trend when looking at ordinary workers is to wave the Chinese low wage economy in our faces, wages must match productivity, the factory moving belt style goad is used to get faster, higher output which will give an incremental wage rise. And the scheme is to buy us off with imported lower price products from low wage countries which we can just afford.

    When looking at top management, business executives, the trend is different. Then there is a scarcity. The executives seem like film stars commanding fabulous salaries. But film stars that don’t perform adequately, have diminishing incomes. A top executive’s contract should be the same, say made annually, with a basic salary and large bonuses for good results. It is hard to see the huge payments to the top chief executives who haven’t even started the company, may never have built one up from scratch, and the workforce get crumbs, usually stale. Another way to screw workers is to pay them monthly, so the company has the workers’ living expenses to use for its own advantage in that time.

    • just saying 8.1
      22 May 2010 at 2:04 pm

      Solidarity can create a kind of scarcity.

      If those high fliers can’t get anyone to clean their toilets for the minimum wage, they either clean them themselves, or pay higher wages. I’d bet the house that if they had this choice higher wages would magically be affordable. It’s always been a con that employers can’t afford more than the bare minimum. A bare cupboard was always their opening gambit at the bargaining table. Difference is, workers of old didn’t respond to it with “thanks anyway sir” if they ever even have the audacity to ask.

      I know there are complicating factors, cheap labour overseas, as you say, has had a huge effect. The fact is though, that those companies that can have virtual slave labour overseas produce their goods, if they haven’t already, will go offshore no matter what. Those that can’t need to know that if they can’t afford living wages in New Zealand, they can’t afford to do business here.

      • Draco T Bastard 8.1.1
        22 May 2010 at 2:13 pm

        A bare cupboard was always their opening gambit at the bargaining table.

        And a lie. When bargaining commences the books need to be open and how much wealth the company expects the position to produce made clear. Then the wages can be negotiated fairly.

      • prism 8.1.2
        22 May 2010 at 4:14 pm

        We should strategically buy NZ made goods then and help businesses and employment. We’ll have to pay more but if we can support NZ manufactures it helps.

        am buying Watties tinned tomatoes which are a useful recipe core but only the ones that have the international flavours, Moroccan Indian etc. They seem to be the only ones made in NZ and nearly all the other styles and brands come from Italy.

        A recent doco on the growing fields of Italy have left question marks over what’s coming off the toxic dumps there and that’s a good reason too to change.

        • Draco T Bastard 8.1.2.1
          22 May 2010 at 5:52 pm

          What was the doco?

        • Bill 8.1.2.2
          22 May 2010 at 6:05 pm

          Until we get to the point where our unions approach negotiations from a point that responds to ‘the cupboard is bare b/s’ with a ‘Good. Consider you’re company to be under worker control’…

          Until our unions actually put the literature on worker control together and disseminate it among members and push for incremental introduction of systems conducive to worker control into our present situations at every opportunity…

          Until we get down to the basics of market mentality and understand that it is the market which demands and rewards the ripping off of your neighbour and punishes any deviation from that ‘norm’…

          Until we demand, fight for and introduce non-market dynamics into our production and distribution systems where possible and at every opportunity…

          Until we understand that wages are just a mechanism for perpetuating forms of slavery…

          Well….I guess we’re just going to bumble on our not so merry way getting ripped off, pissed on, fleeced, swindled and shafted in more ways than I either care to or am capable of listing.

  9. Fisiani 9
    22 May 2010 at 1:25 pm

    A great Budget is a budget that grows the economy rather than simply arguing about the division of the pie. Treasury figures suggest that Budget 2010 will grow the economy. Create 170,000 jobs and make NZ a better place for our children. Arise Sir Bill.

  10. Pascal's bookie 10
    22 May 2010 at 1:36 pm

    I predict the All Whites will win the World Cup. Arise Sir Ricki.

  11. Fisiani 11
    22 May 2010 at 1:57 pm

    Same odds as Labour for 2011, 14, and 17

  12. mach1 12
    22 May 2010 at 2:04 pm

    Create 170,000 jobs

    Citation or I’m calling salad tosser.

  13. Fisiani 13
    22 May 2010 at 2:07 pm

    Budget speech

  14. really 14
    22 May 2010 at 5:27 pm

    He cited the source of his quote. Still the childish partisan bile flows.

    • Draco T Bastard 14.1
      22 May 2010 at 5:54 pm

      But what we really need is real research that indicates that the budget could create 170,000 jobs and not the budget speech which is written as propaganda for the NACT+MP government.

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