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6:00 am, September 26th, 2024 - 29 comments
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Open mike is your post.
For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.
The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Step up to the mike …
Barbara Edmunds, Labour's finance spokesperson, was excellent on RNZ's First Up this morning. Light at the end of the tunnel?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/first-up/audio/2018957155/our-weekly-catch-up-with-parliament-s-opposition
We live in hope, but at least there is a discussion in NZ Labour now rather than a blanket refusal on CGT.
The CoC is getting more vandalistic by the day with GDP down from 2023, and now they are sacking knowledge workers and scientists whilst simultaneously prodding home workers back to offices to support the downtown service sector. Many adults are a bit over sodding coffees by now…
Personally if there is to be a new tax I think it should be a Wealth or Land Tax rather than a complicated and poor (and uncertain) revenue yielding CGT.
May as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb.
The next election may hinge on this. A Wealth or Land Tax where 100% of the proceeds were promised to be committed to making the health service function well might just fire the imagination of the electorate.
I’m not hung up on CGT Git, Wealth or Land is fine by me. The thing with CGT is that it might start a fundamental change in how private housing is viewed in this country. Accommodation and a family resource, or a cash cow for graspers and speculators.
Land seems the most sensible thing to tax, usable land being relatively scarce.
Big shoutout to all Dunedin City Councilors who yesterday listened to the people and collapsed the effort to sell Aurora.
And huge shoutout to all Dunedin citizens who worked against it.
One day, one day, a government will empower locals to generate and reticulate and retail their own power as a democracy not a capitalist order. And on that day DCC and Aurora will be in great place.
+100 Ad. The fascist mayor got yet another lesson.
In a mask slip moment Luxon correctly identifies profit as theft.
"I love it that the CEO of a big bank from Australia wants to take more money off New Zealanders,"
And immediately Labour responds with its own mask slip, revealing the corporate sex workers they are rushing to the defense of ANZ and accuse Lux of an 'unbecoming jibe'
He incorrectly identifies capital gain as "profit". The sale of a property merely transfers its capital from one asset class (property) to another (cash).
Only if, the amount in cash is the same as that paid for the property, would be the case.
It is not the transfer of capital, it is the creation of capital (otherwise there would be no 'gain' in capital gain).
The question is where does the gain come from. I define it as profit in the sense it is wealth realised and claimed under the pretence of private property rights by one class (property owners) and created by another (all wealth is created by the working class). I.e. CG is profit extraction as it is value exploited from from the working class of the future as someone somewhere is going to have to do real work and create real value to pay the mortgage that paid the capital gain.
Another argument, perhaps a better perhaps and more modern one, may be that the capital gain is fictitious capital and will never be made real as the volume of fictitious capital is so monumental now the real economy can never produce enough value to underpin it. The falling rate of profit pushes capital into the only game in town – speculation, the resulting exacerbation of booms & busts and the the situation we now have where the economy depends on central banks printing money i.e. as Varofakis would argue capitalism died in 2009 when Blair and Obama started bail outs/QE/printing – however you want to paint it.
As for unbecoming jibes who are the, "corporate sex workers", you mention?
All Labour did was note the ANZ CEO thought those who made a CG should pay tax on it, as banks do on their profits.
35/36 OECD nations have a CGT. The IMF recommends we do, as do former heads of Treasury.
CLuxon plans for foreigners to build rental housing here – so the rent payments go offshore. He is the one planning for more money to leave New Zealand.
The CSW I mention, didn't Labour accuse Lux of making unbecoming jibes when he was having a go at ANZ? I may be mistaken if this is not correct, my mistake if so. But surely its what Labour didn't say thats the crux of the matter. They didn't say 'Yes we need a CGT for a more fair and equal society and also Lux is correct – ANZ is taking too much money off NZers and our plan to limit this profiteering is xyz…" Is it not a damning indictment of the left that the right are on the radio lambasting corporate profiteering! Isn't that our language and position? Never mind the right are full of it, that's besides the point. The right have pushed us off our home ground.
Meh. Luxon has taken no move to reduce the profits of the Oz banks – which are cartel like.
Given they make more profits here than they do in Oz (offer better terms and options to their Oz customers) – he should be applying a windfall profits tax on them.
Can someone enlighten me as why Transpower are so reluctant to claim compensation from Omexom their contractor. The report says the supervision / training of the Oxemom employees who undid the nuts and bolts on the tower was not adequate / non existent.
"Ryall laid the blame with contractor Omexom and said they were still working through things with them.
The work order indicated an experienced supervisor and two other crew members would attend the job.
Instead two trainees were sent, without the needed direct supervision, Ryall said."
Surely Omexom should pay any compensation. They are a large company and are clearly at fault. Surely they would have public liability insurance?
Minister wants someone to answer for pylon failure, locals just want an apology | RNZ News
It will be a liability argument between their respective insurers. No one will talk until that settles.
Another successful programme – that's great – so let's see how long it takes for Seymour axe it.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/bay-of-plenty-times/news/ngai-te-rangi-justice-programme-te-pae-oranga-addresses-the-why-of-offending/6PD6NG3S5JHDPNTPEFYHOFEJ7A/
David 'Smeagol' Seymour, a tragicomedian, consuming Aotearoa NZ from the inside.
"If Nelson Mandela was alive today, he would be campaigning for ACT" – Seymour
https://www.education.govt.nz/school/school-terms-and-holiday-dates/teacher-only-days-2023-and-2024/
Time for a distracting crackdown on teacher-only days… whatever next?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/529079/watch-live-crackdown-on-teacher-only-days-parents-face-prosecutions-in-truancy-push
https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/statistics/attendance
I would imagine that teachers feel they need "teacher-only" days due to the extra administration that they are expected to do, which they didn't have to do years ago which would explain why there were none when I went to school.
On the other hand, the cynic in me notes that teacher-only days always seem to happen on the Friday before a long weekend or the Tuesday after.
On a related point: why is it that it is the Associate minister Seymour gets to bang the drum about this rather than the REAL education minister Erica Stanford?
Probably part of the coalition agreement: Seymour gets to bare his chest and make all the grunting noises when it suits him and leaves the boring bits to others.
The teachers have a teachers only day to learn stuff at school – like the new curriculum that National are imposing and also imposed when the lessons should be held. If they are on a Monday or a Friday, it's not for teacher's benefit because they are at school (or another school if the lessons are there), it's most likely for the benefit of caregivers – to have the long weekend.
Kids don't lose out – the days get made up at the end/beginning of the year because there has to be 200 half days of instruction.
Seymour's just ripping off Trump, who compared himself to Mandela last year.
Getting less votes than left leaning Jeremy Corbin, Starmer, mocks Corbin's legacy, claims a mandate for imposing austerity and cutting heating subsidies for old people and in a new low laughs at Palestinian dead.
The lunatics have taken over the asylum.
Thanks for that Jenny. Owen Jones is a hero….he usually writes an article every week in the Guardian. Well worth reading.
Starmer and Reeves showed their true colours there.
In 2011 Calgary stopped fluoridating the city water. They plan to resume fluoridating because…
https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/calgary-s-plan-to-reintroduce-fluoride-into-drinking-water-pushed-back-to-2025-1.6845098
This has been known for decades. My dad made sure all his kids took low-dose fluoride tablets because the town supply water was unfluoridated. That was 60 years ago. He happened to be a paediatrician – so God knows what horrors he saw.
My father was involved with the introduction of fluoride into the Auckland water supply 1950-1960’s, reckons it did him out of a job as he was Children’s Dentist. He was well qualified MDS Dentistry & MSc Microbiology Chicago University so I guess he knew about the benefits of low levels of fluoride and dental health. I don’t know enough about the disadvantages of fluoride???
High levels of fluoride in water (higher than 4 ppm) can cause health issues (primarily skeletal). This is more than 4 times higher than the NZ water dosage (which is under 1 ppm). Given that NZ is naturally low in fluoride in the environment, you'd need to be taking very hefty fluoride supplements, in addition to whatever fluoride you were gaining from water supplies, in order to reach this level. You could never get there just from fluoride in water.
War supply fluoridation began because areas of the world with high concentration of fluoride in groundwater naturally had better dental health than neighbours.
• Not only is fluoridation effective at reducing pain, misery, disruption, disfigurement, it can cut NHS costs. For every £1 spent on fluoridation, particularly in deprived areas, it can secure over £12 savings after five years, rising to nearly £22 after 10 years (Scotland).
NIWA to acquire Metservice.
https://niwa.co.nz/news/government-announcement-about-niwa-and-metservice#:~:text=To%20achieve%20this%2C%20NIWA%20will,implement%20this%20in%2Dprinciple%20decision.
Hey Labour, National knows how to dismantle corporate bullshit.
Looking forward to more mergers.
Let's pull Kiwirail into NZTA.
Re-merge MfE and DoC.
Revisit the RNZ TVNZ merger
Kill off nonsense QUANGO's and pull into stronger regulators.
Don't be afraid. Form a re-integrated public sector with less bullshit, fewer boards, more direct accountability.
Form a coherent public sector without extra corporate