Cracker: Another Capital Idea...
287 Responses
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Sacha, in reply to
a country that is attractive to smart people
Yes please. I'd welcome lower corporate taxes - for exporters - in exchange for a CGT and more progressive personal rates with a decent universal minimum income.
Also strong investment for our future in things like affordable broadband, high-value sustainable businesses and accompanying innovation infrastructure, management and governance training to lift our game - and those better social and cultural services so the right people want to stay here.
And if the current bunch of politicians and their patrons are too fucking stupid and unambitious to offer that , then they can jolly well step out of the way. Or get eaten.
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Sacha, in reply to
a number of my friends
Really? You do realise that only 1 in 50 of New Zealanders are reliable Act-voting libertarians. Sure you're not hanging out with an unrepresentative sample?
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
Email Web
We were all lined up at the leaving gates, we were, weeping and wailing and begging them to stay.
Yes, I remember I had brought a crate of tomatoes. You know, for comfort.
They instead seem to think we are going to catch up with Australia by doing the opposite of Australia which seems strange logic to me.
They think that our key resource is neoliberalism, and not being so attached to the idea of the welfare state. Seriously, read the 2025 taskforce report.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
Email Web
So you think that the key to Australia’s current economic success is it’s progressive tax system? Screw mineral wealth, those top tax rates will sort things out.
You know, they had mineral wealth and we hadn't twenty years ago as well, and the gap between the two countries has ballooned in that time. So maybe it's not the minerals. (Even Brash says it's not the minerals.)
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One of the things about Australia's economic success is that it's been better distributed through a higher minimum wage and the preservation of employment conditions we lost years ago.
Anyway, right now, Wikipedia tells me that mining is 5.6% of Australian GDP, and about 35% of exports. cite. It's not clear to me that mining alone explains the relative prosperity gap. Certainly not how they pulled away from us through the 90s.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
They think that our key resource is neoliberalism, and not being so attached to the idea of the welfare state. Seriously, read the 2025 taskforce report.
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Danielle, in reply to
You can’t just point to a country that has higher tax than us and say ‘see’, any more than you can point to a country with a higher gender wage gap than ours and insist women should stop complaining about that.
As the Bearer of a Uterus, may I just note how deeply annoying and inaccurate an analogy that is? The gender wage gap is an *injustice* based on *prejudice* (and 'monthly sick problems', natch). Taxes are not, despite the apparently endless whining of people who should know better, some sort of injustice being levied upon us. They (ostensibly) exist so that the society in which we ALL have a stake is better and fairer and filled with less desperation and misery (and, you know, so we have roads and shit). That comparison makes me slightly hurly.
(Believe me, I'm hanging out to be taxed more so I can assuage my self-hating chardonnay socialist guilt. We are very comfortably off now, but ten years ago in America I had to sell my blood plasma for petrol money, and I don't ever want to forget what that was like, lest I become even more of a Whingeing Privileged Asshole.)
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Sacha, in reply to
whining
quite
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DeepRed, in reply to
@JoeW: Basically reinforces what I’ve suspected all along. Off the top of my head I can think of the following examples of John Frum economics that dominate the current orthodoxy:
- Broken Hill (mining national parks)
- Hollywood (the Hobbit Wars and the Copyright Wars, and of course the – Wellywood sign)
- Monaco/Vegas (the Sky City wheeler dealing, and getting foreigners to say nice things about us)
- Orange County (Suburbistan-ism and the property speculation bubble)
- Wall St (Auckland as ‘financial hub’, and asset sales)
- Wisconsin (welfare reform, and more cows)… and that’s just naming a few.
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Email
I'd welcome lower corporate taxes - for exporters
You know, you can tax exports extra. Works the same as an import tax, promoting local businesses who serve local needs, only without driving up local prices or encouraging inefficiencies, all while ensuring any externalised costs of our export industries are recoverable. Just 5% of sales, or something modest like that.
Of course, then our dairy industry would actually be contributing to society, rather than ruining so much of it, and the local price of cheese, milk, meat, wool, and so on would drop by some 4-5%, helping out local manufacturers who might improve those raw products. Oh, the horrors.
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Amy Gale, in reply to
Email
Sometimes its created by having a fucking good idea that lots of people want, hopefully lots of overseas people. And we could use more of these types of people, and we could use more of them staying here too I reckon. And I don’t think any of the ideas I’ve heard further either of these goals.
Well, for starters, if there's any money left over from repairing education/health/welfare, we could put a bit more into funding research. That would substantially improve the likelihood that this particular CS/software household could relocate.
(Tax rates? Not in the top ten reasons we're not there now. Not on the list of reasons at all.)
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anyone who thinks people are emmigrating because of tax rates is delusional. and where are all these low-tax countries people are going to? oh yeah, i know, Monaco, HK and... Guernsey.
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bmk,
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I get up this morning and saw the response to what I wrote. And found myself in the pleasant situation of not needing to defend what I'd written as many of you have already done it for me, in far better words than I could have. Thank you all.
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Hilary Stace, in reply to
Email Twitter
Sacha, a child centred policy framework is about the economy, but it is also a fundamental paradigm shift. If you have a society in which the health, education and welfare of children and raising the next generation is the central and main focus of government and society, economic values would change too. So parenting, child care, teaching, building warm houses, and environmental protection would go up in status and those activities which add no value to children such as investment banking,would be less valued. Investing in children would mean an end to child poverty, emptied prisons and a hugely innovative, prosperous and healthy society before very long. We wouldn't ask how do we pay for it, but how can we afford not to?
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Sacha, in reply to
economic values would change too
I'm not convinced they would. Investment bankers will still be paid way more than teachers unless we magically de-couple NZ from the global economy.
I believe the CGT and child-centred social policy are both significant initiatives but one does not seem to imply the other - beyond raising the money to pay for the changes and knowing what to spend it on.
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Sacha, in reply to
before very long
Similar political challenge to CGT - the benefits happen a long time after the cost, to different governments.
Selling broadly the long-term vision is crucial to keep support going (rather than have the next lot dismantle it like the current vandals are doing with KiwiSaver). Thank goodness Phil Goff is such a persuasive communicator.
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Sacha, in reply to
we could put a bit more into funding research
And the private sector must be compelled to do their share, given the failure of waiting for voluntary efforts to improve their relative contribution compared with most other developed nations. Time for corporate bludging off the state to stop.
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Sacha, in reply to
promoting local businesses who serve local needs
We already have way too many of those as a proportion of our total economy. What problem are you solving?
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Hilary Stace, in reply to
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If you made the main policy question: How will this value and enhance the long-term well-being of our children? it would have dramatic immediate effects. For example, you wouldn't have a tax working group made up only of rich white men, nor a welfare working group without representation from young people or disability advocates. The answers would be quite different.
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Sacha, in reply to
Though I agree about the paucity of perspectives around the table during this government's reign, I don't see the necessary connection between the policy question you propose and the process you describe. One does not automatically bring the other. That requires broader work and I've seen no sign yet that our lacklustre opposition has been grappling with those matters.
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Rik, in reply to
Investment bankers will still be paid way more than teachers unless we magically de-couple NZ from the global economy.
And this is a bad thing that needs to be changed?
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Sacha, in reply to
And this is a bad thing that needs to be changed?
For us 98% non-libertarians, yes.
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Rik I'm confused. Here's why. I am not ideologically left. Man, I've repped for so many major companies over the years; to know deep down I have no ideology. I just
need money.I like to read this website because
1) Russell is a rare talent in this country. I guy who delivers stories with intellegence, an understanding of the recent politics and history and some refreshing empathy for the growing poverty in this country .
2) I like the public address threads , they are good hard talk that generally gets done without too many bruises once you work out whose who, and in context of New Zealand threads has some amazing information delivered by some fine academics and intellects and personable policy wonks.
This thread has delivered you nearly all the information that you need to understand why the rational mind would support the re-introduction of higher taxes on the very wealthy.
Rik, you've got to put up an arguement, with figures, and wealth growth stats or anything, or quite frankly be cool and concede.
This is a debate that goes around in circles every year, one side produces figures, the other goes quiet, moody and then bitterly questions you on how thick the hair really is on that secret business chest of dominace we all should have.
Literally our political view here seems to have been dominated by media scaremongers for too long, and now I quite honestly am frustrated and a little shocked to be fucking honest with those who are in love/like/agreeance on National / Act right wing economics .
I want higher tax rates for the rich baecuse it makes fucking sense. Those upper bracket taxes were reduced on a "trickle down concept", that was marketed hard politically by both parties .They were a fantasy of a noble, moral and caring wealthy uber class that only wanted to gain more wealth so in order to trickle it down on the middle and lower salaried workers. Everyone wins. That didn't happen.
There is a stationary glut of money in a few hands , that money needs to reappear very soon or things will get rough for folks whose disposable income is either O or a negative weekly sum, hello loan sharks ,begging and theft considerations.
I look at graphs, history, read commentary . I've been doing this for decades and
right wing economics has a critical reputation that frankly sucks.It's not hardcore taking more tax from the top especially after it had been so dramatically reduced from the eighties onwards. It's not a hardcore policy, we may need to do some hardcore realignmeat of the economy but changing tax rates back
is just sensible economics in 2011. -
Islander, in reply to
Email
+2
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Brent Jackson, in reply to
Hear, hear.
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