Sector knowledge is?

The trade union economists usually do a good job of that with the overall Health spend if someone can?

It continued all the way through, with ever more desperate and unilateral thinking; Wage?

Yes that stupid tax cut has caused no?

Bill English admitted yesterday that it had not been subject to the standard Treasury cost-benefit analysis. Which is astonishing.

you may not be aware, but the New Zealand government is the biggest it has ever been, in adjusted dollar terms, and?

You mean they shrank the economy faster than they fired staff?

no. Whilst slow, the economy has been growing for ~3 years.

Except for maybe a small scheme known as WFF (means tested, but).

FM

Inclusion of SOE's and the like, rather than core Govt. expenditure?

Just a guess at this stage...

FM

Bill English is pretty much a dullard – If you look at a budget being the high point of highlighting future policy direction – then this one is going nowhere with nothing much.

at the risk of getting sidetracked, why would you exclude the family home from a CGT Luke?

Does that mean that the SOEs have been making a significant contribution to the growth in NZ's GDP whilst core-govt expenditure has stayed static?

Because a family always needs a home so the profit being taxed is never realised. You could, theoretically, sell the family home and live in a tent, sort of what National is trying to do to the country.
I?

That was pretty awful. Clearly, he enjoys it, but I wish the Prime Minister could bear in mind that his job is not stand-up comedian in chief.

Particularly as he is NEVER FUNNY.

Were there not figures flying about how the SOE's recent rate of return is something on the order of 18% on values on anywhere between 3-7?

It's always easy to get a laugh from your fan-club.

I don't quite understand what you mean here. If you sell an asset that makes a profit you pay a % in tax. You can still buy a better/bigger home with the remaining profit cant?

You know how Elvis had the Memphis Mafia, and they all had to laugh uproariously at his unfunny jokes? Yeah. TCB.

Ah, but. The house they are buying is attracting tax too, from the vendor.
Effectively the market is being hit twice and the market will pass that on in increased prices and then the whole thing runs away with itself and we?

Here is the press release from last week about the extra disability funding – can't find any more detail yet. Some?

That removal of the tax credit for very low income earners is mean. It will affect young people doing things like after school jobs, and some students and women who have part time jobs.

Pragmatically I'm not sure the work will dry up but It will do wonders for fostering?

As Russell said, yesterday English not only admitted the Roads of Dubious Significance haven't been assessed against Treasury's guidelines, he stated they __won't__?

We don't really know that yet without taking into account the other side of the ledger, but certainly better than no gross increase at all.

To clarify, the Treasury guidelines mentioned are more recent than the business cases for most of?

Whereas when Margaret Wilson signalled the abolition of the Employment Contracts Act well in advance, Treasury?s warnings about it were front page news.

Whoever turned Think Big?s name to mud, we need him/her and the?

That is not good.

I?m not sure the work will dry up

Nothing to do with employment.

Oh. I was toying with the idea of someone like my grandmother who employs an old family friend to help out around he house (mon-fri) suddenly feeling whimsically inclined to do the work herself rather than allow?

Probably the same people who speculate on the property money-go-round.

What would be greater poetic justice than unleashing an anti-trust rottweiler on these privatised state assets, waiting for the share prices to?

Probably the same people who speculate on the property money-go-roundt

I don't think so – the assumption is wrong along the similar line of a CGT moving investment from ppty to "export/growth ventures".

I have more faith in benevolent Aliens landing in Wellington and providing us with futuristic technology that?

It's because the "austerity" is selective. Case in point: Bill English justifying the Roads of National Significance escaping Treasury scrutiny.

The Scandinavian dual taxation systems make this work – capital income/corporate tax rates are set dramatically lower than labour income tax rates. Yes there are the?

(10% ROI – better than anything else on the market)

I'm?

Well, the drip feed nature of student loan draw downs makes this unlikely. The most you get ever get in one shot was ~$1k for course related costs (text books, maybe?

When was the last budget any country had which was or included a genius economic plan?

We broadened it. It now includes those earning under $9980.

Yeah, that's basically impossible. It's not like American student loans which arrive in a lump sum with no strings attached. NZ student loans pay the course fees directly to the institution and the $1000 lump sum is?

Andrew – I'm not Lucy, but I believe that her point is that due to inflation in the?

At what point – with more sales taxes that disproptionally affect poorer households? When there is economic growth but no inflation so that goods and service prices remain relatively static? (Yes, it happens, but not most of the?

Sure, it might be a stupid benefit, but why single out Clark particularly?

Consider the last three years – the increase of GST, the tax cuts to the well off, have had a negative effect and actually contributed IMO to shrinking the economy and the ability to provide employment, particularly to younger people.

But I completely agree – they get a decent pension, and I think if they want to be globetrotters?

there's no sensible justification this century.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/budget-2012/6985706/English-Drill-for-success

not yet, apparently.

Yep. Working really well for Done-in-Eden – and I understand the lawsuits are underway for Invercargill?
What the 'windfall in economic growth" actually MEANS south (especially in CHCHCH) I have no idea- it hasnt happened.?

When is austerity not austerity? When it's socialism for the rich and the market for everyone else.

One of the few useful staements I ever heard at a union meeting was: "to get trickle-down economics ya gotta punch holes in the ceiling."

Given how the bonus is paid, it's unlikely that it'll take effect until the end?

they did (not that it changes your general point)

What I've heard of the trickle-down effect:
Heavy rain at the top; showers in the middle; and fog at the bottom.

Right, that's it, I'm upping the ante. The Holiday Highways to Nowhere are now up to $14bn (and counting).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmPd7Rc_Ggw

it's a grey day here in Chchch....

Downsixing MFat to meet low expectations:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/6979384/NZ-goods-exports-continue-to-decline

To update. The protest has finished. It was Local and outside Iwi that negotiated a fair deal for the workers.

Well, yeah, we can. The Roads of Dubious Significance concept didn?t exist until it was uttered by Steven Joyce in 2009. National did not?

This Town, Otorohanga, has got it right in many ways that others could learn from. Has anyone listened? Doubt it.

Matthew, I was being heavily sarcastic. This RONS thing of all the evil things this Govt. has done, is the most glaringly stupid and cynical. Joyce?

Maybe he should join ACT – although most of their crims aren't reformed.

It was Local and outside Iwi that negotiated a fair deal for the workers.

"fair" being a euphemism for:

"It's affected our kids, the farmers, our customers. He's come into my community and ripped friends and families apart".

Striking Wairoa worker Dana Irwin on Talley's chief executive Peter Talley.

About time we gave up looking for it down here. ;-)

Bryce always goes well beyond the Herald's writers. Recommend his daily column (also published elsewhere) as a great single place to start if you're interested in NZ politics.

"Fair" being Iwi helped the staff to retain unionism, and security of their jobs and pay. So in a sense the workers got what they were asking for. I imagine Iwi having a contract with Talley's regarding Fisheries might have helped Talley's management see better?

And there's still the?

Sadly some seem happy if there is something in it for them. Fairly, some are against and I really hope they succeed.

Tribes arnt democracies. I hate, viscerally hate, some of the decisions my tribe has made. Regrettably, tribal representatives are prechosen & nurtured by an established hierarchy (which is why?

Careful, The Commissioner will be at the gates of Haast if he sees those threatening sorts of comments you know.

Shit I hope it finds it!!!!! If the alien intelligent life discover us maybe they will come back and get the dregs they left behind.......on the other hand they are intelligent.....they would leave them here surely!

Anyone else noticed this truly exciting interview now online with Neil Armstrong. First man to walk on the moon has been out of icrculation for yonks and now has done a four part interview

Found the?

?Fair? being Iwi helped the staff to retain unionism, and security of their jobs and pay. So in a sense the workers got what they were asking for. I imagine Iwi having a contract with Talley?s regarding Fisheries might have helped Talley?s management see better light.

I do appreciate you?

Ah, sorry. I missed the sarcasm.
Yes, RODS is totally economically-crippling, because it's costing so fucking much and won't even create very many jobs in?

You can add the $400m farm subsidy marketed as an irrigation plan.

because it?s costing so fucking much and won?t even create very many jobs in the near term which might be of benefit in trying to drag the country out of recession.
It?s called pork?

Right on the money.

The downsizing of teachers – increase in class size – spending 20 million to?

For immigrants not intending to stay?

And you can now get the prints from CafePress (or preferably somewhere more local).

Add to that a multi-million dollar road funding discrepancy dug up by Generation Zero (the people who commuted in their underwear in protest earlier this week).

I've contacted a GenZero spokesman and Clive Mathew-Wilson of the Dog & Lemon Guide about my Holiday Highways poster,?

MiniPlenty cites commercial sensitivity.

I on other side of world – I read you criticize zero budget – stop moaning fools – it no good for you, no good for me, no good for anybody any where.

What problem we have, we have none, we have zero?

Another example consider Infratil – got refining, got ?Shell? turning that to "Z", got buses – can sell bus?

Treasury predict anything I want them to – my guess wrong I say they wrong.

Anyway?

frix problem/blighter future

DexterX, Mr. Yunioshi your dialect specialist needs to speak with you urgently.

But Best Movie Line:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sND5XwlKaWA&feature=related?

Taking the major govt budget announcement of increases?