I think that if we want to subsidise food?

But the idea itself is completely daft.

No its not. GST is a regressive tax that has a far greater proportional impact on low income households than higher income households. Sorry Russell, you have got that side of the argument totally arse about face.

There is an economic case for?

I think you have it absolutely right why waste money putting in a system that will absorb much of the saving trying to collect the tax.

Most of it will advantage the rich who spend most on food, unless of course?

Wealthier households will pay a greater absolute amount of GST, because they spend a greater absolute amount on?

If you have exemptions your get weird exceptions as quoted from Wikipedia "The UK also exempts or lowers the rate on some?

On the?

Therefore rich people people spend more money on the food that will be exempted from GST.

Therefore rich people will save more than poor people, making GST exemptions on healthy food more regressive than blanket GST.

No??

GST is equally fair on everyone since it's the same for every transaction – when you buy an X it doesn't distinguish between rich and poor – and because it's on absolutely everything it's pretty much impossible to avoid no matter how much you earn

Nonsense. Fred earns $50, Jo?

I think that if we want to subsidise food we should raise the dole or increase WFF

So, those who work but are on relatively low incomes and/or don't have children can go get fucked again? I'm just sick of the implicit argument that people who don't have children are?

And with respect to Deborah do we need advice from Australia or even from Kiwis living in Australia?

That was gratuitous, Neil.

And with respect to Deborah do we need advice from Australia or even from Kiwis living in Australia?

*cough* Probably no more than Yanks "need" the rest of the world giving them advice on their domestic electoral politics. But that's never stopped me, or anyone else around here. :)

those of you with an interest in logical gymnastics

nice, there are some Comaneci grade flips going on there...

that Dad4justice gives me the shivers though....yuck.

What is different is that it's 12.5% of you take?

Wealthier households will pay a greater absolute amount of GST, because they spend a greater absolute amount on food, but relative to their income, they pay less GST.

Depends upon the household. At a rough guess, I spend about 17% of my after-tax income on rent, less than 10% on?

nice, there are some Comaneci grade flips going on there..

Ewww... Ian Wishart in a unitard, doing the spread eagle on a pommel horse. Thanks for that picture, Samuel. :(

And with respect to Deborah do we need advice from Australia or even from Kiwis living in Australia?

That was gratuitous, Neil.

Quite.

Far better to ensure the level of support the families get is raised to where quality food is avalible to all.

As has been noted before, removal of gst won't result in a 12.5% reduction in?

Many other countries have chosen not to apply their GST-style taxes to some or all foodstuffs, but that's typically more a nod to social sentiment than practicality, consistency or effectiveness.

Not really: foodstuff exemptions are – in my opinion, and compliance costs notwithstanding – a reasonable attempt at trying to?

with respect to Deborah do we need advice from Australia or even from Kiwis living in Australia?

That was gratuitous, Neil.

Ok so I apologise and withdraw. My point was that Australia has one of the worst tax system in the world. I do not think we should try to?

Sorry for the repetition.

Cooked chicken (whole)? No GST. Cooked chicken in pieces? GST. Bread? No GST. Sweet bread with icing on top? GST. Argh!

I'm of the opinion all cops of the 80s & early 90s are at least guilty of complicity in various acts of 'corruption'.

We need their experience and guidence for those coming through. I?

Why are you giving Wishart the oxygen of publicity?

I'm amazed more people don't.

I'm not.

Essentially (b) noting that those people least able to afford meat will also be those least able to purchase bulk freezers and the like. And least able to afford the time involved (which also involves a considerable amount of research time to find out how to get it all?

But while removing GST on some foods is clearly even more regressive than blanket GST, it?

There's another approach that's used in the US – food stamps

Hmmm.
So let's hoist these perceptions up the flagpole and see what happens.

People are only poor because they waste their money on pokie macines and fags. Let's give em food stamps.

If you earn enough you can afford?

I like the Greens' tax policy of no tax on the first $5000 of income. The lower your income, the more you would benefit. And everyone gets a tax cut, which?

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4501944a10.html

According to Treasury the 14% of the country who earn in the top tax bracket pay 53% of all the tax. The top 1% alone pay 16% of the total?

There are reasonable economic reasons for having GST but please let's not pretend that fairness is one of them. GST hits the poorest hardest. to claim otherwise?

It seems Family First have been less than honest in their Smacking Petition.

www.stuff.co.nz/4501944a10.html

Not to mention they've just played their censorship card too:

Scoop: Violent Video Game Should Be Banned

Yes, but the chances are fringe benefit tax will apply and that is higher than GST. No free liquid lunches here.

And, as an expense, you can only claim 50% of entertainment costs against tax.

Not only that, IRD is particularly beady about entertainment expenses. If you get audited, they'll?

the issue when picking and choosing what is or is not cover
Why only food, what about other necessities
like electricity?
or toilet paper?

and what about the cost to companies working out the difference, they will only raise?

Not to mention they've just played their censorship card too:

Scoop: Violent Video Game Should Be Banned

*sigh* Could McCoskrie please explain how I've managed to watch this movie around a dozen times, without going on a roaring rampage of human sacrifice, self-mutilation, gang rape (then mutilating my victim so?

And Sue.

GST isn't a luxury tax, it's a broad based consumption tax. It has the advantage of simplicity and of catching both those who live mainly off assets and those who leverage their lifestyle on credit cards and second mortgages.

However, I do?

Our tax system works and we get a lot of great services for it.

As GST works as a % of the costs of goods, wouldn't it be logical for that rises in payment and taxation to?

And as Craig has pointed out, the less well off without families have been continually told, in effect, to go and screw thems...ummm, someone.

If they reckon they are finacially stretched now then I do not suggest having children.

If people can't afford to adequately feed, clothe, house their children?

GTA4 looks so freaking awesome.

Er . . . possibly not safe for work.

I'd probably prefer they vote for the Socialist Workers (which RAM are, BTW)

Interestingly, I had email last week from a RAM member who was quite upset at that being said in public, and claiming that it's a "broad left" movement. Of course, the very fact they use that terminology?

increasing benefits isn't a popular policy with the middle class.

These days I wonder what the middle class is given the number of them that are in fact getting a government handout of some sort.

I think that a three person household (two parents and child) can be earning up?

I went out and ate a can of spam, as cannibalism would affectively amount to a GST dodge.

Something of which I must suggest, even poor people can avoid GST on food by hunting and gathering. However the?

One of the issues I have is would the 'saved' GST get spent on 'better quality' food as appears to be the argument for exempting it?

Biggest issue for me on this one is the conversation Innes Ashe had with Sean on Morning Report this morning about the Working for Families programme not working for the 180,000 kids living in poverty. If your parents aren't working you don't get access to these extra funds.

My understanding?

a household earning $70,000 and one child aged 0-12 will get $3 a week, a household earning $85,000 with two children aged 0-12 gets $2 a week and a household earning $100,000 with three children aged 0-12 gets $2 a week.

Those?

At the end of the day, CPAG & co are upset that those they see as being most disavantaged are not getting enough. But it is important to remember that this is not what WFF was designed to do.

Exactly A S. Though my memory is shot I'm pretty sure that?

How about no income tax for people earing under X K a year, that is far more manageable than GST changes. It's just another tax rate.

Hi Sue,

That is, in my opinion, a good idea (and what I was referring to when I wrote 'tax free threshold'). All the?

Don't complicate GST with exemptions just drop it back down to 10% where it started

But that complicates things, dyscalculic like (excuse my cockney)

The reason it's 12.5% is because it's easy to figure out the GST content of the goods or service bill. Divide by nine to find the?

Reading this is an eye opener as how far to the right even the chardonnay socialists of P.A. are.

Depends what you are referencing. If it's the "Don't pollute GST with exceptions" meme then I'd say it's born more of bureaucratic pragmatism than some kind of latent right wing tendency.?

Statements such as that disappoint me and drag you down Russ.

Well off people don't CARE they get more, percentage?

I think this is true.

It is also very practical.

And there are also better ways to target relief?

Of course, the fact that ordinary middle-class people see themselves as apart from 'people who use benefits', rather than potential beneficiaries of these social services can be construed as evidence that the key messages of the 1990s were fairly successful.

Que? I'd always been of the view that the welfare?

"New Zealand came third-worst in the developed world in a Unicef survey of child poverty around the year 2000, with a quarter of all children then living in families earning less than 60 per cent of the median income."

I?

Good to see that a family of five on 95 grand a year are considered beneficiaries in modern day NZ. I wonder what sort of response that would have got 20 years ago. ;)

Can't speak for NZ, but you have to go back nearly 30 years in the UK?

Like it or not, beneficiaries are already catered for via the benefit system, to the tune of somewhere in the region of $11 Billion per year

is that before or after tax?

sadly the benfit system as it stands, totally blows

I'm sure others can confirm my experience that how?

From my interactions with an awful lot of working class people, they also see themselves as apart from 'people who use benefits'. I struggle to see what the 1990's has to do with people seeing their situation as different to others.

As I understand it, the 1990's introduced 'beneficiary bashing'?

In other words, this proposal may not represent the most efficient use of the government's money. There's probably a more effective way to help people dollar for dollar?

Thing was – who paid for the fruit? Was it to come from the school budgets? Or should parents supply said fruit? And if no parents sent in fruit with their child – would their be enough fruit for everyone. So?

Looks like Russell got under somebody's skin...

Heh. Jolly good.

In other words, this proposal may not represent the most efficient use of the government's money. There's probably a more effective way to help people dollar for dollar ...

That was exactly my point.

Heh. Jolly good.

And I've never seen you drink a latte... but I guess cheap shiraz socialist doesn't quite have that sch-wing. Still, nice to know that you're with with every crack-brained scheme RAM comes up with or you hate poor people. Depressingly typical, from what I've seen of these?

After ten years, the middle classes and the rest of the "rich pricks" in the top tax brackets are quite entitled to ask when they get treated as something other than a group to be exploited.

At this point in our national life, it appears that everyone's 'entitled' and no?

That was exactly my point.

In which case I missed it. Apologies, but this statement:

Critically, such a policy would benefit relatively well-off people who spend more money on food — that'll be me — far more than the poor people RAM claims to represent.

was so misleading it did?

At this point in our national life, it appears that everyone's 'entitled' and no one's empathetic.

Danielle: I'd rather be effective than empathetic.

Thanks to the genii who run TVNZ, the sublime BBC adaptation of Bleak House has been safely tucked away where nobody will see it. And just to?

At this point in our national life, it appears that everyone's 'entitled' and no one's empathetic.

Quite possibly. That is a point that runs multiple ways, with the majority of our society appearing to be fixated on their 'entitlements'.

Perhaps the surprise is that it took so long for the?

Hey also says:

If the Government sees a need to help those families most?

I filed VAT as a consultant in the UK when I lived there, and the multiple rates made little difference. I just took the VAT amounts from the invoices as my input tax (which allowed for things like mobile phone bills,?

So the decision is simply 'Is the added complication worth the increase in progressiveness'?

Since we already have existing mechanisms for controlling the progressive taxes, we could just tweak those.

Someone said:

Just don't do what Australia does, I was?

In the 1/2 hour I caught up with family friends there was only one yank who did his nanna. Most were very positive towards them.

I would have been the youngest there?

Perhaps the surprise is that it took so long for the latte-sippers to get to that point too....

Of course, you know I wasn't implying that the poor feel a disproportionate sense of entitlement, but I suppose if you're that way inclined politically...

Anyway, I believe that the latte-sippers in?

Plus, the Brits had multi-rate GST (VAT) in 1973, when computers were a lot more primitive than today.

The main problem with removing GST?

But I'd strongly recommend picking up a copy of the novel, and considering the splendid example of Mrs Jellyby whose "Telescopic Philanthropy" doesn't require any empathy to be extended to her own family — or any other close than Africa.

Oh, and Craig, I read the chapter for the first?

Anyway, I believe that the latte-sippers in the top tax bracket (I'm a card-carrying member myself) should STFU about their dumb entitlements, frankly. Learn how to cook various nutritious and cheap meals with canned beans, and zip it.

The thing is, they don't appear to be inclined to STFU anymore,?

Housing *is* GST-exempt. At least, rent and mortgages are.

k...I'll believe you. My bad...I'm not an accountant, and I don't want to be paying him any more than I already am.

you don't starve to death without them

No, you could just die of pneumonia instead.

I need lunch so I can get a dictionary out and learn how to spell quote.

not before sharing the secret of italics!!
thanks

Very much pinkos and an older crowd. I seem to remeber Quakers & the Catholic Workers – all pasifists.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2hd21NIAdI

Here's one from Pine Gap – Catholic Workers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEtArL7mStI

From where I'm sitting, if we take the long term view, food costs are going to keep going up, and things are going to get considerably worse before they get better.

However, from where I'm sitting, it's looking pretty good. The bottoms fallen out of the real-estate pyramid scheme. Meaning,?

The main problem with removing GST on food, as somebody mentioned above, is that it is an inefficient way to help poor people.

I am not sure how to say this more politely, but you are wrong.

Cutting GST is a very efficient way of helping poorer folk. For one?

http://ploughshares.org.nz/

Actually, I've been staying silent because the topic area is far too close to my old employment.

I've really enjoyed the debate, sorry to hear it has made some grumpy.

now what is up with that?

A quick play with numbers from the 2007 Household Economic Survey would suggest that removing GST from food would cost 1.4bn (that's omitting non-household food purchases too).

So, wouldn't it be better to spend that 1.4 billion on people in need, by e.g. raising benefits and exapanding WFF, or introducing?

I don't know these guys but I do recognise one from the large group photo.

On TV3 News it looked like the guys were being given a bit of 'The Treatment' by the cops, by?

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10507033

What got me was the shot of the truck with the crane they were going to use to get over the fence had fallen off the side of the road. They then improvised to achieve their task, and had time to wait and pray.

Any?

Many medieval weapons (which were used in quite nasty, violent slaughter) were adapted from peasant tools. The okinawans have rice flails (nunchuka), boat oars and the?

Instead of sickles read pruning hook.

They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift sword against nation; and there shall be no more training for war. Isaiah 2:4

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/29/AR2008042902880.html?hpid=topnews

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/29/AR2008042903092.html?hpid=topnews

Some would argue that US consumer choices create violence and oppression in the middle east. Are the US consumer's therefore to blame? Should they be stopped? Yet their behaviour is far more pacifistic that these sickle?

I/S: I agree, nice. We are starting to see a bit of a change in mind sets. That nutter 'Sherif' who shot at?

Good intentions don't cut it.

Isn't that why you need a sickle?

...a growing offensive gun culture...

Are we living in the same country? Are we developing a culture where we own 'offensive' guns, or one where some find guns 'offensive'?

If you are suggesting that we have a culture where people want to own guns purely to use to shoot people?

Didn't Havoc & Newsboy do the same thing already?

No, they just did a TV show. TV Bad, can turn your perceptions of reality into 3 by 4 ratio rectangles.The Americans are inside the TV. Kill the TV with an angle grinder armed with a masonry disk (wear safety gear).

And I don't think that's really an argument the government will want to have.

Exactly what I thought when I heard they were mooting sabotage charges.

Although if it's down to Senior Constable Plod, they might find themselves making that argument whether they like it or not.

any one that says the ploughshares could have got their point across as effectively in other ways is wrong.

This logic is a bit screwy, isn't it?

If I thought the education system was bad, would I be justified in burning down a school? Or if I had concerns about?

It seems to be the easiest and most effective way of putting more money into?

I have seen recently (before school hols) both students and teachers bringing large bags of apples to school to share with other students and teachers.
If you have a surplus of fresh produce it is customary to share with others you know – it has?

Curiously America played a role in both.

During the reign of Louis XVI, France faced a major financial crisis, triggered by the cost of intervening in the?

At the end of the day, we don't know a huge amount of what Waihopai represents, aside from what a few people, who don't know for certain either, wrote at some point. The people who do know?

And burning down schools wasn't a huge leap, just trying to keep up with you there?

any one that says the ploughshares could have got their point across as effectively in other ways is wrong

This logic is a bit screwy, isn't it?

If I thought the education system was bad, would I be justified in burning down a school? Or if I had concerns about?

On the huge leap thing, I would have said that in looking at it dispassionately, there isn't really much difference between events?

When I hear The Rt Hon CLarker saying it was senseless because of the cost to the taxpayer, all that comes to mind is $26M and a broken sailboat. It's nothing like burning down a school. It's like cutting through a school trampoline.

So destroying resources on the basis of?

I understand your perspective samuel, I guess that I just can't get my head around the motivation to damage things we don't like in order to get attention.

we agree on that A.S. I personally never would consider such an action. Breaking in and plastering a big red target on?

still only 1/26 of what kiwis forked out for 5 years ago for a losing sailboat.

I can't stand the America's Cup BUT that money was spent as an enormous advertising gimmick for tourism in NZ. They hoped to win so we'd have it here and thus earning us more?

seriously, if the government has that much money to throw?

Every time this child poverty figure is promoted I grimace.

"New Zealand came third-worst in the developed world in a Unicef survey of child poverty around the year 2000, with a quarter of all children then living in families earning less than 60 per cent of the median income."

I?

Breaking in and plastering a big red target on it would have been a lot more classy, and would have gotten the publicity too.

As it stands, the publicity's not exactly bad for Echelon. The protesters have demonstrated, that what's inside the ominous
white orbs, are ordinary satellite dishes. I?

still only 1/26 of what kiwis forked out for 5 years ago for a losing sailboat

That was spent by our elected representatives. We can vote them out. Nobody elected these activists to spend our money. Nor can we vote them out.

Also, riddle me this; what if this led?

It's not like it's the first time anyone jumped the fence there. No damage was done to the infrastructure itself. They just popped a balloon that is there to provide weather protection.

Result – if it was anywhere else in NZ it might get?

It isn't such a leap really. Media reports were that the dish was out of action as a result of the attack.

In terms of the security at Waihopai, are you suggesting they should have had armed guards with shoot on sight instructions?

$1m damage, nothing to worry about??

$1m – The obvious answer to that is moth balls, pull the plug and then no more problem.

And this $1M for a plastic rain coat, really? I'll do the contract for 1/2 that.

All that was needed was a roving patrol in fog when the CCTV is?

Boo hoo, rich folk suffering away and only getting the freedom and power of money to show for it. Protesters inconveniencing the people they're protesting against. It's all Cats and Dogs, isn't it.

Don't like local poverty? Bump the bloody benefits, and bump?

I would like to distinguish between violence upon an object, and violence upon a person, as being two very different things. let us remember that they caused no harm to the infrastructure itself.

It was direct non-violent action. I conceed we?

By the logic you cite, it seems to me that the 9/11 attacks were a horrifying and unprovoked surprise attack on innocent civilians. Certainly, voting for a political party and filling up your car seems less offensive than attacking a military?

Oh, and I must point out that you seem to be defending their actions and aims based on their inspiration. I am quite happy to judge them on their actions?

They showed up the arrogant naivety?

I thought it was originally the official blog of Socialist Worker-New Zealand, not just "hosted [by SW-NZ] in the interests of broad left unity".

any one that says the ploughshares could have got their point across as effectively in other ways is wrong

This logic is a bit screwy, isn't it?

If I thought the education system was bad, would I be justified in burning down a school? Or if I had concerns about?

No its not. GST is a regressive tax that has a far greater proportional impact on low income households than higher income households. Sorry Russell, you have got that side of the argument totally arse about face.

I get... annoyed isn't the right word – frustrated... by the description of?

Schools do useful things, the covers on the dishes are actually just cosmetic.

So just because someone deems that something isn't useful, its fine to destroy it? That really is screwy.

Funnily enough, it just goes to reinforce my original argument there is no acceptable reason to destroy something in?

As far as I can see you were the pyro who brought the burning of schools into the converstaion and any ref from there on was in response?

Wall surrounding Bamiyan Buddha destroyed by NZ forces...

Priceless.

you got this :

I was also somewhat horrified to read an earlier post (not by you though Kyle) that implied that destroying schools was bad because children might be there, but it was ok to attack a base because those who were there knew what they were?

Let's recap.

earlier post from Samuel.

any one that says the ploughshares could have got their point across as effectively in other ways is wrong.

Then we have my statement questioning this.

This logic is a bit screwy, isn't it?

If I thought the education system was bad, would?

Mr McMasters is Mr Masters. I always want to prefix his name for some reason.

good effort with the response. I could have expected more bite after I baited with the twighlight zone ref.

Wouldn't you agree that from this statement you could indeed draw such a conclusion?

nope. not even when taken out of context like that.

anyway,

i think the guts?

Schools do useful things, the covers on the dishes are actually just cosmetic.

So just because someone deems that something isn't useful, its fine to destroy it? That really is screwy.

Well whether or not it's fine to destroy something, would depend on the individual and the object. Personally I'd?

So let's get this right. It's okay to destroy things you morally disagree with, provided you are willing to take the consequences of your actions, and don't intend to hurt people? Have I got that right?

I don't see how any kind of society could function with that?

So let's get this right. It's okay to destroy things you morally disagree with, provided you are willing to take the consequences of your actions, and don't intend to hurt people? Have I got that right?

Well if you look http://www.publicaddress.net/system/topic,958,onpoint_children_come_first_except_when_walls_come_first.sm?i=0#forum-replies">here, then you'll see a fair few PAS posters arguing?