Polity by Rob Salmond

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Polity: English canards

25 Responses

  • Rob Salmond,

    Wellington • Since Jun 2015 • 102 posts Report

  • matthew,

    Stop this right now. Accuracy has no place in politics in this day and age. Your reasoning contradicts uncle bills truthiness and at the end if the day I don't think the public really cares whether the minister of finance is good with numbers.

    auckland • Since Nov 2013 • 22 posts Report

  • linger,

    or, putting it another way,
    understanding true levels of taxation
    is just too ’canard
    so it's understandable
    if print journalists
    duck all responsibility
    for correcting
    the English errors.

    Tokyo • Since Apr 2007 • 1944 posts Report

  • Kumara Republic,

    I've always interpreted such surveys as an indicator of middle-class decompression and the weakening of organised labour movements. Even then, the rentier class has successfully convinced society's battlers that those below them are to blame for holding them back. Remember the 12 Cookies joke that circulated not long after the Great Recession?

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report

  • Fen Tex,

    That 37% of the incoming net tax is paid by a group of people who earn 30% of the income in New Zealand (from English’s table) and hold 60% of the wealth (according to Statistics New Zealand).

    This is a sentence opposition parties should want in the headlines or near the top of news stories - it's a digestible, bite sized, counter. I think getting that done is the job of opposition media representatives and spokespeople, yet I don't recall seeing it, or anything like it, even in sources thought friendly to the opposition.

    Christchurch • Since Oct 2014 • 18 posts Report

  • Hilary Stace,

    Actually the top earners usually have very good tax accountants who know all about tax minimisation and they often pay a lot less tax than poorer people.

    Wgtn • Since Jun 2008 • 3229 posts Report

  • Alfie, in reply to Hilary Stace,

    Actually the top earners usually have very good tax accountants who know all about tax minimisation and they often pay a lot less tax than poorer people.

    And that my son, is why we have offshore trusts.

    Dunedin • Since May 2014 • 1440 posts Report

  • Hilary Stace, in reply to Alfie,

    Or lots of rental properties.

    Wgtn • Since Jun 2008 • 3229 posts Report

  • Sacha,

    Keith Ng also posted on this a couple of years ago.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • mpledger,

    The other thing to realise is that peoples tax and benefits change over time. That the people paying the most tax now and getting the least benefit are most likely 55 year old business managers with independent children. It fails to take into account that 30 years ago they were in a family getting lots of benefits through the education system and the health system for their children and that 10 years earlier they themselves were paying little or no tax but having massive benefits through the education system.

    Making the most taxed/least benefited people think they are being hard done by is really an attack of the old on the young.

    Since Oct 2012 • 97 posts Report

  • Euan Mason,

    Rob this needs to be made into a press release. It's too important to have simply as a blog. Most people fail to understand how GST impacts on relative taxation of different income groups, and their misconceptions influence voting patterns and ultimately social policy.

    Canterbury • Since Jul 2008 • 259 posts Report

  • Tinakori,

    Have you changed your calculations, Rob? I recall you on this blog using the number 45% for the proportion of income tax paid by the top 10% income earners.

    Wellington • Since Jul 2013 • 118 posts Report

  • Tom Johnson,

    I am sick of this bullshit bizarre framing of who has it the worst in N.Z. It's like English wants us to feel sorry for the Poor old rich taxpayers keeping the lazy poor in beer and ciggies. What a turd of a man.

    How can someone like English sleep at night with poverty and inequality growing under his watch. He defends that poverty growth by saying that the rich are doing all the hard work because look, they have all the money.

    English reduced the tax rates of the rich.They have all the money because he runs an economic con job that rewards the rich at the expense of the poor. It's immoral and pathetically illogical but fuck it , poor voters don't matter to him. What a shocker. To see poverty is heartbreaking, don't ever compare that to a wealthy person paying tax , this is why our politics are warped, this should be called out as utter bullshit.

    hamilton • Since Mar 2016 • 99 posts Report

  • Thomas Lumley, in reply to Sacha,

    I've written about it a few times, too. I think it's a contagious and dangerous sound-bite.

    StatsChat
    the 'shorter and with more swearing' version on my blog
    StatsChat again
    and StatsChat again, with numbers from Kiwiblog

    Auckland • Since Feb 2013 • 50 posts Report

  • Ieuan Wickham,

    Can't help but feel there's something more fundamental wrong here. The problem I see is that a portion of the population is a) working, let's say 1x full time ($30k pa on min wage), b) receiving financial assistance from the state, however insufficient that may be, and c) still functionally poor. Arguing over whether GST is included or not is by the by.

    If a person in full time employment is not earning enough to live, never mind contribute to the services that the state provides, then we're all doing something wrong.

    What am I missing? It seems like this is not a problem that we fix by changing tax structures.

    Auckland • Since Jun 2013 • 5 posts Report

  • Sacha, in reply to Ieuan Wickham,

    You're right, we have re-elected governments who have created an imbalanced low-wage economy over the last few decades.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • Sacha,

    This government also has form for claiming black is white, and getting away with that.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • Rob S, in reply to Ieuan Wickham,

    It seems like this is not a problem that we fix by changing tax structures.

    Disagree strongly.

    Taking money from the rich [your opinion on the morality of this may vary from mine] and using it to build better housing and sustain those who are not "high achievers" and putting that money directly into the economy will actually benefit the whole country. As the saying goes " money is like muck, better spread"
    For the wealthy once their physical and other needs have been met money turns into a social counter.

    Building more housing stock by the state is a good start.

    Think about the house price inflation rampant in this country right now which is a sterile use sinking people into debt as long term serfs to the banks who are loving it.
    The people who find it difficult to feed ,clothe and live at a reasonable standard are paying through the nose for other peoples inflated investment mortgages further locking them into poverty.

    I'm not recommending the wholesale appropriation of peoples assets but would like to see those with little to nothing get a fair slice of the cake.

    Wages have been held down artificially by the importation to this country of cheap labour and people wonder why small town NZ is being hollowed out?

    We shouldn't need schemes like working for families to top up the pay packets of working people who should be able to advance through their own efforts.

    Labour price inflation might be what this country needs.

    “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” - Warren Buffet.

    Since Apr 2010 • 136 posts Report

  • Ieuan, in reply to Rob S,

    I think maybe you just agreed with me? :)

    Auckland • Since Sep 2014 • 3 posts Report

  • Kumara Republic, in reply to Tom Johnson,

    I am sick of this bullshit bizarre framing of who has it the worst in N.Z. It's like English wants us to feel sorry for the Poor old rich taxpayers keeping the lazy poor in beer and ciggies. What a turd of a man.

    How can someone like English sleep at night with poverty and inequality growing under his watch. He defends that poverty growth by saying that the rich are doing all the hard work because look, they have all the money.

    And did Bill English really believe what he said at the time, or was he just spinning it?

    It's a legacy of the mistrust older people now have for National... If you decide you've been let down, it's harder to change your mind.... There's a perception that rich people vote National, and it's true. I hate that. It would do us good to drive some of those people away.

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report

  • linger, in reply to Ieuan,

    The thing is, when English says, “won’t somebody think of the poor rich people” (oxymoron alert!) he’s using that as an excuse not to attempt any kind of social policy aimed at inequality reduction – such as a universal guaranteed income, for example. Calling him out on his lies is not only (or even mostly) about tax restructuring per se.

    Tokyo • Since Apr 2007 • 1944 posts Report

  • andin, in reply to Tom Johnson,

    can someone like English sleep at night

    Bet he sleeps like a babe swaddled in warm fluffy bedding not a container for waste cardboard numbed by alcohol to keep the cold at bay.

    raglan • Since Mar 2007 • 1891 posts Report

  • Tom Johnson, in reply to andin,

    Of course, a beautiful home seems to numb social responsibility on average.

    hamilton • Since Mar 2016 • 99 posts Report

  • Kumara Republic, in reply to Tom Johnson,

    Of course, a beautiful home seems to numb social responsibility on average.

    I sometimes wonder if Bill English's beautiful home is surrounded with hedges decorated with razor wire, Joburg or Lima-style.

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report

  • Ian Dalziel, in reply to Kumara Republic,

    surrounded with hedges decorated with razor wire

    He always struck me as the mined ha-ha sort.
    (at the risk of having 'beamed' eyes over his 'moat')\
    ;- )

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report

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