Public Address | System (Home)

Posted at 3:15PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

Exactly what wasn't needed.

Posted at 3:17PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

SCREEAAAAAAAAAM *headsmak*

Can someone start importing desk pillows? The lump on my forehead is getting rather large.

Posted at 3:18PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

hmmm
Therefore is the House of Parliament
an asset that we all own?

But do we occupy it?

Posted at 3:19PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

My favourite bit from this mess:

mining in national parks to go ahead with the establishment of a conservation fund from some of the proceeds as a sweetener.

A conservation fund to conserve... um...

Posted at 3:27PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

He didn't rule out tightening up on depreciation, but it was pretty uninspiring. Looks like I have to resign myself to being a lifetime renter

Posted at 3:35PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

Bernard Hickey slams Key: Leave the country now[,] Gen X & Y

Posted at 3:54PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

My prediction: shortly, there will be an announcement of a bold new vision to match Australia by emulating their more open approach to immigration, maybe with a slogan like 5 million for 2015.

Housing prices are way out of line with incomes, with inflation, and with return on rentals. We collectively can't keep borrowing indefinitely, so at some point prices will no longer be sustainable, unless new people are brought in to increase demand. The tax regime will not help in the long term.

If you are are a Tory government who doesn't want the big realignment to happen on your watch, this is the only thing left to do, and it has the added benefit of putting downward pressure on wages -- yay structural unemployment! It's all win.

Posted at 3:56PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

Bernard Hickey slams Key: Leave the country now[,] Gen X & Y

Dear Bernard: Age before beauty, darling. Don't let the departure gate hit your arse on the way out, and don't remember to write.

Posted at 3:56PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

Bernard Hickey slams Key:

Sounds like a case of cold feet after the Quarter Acre Cartel threatened to push the Big Red Launch Button.

Nixon has just squandered his chance to visit China.

Posted at 4:02PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

Sounds like a case of cold feet after the Quarter Acre Cartel threatened to push the Big Red Launch Button.

Really, Red? Perhaps i missed something, but it seemed blindingly obvious to me that the numbers for a land tax just weren't there -- and never would be. Depressing, but hardly surprising.

Nixon has just squandered his chance to visit China.

And Key can count.

Posted at 4:07PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

If you are are a Tory government who doesn't want the big realignment to happen on your watch

Realignment. Such an unassuming word.

Posted at 4:13PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

Dear Bernard: Age before beauty, darling. Don't let the departure gate hit your arse on the way out, and don't remember to write.

You know, it's not actually an inaccurate characterisation of what some of my younger non-property-owning friends have been saying this afternoon. And these people aren't whiners.

Posted at 4:14PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

Perhaps i missed something, but it seemed blindingly obvious to me that the numbers for a land tax just weren't there -- and never would be.

They have two support parties. I can think of one who would agree, under the right circumstances.

Actually, that raises a very interesting question: how on earth are the Maori Party going to give a 15% GST to their constituents? This Government has served them rat soup.

Posted at 4:16PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

FWIW, I think the throwing open of Canterbury's water resources to corporate farmers is much worse than the mining decision.

I can see how the latter could deliver benefits greater than its various costs. The water thing is just hostile.

If Goff can't make some headway in Canterbury now, he really shouldn't be leading his party.

Posted at 4:34PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

You know, it's not actually an inaccurate characterisation of what some of my younger non-property-owning friends have been saying this afternoon. And these people aren't whiners.

I'm sure they're not, Russell, but while I've got a lot of time for Bernard Hickey his regular 'gangway to the departure gate!" column is a case of familiarity breeding contempt. This really is becoming a tiresome routine with Herald editorials and columnists: Claim to want a "serious debate" but someone else has to do the heavy lifting.

Posted at 4:34PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

You know, it's not actually an inaccurate characterisation of what some of my younger non-property-owning friends have been saying this afternoon.

As a member of that vague group, were I not rather attached to my family and newly in a relationship Australia would be looking really tempting right now. It's not like I've got a job to hold me here at present.

Key has finally shown his true colours, and they're coward-yellow right the way through. No brains, no balls, just another election hovering on the horizon. Thanks for fucking nothing.

Posted at 4:40PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

Hickey's columns are repetitive. But he's laid his case out again and again. I'm not sure what you mean by not doing the heavy lifting.

Posted at 4:40PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

...mining in national parks to go ahead with the establishment of a conservation fund from some of the proceeds as a sweetener.

I feel sick.

Posted at 4:42PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

Also, I'm very attached to NZ, but frankly he has a point. I don't believe Aussies en masse are any smarter than we are, but they seem to have made a much better fist of economic management in the last 25 years than we have.

Posted at 4:49PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

[Australians] seem to have made a much better fist of economic management in the last 25 years than we have.

More that, for whatever reason, they got lucky with electing leaders who didn't have stealth objectives, in either direction, who could then gut the country. We got Rogernomics by stealth, we got the last National government's hard-right positions on welfare, state enterprise and employment relations by stealth, and we currently have a spineless merchant banker who's blind in one eye and can't see out the other because he hid his true colours behind a façade of "Mr Middle New Zealand".
For better or worse, Australia's leaders appear to have been quite up-front about their aspirations and positions, and the Australians have been able to go to elections on the basis of what's really going to happen to their country.

Posted at 4:54PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

Gens X & Y should get off their chuffs & do what I did, she huffs: that is, physically build a garage & live in it for nearly 2 years while physically building my house & going off every so often to earn money so I could continue to do-

o, wait a moment - they've changed the rules on that havent they? And I suspect $950 1/8th acre sections in Paradise-by-the-sea arnt all that common any more...

Seriously though - there is a mistaken conception among some that baby boomers had it all handed to us on a plate. Not so: self & sibs worked hard and long to build our homes, and inheriting anything from our parents (at least in my social & cultural strata) didnt happen.

Gens X & Y are my sibs' children & grandchildren: we hope they will return here after sojourning overseas - because that's what all my sibs did (except for the one who died in Oz.) They made $$$, they gained skills, and then came home (permanantly, or for a few years, with intentions to retire back to ANZ.)

Posted at 4:57PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

Hickey's columns are repetitive. But he's laid his case out again and again. I'm not sure what you mean by not doing the heavy lifting.

Getting a little beyond "flounce for your lives!" ?

This is not making a case:

Today he did nothing. He did worse than nothing. He shut down the debate.

It's useless hyperbole, unless the black helicopters are coming to break both of Bernard's typing fingers. Even then, he'd clutch a pencil between his teeth and get back to work. :)

It's all very nice being "bold " in an air conditioned office on Albert Steet, but Key has to deal with the pretty unpleasant realities of getting the numbers to pass legislation. In a perverse way he's Helen Clark's twin -- neither of them take Don Quixote as a role model.

And, yes, I'd have introduced a land tax, capital gains and dared Labour to position itself as the defender of the rentiers not the many, and I'm sure Bernard and Fran would be my BFFs for eva. (Or at least until I had a freak "accident' in the caucus room tomorrow morning.) But I'm a mad bastard who doesn't have to make it work in the real world..

Posted at 4:57PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

Gens X & Y should get off their chuffs & do what I did, she huffs: that is, physically build a garage & live in it for nearly 2 years while physically building my house & going off every so often to earn money so I could continue to do-

You're absolutely right about that much - I simply can't see the point in buying a house that cost great amounts more than the physical material required.

Unfortunately the cost of unimproved land in New Zealand has huge amounts of property speculation built into the price. A tax on unimproved land could help, but as with rates I suspect that the speculators would just build this into the price too.

Posted at 5:01PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

For two seconds there after his media release last night I thought that maybe I'd got it all wrong. Maybe John Key really did think that it was WRONG for the wealthy not to pay tax at the expense of low and middle income New Zealanders. Rick Barker from Labour made it clear that they are just going to look after their old mates too. Maybe we need a political party aimed at non-baby-boomers with an intention to level the playing field. In the mean time student loan debt is at $10 billion and rising by $1 bn a year. That's indentured servitude. Not being able to buy a house increases that servitude.

Posted at 5:02PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

As a member of that vague group, were I not rather attached to my family and newly in a relationship Australia would be looking really tempting right now. It's not like I've got a job to hold me here at present.

As a member of that group, the only reasons I haven't is that we're waiting on other options, but it's looking more and more likely. And that stuff about CRIs could make it a very long term move, if it ends up being as bad as it sounds.

Posted at 5:06PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

As a member of that group, the only reasons I haven't is that we're waiting on other options, but it's looking more and more likely. And that stuff about CRIs could make it a very long term move, if it ends up being as bad as it sounds.

I suppose, since my avatar and location are sufficiently vague, that I should declare that I post from Canberra, Australia. I'm looking for work on this side of the Tasman right now, and when and if I return will depend on a whole bunch of factors. I miss my family, I miss New Zealand's beauty and taonga, and a bunch of intangibles.

Right now living abroad (ie. not Australia or NZ) seems like the most sensible thing to do. I'll wait a while more and see where things head.

Posted at 5:16PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

But I'm a mad bastard who doesn't have to make it work in the real world..

Then again, I'm also the kind of crank who thinks that:

1) A country has to live within its means, just like its citizens.

2) If you want to increase government spending, putting it on the never-never and hoping you'll be dead before the bill comes due is downright prickish.

3) You can't reduce taxes without either cutting spending or clawing it back somewhere else, and anyone who pretends otherwise is stupid or a liar. Possibly both.

4) Eventually, you're going to have to tell a lot of someones one or two (dozen) home truths they don't want to hear. Life is, more often than not, a running buffet of unpalatable choices. Wishing won't make it go away.

In the spirit of the depressing experience of listening to Parliament this afternoon, here's a jolly little tune:

Posted at 5:18PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

And that stuff about CRIs could make it a very long term move, if it ends up being as bad as it sounds.

hmm? What're your concerns there? Just skimmed through the speech, and totally underwhelmed by so much of the knowledge investment section, but don't know enough background to know why you think the CRIs thing could be bad news.

We also see no mention of R&D credits, or indeed any other incentive for private enterprise to carry out R&D unless they happen to be in the sanctified agricultural sector.

Posted at 5:28PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

Bahahahahahahahahaha!!!!

National leader John Key said told a press conference this morning that if National is elected and does a "half decent job" at growing the economy, then increasing GST and the top tax rate will not be necessary.

Posted at 5:49PM on 9 Feb 10. Permalink.

hmm? What're your concerns there? Just skimmed through the speech, and totally underwhelmed by so much of the knowledge investment section, but don't know enough background to know why you think the CRIs thing could be bad news.

Largely that any time I hear that funding is going to be more closely tied to whether science has commercial value, I get extremely twitchy, because while that sort of research is hugely important, the government is one of the very few bodies which funds explicitly *non*-commerically oriented science. If they aren't interested in funding basic science (which can make very important commercial discoveries, but is not necessarily obviously commercially valuable) then who will be?