Posts by Idiot Savant
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The fact remains that travel out of Fiji is now extremely difficult for everyone who was involved in the coup. That is pressure.
And by all accounts, it is realy pissing them off.
Still, couldn't Bainamarama chartered his own plane, or taken a boat, or something? Niue is, after all, a lot closer to Fiji than Auckland is.
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He seized the opportunity created by this catastrophe to impoverish 72 million Russians and create 17 new Russian billionaires.
Which gives us a rough estimate of how many people you need to squish to raise one to super-wealth. Which makes you wonder what Naional's backers think they'd get out of such policies, since only one of them wil get to be the oligarch...
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BREAKING NEWS: White powder found in PM's mail
The Kiwiblog right strike again...
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There’s something oddly disturbing about those shots of a crowd of Georgian nationalists waving their flag.
Reminds me of English football hooligans.
The sort of stupid nationalism which started this thing is simply football hooliganism writ large.
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Any situation where you start the shooting and then find yourself begging for a ceasefire within 48 hours is a major blunder.
I think the latter part is redundant. Any situation where you start shooting is a blunder. As the fat man said, jaw-jaw is always better than war-war.
To John Campbell's credit, last night he showed the contrasting way the conflict is being reported in the US versus the UK, which is quite striking.
Damn, I missed that. But the impression I had was the US media going "evil aggressive Russians" and the Europeans going "mad stupid Georgians". I bet the latter are really keen on having such a government in a defensive alliance with them (OTOH, many don't see the point of that alliance anymore anyway).
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A S: Information on the DPB's clawback regime can be found here. As you can see, earning over $180 a week - the minimum you can legally get from 15 hours at minimum wage - puts you in the 70% clawback zone. Throw in 21% PAYE, and you're looking at 91%.
DPB recipients may also lose other assitance, but I haven't been able to confirm the clawback on the Accomodation Supplement by looking around the WINZ site or by browsing the Social Security Act 1964. They have information for non-beneficiaries, but nothing for beneficiaries. But if there is a reduction, depending on the rate, it coul draise the EMTR to over 100%.
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Sorry, I'm really not meaning to pick on the widows, older divorcees, and women who have been looking after aged relatives, but does anyone know why the (small) discrepancy?
Because they're the "deserving" poor, as opposed to "undeserving" divorcees, malingerers, and slackers.
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What sort of workplace flexibility are you looking for?
Deborah has the details here. Basically, its flexibility on the employee side, not the employer. And on that point, its worth noting that National opposed legislation which would increase workplace flexibility for working parents, on the basis that employers didn't like it. Which shows how little commitment they have to making this work.
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There's room for both however. Some work I was involved in a few years back in NSW estimated the costs of training long-term unemployed and people with disabilities to a sufficient level for them to be employable
Sure, but that's not what this policy is about. instead, its about expanding the labour supply, by forcing people doing a valuable job (parenting) into the workforce.
The fact that when they do do, they'll face effective marginal tax rates of 91% just makes it sadistic.
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otoh, it would increase supply enough to drive wages down.
Which is, I suspect, the real point. This isn't a welfare policy - it's a labour market policy designed to benefit employers. Again.