Posts by "chris"
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
OnPoint: Budget 2013: Bringing Down the…, in reply to Chris Waugh,
The high life indeed Chris ~ So much for putting your heart into making a genuine contribution to the planet in a manner befitting one’s skill set. So much for choosing a job with little or no environmental impact, a job which not only enables students to immigrate to, do business and study in New Zealand, but also helps to maintain English language’s status as the global Lingua franca.
Googling about the place I slipped on some Whaleoil, (yeah I should have known better) the consensus there being that we are thieves. Theft?
I’m appalled at the amount of IRD student loan advertising on places like Stuff, and the skew the site brings to the party. I have a parents on my case, a well meaning uncle, a fisherman from Kaiapoi, and despite their seemingly genuine concern for my wellbeing there is also that nagging sensation, as you say, that this energy could be put to far greater use were it channeled towards elected representatives. But that narrative just seems to fit so snugly and past realities of free education, a universal allowance, or at the very least not attempting to milk millions in exorbitant interest from progeny’s shriveled udders, seem to have been erased entirely from the collective consciousness of a nation while South Canterbury Finance investors live to fight another day.
It’s not as if New Zealand can’t afford it, I just find it ludicrous, when I left the country I’d made a decision never to return on a permanent basis, of course that meant I’d lose the option of partaking in the NZSF but I can take care of that myself. Now it seems things are more geared to us returning, paying what we can off our loans and in turn qualifying for pensions. Money is clearly not the issue here.
They can call us what they will, and celebrate this system to the ends of the earth but the best thing I feel I ever did for New Zealand was getting off the dole and getting out of the place. That saved the NZ taxpayer at least as much as I owe. But that’s little more than the narrative of a thief.
-
OnPoint: Budget 2013: Bringing Down the…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Oh, I think the Powers-that-be might have Private Prisons, ready to use you as cheap labour for a while, first…
Isn’t that basically the jist of the budget? Sure they’d have to accommodate me for more than a decade before I show any profit, but you know, compared to the uncertainty of arrest and potentially losing one’s foreign job, home, friends and possessions, as the lesser of two evils I’d welcome that; 3 meals a day, a roof over my head and the certainty of a job, that sounds better than the freedom I new in New Zealand post graduation, truth be told, speaking only as one of the humanities of course. At least it’d be stable employment. I wish I were joking, but that makes a lot of sense given the options, at least more so than fixed repayment that I can’t meet and arrest for not doing so.
This so-called ‘good policy’ doesn’t really make one iota of difference to those who can’t afford the obligatory payments, To those who can, well perhaps the hideous stick truly and deeply is good policy, perhaps it’ll scare the bejeezers into Chuck defaulter, and if we’re seriously going take the leap and begin paying off the debt, hecksaw, why not do so in environs where its no longer incurring interest. I hear a decent proportion of 100,000 overseas borrowers returning could just do absolute miracles for the NZ job market. Sense by the truckload there. It's probably best to just come home now before the border arrest policy is implemented, before the influx at the. Or perhaps in some parallel universe people do in fact get into the situation where interest stacks up to the point where it becomes impossible for graduates to move back , that universe where New Zealand isn't a welfare state, and this policy will change all that at the speed of apathy.
At some point 6.2% unemployment, $1.7b jobseeker support and emergency benefit and $411.5m overdue student debt should meet up for a drink, who knows, they might even come to an understanding that old 441.5 is actually real good value.
-
OnPoint: Budget 2013: Bringing Down the…, in reply to BenWilson,
Thanks Ben, that's so much more coherent, I feel I can get some sleep now, cheers!
-
OnPoint: Budget 2013: Bringing Down the…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
hehe, yeah I’m pretty torn up Ian, we’ve never seen much in the way of the symbolic self-immolation in ANZ but everyone has their limit, and having spent half a life as little more than fuel for the barbie what’s the difference.
As Willy Loman said to Charlie: "After all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive."
So sad but true, and with these loans, it’s not after years on the road, but straight out of school in most cases.
China gets a lot of deserved shit for the way the workforce is exploited but there’s a lot to be said for exploiting workers and actually paying them compared to our case where we’re rinsing the life out of students before most of us have even earned a cent. We are quite literally worth more dead than alive...until they also amend that piece of legislation.
-
getting pretty aggressive indeed.
-
OnPoint: Budget 2013: Bringing Down the…, in reply to Keith Ng,
Pretty sure I had to sign something to get a student loan. Marginally sure that something said that it was a loan, and that I had to pay it back.
Pretty sure that at 17 I signed something to get a student loan without parental consent, marginally sure that the current minimum age to sign any other kind of loan agreement in New Zealand was and is 18 years of age, fairly sure this loophole was sewn up 6 years after the fact, entirely sure that my repayment obligation is 45% of my income. 99% sure I can't make all of that, 100% sure that will incur late payment interest, pretty certain the loan interest rate is already higher than the mortgage rate, quite certain my interest already outweighs my loan, pretty sure the loans the kids are getting these days are interest free, quite sure more socially endowed friends from affluent families entered into marriages of convenience to qualify for allowances, fairly sure mates who gave the tertiary system a miss and instead rinsed the welfare system for a decade owe nothing, and in all probability aren't facing any kind of threat of arrest (for that), so yeah at least it makes sense in a lot of ways. I probably still won't be able to fulfill my repayment obligation after the court date nor the fine but it'll be a laugh, a tale to tell the Jehova's Witnesses and hey, at least it doesn't not make a lot of sense to 周扒皮, aye, buddy, cos this tripe, this fiscal irresponsibility, is bullshit:
Education is more than a luxury; it is a responsibility that society owes to itself.
Robin Cook -
OnPoint: Budget 2013: Bringing Down the…, in reply to Chris Waugh,
Nah, I reckon it’s better living in a third world country earning a wage that pays for an alright life in a third world country. ’Cept, of course, it’s not easy to pay off the loan, specially with the current exchange rates.
Yeah, it was almost tolerable until that announcement Chris. I feel they’ve pushed the barrow too far this time. I will most certainly be resisting, so bring your best taser you fascist capitalist exploitative fucks.
-
In a world where that guy in the shirt had easy access to an actual washing machine and affordable dental care, he may be wearing a different shirt.
-
Hard News: Spread the Noise, in reply to Russell Brown,
Couldn’t we find something more useful to do than jonesing on a tragedy half a world away? Well, yes. But we don’t need sport, porn or pop music either, and they’re still all quite popular.
In our household the 15th of April was a toss-up between the Boston bombings (3 dead 264 injured) or the wave of attacks in Iraq (75 dead, 350 injured). Unable to reach a timely accord we headed out to McDs which was not only celebrating 57 years since the opening of its first franchised restaurant but is also 100% Pure Americana. Here's Tom with the weather:
-
Capture: Someone, Somewhere, In Summertime, in reply to Chris Waugh,
This is how yummy that yoghurt is!
Ha! I'm glad the internet wasn't around when I was a tyke.
