Posts by Matthew Poole
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Two interesting points from the Press Release (don't blame you for not wanting to pay GBP100 for the NZ page!)
First:
Global performance rights revenues - generated from the use of music by third party businesses in broadcast and public performance - have shown considerable resilience in the face of tough economic conditions, growing by 7.6% in 2009 to US$0.8 billion. This reflects an unbroken trend of growth since 2003, with performance rights revenues now accounting for 4.6% of record companies' trade revenues.
This isn't performers' revenues, but revenue from things like retail "radio broadcast" licensing, APRA licences for use of music in live theatre... I wonder how much impact stuff like the huge increase to Australian gyms for the use of music in workout sessions will have on this figure next year. Especially as it could equally-likely backfire, with gyms moving to using royalty-free music or music that's not covered by the licensing regime.
Second:
the value of music sales fell 7% globally last year
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Global digital download revenue increased 9.2% to $US4.31 billion. Digital now accounts for 25.3% of all music sales – and 43% of all U.S. music sales in 2009.As Simon G has said many, many times, per-unit value of digital is lower but units-sold is higher. The "Oh noes, t3h piratez are killing t3h music" folks love the former figure, but try and keep the latter bit of information quiet. "Revenues are down. CDs sold are down. It's the pirates, and we must be granted stricter, harsher laws that allow us to seize their souls, and their childrens' souls, and sell them on eBay. But don't look at the increase in the number of tracks sold for digital download. We all know that pirates won't pay for music online when they can get it for free, so there's nothing to see here. Move along, bough^Welected representative, and give us that legislation. Don't forget about the mortal souls."
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until the next regional election in Canterbury (and there are no guarantees when that might be).
This clause makes me question a lot of the rest of that Op-Ed piece. It's inaccurate, to the point of outright lying. The law is quite clear on when the next guaranteed election for ECan is: the 2013 election cycle, if not before. From a lecturer in public policy, I expect a little better.
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My point is that if you see a "secret privatisation agenda' every time Rodney Hide scratches his arse, you're going to go there.
You're right, but only because there's nothing secret about Rodney's "privatisation agenda". As far as he's concerned, councils exist to provide libraries (but only because he's scared that Mummy Hide wouldn't cook him any more hot meals if he "upset" libraries), and administer the funds required to pay private companies to look after water, roads, parks, public transport, and all the other things that councils currently do. No secrets whatsoever, he's on record as saying it and it's Act policy.
Because of Rodney's well-known position on council service provision, it's entirely reasonable to view every action he makes as Monster of Local Government through the lens of "this man wants councils to own nothing except land (and as little of that as possible), run nothing except libraries, and generally GTFO of the way of private business receiving ratepayers' monies."
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The egalitarian society is dead.
See, I don't agree with that. I've seen news articles within the past five years talking about how more than a million people in this country do volunteer work every year. The egalitarian spirit still exists, it's just being subjugated by a media that's bought into the new-right ideal that anything less than absolute selfishness is weak and unacceptable.
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What sort of average are they talking about? Mean? Median? Or Made Up?
The latter, looking at Statistics NZ information on income in the June 2009 quarter. Unless our economy has grown at a phenomenal rate in the last 12 months - and isn't the Budget predicated on no such thing? - the median individual income from all sources is about $28k/year, and the mean is ~$36k.
The only way I can find an "average wage" that approximates $50k is if I use the mean income of persons in paid employment, which I guess is a fair enough stat to use but ignores the fact that the median for the same group is far closer to $40k than $50k. -
There is this ridiculous portrayal of tax as something evil that must be minimised. Whereas the truth is tax is what we as a society agree to pay to the government to allow the government to do things we can't effectively do ourselves
Gordon Campbell makes the excellent point that [a]s for attracting prize immigrants, our stoic faith in the 1980s notion that tax cutting results in sustainable economic growth will probably deter as many bright people as it attracts. The rest of the world got over its brief fling with voodoo economics a long time ago.
He's got something there. When the only country in the OECD with a lower tax burden than NZ is Mexico, and still we're being told that we must cut taxes, it points to some interesting absence of lateral thinking on the part of our politicians. If taxes are what holds an economy back, we should be going absolutely gang-busters. Instead we're trailing the OECD on most of their other measures of economic performance. Maybe Key has realised that the only OECD ranking at which we have any shot of being number one is the lowest tax burden, and he's acting accordingly?
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After 6 years of working towards a qualification (combined with beginning a family), next year is pegged for the final push (full time study for 18 months). I'll not have the time to do any paid work while doing the course. We'll be paying for 52 hrs a week ECE for our 2 1/2 yr old, (which I imagine will increase in cost as the centre we're applying to has a high ratio of qualified staff), minus whatever childcare subsidy we'll qualify for then. Despite the 'tax cuts', the increase in GST means I'm not overly confident as to how well we'll get by.
And to ease the pain that little bit more, your education will doubtless be dramatically more expensive due to the removal of the "fee maxima". I am incredibly glad that I got my degree out of the way before National got their hands on the Treasury benches.
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How does an alliance of Military heavyweights ensure a campaign against a small time militia outfit lasts for 8 years?
I heard this comment from a senior Navy NCO during a training course on how to keep safe if my humanitarian activities see me sent to any of the multitude of countries that have issues with IEDs and/or UXO. To the extreme outrage of a number of the other people on my course (kinda comes with the territory when you're in the humanitarian sphere, I guess), he said that a lot of these countries that have ridiculous arsenals, be they official or non-official, pay for them from humanitarian aid funds.
His solution was to stop aid funding. Cue more outrage (not voiced at the time, of course), but he has a point. The money gets siphoned off before it ever reaches the intended recipients, and ends up being used to purchase weapons.
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In the real word, any accountant will tell you that it's not so black and white.
When it comes to trusts and companies, it's pretty clear-cut if you keep your books in order and don't try to get clever with cheap rents or "company cars", or dividend streaming and related-party loans. The really grey lines come with the creative structures, like Trinity or the banks' creations.
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And the difference there is if the people in one category get caught, they pay big fines or go to jail.
Quite. And it's not just "the poor" who get nailed for evasion, either. Proportionately I suspect that "the wealthy" get hit much harder for evasion, because they'll be evading on large sums of money. A person who's evading tax on a couple of grand a year will get a slap, the statutorily-required penalties, and told not to do it again. Someone who's evading on 10s- or 00s-of-thousands of dollars a year will get some very hefty fines on top of the back taxes.
The line between evasion and avoidance isn't just down to how good your lawyer is, either. Trinity and the banks being but two instances where very good, very expensive lawyers couldn't pass their clients' activities off as legal sheltering.