Posts by Steve Parks
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to DexterX,
A landlord/investor considering the return derived from a ppty/investment will factor in any costs increases, which would include a CGT, into the return they are looking to receive.
I know the reasoning behind expecting it may cause an increase in rents, but was asking if there was definite evidence; more importantly, evidence that it was significant enough to be a serious reason to not go ahead with the tax.
Increase to taxes be it income tax, consumption taxes, capital taxes always migrate down to the working poor, the people with greater income/resources are always able to structure their affiars so that they avoid or pass on any tax increase.
That's simplistic, obviously. Yes, many high earners will try to avoid tax if they can, but clearly they end up paying a lot. One thing that encourages rearranging your affairs is if one area is not taxed. They spend resources to try and arrange things so that otherwise regular taxable income ends up as tax-exempt capital gains. This means income is missed out on and encourages property speculation.
From the Herald articles by Huang and Elliffe:A capital gains tax would reduce or eliminate these inefficient incentives. This would help direct investment to where the underlying asset is most productive, rather than on the basis of the tax exemption for capital gains.
And as Matthew said, it's also about increasing revenue:
The papers provided to the Tax Working Group indicated that a capital gains tax could raise $3.8 billion per year. But in most other countries that have moved to a capital gains tax, the income turned out to be far higher than predicted (almost tenfold over a short period in Australia).
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to DexterX,
I find the experts view in the Herald Naive for the same reasons I have mentioned above.
But your only criticism that seems relevant to them is the issue of increasing rents, and that only because they didn’t address it because (in their estimation) it wasn’t one of the usual objections.
Do you have evidence that CGT inevitably leads to rent increases, and if so are they significant ones that cause real long term problems?
I would also like to say that a CGT is like giving heroin to a heroin addict as a cure for heroin addiction.
Hmm…seems to be a simile fail.
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to DexterX,
CGT is crap and it shows that the opposition(labour and the greens) are just as vacuous as the present govt.
The Greens are promoting it, and labour aren't, as far as I'm aware. How does CGT reflect badly on both?
Anyway, your concerns are not shared by the experts (sorry, 2nd time today I've made that link).
...a CGT I don’t think would help change the govt.
Probably true, unfortunately.
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Hard News: Only what we would expect a…, in reply to Sacha,
Complains about cultural tolerance and then celebrates the (European) Enlightenment’s.. cultural tolerance.
Well, Coddington seems to be complaining about (what she sees as) cultural excuses. The sort of tolerance she celebrates isn’t the sort wherein we must tolerate the intolerant parts of other cultural practices (hence Bodanis pointing to al-Qaeda) so her stance isn’t contradictory. (Or, to borrow a pithy phrase from friend: tolerance of bigotry isn’t tolerance, but bigotry.)
Where Coddington’s gone wrong, it seems to me, is that there just isn’t any suggestion that the horrific incident she refers to should be excused, so what’s her problem? I certainly haven’t heard anyone suggest that this act should be condoned if it turns out to have been done as an ‘honour killing’. As Sam F said, when the media and other people here use the term ‘honour killing’ they don’t mean it to come across as some sort of mitigation. And as she says herself, the use of the notion of “honour” killing in cases like Ahmad Riyaz Khan got them nowhere in terms of legal defense. I think she's on her high horse for nothing, in this case.
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For anyone who hadn’t noticed, part three of that series in the Herald about CGT, Busting the myths of capital gains tax.
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Legal Beagle: Coalition of Losers, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
That should not be allowed to happen.
Yep. Was there any rationale that went with the use of urgency there?
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Muse: The High Aesthetic Line, in reply to BenWilson,
Curious, Rotten Tomatoes agreed with my ordering of the merits of the films. From Wikipedia:
Film review site Rotten Tomatoes calculated an approval rating of 80% based on 250 reviews, making it the highest rated out of the prequel trilogy and the third highest-rated film of the entire Star Wars saga: The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Return of the Jedi are rated 62%, 66%, and 78% respectively, while A New Hope and Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back are rated 94% and 97% respectively
I think the first three films made (parts 4 – 6) were about equal, and all were better than the prequels. If pressed, my order would be Star Wars/New Hope marginally ahead of Jedi and Empire. The others are significantly less good, though they do have points of interest (mostly involving battles).
I think Return of the Jedi was underrated. The opening sequence through defeat of Jabba the Hutt was great for its time (some of the effects may now seem rusty). Then the build up and three way climatic battle was a great pay-off for the series. The lightsaber battle between Luke and Vader was as good as it got in the first three films (the action choreography got better in the prequels), and the melodrama around it was surpassed only by the “I am your father” part from the previous film. The epic space opera battle was also the best the series - and any movie ever - had had to offer to that point. And, Ewoks not withstanding, there was a lot to like about the ground assault part as well.
The only fault with Jedi that I can think of was the decision to go with the Ewoks. Some say that it doesn’t stand up as a complete film. But, that’s true of all the episodes except parts 4 and maybe 1. It was a serial. -
[Simon says:] And it really isn’t a fantasy show. There are fantasy elements, but it’s quite unlike anything else, I think.
You’ve gone from “it’s quite unlike anything else” to “It’s a male orientated sex comedy”.
It’s hard to know what to make of that promo. I’ll keep an open mind and give it a chance. There were certainly some funny parts (“as Odin I order you to stop that!”.)
I’m also a bit weary of the “it’s not really a fantasy” claims about these sorts of things. There were ample overtly fantastical parts in that YouTube clip. Fantasy isn’t really a genre that has boxes to be ticked.
Fantasy:
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Muse: Linky Love, in reply to Danielle,
[Rich Lock said:] My understanding is that Americans from the South and South-West use ‘Yank’ to refer to those from the North-Eastern states.
Mine too, but I also thought when used by non-Americans it was simply slang for Americans, but not nasty per se.
Interesting. I think of ‘Yank’ a bit like ‘Pom’: not particularly nice. It always calls to mind a lot of ignorant people pontificating meanspiritedly around a BBQ (and then shutting up awkwardly as soon as they work out my background). But that could just be my issues. :)
Yeah I can see it. Burly obnoxious types talking of “bloody Pomies”, and “bloody Yanks” while flipping burger patties and swilling beer, that kinda thing. My accuser may have had a point. On the other hand, I don’t think ‘Pom’ per se would be enough to get an English person calling racism.
And Yankee Doodle is the official anthem of Connecticut:
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Muse: Linky Love, in reply to giovanni tiso,
… localise the spelling – as if one couldn’t deal with the few differences.
On the American dialect thing, I have a few conversations on messageboards and such like with predominantly U.S. commentators, as I assume is true of plenty of others here. It is has been very, very rare that there has been any confusion caused by my dialect or generally NZ-English spelling.* So yeah, I’m surprised that it causes much fuss, these days anyway.
* (“I bought it at the dairy,” used to mean general store did it once. And “yank” once got me accused of being racist or demeaning or somesuch, whereas I meant it no differently than “Kiwi”.)