Posts by Jan Farr
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Actually, I'm not sure what it involves either, other than being a member... I think Danielle's captain. I'm a prop. I can't even recall when it started now... 'though a quick search suggests this comment and this one and the next two following it. On a Tze Ming Mok thread, of course.
If you need someone to do that dramatic finish where you tear down the field with the ball in your mouth and slam it down between the posts, I'm your creature. (Actually I'm a bitch with only a little bit missing.)
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Barbara:
By the way I am a long time lurker, but have always felt that others put my point of view rather more eloquently. And some of the response can be a little scary.
Couldn't agree more Barbara. I think you might be speaking for quite a few women. It would be interesting to see how well represented we are among the lurkers.
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Fletcher B and Lyndon Hood:
Sorry - I am wrong. It looks as though WFF, superannuitants and others on government benefits who earn under $40,000 miss out in 2009 and 2010 and are about $15 behind by 2011.
However, if you earn over $48,000 and are receiving a government benefit you get exactly the same tax breaks as everyone else. This seems to constitute a back door removal of Working for Families - taking from the people with kids and giving to those without - creating another of those level playing fields the Nats like so much.
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Yamis
Does anybody have any idea if they match whatever I put into it (up to say 4% like now) ? or if they will chuck in 2% and leave me to take my pick with how much I put in?
It's worse than you think. National plans to cut employer contributions to 2 per cent and abolish the employer tax credit and it will also cut the government contribution (member tax credit) to 2 per cent. As well, anyone presently receiving Working for Families tax cuts (or any government assistance) will not qualify for the Nats tax cuts.
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Done it:
George Monbiot -
And now, according to George Monbiot the car manufacturers of America and Europe are demanding a bailout so that they can finally become green:
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/10/07/the-other-bail-out/
(how do we make the link thingy work?) -
The oecd is the economic and social club we operate in and we sit very averagely in nearly all peer comparisons,
Jeremy - According to the World Bank we are the second most business-friendly country in THE WORLD - you must have missed this:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/09/06/business/compete.php -
Caleb:
I see John Key has just announced how National's going to be funding its tax cuts. Briefly, it's going to be trying to 'stimulate growth' through further deregulation. Cos, you know, that's worked so well in the past, and of course deregulation policies have had nothing at all to do with the impending worldwide economic trip-to-hell-in-handbasket.
Secondly, it's going to be reducing minimum contributions to Kiwisaver. Because New Zealanders have such excellent personal savings records, and this exposes us at no risk at all to the global credit crunch.
Thirdly, it's going to be cutting the R & D tax credit. Because what economy in its right mind, particularly one wanting to 'stimulate growth', would want to be encouraging research and development?
And then to add a bizarre touch, employers will be allowed to offset their (miserable) kiwisaver contributions against wages because we really don't want to catch up with Australian wages after all. You gotta have some point of difference.
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big billboard brother says we are extremely overtaxed, we are business unfriendly, we have out of control crime, we have unprecedented floods of migration of our best people.
To be scrupulously fair, the first three of those things are matters of opinion, since they depend on your personal assessment of what ideal levels of taxation, friendliness to business, and crime are.
But to be scrupulously honest we have been business friendly over the past nine years - it's just that business hasn't acknowledged it: http://union.org.nz/policy/ctu-economic-bulletin-no-86
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But at the end of the day, there's no truth in politics - only interests.
Idiot Savant: Yes - and the interests are as real and as varied as we are. Some people see a personal interest in living in a healthy society which is not too divided and some see the interests only of their own - and then on top of that all of us have different ideas about how to achieve what we want - with the exception of the person I once heard who said he'd vote for anyone who took the tax off golf-balls - and I don't think he was joking.
Maybe we need more often to preface our arguments with how we view our interests. I, for instance, want to live in a society where nobody is locked out of the mainstream, either educationally or economically. If I'm brutally honest I have these interests because I'm a nice middle-class dog who doesn't want people robbing, raping, assaulting or murdering me and mine, just because I seem to be middleclass. And also because when people feel locked out, they are locked away from me - and often they are more interesting than the people who aren't.
Oh dear. What a rave. Is this election fever I'm feeling?