Posts by Deborah
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When I was teaching political theory, I used to recommend The Dispossessed to my students, as a way of visualising what an anarchic society might look like. Shevek to me is someone who goes his own way, radically so, the ultimate anarchist rejected by his conformist anarchist society. But he is admirable because he connects with people. He lives at a creative point of tension, between individual and community. It's a theme that Le Guin uses over and over again, the conflict and joy in being one's own person, in a community.
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We had a magical evening, watching the snow fall and playing in it. It started snowing properly around 4pm, and by 5.30pm, enough had settled on the ground for my girls to head outside and make a snow-woman. (Their word, not mine: I'm raising a fine brood of feminists here.) I couldn't get any decent photos last night - too dark - but she was still there this morning.
The girls have been complaining for a very long time that they have never seen snow. I had been planning to take them up Mt Taranaki these last holidays, until the wretched scheduling of the school holidays due to the bloody Rugby World Cup wrecked that possibility.
First time that snow has fallen in the square in Palmerston North for over 80 years. I think that snow here must be as rare as snow in Auckland.
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Faintly green with envy bated breath, actually,.
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Apropos of hosting nastiness on your website, tigtog at Hoyden about Town argues:
Website owners are publishers and editors – just like sending a letter to your local newspaper does not take away their choice whether they will or will not publish it in part or in full, a reader submitting a comment to your website does not take away your choice as to whether or not to publish that comment.
from: Taking responsibility for what people say on your website
Anyone who wants to know my full name can find it on my website. I don't have my full name splashed all over the web because I don't want to scare my students. Srsly. Also, in the past, when I first started commenting on teh web, I was a public servant, and I needed a degree of anonymity.
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OnPoint: Easy as 1, 2, 22.8 billion, in reply to Sean Maitland,
My understanding is that beneficiary income is first worked out net of tax, then it is grossed up to create the weekly income / annual income figure, and then taxed together with any other income they earn. I had assumed the $5,000 tax free threshold would be taken into account when doing the grossing up calculation, so that net beneficiary income would remain about the same.
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A few quick points:
- CGT regimes usually tax capital gains, but don't allow deductions for capital losses. Yes, that's asymmetrical, but it's a standard asymmetry in the design of CGTs.
- Day traders, and people who buy several houses each year and flick them on quickly, are both engaged in businesses with the intention of making a profit. Their income is already taxable under the standard income rules in New Zealand's tax legislation.
- A CGT should be comprehensive and not apply to just certain activities. So any assets held for long term gain (houses, farms, shares) should be caught in the CGT net. So in terms of designing the law, you would subject *everything* to a CGT, then carve out some exemptions, such as an exemption for the family home. Arguably, family homes are held with the intention of providing accommodation, not with the intention of making a profit, and collectables are held for the joy of collecting etc. However, your mileage may vary on that one.
In principle, I agree with a CGT, provided that it is comprehensive. There are some serious design issues, and it could take a fair amount of IRD resources to implement and administer a CGT. It would be interesting to see a cost / benefit analysis on that.
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Hard News: #NetHui: it's all about you, in reply to Jackie Clark,
it’s just that I have moved my focus from adult disenfranchisement, to that of children . If you want lecturing about that, I’m your woman
'cept it's not 'lecturing': it's passion and insight and experience brought together and shared with us.
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Long, but excellent parable explaining privilege, 'though, Jackie, I guarantee that you will not like the title at all. I don't like the title either.
On the difference between Good Dogs and Dogs That Need a Newspaper Smack.
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Hmmm.... totally agree about the usefulness of concepts like 'mansplaining', and 'tone argument' and something else that someone mentioned upthread but I've forgotten what it was. Anyway, Megan caught them on the wing and passed them back to Danielle who kicked them right up the field to Emma in an awesome display from the First XV. And I absolutely agree about the concepts being overused, and slammed down as trump cards to shut other people up. That has really pissed me off of late.
Regarding privilege. One way of thinking out it may be to turn it upside down, and think about vulnerabilities instead. I have one major area of vulnerability in my life i.e. being a woman. But I am not vulnerable in all areas of my life: I'm white, cis, straight, able-bodied, educated etc. I did nothing to deserve any of this: they just *are*. (Even 'education', where it was the good fortune of being born to parents who highly valued education, and knew how to obtain it for me.) Most of the time, I can just sail through my days, not worrying about anything much because I just don't have to. And because I don't have to think about it, I usually don't, and I can tromp all over other people (metaphorically) because I don't think hard enough. I can also choose not to deal with people who don't fit my world (white, able, cis, straight etc) by just ignoring them, but typically, people who are not privileged don't have that choice. I can choose not to be aware of Pasifika culture and ways of behaving, but sure as hell is hot Pasifika people can't afford to ignore palangi culture. That's privilege.
Yes, thinking about 'other' and 'othering' is helpful in this context, but I don't think it picks out quite the same ideas. In one way, what we do when we 'do privilege' (i.e. we act in a way that springs from being privileged), is that we are 'saming' people i.e. we are assuming that everyone is exactly the same as us, instead of recognising and responding to difference.
(I may not be able to respond much, I'm sorry, because right at the moment I am in that citadel of white first world privilege, Oxford, and the time difference makes things a little tricky.)
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Bloody hell. I really hope you can win this one, David, for yourselves, and for the other people who must be facing the same runaround from their insurers.