Posts by mark taslov
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: Media Take: The Easter Show, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
If the colonisation of New Zealand had involved a unified strategy between Church, State and private entererprise then my analogy might be unreasonable:
The company became notable for elaborate and grandiose advertising and for its vigorous attacks on those it perceived as its opponents – the British Colonial Office, successive governors of New Zealand, prominent missionary the Rev. Henry Williams and the Church Missionary Society in New Zealand and London.
Had the New Zealand Company formed close bonds with the Church Missionary Society, then my analogy might have been entirely unreasonable.
Rich, you seem to be simultaneously arguing a few points, namely that the church was used to justify atrocities over 2000 years, this I don’t dispute. Secondly you did seem at one point to be pursuing an argument whereby *the* sole ideology justifying colonial atrocities was Christianity. Thirdly, as far as I can see you are stating that the closer one’s bonds with the ideology being used to justify atrocity, the more culpable the collective – encompassing countless distinct branches of that ideology – are.
Placing a bookend in history, my basic point was that various iterations of the Government in New Zealand (regardless of its justifications) have perpetuated far worse atrocities than any organised religion has done *here*, and for that matter the various churches do quite a bit of good around the community, currently. My overriding feeling is that if we’re going to argue culpability and point fingers we might as well use all our fingers, rather than just the one, that is if we must point fingers at the past - as opposed to using that energy to looking more closely at the contemporary situation.
-
Hard News: Media Take: The Easter Show, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
The Manson family used The Beatles music as justification for killings. I’d probably go with the BeeGees, but at the end of the day, the acts are far in excess of the parameters of‘ideology’. There’s nothing inherently Christian (Gospel) about the acts. To say they *used* religion, implying that statements were issued citing the ideology as justification, doesn't necessarily mean that the wider populace at the time bought these justifications or even that they are objectively credible to the reasoning mind.
If the head of Apple Corps, Neil Aspinall, had used The Beatles music as justification for a rampage, no jury would exonerate him on this count and no prosecution would be brought against McCartney and Starkey Jr, or Beatlemania as a whole. It's a fruitless expedition.
-
Hard News: Media Take: The Easter Show, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
But the ideology that justified colonial atrocities *was* christianity.
The ideology that justified colonial atrocities was colonialism/ imperialism. Te Kooti, like many others, was christian. Christianity never had a monopoly on persecution and tyranny:
In 845, at the height of the Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution, Emperor Wuzong decreed that Buddhism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism be banned, and their very considerable assets forfeited to the state.
...
The Ming dynasty decreed that Manichaeism and Christianity were illegal and heterodox, to be wiped out from China, while Islam and Judaism were legal and fit Confucian ideology.[15] Buddhist Sects like the White Lotus were also banned by the Ming.
-
Hard News: Media Take: The Easter Show, in reply to Russell Brown,
Hi Russell, I missed the show, what time and day is the repeat showing? And for that matter when are the initial broadcasts? I don't own a Listener or whatever it is people use to keep tabs. I'd watch it online but Zenbu.net.nz charges $1 per 20MB.
-
Hard News: Media Take: The Easter Show, in reply to Tom Semmens,
butterfly collectors of a particular persuasion have yet to massacre entire populations over matters pertaining to the subtlety of interpreting various Lepidoptera genera. And that is the key problem with theology – it is great intellectual fun and games until someone takes it seriously
Ahh to live in the ancient world. What I can infer and reason is that iterations of our Government and its apparatus have killed more New Zealanders than all the other religions combined here; be that through executions, the maori wars, at Parihaka etc. With further reasoning and inference, I, and presumably anyone who's been the recipient of one of those food parcels, a bed for the night or cheap second hand goods from their stores could quite easily come to the conclusion that only by removing these institutions and the tangible good they are doing in our society will we be able to fully appreciate just how short of the mark our state welfare system fails, and just how much of a contribution these organisations make, far beyond and often despite their prolytising.
If the banking industry got as much shit as organised religion we'd be getting somewhere. That is, in this day and age.
-
ETA: the 30,000+ defaulters figure quoted above now appears to be well shy of the mark:
There were just under 109,500 overseas-based people with student debt at the end of June last year, and they were a collective $863.3million behind in their repayments, with over 70,000 of them not meeting their repayment obligations.
-
misplaced
-
About $7 million has been spent on a tracing system by which Inland Revenue is working with debt collectors in Australia and Britain to find borrowers and get them before the courts, some will keenly attribute success specifically to this policy,
"This is working really well, particularly in Australia, where there are 10,000 borrowers, many of which can afford to make payments but aren't," Mr Joyce said.
"These initiatives have a running return where, every $1 we spend, $11 is collected back."That leaves us with 30,000 overseas defaulters minus up to 10,000, free to roam without threat of apprehension at their respective borders if they choose to jump ship from one adopted country to another. That is if they choose to continue to aggressively evade the system, which would largely depend on whether they decide that New Zealand still doesn’t offer sufficient opportunities to inspire a return home. If they refuse to return - that they refuse to return - can in itself be cited as ample evidence that we, our country, our systems, our economic policies, our cultural systems are tangibly inferior to those on offer. 30,000 people can be wrong, but only if a system’s flaws grant them license to be. Until we are capable of acknowledging that this system might be fundamentally flawed, at least in terms of the manner in which it’s currently being administered, then our progress as a society will be negligible. but in order to develop, we firstly need to check our attitudes, expectations and ideals, because “Marginally sure that something said that it was a loan, and that I had to pay it back” recoups nothing, pointing fingers, vindictive epithets and talking ourselves up simply won’t pay off this debt, this is an issue of perspective - like or perhaps unlike a PM’s hat - without wearing this thing we have very little in the way of traction to even consider attempting to fix it and we will continue to watch this debt balloon, grinding our teeth. It’s time we reexamined our legacy.
It’s not so much that we want opportunity or even for that matter that we demand opportunity: it’s that all things considered we as a people deserve opportunity. Not just in Auckland, Christchurch or Wellington but throughout the country, and now far beyond. Empty threats may not be the best substitute, opportunity rather than sticks, good policy not bad, these might bring our boys and girls, sons and daughters, cousins, uncles, aunts and even parents back home, perhaps not. But as should now be evidently apparent, to all but the most enthusiastic conspiracy theorist, waving that stick – no matter how hard – won’t turn Jack’s magic beans to coin.
*Names have been changed to protect identities, naturally.
-
OnPoint: Budget 2013: Bringing Down the…, in reply to mark taslov,
Stu has already dealt with 20+ staff members at the IRD Overseas borrowers Department, he is more than familiar with the fact that the system has been designed in such a way that rather than there being some superior qualified to make the ultimate decision as to future applications, his application will be subjectively handled by whoever picks up the email, his enquiries will be handled by whoever picks up the phone and therefore given his past success rates in filing these applications there can be no guarantee of future success regardless of the stability of his situation. What remains consistent is that any married applicant filing for Hardship dispensation is required to include as much financial information for their spouse as for themselves, and this is why I make no bones about calling out this policy for the dog it is.
It would cost $600,000 for Inland Revenue to set up the border arrest system for student loans, and those prosecuted in court could face a fine of up to $2000.
Stephen Joyce
As any defaulter should now be aware, returning home may now result in arrest when attempting to later leave New Zealand. For a borrower like Tom this represents a departure tax, if per chance he manages to enter and exit New Zealand without paying a cent well then he’ll know well before the rest of us that this policy is more of a limp chamois, sponging that grill, than anything objectively stick-like. This would not be such an unlikely conclusion to reach - as may already be inferred from the apparent ease at which borrower and convicted murderer Phillip Smith was able to flee - any current enforcement of this policy is troubled at best.
For Susan or Stu; being arrested and fined represents something quite altogether different. As they continually fail to meet their obligations and if they fail to successfully apply for hardship status then the prospect of arrest, court and fines looms over any planned visits. Given they both have family here, and given the fact that their annual obligations or even just the interest is already well beyond the price of an airfare home, this would not seem an improbable scenario. This is where - as some see it - the policy hits a bump. What happens once that fine has been paid? Their annual obligations and even just the interest are often far in excess of these fines.
There is a saying "don't make threats if you're not prepared to back them up". These threats may garner some success in recouping funds, this recoupment may be significant, but when it comes to Government policy, ideally all factors, the effects on all people, will be considered, and when it comes to Government policy in the long term; “pretty legal” probably won’t cut it. So what happens to Stu if this threat is followed to the letter and he is arrested and ordered to pay a fine which he can’t afford and tries to leave the country again? Will we arrest Stu once more and pay for a second court date - issue a second fine? There is absolutely no question that Stu would want to get back to his wife and family and you’ll no doubt notice the likelihood of a cycle emerging in the eventuality of us arresting an individual thus incline, a possible eventuality whereby NZ ends up forking out significant legal costs for no recoupment whatsoever.
Critic would have us believe that inevitable outcome of this type of cycle would be prison time. If as would be the case; Stu were to be imprisoned for lack of funds, for failing to file his hardship application or for having a spouse with savings or an income over the threshold then we’ve already found ourselves with further unanswerable questions. In the current environment many may be satisfied with Stu’s imprisonment, some may be happy, some may even –for want of a better term – class this policy as “good”: Imprisoning Stu, not because he ever earned over the threshold but because his wife has. What would be the ramifications of such an action moving forward? Were Stu’s wife to divorce him then the funds the IRD has prosecuted him for withholding are no longer a part of the equation, would he then be free to go?
More to the point; countless defaulters do recall, with absolute certainty, that something said you only have to pay back when earning over the threshold, that was in the contract, there was no mention of punitive measures for marrying a well endowed spouse and failing to secure said spouse’s funds for the purposes of loan repayment, that didn’t feature in the contracts the large bulk of us signed. And yet, now there is the very real practice and prospect; the spouse’s funds are playing the key role in not simply ascertaining whether a borrower can make repayments but also in whether the New Zealand justice system can and should arrest, prosecute, fine and quite possibly imprison New Zealanders, New Zealanders whose crimes entail not earning enough money and marrying someone with too much.
Anyone who’s been on the bad end of a divorce can tell you how many ways this type of policy can go wrong, and all it’s going to take is one stubborn nut to crack that policy wide open like a fresh egg on an early Tuesday morning. This is no longer about the borrowers, the defaulters, this is about their families and the myriad possibilities and positions such relationships encompass. We are already well beyond New Zealanders, citizens, residents and those who qualified for a loan. Despite being in possession of full and frank documentation that borrowers are earning well below published income thresholds the IRD has now shifted its focus to spousal assets with absolutely no attempt being made to verify whether these assets are indeed legally speaking - relationship property. This has become about testing the parameters of ongoing relationships. How much should a New Zealand borrower who is the forth wife of a Shia Saudi Arabian be expected to extract from her husband? And why have we established a policy to arrest her if she fails? That’s not a decision she is necessarily legally qualified to make. The decision to pay these sums that are being recalled by the IRD at the threat of arrest now lies in the hands of foreign citizens, citizens who are far beyond the IRD and our own Government’s jurisdiction. The IRD and the Government are ethically so far out of their depth with this policy that it feels almost callous pointing out the gaps, but given the lack of careful attention the media has given this issue, and knowing enough about this - in the interests of transparency - I feel that it is high time someone put it all down here. It angers.
-
OnPoint: Budget 2013: Bringing Down the…, in reply to mark taslov,
Oh – and I forgot to add: Student debt is $12 Billion, with a bad-debt write-off of approximately 45%, so the taxypayer will have to find 5.4 Billion of this. Plust we are paying approx half a billionin interest.
So not only did I pay interest on my student loan, I’m now having to pay the interest on all the other fucking ingrates.Spam – kiwiblog
The invective permeates. As if this were real capital that could have bought Spam an actual house; real money rather than numbers on a ledger of a lender who can never be bought out despite doing its darnedest to sell itself off. It’s like a game of ‘Simon Says’, were Simon called Bill:
It’s a little horrifying in terms of its aggressiveness, but I also think it makes sense in a lot of ways. Aside from raising the amount of money which is collected, it’ll also make it less attractive to try to flee your student loan debt, or to get into the situation where interest stacks up to the point where it becomes impossible for graduates to move back.
It’s a big, hideous stick, but I guess good policy doesn’t have to be all carrots.
But it may not be good policy, it may be ridiculous policy, it may even be preposterous. The carrot is and always has been interest free loans for borrowers who remain in New Zealand, assuming we can all agree that the object is to recoup funds, a stick designed to make return impossible for graduates whose interest has already stacked up doesn’t sound quite fit for purpose. Interest free loans for borrowers who remain New Zealand based has already been immeasurably attractive for quite some time. Stay in New Zealand and accrue no interest, go and the loan grows with you. If you’ve been working legitimately in New Zealand from the get-go you’re not overdue, if you’ve been working under the table – quite common place as anyone eavesdropping in provincial bars will confirm – from the get-go, you’ve officially been earning nothing and you’re not overdue. You can leave with no fear of arrest. If you move overseas and the interest stacks up, well that’s always been the case, nothing in this policy amends that situation. Coming and going might become a bit of a problem, but for anyone who is dead set on making off with the dough following graduation the package tour remains; Default or Bust. When based overseas the interest grows as it always has, but yes, under certain conditions it may seem or feel impossible for graduates to move back.
So what now qualifies as “good policy” in New Zealand is at least in part; making it ‘impossible’ for graduates who’ve stacked up to much interest to move back to New Zealand? We know without a doubt that there is nothing in the policy preventing defaulters from actually returning to New Zealand so the question to the voter is; does this sound like a winner? How much money is making it impossible for New Zealanders to return to New Zealand expected to recoup from those New Zealanders? Quite reasonably one might be given to assume that ideally at some point, recouping the money would be the goal of the exercise, hence the interest and the incurred sleepless nights. Bear in mind that I’m not asking if the IRD should be threatening litigation or collection against those with sufficient funds flagrantly shirking their responsibility, what I am asking is whether implementing a policy to arrest, to detain and to split up the families of those borrowers – those with absolutely nothing to show for themselves – is quite as credible as solution to recouping investment as the nodders and yes men would have us believe.
By October 2014 more than $6 million of student-loan debt belonging to 99 overseas-based Kiwis had been written off in that year – an average of $60,000 each. The number of overseas-based bankrupts having their loans written off more than doubled from 42 in 2013 and from 35 to 45 in 2010-12. It almost looks like we’re creating a new industry, but this is not the type of opportunity to which I refer.
So what of Susan and her $160,000 loan? Prior to attempting to venture home in 2014, as one of the 30,000 defaulters Susan applied for a hardship application and was successful. This not only meant her penalties were wiped, but also that any overdue amounts were cancelled. Satisfied with this result Susan arrived home for Christmas facing no prospect of arrest for lack of payments. While in New Zealand she made no attempt to repay any of her loan, the amount now abstracted beyond the realms of tangibility – equal to 14 annual salaries. Any repayment she could have afforded would have been swallowed up by the subsequent year’s interest and without ever having been employed or having any real prospect of pursuing her vocation in New Zealand, Susan rightly or wrongly earmarked these earnings for her own superannuation in her adopted country.
In contrast, Tom, also based overseas, earns well above the threshold and by paying bits and pieces over the years he’s managed to maintain his outstanding balance at roughly the amount he borrowed. With no family based in New Zealand he has no plans to return home and he remains adamant that the implementation of this new policy means absolutely nothing whatsoever to him. Tom clarifies that he would be more than happy to settle back in New Zealand if it provided the same opportunities as his adopted country. Certainly the prospect of arrest/ legal action on return is not as oppressive a stick as it is being bandied about to be. If per chance Tom were to visit New Zealand and then be arrested he seems quite confident that paying off the $2000 court fine and the overdue amount would still be in no way conducive to his deciding to pay back any of the loan proper, and given the size of Tom’s original loan and what it paid for – for the most part basic sustenance – this outlook is not entirely incomprehensible.
As for Stu, on his third attempt filing a hardship application he managed to convince IRD staff that it wasn’t in the NZ’s best interests to be threatening legal action against him for the savings of citizen of a developing country with a pre-pay health system. He is now free to come and go from New Zealand for the next 8 months, that is at least without the threat of arrest for his loan. However with a shortage of pocket money for any imminent visit the loan balance continues to grow and he is now looking seriously into the prospect of declaring bankruptcy. Again, the key reason cited for not returning home is the lack of opportunity within his field of work. Stu could possibly be regarded as the greatest success of this policy in terms of achieving the interpreted objective of making it impossible for borrowers to return home.
Happy to report that I had a student loan during the nineties and paid off, even paid interest, all with a young family on tow.
No complaints from me
But will easliy complain about those who believe they had some form of entitlement to this priviledge. I agree on the previous poster that Graduates shouldnt leave these shores on a working holiday unless they have paid their debt to the taxpayers, its the least they could do to show thanks to the NZ Taxpayer, not only for funding 70% of their course but who have lent them the money to do so.Rat – Kiwiblog
Rat is not entirely wrong, while he successfully paid off his loan without any semblance of the limitations he would impose on new borrowers, his suggestions offer more in the way of discussion than a hundred other commentators whose key contribution is “I paid my loan and everyone else should too, because I could.”. These other contributors, while often impassioned, don’t so much offer solutions as much as they offer an attitude, a widespread attitude, a morally defensible attitude, a dismissive attitude, but no solution to recoup a cent. For those who can afford it there’s nothing to fear, for those who can’t: they have nothing to offer regardless. Factor in policing, legal and court costs and this policy has the makings of a very expensive exercise for very little guaranteed benefit whatsoever.
Susan likewise has suggestions; that all interest be wiped and that historic loans be recalculated to match inflation. Tom, while less forthcoming, feels that it is wrong for New Zealand to be forcing under 18s to take out loans to pay for living costs, and when pressed he feels that a universal allowance would level the playing field considerably. Given the applications are only retrospective Stu is already resigned to filing for hardship annually and would be glad enough if the IRD could conclusively stop threatening legal against his wife’s savings， ideally he’d like to believe that New Zealand could make a concerted attempt to consider something akin to Peru’s intention to introduce free higher education by 2016 though he remains realistic that matching Peru may be a little beyond the scope of a country like New Zealand under our current Government .
