Posts by giovanni tiso
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OnPoint: It's real, in reply to Sacha,
Great clip
Is it now? To me, it shows all the embarrassing limitations of the idea of equality for Social Democrats, which is nicely matched by Labour’s current rhetoric. What Counts Is The Middle Class. Of course if you spoke to a leftie in 1980 you might find they had more ambitious ideas about social justice.
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As the son of a tradesperson, I'm going to have to say bollocks to the idea that it's easy. Or that the fact that his formal education finished when he was 14 somehow entitles him to less money.
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OnPoint: It's real, in reply to Sacha,
Yes, see, I think a lot of people reckon that he argues dishonestly. I don't. I think he just doesn't grasp concepts of moderate difficulty and above.
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OnPoint: It's real, in reply to Russell Brown,
Hey, yeah – and when you add all those up, that’s like 66% tax … isn’t it? Fark.
The thing that I find most depressing about Farrar is not that he's everywhere - it's that he's as dumb as a freaking post.
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(Also, your income is obviously less than 100k, once you deduct the business expenses such as car and ACC. So a household that is actually on 100k would have even fewer problems.)
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Cracker: Another Capital Idea..., in reply to Rik,
So I painted a picture and came to you for budgeting advice and you did not deliver.
Want me to deliver? Fine, here goes: we have three kids under ten years old, a fluctuating income - but generally lower than 100k - and we've always managed. Could it be that we're living within our means? I can't restructure your life. If it's the big mortgage and the two cars and the accountant and the 12k in childcare a year that you want to have all at the same time, maybe it's too much. It doesn't mean that 100k is hard to live on really. Or it could be too much but only until your children hit school, at which point your main crazy expense item is going to go away. And your mortgage payments are going to decrease. I'm not sure what you want me to deliver on - you're obviously fine.
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Cracker: Another Capital Idea..., in reply to Rik,
So you lose on this one – I need an accountant. As does my self employed wife (the figure I quoted was for both of our accountants).
My partner and I are both self-employed and guess what – we do our own accounting. We had to learn, so we learned. We made do with one car. We went to playcentre for a while to save on childcare. You find ways around things. And you’re describing a very particular situation: family with good jobs, two preschoolers and a very big mortgage. A family like that might “struggle” for a while. But then over time the mortgage is reduced, and the kids start school, and the lean times, such as they were, go away. And you’ve got a pretty good house (judging by the rates) in a good suburb (judging by the cost of childcare) to show for it. That’s too hard for you? Then buy a smaller house, or rent for a while longer, or live a bit further from the centre of town. But if three times the country’s median household income is not enough for you [ETA: okay, scratch that, wikipedia data all wrong - median household looks to be over 50k. Still.], then spare a thought for your fellow citizens, and consider that maybe you still need to share with them in your relative riches.
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Cracker: Another Capital Idea..., in reply to Rik,
So help me out with my “rich prick” lifestyle. Like one of the ever-so-helpful posters said earlier – cut back on the beluga. Oh yeah – he was as funny as fuck.
Yes, that would be me. Off the top of my head I'd cut the health insurance, seeing as the state provides that. I'd also ask myself if I really need an accountant. And you're spending 12,000 in childcare with a parent home two days a week? We have three kids and the most we've ever spent was $3,000 a year. And 9k in fuel alone?! Our car expenditure (one car) is less than 4k including WOF and registration. You trim some of that, which frankly shouldn't be very hard, catch the odd bus, and you're fine. I'd also assume that not all of the 25k for the mortgage is interest, some of it must be principal, surely, so while all of that money is outgoing, not all of it is an actual expenditure. And you're not going to have such a high mortgage or two preschoolers for very long - in fact I assume yours are both under 3, since after 3 they get most of their childcare for free.
But the example is completely misleading, anyway, since nobody here has ever talked about people who just reach the current top tax rate as being "rich pricks", in fact exactly the opposite: we've said that people on 70k a year _shouldn't__ be on the top tax rate. And even if you tweaked the example to a household with one earner on 100k and the other partner not working, then taxation is higher but some of those expenses disappear or are significantly reduced. So you're still fine. And it's still hard to know what you're on about to be honest.
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Cracker: Another Capital Idea..., in reply to Rik,
whereas if you are a family earning $100k you might be wondering how to make ends meet.
Once again: not on the planet I live on. Seriously, the only way a household on a 100k income struggles is if they don’t budget effectively. And if they don’t even bother to budget, I’m not sure why I should be sympathetic. We certainly hammer beneficiaries when they fail to practice that particular skill.
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Cracker: Another Capital Idea..., in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I don’t see anything fair about that.
You also don't see any of that in the law. And this is coming from somebody who would like our CGT to be a lot more aggressive than what Labour is proposing.