Posts by Kumara Republic
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Speaker: Honest Bastards & Dishonest Cowards, in reply to Sacha,
Curia does not work for free. Plentiful Nat donations end up in Farrar’s pockets.
As it stands, NZ basically has the best democracy and free speech money can buy.
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Speaker: Honest Bastards & Dishonest Cowards, in reply to Ieuan Wickham,
Or don’t. Or disrupt the game. But I agree that complaining about the game doesn’t seem to work.
As in this sort of 'disrupt the game'?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0MY2zr4Weac#t=521
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Speaker: Honest Bastards & Dishonest Cowards, in reply to BenWilson,
ETA: Oh, and progressive taxes aren’t as progressive as they sound. It’s a perennial problem that the richest people on the planet don’t pay them. They’re middle class taxes. If you want to understand why the middle class is hollowing out around the developed world, perhaps looking at the way in which they get massively taxed, but inheritances, property and capital don’t would be good start.
Which again brings to mind the late great George Carlin...
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Speaker: Living under bridges, in reply to Howard Edwards,
What a website! I particularly liked Teaching Maths through the Years.
Where do they think the word “algebra” came from I wonder?
That was exactly the page I had in mind. It’s a hoary old chestnut that’s been deconstructed by the urban myth busters at Snopes. There’s a variant of it in Spanish that appeared on Stormfront, and another variant name-checking Enron or Arthur Andersen.
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Speaker: Honest Bastards & Dishonest Cowards, in reply to llew40,
I think the electorate has moved. And the nature of political persuasion has changed. If Labour believes they can drag a majority of voters ‘left’ through persuasion and through the abilities of great political leadership, awesome. I fear that way lies more electoral pain however. In the same way that Republicans are painting themselves into a demographic and constituency corner, my concern is simply that Labour are appealing to less and less people, in the name of principles that sadly no longer seem to be relevant to many NZers, and that gaining broader appeal needs to be the highest priority.
The other possibility remains that cynicism and disillusionment (common nouns) are much harder enemies to fight than the NACT bloc (proper nouns). The 'missing million' remains a tough nut to crack - even the Greens & InterMana couldn't capture it, and the Alliance officially disbanded earlier this year.
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Speaker: Honest Bastards & Dishonest Cowards, in reply to linger,
If the main problem with National’s management is wealth redistribution from the poor to the wealthy, then a progressive tax is the most obvious remedy. It would be hard or impossible to direct the other revenue streams suggested by Ben in the same way: e.g. currency devaluation is effectively just a flat rate tax; and bonds are only guaranteed to work progressively (in effect, as a tax on disposable income of investors) if they actually make a loss (which would rather defeat the purpose).
It doesn't get more progressive than a financial transactions or Tobin tax, which neatly address the Double Irish Dutch Sandwich issue. But as I've said before, they would need international backing to function properly, and the usual suspects who profit from shifting the goalposts will stop at nothing to resist them.
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Speaker: Honest Bastards & Dishonest Cowards, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Hence my objection to user-pays which is regressive as well.
Yet somehow when user-pays applies to those at the top, it suddenly becomes a 'tax on hard working Kiwis'. Think proposals for congestion pricing in Auckland to relieve traffic.
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Speaker: Honest Bastards & Dishonest Cowards, in reply to Tinakori,
If you look at the Treasury graphs on social spending – health, education, welfare – the trend is up and steady over time. I think my original point stands. The idea that National has somehow gutted social spending is wrong.
Tinakori: you might be right. If anything it's been redirected to the already loaded.
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Speaker: Honest Bastards & Dishonest Cowards, in reply to Mikaere Curtis,
They need to focus on identifying ways to depict the Key government as dirty, crony-capitalists. It really isn’t that hard since that’s what they are.
Here’s a possible start: “For the price of a shipload of sheep to Saudi Arabia, you could instead get x number of doctors.”
The trick is to convince people that Govt spending in itself isn’t bad, but rather where their tax dollars go to. The term "fiscal chickenhawk" comes to mind.
Whatever happens, the Opposition can’t just wait for something like a housing bubble burst or a Watergate-level scandal to sink the Key Govt. I’ve said it before, but a well-organised Opposition sets traps for the Govt of the day to walk into. And it also makes voters aware of what it stands for, rather than what it stands against.
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Speaker: Living under bridges, in reply to Russell Brown,
It is perhaps telling that his Centre for Resource Management Studies website has been taken over by moonbat Muriel Newman.
Another red flag is any usage of the term 'cultural Marxism' without any sense of irony. There's an inherent John Birch whiff about the very term, given its origins in the Elders of Zion fan club.