Another free lunch

[trustme]

Labour has announced an expansion of the student allowance as another election vote catcher. Don't these guys understand that in the current world economic environment & given that the govt is going to run deficits for the next 10 years with out taking the overseas meltdown into account, it is a time to cut costs not expand govt spending on nice to have policies.
Many years ago my late mum fumed about Piggies blatant election bribe of a universal super, she voted for it because she would have been stupid not to, but she said that it would send the country broke.. Well she was right, broke we went because of Piggies 'spend like there was no tomorrow' policies all done on borrowed money
The consequence of that was Rogernomics & a huge amount of pain for the ordinary working man. The last 10 years have seen the rewards for all that pain , trouble is you & I have not seen it. The govt has spent our windfall by regrowing the public sector that sent us broke in the first place. Thay have poured money into students & created a huge ongoing liability that you & I will have to shoulder. When govt income is decreasing a prudent manager would look to control costs not expand them.
This govt will land us back in the same strife that Piggie created, different methods, different policies but same end result, a public sector we can no longer afford , more Rogernomics but this time no family silver to sell off.

I have a wife & 3 kids who attend tertiary institutions , it is good news for us, it is bad news for the country

[Waxxa]

Interesting Trustme! If labour hadn't been running surpluses for the last several years, our economy would be much worse off and our economy has come about by world economics and not our Govt. policies. (I'm not a Labour man by the way).

But the Govt can not stop expenditure particularly on things like education and research and development because we need to become a technological and skilled workforce.

This monies can be found in existing expenditure that needs to be redirected. E.G. simplify the Resource management act, get rid of useless Govt. departments like the welfare system like the dole and dpb's, maori and youth depts are debateable and many more examples.

Does the country need the feeble tax cuts we have now? Does $18 do it for you or can that tax be directed into education etc?

[Hitcher]

Politics aside, the issue of who pays for education is something that governments need to address and develop some sort of cross-party accord on. As has been noted above, there is no such thing as "free". Everything has a cost, including education.

The issue is how much of the cost should fall on the shoulders of those who benefit directly from the gaining of education, and how much should be funded by taxpayers. Clearly there is benefit to taxpayers from people becoming educated (other than themselves), so there is a case for them funding some. But how much? Where is the most equitable place for the pendulum to come to rest?

And then there's the issue of education that may not necessarily have "vocational" value, such as fine arts, social sciences, extremely applied sciences and the like. How mature is our society to extend the same priviledges to students in these areas as they extend to the endless lawyers, accountants, medical doctors and the like?

[Tank]

Does the country need the feeble tax cuts we have now? Does $18 do it for you or can that tax be directed into education etc?

yes - the country needs tax cuts - more $$$ on ones pocket does help stimulate the economy - and that is something that is desperately needed.

Having worked at a uni for 6 years - I can tell you 1/2 of them piss any money they have up against the wall. Because of my income my kids received $0 - and I made them pay their own way thru Uni - best thing I could have done.

Giving them handouts achieves nothing.

[caesius]

Politics aside, the issue of who pays for education is something that governments need to address and develop some sort of cross-party accord on. As has been noted above, there is no such thing as "free". Everything has a cost, including education.

The issue is how much of the cost should fall on the shoulders of those who benefit directly from the gaining of education, and how much should be funded by taxpayers. Clearly there is benefit to taxpayers from people becoming educated (other than themselves), so there is a case for them funding some. But how much? Where is the most equitable place for the pendulum to come to rest?

And then there's the issue of education that may not necessarily have "vocational" value, such as fine arts, social sciences, extremely applied sciences and the like. How mature is our society to extend the same priviledges to students in these areas as they extend to the endless lawyers, accountants, medical doctors and the like?

"extremely applied sciences" - What, like Engineering?

Oh yeah that has bugger all vocational value.

[trustme]

My bitch is that in business terms labour has not grown the business , they have grown the overheads. Our growth rate in comparison to other countries has been poor, in relative terms we have gone backwards. I'm not anti students & I fully agree re RMA & useless govt departments. They have thrown truckloads of money at health & education but treasury reports state that nothing has improved , the spending is poorly targeted & poorly controlled. $18 tax cut , That is the difference between labour & nat tax policy . if it wasn't for a groundswell of public opinion & the Nats policy , labour would not have given you any tax cut at all.

[Mully]

Interesting Trustme! If labour hadn't been running surpluses for the last several years, our economy would be much worse off and our economy has come about by world economics and not our Govt. policies. (I'm not a Labour man by the way).

There is of course, a segment which believe that Labour should have cut taxes when times were good. Thereby growing our economy and insulating us from the worst of the economic "cruch"

The issue is how much of the cost should fall on the shoulders of those who benefit directly from the gaining of education, and how much should be funded by taxpayers. Clearly there is benefit to taxpayers from people becoming educated (other than themselves), so there is a case for them funding some. But how much? Where is the most equitable place for the pendulum to come to rest?

And then there's the issue of education that may not necessarily have "vocational" value, such as fine arts, social sciences, extremely applied sciences and the like. How mature is our society to extend the same priviledges to students in these areas as they extend to the endless lawyers, accountants, medical doctors and the like?

I like National's policy on this - if you are a nurse or doc in a hard to staff area, part of your student loan is wiped.

I would like to see that applied to professionals (that we need) who stay in NZ earning too.


You know what the engineering graduate said to the arts graduate?
Big Mac Combo please.

[Indiana_Jones]

"Most of these students would receive no allowance under the current rules and need to borrow, receive help from their parents or work part-time, to make ends meet," Helen Clark said.

Holy shit!

We can't have them working part-time now can we?!

-Indy

[trustme]

You know what the engineering graduate said to the arts graduate?
Big Mac Combo please.

I cracked up but my daughter who is last year BA can't see the funny side
Wonder why ???

We encourage kids to do all sorts of bullshit courses at tech & uni that will not equip them for a job & we give them $150/week to waste their time & our money. Misdirected & poorly targeted

[Tank]

So - lets look at the difference:

edited from Kiwiblog:

Labour announced it would borrow more than $200 million a year (once fully implemented) to give out cash to students. It will not result in one more student being educated. It is simply a cash hand out to students.

National announced it would spend $47 million a year on boosting literacy and numeracy in schools, because almost 1 in five kids are leaving school unable to read, write or count. There is no point in keeping kids at school until they are 18, if you have let them get past age eight without checking their numeracy and literacy.

[Nasty]

For a country entering 10 years of deficit .. I think giving away more money is a great idea .. and hey top it off .. lets borrow it!

[vifferman]

Having worked at a uni for 6 years - I can tell you 1/2 of them piss any money they have up against the wall. Because of my income my kids received $0 - and I made them pay their own way thru Uni - best thing I could have done.
Giving them handouts achieves nothing.

I've currently got two kids at university, and like you, they receive no help at all from the Gummint, because we're "too rich". Unfortunately, we can't actually afford to pay for their education even though we're so fantabulously wealthy. We do give them free board, food, etc. though.
As for handouts, I reckon it would be nice if they at least got a fraction of what someone on the dole gets. The oldest one is doing pharmacy, and has a very modest student loan, and that only by dint of working every weekend and almost all of every 'vacation' in a butchery. Although he gets paid a bit above minimum wage (because he's been doing it for years), it leaves him almost nothing to live off. He'd be screwed if we didn't support him.
He doesn't piss HIS money against the wall - he's worked too hard for it. Apart from borrowing to pay his course fees at the beginning of each year, and then paying them off slowly through the year, he's borrowed nothing, and doesn't owe a debt to society.
The other one's another story, but I don't want to go there, especially since it's his birthday today. Wouldn't do to slag him off...
The middle one went to uni for a week, couldn't handle it, and dropped out. (No, he's not too dumb, despite saying he is - he's actually smarter'n 99% of the population. He's currently working as a computer services consultant).

[trustme]

So - lets look at the difference:

edited from Kiwiblog:



National announced it would spend $47 million a year on boosting literacy and numeracy in schools, because almost 1 in five kids are leaving school unable to read, write or count. There is no point in keeping kids at school until they are 18, if you have let them get past age eight without checking their numeracy and literacy.

But they don't vote.

[avgas]

well its too little to late as far as im concerned, i'm leaving in a few days.
in fact the only reason im still here was due to "interest free" student loans. Which is all BS as i should have got ANY allowance when i was studying anywho.
How the fuck do you support an economy that tells you, you are making -$150/week?
I should have done the smart thing, gone to uni, but told the government i was unemployed.
Rather than work the 20 hours a week, on top of my 40 hour study....just to pay bills.
That and Helen is fucking ugly. Who the fuck wants a fucking ugly pitbull for a political leader. No class. Even Hitler and Stalin had some class.

[Mully]

But they don't vote.

Dead on. Can't bling cos I'm on my iPod, but that is dead right.

That's why the greens want to lower the voting age. Teenagers are idealogical, and will most likely vote for the hippies.