Originally Posted by
Mully
We both thought that the Gummint should reverse the tax cuts. The problem is, of course, that Phil Goff and his mates (despite screaming for the Nats to reverse them) would them be bitching that there was a broken promise.
...
I idly wonder if they're all in on a massive game against the populace.
It's a consequence of how we structure government. You can do nothing useful in opposition, so all your effort goes in to winning the election. That gets to be the whole game - not delivering the value afterwards. And like the successive CVs of a person who's been out of work for a while, the promises and claims get bolder and less connected with reality, until they "get hired" and then have to deliver. The whole thing made worse by being openly competitive, of course - like applying for the only job in town, when all CVs are public, and the job gets renewed every three years so you can have another crack. Strong incentive for the losers to keep attacking the winners, irrespective of what they are actually doing, or which "side" they're on.
Like employees, the better ones stick more closely to their innate values and nature, so can more easily recover after winning and deliver something not too far from what was promised. But the losers continue to attack them. The worse ones (partisanship aside, this defo applies to the current lot) win, then don't, or can't deliver. What they presented pre-election, and what they actually are, are just too far apart.
Incidentally, this is why FPP is such a stupid idea - at least with MPP we're hiring some different buggers to try and hold the winners to account.
We don't employ pollies to run the country in our best interests anymore, we have set them up like competing sports teams. Over time this just magnifies and entrenches the differences between the two, and leads to the polarised setup we currently have. Voters just become one-eyed football hooligans, not people trying to do the best for the whole country.
Originally Posted by
Clockwork
Farmers are probably able to call a lot of their living expenses "business expenses" not sure it would be so easy for other type of small businesses though.
Some farm expenditure is shared (electricity, etc), but it's usual for an allocation of this to be applied to the personal account rather than the business. That said proper personal drawings are usually lower for farmers as they have lower living expenses (need less, and don't forget barter). The typical small farmer isn't actually making a shitload of money unless they are really large scale. Smaller growers and mixed farms don't make a ton of cash, and inputs aren't getting cheaper either. Fertiliser is expensive, and with PSA, psyllids etc other more pesticides etc are needed. Potato farmers are now spraying a helluva lot more than they did before, for example. And the supermarkets continue to fuck over the farmers. Sure diary is till making money, but it's usually high debt too.
Redefining slow since 2006...
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