Cunliffe's constituent Liu?

[MisterD]

The financial system is the primary factor in directing human behaviour. This is why we have dodgy people in positions of power. By all means continue to defend it, but by its existence alone we will always be a shade of that which we could be. I don't expect you to understand that (I'm not being nasty there). The crap in this world is financially driven.

Well we're going to agree and diverge and disagree again. Fiat currencies and fractional reserve banking is a rort, no doubt about that. You can't remove currency though, it's too useful, a return to something like the gold standard is the only reasonable solution.

[Brian d marge]

Its still a debt based system

[mashman]

Well we're going to agree and diverge and disagree again. Fiat currencies and fractional reserve banking is a rort, no doubt about that. You can't remove currency though, it's too useful, a return to something like the gold standard is the only reasonable solution.

So keep digging for gold so that a currency can be valued against it? A solution? Nah, more of the same and worse given all of the systems that are currently in place. The next financial aid will be a UBI.

[Ocean1]

The only "producers" who fucked off overseas moved to China, where wages were a pittance - do you suggest we have no minimum wage and lower our standards to keep these "cream" employers?

What the fuck are you on about? I asked you how much NZ made from the income of the thousands of net positive contributors to our economy that found their efforts were better rewarded off shore? Let me make it easy for you: Nothing. Is it not perhaps a better idea to encourage productive behaviour in NZ, rather than making it as difficult as possible to survive here?

I take it you confused that group of productive people for those manufacturers that found they couldn't survive here with the high cost of NZ labour and found that they could survive just fine in an environment that was less toxic for employers. I'll take a stab in the dark and assume that like the majority of tossers who object to the demise of the majority of NZ manufacturing you nonetheless own the usual range of overseas produced goods, instead of paying four times the price for those made with NZ labour.

The bulk of the people who left NZ for AUS/UK fell into two categories. 1) Working class/Middle class who were looking for better wages and had skills that could get them better money in Aus.. a lot of these jobs were just in labouring, which is why Aus has so many Maori there now, because these guys could A) not find enough work in NZ B) were paid a pittance compared to what Aus offered. B) graduates who either could not find work in NZ for their jobs or the wages were to shit compared to the interest/loans they had to pay back.

Very few if any people left NZ because of "Tax"... the types of people to do that would be the Owen Glenns, Kim Dotcoms, and Fay Richwhites of NZ and if they all left the country we would be much better for it! Couldn't care if we don't get as much from them, because according to you lot they all do their darnest to avoid tax anyway and these guys contrib nothing to our society at all - so no big fucking loss.

Good to see you're an equal opportunity fuckwit, both ends of the "class" divide can get fucked eh? They should be grateful for the terms they're offered by NZ ltd, no matter their contribution, we'll stick to supporting the majority that take more than they give. Fucking brilliant strategy.

Those polls are trolls.

Yeah? History disagrees. It also proves you're comprehensively wrong. But you'd know that if you bothered looking. Like I said, you don't learn.

Sure most people don't want TAX increase. Ask how many of them wanted GST to go up by 2.5% eh?

Make up your fucking mind, people don't mind tax, but now they do?

It's gonna have to increase soon anyway, all us youngens have to pay for the promises and debts of you oldies (eg. the pension) who had the state hand everything out on a plate only to turn around and sell it off and charge us younger ones for it. Privatised education and student loans for primary school coming probably coming soon, thanks ACT and Nats.

Well, see all that tax us oldies paid wasn't just for dole bludgers, some of it was supposed to be invested to pay for our dotage, y'know when we get so old we start to look about as productive as you youngones. I'm quite looking forward to spending all my time in the mall with a slab of piss abusing all and sundry

[Brian d marge]

I would have loved to buy a pair of " over priced" NZ shoes ,

Some of those condition of the Chinese factories ,,,,I cant support


Stephen

[MisterD]

So keep digging for gold so that a currency can be valued against it? A solution? Nah, more of the same and worse given all of the systems that are currently in place. The next financial aid will be a UBI.

Two things are needed, a "peg" that the politicians can't debase and and end to the fractional rort of "lending" money that a bank doesn't have. I'm not emotionally attached to gold, but what else ya got?

UBI has some pro's and cons, I remain to be convinced either way, but a UBI at the same level as an untaxed earnings threshold is attractive from a efficiency point of view.

[Ocean1]

Certain principles work yes. But the reality is, just like socialism - the market is undermined by human greed. The principles are flawed on the basis that the interests of the players involved are different to the aims/theory of the principles. It's not in a businesses interest to have a good market with lots of competition, informed buyers, easy access to the market - this means less profit for them, more struggle to make ends meet, less time and money spent on expanding their business. Thats why at the most basic level of our iconic "farmers markets" which are probably the closest thing in the country to a "free market" in action - there are restrictions on the number of sellers for products so those involved can maintain monopolies.

And how do you regulate the banks and people to behave "ethically"? It's in their interests for everyone to be up to their eye balls in debt borrowed from them... they benefit when interest rates are low - so people buy up large on property, and then when they increase and they start increasing the returns on mortgages/call in for those mortgages.

It would not be in the banks interests to subject themselves to market principles - eg. putting all their mortgagee sales up at the same time - increasing supply would decrease house values - resulting in lower returns for them - so instead they drip feed mortgagee sales onto the market... How do you legislate for that? Do you advocate forcing a business to conform to the market principles? Or should the rort just continue...

I agree. Anti-competitive behaviour is far too common, and far too rarely adequately controlled by the authorities supposed to manage those markets. And yes, the commerce commission's primary function is exactly that: to force businesses to conform to free(ish) market principles. They're just not very good at it.

But whereas free market protocols are achievable and represent a negative control function which promotes growth; socialism is the opposite, a market controlled by a regulator for reasons usually not conducive to either commerce or growth.

[Ocean1]

The govt does help those tax contributors, they get the waterways cleaned, they get a favourable ear for lobbying, they get crown guarantees, they have the ear of the govt etc... and if the shit hits the fan, well, you read Stephen's linky in the other thread, it ain't gonna turn out too well coz as is evidenced by the Ukraine and Iraq, pitchforks quite often turn into something entirely different and I'd rather avoid that. Either way, our reaction to such concern is, "reset" the system and let's lumber from one fuck up to another as the boom bust cycle continues on its way to financial collapse and drives all sorts of financially motivated emotive right/left/extreme/centrist rhetoric laced wedges into society. Tis bullshit. Greedy cunts/govts reimbursing tax contributions/tax beneficiaries only exist because of the fancy human activity bookkeeping system... they can't help being and needing to be, in fact they are all requirements for the economy.

All thes favourable conditions are fucking news to me, how come I've never seen them?

As for Steven's linky: it's crap. Show me a revolution any time in history in a social welfare state where the "poor" have it as good as they do here. Never happen. All the noise is from empty cans like him and you.

Oh FFS meh. As above, the arseholes exist because of the human activity bookkeeping system, coz you're only calling them arseholes because they aren't doing what you expect them to do and that effect has a direct link to our standard of living. Silly human activity bookkeeping system.

Nope. arseholes are arseholes with or without money. Parasites. Useless bastards that can't be fucked earning what they want, whether you measure their effort in dollars or hammers.

Is that what I reckon? I reckon that's not what I reckon at all, but hey, you find your story's much bettererer than mine. Funnily enough my current array of shit was learned is 100% pure NZ based thinkin.

To be honest it's far from clear most of the time what your bitch is. In fact most of the time the one thing that's clear is that you whine for no rational reason whatsoever. And I'm not really interested enough to wade through pages of circular logic and confirmation bias to find out which is which, given that the tools involved only ever produce crap.

[Ocean1]

I would have loved to buy a pair of " over priced" NZ shoes ,

Some of those condition of the Chinese factories ,,,,I cant support


Stephen

Me either.

In fact I don't.

That's the thing about a free market: you don't have to pay for shit you don't want.

[mashman]

Two things are needed, a "peg" that the politicians can't debase and and end to the fractional rort of "lending" money that a bank doesn't have. I'm not emotionally attached to gold, but what else ya got?

UBI has some pro's and cons, I remain to be convinced either way, but a UBI at the same level as an untaxed earnings threshold is attractive from a efficiency point of view.

Aren't lobby groups that peg? I don't see a viable financial alternative to a fractional reserve system. The same problems existed before 1970. Where would the money have come from to have dragged us to where we are today if a fractional reserve system hadn't have been a better option for printing money than the existing methodology? Nothing works better than gold. So use Nothing instead .

True... and the right wing will have new whipping boys to persecute too (pro).

[MisterD]

I would have loved to buy a pair of " over priced" NZ shoes ,

Some of those condition of the Chinese factories ,,,,I cant support

Loake's. Made in Northampton, a couple of my older pairs are over 13 years old and although on their second or third re-sole have probably got another decade in them. Worth every penny of the 90 quid they originally cost.

[mada]

What the fuck are you on about? I asked you how much NZ made from the income of the thousands of net positive contributors to our economy that found their efforts were better rewarded off shore? Let me make it easy for you: Nothing. Is it not perhaps a better idea to encourage productive behaviour in NZ, rather than making it as difficult as possible to survive here?

Sure. However the amount of income tax paid plays a small part for most people in their decisions. A small percent increase for the top bracket hardly effects them negatively. When I was working an my income tax dropped there was no difference to my quality of life or decisions. There was when GST went up. As I have pointed out, GST is on every fucking thing. You increase that by a slight difference everything from food, rent, power, petrol, the cost to use a government service, council service, rates all increase - take a look at motorbikes for example with GST - cost to import increases as GST on import and import duty, cost to purchase products/parts increases as GST on them, cost to get motorbike repair increases as GST on that, cost to get motorbike serviced, cost to get a WOF, cost to pay for REGO, cost to pay for PETROL, cost for TOLL, cost for safety gear, cost for boots, everything fucking increases. Unless of course your gonna tell me that most businesses will just absorb the cost and not pass them on to consumers??? Yeah right, and why the fuck should they. Life is made much harder for those who already have less (the working and middle classes) by GST rise compared to income tax rise at the higher bracket.


Apart from higher substantially higher wages in Australia (despite their higher Taxes) - the biggest promoting factor for the loss of productive net positive contributors in NZ over the last 20 years has probably been a policy you and the parties you voted for supported. High interest rates on student loans.

If ACT get in and get their wish to bring it back I bet you a hundred bucks there will be another mass exodus - and the country will lose millions from having shortages in areas of need and lose the millions it invested into such qualifications. I know I won't stay to try and pay 6% on a what would probably amount to 100K+ loan with compounded interest - when wages overseas will be much higher to pay it off. You obviously never noticed that those leaving NZ were mostly aged between 20 - 40...

[mashman]

All thes favourable conditions are fucking news to me, how come I've never seen them?

As for Steven's linky: it's crap. Show me a revolution any time in history in a social welfare state where the "poor" have it as good as they do here. Never happen. All the noise is from empty cans like him and you.

Dunno.

Ok.

Nope. arseholes are arseholes with or without money. Parasites. Useless bastards that can't be fucked earning what they want, whether you measure their effort in dollars or hammers.

Ok.

To be honest it's far from clear most of the time what your bitch is. In fact most of the time the one thing that's clear is that you whine for no rational reason whatsoever. And I'm not really interested enough to wade through pages of circular logic and confirmation bias to find out which is which, given that the tools involved only ever produce crap.

Of course you don't understand it, you can't get passed the messenger and/or don't have the mental faculty for comprehending life as I see it.

[mada]

I agree. Anti-competitive behaviour is far too common, and far too rarely adequately controlled by the authorities supposed to manage those markets. And yes, the commerce commission's primary function is exactly that: to force businesses to conform to free(ish) market principles. They're just not very good at it.

But whereas free market protocols are achievable and represent a negative control function which promotes growth; socialism is the opposite, a market controlled by a regulator for reasons usually not conducive to either commerce or growth.

The commerce commission and serious fraud office, like all government departments don't do their job effectively because they would require an endless supply of resources to do it properly and they have interference from their political overlords.

Explain to me how the fuck they would function in your fantasy lala land of limited taxes?

According to free market dogma, we need LESS REGULATION and can TRUST businesses to do the right thing... what your saying is the opposite and goes against the main driver in markets - SELF INTEREST.

[Ocean1]

Sure. However the amount of income tax paid plays a small part for most people in their decisions. A small percent increase for the top bracket hardly effects them negatively. When I was working an my income tax dropped there was no difference to my quality of life or decisions. There was when GST went up. As I have pointed out, GST is on every fucking thing. You increase that by a slight difference everything from food, rent, power, petrol, the cost to use a government service, council service, rates all increase - life is harder for those who already have less (the working and middle classes).

Allow me to remove one of the crutches your world view relies on: There are no classes. Working class = those that work. By definition those that don't provide anything others want are neither workers or working class.

And I wasn't suggesting tax was the reason workers left, I was pointing out that NZ could make a fucking sight more out of it's productive workers by providing an environment that supports them. Which means an environment that supports business.

Unless you've ever managed a business you have no fucking idea how unfriendly to business NZ is. Most countries treat their businesses as what they are: the source of revenue that drives the whole economy.

Oh, and your "working" and "middle" "classes" have never had it so good, the most productive 20% in the country significantly subsidise them.

Apart from higher substantially higher wages in Australia (despite their higher Taxes) - the biggest promoting factor for the loss of productive net positive contributors in NZ over the last 20 years has probably been a policy you and the parties you voted for supported. High interest rates on student loans.

If ACT get in and get their wish to bring it back I bet you a hundred bucks there will be another mass exodus - and the country will lose millions from having shortages in areas of need and lose the millions it invested into such qualifications. I know I won't stay to try and pay 6% on a what would probably amount to 100K+ loan with compounded interest - when wages overseas will be much higher to pay it off.

So which is it, NZ has invested in those qualifications by way of cheap loans and it turns out the investment wasn't worth it, or the students have invested in their own education, taking advantage of cheap loans and now find it wasn't such a great investment?

See, you can't separate the cost from the return. Doesn't work. Literally.
And why is either of those