Cunliffe's constituent Liu?

[mashman]

Yeah?

Is that like the huge historic house price increases?

Show me historic data for consumption in NZ since "before".

Consumption is a temporary fools paradise... but hey, you ain't gonna be here forever, someone else can clean up the mess, right.

[Ocean1]

Consumption ???

Just go here and look at the OECD stats for Godzone ...

http://www.oecd.org/social/soc/41527985.pdf

Sure, it's dropped recently ... but it grew tremendously from the mid-1985s up to 2000, under neo-con economics ...

Rich people got richer and poor people got poorer ..

That's income. Which has fuck all to do with consumption.

You can't actually answer my question, because nobody collects that data. Doesn't that seem a little strange? After all it's so terribly fashionable to bleat about income inequality, and yet it's the money individuals spend that defines how well off they are, not the money they earn.

So why do all of the metrics defining poverty and inequity focus on income, a value most closely linked to productive performance, and having nothing whatsoever to do with social "justice"?

Someone did collect those numbers. Once. They're here: http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2011/07/net_taxpayers.html

On that first chart.

Along wit a few other rarely seen facts:

"Now let us look at the households with income of over $150,000. We don’t know if this is one person earning say $150,000 or two people earning say $80,000 each but we do know it includes be definition everyone earning at least $150,000. Household income is used as welfare payments are normally made on a household basis.

So 10% of households have an income of $150,000 or greater. And those 10% fund 71% of net taxation. And these are the households that Labour are saying are not doing their fair share and must pay more.

If we go slightly further down to households with an income of $120,000 or greater – which is 17% of households. Well those 17% of households are paying 97% of net taxation.

Yet Labour seems to think this is not enough. Their tax policy (I don’t mean CGT, but their income tax policy) is that 97% is not enough. Those rich pricks have to be screwed over until they are paying over 100% of net taxation."


So next time you bleat about those rich pricks just pause for a minute and remember who's paying for your free lunch.

[Akzle]

i wonder how many occupations pay >150k.

I wonder if that equates to their actual worth to people/ communities.

I have a sneaky suspicion not.

[Katman]

I think that what we are seeing around the world today is conflict, due not so much to the disparity of wealth, but rather to the disparity of power and influence that the 'haves' wield over TPTB compared to the 'have nots'.

[Banditbandit]

So next time you bleat about those rich pricks just pause for a minute and remember who's paying for your free lunch.

I'm close to being one of those rich pricks myself .. I might not be over $100K per annum .. but I certainly pay tax in the top bracket ... That probably makes me a middle income earner - one of those you suggest get more money back than I pay ..

Well fuck me, I get no money from Working for Families, I get diddlesquat back from our Government.. I pay my taxes happily - and like you, would be happy to pay more ...

[Ocean1]

i wonder how many occupations pay >150k.

I wonder if that equates to their actual worth to people/ communities.

I have a sneaky suspicion not.

And if you were one of the people / communities paying them then you'd be in a splendid position to do something about that suspicion.

If not it's literally none of your godamned business.

[Katman]

And if you were one of the people / communities paying them then you'd be in a splendid position to do something about that suspicion.

If not it's literally none of your godamned business.

The size of your income doesn't determine the worth of your opinion.

[bogan]

The size of your income doesn't determine the worth of your opinion.

It does determine how well you can back your opinion in cases like Ocean has described though.

[Katman]

It does determine how well you can back your opinion in cases like Ocean has described though.

A large income doesn't necessarily say anything more than you're a greedy prick who places great importance on money.

It most certainly does not mean your opinion is worth any more than someone's whose income is only a fraction of yours.

[bogan]

A large income doesn't necessarily say anything more than you're a greedy prick who places great importance on money.

It most certainly does not mean your opinion is worth any more than someone's whose income is only a fraction of yours.

Yes, but if I earn 1 million dollars per year, and decide some dude is being paid less or more that is appropriate, I could either set up lower priced competition, or just pay him more myself. As one who earns <40k, all I can do is bitch and moan about things online. So whose opinion can be better self-backed to get results?

[Ocean1]

I'm close to being one of those rich pricks myself .. I might not be over $100K per annum .. but I certainly pay tax in the top bracket ... That probably makes me a middle income earner - one of those you suggest get more money back than I pay

If you earn $90 - $100k and assuming you're the sole earner in the household then what it makes you is one of 67,000 households who, as a group paid $1,150 million in gross tax, (5.3%) and received $109 million in direct and indirect benefits, (1%), making for a total contribution of $1041 million, or 9.5% of the total tax take.

If you make much less than that then indeed you will be contributing fuck all.

Compare that to the group of a little over half that number of households who earn $130 - $140k, pay almost as much tax as your group and receive the lowest subsidies of any group.

Doesn't that suggest to you that you'd be better off declining any offers of a pay rise? If it nudges you into that group yhen you’ll suddenly find your household paying twice as much tax and receiving sweet fuck all in return.

Well fuck me, I get no money from Working for Families, I get diddlesquat back from our Government..

But you do. Every time you interface with a government funded entity you pay either less or more than the actual cost of supplying those goods or that service. Working for famillies is another layer on top of those subsidies. Yes, most of those “tweaks” are hidden, but that makes it all the more important to recognise that those top earners are not only paying massively more than everyone else but they’re deprived of many of the benefits their taxes pay for because they earn too much.

Doesn't that sound just a little oxymoronic?

[Ocean1]

The size of your income doesn't determine the worth of your opinion.

I wasn't suggesting it did.

Your comprehension is certainly a much greater impediment to the value of your opinion than any quantity of money could ever impose.



Edit: let me help you out there: If someone is earning >$150k then those paying them obviously consider them worth it. And as nobody else is pying them they shouldn't really have much to say on the topic.

[Katman]

Edit: let me help you out there: If someone is earning >$150k then those paying them obviously consider them worth it. And as nobody else is pying them they shouldn't really have much to say on the topic.

And that's why I believe the problem isn't that some people are getting paid 10 times more than someone else, the problem lies with the people who earn large incomes that seem to think that it gives them a greater right to influence the progress of humanity.

Your repeated cries of "shut the fuck up" suggest you are one those people.

[oldrider]

Suggest this as a starting point: http://www.positivemoney.org/

All political suggestions have some degree of merit but a broken money system will guarantee their failure! --- Gotta fix that first!

[mashman]

Suggest this as a starting point: http://www.positivemoney.org/

All political suggestions have some degree of merit but a broken money system will guarantee their failure! --- Gotta fix that first!

bwaaaaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaa... Sorry J, but there's just no getting over how silly such statements sound... and this time around I'm not so happy to wait to find out when all indicators point to the opposite.