Robert Taylor and idleidolidyll's political debating thread

[idleidolidyll]

I ( politely ) disagree with part of this. This is driven more so by a desire to distance himself from Tony Blairs legacy and to try and win re-election for his Government.

Perhaps you disagree but the fact remains: when the Brits pulled most of their troops out of Basra, violence dropped drastically.

Gordon Brown STATED that this was the motivation. Yes, politicians DO lie but the facts bear out the statement

[The Stranger:Me]

Everyone believes their personal political viewpoint is right and having the balls to offer it on a forum in a small community like NZ where you are easily identified gets what? The usual Kiwi nonsense attacking the tall poppy.

I like to believe I have an open mind and am open to your political positions, I do not however simply accept that position without question.
As such I really would appreciate your response to the issues I raised in this post.

[Robert Taylor]

and that makes you a parasite; well done

Well.................approximately 750 Kiwis per week are ''voting with their feet'' and resettling to Australia alone, Dingolands biggest immigrant group. The Poms are in second place, and they also have a Govt that is bonkers.

Immigrants that are replacing this loss are largely less well educated and from a background / social group that is far more likely to vote for that woman who looks way different to her election billboards smiling mug shots. This is no less than calculatingly deliberate.

And a bureaucracy that is out of control, 50,000 or so MORE civil servants ( by definition paid beneficiaries ) since that dark day in November 1999 when the electorate lost its marbles. What for? More wastage of taxpayers money that could be better utilised left in the pockets of those earning it. Perhaps we would have more people doing real and productive jobs instead of living off the public purse.

You know, this country could be the best in the world but the combined actions of many Goverments since 1972 or so have incessantly turned us into a slum with scenery.

In reference to a previous post defining a ''Conservative'' as someone who doesnt want change, lets go a step further.....in many ways turning the clock back would be a great thing.

[idleidolidyll]

So I have been trying to work this one out idle and am fucked if I can see the problem.

Way I see it is this.
Macs give us, the consumer, choice, prior to this we had fish & chips.

The bring competition. I must admit, I have not done any study on this, but anecdotally I doubt it is much dearer to eat out these days than to shop, purchase, store, prepare and cook your own food and do the dishes etc after. Either way I think it would be hard to dispute that competition does tend to benefit the consumer on a cost basis. Accepted there are other measures, however, given the choices we now have you can soon vote with your feet.

Macs assembles it's product apparently from materials sourced locally, so a lot of local business profit from supplying milk, meat, breads, packaging, rubbish collection etc etc. Things like achitectural, engineering and IT and construction are of course sourced locally also.

In addition to the indirect employment means mentioned above, Macs supply a lot of jobs directly. Now many of these are low paid and perhaps minimum wage jobs. That said, someone somewhere has to earn the minimum wage and as I see it one likely alternative to minimum is no job. No job probably means on the dole. So Macs potentially help the country enormously by taking a percentage of people that would otherwise cost us a lot (of dole) and turn them into contributors (tax payers).

So the profits go overseas. Well not all of it. The suppliers presumably profit, the salary and wage earners profit, I am sure the franchisee profits and presumably they all pay some taxes that otherwise would not have been collected. But even with a portion of their turnover going overseas how is this inherently bad.

How also does it differ say from purchasing a motorcycle, which presumably is acceptable as you would appear to have a few.
A motorcycle is made from materials sourced from overseas, assembled with foregin labour, in plants constructed in another land. We collect little tax from the whole procees (ignoring GST as this is also charged on Macs).

Way I see it is if Macs is bad, motorcycle is WAY bad.
Where have I got my wires crossed please?

fair ask, i missed this one.
give me a little time to offer a considered reply

[Robert Taylor]

You know, despite whether you are a true blue tory or from the dark side I think everyone has the same basic intent, its how you see you should get there. As a tory I dont have a problem with social equality and everyone getting a fair go. But people should do more to help themselves instead of expecting hand outs. Equality of opportunity should be synonomous with equality of effort.

I look at what is going on and I just shake my head, including those at the very top milking the system.

[idleidolidyll]

So I have been trying to work this one out idle and am fucked if I can see the problem.

Stranger in white, idleidolidyll in KTM orange:

Way I see it is this.
Macs give us, the consumer, choice, prior to this we had fish & chips.

Not at all: Prior to Macs, we had big juicy burgers and a wide choice from lots of locally owned and run outlets with the profits staying in NZ. I clearly remember the introduction of McD. It was with great fanfare but pretty soon after the initial opening, great burgers started disappearing and we were left with speed and hype as opposed to quality.

The bring competition. I must admit, I have not done any study on this, but anecdotally I doubt it is much dearer to eat out these days than to shop, purchase, store, prepare and cook your own food and do the dishes etc after. Either way I think it would be hard to dispute that competition does tend to benefit the consumer on a cost basis. Accepted there are other measures, however, given the choices we now have you can soon vote with your feet.

Cost is one measure but to focus only on cost is to miss much of the point. At what cost does the cheap price come? In NZ it meant the closing of awesome little burger bars serving great food for good prices in favour of a product that was cheap but about half the mass. (burgeres before McD’s were much bigger) Add to that the loss of NZ$ to offshore companies and the common practice of McD’s to offer minimum wage (bare minimum using kids as staff) and to actively prevent unionism and the eye they keep on staff abuse etc and the picture becomes a bit clearer.

Macs assembles it's product apparently from materials sourced locally, so a lot of local business profit from supplying milk, meat, breads, packaging, rubbish collection etc etc. Things like achitectural, engineering and IT and construction are of course sourced locally also.

Yep, that’s what they say they do. I won’t argue with that point except to say that they didn’t increase purchases from NZ businesses, they just monopolised them by forcing individually owned businesses out of the market.

In addition to the indirect employment means mentioned above, Macs supply a lot of jobs directly. Now many of these are low paid and perhaps minimum wage jobs. That said, someone somewhere has to earn the minimum wage and as I see it one likely alternative to minimum is no job. No job probably means on the dole. So Macs potentially help the country enormously by taking a percentage of people that would otherwise cost us a lot (of dole) and turn them into contributors (tax payers).

Actually MOST are low paid. There is a will by McD’s to use student labour and a lot of that is FOREIGN student labour. I once did some volunteer work for the Union that finally got into McD’s (Unite) and saw first hand how that works. Many of those students had very very dubious rights to work in NZ and were afraid to speak out for fear of loss of their job. This is first hand experience not hearsay. As a side note; as you can see from this statement, i do more than just talk about issues.
Students of that age (still at high school) don’t generally draw the dole and neither do foreign students so much of the argument above is moot.

So the profits go overseas. Well not all of it. The suppliers presumably profit, the salary and wage earners profit, I am sure the franchisee profits and presumably they all pay some taxes that otherwise would not have been collected. But even with a portion of their turnover going overseas how is this inherently bad.

Yes, local suppliers do profit but they also profited BEFORE McD’s. There IS a nett loss both in tax income and money sent offshore. The ability of big companies to avoid tax or pay minimal tax is well known as is the propensity for governments in NZ to give them tax breaks based on often dubious suggestions that they would add something to NZ.

How also does it differ say from purchasing a motorcycle, which presumably is acceptable as you would appear to have a few.
A motorcycle is made from materials sourced from overseas, assembled with foregin labour, in plants constructed in another land. We collect little tax from the whole procees (ignoring GST as this is also charged on Macs).

That’s a fair question. Sadly though, we don’t make bikes in NZ (That fact alone makes this line quite irrelevant.), but if we did, I’d likely be standing in line.

Burgers are a different proposition: we had an existing industry largely run by Mom and Dad small businesses that just couldn’t compete with a megacorp prepared to offer a sub standard product ((yes, my opinion)) based on convincing kids to pester their parents, a dubious ‘convenience’ and their knowledge that they could drive down wages to compete easily with owner operators.
I’d rather pay more and get a decent burger any day (and frequently do)

Way I see it is if Macs is bad, motorcycle is WAY bad.
Where have I got my wires crossed please?

I think the above addresses that question.

My question is this: what nett benefit to NZ did the introduction of McD’s have? Net benefit not individual benefit. As per the above argument, I suggest the nett benefit has been a negative one.

Lastly, I appreciate the way you approached me and my opinions and I've tried to offer the same in return. Even though we disagree, I'd rather debate/discuss with you than those who might agree with me but offer bugger all but personal attack. I strive to always reply in kind.

[avgas]

But I don't wanna. Surely the gummint will give me some if I'm unwill, er I mean unable to work.

Yep - sadly enough NZ is not a country of those that walk their own paths

[idleidolidyll]

You know, despite whether you are a true blue tory or from the dark side I think everyone has the same basic intent, its how you see you should get there. As a tory I dont have a problem with social equality and everyone getting a fair go. But people should do more to help themselves instead of expecting hand outs. Equality of opportunity should be synonomous with equality of effort.

I look at what is going on and I just shake my head, including those at the very top milking the system.

that's a great post and i can't fault it.

rather than take a cheap shot just at the lower end of the scale or just at employees and not at corporations, you have identified both as potential and actual abusers.

I too agree that sheer bludgery should be stopped and i think that a work for the dole scheme is a good idea.
a totally free handout for those who are fit and healthy but not prepared to work, is abuse of the system.

Likewise, white collar criminals and abusers deserve to be publicly humiliated and their crimes need to be punished more severely. Luxury in prisons and golf trips are a massive abuse of the system.

that said, GENUINE need should be recognised. Capitalism relies on a pool of people on very low wages or unemployed to offer their services at minimal cost to new enterprises and in that lies potential abuse and inhumanity.

[idleidolidyll]

of course the major groups opposed to work for the dole schemes are businesses

therin lies a conundrum...........

[idleidolidyll]

Well.................approximately 750 Kiwis per week are ''voting with their feet'' and resettling to Australia alone, Dingolands biggest immigrant group. The Poms are in second place, and they also have a Govt that is bonkers.

You've done nothing but identify a trend and assign your own cause without supporting information. Kiwis will leave NZ regardless of the government, they always have. I believe it's more a product of our relative isolation than the unspoken 'socialism' of the economy.
However, many who leave say that they are leaving because incomes are too low. That trend has occurred as we have transitioned AWAY from socialism and toward free markets and cosying up to big foreign nationals. It really pleases me to see a new 'Buy NZ' campaign.

Immigrants that are replacing this loss are largely less well educated and from a background / social group that is far more likely to vote for that woman who looks way different to her election billboards smiling mug shots. This is no less than calculatingly deliberate.

immigration is always an issue. going back to the beginning, white immigrants from the UK started the biggest fuck up of all; completely changing the cultural and social basis of all previous citizens.
For a product of that original fuck up to complain about immigrants..........fill in your own blanks here.

Your comment there smacks of 'isms'

And a bureaucracy that is out of control, 50,000 or so MORE civil servants ( by definition paid beneficiaries ) since that dark day in November 1999 when the electorate lost its marbles. What for? More wastage of taxpayers money that could be better utilised left in the pockets of those earning it. Perhaps we would have more people doing real and productive jobs instead of living off the public purse.

Sure, government is too big in NZ but that is often used as an excuse to cut services by right wingers. Those services would then be replaced by more expensive private services usually provided by foreign companies again seelling out our economy and turning us into minimum wage slaves.
If National had it's way, we'd have a costly private health insurance scheme that many could not afford and we'd then either have a large percentage of people not able to access adequate health services or drastically increased costs but with decreasing incomes.

You know, this country could be the best in the world but the combined actions of many Goverments since 1972 or so have incessantly turned us into a slum with scenery.

It WAS one of the best in the world and it has been the Milton Freidman type changes in particular that have fucked it up and driven us down many of the quality of life and income charts.
In the past Kiwi families could have a great life on a single wage and STILL be able to buy their own home.

In reference to a previous post defining a ''Conservative'' as someone who doesnt want change, lets go a step further.....in many ways turning the clock back would be a great thing.

Good idea, lets give the country back to Maori and let them sort out all the fuckups that we Euros imposed on them.

[Ocean1]

Equality of opportunity should be synonomous with equality of effort.

I look at what is going on and I just shake my head, including those at the very top milking the system.

Nice.

Only the foundation of NZ’s particular brave new brand of socialism is equity of OUTCOMES, not equity of opportunity. Help for those who start with a genuine and significant disadvantage is one thing, attempting to engineer a uniformity of income by supplementing those who repeatedly make poor choices is another. The former is simply human, the latter is ethically incorrect, and fiscally unsustainable.

The US gave up positive discrimination years ago, it quickly became apparent that the premise upon which the policy was built was fundamentally flawed, no matter which group was so favoured. Years later and we see NZ using similar justification to promote those groups under-represented in high earning professions. Resetting the academic bar to advance social and cultural uniformity within the medical field is one result of such ideologies.

No amount of social engineering will ever make all people equal. If you choose to leave school at 16 or fail to hold a job that doesn’t make you worth less as a person. It does make you worth less to the economy though, why should the very people who made decisions aimed at optimising their value to the economy pay for yours.

The wringing of hands and righteous indignation from those who claim the socially oppressed can’t make ends meet without my money make me ill. The poorest of us has easy access to a lifestyle better than most of our parents had, one simply beyond any of our our grandparents reach. Anyone suggesting otherwise is making comparisons with those who work hard to maintain a good modern lifestyle, one they probably earned.

[Ocean1]

of course the major groups opposed to work for the dole schemes are businesses

therin lies a conundrum...........

Why are they opposed to it?

[idleidolidyll]

Why are they opposed to it?

they complain that it takes away their right to make a profit from the kinds of businesses that work for dole schemes rely on

[Robert Taylor]

Good idea, lets give the country back to Maori and let them sort out all the fuckups that we Euros imposed on them.

But there are no full blooded maoris left, we should collectively consider ourselves as New Zealanders and get on with it.

Having said that I am largely proud of my British ancestry and find it only logical that there is a Union Jack in the corner of our flag.

Have I just pulled another pin from another hand grenade?!!!

[scumdog]

That’s a fair question. Sadly though, we don’t make bikes in NZ (That fact alone makes this line quite irrelevant.), but if we did, I’d likely be standing in line.

Burgers are a different proposition: we had an existing industry largely run by Mom and Dad small businesses that just couldn’t compete with a megacorp prepared to offer a sub standard product ((yes, my opinion)) based on convincing kids to pester their parents, a dubious ‘convenience’ and their knowledge that they could drive down wages to compete easily with owner operators.
I’d rather pay more and get a decent burger any day (and frequently do)

Way I see it is if Macs is bad, motorcycle is WAY bad.
Where have I got my wires crossed please?

I think the above addresses that question.

My question is this: what nett benefit to NZ did the introduction of McD’s have? Net benefit not individual benefit. As per the above argument, I suggest the nett benefit has been a negative one.

But would the product/labour now not used by the old traditional burger supplier not just be transferred over to Maccas - who hype it up and sell more product/employ more staff?
They obviously saw a niche there and took advantage of it - anybody else could have done the same.
And those 'low-paid young workers' - take Maccas out of the equation and what would they be doing? - not working in better conditions and getting larger pays I'd vouch.

BTW: Can't stand Maccas, it's 'cardboard' food, tasteless and unappealing to me and I buy it maybe once a year tops. (Just in case you thought I moonlighted for them)