Nat/act/nzf 2023

[nztx]

Govt Up 1% since Feb.
More telling is this
New Zealand Government Confidence Rating plunges 17pts to 81 in March

Not long to find out if this Govt is a slow moving train wreck and inflation rears it's head.

We just had trainwreck Central when things went off the rails badly 5 or so months back .. it's not difficult to see how many in the Lead Loco Engine piloting the excursion got pushed, jumped off or ran away from the disaster. From the way some are still mostly underground occasionally popping their heads up to check the weather, it may be that most of those who survived might be suffering delayed shock symptoms infused with amnesia with flashbacks to the better times a decade or more earlier

[Balance]

The state of NZ race relations :

[Daytr]

You will need to explain the concept of "So what if we combined floating interest rates with floating tax rates on the higher income bracket?". That can be interpreted a few ways.

Fair enough.
Interest rates are used as a tool to suck demand out of the economy in inflationary times.
The problem is this hits most those with the least disposable income, I.e those paying a mortgage and due to fixed term mortgages it takes a long time for those rate rises to make an impact.

Meanwhile those with more disposable income I.e those without debt contine to spend as they aren't impacted or if they are it's a positive impact, I e more interest.

So if the top tax bracket was floating, this could be adjusted up when the economy needs to be reigned in and lowered when the economy is in recession etc.

Perhaps there is a band of say 5% either side of 40% or something like that.
This would suck more money out of the economy more quickly and also have a fairer impact I.e spreading the burden.

[thegreatestben]

Higher incomes don’t equal lower debt, I think a lot of high earners make pretty significant contributions already and in a lot of cases facilitate jobs and services so other people can also have a livelihood.

If you look at any particular group as being the right people to point the pain at you are looking at the wrong problem to solve.

[Bjauck]

Fair enough.
Interest rates are used as a tool to suck demand out of the economy in inflationary times.
The problem is this hits this most with the least disposable income, I.e those paying a mortgage and due to fixed term mortgages it takes a long time for those rate rises to make an impact.

Meanwhile those with more disposable income I.e those without debt contine to spend as they aren't impacted or if they are it's a positive impact, I e more interest.

So if the top tax bracket was floating, this could be adjusted up when the economy needs to be reigned in and lowered when the economy is in recession etc.

Perhaps there is a band of say 5% either side of 40% or something like that.
This would suck more money out of the economy more quickly and also have a fairer impact I.e spreading the burden.

I think the debt free will be impacted, despite receiving more gross income from their fixed interest investments. High interest rates can often mean reduced profitability for some equity investments. So your “wealthy” cohorts may well have reduced dividends or business profits to spend.

Increasing or introducing variable income tax rates would also increase the appeal of investing for capital gains. It also makes addressing the elephant in the NZ tax room even more pressing - that NZ does not have a general CGT.

[Daytr]

No one tool is a cure-all, however a floating top tax rate would have a quicker impact than raising interest rates alone and spread the burden more evenly across the economy.

Yep and a CGT is well overdue.

[Bjauck]

No one tool is a cure-all, however a floating top tax rate would have a quicker impact than raising interest rates alone and spread the burden more evenly across the economy.

Yep and a CGT is well overdue.

I disagree that any burden would end up being spread more evenly.

(a) It is manifestly unfair on those who earn income from interest bearing stock, and who in high interest times are already paying a substantial amount of tax, even though their economic returns may well be negative.

(b) It would not particularly shift the burden more onto the particularly rich or wealthy, who have more equity investments.

(c) Having a variable top tax rate would be more difficult to plan for. It could mean a less certain investment environment and Possibly a disincentive to investment, other than in investments that provide capital gains. Also a greater inv-cent I’ve for finding income tax minimisation schemes.

(d) The main windfall gains in NZ from government policy and economic conditions is by way of capital gains.

(e) We need to encourage rather than discourage more household saving and investment for income. We need to encourage more bonds and funding for business expansion.

(f) It would make the need for fundament tax system reform even more pressing.

(g) Cheaper more plentiful housing requiring fewer over-indebted households is needed.

[Daytr]

I disagree that any burden would end up being spread more evenly.

(a) It is manifestly unfair on those who earn income from interest bearing stock, and who in high interest times are already paying a substantial amount of tax, even though their economic returns may well be negative.

(b) It would not particularly shift the burden more onto the particularly rich or wealthy, who have more equity investments.

(c) Having a variable top tax rate would be more difficult to plan for. It could mean a less certain investment environment and Possibly a disincentive to investment, other than in investments that provide capital gains. Also a greater inv-cent I’ve for finding income tax minimisation schemes.

(d) The main windfall gains in NZ from government policy and economic conditions is by way of capital gains.

(e) We need to encourage rather than discourage more household saving and investment for income. We need to encourage more bonds and funding for business expansion.

(f) It would make the need for fundament tax system reform even more pressing.

(g) Cheaper more plentiful housing requiring fewer over-indebted households is needed.

Well it's the nature of forums that people will disagree.

I don't think people relying on fixed interest as income would be impacted much at all, as $180k in interest or dividends is pretty substantial.

It would though take income from high income earners who are the biggest spenders & give it back to them in times of recession etc.
Currently we just suck out billions of dollars from indebted Kiwis & that money paid away doesn't beneft anyone. Whereas at least this money would be paid in tax that would benefit all Kiwis.

But as I said it's not a cure-all and yes a CGT should be introduced, no argument, I am more arguing for a better & fairer way to control inflation.

[iceman]

Mental health minister scrambles as Suicide Prevention Office is caught in spending cuts directive.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350...ce-caught-cuts

All this effort to be inhumane, when they can simply put in a CGT or cancel the landlord tax cuts.

Yet more nonsense and lies from you Labour/Greens parrots and the far left, woke and broke Stuff.
The Director General of Health has confirmed closing this unit was never on the cards. You need to do better

[Balance]

Trying to paint Nicola Willis as the new Ruth Richardson - Ardern's attempts to paint herself as a saint.

Repugnant and disgustingly self-serving behaviour - to be expected from Clueless Cindy now that her 5 years of disastrous divisive government is exposed for all to see, week after week.

Wait now for the big revelations to come from the Commission of Inquiry into Covid response - the proper inquiry rather that the whitewash that she had planned to cover her filthy tracks.

https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/...uth-richardson

"Jacinda Ardern's international PR strategy is being unleashed. She's working on becoming a Great Ambassador for Herself and a Terrible Ambassador for NZ. The more she puts her good self up, the more she pulls NZ down and makes her fellow Kiwis look bad. Have you heard Helen Clark or John Key - our former Prime Ministers - upon retirement, get stuck into other Kiwis on the world stage? Not so Ardern.

Her recent address in Bologna targeted NZ's first female Finance Minister, Ruth Richardson. Ardern said Richardson's "Mother of All Budgets came out", when she was 11 years old, cutting public spending. "I even recall seeing a cartoon as a child depicting the then-Minister of Finance [Richardson] standing over a large cauldron of soup with a child begging for more". Of the "impact on people", Ardern recalls "the spread of illnesses associated with poverty .. I remember a neighbor's son taking his own life" (at 1 hour 43 mins into the video below). Ardern said Kiwis back then - of which I was one - called those on benefits "dole bludgers" and spoke of an "Asian invasion".

In this dark story of our mean past, it wasn't just Ruth who made us beggars, life not worth living & who spread plague. She had accomplices - Orks from Middle Earth with names like Richard Prebble & Roger Douglas. Apparently they deployed "fear" to do their dirty work. Stoking fear is not a thing Ardern would dream of doing herself, of course. She'd never tell 1.6 million Aucklanders that thousands & thousands of us would die, die, die - even though most of us were already vaccinated including all of the vulnerable ones - unless we did an almost 4 month lock-down in late 2021, the cause of today's cost-of-living crisis. Pity she put us last in the queue for the vaccine.

Why would an Italian audience even want to hear how someone called Ruth did a budget 30 years ago which somehow was linked to Jacinda's neighbor's son taking their life in Morrinsville? Ardern claimed high unemployment & debt in NZ in the 1980s to early 1990s arose from reforms that made us more "open" & less regulated. She conveniently forgot to mention the oil price shocks - and Foreign Exchange crisis caused by then PM Rob Muldoon - which came before.

What was Ruth's legacy? When she started as Finance Minister in the early 1990s public debt was 40-50% of GDP. It subsequently fell over the next decade to less than 10%, until Ardern ramped debt back up to pre-Ruth 1990 levels, paying for everything during the pandemic on borrowed money (see below). She could only do so because of Prebble-Douglas-Richardson's championing of fiscal responsibility in prior years.

The Italians I know who sat through Ardern's speech were quietly wishing those types would come to Italy to fix their crippled economy, which is afflicted by overwhelming debt & red-tape.

At least Ardern can now start writing more shallow, dinky self-serving PR stories from Harvard, building a narrative that Nicola Willis is the new Ruth Richardson. It really is that pathetic.



Yup - We Screwed Up NZ real good! And now we enjoy our rewards while NZers feel the pain in their Arses.