The Bernie Gimme Gimme Gimme Crowd

[Catholicity]

FYI, I voted for Sam Brownback (because he's allegedly prolife, and conservative)

I don't live near Lawrence, but further west in Bible Belt Conservative Farm country.

You are way 'left' of what I used to be and the way I used to post here. (my favorite anti socialism tactic was citing the Starnesville, Wisconsin excerpt from Atlas Shrugged), Before the other conservatives here, I was the one who first posted the Hawaii U website about democide, and how communism has killed over 100,000,000. (or what I used to think Communism-Marxism was)

But since, my eyes are opening. I can see what's happening to laborers in America.

I've evolved. You are my 'been there done that'.

I didn't vote for Sam Brownnosekochback the 1st time as I wasn't a resident of Kansas, and I didn't vote for him the second time as he'd already screwed the economy over along with the rest of the tea party. I preferred the democratic party in kansas which Ironically looks more like moderate republicans or old timeyish democrats minus the racism. BTW We moved from kansas due to brownback's idiocy and and my husband's job. We like Jay Nixon better anyway. At any rate you apparently haven't spent enough time thinking through what you believe for a few reasons, 1) evolving your thinking on politics doesn't happen overnight It takes years and years and years and an awfully lot of questions. I don't think I was anywhere close to a solidified view point and it will probably change again. My husband and I have both spent years making mistakes and decisions, and identically I've watched other people do it. The way you talk about communism you seem to act like its a fad or obsession you have, something you heard about or read about, and think it sounds good but never or don't have the application to use critical thinking to use it in the real world.

[Raphael]

The global financial crisis was, of course, neither the doing of National [the current 'right-wing' NZ government for US readers] nor Labour [the previous 'centrist' government]. Yes, National have had to deal with the fall-out of that. Yes, I do actually generally give them some leeway because of that.

Cool, I know a lot of people on your side who don't.

Labour left office with a national debt of $10 billion NZD. National has gone $50 billion NZD further into debt since taking office. Here you're blaming ~2 billion of that on Labour. Okay, fine, so let's say Labour left office with a debt of $12 billion, and National's only gone $48 billion further into debt. In the grand scheme of things, the small amounts you're blaming Labour for make very little difference.

No I'm saying that Cullen, in his own words regarding the surplus "spent the lot". So to claim that the Left was managing things better is false.

Um, so you can find opinion pieces from people that disliked the Labour government...?

No! Those are the words of the Treasury before the election. While Labour was still in power Treasury was saying that we we going to have a decade of deficits, regardless of whether or not Labour or National were in power. So it is wrong to try and blame that the right is simply false.

I personally wasn't their biggest fan - they weren't nearly far enough to the left for my tastes, and I think they betrayed the unions that they supposedly represent. But they at least did a decent job balancing the budget and paying off the national debt. I recall being horrified when then-National-leader Don Brash was proposing to take the country into debt on the grounds that he thought it was "good business practice to borrow for infrastructure development". I was very glad as a result when he didn't win the election, and Labour instead won with their policies of running a surplus and paying off debt.

I do think Don Brash would not have been a good PM.

At this point their promises of surplus appear to be a mythical unicorn. Literally every year they promise to be back in surplus next year, and have been wrong every single year for 8 or so years in a row now. So until it actually happens I shall remain extremely skeptical of their lies/promises.

You mean October last year?
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2015/10/ho...a_surplus.html

Source: Kiwiblog

2008 DEFU shows, a permanent structural deficit. That means never getting back to surplus, and just borrowing endlessly. The forecast was that even as far out as 2023, we would have a deficit of around 2% of GDP (around $5 billion) but possibly as high as 4% of GDP.

© Copyright Original Source

This is from the 2016 budget: http://www.treasury.govt.nz/budget/2016/bps/01.htm
bps16-03.gif

Add to that Christchurch needing to be rebuilt (which would also have hit a Labour government. Again your assertion that the left managed to economy brilliantly while the right didn't is patently false. The situation we've been in since 2008 stated before the right took power, and Treasury and financial analysts were predicting it would be at least a 10 year period of deficits (and some suggesting it would be a permanent state of affairs), regardless of who was at the reigns.

They've severely restricted eligibility for benefits. Giving a little more money to those that remain eligible is nice, but not exactly the same thing as increasing benefits.

You mean things like making sure that living on the DPB doesn't become a multi generational lifestyle choice and working to get people back into paid employment?
You mean like simple things like saying if you don't make you're court appearances you loose your benefit until such time as you've no longer got an outstanding warrant?
Most of middle New Zealand agrees with that approach.

I think what's happened is their polling has shown them people are getting seriously concerned about it, so they have sat down and thought out what the bare minimum is that they can do so that it looks like they have addressed the issue in order to make sure Labour can't use it against them in the next election.

To quote the journalist quoting John Key again from earlier:
""I think New Zealand is a very caring country, I think New Zealanders do have a heart. [said Key]" New Zealanders did not want to see the "overt" signs of poverty here that were present overseas, [Key] said."
Basically Key knows that voters will throw a tantrum if they can see poverty in the country shoved in their faces, so he's well aware that he's got to make sure that poverty doesn't get so bad under his leadership that it becomes "overt". That's his bar. Personally, my own bar is higher than that - I want the poverty to actually not be present, not merely hidden. That's what makes me left-wing and him right-wing.

always going to have poverty.

Now I'm not saying there aren't kids who are in situations where they need help (that's why National is overhauling CYF's completely .... something friends of mine who work for CAPS Hauraki, a non profit social service agency are applauding). That's why National has outlined a plan to make sure that the kids that are at risk are identified as early as possible so we can help them as best as possible, before they become victims.

[Starlight]

Wow, you seem to read a lot of propaganda on blogs.

It's a well known fact that National is constantly polling on a number of issues to make sure that they have a finger on the pulse of where things are going. That's why National has remained as popular as they have for the last 9 years.

Yeah, this is a bit frustrating. Because National has a rich guy supporting them who can pay to do constant polling, they're able to have more information about the will of voters at their fingertips than the other parties do, and they've shown their PR and policy people are fairly good at using that information to stay in power.

always going to have poverty.

I totally agree that that definition is dubious.

But you're completely misunderstanding the definition if you think it mathematically requires we always have some poverty. It doesn't. It links the definition of poverty to high inequality. If we had low inequality, then we'd have less or no poverty. According to that definition, we could have zero poverty tomorrow if the government raised benefits to be equal to 50 per cent of the national median household income after tax and housing costs. Obviously the government would have to raise taxes or go into debt to do so, but the fact remains that it is perfectly possible to create a society that has zero poverty according to that definition. Whether it would be wise to do such a policy is another question entirely. And some reasonable people might even ask whether our society should actually want to have a situation where there is zero poverty according to that definition of it. But that definition itself doesn't imply there will always be poverty.



By the way, regardless of our opinions about NZ politics and the pros and cons of the current National government, I assume you in general agree with the original point I was making on page 1 of this thread that was in the post you first quoted:
That 'socialist' countries that provide government services like universal healthcare to all their citizens do not inevitably run up massive amounts of national debt and then collapse like Venezuela. That the countries with a 'socialist streak' like Denmark, Sweden, NZ, Canada, Germany etc that Bernie Sanders wants to make America more like are not unstable countries by virtue of their 'socialism' and all that sweet government healthcare they are getting. ie that Coke Poke's original post in this thread is baloney.

[Raphael]

Wow, you seem to read a lot of propaganda on blogs.

Dude, I've been quoting facts and figures that were given by the Treasury. Your claim that the Left manages the economy better than the Right, and that it is National's fault we went into deficit is false. because all the figures and projection from before the Right even won the election, let alone took power showed that regardless of who was at the helm, we were in for at least a decade of deficits.

It's also fact that OBEGAL reached a surplus of $0.4 billion in 2014/15, despite your stating that National had broken that promise.

Yeah, this is a bit frustrating. Because National has a rich guy supporting them who can pay to do constant polling, they're able to have more information about the will of voters at their fingertips than the other parties do, and they've shown their PR and policy people are fairly good at using that information to stay in power.

and that's a bad thing why?
And it's not National's fault that Labour is now so broke they can't even pay for decent polling.

I totally agree that that definition is dubious.

But you're completely misunderstanding the definition if you think it mathematically requires we always have some poverty. It doesn't. It links the definition of poverty to high inequality. If we had low inequality, then we'd have less or no poverty. According to that definition, we could have zero poverty tomorrow if the government raised benefits to be equal to 50 per cent of the national median household income after tax and housing costs. Obviously the government would have to raise taxes or go into debt to do so, but the fact remains that it is perfectly possible to create a society that has zero poverty according to that definition. Whether it would be wise to do such a policy is another question entirely. And some reasonable people might even ask whether our society should actually want to have a situation where there is zero poverty according to that definition of it. But that definition itself doesn't imply there will always be poverty.

Kinda. As you noted you gonna have to pay for that and that means cranking up both debt and taxes which will make us all worse off in the long run.

[Starlight]

It's also fact that OBEGAL reached a surplus of $0.4 billion in 2014/15

Yes, apparently it is. I'm utterly baffled and confused and surprised as to how I wasn't aware that had happened until you mentioned it, and I've been fact-checking your claim... but it does indeed seem to pan out.

Although, pedantically, I'm not quite sure it's worthwhile calling that a 'surplus' as opposed to 'breaking even'. But it's an achievement nonetheless.

I've been quoting facts and figures that were given by the Treasury.

Well you've mostly been quoting blogs. And financial stats can be portrayed creatively, so I had to double-check them.

Your claim that the Left manages the economy better than the Right, and that it is National's fault we went into deficit is false.

Your evidence doesn't really prove my view that National is bad at handling the economy false, it merely undermines the small amount of evidence I put forth in that post in support of the view in that post.

because all the figures and projection from before the Right even won the election, let alone took power showed that regardless of who was at the helm, we were in for at least a decade of deficits.

Wow, you give a lot of credibility to economic forecasts!

Just as a random example of how terrible economic forecasts commonly are, here's some forecasts from the Reserve Bank of NZ over a ten year period that I happened to look at. The gray line is what really happened. And the coloured lines are their forecasts starting at each point in time:
Reserve Bank NZ Interest Rate Predictions.gif
Basically, their ability to predict the future was approximately zero. Their predictions of what will happen in the next quarter are generally okay, but they generally wildly diverge for the following quarter and by a year's time they're extremely off.

In general, economists seem to be about as good at predicting next year's economy as meteorologists are at predicting next year's weather.

But, I guess, it might be the case that the Treasury is miraculously good at making predictions. Let's have a look. You linked to the December 2008 forecasts which say:
2009: -0.6 billion
2010: -4.1 billion
2011: -6.0 billion
2012: -6.3 billion
2013: -6.3 billion

And you linked to this graph in the 2016 budget:


So how much were they off by? Well in 2009, the actual OBEGAL was around -4 billion, whereas the December 2008 prediction of it had it at -0.6 billion. So National apparently went into the red by 3.5 billion more than expected or ~600% more than expected. In general their year-by-year errors were:
2009: -3.5 billion error, -600% error
2010: -2 billion error, -50% error
2011: -18 billion error, -200% error
2012: -3 billion error, -50% error
2013: +2 billion error, +33% error

So National ended up doing a lot worse than they were predicting at the end of 2008... generally much worse. One of their worst errors of estimation was actually the year immediately following their predictions. That shows, I think, just how unreliable such predictions are.

The February 2011 earthquake obviously decimated their budget plans for the year of 2011. But there's definitely a trend there of National generally doing a whole lot worse than anyone anticipated at getting into debt.

If you want to defend their governance with the idea that everyone was basically expecting the country to go into some debt as a result of the 2008 global financial crisis, I don't have an issue with that. But the amount of debt they've ended up taking on was a lot more than anticipated. Is it just that Treasury was bad at forecasting the amount of debt that would accrue? Is it that National were bad at handling the economy? It's potentially hard to know which of them to blame.

But remember, Treasury's forecasts are supposed to be what will happen if the government doesn't change policies. Do you know what I would do if Treasury was telling me that there was a decade worth of deficits coming? Raise taxes. I would immediately ask them, "so how much do we need to raise taxes not to go into debt? 1% tax raise? 2%? 5%" and get them to come back to me with numbers. That's called managing the budget responsibly. So your implication that National was powerless to stop this happening, and that it was always going to happen, doesn't inspire any great confidence in their ability to handle the economy. It's like saying "well the driving instructor was telling me that if I didn't turn the wheel, I'd go into the ditch. So obviously the car went into the ditch. It's not my fault. They predicted it, and obviously the future was unstoppable." To their, slight, credit, National has actually discovered that raising taxes is actually a thing that can be done, and has raised GST (the worst type of tax to raise IMO).

But, overall, I don't buy the idea behind your argument that is basically "no, no, National's not a bad economic driver, because the car was aimed at the ditch when they took the wheel, and the driving instructor warned them of this and said if they didn't turn the wheel they'd go into the ditch, and thus their failure to turn the wheel in no way reflects badly on them." I think it does reflect badly on them. They had the power to enact policies so that they didn't go into so much debt, and they choose not to, that's on them. They also did stupid things like selling productive assets, which is also on them, but that's a whole other debate.

And it's not National's fault that Labour is now so broke they can't even pay for decent polling.

Um, it pretty much mostly is. While it would be ideal if the government provided the parties with enough money to run themselves well, it's not in National's interests to let that happen. Instead, they, as the party of the rich, prefer to get financial donations from wealthy supporters, which leads to inequality in funding between the parties because the parties that represent the interests of the less wealthy can't easily source as much money. Historically Labour was able to source a lot of money from unions, but the right-wing has pretty successfully eroded the union movement over time in NZ, leaving Labour with a relatively meager source of funds.

As you noted you gonna have to pay for that and that means cranking up both debt and taxes which will make us all worse off in the long run.

Let's be clear: Cranking up taxes to redistribute wealth makes everyone better off in the long run. Both the OECD and IMF have issued reports over the last couple of years that analyse the relationship between economic growth and income inequality across the world, and show that economic growth slows when inequality increases and speeds up when inequality decreases. The IMF quantifies the rate at which GDP is affected:

importantly, we find an inverse relationship between the income share accruing to the rich (top 20 percent) and economic growth. If the income share of the top 20 percent increases by 1 percentage point, GDP growth is actually 0.08 percentage point lower in the following five years, suggesting that the benefits do not trickle down. Instead, a similar increase in the income share of the bottom 20 percent (the poor) is associated with 0.38 percentage point higher growth.

The OECD found that New Zealand was the worst-hit developed nation by this effect, and that our growing inequality from 1990 to 2010 had knocked 15.5% off total GDP growth during that time. What they're saying is that the entire country would be 15.5% richer if we'd kept levels of income inequality the same from 1990 onwards, and hadn't let a wealth difference between rich and poor grow.


Basically, how it works is that if poor people don't have money, they can't buy stuff. And if they can't buy stuff, then businesses can't sell stuff to them. And if businesses aren't selling stuff, they make less money and employ less people. Whereas if poor people get more money, they start buying more products, so businesses are selling more products, so they employ more staff to meet the demand etc.

Personally I think this observation is one of the most important ever made in political policy, as it demonstrates the fundamental idea of right-wing/supply-side economics (to lower taxes in order to stimulate the economy) to be the opposite of true.

[Raphael]

[QUOTE=Starlight;323762]Yes, apparently it is. I'm utterly baffled and confused and surprised as to how I wasn't aware that had happened until you mentioned it, and I've been fact-checking your claim... but it does indeed seem to pan out.

Although, pedantically, I'm not quite sure it's worthwhile calling that a 'surplus' as opposed to 'breaking even'. But it's an achievement nonetheless.

Well you've mostly been quoting blogs. And financial stats can be portrayed creatively, so I had to double-check them.

I've quoted an article from NZ Herald, and some articles from Kiwiblog, both were relaying the same information given by the Treasury in the 2008 PREFU.
I quoted from Kiwiblog giving Farrer's monthly regular All Public Polls updates, that is hardly a propaganda piece
I quoted again Kiwiblog when the OBEGAL figures announced were given by Treasury, providing link and charts to the actual data from Treasury

Your evidence doesn't really prove my view that National is bad at handling the economy false, it merely undermines the small amount of evidence I put forth in that post in support of the view in that post.

You claimed that you evidence was proof that the Right was terrible at managing the economy, you claimed that the deficits were proof that National was incompetent at running the economy compared to Labour where in reality things went pear shaped before National took power and everyone was saying that it was going to be bad for the next 10 years, regardless of who was running the economy.

Wow, you give a lot of credibility to economic forecasts!

My father has a PhD in economics, we talk about the topic a lot.

Just as a random example of how terrible economic forecasts commonly are, here's some forecasts from the Reserve Bank of NZ over a ten year period that I happened to look at. The gray line is what really happened. And the coloured lines are their forecasts starting at each point in time:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]15862[/ATTACH]
Basically, their ability to predict the future was approximately zero. Their predictions of what will happen in the next quarter are generally okay, but they generally wildly diverge for the following quarter and by a year's time they're extremely off.

In general, economists seem to be about as good at predicting next year's economy as meteorologists are at predicting next year's weather.

That's the 90 day interest rate..... it's the Reserve Bank letting people know where they think they might put the rates.
There was a recent speech specifically on the topic: http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/research-and...ch2016-02-04-1

But, I guess, it might be the case that the Treasury is miraculously good at making predictions. Let's have a look. You linked to the December 2008 forecasts which say:
2009: -0.6 billion
2010: -4.1 billion
2011: -6.0 billion
2012: -6.3 billion
2013: -6.3 billion

And you linked to this graph in the 2016 budget:


So how much were they off by? Well in 2009, the actual OBEGAL was around -4 billion, whereas the December 2008 prediction of it had it at -0.6 billion. So National apparently went into the red by 3.5 billion more than expected or ~600% more than expected. In general their year-by-year errors were:
2009: -3.5 billion error, -600% error
2010: -2 billion error, -50% error
2011: -18 billion error, -200% error
2012: -3 billion error, -50% error
2013: +2 billion error, +33% error

So National ended up doing a lot worse than they were predicting at the end of 2008... generally much worse. One of their worst errors of estimation was actually the year immediately following their predictions. That shows, I think, just how unreliable such predictions are.

Well there were few things that contributed to it, there was the billion dollar hole in ACC that Cullen hid in the ACC balance sheets. And that Cullen had spent all the surplus money that was supposedly being kept for a rainy day (remember his words were "we spent the lot")
But that doesn't change the fact that contrary to your initial claim that the deficits we have had are all because of National incompetence is false as they predicted to occur regardless of who was sitting on the treasury benches.

The February 2011 earthquake obviously decimated their budget plans for the year of 2011. But there's definitely a trend there of National generally doing a whole lot worse than anyone anticipated at getting into debt.

Yes, they borrowed to invest in building infrastructure to provide jobs at a time where jobs were disappearing fast thanks to the global meltdown.

If you want to defend their governance with the idea that everyone was basically expecting the country to go into some debt as a result of the 2008 global financial crisis, I don't have an issue with that. But the amount of debt they've ended up taking on was a lot more than anticipated. Is it just that Treasury was bad at forecasting the amount of debt that would accrue? Is it that National were bad at handling the economy? It's potentially hard to know which of them to blame.

The 2008 PREFU analysis specifically made mention of the fact that it was completed before the USA had announced their big round of bailouts and the Treasury Analysts were saying then that it would mean that it would be worse than their PREFU had predicted. This is why it was predicted by Treasury in December 2008 that it was possible that operating in deficit could become the status quo, again regardless of who was in power.


[QUOTE=Starlight;323762]But remember, Treasury's forecasts are supposed to be what will happen if the government doesn't change policies. Do you know what I would do if Treasury was telling me that there was a decade worth of deficits coming? Raise taxes. I would immediately ask them, "so how much do we need to raise taxes not to go into debt? 1% tax raise? 2%? 5%" and get them to come back to me with numbers. That's called managing the budget responsibly. So your implication that National was powerless to stop this happening, and that it was always going to happen, doesn't inspire any great confidence in their ability to handle the economy. It's like saying "well the driving instructor was telling me that if I didn't turn the wheel, I'd go into the ditch. So obviously the car went into the ditch. It's not my fault. They predicted it, and obviously the future was unstoppable." To their, slight, credit, National has actually discovered that raising taxes is actually a thing that can be done, and has raised GST (the worst type of tax to raise IMO).[/quote And there you and I will not be able to reach agreement. I think raising taxes should be a last point of call. If taxes were increased, I would probably end up loosing my house as would many others who are in similar situation.
They would have ended up with more people in need of government assistance.

But, overall, I don't buy the idea behind your argument that is basically "no, no, National's not a bad economic driver, because the car was aimed at the ditch when they took the wheel, and the driving instructor warned them of this and said if they didn't turn the wheel they'd go into the ditch, and thus their failure to turn the wheel in no way reflects badly on them." I think it does reflect badly on them. They had the power to enact policies so that they didn't go into so much debt, and they choose not to, that's on them. They also did stupid things like selling productive assets, which is also on them, but that's a whole other debate.

Your analogy is flawed in that it wasn't a case "the car is going to go into the ditch". The car had already driven into the ditch.
And again for the record one of the reason I voted for National was that I supported the partial privatisation of certain assets.

Um, it pretty much mostly is. While it would be ideal if the government provided the parties with enough money to run themselves well, it's not in National's interests to let that happen. Instead, they, as the party of the rich, prefer to get financial donations from wealthy supporters, which leads to inequality in funding between the parties because the parties that represent the interests of the less wealthy can't easily source as much money. Historically Labour was able to source a lot of money from unions, but the right-wing has pretty successfully eroded the union movement over time in NZ, leaving Labour with a relatively meager source of funds.

So your argument is "because National is popular amongst middle New Zealand it's their fault Labour is broke".

Let's be clear: Cranking up taxes to redistribute wealth makes everyone better off in the long run. Both the OECD and IMF have issued reports over the last couple of years that analyse the relationship between economic growth and income inequality across the world, and show that economic growth slows when inequality increases and speeds up when inequality decreases. The IMF quantifies the rate at which GDP is affected:

importantly, we find an inverse relationship between the income share accruing to the rich (top 20 percent) and economic growth. If the income share of the top 20 percent increases by 1 percentage point, GDP growth is actually 0.08 percentage point lower in the following five years, suggesting that the benefits do not trickle down. Instead, a similar increase in the income share of the bottom 20 percent (the poor) is associated with 0.38 percentage point higher growth.

The OECD found that New Zealand was the worst-hit developed nation by this effect, and that our growing inequality from 1990 to 2010 had knocked 15.5% off total GDP growth during that time. What they're saying is that the entire country would be 15.5% richer if we'd kept levels of income inequality the same from 1990 onwards, and hadn't let a wealth difference between rich and poor grow.


Basically, how it works is that if poor people don't have money, they can't buy stuff. And if they can't buy stuff, then businesses can't sell stuff to them. And if businesses aren't selling stuff, they make less money and employ less people. Whereas if poor people get more money, they start buying more products, so businesses are selling more products, so they employ more staff to meet the demand etc.

Personally I think this observation is one of the most important ever made in political policy, as it demonstrates the fundamental idea of right-wing/supply-side economics (to lower taxes in order to stimulate the economy) to be the opposite of true.

What that ignores is the simple thing that if you tax the top earners too much they will take their dollars elsewhere.
We see this in the billions of dollars that companies like Apple keep off shore from the US.

Additionally already in New Zealand nearly half of the households are not net tax payers (meaning they receive more in benefits than they pay in tax).

In 2011 43% of NZ households were net tax recipients: http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/pb/bu...%80%94fairness
And the top 10% households were providing 70% of income tax, net of transfers. As Bill English said, our tax system is already highly redistributive, and they've further tightened things
nettaxpaid.jpg


Anyhow, I need to bow out now as this is intruding on work time. If you want the last word go ahead, I will read it, but may not have the time to respond to it (If you don't want/have the time to post a reply, I will simply take it as you too have other time commitments)

[Starlight]

I think raising taxes should be a last point of call. If taxes were increased, I would probably end up loosing my house as would many others who are in similar situation.

That completely depends who the taxes are raised on, and by how much, and which tax it is that's raised.

So your argument is "because National is popular amongst middle New Zealand it's their fault Labour is broke".

LOL no. National is the party of the rich. The rich are happy to give them money because they get a return on investment. Labour, as the party of middle New Zealand, struggles for money by contrast.

What that ignores is the simple thing that if you tax the top earners too much they will take their dollars elsewhere.

While this would probably happen in an extreme situation, it doesn't seem to happen much in practice.

Additionally already in New Zealand nearly half of the households are not net tax payers (meaning they receive more in benefits than they pay in tax)....
As Bill English said, our tax system is already highly redistributive, and they've further tightened things

The huge increase in inequality that the OECD noted has occurred here since 1990 speaks for itself: Clearly however re-distributive the tax system currently is, it isn't close to re-distributive enough because inequality has gotten much worse over time.

[Starlight]

As Bill English said, our tax system is already highly redistributive

One further comment on this: Capital gains taxes.
A basic premise for me is that capital gains taxes need to always be at least as high as income taxes. Because there's no sane reason to have the middle class who work a 40+ hour week to get taxed at ~30%, while rich people who twiddle their thumbs and live on their capital gains pay 0% on their income. Why should money generated by effort be taxed but money generated by doing nothing not be? It's absurd.

So I find NZ's lack of a capital gains tax morally offensive. I also therefore think that anyone claiming our current taxation system is "highly redistributive" deserves nothing but endless mocking. If I were in charge, there'd be a capital gains tax installed on the first day, and a wealth tax installed in the first year, and GST would be abolished, and then you'd see a tax system that was actually "highly redistributive".

[JimL]

One further comment on this: Capital gains taxes.
A basic premise for me is that capital gains taxes need to always be at least as high as income taxes. Because there's no sane reason to have the middle class who work a 40+ hour week to get taxed at ~30%, while rich people who twiddle their thumbs and live on their capital gains pay 0% on their income. Why should money generated by effort be taxed but money generated by doing nothing not be? It's absurd.

So I find NZ's lack of a capital gains tax morally offensive. I also therefore think that anyone claiming our current taxation system is "highly redistributive" deserves nothing but endless mocking. If I were in charge, there'd be a capital gains tax installed on the first day, and a wealth tax installed in the first year, and GST would be abolished, and then you'd see a tax system that was actually "highly redistributive".

If wealth were distributed equitably in the first place, there would be much less need for redistribution in the form of progressive taxation, welfare, food stamps etc etc. Hence the movement to up the minimum wage. The minimum wage today should be somewhere in the $17 an hour range when compared to the 1960's. With the rise in inflation people are earning 1960 wages in 2016 while at the same time corporate profits are soaring. Redistrubution of wealth in the form of government assistance to the needy is really, in part, nothing more than a tax payor subsidy for the wealthy.

[JimL]

In other words, Jimmy has a 'quote' by some random politician that he can't remember his name, that made the claim to 'insure Romney's election', but of course in reality... not a single Republican won a single election specifically due to voter ID laws. Not a one, but who cares?

And you knows this to be true how?

Some random guy, out of hundreds of Republicans said what Jimmy wanted to hear, so it must be a secret ploy by the evil Republican's to prevent Jimmy's chosen leader from winning. I sure hope that made more sense in your head than when you said it out-loud.

Not some random guy lilpix, a leader in the Pennsylvania Republican party, the party that crafted the law. I think he understands better than you do the intent of the law.

Than you're welcome to explain a single one of these things I ended up getting wrong Jimmy, but we both know you can't because they are all true. I got them not just by reading sources on the right, but on the left too. Sanders really did not hold a job till his 40's. He really did write an essay where a women wanted to be raped by 3 men. His wife really did leave him because he refused to work. He also spent years and years blaming the 'rich' for his lack of money vs the fact he didn't have a steady job and refused to get a decent job to actually make some sort of wage. If any of these facts are wrong, I welcome you to correct them but I'm sure you know they are not false at all and are all true. A man, who didn't get a full time job till his 40's and spent his time blaming others for his failures is not a man we should have as our chief executive.

In other words you have no references, you made it up. You have no credibility lilpix, just a lot of hot air as usual.

My point isn't moot at all Jimmy because your type was the same ones acting as though Obama was going to fix everything.

No lilpix, thats just your usual thoughtless gibberish. No President is going to fix everything, he needs the support of the people and the cooperation of Congress. A President isn't a tyrant and executive action is limited.

8 Years later and still nothing, so the solution is obviously doubling down on the same failed policies because by golly, if we try them long enough and hard enough maybe they might end up working someday

That just goes to show your biased mind lilpix. Nothing? Nothing that you like perhaps, or nothing that you'd be willing to give him credit for maybe, but considering the purposeful obstructionism from the "do-nothing" republican Congress, he's done quite well.

I know you like assuming anybody who doesn't agree with you, doesn't listen to a word others say, but I actually do. I have listened to several of their speeches and have read several articles about them. Funny thing is that Obama was suppose to be our savior that was suppose to solve all of this corruption and supposed to do all these things 8 years ago. Are you saying that Obama was a failure that hasn't accomplished or come anywhere close to accomplishing what he set out to do? The question is a valid question Jimmy, why should I accept this savior as being the one that will solve all of these problems when the last one ended up failing so badly? Reality is that your previous messiah didn't save you and this one isn't going to either. As for his mission, it's pretty obvious, he wants to take a failed system, that has failed over and over again, and magically assume it will work if tried here in the US because by golly, if we try the same failure over and over again, it will magically work sooner or later instead of failing as it has failed country after country for the past 100 years.

Savior? Messiah? Your a nutcase Lilpix.

[Mountain Man]

If and when another world war breaks out or if and when it becomes clear that one might happen, then it's probably worth countries upping their military spending.

That's freakin' BRILLIANT! Do you have any clue whatsoever what it takes for a country to "gear up" for war?

He seems to think that countries fight wars like you would play a game of StarCraft. He really is clueless.

[JonathanL]

I don't get why CP amened MM's statement, I bet he doesn't even play StarCraft.

[Cow Poke]

I don't get why CP amened MM's statement, I bet he doesn't even play StarCraft.

I meant to report it.

[Mountain Man]

"You require more vespene gas!"

[JonathanL]

"You require more vespene gas!"

I'm going to be honest with you. I don't/didn't play StarCraft either.