This is a fantastic idea

[heisenberg]

Just what the next labour government needs  their coalition partner wanting to stick it to the rich pricks


https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/3606058...itics-blog

[Oh_hunnihunni]

As opposed to making the workers pay more tax than the rich pricks?

Yup, I think that is a great idea. But you knew I would, didn't you? Now, about the cgt...

[Praktica]

Just what the next labour government needs  their coalition partner wanting to stick it to the rich pricks


https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/3606058...itics-blog

Yeah - let's eat the rich...

[Oh_hunnihunni]

The actual figures though indicate the very few who would qualify as rich wouldn't even notice the tax take. Unlike most of the rest who live pay cheque to pay cheque. And the tax take would help provide things like reducing homelessness, managing the effects of climate change, improving services, reducing pay equity barriers...

When rich people are calling for tax reforms that do cost them more we need to pay attention.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/group-of-r...QDNFHHF7I/

[heisenberg]

As opposed to making the workers pay more tax than the rich pricks?

Yup, I think that is a great idea. But you knew I would, didn't you? Now, about the cgt...

CGT

thats a great idea as well, get those greedy property investors and those wealthy tax dodgers making money in the share market, pity that will include anyone with a kiwisaver
how long before some grifting politicians decide to chuck the family home into the mix and grandma's jewellery and that classic car that grandad owned thats now worth 80k and lets bring in a inheritance tax because how dare someone work hard all their lives and leave something to their children 
the government already gets enough tax its how they spend it or in labours case piss it away

Only a fool would want more taxes....or someone who’s spent their lives with their hands out

[king1]

As opposed to making the workers pay more tax than the rich pricks?

Yup, I think that is a great idea. But you knew I would, didn't you? Now, about the cgt...

CGT

thats a great idea as well, get those greedy property investors and those wealthy tax dodgers making money in the share market, pity that will include anyone with a kiwisaver
how long before some grifting politicians decide to chuck the family home into the mix and grandma's jewellery and that classic car that grandad owned thats now worth 80k and lets bring in a inheritance tax because how dare someone work hard all their lives and leave something to their children 
the government already gets enough tax its how they spend it or in labours case piss it away

Only a fool would want more taxes....or someone who’s spent their lives with their hands out

focusing on saving money is like flogging a dead horse, or getting blood out of stone.  The system doesn't have enough money to pay for the services society needs, eg healthcare, education, basic stuff like that...

It's a zero sum game so govt either needs to cut services or increase revenue...

[Oh_hunnihunni]

As opposed to making the workers pay more tax than the rich pricks?

Yup, I think that is a great idea. But you knew I would, didn't you? Now, about the cgt...

CGT

thats a great idea as well, get those greedy property investors and those wealthy tax dodgers making money in the share market, pity that will include anyone with a kiwisaver
how long before some grifting politicians decide to chuck the family home into the mix and grandma's jewellery and that classic car that grandad owned thats now worth 80k and lets bring in a inheritance tax because how dare someone work hard all their lives and leave something to their children 
the government already gets enough tax its how they spend it or in labours case piss it away

Only a fool would want more taxes....or someone who’s spent their lives with their hands out

More adjectives... an argument is immediately lost as soon as the aggressive insults appear. 

Most great wealth is in some way intergenerational rather than earned, and usually accumulated without fair taxation. So how is that fair when most people manage to work hard, support themselves and their families without evading or avoiding their social responsibility or inheriting a nice chunk from Mum'n Dad? I can't help thinking of that meme about the ape hoarding bananas while its fellows go hungry v the man with his super yacht. One we'd say had mental health issues while the other would go on the cover of Time magazine... It's a sickness, this drive to build excessive wealth, as much as any other human drive that gets out of control, and just as socially poisonous.

As for blaming governments, we elect them. So who is really responsible? Trump, for example or those who put him there?

[dken31]

It is absolutely the "slightly above average" that will suffer the most from policies like those proposed by the Greens. They are the ones with either decent incomes, but also big mortgages, or (if they're older) mortgage-free expensive-ish homes but not huge incomes. In both cases, what the Greens propose would likely force them to have to sell in a market where plenty of others would be forced to do the same, resulting in an an over-supply. This won't lower the values enough for the average home-buyer to buy these houses, but it will provide plenty of cheap houses for the uber-wealthy to buy cheaply resulting in yet further consolidation of wealth amongst the few.

Meanwhile, yes, the government will perhaps temporarily increase their tax take, but it won't make a meaningful difference to the services they're able to provide. And, based on evidence from other western countries doing similar, it will likely reduce tax take over time due to wiping out a big chunk of the upper-middle class and chasing away a big chunk of the super wealthy.

[dken31]

The real issue at the heart of so many of NZ's current challenges is high immigration, with the whole "diversity is our strength" slogan having been debunked by essentially every single serious study on the matter, to the point that any politician still trumpeting that line is just an outright liar (private individuals are most likely just severely misinformed).

The super wealthy love high immigration, because it suppresses wage growth by providing a steady stream of cheap labour. For the average worker though, high immigration means their wages stay low, and productivity stagnates because the ready supply of cheap labour removes the need to focus on technological development which would otherwise be needed in order to boost output per employee.

Politicians love high immigration because it boosts total GDP, which is the accepted measure of an economy's "growth", with far too little focus on the fact that GDP per capita is actually falling. The Philippines' GDP is almost twice that of NZ however NZ's GDP per capita is almost 13x the Philippines. Our government's seemingly sole focus on total GDP growth, instead of per capita growth, is based on the same logic that would argue that the Philippines is a more wealthy country than NZ.

Also, despite immigration being touted as necessary to plug labour gaps, the evidence actually shows that although it provides temporary solutions (which largely benefit big corporations/the super wealth), it actually exacerbates labour shortages in the long-run. All in all, it is basically a short term bandaid that papers over bigger issues, and thus allow those problems to grow bigger and bigger.

Additionally, the evidence shows that high immigration creates a fragmented society with reduced social cohesion/trust. It is strongly correlated with a reduction in both financial charitable giving and volunteerism (i.e. donating time), and it also results in a reduction in political engagement.

If you're concerned about the growing divide between the super rich and the "average" Kiwi, along with the over-burdening of our healthcare system, under-funding of education, general reduction in quality/availability of publicly funded services etc., the super high levels of immigration over the past 30-ish years is undeniably the main cause. Far more so than "greedy rich people" or an "unfair" tax system.

[zqwerty]

"greedy rich people" are running the country they are causing the problems by being the government and at the same time not governing the country just allowing the sacred "market place" to do what it does, take money from the poor and give it to the already rich, how do you think it's got to this point in the first place.

Also allowing immigration whenever they choose to increase rents on the houses the rich own as landlords and keep wages down.

Corporations are a shield for the rich to hide behind and scam even more money.

[Lilith7]

Perhaps what's needed is both a floor & a ceiling on wealth...

[Oh_hunnihunni]

Most wealth taxes have a starting point, that most normal people would define as Lucky Lucky Bastards...

How much is enough?

---

The real issue at the heart of so many of NZ's current challenges is high immigration, with the whole "diversity is our strength" slogan having been debunked by essentially every single serious study on the matter, to the point that any politician still trumpeting that line is just an outright liar  (private individuals are most likely just severely misinformed).

The super wealthy love high immigration, because it suppresses wage growth by providing a steady stream of cheap labour.  For the average worker though, high immigration means their wages stay low, and productivity stagnates because the ready supply of cheap labour removes the need to focus on technological development which would otherwise be needed in order to boost output per employee.

Politicians love high immigration because it boosts total GDP, which is the accepted measure of an economy's "growth", with far too little focus on the fact that GDP per capita is actually falling.  The Philippines' GDP is almost twice that of NZ however NZ's GDP per capita is almost 13x the Philippines.  Our government's seemingly sole focus on total GDP growth, instead of per capita growth, is based on the same logic that would argue that the Philippines is a more wealthy country than NZ.

Also, despite immigration being touted as necessary to plug labour gaps, the evidence actually shows that although it provides temporary solutions (which largely benefit big corporations/the super wealth), it actually exacerbates labour shortages in the long-run.  All in all, it is basically a short term bandaid that papers over bigger issues, and thus allow those problems to grow bigger and bigger.

Additionally, the evidence shows that high immigration creates a fragmented society with reduced social cohesion/trust.  It is strongly correlated with a reduction in both financial charitable giving and volunteerism (i.e. donating time), and it also results in a reduction in political engagement.

If you're concerned about the growing divide between the super rich and the "average" Kiwi, along with the over-burdening of our healthcare system, under-funding of education, general reduction in quality/availability of publicly funded services etc., the super high levels of immigration over the past 30-ish years is undeniably the main cause.  Far more so than "greedy rich people" or an "unfair" tax system.

Thing is, we need immigration. To fill the jobs we don't want to do, to fill the houses we don't want to live in, and to have the babies we don't want to have.

It really is about ourselves. Something we are very reluctant to come to terms with...

[dken31]

Thing is, we need immigration. To fill the jobs we don't want to do, to fill the houses we don't want to live in, and to have the babies we don't want to have.

It really is about ourselves. Something we are very reluctant to come to terms with...

Politicians tell us we need immigration for those reasons, and they get away with their claims because it often does "fix" those problems in the very short term, however it mostly makes things worse in the long run.

With regard to jobs, if a fresh batch of immigrants wasn't always available, employers would be forced to offer more and they'd also have to invest in better technology to enable their employees to be more productive.  Also, a larger population requires more services, so if we're constantly importing immigrants to serve the population we have, that increases the population, so we then need more immigrants to serve the additional population, which increases the population which means that we need more immigrants...

As to housing, last time I checked, the problem was not enough housing rather than not enough potential occupants (saying we need immigrants to fill our houses makes it sound like you're feeling sorry for landlords who aren't able to charge as much as they'd like to which I'm very confident isn't your view on the matter).  Immigration has placed huge pressures on our housing supply, and is absolutely the number reason NZ house prices are so expensive: "greedy property investors" are only able to sell for big profits because more and more people are competing for housing.  We're told that we need immigrants to help build the new houses we need, but, just like my previous point, more immigrants need more houses, so importing them to build the houses we need means we need more house built...

Having babies we don't want to have: yes, birth rates were declining prior to the onset of mass immigration, however mass immigration has made it a lot worse.  So many people of child-bearing age these days are choosing to delay and limit the number of kids they have, or not have kids at all, due to housing/general cost of living affordability issues, with mass immigration being one of the prime reasons for those cost increases.

In closing, I'm not against all immigration, however it should be massively reduced and waaaay more targeted.  E.g. if we have a shortage of doctors, import overseas doctors, but import doctors that will actually be able to work here as a doctor, rather than someone whose overseas training isn't recognised here and they're realistically never going to be able to complete the necessary retraining, so will end up just driving a taxi or doing manual labour.  Don't allow thousands of "students" into do bogus "business studies" diplomas, who then qualify for residency after being here for several years.  And the thing is, I know really lovely immigrants who got in via both of those two routes, so it isn't that I just "hate foreigners".  It is just that we're all (except for the elite) paying the price for the mass immigration, and that price is increased time on waiting lists, more traffic, higher prices, stagnated wage growth etc.

[Lilith7]

South Korea's falling birthrate should be a warning for the world.

https://www.salzburgglobal.org/news/late...-the-world

[Oh_hunnihunni]

Worse for who?

We had this pensioner village painted a few years back, by a contractor with a team of new immigrants, Muslims who were the most respectful, lovely men we've ever had working in our village. The two I had most to do with were highly educated, one had a Masters degree in psychology, the other had been a senior lab tech. They were living in a shared rental in South Auckland owned by their employer, four men to a bedroom, shared meals, and were locked into working with that employer by their visa requirements.

And they were grateful.

We could do so much better for these people. We need to learn to share. We need to learn a lot of things...

---

South Korea's falling birthrate should be a  warning for the world.

https://www.salzburgglobal.org/news/late...-the-world

That's the trouble with educating women. With providing them with the ability to earn a decent living, to be independent, to have equality and the power to choose to build themselves a good future.

They choose not to have many children.

As opposed to women with fewer options, who need to have children to provide the family with more human resources, with a future...

[C_T_Russell]

That's about the only thing I can agree with coming out of chippys mouth.

[heisenberg]

Also allowing immigration whenever they choose to increase rents on the houses the rich own as landlords and keep wages down.

a fair percentage of landlords are ma n pa investors trying to build up a nest egg for their retirements and most rentals don’t cover their costs