labour gave 8 million taxpayer dollars to a rugby team

[harm_less]

Hmmmm, fewer as each day passes.

Indeed and as every new 'event' that Trump dreams up the US (and the world) gets increasingly nervous. Spoke to a trade customer of ours recently whose previously busy international (not only US bound) sales have fallen off a cliff in the past month. Internet interactions have also throttled back significantly as, I suspect, web surfing becomes just too challenging for many as the bad news just keeps on ramping up.

We are seeing this in our own NZ-centric trade but the extent that the same thing is happening internationally was an eye-opener. It's going to take a total sea change in geopolitics to kick start economic activity worldwide.

[SueDonim]

https://www.reddit.com/r/rugbyunion/comm...tain_amid/



imagine how many old ladys could have had their hips/knees fixed for 8 million

Not nearly as many as could have been provided by the tax breaks given to landlords

There were never any tax breaks for landlords. There was a huge tax burden placed on them when interest no longer qualified as a taxable expense. We'll never know how many were pushed out of the business because of that and at least it has been reversed and the business is now back on a level playing field in that area.

[Praktica]

Not nearly as many as could have been provided by the tax breaks given to landlords

There were never any tax breaks for landlords. There was a huge tax burden placed on them when interest no longer qualified as a taxable expense. We'll never know how many were pushed out of the business because of that and at least it has been reversed and the business is now back on a level playing field in that area.

How many businesses had expectation of a large capital gain when they sold their "business assets"? My heart bleeds for the landlords who were pushed out...perhaps the houses they sold went to those looking to buy to live in them...

[king1]

I believe the whole point of it was to disincentivise investment property ownership to free up properties for first home buyers, so from that point of view the policy had the outcome required...