Vote Compass - which party are you most closely aligned with?

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MikeAqua

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#2566916 17-Sep-2020 15:52

GV27:

Selling the same 2 million homes to each other at ever escalating prices is the plan. Regardless of who you vote for, they stick with it.

I'm not sure its a plan so much as path dependency and/or something no politician with a sense of a self-preservation would touch with a 20 foot pole.

Mike

GV27

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#2567076 17-Sep-2020 17:54

MikeAqua:

GV27:

Selling the same 2 million homes to each other at ever escalating prices is the plan. Regardless of who you vote for, they stick with it.

I'm not sure its a plan so much as path dependency and/or something no politician with a sense of a self-preservation would touch with a 20 foot pole.

Yup, same with Super and the retirement age. So who you should vote for becomes less about policy and who is more likely to follow through with it once actually in power.

On current form:..... maybe ACT? NZ First has been effective for their donors, so props to them. But everyone else has backpedalled on at least one major policy (in some party's cases, most of them).

MikeAqua

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#2567483 18-Sep-2020 13:45

GV27:

So who you should vote for becomes less about policy and who is more likely to follow through with it once actually in power.

What I would like to see (unrealistic pipe dream) is a Labour-National coalition for say two terms that sets consensus policy on all those important issues that become political footballs - climate, super, housing, taxation, resource management act. Get some stability into those areas.

I know it won't happen. The last grand-coalition was in the 1940's - for obvious reasons.

Mike

antonknee

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#2573323 24-Sep-2020 10:49

MikeAqua:

GV27:

So who you should vote for becomes less about policy and who is more likely to follow through with it once actually in power.

What I would like to see (unrealistic pipe dream) is a Labour-National coalition for say two terms that sets consensus policy on all those important issues that become political footballs - climate, super, housing, taxation, resource management act. Get some stability into those areas.

I know it won't happen. The last grand-coalition was in the 1940's - for obvious reasons.

Stability is not always a good thing though, is it? Eg on climate I'd argue stability (the status quo) is the last thing we need - change at scale is what is actually needed globally.

Labour and National may as well be the same party though in a lot of respects.

arcon

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#2573462 24-Sep-2020 12:45

MikeAqua:

No modern system of govt I'm aware of has removed inequality. Uneven distribution seem to be a fundamental aspect of human activity (the so called "90/10" rule e.g. 10% of authors make 90% of sales).

It seems the best that can be done is: -
- Redistribute income, which moderates inequality somewhat (ask a Swede/German how they feel about their top tax rate); and
- Have wrap around social services in place to mitigate the harms caused by inequality (you need to have the per capita income to fund this).

So what you need is a society knee deep in cash, where med-high income earners will tolerate eye-watering tax rates, to support zero - low income earners

Germany may be similar to Sweden in rich taxes but has double the poverty rate per capita - interestingly it is also much worse than the US (as is NZ) where they basically give the rich a free ride and poverty has been decreasing. So basically taxes alone are a small part of the inequality equation. Just my opinion, but a country that keeps denying they're a capitalist nation and goes too hard into social policy that is probably unsustainable in future decades is heading for an economic meltdown.

It blows my mind that some people have bought into this crap that taxing the rich an extra 2% or whatever it is will somehow help towards inequality. Like speculating in housing won't get worse. Its sort of true what's been said about political self-preservation when approaching housing, but it kinda depends how the policy is sold - there are a lot of dumb people out there lol.

GSManiac

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#2583714 13-Oct-2020 16:17

I’ve always voted Green but I constantly get told when doing these quizzes that I should be voting for NZ First.

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Fred99

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#2584090 14-Oct-2020 08:51

arcon:

Germany may be similar to Sweden in rich taxes but has double the poverty rate per capita - interestingly it is also much worse than the US (as is NZ) where they basically give the rich a free ride and poverty has been decreasing. So basically taxes alone are a small part of the inequality equation. Just my opinion, but a country that keeps denying they're a capitalist nation and goes too hard into social policy that is probably unsustainable in future decades is heading for an economic meltdown.

I don't believe that. It's not supported by any data I've seen which have Sweden and Germany poverty rate "about the same".

Anyway, I don't think anybody expects that the "relative poverty" rate and "absolute poverty rate" are very good measures, better I think to use some other measures, a health stat, access to education stat, housing, etc.

As for the intermediate term future sparked by the GFC and given a further massive boost from C19, I think the artificially low interest rates are going to have a big impact on wealth inequality.
There's no reward for saving, only "investing", whether those investments are "bubbles", then nobody knows - only if they crash - then you'll know for sure. Effectively, the relative value of money is reduced, as a major (often the major) cost of living keeps going up. This doesn't affect "the wealthy", as the increase in asset prices outpaces the overall fall in the "value of money".

GV27

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#2584138 14-Oct-2020 10:08

Fred99:

As for the intermediate term future sparked by the GFC and given a further massive boost from C19, I think the artificially low interest rates are going to have a big impact on wealth inequality.
There's no reward for saving, only "investing", whether those investments are "bubbles", then nobody knows - only if they crash - then you'll know for sure. Effectively, the relative value of money is reduced, as a major (often the major) cost of living keeps going up. This doesn't affect "the wealthy", as the increase in asset prices outpaces the overall fall in the "value of money".

There's a trap in there in the form of pressure to open up for 'skilled' labour - we aren't very good at paying anyone well in this country and skilled workers are no exception. Wages might have kept pace with inflation but inflation very deliberately leaves out some costs which have increased far quicker than those captured by the CPI. So while you might be feeling great about your house rising in value, your ability to service the debt can actually be moving backwards. It might not be obvious as interest rates drop, but if you go to sell or you come off fixed, it will be a different story when things start going the other way.

Very easy to get swept up in bubbles, but if you're buying and selling in the same market and prices are rising faster than your income, you're effectively stuck, or more likely going backwards.

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