So, how about that budget?

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#1309817 22-May-2015 11:47

pinkydot: the travel levy is just similar to the departure tax years ago before leave the country & have to pay the $25 dollar.
so now it's just pretty much they bring it back but just 3 dollar cheaper.

I was of the impression that this departure tax didn't disappear but eventually got collected by the airlines on behalf of the government when paying for your ticket, and is shown as part of the quoted price when you're booking.

I sincerely hope, and expect, that they'll do the same with this new levy. I don't much fancy queuing at forex booths and faffing about with little stickers again.

Did Eric Clapton really think she looked wonderful...or was it after the 15th outfit she tried on and he just wanted to get to the party and get a drink?

geekiegeek

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#1309822 22-May-2015 11:54

The problem is that we have a large class of people who have either limited to no education and are only suitable for menial tasks - cleaning, fast food selling, factory work etc. With this skill level you are destined to jobs that have no career path, are minimum wage and don't cater for older workers.

These are the people who are on welfare for long periods as there are not enough of these low to no skill jobs. The ones who are employed earn next to nothing.

The problem is that these same people due to their low education do not understand or comprehend the idea of family planning so are also most likely to have larger families.

= large numbers of children in poverty.

How do you fix this? Throwing money at these people is not the answer. The only thing that will break the cycle is education so that the next generation can have decent prospects in life. Maybe we set up government sponsored boarding schools where these kids can get away from the poverty and get a decent education.

frankv

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#1309845 22-May-2015 12:34

geekiegeek:
The problem is that these same people due to their low education do not understand or comprehend the idea of family planning so are also most likely to have larger families.

I think that's a bit condescending... I don't think there's many people who don't understand family planning. I do think that many people, particularly in the lower socio-economic, don't care much, because it won't make much difference for them. They're already in a crappy situation, have no hope of getting out of it, and another kid won't make things that much worse.

Regarding your comment about taking kids away from their parents to boarding schools... I don't like boarding schools... there's been far too many problems caused by them. Anyway, the best predictor of how well a kid does in school is how much his parents care about his education. I doubt that physically separating children from parents at school age will change that.

Geektastic

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#1309847 22-May-2015 12:38

frankv:
Geektastic: OTOH Singapore and Hong Kong, both tiny islands, seem to have managed to do quite well by basing their economies on international trade.

I vote that we move NZ to a suitable location to be a gateway to China.

You forget - it made most of it's money when it was a gateway to Britain rather than China!

Geektastic

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#1309849 22-May-2015 12:39

MikeB4:
Geektastic:
MikeB4:
Geektastic:
Yes. I agree.

The problem is that everyone thinks it is fine to earn $50k (or even less) and there seems to be very little aspiration to ensure that the next generation does better. As the saying goes, if you keep on doing the same thing do not expect different results.

The corollary of this is that 2% of taxpayers are paying almost 25% of the total tax take. Now, that is not fair by any measure and nor is it wise. That 2% is likely to be the best educated and most mobile (it includes my wife and I who have the legal right to live and work in at least 30 countries with no further visas or paperwork, for example). So, it is theoretically possible (and likely if taxes etc became less attractive) that the 2% (or a significant enough proportion thereof) that is paying the almost 25% could get up and leave. Even a quarter of that 2% leaving would have a significant effect on the NZ economy in terms of tax take.

A solid strategy for increasing the earnings of New Zealanders is required, which must be multi-pronged. Education is part - we need a literate and skilled workforce in disciplines that international employers require. We need to look at attracting more firms to be based here instead of Australia or wherever and one way of doing that is to look at how we tax them and ensure that if they come here and employ our citizens, they get rewarded for doing so instead of penalised and demonised.

The whole area of raising income so that the weight of paying taxes can be more evenly spread seems to be largely ignored.

However the big down side of this is the more your domestic incomes grow the less competitive your products become for export and then starts a downward spiral. Then of course we cannot attract overseas Corporations to set up here and we start a migration of local companies offshore seeking greater competitiveness. There are many examples of this in history.

OTOH Singapore and Hong Kong, both tiny islands, seem to have managed to do quite well by basing their economies on international trade.

I agree it is a balance but we need to do something to increase incomes rather than just keep patching holes by bunging taxpayer's money at them and hoping this time will be different...

But with more population in one street than we have total :P

My wife is in Hong Kong now on her way back from a conference in Beijing she says Hong Kong is a place with distinct two halves and does not like it.

I agree with that. I went both before and after 1997. It seems to me that it was a far more comfortable place before than after.

I think it would have been an ideal time to give HK independence rather than simply return a population who were no longer Chinese to China whether they wanted that or not.

Fred99

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#1309851 22-May-2015 12:49

geekiegeek: The problem is that we have a large class of people who have either limited to no education and are only suitable for menial tasks - cleaning, fast food selling, factory work etc. With this skill level you are destined to jobs that have no career path, are minimum wage and don't cater for older workers.

These are the people who are on welfare for long periods as there are not enough of these low to no skill jobs. The ones who are employed earn next to nothing.

The problem is that these same people due to their low education do not understand or comprehend the idea of family planning so are also most likely to have larger families.

= large numbers of children in poverty.

How do you fix this? Throwing money at these people is not the answer. The only thing that will break the cycle is education so that the next generation can have decent prospects in life. Maybe we set up government sponsored boarding schools where these kids can get away from the poverty and get a decent education.

Did you ever consider that you might fit the stereotype of people who stereotype other people to justify the answer they probably had in mind beforehand? All that's missing is an anecdote more suited to talkback radio.
It's not that simple - or it would have already been done (with the exception of taking children from their parents to "save their souls", which has been done in the past but that practice abandoned in every civilised nation on the planet).
Not underestimating the value of education, but there are more fundamental issues here. At some future time you'll possibly need someone being paid minimum wage to change your incontinence undies in a rest home, and if you're sufficiently compos mentis at that future time to understand what's going on, might realise then that your past perceptions of "class", "menial", "hard work", "fairness", and "value" had some serious flaws.

Satch

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#1309857 22-May-2015 13:01

MikeB4: Irrespective of the $1000 startup going people should still start retirement saving at the earliest time. Using the startup going as an excuse not to is a huge mistake.

You missed the point completely. Having an incentive for people to save is a positive thing, especially for those who don't see a need or are sitting on the fence. By removing this incentive you are only going to make some people think it is no longer worth it regardless of the fact that it still is. There is at least one example of this on this very thread.

The less that people save the more it is going to cost the country in the long run.

Hopefully you get the point now.

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Fred99

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#1309858 22-May-2015 13:02

frankv:

Anyway, the best predictor of how well a kid does in school is how much his parents care about his education.

Not sure about that... Trying to actually survey something like that would be heaps of fun.
AFAIK the best predictor of how well a kid does in the education system is household income. Pretty simple really.
Without some balance applied, in a meritocratic society there are two inevitable consequences - cycles of poverty, and cycles of wealth.

MikeB4

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#1309859 22-May-2015 13:08

Satch:
MikeB4: Irrespective of the $1000 startup going people should still start retirement saving at the earliest time. Using the startup going as an excuse not to is a huge mistake.

You missed the point completely. Having an incentive for people to save is a positive thing, especially for those who don't see a need or are sitting on the fence. By removing this incentive you are only going to make some people think it is no longer worth it regardless of the fact that it still is. There is at least one example of this on this very thread.

The less that people save the more it is going to cost the country in the long run.

Hopefully you get the point now.

I didn't miss any point, the point I was making is that in order to help those in need some things needed to be sacrificed. When the fiscal balance is neutral or positive things like $1,000 incentives can be made, this is not currently the case.

As for incentive to do long term savings and retirement savings, the only incentive really needed is the need to provide for oneself and to provision for a more comfortable twilight years and not to delay until some handout from the Government
coffers.

Satch

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#1309861 22-May-2015 13:10

MikeB4:
Satch:
MikeB4: Irrespective of the $1000 startup going people should still start retirement saving at the earliest time. Using the startup going as an excuse not to is a huge mistake.

You missed the point completely. Having an incentive for people to save is a positive thing, especially for those who don't see a need or are sitting on the fence. By removing this incentive you are only going to make some people think it is no longer worth it regardless of the fact that it still is. There is at least one example of this on this very thread.

The less that people save the more it is going to cost the country in the long run.

Hopefully you get the point now.

I didn't miss any point, the point I was making is that in order to help those in need some things needed to be sacrificed. When the fiscal balance is neutral or positive things like $1,000 incentives can be made, this is not currently the case.

As for incentive to do long term savings and retirement savings, the only incentive really needed is the need to provide for oneself and to provision for a more comfortable twilight years and not to delay until some handout from the Government
coffers.

Yawn.

shk292

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#1309863 22-May-2015 13:11

Fred99:
AFAIK the best predictor of how well a kid does in the education system is household income. Pretty simple really.
.

But is household income the causal factor, or is it having parents who have the intelligence and attitude to generate that income? Put another way, if I take a poor family with wastrel parents who never tried at school and are therefore uneducated and on benefit or a minimum wage, and then pay them say $100k per year for doing nothing, would their kids magically start doing really well at school? I doubt it very much.

Very convenient for the socialists to believe that redistribution of wealth would solve all society's problems though

Fred99

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#1309909 22-May-2015 13:56

shk292:
Fred99:
AFAIK the best predictor of how well a kid does in the education system is household income. Pretty simple really.
.

But is household income the causal factor, or is it having parents who have the intelligence and attitude to generate that income?

Intelligence (as a genetically heritable trait) has been more-or-less ruled out as being significant compared to the correlation between household wealth and achievement of children.
Then of course there's only a loose correlation between intelligence and wealth, and the correlation between intelligence and academic success isn't cast in stone.

shk292:

Put another way, if I take a poor family with wastrel parents who never tried at school and are therefore uneducated and on benefit or a minimum wage, and then pay them say $100k per year for doing nothing, would their kids magically start doing really well at school? I doubt it very much.

Very convenient for the socialists to believe that redistribution of wealth would solve all society's problems though

Congrats. You just won staw-man of the day award for that effort.

sen8or

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#1309911 22-May-2015 13:57

There are still strong incentives to join Kiwisaver -

Government contributions up to $ 500 odd per year provided at least $1000 has been invested in the scheme plus Employer contributions (3%?).

Both of these are bonuses over and above any returns you may receive on the investment.

Looking at my own (which I am not a top tier tax bracket earner) -

Started contributing in July 2014 when I stopped being self-employed.
For the 9 months to March I contributed about $1200 or so in deductions
The balance on my Kiwisaver was circa $3400.

Even If I take out the $1000 kick start, that leaves $ 2400, of which I only put in 1/2 of that, a 100% return on "my funds".

How is that not an incentive to join the scheme?

If you want to get ahead, you have to make sacrifices, wealth and success (for most) just simply aren't handed to you on a platter.

Fred99

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#1309915 22-May-2015 14:05

shk292:
Fred99:
shk292:
Fred99:
AFAIK the best predictor of how well a kid does in the education system is household income. Pretty simple really.
.

But is household income the causal factor, or is it having parents who have the intelligence and attitude to generate that income?

Intelligence (as a genetically heritable trait) has been more-or-less ruled out as being significant compared to the correlation between household wealth and achievement of children.
Then of course there's only a loose correlation between intelligence and wealth, and the correlation between intelligence and academic success isn't cast in stone.

shk292:

Put another way, if I take a poor family with wastrel parents who never tried at school and are therefore uneducated and on benefit or a minimum wage, and then pay them say $100k per year for doing nothing, would their kids magically start doing really well at school? I doubt it very much.

Very convenient for the socialists to believe that redistribution of wealth would solve all society's problems though

Congrats. You just won staw-man of the day award for that effort.

And congrats back, you just won patronising git of the week

If you don't know what a straw-man argument is, please google it and then hopefully you might return and apologise, if you have any decency.
Not my problem if you found that patronising. If you don't want to google it, and would like me to tear your misanthropic non-argument to shreds, I'll do so - but I'd have hoped that it should be obvious.
Ironic that you used the term "uneducated" as one of your key points.

shk292

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#1309924 22-May-2015 14:14

Fred99:
If you don't know what a straw-man argument is, please google it and then hopefully you might return and apologise, if you have any decency.
Not my problem if you found that patronising. If you don't want to google it, and would like me to tear your misanthropic non-argument to shreds, I'll do so - but I'd have hoped that it should be obvious.
Ironic that you used the term "uneducated" as one of your key points.

My, we are sensitive today.

I'm quite aware of the meaning of a strawman, thank you. What I found patronising was your implication that this term applies to my valid argument against your assertion that income is a causal indicator of academic success. My "thought experiment", or "strawman" as those of a closed mind tend to call such a device, aimed to indicate that income might in fact be a symptom of other factors which in themselves are more likely to be the causal factors of academic success. If you're too wrapped up in socialist dogma to accept this as a valid point of view, then that doesn't make me uneducated or my arguments less valid.

And I fail to see the irony, for which I do apologise

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