Posts by Moz
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Hard News: Superannuation: Back to the Future, in reply to Stephen R,
arguments against means-testing; One, there'll be a cohort of people who are going to spend time and effort figuring out how to hide their assets ... Two, the administrative costs
Those are entirely valid arguments, but I suspect you have forgotten that you are talking about the income tax system. The problems you identify are not new. So the question is not "are there reasons not to have one" but is "where would the government get money if we don't tax income?"
Or are you suggesting that once people are eligible for super they should be exempt from income tax?
I suggest that super should count as income, and retirees should pay income tax. It would also be good if their inheritors paid income tax on any inheritance. Aotearoa also desperately needs to reform its trust system to make it less of a tax dodge, while I'm on the subject of taxes.
Also, amused at linger talking about NZ's paying tax while living in Tokyo... it only counts for NZ super if you're paying it to the NZ government, linger.
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I wonder if this is driven by the portaloo company? They have spotted a way to rent out more portaloos by gender segregating them, possibly driven by women like Susan (who should definitely not look at the toilet walls or probably ceilings either). Viz, there's some demand from end users, a marketing niche for the supplier, and in between is the cricket ground.
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Was the pink toilet thing in response to some kind of problems? Or is it really the apparent problem of imaginary trans* people doing something somehow near cis people.
I have to admit my first reaction was that with fewer women than men at the cricket and the same number of toilets for each the queue for the womens might actually be shorter than the mens. But if they're under-supplying the womens toilets that's just stupid. I'm mildly surprised it hasn't turned into the usual "womens and anyones" toilets, the way so many university drinking event toilets did. That queue of women behind the urinals leading to the stalls sticks in my memory.
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Access: Privacy and the right to consent…, in reply to Lynn Yum,
“Privacy is freedom”
In that case we're screwed, because the tools to eliminate privacy are becoming cheap and readily available, and there's not even a theoretical mechanism to prevent that. Viz, currently only a few rich governments can eliminate privacy and then only for a subset of their subjects, but the technology for doing that wholesale is becoming available and the system that is doing that doesn't have a visible endpoint. What used to be nigh on impossible, say tracking and eavesdropping a cellphone, has become first possible, then mobile, then commercially available using a briefcase-sized device, and currently there are rumours that a phone-book sized version for under $50000 exists. Likewise security cameras, which are already common but largely un-watched, but people are working very hard to build AI's that will watch all of them all the time. Many organisations already keep all the footage waiting for the day when they can analyse it.
A much better approach, IMO, is to decide how people can live without privacy and what the penalties should be for people who use private information. Much like cops who access the police database illegally now... is that what we want, that every now and then a scapegoat is chosen and reprimanded for something everyone does?
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Access: Privacy and the right to consent…, in reply to Sacha,
I think you'll find that Paula Bennett et al believe in payback in the shortest possible time - I believe that if she can get a hostile press release out the same day someone criticises her she'll do it.
If the difference between services that share information and services that don't is so subtle it takes more than a year to see the difference I'm not sure the cost of information sharing is worth it. Especially since the cost is borne by the poorest. I think that if they did perform the experiment they'd find the "keep client information confidential" services would help an awful lot more people than the "anything you tell us goes to the ministry poste haste" ones.
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I keep coming back to the idea that consent is only meaningful if it can be withheld.
The whole idea that someone in a desperate situation can just say "nah, not today" to help is ridiculous. Surely our market-worshipping overlords will put their theory to the test by a controlled trial where half the services demand private information as the price of help, and a similar set of services don't. After a year all services switch to the more effective choice. Isn't that how it works?
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Given what's happened in Australia recently: https://bluemilk.wordpress.com/2017/02/26/is-this-what-happens-when-you-criticise-government/ and of course the Paula Bennett cases, I think the question is less "what would a friendly government want that information for" and more "what would a hostile minister do with it".
The difference is that in Australia the Minister argued that he had the right to release the personal information for the purpose of hurting the victim, rather than Bennett agreeing that it was wrong but doing it anyway.
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Hard News: Drugs, testing and workplaces, in reply to william blake,
If sanctionable drug detection tests on job seekers produce such sparkling results why not institute sanctionable
... drug tests on politicians? If you can't pick fruit while stoned, legislating while high should be utterly beyond the pale. Although that might explain some of the f*ups we see coming from that house.
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Hard News: Drugs, testing and workplaces, in reply to Farmer Green,
We have never looked for employees: they come to us.
That is common, and it's also why job ads are mostly for shitty jobs.
When I used to "exploit recent immigrants" in a slightly different context it was telling that whenever someone came to me to apologise for having found a better job they had someone else lined up to replace them. Often quite literally... they'd walk in "this is Emmanuel, he just came from Iran, I will train him to do my job"... so I guess you're leaving, then?
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Hard News: Drugs, testing and workplaces, in reply to Farmer Green,
it seems like a gross generalisation to me.
You're right. Let me re-phrase: that particular dairy farmer who could only attract the truly desperate and didn't like it is an arsehole. He should offer higher wages and/or better conditions, that's how a market works.
As far as casual work goes, I am very well aware of that having been on both sides of the deal for extended periods (I grew up on an orchard). Even back in the 1980's we had seasonal staff who would come back every year because we paid enough that it was worth them doing that. We had "competing" employers who paid significantly less, for shorter periods and usually worse conditions. They found it much harder to attract reliable staff and used to whine just like the employers quoted about the staff they got. It's not new.
Being a reliable employee is worth a premium, and if that isn't offered the reliable staff will find better jobs if they exist. The bottom-feeders are left with the whip being their only tool and it's a poor tool.
Drug testing shouldn't be necessary, good employers will have decent team leaders who will know when an employee is impaired and deal with that appropriately. It doesn't matter whether the person is sick, emotionally wrecked, injured or drugged (legally or otherwise). If they can't do their job their supervisor should notice and react. This is "how to employ staff for dummies" stuff.