Posts by Matthew Poole
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What should happen to the couple of hundred thousand people receiving a benefit? They should get work instead.
More people in the workforce means more employment positions.
You've got it all arse-about-face there Grant. "Employment positions" don't miraculously appear just because people need jobs. If I wave my notional magic wand and suddenly a million employable, willing workers appear before me I haven't, with the same wave of my notional wand, created a million new "employment positions". What I've done is added a million new job-seekers to the workforce, all of whom will be competing with a) those who were already in the workforce and looking for a job (either due to unemployment or due to a desire to leave their current employ), and b) each other. Not even John "Jesus of the Right" Key can change that basic reality.
The concept of structural unemployment isn't just an economists' trick to pull the wool over the eyes of those outside the cabal. It's actually impossible to achieve true full employment. There will always be people who are out of work. Some will be out of work by choice, either because they're taking a break between jobs (I spent three months holidaying one summer after leaving a particularly awful role, before signing up for temp work when I got down to $17 in my bank account) or because they work in a seasonal industry and can manage their money between seasons. Others will have lost their last job (fired or laid-off, it doesn't matter) and are in the process of finding a new job. Some will have been rendered incapable of doing their previous work (injury, illness, whatever) and are getting back into an employable state or are looking for a new line of work. Those are all valid reasons to be unemployed, but only some of them qualify as unemployed for statistical purposes - HLFS requires that a person be within the required age-range, and actively looking for a job, to be counted as unemployed. Only a very, very few of them will actually create a new position simply by reason of their existence. I've had that happen once, where my skills were desirable but there was no current vacancy so a new position was established. If they cannot find a position they remain unemployed, no matter how much they may wish to work. Structural unemployment doesn't just look at the "statistically unemployed", though, it looks at everyone who's able to work but currently isn't.
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And by technically illiterate, I dont mean that in practice he can't read.
That's functional illiteracy, so you were fine without the clarification :)
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Actually, if you're on a benefit and working part time, that part-time income is taxed at a secondary rate.
Really? That's bizarre, given that benefits aren't taxed.
Add to that having a student loan, and things get real interesting real fast.
Indeed. Though you're going to be seeing a lot of benefit abatement by the time you cross the repayment threshold anyway.
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Russia, China, the US and the EU. Four quickly equalising pillars with different philosophies and politics.
A situation caused largely by America's foreign policy decisions.Don't forget India, either. They're not quite as militaristic as the others, but they'll get there. They have nukes, too, and having a nine-figure population is all kinds of quantitative power of its own.
In a lot of ways, not having a single super-power isn't a bad thing. We've seen what happens when one country thinks it actually does elect the POTW, but purely based on domestic issues. Americans just don't get that for a lot of the world, the election of POTUS has a greater impact than the election (even if it's a real, open, properly democratic election) of their own national leader. Hell, our economy's going down the tubes, in large part, because of the actions of the US government rather than our own.
Having other players with similar clout is a good thing in terms of curbing the US urge to meddle in the politics of other countries. -
As you can see, earning over $180 a week - the minimum you can legally get from 15 hours at minimum wage - puts you in the 70% clawback zone. Throw in 21% PAYE, and you're looking at 91%.
But it's not quite that simple. It's 19.5% PAYE at that level of income, for one thing, and for another there's a diminishing rebate for incomes below $38k (that abates nicely back to zero by the time you earn $38k), that comes in at 4.5c/$ when you're getting a whole $9,360. The low-income rebate for incomes below $9,880 isn't available to these people because they'll be working under 20 hours per week. Of course as soon as they pass that point they'll be getting well beyond $9,880 and thus won't be eligible for it either. But they still have rebate they can claim, that claws back 4.5%. Meagre, but better than nothing. Of course, they don't get it until the following tax year.
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Ohhhh, that 15 hours a week is cunning! According to WINZ, if you earn between $4,161 and $9,360 a year, the DPB abates at 30c/$1. Conveniently, 15 hours at $12/hour is precisely... $9,360. At $9,361 the abatement jumps up to 70c/$1.
Stand-by for a proliferation of minimum-wage part-time jobs. And isn't the minimum wage meant to be increasing to $12.50 at some point?
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Steve, I didn't do the numbers. Even if it's only 1% of GDP it's still a lot.
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I also am not familiar with rubbish disposal in Helensville... and I also wouldnt be surprised if John Key is as oblivious to it as we are.... because while thats his electorate, it's not where he lives, which if my recall is correct, may be Parnell or similar(?)
Yes, he's a resident of Parnell. And Parnell, being part of Auckland City, gets wheely bins for rubbish. They're not terribly large, but they are reported to be quite effective at deterring canine raiders.
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Those of us in sedentary jobs in offices are actually *meant* to be taking breaks every hour. It's in the OSH guidelines and everything.
Yes, I know. I have one of those jobs. A minute or two of stretching at your desk, not 10 minutes to duck outside and have a cigarette. Huge difference.
To backtrack a little, that figure of $250m is solely for the costs to the health system. The Ministry of Health cites a health economist who, in 1997, estimated that smoking costs NZ society as a whole $22.5 billion dollars a year. Plus, that document appears to be saying that the $250m is just the directly-related illnesses, not the various secondary complaints mentioned such as asthma and childhood glue-ear.
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Don't be ridicolous now. There is no proof that people who take occasional breaks durinng their working day have a lower productivity, it might very well be the opposite.
Tell that to a workmate who, on giving up smoking, said "I have all this time, now that I'm not always going outside to smoke." Shortly thereafter he commented that he was much more productive than he had been while a smoker, what with not going out for cigarette breaks for 10 minutes every hour.