Posts by Andrew C
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Adding to the background: Even if you don't buy the line about Greeks being lazy tax dodgers, they spent a good deal of effort bullshitting their finances in order to get accepted into the Euro in the first place.
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Hard News: Getting to the bottom of…, in reply to DexterX,
An example of getting the little stuff wrong is abolishing LAQC so that someone setting up their own business in any year does not get to offset their loss against their taxable income – this will stop people from starting out in small business and have a detrimental effect on economic growth.
I thought the main reason they got rid of it was because of the breathtaking amounts of losses mum and dad property investors were funneling through LAQC's, and it tied nicely in with the Govt's view that investing in non-productive property has a detrimental effect on economic growth. Maybe you're damned no matter what you do...
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Over on Kiwiblog, Farrar is trying to claim that "Labour are officially campaigning for lower wages", because employers will offset what they have to pay into KiwiSaver by taking it out of wages.
The compulsory contributions are going to increase over time (did Goff say 7%? I was distracted when he was on the radio talking about it), and employers might well not have room to additionally add in the hand wages rises on top of this.
So in the hand wages might stay static, or perhaps increase at a lower rate than they otherwise would.
While you are right Keith that the employee is still getting the money, not having it available to spend in the here-and-now is going to feel like they are going backwards wage wise for some people. While that wasn't what Farrar was meaning, I think he's got at least some of the gist right.
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OnPoint: PREFU 2011: "What credit downgrade?", in reply to Sacha,
Magic beans. Clearly the answer.
You’re not far wrong there Sacha, a quick scan of the radio shows yesterday arvo/eve had most business commentators scratching their heads at the PREFU’s widely optimistic views on the growth in the govt’s future revenues.
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Hard News: About Occupy Wall Street, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Which of course is silly as well.
Greenspan himself now says he got it badly wrong. So it's not entirely silly.
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Hard News: The price is that they get to…, in reply to Sacha,
Has always come down to business models. If you’re not explicitly paying for it, you *are* the product.
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Hard News: Complaint and culture, in reply to Danyl Mclauchlan,
But what's really struck me at this point is that the entire profession seems to cross the line when it comes to advocacy for breast-feeding
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so I don't think it's helpful for mid-wives to send the message that failure to breast-feed is tantamount to child abuse.+1
We went through exactly that. And imagine what its like being a new mum and desperate for all the help you can get, but living in absolute fear of the Plunket visits because of the pressure and abuse heaped upon you because you are not (because you cannot) breast feeding your baby.
While Im sure they mean well, being told you suck as a mum is simply cruel, and they really need to change up.
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Hard News: Science: it's complicated, in reply to Russell Brown,
And meanwhile, the Herald runs this weird "balance" column featuring the respective views of Chris de Freitas and Keith Hunter.
At least the Herald hasn't degenerated into The Australian's War on Science. Not yet at least
For anyone interested, that same blog has made mention of our Mr De Freitas a few times as well.
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Cracker: Another Capital Idea..., in reply to Greg Dawson,
What Rich was alluding to, and your story completely missed the point of, was that the rich don't take their wages with them.
Nonsense, at least not at the time he made his comment. His prior statements had been about capping salaries and working for the challenge rather than money to prevent there being uber rich ffs.
And as I said before, i believe his was just an exaggerated flippant remark really, so I sent him a cheap one right back. Or in other words, saying that people who pay the lions share of taxes should fuck off seriously misses the reality point too.
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Cracker: Another Capital Idea..., in reply to Sacha,
I think the core problem is that you have a throwaway comment with an associated throwaway answer, but only one half of the ledger is being torn to shreds.