Posts by Australopithecus
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Hard News: Medical cannabis: a polling experiment, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
How about an inhaler as a delivery mechanism?
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Polity: Australian election: Dust and Diesel, in reply to andin,
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you need only fool half the people election time.
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Speaker: The Government you Deserve, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I think you meant Battle of Naseby, Bosworth Field got us Tudors. I wish I could credit my NZ state school education, but I just used te interwebs.
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OK, so if there is no political will to fix the bubble, what would a post burst plan look like? House prices plunge 50%-80%, mortgagee sales, government bail-out of the NZ branches of the Aussie banks (under pressure from over the Tasman), or bail-in using NZ bank accounts to buy bank shares? Would the government call a snap election so the public can compare the pain of the opposition's solutions to its own?
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The economy is a powerful tool for improving our well-being. However, it may damage lives when applied without care. When we have children going hungry, rivers unusable for swimming or fishing, workers dying in their workplaces, and livelihoods destroyed by extreme financial or weather events, we need better controls to make our economy safer.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to BenWilson,
Wouldn't the wiping of their student loans by Internet/mana interest them? It is certainly compelling for our under 18 year old sons.
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Speaker: Why we can’t just fix secondary…, in reply to BenWilson,
Did Socred support a UBI? They were just a bit before my time. UBI seems such a good idea, with such admirable social outcomes that I have to wonder - why doesn't any current party in NZ promote it? So it did a bit of digging.
The Green Party "supports a full and wide-ranging public debate" on UBI.
Mana will "Work towards implementing a Universal Tax Credit/Universal Basic Income where everyone in Aotearoa aged 18 and over would receive a minimum, liveable, tax free income after which progressive tax would kick in".
Labour have explored the idea.
I could find nothing from National's plan on the subject - pretty light on social policy as a whole actually :-).
From the tenor of NZ First's social development policy I suspect they are opposed.
Nothing from the Maori Party on UBI specifically but it might gather some support there.
United Future supports income sharing
I thought it might get a mention by ACT - but no just: "outsourcing rehabilitation to private providers, putting lifetime limits on Sole Parent Support, cracking down on benefit fraud, and scrapping the minimum wage. " :-(
Maybe the Internet Party when they release their manifesto if they plan to "nominate candidates who are experts in important areas of social policy and reducing social inequalities."
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Speaker: Why we can’t just fix secondary…, in reply to Robert Urquhart,
Excellent. When I raised UBI with my farmer in-laws, a good foil against my worst left-wing daydreams, those were the issues they raised. They did have one more - won't folks just stop working? I don't think the spirit of capitalism will die that easily :-). Some might say I have enough, by far the majority will want more than the basics.
There is much angst about the idle poor (not the idle rich, note) getting something for nothing. On bad days I point out the alternatives: the workhouse (private prisons?), starvation, or euthanasia. In medieval times they bemoaned the Sturdy Beggar. Should we bring back the stocks?
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Speaker: Why we can’t just fix secondary…, in reply to Moz,
I admit I haven't played with the spreadsheet, but I have played with this. My best effort is- Tax Rate: 50%, GST: 15%, Return on Capital: 6% (@50% that's 3%), UBI children: 7K, everyone else: 18k.
Ideally I would use the living wage, estimated (pdf) at 57K for a family of 4
can you really imagine McDonalds not trying to reduce wages by the amount of the UBI?
One thing I find appealing of the UBI is it frees workers from the implicit threat in employment relations - take it or stave. With all your basic needs covered, your income is now cream (by this I mean you can spend it on the fun stuff). As such you could justify the high rate of tax. However, this is also stuff you could do without if employment conditions become too unfair. So if MickyD drops wages too much it might face a lack of workers.
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Speaker: Why we can’t just fix secondary…, in reply to Moz,
flat tax no. Especially HELL NO to an actual flat tax on every dollar earned.
That is what I thought too until I read this.
The compelling argument for me was that the difference in tax between the current system, and a flat tax at the top rate, was around 14K for those earning over 70K. Just giving that 14K to everyone (adults, children get less?) would be more progressive. The paper goes into detail of how the difference would be funded with an asset tax, which arguably targets the wealthy more than income tax.