Who are those groups, then? Yes I hear a lot of lobbying for increasing the minimum wage. But when someone decries “the widening gap between rich and poor” is that the same as saying “I think everyone should earn the same, and any higher income should be redistributed”? Really?

The only place I’ve ever heard about “Income Redistribution” is in comments from readers on Kiwiblog, and usually fairly rabid comments at that…

Now I know that there are those who live below the breadline. I know that there are people struggling. But within each person in NZ lies the means of raisng themselves out of poverty. We have free education up to but not including tertairy level. Tertiary education is readily available and subsidised, with very generous interest free loans to assist those who wish to improve themselves.

To put it in a nutshell, in NZ we have opportunity and choice. If an individual CHOOSES to not take advantage of these OPPORTUNTIES, and then find themselves in poverty, is society to blame? An individual in NZ is more powerful than those concerned with “poverty” would have you beleive

Where you live in a society without choice, where there is no free education, no pathway out of poverty and no opportunity for growth, then you have poverty. Having done volunteer work in Africa and seen it first hand, with blind beggars on the streets of Harare, with not prospect other than a handout from those marginally less worse off than themselves, then you might understand why I am partly revulsed by those who say there is poverty in NZ.

We have too many people so reliant on the state who do not need to be. These people are taking resources from those who truly need help. WFF is just another tool to perpetuate reliance on the state. We need a government is focuses on wealth creation, not wealth re-distribution.

You should vote for ACT. As I understand from Blair they want the 15pc rate abolished, which would do a great deal for those earning less than the median wage.

Family Tax Credits worked? Nope.

So the poor and the middle classes have been fucked over by Helen.

No I meant that welfare causes poverty, that is pretty clear. The reason is that welfare is set at a low level so as there are still a few people working to pay for the it all, and if it were too high, too many people would give up work to go on the dole.

Therefore if you are on welfare you are poor. There is nothing ‘below’ welfare, so we can’t claim that having more people on welfare will increase wealth – obviously it won’t. There is no way you can advance in terms of a career, when you are on welfare.

The opposite of poverty is wealth. The only long term way to increase wealth is for people to be more productive so they earn more. This is a really necessity for NZ at the moment. But it’s a bit tricky to do if you are on welfare.

There is a very good book about the consequences of too much welfare called ‘Life at the bottom’. However I wouldn’t recommend reading it as it will just depress you.

My full post: http://savethehumans.typepad.com/weblog/2008/04/how-much-child.html

“You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away men’s initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.”

You might also want to look up the definition of “smear” normally it means not tell the truth, or to associate someone with a fabrication. Do you deny that you compared people you disagree with as having downs syndrome? Do you deny that you called people you disagree with gay?

Some of us regard behaviour as redolent of character. Yours is self evident.

Why do you bother getting into a scrap with Nigel, he hammers you each and every time, run on back to the mansion and pour another glass of Chardonnay.