With neo-socialist politicians like him in power, New Zealand is on its way to its economic demise.

Since when is paying into a super all your life become an entitlement?

Assume an original billing (including 12.5% GST) of $100.00.

100x 1.05=105.

105x 102.22=107.31.

7.31×100/100=7.31% increase to the consumer.

This is how inflation expectations are stoked.

So you can bet your bottom dollar interest rates will need to rise more than they would have without the increase in GST because price rises are magnified not only by the increase in GST but by the opportunity presented by rounding (you can bet again that the rounding will always be UP).

Although the RB is permitted to ignore one-off influences on the headline inflation rate, in reality it acts to keep inflation expectations dampened, as it must.

Gee, thanks John. Play it again, mate. 17.5% in your second life term?

“New Zealand, we are in crisis. As a nation we are rumbling down the path of economic doom. We are spending and planning to spend so much of your money on sustaining our 2nd world status that to do nothing would be immoral.

A land of such potential.
Forget Australia – we could be the Switzerland of the Pacific.

New Zealand, further to our election promises, today I am lowering your tax rates dramatically, and comprehensively.

How do we do this?

We are cutting huge swathes into the lumbering unproductive behemoth that are New Zealand state services.
We are offering you the option of deciding which state services you wish to pay for – and – receive. Subsequently, they will right-size, offering real competition and choice.

We believe you are best placed to make decisions on how to spend your money.

After all – it is your money.”

John Key
http://www.inpho.co.nz

Actually I was unfair to single out Ian Wishart and journalists. Lots of people are semi-illiterate when it comes to quantities, common sense etc. If I had a dollar for each time I’ve heard or read that wind turbines don’t produce enough energy to repay the energy cost of making them, well I’d have like…. umm.. a trillion dollars.

I got annoyed at the commentator on One News who blithely said benefits need to rise 2.5% to compensate for GST rises.

Not to mention the fact that a 2.5% increase in GST means that your costs rise by 2.22% (1- 115/112.5). Only a complete numpty would say 2.5%.

Most journalists have poor math and number skills. So they make poor qualitative judgements.

For laughs I just read Ian Wishart’s ‘Eve’s Bite’ and there’s a real howler in there. He adds up all the casualties from wars and genocides in the 20th century and then tell us that this equates to 82,000 killed each and every day for 100 years (the correct answer with his numbers is 8,200 per day). You can tell it’s not a simple typo because he then compares that number to something else he doesn’t like (I can’t remember what exactly – probably the number of children eaten each day by homosexuals).

Poor Ian has such a poor grasp of history and quantities that he can’t recognise that 82,000 is more than the worst day of one of the bloodiest battles in history (The Somme). Or that if 82,000 were killed each day for 100 years, then there probably wouldn’t be many people left alive to read his hilarious book.

???

Was John Key lying when he said that?

It’s called a spoonful of sugar.

Evidence? Only non-employees can use trusts to shelter income.

But we’re going to give even more welfare!

We’ve had 9 years of Labour where we’ve slipped behind.

The hope was that National would get 9 years to actually fix things, before Labour got back in.

Now, other than minor tinkering, it looks more like we’re going to get 27 years of Labour policies, regardless of who’s implementing them.

Might as well get out now, rather than wait another 18 years hoping for some significant reform.

I’d hoped that by the time I finish Uni next year, National might have had long enough to make it worthwhile staying – it doesn’t look like that will be the case now.

Something tells me this will get a decent run in the mainstream media…

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/politics/3311651/National-won-t-raise-GST-Key-in-2008

Zapper, looks like a good one for Labour there!

Hickey and expensive houses and baby boomers…….impose a CGT,mightn’t stop housing cycles but it’ll earn the govt some money and may lessen the impact of boom/bust cycles in the property market.

Hickey again….who’s paying for the pri,sec and ter education sectors,baby boomers and borrowing.

Borrowing….if you have to borrow to pay for your life style it means you’re living beyond your means .Essentially the whole western world has got used to a standard of living that we can’t actually afford. Something has to give somewhere, it’s unsustainable ,but no ones got the balls to say so.We pretend we’ll grow our way out of the problem. That’s impossible.We need growth but we also need cuts.

NZ does need to dig,mine drill and export…look at Goff’s response and the fricken environmentalists! Hopeless.

Good one malcolm – take the scythe approach to welfare and watch Labour hold the treasury benches for the next decade.

History doesn’t fit with that idea. A government which is seen to be doing the right thing with be given a second change. Labour in 87. Thatcher in 83. Anyway, WFF isn’t necessary welfare. It’s people paying tax to have their money inefficiently recycled to them. With all the unintended consequences (thinking their own money is a generous gift from govt, high effective marginal tax rates, etc).

WFF was introduced in lieu of tax cuts because Cullen couldn’t countenance them, and it could be scraped in favour of tax cuts. If we had a bold government.