General Debate 23 January 2010

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Pete George

Given the constrained recessionary environment, the group was required to present its options within a fiscally neutral framework. If, for example, the tax rates are to be lowered across the board and the level of essential public services is to be maintained, then the money must come from elsewhere in the system.

This might lay the Government open to the charge of playing favourites – of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Any meaningful restructure has to result in some pay less tax and some paying more tax. The crucial judgement on what National ends up doing will be on whether shifts are perceived to be for the good of the country or for the good of their main constituents.

Reforming the tax system…..will find favour in many quarters, but not necessarily in those that have traditionally filled the National Party’s coffers.

Or those that vote for them.

But this Cabinet is by no means the first to find itself confronting unenviable decisions over taxation. It is the poisoned chalice from which all reforming governments must eventually sup. Whether Mr Key and Mr English tilt acutely and swallow, or merely gargle and regurgitate, will in the long run mark the measure of their resolve and indeed of their Government.

http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/editorial/90171/death-and-taxes
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January 23, 2010 8:22am
cha

RIP Halatau Tau Naitoko
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January 23, 2010 8:40am
Luc Hansen

The US Climate Change Science Program produced this report titled “Past Climate Variability and Change in the Arctic and at High Latitudes.”

The two “Plates,” one a topographic view from above of the Arctic and its surrounds, the other a pictorial representation of 65 million years of temperature change, are simply stunning.

I am working my way though the 533 page Final Report and the clarity of process and language is just beautiful.

The findings are a different matter, unfortunately.
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January 23, 2010 8:40am
whalehunter

if you look past what the media spins, there are actually a few options that
national voters would support and that would be good for the economy.

aligning tax rates, lowering thresholds, raising gst and cutting government spending.

any form of new land tax is a no go.
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January 23, 2010 8:42am
Pita

The UK Parliament Science and Technology Committee has announced an inquiry into the CRU.

I wonder if this will cause our slumbering (comatose) media to sit up and take note?

http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/science_technology/s_t_pn14_100122.cfm
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January 23, 2010 8:47am
jackp

Pete George, the article mentioned about maintaining essential government services. John Key said he was not going to cut government employees in his first term. You can cut government administrators and indeed increase the basic government services. He is keeping his promise and yet whatever National decides, they still have to deal with bloated government spending which to me sounds similar to a surgeon amputating an arm on his cancer patient when the tumor is on his foot. John Key can keep the status quo until 2011 and if elected again, then he can take the tumor (bloated government spending) out of that foot.
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January 23, 2010 9:02am
Luc Hansen

Pita, that’s excellent news. Problem is, when the inevitable finding arrives that scientists behaved like people and the science is sound, will it then just be part of the global conspiracy of nearly all the world’s scientists and nearly all the world leaders?
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January 23, 2010 9:16am
Michael

Another weekend in Wellington, and it’s raining again. Damn this changable weather.
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January 23, 2010 9:19am
Sonny Blount

Problem is, when the inevitable finding arrives that scientists behaved like people

When your work effects trillions of dollars of economic activity, you should behave like a professional.
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January 23, 2010 9:28am
Luc Hansen

Sonny, if you are without sin, cast away!
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January 23, 2010 9:40am
Chicken Little

So, I wonder when National will repeal the ETS?

Maybe we need our own inquiry into NIWA and how they’ve dealt with data and data requests?

Luc – I hate to burst the little anti zoinist bubble you live in, but I fear the findings will not be that the science is sound. I believe you will see P.Jones and several others from UEA up on charges relating to the FOIA at the very minimum.

This inquiry will be the cover for politicians to start withdrawing their support for AGW and the billions of taxpayers money that has been wasted on it. Who do you think is going to be left holding the baby?

The interesting thing about this inquiry is that it does not just cover the leaked emails – you warm mongers keep screaming about ‘context’, well I think you’re going to get it. Heh.
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January 23, 2010 9:53am
Inventory2

Kevin Milne had an amusing take on the Welly summer on Newstalk ZB this morning

http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2010/01/wellingtons-weather.html
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January 23, 2010 9:57am
Luc Hansen

Live in hope, Chicken.

May I ask one question: what’s the “warm mongers” label mean? The last thing I want is for my kids and grandkids etc to grow up in a “hot world’ with all the deleterious effects that entails. Accepting the science does not entail desiring the consequences of the same.

I look forward to the inquiry and restate, if it goes against your ignorant stance, will you accept that?

And do me a little favour, follow the link I posted above. It’s a report by a US government body for the Houses of Congress.
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January 23, 2010 10:08am
Luc Hansen

Oops, I forgot to add, Zionism is the bubble.

The bubble will burst when the US retreats to its traditional insularity as it desperately attempts to extend its longevity as an outpost of obscene consumption.
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January 23, 2010 10:13am
reid

“Accepting the science does not entail desiring the consequences of the same.”

Neither does rejecting the science as it is in its present state, Luc.

What are the consequences to the world’s economy if you warm-mongers turn out to be the ones who are wrong? Oh that’s right, just wealth-transfer on a massive scale from the rich to the poor and a global enforcement agency to ensure that every nation complies. No wonder lefties don’t see a downside.

It’s a real shame isn’t it that your children and grandchildren are going to be the ones who for the first time in history have a lower standard of living than you yourself have enjoyed not to mention living in a vastly improved authoritarian regime. But that’s OK, it’s about the planet people! Or is it?
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January 23, 2010 10:17am
Swiftman the infidel

Luc Hansen has yet to accept that some people – the Helen KKKlarKKKs, Adolf Hitlers, Stalins and KKKeith LocKKKes of this world – have an uncontrollable urge to be in command.

Suckers and wankers!!!
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January 23, 2010 10:26am
Luc Hansen

Reid, your conclusions simply do not follow from your premise.

There is no reason for the “west” to be poorer. We just need to redirect our resources into alternative sources of energy, especially electricity. And not deny the developing nations the opportunity to improve their lot. We can do it. For example, offer China free nuclear power plants. And resettle without question refugees from sea level rise that is already set in stone and cannot be stopped.

I am not a fan of ETS: I favour the Hansen plan of a carbon tax, fully refundable, equally to every taxpayer. It’s called a price signal and it is aimed at the most important entity on the planet, the consumer.

Authoritarian regimes will come about if we allow the problem to get out of our control.

Think about it.
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January 23, 2010 10:32am
Pita

Luc; “Problem is, when the inevitable finding arrives that scientists … and the science is sound” are you suggesting that the Science and Technology committee has already arrived at its conclusion…and that you’re a closet skeptic?

If that is the case I’m inclined to agree with you…I fear that the inquiry will amount to little more than a whitewash.
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January 23, 2010 10:35am
reid

Having met Keith I’m not sure I’d buy that Swiftman.

Locke IMO is one of the many lefties who really believe the policies they’re promulgating are the most humane solution. What they don’t appear to be capable of calculating is the fact that not everyone thinks like they do and perhaps, for example, laying down your arms in the face of implacable enemies is not the best solution. Their policy solutions are almost always based on naive analysis and they don’t appear to realise that the control mechanisms they propose to enforce them can easily be misused by people not of the same benevolent state of mind.

Unfortunately the people who consistently vote left are of a similar level of naivity and thus incapable of working out that if they for example do X to business then Y will happen and that’s not because the businesspeople are evil it’s because that’s how the world works. Like children, they can’t seem to make that elementary distinction between the way the world actually works vs the way they’d like it to work and often mistake the latter for the former.
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January 23, 2010 10:37am
Luc Hansen

Pita, that’s called distortion.

I have read so much on this that I don’t doubt the science will be vindicated. It’s like one keeps hearing about the “discredited” Hockey Stick. The fact is it is not discredited, quite the contrary, further enquiry confirmed its validity.

And yes, I am naturally a skeptic – but even skeptics acknowledge facts when they see them.
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January 23, 2010 10:53am
Chuck Bird

Did anyone else see this on TV1 last night? David Beckham gets sexually assaulted by some female reporter. The female news reader on TV1 thought she was brave.

I hope that David insists on her being charged. There is already a double standard when a woman assults a man. This is sexual assault and should be treated as such.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/blogger-bites-back/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501366&objectid=10621664
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January 23, 2010 11:18am
Jack5

Colonel John Masters, who until a month or two ago was a frequent poster on Kiwiblog, often in the general debate thread of the day, is now in the very advanced stages of cancer, Reg Garters indicates in a column in the “Your Career” section of the Christchurch Press today.

Garters says “there is little doubt” the colonel should have been awarded the Victoria Cross rather than an immediate Military Cross for his rescue of a badly wounded Gurkha NCO behind the Indonesian lines in Borneo jungle in 1965. Garters adds he didn’t get the VC because the publicity would have exposed the secret operation NZ troops were engaged in – on Indonesian territory.

Garters doesn’t mention that the Gurkhas at a subsequent ceremony showered Masters with flower petals and presented him with a kukri. The whole company of the rescued NCO saluted him.

Garters, the former chief of the Canterbury Management Association, worked with the colonel in more recent years when Masters was a company executive.

Garters in his column today looks at the recent biography of Master, A Bridge Over<, by Allan Marriott. Garters also tells of the colonel’s work at the institute.

No disrespect to Garters, but with Colonel Masters one of Christchurch's more distinguished citizens, the biography perhaps should have been featured on the books page, rather than in a column in what is basically the job-advertisements section of the newspaper, at H, the eighth section.
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January 23, 2010 12:17pm
Redbaiter

This latest Obama-Stimulus-Green scandal badly needs some light shining on it, and it won’t happen in the corrupt mainstream media-

This Cathy Zoi cronyist is appointed by Obama to dole out about $5 billion to the states as part of the “stimulus” package.

If a family of four makes under $44K, they can get about $6.5K to install new “green” windows for their houses.

So which window maker is getting the replacement window work? A company called Serious Materials. Never heard of them? Well, Cathy Zoi has. Her husband is one of Serious Materials’ top executives.

That’s right, the Obama bureaucrat in charge of doling out the “stimulus” money is giving it to her husband’s company. And the executives of this company just happen to have made large donations to. . . well, I know, it’s hard to believe, but, they made big time donations to Obama. Incredible right?

Check out Beck and John Stossel on this. It’s a great five minute clip. Look for cameo endorsements of Serious Materials by Obama and Biden!

http://spectator.org/blog/2010/01/22/beck-on-obamas-weatherization
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January 23, 2010 12:33pm
Redbaiter

I was reading Free Republic this morning, and came across this thread exposing that Ayla Brown (Scott Brown’s daughter) had voted for John Kerry. Not that noteworthy, but I thought this comment by an FR reader (MissH) was gold-

” Welcome to the next generation of idiots. Even with conservative parents raising her into adulthood she hasn’t a clue who she votes for or why. She like most others of her age do not have the moral clarity needed to make truly independent decisions. They have bought hook line and skinker what they have been spoon fed in their “American” education system. This is why we have a fool for a president – fools voted him in……”

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2435086/posts
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January 23, 2010 12:37pm
Ed Snack

Luc, that you think that the utterly fraudulent MBH98 (and 99) has been vindicated only shows how little you actually know of the subject. That has been the prime talking point pushed by the core cabal involved in “climategate”, but that doesn’t make it true. I know that the Realclimate web site supports it as well, but that is also worthless, RC being no more than a heavily censored echo chamber for the same people.

Let’s take one approach (and there are many grounds to criticize that work). Simple fact, remove the Bristlecone pines and there is no blade to the stick. The claim that the BC proxies must remain is based on the fact that without them the results do not correlate closely to instrumental temperatures. That is exactly the claim that all the other proxies are effectively useless and that only the BC proxies truly represent the world’s temperature. Put that way you should see that argument for the joke that it is. Further, the BC records were collected and used by Gray and Idso in 1993 to *prove* that the anomalous growth was caused by CO2 fertilization. MBH98 doesn’t attempt to *prove* temperature causation for the ring width increases, it assumes them, something that “peer reviewed” science (the AGW crowds constant benchmark) disproves ! IMHO, neither is correct, there is further work on strip-bark samples that suggests that the cause is unrelated to either and is a bio-mechanical issue related to the strip-bark transition. A final point on this, if MBH is repeated using a modern BC proxy study (Ababneh’s proxies), no blade again, possibly because Ababneh did not preferentially sample strip-bark trees. So, on the grounds of the data used alone, the results are not at all robust, and that ignores the deliberate scientific fraud involved in ignoring known contrary statistical results that invalidate the conclusions, results that were in fact proven in one of the papers claimed to support MBH, Wahl & Amman 2007. All Mann’s subsequent work is rendered worthless by his (and the central cabal’s) inability to admit the gaping flaws in that first paper, the one that elevated Mann from a minor assistant professor into one of the movers and shakers of the field.

Sorry, the Hockey Stick is dead, it’s just that ignorant partisans can’t yet come round tom acknowledging it. And that is why it proves so difficult to gain a clear understanding of what the real scientific knowledge base is, the science has been subsumed by quasi-religious convictions. Have temperatures increased in the last 100 – 150 years, almost certainly Yes, but nowhere near in the manner that the “Stick” attempts to show. Was the global temperature essential steady if slowly declining from around 1300 on (MBH98) or even further back (MBH99) ? Almost certainly not. Do we have a good basis for a 2000 year temperature reconstruction with existing proxies ? Probably not, at least not to any degree of accuracy.

I’ve said it before, we badly need to get a good and reliable perspective on what we really can and do know about climate, and this ridiculous support for outright fraudulent research is a major factor preventing that reappraisal.
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January 23, 2010 12:37pm
Redbaiter

Right wingers might be interested in this great article from Michelle Malkin-

Conservatives: BEWARE of McCain Regression Syndrome

The question isn’t why Sarah Palin is helping John McCain. The question is: What are you doing to stop him from cementing his Big Government Republican legacy?

http://michellemalkin.com/2010/01/22/conservatives-beware-of-mccain-regression-syndrome/
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January 23, 2010 12:41pm
kowtow

Luc Hansen @1013

the US as a last outpost of “obscene consumption”…….”Zionism.”……is he nuts or just trying to copy some mad mullah with anti American rhetoric?

Look around any mall in NZ to view obscene consumption ,what was the NZ property bubble,…..a Jewish conspiracy probably.

As to US isolationism, no thanks ,I prefer the British constitutional system we have over a Japanese Imperial one ,thanks to those pesky Yanks that so many on the looney left love to hate.
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January 23, 2010 12:42pm
grumpyoldhori

Who agrees with this statement made yesterday in general comments?
(I know most won’t like what I have to say, but Apiata’s case, (and a similar case in Britain where Johnson Beharry was controversially awarded the same medal) have something to do with PC.

If Apiata was white, I have some doubts as to whether he would have been recognised in the same way.)

I have a question for the author of that statement, are you a member of the BNP ?
Oh, and were you NZ born ?
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January 23, 2010 12:50pm
Pete George

Welcome to the next generation of idiots. Even with conservative parents raising her into adulthood she hasn’t a clue who she votes for or why. She like most others of her age do not have the moral clarity needed to make truly independent decisions.

http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2010/01/general_debate_23_january_2010.html#comment-653522

This is funny. A “truly independent decision” is voting who she wants to vote for, not what some reader on “Free” Republic thinks she should vote for.

You could say that fools vote every President in.

They have bought hook line and skinker what they have been spoon fed in their “American” education system.

And what they learned off their parents, and TV, and movies. And maybe even blogs.

Anyway, isn’t Scot Brown a moderate Repub voted in by independents (who are generally moderate), I’d have thought he would have been not far away from Kerry politically.
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January 23, 2010 1:08pm
Jack5

Grumpy:

Willy Apiata deserved his VC, and he’s again proving his courage. Beharry deserved his, too.

Willy Apiata, with a Maori dad and a Pakeha mum, is where NZ is headed genetically, and if coming generations are half as brave as him, then New Zealanders will be impressive people.
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January 23, 2010 1:09pm
Redbaiter

” A “truly independent decision” is voting who she wants to vote for, not what some reader on “Free” Republic thinks she should vote for. ”

Perhaps you should read the thread- she voted for him because she thought he was “nice”.

An airhead typical of what your commie schools produce.
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January 23, 2010 1:24pm
Whafe

Just wanted to vent and say our disgusting the Qantas Frequent Flyer website is….. I have some 500K in points and have been trying to use them for 4 years, you think I can get a flight to London return, dream on…… It is such a shame the whole points thing….

Gold Elite on Air NZ
Platinum on Qantas
Gold on KLM / Air France

Can I get a flight with points? NO…. Well can with Air NZ, cause it converts to dollars, but is worthless…..

#*&^#*&^$*&#^)$*#&- Rant Over
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January 23, 2010 1:43pm
RightNow

When the two differ empirical evidence will always be preferable to model predictions when looking for the truth. How inconvenient for the politicised climate ‘scientists’ that the earth system has natural forcings they don’t understand (and thus haven’t included in their models) which have caused the system to stabilise itself. On the other hand its very convenient for humans (except those who have a massive financial interest in promoting AGW). What is slightly inconvenient is that we’re now in a 30 year cooling cycle. How strange, it seems like a pattern repeating, who could have predicted such a thing (perhaps all those scientists that don’t get grant money for predicting more warming).
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January 23, 2010 2:06pm
Redbaiter

Good news for the right- JD Hayworth to run for the Senate against John McCain in Arizona. Best chance yet to send a message to the left wing “reach across the aisle” Republican establishment.

McCain has a 22 point lead at present. Chicken feed.
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January 23, 2010 2:47pm
koreythehill

mate no part of the republican party is left wing lol
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January 23, 2010 2:50pm
dad4justice

Just dropped the old ladies home a truck load of dry old man pine as they’ll freezing.On another matter did I hear right that the Hillary part of the Clinton Circus gave the big bad commie Panda a nasty telling off over internet access through Google. Oh my things are going to hot up on the global stage. By the right we march. Out of the way lefty twit. I wonder what Helen Klark thinks about this issue? Hi peter.
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January 23, 2010 3:42pm
Captain Crab

“Not surprisingly, the blatant corruption exposed at Britain’s premiere climate institute was not contained within the nation’s borders. Just months after the Climategate scandal broke, a new study has uncovered compelling evidence that our government’s principal climate centers have also been manipulating worldwide temperature data in order to fraudulently advance the global warming political agenda.

Not only does the preliminary report [PDF] indict a broader network of conspirators, but it also challenges the very mechanism by which global temperatures are measured, published, and historically ranked.”

Hes talking about the US of course.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/22/american-thinker-on-cru-giss-and-climategate/#more-15521

Luc, the Hockey Stick is STILL discredited. Doesnt matter though. The raw data is wrong and its all coming out now.
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January 23, 2010 3:57pm
Pete George

Perhaps you should read the thread- she voted for him because she thought he was “nice”.

An airhead typical of what your commie schools produce.

She probably thinks Jesus was “nice ” too. How many people vote for people they think are “nice” Probably quite a lot. Not such a bad thing getting “nice” politicians. John Key is often regarded as “nice”. Smart and “nice” would really be quite good wouldn’t it? Wrong person to ask maybe. You would back an arsehole as long as they said they supported your narrow preferences.

Anyway, where is the proof or research that only airheads and idiots vote for moderates? There is evidence from Kiwiblog that there are idiots who claim to be righties and want more extreme righties in parliament.

Where is the evidence that schools influence people how to vote more than, say, church? It’s obvious in the US in particular that there a a significant number of people that vote along their religious rather than their education views.
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January 23, 2010 3:59pm
Viking2

Shades of the past.

What a National government could mean

4:00AM Sunday Nov 09, 2008
Andrea Milner

You can’t have a change in government without a substantial change in policy, Helen Clark said on the eve of the election.
http://www.propertytalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18514

Tuesday, 21 August 2007, 9:29 am
Speech: New Zealand National Party John Key MP
Leader of the National Party
http://www.propertytalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=12310
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January 23, 2010 4:39pm
grumpyoldhori

Jack5 I notice Lance Corporal Beharry VC had the moral courage to tell the UK politicians that they were not doing enough for British squaddies who arrived home wounded.

Of course what troughing scumbag of a politician would dare suggest he did not have the right to say that.
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January 23, 2010 4:41pm
Viking2

http://www.propertytalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24403&page=5

Matt Gilligan
Forum Junkie

Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Auckland
Posts: 369
Default Risk Free Rate OF Return
The tax report seems to reveal a concern/realization by the group that any tax change causing a significant drop in values in property, will be politically unacceptable. This was a view that I formed and I generally disregarded this option as too radical when i read and comment on the report HERE

But it is the governments actions and decision that counts.

Risk Free Rate OF Return

· Rents non assessable, costs non deductible
· Pay tax on equity ( not debt)
· Tax payable irrespective of market going up or down
· Tax payable despite asset not being sold – you have to find the tax out of cash flow
· Leveraged investors relying on tax refunds to survive / get to break even cash flow, will go broke.
· Westpac’s estimation that house prices will drop 34% if this option comes in, is in line with Sweden’s experience where they ring fenced tax losses and house prices fell 35% and mass insolvency enveloped the nation – the policy was reversed and the government thrown out at the next election. Sorry I don’t know the year this happened. Similar experiences in Aussie with state taxes trailed targeting property. I am told.

Example Application Of RFRR Tax and Outcome
· Example Scenario is Little Joe Bloggs, who has a rental property and earns $65k, has 2 kids and a spouse who works part time earning $15k. All household income is required to survive. The rental property is negative cashflow before tax refund $7,000, break-even cashflow post tax refund. The market value of the property is $400k, and the debt $350k. Currently Joe and his family get by – paying their living costs and mortgage payments ( just). The market equilibrium assumes the tax refund and hundreds of thousands of Joe Bloggs are doing this.
· Enter this tax. Now Joe does not get a tax refund. He has to pay 6% of $400k(mv)-$350k(debt)=$50k which is $3k. So previously he was getting $7k tax refund, now he pays $3k, he is $10k worse off.
· The outcome is he has to sell in a market that is flooded with other Joes. He goes broke and is mortgagee sold. He stops spending and kicks off another recession with the thousands of other Joe Bloggs in the same predicament. They all vote labour for the rest of their lives and everyone blames National for the massive blunder. The next government throws out the unpopular tax, and the market reverts to where it was before. WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED IN SWEDEN WHEN THEY RING FENCED LOSSES.
· Banking would also be destabilised and credit would stall again.

So this tax would cause huge loss in property values, hardship, destabilize banking, reduce consumption ( credit will tighten and consumption drop), and kick off another recession….

I ignored it in my overview above as a clever idea that does not work in the real world. A cynic would observe that it makes the other options seem more palatable.

Also RFRR requires a lot of work for IRD, is subject to abuse ( through manipulating valuations) and will stimulate heavy leveraging.

Example Of Potential Abuse Of the Tax

· Little Jonny owns a rental worth $300k with debt of $250k. He pays RFRR tax on $300k-$250K=$50k times 6%= $3k tax.
· Little Jonny’s friend has a similar house, similar suburb.
· They sell each other their respective houses at $250k each, now 100% financed.
· They achieve 100% financing by cross securing their respective investments to their homes, so they can borrow 100%.
· Valuers will now tend to view the market value of the houses as $250k, – cost.
· Now Little Jonny has zero tax to pay, under RFRR, $250k(MV)-$250K(debt)=$0 equity times 6%=$0
· Is this tax avoidance – probably – but the point is the tax is open to abuse.

I give Keys and the Nats more credit than to bring in something this radical, this dangerous. They are pro-business and clever people – no question about that. They understand that undermining consumption by destabilizing banking, kicking off another recession and causing mass insolvency, – is political suicide and not in the public interest. There is a better way in the other options of getting there (to a level playing field and weening Kiwis off property investment – if that is what the Government wants), and the change needs to be more gradual.
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January 23, 2010 4:48pm
Komata

Have just seen the 1800 TV3 news. Second item up (and this on National News no less) – Minto and the ‘Global Peace and Action’ rent-a mob at Waihopai base – protesting against the existence of the base and New Zealand’s passing-on of information to the US and other western poweers – and supporting the three so-called ‘heroes’ (who vandalised one of the protective domes last year.

The headline status was of course no surprise – the MSM do after all look after those with similar socialist views to their own, but all power to the lone Counter-Protester who was outside the base gates supporting both the base’s purpose and the employees there-in. Noticeably, he got perhaps 30 seconds of coverage, compared to 3 or more minutes for the ‘Minto-ite rent a mob.

At last – it’s about time someone stood-up to Minto and his mad-persons (both male and female). More power to his elbow.
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January 23, 2010 6:23pm
Viking2

Time the Blenheim District gave him a trespass notice.
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January 23, 2010 7:16pm
kowtow

TVNZ news kept referring to it as a “spy” base.Surely Waihopi has a proper title that our so called leading broadcaster should use. Yesterday it was Wall Street “fat cats”. Can you believe it ,they are so unprofessional.
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January 23, 2010 7:36pm
Whafe

It is disgraceful that the news stations gave any air time at all to that half chewen Minty Minto, the fuck wit…
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January 23, 2010 7:41pm
Redbaiter

“mate no part of the republican party is left wing lol”

Wow, a space traveller who must have time warped in from some incredibly distant galaxy. How thrilling.
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January 23, 2010 7:53pm
Owen McShane

As Jim Hopkns says “A general rule of thumb is that what Minto wants, New Zealanders don’t want, and that Minto says New Zealanders don’t want, we do want”: or words to that effect. How come he is a headmaster in one of our schools? And how come he has so much time on his hands. Can New Zealand parents take their kids out of his school and place them somewhere else without penalty?
The Green MPs are again supporting Minto – but what does this have to do with being Green?
And if a Islamist terrorist blows up one of our resorts and kills a few hundred women kids and even men will the Greens and Minto then be demanding to know why our intelligence service did not know it was coming?
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January 23, 2010 8:02pm
Redbaiter

” Where is the evidence that schools influence people how to vote more than, say, church?”

Typical dumbfuck socialist question. Public schools should not be influencing students in how to vote ever. End of story.

Remember those videos of those poor little suckers being manipulated and indoctrinated by Obama storm troopers to sing songs that worshipped him in the manner Nth Korean kids are made to sings songs of worship to their leader? How fucking vile.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LA4xEDw7mY

Teachers should be giving students the means to read write and comprehend English, and then allowing them to come to their own political decisions. Of course if that policy was ever followed, the leftist vote would shrink by 60%.
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January 23, 2010 8:03pm
Pete George

Typical dumbfuck socialist question. Public schools should not be influencing students in how to vote ever. End of story.

Typical dumbfuck answer. Because you have nothing to back your bovine bum claim.
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January 23, 2010 8:07pm
Hurf Durf

Hey Puke, KBRM put an advert in the Huruld a few days ago. Did the spittle that resulted got your newspaper all wet?
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January 23, 2010 8:14pm
Redbaiter

” Can you believe it ,they are so unprofessional. ”

Ever rung up and complained? Some arrogant sneering mincing little queer takes the call and more or less tells you to fuck off. They are totally unaccountable, a pack of leftist liars and propagandists who if there was ever any level political playing field in the NZ media, would have been shut down years ago for their deceitful partisanship. Even worse, The Herald and TV3, two supposedly private operations, are just as bad. The media since it was taken over by progressives is not any source of reliable information, but rather just an echo chamber for every example of off the wall left wing crap out there.
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January 23, 2010 8:15pm
Redbaiter

” Because you have nothing to back your bovine bum claim.”

Didn’t you watch the video you reality denying commie loon??
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January 23, 2010 8:16pm
Redbaiter

Here’s another recent example of gross abuse of the education system. These people using the public education system to molest the minds of our children are frightening examples of just how evil the left can be in imposing their ideology on the citizenry.

http://nzconservative.blogspot.com/2010/01/climate-change-out-to-tender.html
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January 23, 2010 8:22pm
kiki

echo echo echo
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January 23, 2010 8:28pm
Pete George

You provided just one example, with no proof it influences people how to vote either left or right. How are people influenced how to vote?

The question was:

Where is the evidence that schools influence people how to vote more than, say, church?
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January 23, 2010 8:33pm
Redbaiter

“Where is the evidence that schools influence people how to vote more than, say, church?”

Man, like all on the left you are so damn ceaselessly thick. I have already pointed out that this question is based on an entirely false premise. Clearly I need to spell it out.

People voluntarily attend churches. Children are compelled to attend your stinking left wing Hitler Jugend indoctrination camps. You even prosecute their parents for trying to home school them. You use legislation and corrupt politicians to steal money from parents who would never willingly send their children to your camps, and use it to indoctrinate their kids and other people’s kids. And you have the damn gall to suggest there is some need to make a comparison with what occurs in churches?

Get a fucking moral base and then come back and argue the point you Stalinist sleazebag.
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January 23, 2010 8:45pm
Hurf Durf

Looks like the Democrats in Japan have crashed harder than the ones in the US.
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January 23, 2010 8:46pm
Redbaiter

” You provided just one example, with no proof it influences people how to vote either left or right. ”

Hahha.. that’s right. Training kids to sing songs of worship to Obama is designed to allow them to vote impartially. Get out of here you despicable twisting commie fruit cake. You’re just wasting time and bandwidth.
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January 23, 2010 8:48pm
kiki

hurf durf it is the economy, no japanese government will survive long. They have run a protectionist economy and now that china is gearing up they are being squeezed out. The free-market is a hard leveller.
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January 23, 2010 8:57pm
Pete George

Nothing to argue, you can’t substantiate what you claim. Bluster proves nothing.
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January 23, 2010 9:22pm
WebWrat

So you don’t think there is anything wrong with kids being taught to sing songs of praise to Obama then Pete?

Do you not think it would tend to set them along a path of specific political thinking?

Do you think our kids should be taught to sing songs of praise to John Key in our schools?
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January 23, 2010 10:39pm
Luc Hansen

Ah well, another day come and gone on General debate and in general it’s still the same noise and filth (hat tip to George Keenan for such a memorable line) of lies masquerading as facts with red herrings and ad hominems and thrown in for effect.

All good fun.

I spent the day catching up on sleep then playing with baby and doing the family thing and have just returned to catch up on the day’s activities here, and I see I have a received couple of replies to my earlier posts that fully comply with Keenan’s throwaway line.

Let’s start with the Hockey Stick, widely respected in climate science circles but deeply misunderstood by the public at large due in no small measure to the determined attack by the anti-science brigade of creationists and contrarians, the selfish and the callous, and the nutters. On their own, no big deal, but they throw so much mud that it sticks, sad to say, unless individuals take the time to tease out the truth.

The Hockey Stick was disputed on the grounds that it ignored the Medieval Warming Period (MWP) and that one proxy, tree ring data, was overlaid with the instrumental record when the tree ring data became anomalous as the mean global temperature rose. Until then, the tree ring indicators were closely aligned with the other proxy records examined. The US National Research Council, at the behest of Congress, requested the authors to widen the proxy scope of the analysis. This new research was accepted for publication by the premier science organisation in the US, the National Academy of Sciences. Go here for the paper, which is ranked 39/50 in the most read articles list. Also in that list are the objections of McKitrick and McIntyre and the reply by the paper’s authors.

To say that without tree rings there was no blade is ridiculous because the tree rings actually began showing temperature decline when the instrumental record was showing the reverse. Although Briffa, a conservative scientist, merely said further research was required to explain this, it is clear that the rise in mean temperature was a likely cause of the trees showing signs of distress, thus distorting the growth rings. But that is not yet proven.

The instrumental record IS the blade! We don’t need proxies when we have instruments!

The MWP and the Little Ice Age were largely regional anomalies, and pretty well insignificant on a global scale. But the expanded analysis did see more mention of the MWP.

Ed Snack concluded: “I’ve said it before, we badly need to get a good and reliable perspective on what we really can and do know about climate, and this ridiculous support for outright fraudulent research is a major factor preventing that reappraisal.”

Ed, this just does show your profound ignorance and bias. The link I posted earlier in this thread, while a research program on the Arctic ice extent, contains a comprehensive description of the state of climatology today, including gaps in research, as befitting a paper intended for the US House of Congress as a basis for policy.

Then WrongRightNow says: “What is slightly inconvenient is that we’re now in a 30 year cooling cycle.”

In the report I linked to above is the instrumental record of US mean temperatures from 1960-2007. I don’t know how to post the graph, but this is the explanation attached to it:

Figure 5.1. “Weather” versus “climate,” in annual temperatures for the continental
United States, 1960–2007. Red lines are trends for 4-year segments that show how the
time period affects whether the trend appears to depict warming, cooling, or no change.
Various lines show averages of different number of years, all centered on 1990: Dark
blue dash, 3 years; dark blue, 7 years; light blue dash, 11 years; light blue, 15 years; and
green, 19 years. The perceived trend can be warming, cooling, or no change depending
on the length of time considered. Climate is normally taken as a 30-year average; all 30-
year-long intervals (1960–1989 through 1978–2007) warmed significantly (greater than
95% confidence), whereas only 1 of the 45 possible trend-lines (17 are shown) has a
slope that is markedly different from zero with more than 95% confidence. Thus, a
climate-scale interpretation of these data indicates warming, whereas shorter-term
(“weather”) interpretations lead to variable but insignificant trends. Data from United
States Historical Climatology Network,
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/cag3.html (Easterling et al., 1996).

The main point being, for RN’s benefit, that ANY and EVERY 30 year period selected in that time frame show a warming. Shorter periods can be selected to show cooling, but climate is about at least 30yr time frames. I don’t know if you are just sucked in by the deniers or if you are just happy to lie. Let me know, by all means.

Kowtow, unlike many in the world, I don’t think Jews run the planet, let alone Washington. And Zionism, even, is fine if it does not victimise innocent third parties. The current European-led colonisation of Palestine does exactly that.

What have you got against Palestinians being accorded the basic human right of self-determination? Instead, they were forced out of their ancestral homes (unlike European Jewry, they can prove it!) AND abandoned by the world as essentially “human sewage” (Dover Express, referring to refugees in general, but some of the refugees were Palestinian)?

If I have left anyone out who thinks they deserve a response, feel free to knock on my door.
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January 24, 2010 1:53am
Hurf Durf

tl; dr
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January 24, 2010 2:04am
Luc Hansen

I understand Hurf. SSPA then?
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January 24, 2010 2:08am
Pete George

So you don’t think there is anything wrong with kids being taught to sing songs of praise to Obama then Pete?

I’m not a fan but that’s not the point. How much have the Obama songs of praise happened? How influential on voting is it (the kids ware not yet voters)? And is it different to other patriotic carrying’s on that the US sees to be in to?

Do you not think it would tend to set them along a path of specific political thinking?

It may or may not. Obama won’t be standing for president when those kids are of voting age. Does it address Dem v Repub? They may already have determined their political leanings, from their parents, church, the Simpsons, South Park etc etc. Or other more influential things may occur later.

Do you think our kids should be taught to sing songs of praise to John Key in our schools?

I wouldn’t be a fan of that.

I’m not a fan of singing (or being present when it is sung) a song about some “god” defending NZ.
I’m not a fan of singing (or being present when it is sung) a song promoting the Queen and the monarchy.
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January 24, 2010 7:42am

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