Why NZ Death Cult Capitalists are winning the debate 

1. Notice that they are already starting to talk about increasing taxes in NZ to ‘pay for Covid’.

   However the biggest rescue packages seem to be for business shareholders (many overseas owned companies and shareholders) and sunset businesses employing people who are not citizens/long term residents of NZ.

   Bizarely while business got the majority of the bail out apparently nobody is talking about increasing the corporate tax take in NZ which is ridiculously low and being lowered for decades.

   Aka corporate income tax rate has gone from 48% to 33% and currently to 28% on 1 October 2010.

   I wonder why the MSM don’t moot increasing that tax when profits is our 2nd biggest exports in NZ!

   There seems to be huge reluctance to tax overseas profits higher when everything local seems to be going up historically….

   aka GST 10% to 15%,

   Council rates a local property taxes on properties goes up 2-1000%

   “Government involvement comes after the council proposed, in April, an average 31% rate increase for the 2012–13 financial year largely due to the Mangawhai Scheme, which has led to the rates revolt thought to involve around a third of Kaipara ratepayers. Last week the council said it had been too aggressive and said it was now proposing an average rate increase for 2012/2013 of 19%.”
   https://www.interest.co.nz/bonds/60974/heavily-indebted-and-disgraced-kaipara-district-council-raises-fears-over-bailing-out

   “Former world cup cricketer Warren Stott is aghast at facing a 1343 per cent rates rise.”

   ( https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10807032)

   (While businesses can claim big rates increase, individual home owners can’t and there have been some eyewatering increases of rates for homeowners, generally due to mismanagement and poor government regulation on councils, that did not lead to any penalty to those officials in the council that made the bungles and hid the issues from the ratepayers!)

   Bright line capital gains tax introduced (on taxable income not actually on the capital gain so that individuals can manipulate their taxable income, while generally normal folks can’t)

   Petrol taxes that were supposed to pay for public transport but now are being rerouted to ‘safety issues for roads’ and upgrading bus terminals for the most part (aka the petrol tax money going as usual to big construction firms (normally overseas owned and staffed now with overseas migrants and using overseas materials) that are not actually increasing the actual public transport and making it easier, more frequent and less expensive to use for the public).

   While income taxes have not gone up, in real terms the cost of living has escalated so much in terms of increases like insurance gone up 30%+, food has risen massively in particular over the Covid, power, water charges and incomes are going down…. so any increases in personal taxes will hit people extremely hard.

   Mortgages are predicted to go up.

   Weird how the companies that seem to be profiting the most out of NZ never get any talk of increased taxes put on their profitable industry like banking and financial products!!!!

   Australian banks are making $580,000 in New Zealand every hour, money a former Kiwi banker says should be staying in the country.
   https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2019/03/the-astounding-profit-australian-banks-make-in-new-zealand-every-hour.html

   I propose a tax on profits that are going out of the country before the government even thinks of charging the locals any more taxes on top of lower incomes!!!!!

   Not the neoliberal mantra of giving free citizenship for high worth individuals. We already did that silly, and they ran off with all the profits they made in NZ.

   Billionaire Peter Thiel makes fortune after ‘sweetheart’ deal with Government
   https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11794020

   We already sold citizenship for decades in NZ, the government needs to tax the multimillion profits that overseas investors keep removing from NZ, to ‘encourage’ the investment in NZ by taxing them if they take it out!!!!

2. Jesson rolled in his grave when Goff and Clark signed the “country” over to the mercantilist, racist Chinese dictatorship, Wokester 😉

3. The only way to force slum landlords to change their ways is to remove their heads with a guillotine… ooohhh… that’s right, this is not really a class Left blog, is it?

4. Add Barry Soper to the list.
   Barry’s on the ” government destroyed the economy ” bandwagon and “Australia did it better”. Sounds like an extract straight from the Tory handbook. Sadly Barry doesn’t use science to promote his article, it is driven by money.
   I suggest Barry does not have first hand experience of having the virus nor being in the position of making decisions for millions.If he did N.Z. would be in a worse off position with thousands affected.

   • I would add that given Sopers career is on life support it is hardly surprising he is on the anti government bandwagon. What has Simon promised him?
     Maybe time spent on the benefit will ground Barry.

5. Mostly agree. But if we have a UBI then most of the benefits the author alludes to will be gone, and some current beneficiaries will probably receive less than what they’re currently getting from WINZ. It’s not an easy decision to make.

   Missing from the list:

   – Re-nationalize the electricity supply. If pensioners need supplementary payments to heat their homes in winter, the much-vaunted free market has clearly failed to deliver the promised “efficiency”.

   – Re-nationalize the universities. The current funding model is a senseless money-go-round, and the artificial competition between a growing numbers of tertiary institutions drives them to piss away money on advertising.

   • I totally agree chruski with you on electricity and universities. It seems crazy that we pay GST on top of our electricity bills and then the SOEs pay a dividend to the government. When the government was granting beneficiaries $20 pw for winter power costs, all they were doing was to give back the GST paid!

     • 100%

6. Lets be clear, the people who are always made to suffer most in these situations are the working class.
   If we can minimise the damage to the economy, it will be better.

   • A pregnant working class nurse 28 has died of covid-19 in the UK. I guess you could say she was made to suffer the most Fortunately the baby was able to be saved albeit unknown whether the baby has covid-19.
     I wonder how that woman feels better about the damage to the economy?

     • Man…. that’s hideous and tragic…

       • https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-52301870

   • I think that was the excuse given for trickle down and student fees/loans…. was also helping the poor.

     Guess what helps the poor, more direct money!

     Helping the economy seems proven to be more a trickle up to corporate shareholders and private equity and the money removed from the poor, not the other way around.

     Look at supermarkets – profits up 30% – why not an extra tax to the businesses who profited greatly from Covid, not a paltry voluntary ‘donation’ that they can write off.

     • The public swallow anything wrapped in bullshit.
       Bullshit is what they are used to getting with trickle down promises to help the economy.

       QE for banks is trickle up. Shame on you Robertson.
       The money needs to go to the people even if it goes to them by way of Govt using it for jobs and benefits.

7. Bomber, you tend to sanctify some individuals. I think your eulogy to Jesson is misplaced. He sometimes spoke about his admiration of business people. At the time he thought the policy to decentralise education (Picot Report) was a good thing. A bit of a chameleon, like many of us. Lots of academics are speaking out now and you have them on TDB; Susan St John, Liz Gordon, Dave Brownz, Jane Kelsey, etc etc

8. CTU has just dropped a letter on the Government’s desk, wanting Government to change the discrimatory “Wellfare relationship” rules benefit system, and about time!!!!!!

   QUOTE;
   “The government should instead be seeking to support strong connections between people and build strong, resilient communities. The solution is for people in government to change how relationships are treated by Work and Income New Zealand so people get what they need to live a dignified life that does not trap them in poverty and make them fearful to build relationships.”
   Unquote;

   We say;
   • Most low wage workers are trapped in a clear poverty cycle now.
   • Ever since all living costs are rising far greater than wages and benefits,
   • Government must increase benefits to pensioners also who are left out of this issue.

   https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2004/S00124/union-leaders-join-call-for-end-to-welfare-relationship-rules.htm

9. Aw… how sweet. That you still think there’s a fundamental moral difference between labour and national.
   The reason we’re reduced to tearing our hair out at the seemingly deliberate and frustrating bungling of labour trying to get off the start line as they tear at their man buns and trip over their hippy moccasins is because there’s no difference between labour and national. None.
   Car metaphor.
   If you paint a dung brown 1970’s Morris Marina hot orange in the hope that will make it stylish, fast and classy but no. Sorry. It’s still a hideous Morris Marina, it’s just that now, it’s orange.
   We watched a film called “Darkest Hour” last night. It was surely Gary Oldman’s best work ever as Winston Churchill. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkest_Hour_(film)
   I enjoyed the ( fictional, apparently.) part where Churchill rode the underground just to get feed back from the people. He directly plugged into working class sentiment in a carriage and from that, he got a sense of that general, grass roots stoicism which proved vital in defeating the Nazis etc… “Nazi’s will defeat us?” He asked ” Never! ” was chorus back.
   That would never happen here because all our politicians are the fucking same. They’re all mesmerised by the sight and smell of money.
   Adern could crush the Natzo’s overnight if she lead an honest charge against the fuckers.
   No one’s gone to our worlds best food growers here to pal them up with the trade unions because it’s extremely profitable to keep farmers and their down stream service industry providers at each others throats.
   Massy’s Cossack’s anyone? And yes ! That shit’s been going on since way back then. Before, way back then actually.
   It’s my personal opinion, that AO/NZ is SO corrupt at a most basic and deeply institutionalised level that we need Crown intervention to reboot our politics and our economy.
   A temporary White Hall government here while a Royal Commission of Inquiry is undertaken would be wish.
   All Adern’s achieved to date is to create about her a kind of movie star status which, like movies stars, has no real substance. Sure, she smiles and appears concerned when holding a person in shock etc or can gaze off wistfully for a photograph for fucking Time Magazine but that is all she is and that’s not enough. We deserve more. Much, much, more.
   And fuck fletchers! Let them burn! Why should we stump up the cash to buy fletchers? That’d just line dodgy old hugh’s pocketsessssss in a time where an approaching financial Armageddon is going to wipe his monopolistic swindle off the map anyway. Read about the fucker? We never stood a chance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Fletcher
   How about a Ministry of Public Construction? Where kids coming out of apprenticeships can build basic ( But most importantly funky, off-grid ) houses for anyone who needs them. Extra wages for originality and creativity!?
   We have the trees and plenty of space to grow them for timber but Eugenie Sage’s is selling off that actual land, not just the timber, but the fucking LAND that grows the trees to Chinese interests OUTSIDE the office of the OIO? And has Adern leaped up and down? No.
   Now? For those of you who think financial and viral considerations are the very worst things to happen to keep you awake at night? Think again.
   Read this.
   A conversation with the internationally renowned professor of food policy at London’s City University
   Tim Lang, the UK’s leading expert on food policy, says we already faced a challenge unmatched since the war. And things just got worse…
   https://app.getpocket.com/read/2923954733
   A word or two of advice from a one-time farmer, farming 5000 sheep, 200 head of Angus cattle and 500 acres of grain annually for 25 years with his Whanau who then went on to become a self employed landscape gardener for ten years ? Here’s some advice.
   Rip up that pretty little lawn and get fucking serious about growing fruits and vegetables, buy a boat and learn to fish and get some hens. Red Shavers are the best I think. They’re calm and lay well and are cuddly too. First, learn the Zen way of the chicken. ‘Become’ the chicken and you’ll open up a whole new world for yourself. And then you can wring it’s neck and eat it too. So an all rounder chicken’s best, I think.
   RNZ.
   That’s Hentertainment!
   https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/countrylife/audio/2018735214/that-s-hentertainment
   I have a few plumb trees which gave me and the birds enough fruits for me to make jam to last me one whole seasonal year. Keep old glass jars with the lids. Boil then pour in the fruits. Each jar will save you $4 mates.
   City Councils? Fuck off with the pretty little fashion trees and grow fruiting trees instead. Grow them everywhere. Along the road sides, on all fallow land, anywhere there’s soil and get into grafting fruiting stock onto ornamental’s too. And District Councils!? For Christ’s sake stop fucking spraying the road sides dumbasses! Stop spraying. Just stop!
   https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/14/on-the-verge-a-quiet-roadside-revolution-is-boosting-wildflowers-aoe
   There’s a very healthy interest in Heritage Fruiting trees down this way so go and find a few nice old apples, pears and stone fruit varieties and get cracking as they say. ( But never grow Pot, schrooms, opium poppies etc. No, no no. Deary me no. Never do that. They’re ‘illegal’. Can’t have that. Just become an alcoholic, Ruin your health, costs a fortune, is boring as bat shit, beat the kids and the mrs in a drinkers rage so best stick with that. And you don’t need to grow it. You can just buy it in the supermarkets. )
   Not as much fun as playing PS3’s ” The Last Of Us” but then you can’t eat your PS3. ( Edible electronics! Have I just invented a thing?)
   Do it! Don’t fuck around. You have been warned and I love saying I told you so in that most unpleasant and gloating way.

   • You’re funny… and right 🙂

10. The threat to the economy and it’s impact on people’s mental health has to be taken into account as we move forward. I know from personnal experience the feeling of despair when you have worked so hard to fulfill your dreams of a secure and fulfilling future for you and your family to have it vanish due to a situation out of your control. We need to look at all senarios and just because one of these does not follow the path suggested by one person they should not be written of as a death cult.
    Some seem to see this as an opportunity to go down a new path but we need to do this slowly as we cannot afford to slip further down the ladder as I fear without hope some will resort to harming themselves or others out of anger and frustration

11. Peter Conway was a pretty good left economist I think. Not as well-known as Bruce Jesson – but something they both have in common – they are dead, The good people are going and the inferior ones are getting monkey transplants. Can those who want to see a good NZ for all, one that works, please step forward and join computers, tap biros, and skype etc? Even if we can’t shake hands, we need to find each other and for each criticism that we voice or write, we come up with a positive idea that is fleshed out enough to show others how it could be done, and why, and the advantages of one method over the other, even before it goes on to be costed.
    Too much grizzling, and not enough active, practical imagining.

    In the past NZ was thought a great place to bring up children. Time to turn the goodwill spreader outwards instead of pointing it into the midle of the chosen circle. The families and the young people used to be head and shoulders in everyone’s planning; let’s get them to the forefront and encourage them to have dreams and help them to realise them. Let’s make sure they have jobs with social hours, weekends to do things with the kids, plenty of access to polytechnic-like entities where they can build skills, and come out with guaranteed jobs for six months provided they don’t mess up. I am so depressed watching the leaders hesitate to put their toes in the water; many can’t find water or their toes I think. Let’s get some good initial projects going, ones that young ones can cut their teeth on, and then move them to their choice from three more advanced projects, give them something to work towards going up a ladder to higher pay, more secure work etc.

12. Great agenda, Martyn. This should be on everyone’s lips, tongues and keyboards.
    The CoVid-19 plot seems to be a great excuse to ramp up prices- $24.00 for a jar of hand sanitiser, ffs! Also all food now comes from foodstuffs and local butchers, market gardeners and bakeries, not to mention chippies, are forced off the streets. Flour is unavailable as everyone thinks lockdown is about staying home and doing yoga or baking. Why isn’t Monash https://pharmafield.co.uk/pharma_news/study_shows_anti-parasitic_drug_ivermectin_kills_coronavirus/ taken seriously?

13. Next we get a call to ‘nationalise all blogs’, will we?

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