General Debate 10 August 2012

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Say Goodbye to Hollywood

Morning World….First!
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August 10, 2012 8:05am
barry

I do like the legal system in China – no complaints there of slow justice. All thats needed for a murder trial is one day. We should import some of their legal system as well as some of the money.
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August 10, 2012 8:21am
Lipo

I was reading here about the success of the Blue Chip investors in their Supreme Court award
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10825893

At the end of the story thou a comment that gives us insight into the whole case

” Lester was yesterday being asked by some media if he thought the deal he had signed was too good to be true.

But he bridles at this.

“We never invested anything. As far as we were told, we were loaning Blue Chip money and they would pay us back in four years. I think it’s okay to loan money and expect to be paid back. We never even knew we were buying an apartment,” Lester said.”

Mr Lester is not aware that when you loan money to someone and get a return plus interest then that is an investment.
Sometimes investments lose money
I heard Larry Williams on ZB saying that most of these investors where old and lost their life savings.

Has no one learned that you don’t invest what you can’t afford to lose.
There is another sorry story of Tony Collingwood, who borrowed against his home to deposit money in Blue Chip. He lost his home
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August 10, 2012 8:26am
Carlos

Carlos’s ways to fix or screw New Zealand depending on your point of view.

1. No one pays income tax before earning $30,000.
2. Top rate for company tax – 20%.
3. Top rate for income tax – 20%.
4. Comprehensive capital gains tax of 15-20%.
5. Limit unemployment benefit to 4 years over one’s working life.
6. Get rid of Working for families.
7. Raise the super superannuation age to 67.

Overall, get rid of the tax churn, reduce welfare dependency and incentivize people to work hard and work smart.
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August 10, 2012 8:26am
Brian Smaller

Carlos for Finance Minister. One question – 1) No one pays income tax before earning $30,000. – Is that a tax free first 30K for everyone or only for those who earn under 30K?
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August 10, 2012 8:29am
Carlos

@ Brian Smaller

Good question. I’ll clarify.

Tax free for the first $30, 000 earned by everyone.

Cheers. 🙂
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August 10, 2012 8:32am
hj

Objectivity, subjectivity and political purpose:

We say welcome to foreign investors
09 August 2012, by Gavin White
New Zealanders have become considerably more supportive of foreign investment over the last 16 years. In 1996, 43% of us believed that the amount of foreign investment in New Zealand was too high. In 2012, however, only 21% of us think there is too much foreign investment.

There’s been a corresponding increase in the numbers who think there is too little foreign investment (up 11% to 16%) or that the current level is about right (up 7% to 47%).

The furore over the Crafar Farms decision earlier in 2012 makes this finding someone surprising, and certainly lends support to the view that there was something else about the deal that Kiwis were concerned about. Our poll numbers on that issue showed New Zealanders firmly against the sale of the farms to Chinese interests, and it seems likely that that opposition was driven not so much by the fact that the purchasers were foreign, but by the fact that they were Chinese and of course the fact that it was farmland. That’s supported by the fact that the public seemed to be much less concerned about James Cameron’s purchase of several Wairarapa properties (including farms) earlier this year.

It’s certainly been suggested that the difference between the reaction to the Crafar Farms decision and the reaction to James Cameron’s purchase was purely racism, and I suspect that racism (or at least xenophobia towards the Chinese) was a contributing factor. People I’ve spoken to in our research have also pointed to the size of the purchases (both in terms of dollars and the amount of land), and what they believed were differences in motivations for the purchases (Shanghai Pengxin seemed to view the purchase purely as a money-making venture, whereas Cameron made numerous comments about wanting to ‘raise his children close to the land).
http://sayit.co.nz/blog/we-say-welcome-foreign-investors
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August 10, 2012 8:35am
hj

to me the crafar sale was not just normal old trade as it started on the back of a large debt bubble; for every loose borrower there is a loose lender and by selling farmland we are bailing out the loose lender.
As for racism everyone is racist except commission agents and self-loathing leftists and those with the where with all to buy property or work around the world such as our good-bloke prime minister (it is a charactersitic of the species). China represents the other being racially different on the other side of the world, a long established civilisation with farmland roads, cities etc of its own and a population of giant proportions. They are also deemed to be colonisers rather than intergraters which a society based on connection.
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August 10, 2012 8:49am
flipper

Carlos..
Interesting thorts….
But….

Why not time limit the dole in more incentivised way ( limit to say, 26 weerks in any one year), rather than a life time period?
What about GST?
How would the capitaL gains tax be structured (in princ, not detaiI)?
Would losses (say sharemarket and shony finance deals) be deductable?
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August 10, 2012 8:51am
iMP

Interesting story from the LA Times about the CA earthquakes this week (AND THIS MORNING) and how they are linked to NZ (Christchurch) (the North Is. eruptions) and Japan, wid graphics. http://conzervative.wordpress.com
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August 10, 2012 8:52am
hj

I think NZ First should stick to basics and gather talent given support from the Savings Working Group and Australian Productivity Commission for the notion that foreigners can disadvantage locals on their own soil. We don’t owe people from countries with population problems space (although National, Labour, the Greens, the Holy Churches and Humanities (something) would disagree).
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August 10, 2012 8:57am
Lance

@iMP
Oh dear
That site appears to be a science free zone.
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August 10, 2012 9:00am
mister nui

Carlos, you missed the most important bit of tax policy to get NZ moving…. 100% tax deductible capital expenses, such as Germany has for their manufacturing industry. That is what will create jobs.
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August 10, 2012 9:04am
mister nui

Oh and forget the stupidity of a CGT, Carlos. They. Don’t. Work.

Land tax is the only effective tax, but if you’re going to have one of them, then your income tax rates need to be lower, might I suggest 10%.

You’ve not yet got my vote for finance minister, but you’re on the right track.

Now wait for Hamneggs to come along and call me a neo-lib….
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August 10, 2012 9:07am
David Garrett

The PM made the right decision to put his son first, and go to the US to watch him play softball rather than go to the soldiers funerals.

Soldiers who go to war zones die. All of our soldiers in Afghanistan are volunteers. A small number have been killed. Being killed is a risk of their line of work, and where they chose to do it. Roughly one person per week dies in workplace accidents in NZ. The country doesnt go into mourning, and there are no doleful laments in parliament for them, as occurs every time a single soldier gets killed, even in an accident.

I do not wish to sound harsh or cold, but tens of THOUSANDS of soldiers died overseas in past wars. We need to keep these paltry losses in perspective, as Key has done. I say good on him.
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August 10, 2012 9:15am
b1gdaddynz

DG – I agree with you! Key met with the families in private and rather than trying to make political hay out of the situation he is supporting his son! I am sure the families of the slain soldiers would appreciate him spending time with his son is important and would know more than most how precious that time is!
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August 10, 2012 9:24am
smttc

DG, on a related point, the bloody MSM had the nerve to describe Key’s action as skipping the funerals.

Firstly, where is it written that the PM must attend every fuineral of a fallen NZ serviceman? Bill English will be a perfectly adequate Government representative.

Secondly, Key’s trip to the US is obviously a long standing arrangement. He is not skipping anything.

Lastly, I think Key makes a very good point when he says his children make sacrifices and miss out on a lot by having a father who is PM. It’s an important occasion for his son and I think he was right to decide to still go.
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August 10, 2012 9:25am
Komata

hj

Re: They are also deemed to be colonisers rather than intergraters which a society based on connection’.

Exactly! This is where the Crafar farms deal fails IMHO – by owning the land, the Chinese can effectively do what they want and NZ law will permit this.

Based on what has happened in Zimbabwe, in respect of the rare-earth mining, and to a lesser-extent on the Tanzam railway (built by China) I would hypothesis that the Crafar farms will become ‘little China’s’, with the majority of employees being bought-in by the owners and kept very carefully and tightly corralled while on site. No contact with the locals permitted. and no locals allowed to venture beyond certain clearly -defined areas. The involvement of Ag and Fish (or whatever the NZ department is that is providing the necessary dairy management input), is, at best only a token gesture on the part of the new owners and will eventually be dispensed with as the Chinese learn (and they do so very quickly) It should also be well-remembered that the company that now owns the Crafar farms will have direct ties into the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that. effectively it is an extension of CCP power into New Zealand. We have, effectively, become part of the colonisation process and part of China’s necessary expansion – we are the ‘dairy’ section of the growing empire, in the same way that oz is becoming the ‘iron-mining’ sector. rather like nineteenth -century Britain. same concept, different master. BTW: has anyone noticed that it is all ‘Han’ Chinese that come to NZ? These are the majority ethnic group and those who are in charge in Beijing.. it has ever been so, and this group are being used to ‘colonise’ the empire’s ‘outer reaches – Tibet and the western ‘desert’ sectors of China Emperica’.
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August 10, 2012 9:28am
Lance

@smttc
It is normal for the MSM to be muck raking under handed shit stirrers
Not to mentioning not letting the truth get in the way of a sensationalist story. I saw a number of years ago just how low these pricks will go, happened to be a TV3 film crew but I am sure they are all the same.
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August 10, 2012 9:32am
Ed Snack

Carlos, CGT is problematic, how do you account for inflation (or deflation maybe) ? Easy for a government to, say, inflate at, say, 50%, then to “legally” cream off the increase in price level as “profit” by the CGT. Or even if one allows a CPI adjustment, it is too easy to act as Argentina has, and deliberately manipulate the CPI figures to increase the tax take. And, would you tax only realized gains or apply an unrealized levy as well. Would you permit tax credits for assets that decrease in value ?

I’d rather see stricter rules on what qualifies as a capital gain and tax non-capital gains as income. A great many gains made on the sale of assets should be taxed as income anyway, but rarely are.
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August 10, 2012 9:33am
Nookin

I seem to recall that when Key attended the last military funeral, he was pilloried for politicising it by his attendance. I can also recall the response to that criticism namely that if he had not attended he would be pilloried even more. The proof is in the pudding.
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August 10, 2012 9:34am
Pete George

DG – I agree on Key, those trying to make an issue of it are the ones disrespecting the soldiers who died.
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August 10, 2012 9:34am
smttc

Does anyone else think Cadbury’s Olympic advert is bloody awful?

I bristle everytime it comes on the TV.

Now of course I understand annoying ads are sometimes effective. But it won’t work on me as I dislike chocolate.
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August 10, 2012 9:41am
Keeping Stock

It’s flippin’ freezing on the Sunshine Coast today. The sun is shining, but there’s a southerly blowing in, and it’s only going to get to 22*C. The locals have their coats and hoodies on, but I’m still in short-sleeved shirt and shorts!

Such a shame that we have to board the silver waka tomorrow and fly home to the remnants of winter…
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August 10, 2012 10:02am
kowtow

DG,PG

Compltely agree. The media are being their usual disgusting selves .

ODT ,page 3 headline “PM to miss service for dead soldiers”

They are turning the funeral into a bash the PM event.Shocking lack of respect for all involved at a difficult time for the families.TV3 did it last night too.

Actually the PM will be there,it just won’t be Key.

The media have a huge responsibility for spreading ,fostering a modern malaise, emotional incontinence.

They did it to HM the Queen around the Paris death of Princess Di.
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August 10, 2012 10:11am
Colville

What is the big deal about a land tax? why is it seen as being so effective while the obvious consumption tax (GST) would fail?
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August 10, 2012 10:24am
backster

Interesting article from Manawatu Standard http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/news/7446714/Ewen-Macdonald-a-callous-man-court-heard
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August 10, 2012 10:26am
tom hunter

Okay – DPF just has to run the following as a thread on it’s own.

Almost a year after it was a big, award-winning hit in Australia, the song Someone That I Used To Know, has been getting an airplay thrashing across the USA, as I found out when I included it in a list of Kimbra songs that I sent to my sister-in-law in Chicago.

It’s generated some parodies of course, including one on Rudd and Gillard in Australia that DPF ran a few weeks ago. But this one, by two Harvard graduates is far, far better The Obama That I Used To Know. The production is meticulous and clever, and then there are the lyrics:

But the change I got
was that I moved in
with my mother
…
Now your speeches never soar
as high as unemployment
You took Obamacare so far
But you left me like a dog strapped on Romney’s car

Even the shirt that was on my back
is owned by China
Or being arbitraged by Goldman Sachs

Just send in a Predator Drone
‘Cause now you’re not Obama that I used to know
…
Sometimes I think that these prizewinners
shouldn’t have a?Kill List

But you dumped Bin Laden in the sea
So maybe it’s all good!

Beyond brilliant.
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August 10, 2012 10:29am
kowtow

The UN and “Human rights”.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/08/election-of-genocidal-jihadist-sudanese-warlord-to-be-appointed-to-un-human-rights-council.html
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August 10, 2012 11:30am
Weihana

kowtow,

No western country should be a member of that council. There is such a divide between western notions of human rights and that of the islamofascists and other dictatorships that there seems little purpose in lending credibility to a council that does little to advance human rights. Obama would be wise to rethink US participation.
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August 10, 2012 12:07pm
shady

Tom Hunter – do you have the correct link for Obama That I Used to Know? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJnAp3YxCCw
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August 10, 2012 2:00pm
Pete George

The latest Roy Morgan poll is out. No big surprises although it moves against the recent TV polls.

National down a bit (44), Labour up a bit (32), Greens up a bit (14). All within recent fluctuation ranges, although near bottom for National.

Of minor interest though – Conservative support halved from 3 to 1.5 which could be related to Craig’s anti marriage equality campaign.

Up to 5 August (Sunday) which excludes this week of course.

http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2012/4810/
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August 10, 2012 2:34pm
wreck1080

There seems to be an extraordinary amount of child abuse being reported in the paper lately?

Most (if not all) of the kids appear to be maori / PI. Does this mean the paper is guilty of racism for only reporting maori child abuse?
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August 10, 2012 3:16pm
Manolo

Worried? Really? http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2012/08/08/blair-deeply-worried-uk-may-leave-european-union/
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August 10, 2012 3:55pm
James Stephenson

Of course Bliar’s worried Manolo, he can never be President of Europe if the UK leaves.

UK out of Europe, Prime Minister Boris, with Gove as his Chancellor, in coalition with UKIP…yeah, I know, I’m dreamin’.
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August 10, 2012 4:29pm
Nookin

Oh dear. I wonder if TV3 will be able to pay its loan to the government as well as continue to pay Garner and Gower?

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/financial-results/7456415/MediaWorks-announces-306-million-loss
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August 10, 2012 5:12pm
Pete George

Jane Clifton raises an interesing point about the deviousness of homosexuals:

In the 1980s, nay voters used to rail that gays were out to “convert” us all. Now, presumably, the worry is that the cunning devils are out to convert us all to marital fidelity. Is there no end to their deviousness?

http://www.listener.co.nz/current-affairs/politics/jane-clifton-here-comes-the-bridegroom/

Fidelity equality?
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August 10, 2012 5:14pm
Still Here

Yeah Pete this is all about equality isn’t it?

So what about equality for all the others who can’t get married too, haven’t seen you mentioning that at all.

Using fidelity in a conversation about homosexual lifestyles is a joke isn’t it?
At least marrieds only fail 50% of the time.
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August 10, 2012 5:57pm
tom hunter

Tom Hunter – do you have the correct link for Obama That I Used to Know?

ARGRGGSGSGGGGGGGHGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Coying and Pasting without a second copy – but I see that you got it eventually.
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August 10, 2012 6:13pm
Reid

Everyone knows about the US drought but apparently Russia’s been hard hit too.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2184844/Britain-faces-food-price-hikes-fears-grow-drought-hit-Russia-impose-export-ban-grain.html

This is looking very very serious for those nations who depend on grain as aid in Africa. We are going to see mass starvation later this year and into 2013. Perhaps one of the good things is there will a few less fat Americans. That’s the silver lining.
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August 10, 2012 7:29pm
nasska

Paddy, the Irishman, is driving home after downing a
few at the local pub. He turns a corner and much to his horror
he sees a tree in the middle of the road.

He swerves to avoid it and almost too late realizes that there
is yet another tree directly in his path. He swerves again and
discovers that his drive home has turned into a slalom course,
causing him to veer from side to side to avoid all the trees.

Moments later he hears the sound of a police siren and brings
his car to a stop.

The officer, approaches Paddy’s car and asks him what on
earth he was doing.

Paddy tells his story of the trees in the road when the officer
stops him mid sentence and says,
“Fer Chris sakes, Paddy, that’s yer air freshener! You’ll be
walking for a year now. Git out!”
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August 10, 2012 8:00pm
Johnboy

Thanks nasska. Just realised why coconuts drive so badly. Trying to miss all those incoming rosary beads and crosses! 🙂

Course murri are just trying to beat the odds on their dice!! 🙂
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August 10, 2012 9:00pm
kowtow

Paddy, fed up of nasskas’ jokes straps a bomb to his back.

Mick,Paddys best mate says “Are ye mad,shtikin’ a bomb on yer bak?”

“No Mick” says Paddy,”every time Oi see dat bastard he shmacks me hard on de back and tells a dumbarse Oirish joke.”

“So he’s gonna shmack me on de back and booom,dat’ll teach de fucker”.
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August 10, 2012 9:15pm
Griff

A pair of Irish ditch diggers were repairing some road damage directly across the street from a house of prostitution.

They witnessed a Protestant minister lurking about, then duck into the house.

“Would ye look at that, Darby!” said Pat. “What a shameful disgrace, those Protestant reverends sinning in a house the likes of that place!” They both shook their heads and continued working.

A short time later they watched as a Rabbi looked around cautiously and then darted into the house when he was satisfied no one was looking. “Did ya see that, Darby?” Pat asked in shock and disbelief, “Is nothing holy to those Jewish rabbis? I just can’t understand what the world is coming to these days. A man of the cloth indulging himself in sins of the flesh. T’is a shame, I tell ya!”

Not much later a third man, a Catholic priest, was seen lurking about the house, looking around to see if anyone was watching, then quietly sneaked in. “Oh no, Darby, look!” said Pat, removing his cap and crossing himself, “One of the poor girls musta died….”
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August 10, 2012 10:37pm

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