Tax on the rich...

Tax on rich...

The government in France will impose higher taxes on the rich as part of new measures to cut the deficit.


France's economy is slowing and forecasts of activity have been revised downwards from 2.25% to 1.75% in 2012
.
Financial markets have already questioned France's AAA credit rating and the austerity package aims to cut the deficit by 12 billion euros over two years, to 4.5% of GDP
.
A 2% tax increase on those earning more than 500,000 euros per year follows a call by some of the wealthiest people in France for the government to tackle the deficit by raising taxes on the rich.

Now that is a real good idea and should be done in NZ too!

Acknowledgements:@ Radio NZ  2011, 

Twenty five cents an hour increase under the rusty lock and Key administration...

Gee Mr John Key,sir! Just think of the effort and stress you endured sitting in your four million dollar home in Auckland, making that decision to increase the average wage by 25 cents an hour.

Come on you worthless cur! You are a chip off the Bolger/Shipley government mould of 1990-99 who averaged a 14% increase in the average wage during those nine years.

Compare that with those "socialists" in the Clark government of 1999-2008 who averaged a 75% increase in the average wage during that memorial nine years.

Remenber Selwyn Toogood's "Money or the bag" radio and TV show a couple of decades ago? Definately the bag in this case!

Who needs Key and National now? Tax cuts are a' coming...

Who needs John Key and National now? Tax cuts are a' coming! Did you ever doubt it? I didn't; timing is everything in politics. The time for tax cuts is now!

The Prime Minister,Helen Clark, and her Finance Minister, Mike Cullen have announced it at the Labour Party conference. They have relied on treasury advice previously, and were obviously told that until now,tax cuts were not feasible.

To say it is too little too late, is a load of nonsense! And nonsense is all we have heard from the National Party and their fellow travellers on the political right.

Everybody know's; you don't have to be a brain surgeon at all, that under National only the better off will benefit from personal tax cuts.The majority of Kiwi earners would be lucky to get $10-$20 per week. This would do absolutely nothing to assist them and their families.

Under Labour families have benefitted from the Government's policies. The Tories just can't see past tax cuts - well New Zealand is going to get them - both personal and businesses.

Lets read this space, and wait for the announcements.

But what do we do with National after this? Well they are as useful as tits on a bull! John is not the key for the future of New Zealand.

The Writers Lounge

The 2007 Budget - the aftermath - the political comments...

The 2007 budget - the aftermath the political comments...





Michael Cullen and John Key:



Key: it is a money-go round budget
Michael Cullen is defending compulsory employer KiwiSaver contributions; Nats leader says Dr Cullen has failed as Finance Minister

17 May 2007
The Finance Minister is defending his decision to introduce compulsory employer contributions to the KiwiSaver scheme.

Under the budget Michael Cullen has unveiled this afternoon, employees will get a tax credit of up to $20 a week. There will also be compulsory matching employer contributions from April next year.

Dr Cullen says the rate of employer contributions will increase by one percent each year until they reach four percent. He denies employers will feel resentful, saying the costs to them are quite small and many were moving to thinking about providing employer contributions anyway.

National leader John Key is labelling it the "money go round budget", pointing out that while business is getting a billion dollars in tax cuts it is losing another two billion elsewhere. He says instead of a tax cut, Aucklanders are getting a tax increase in the form of a petrol tax to pay for rail electrification. He says it is also clear workers will not get a pay increase for years, because of the compulsory employer contributions to KiwiSaver. Mr Key says he has received advice that 50 percent of workers will not take the KiwiSaver scheme up, because they cannot afford to.

Big business is also unimpressed. Business Roundtable executive director Roger Kerr says while a reduction in corporate tax from 33 to 30 percent is welcomed, it is not going to stop Kiwis heading across the Tasman for better wages. He says the tax reduction is a baby step.

Mr Kerr says there is nothing in the budget to contribute to productivity. With a growth rate of 2.5 percent predicted over the next four years compared with Australia's four percent, Mr Kerr says the income gap between the two countries is set to widen.

The National leader says Dr Cullen has failed as Finance Minister. Mr Key shouted across Parliament that he now no longer cares who presents next year's budget for the Government.

"I do not not know whether it will be Michael Cullen show reads Budget 2008 and I do not care. Because I know who will read Budget 2009 and it is going to be Bill English. And is going to be a lot better budget than that."

His criticism has been dismissed by Prime Minister Helen Clark, who labelled Mr Key a lightweight and said his budget response speech "makes a bird bath look deep".

Labour doesn't govern by popularity polls - John Key honeymoon will soon be over...

National has announced it has dropped its opposition to the Kyoto protocol and will cut climate change emissions by 50% by 2050. Well I hope it keeps its word. Apart from the fact it probably won't be in government much of that period now that we have a well established MMP electoral system, many of us won't be alive in 2050. Rhetoric, John, rhetoric! With countries like Australia and the US who didn't support the Kyoto protocol initially, now having to support policies to cut climate change emissions.

So National finally has a leader who has overtaken an overworked Labour prime minister, Helen Clark, in the polls. She should have been struggling for quite a while now, considering the flack the government has taken on a variety of fronts.The only real poll comes on election day, and this government, led by New Zealand's best prime minister in decades,doesn't govern by popularity polls.

Just how many times will Key and National get away with their backflipping on the Kyoto protocol, Kiwisaver, income- related State Housing rents, and most likely, student loans. The Government has to deal with the anti-smacking debate, interest rates, the high dollar and now, with tax cuts because Australia has done so in its election budget. I have confidence in Michael Cullen's econonomic management and his reasons why a small tax cut will do little to help Kiwi workers. The Working for Family policy is working its way through the economy now and will help most families more than some small tax cuts. I say small because that is all National has given in the past and would be able to give in the future if NZ voters were stupid enough to vote them into power.

The National Party cannot position itself in the middle of the political spectrum in New Zealand politics because it is still a strongly right wing party. John Key simply does not have a credible vehicle to drive to electoral victory. Look at the people he is surrounded by - all previously badly defeated New Right economic, social and industrial relations apologists. All I can say to John Key is to make the most of his little political honeymoon because future polls will be questioning his credibility. It will take the pressure off Helen Clark a little, and let her concentrate on working for the New Zealand people, not the little gnomes and gnomelets who have prospered since market economics became established in Newe Zealand.

National has announced it has dropped its opposition to the Kyoto protocol and will cut climate change emissions by 50% by 2050. Well I hope it keeps its word. Apart from the fact it probably won't be in government much of that period now that we have a well established MMP electoral system, many of us won't be alive in 2050. Rhetoric, John, rhetoric! With countries like Australia and the US who didn't support the Kyoto protocol initially, now having to support policies to cut climate change emissions.

So National finally has a leader who has overtaken an overworked Labour prime minister, Helen Clark, in the polls. She should have been struggling for quite a while now, considering the flack the government has taken on a variety of fronts.The only real poll comes on election day, and this government, led by New Zealand's best prime minister in decades,doesn't govern by popularity polls.

Just how many times will Key and National get away with their backflipping on the Kyoto protocol, Kiwisaver, income- related State Housing rents, and most likely, student loans. The Government has to deal with the anti-smacking debate, interest rates, the high dollar and now, with tax cuts because Australia has done so in its election budget. I have confidence in Michael Cullen's econonomic management and his reasons why a small tax cut will do little to help Kiwi workers. The Working for Family policy is working its way through the economy now and will help most families more than some small tax cuts. I say small because that is all National has given in the past and would be able to give in the future if NZ voters were stupid enough to vote them into power.

The National Party cannot position itself in the middle of the political spectrum in New Zealand politics because it is still a strongly right wing party. John Key simply does not have a credible vehicle to drive to electoral victory. Look at the people he is surrounded by - all previously badly defeated New Right economic, social and industrial relations apologists. All I can say to John Key is to make the most of his little political honeymoon because future polls will be questioning his credibility. It will take the pressure off Helen Clark a little, and let her concentrate on working for the New Zealand people, not the little gnomes and gnomelets who have prospered since market economics became established in Newe Zealand.

False representation by National as usual - DPEP Bill

False representation by National as usual - DPEP Bill. Proves Key is wolf in sheep's clothing!

A group representing people with disabilities is applauding proposed legislation to give disabled workers the minimum wage.The Disabled Person's Employment Promotion Bill will also see disabled workers given formal employment agreements. CCS National Development Manager, Peter Wilson, says the bill is crucial to change some people's views of adequate treatment for such workers.However National MP Paul Hutchinson is being accused of trying to slow the bill through an amendment to ensure no worker is disadvantaged. Carol Beaumont from the Council of Trade Unions says that seems to be a last minute attempt to deny those with disabilities equal rights. She says good work is going on to resolve concerns surrounding the legislation. © 2007 NZCity, NewsTalkZB>> More Business News

If National can cut costs for their friends in the private sector, they will do anything. This smacks of John Keyism. That man cannot be trusted!

National Party want to update their foreign policy...

John Key has announced that he and the National party want to update their foreign policy. Yeah right!

The National Party has done a huge u-turn on foreign policy. Six years ago they condemned the Labour Government for scrapping the RNZAF combat wing which Labour had done for economic reasons more than anything else; the RNZAF has had a long and proud record in combat reaching back to WW2 and the Battle of Britain, for example.

Suddenly they have had a brainwave, they now accept Labour's reasoning behind the decision to scrap the combat wing - New Zealand cannot afford the $200 million annually needed to run a combat wing! What marvellous insight, John Key. Bravo for John. Yeah right!

New Zealand's welfare state not the cause of NZ's social decline!

New Zealand's welfare state is not the cause at all of our social decline and the creation of an underclass, as claimed by Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten which published a full page report headlined The Kiwi miracle that faded, this is the liberal conservative newspaper attacked for publishing those controversial Islamic cartoons that insulted and infuriated Islam last year.

The above newspaper regularly attacks the Danish Government's welfare policies that are based on New Zealand's. A welfare crisis; an underclass heralding social disaster in New Zealand? I don't think so. New Zealand has problems and has had these social problems that were caused by the economic reforms of the late 1980's and the excesses that followed with the policies of the Bolger/ Shipley National Government, 1990-1999.

The Employment Contracts Act, the most fascist piece of legislation since Sid Holland's emergency regulations created during the infamous Watersiders lockout in the early 1950's, was designed to emasculate the NZ trade union movement, and it did; to reduce real wages, and it did; and to create flexiibility for NZ employers on a scale not seen since the great depression, and it did. There were a variety of insidious changes created to our society because of that legislation alone. Some of the biggest victims of that legislation were mature workers, many of whom have never had long term employment since that time. Awards were scrapped and employers soon did away with overtime and holiday double time rates. The side effects to these employment changes caused corresponding social changes which have deterioated to such a degree that there is a real and existing underclass of New Zealanders, a severe and worsening drug problem and violence on such a scale in parts of our country never seen before, not even during the great depression era. That is where John Key's underclass originated!

We all know what the problems are, where they originated and what should be done. The problem is they are now so deep-seated and difficult it will take time to eradicate. The Labour Government and its allies have started well by reducing unemployment rates to the lowest in 20 years. Its Working for Families policy will have a positive effect on poverty, but wage rates have to be increased dramatically as will welfare benefits in the short term!

John Key and his National Party are irrelevant and do not have positive policies to improve the lot of the lower socio-economic sector of this country, or even the middle and lower middle classes of New Zealand!

A National past-time - dreaming of political office in New Zealand

The New Zealand National party, the opposition party in this country look like staying there for a long, long time!

The new leader, in a string of leaders since Jenny Shipley stabbed Jim Bolger in the back and lost the Treasury benches for National after nine years, eight with Bolger as PM. New Zealand had had a gutsful of the right wing party which had become obsessed with what had become known as New Rightism and privatisation for the sake of it.

Well, the Don of the National Party has gone - before he became another Julius Caesar and was knifed in the back too! The foolish, politically naive Brash, who was a bit like Bill Clinton and couldn't keep his fly done up and his long fingers out of another man's snatch has been replaced.

But is John Key the " key to the kingdom" for National? If his keynote address ( all these puns?) is any example they will be in opposition for a total of twelve years!

He concentrated on society, claiming that an underclass exists, kids go without breakfast, others leave school without qualifications; gangs are a problem in NZ etc. Spare the bloody rod, John, your party turned a social problem into a bloody catastrophe, for god's sake. We see and hear about an underclass, drugs like methamphetamine ( known here as "P"), which is involved in every major crime or murder in this country, every night on TV.

He really showed how out of touch he was with NZ society. This millionaire who happened to be brought up by his widowed mother in a state house in Christchurch and went on to become a millionaire. A NZ dream? Hardly! During his address he spoke about NZ kids - the Samoan, the Maori, the Asian and... the Kiwi kids? You have to be white to become a "Kiwi kid"? Ask John Key - he said it and it was not taken out of context or was a misquote! What does that tell you?

I don't think Labour will have too much to worry about with Key at the National helm. Bill English may have been a different story, second time around with his Bolgeristic attributes - a big Catholic family!

And a good morning to you too friend!

And a good morning to you too friend!

This is Pete's Kiwi Forum - all I need now is some Kiwis to make some comment.

Now if you are not a Kiwi, you may ask, and rightly so, just what is a Kiwi?

Kiwi is New Zealand idiom for a New Zealander. Thats my first lesson for visitors to my forum.

I will be giving more free lessons on what I hope will be a weekly forum.

Regards,

Pete