An Alternative Budget.

Kia-ora

An alternative Budget, From Matt McCarten.
  Matt has posed this as a "left wing" budget.

However many of the ideas would have been considered centrist economic thinking not long ago.
Just shows how much right wing extremists have dominated economic thinking.


"1. Abolish 15 per cent GST. Replace with 1 per cent financial transaction tax as recommended by the New Zealand Bankers Association. Same money."
An idea which is being looked at seriously all around the world. It does need adoption by many countries at once to prevent banks dodging it.
 
"2. Abolish PAYE on wages and salaries. Replace it with a wealth tax and a capital gains tax when shares, businesses, land and property are sold. People are taxed when they're cashing up, not when they are making it."
Actually an idea of that noted arch socialist, economic thinker, Adam Smith. "Tax the owners of capital and land, not labour and entrepreneurs, because they produce the wealth".
 
"3. 90 per cent Death Tax. You can't take it with you. Grown-up kids should earn their own money anyway."
True, but I think their should be a threshold, say, a million dollars. No reason why one family should be allowed to accumulate ever increasing wealth over generations., and many sound economic and social justice reasons why they shouldn't. However parents should be able to pass on some to their kids.
 
"4. Rent-to-buy homes underwritten by the state. Limiting homes to two a family and having a capital gains tax will keep prices affordable."
Exemptions for family homes or restrictions on the number of homes a family has may not work. How do you define family?  Better to again have a threshold. Maybe set at the current median price.
 
"5. State-created work schemes for all long-term jobless."
Not bad, but I think a Guaranteed income is better, bearing in mind that in a steady state sustainable economy we do not need all those working hours.
 
"6. A living wage set at $20 an hour minimum. It would be a stimulus package."
Contrary to often expressed opinions from the rabid right, minimum wages increase demand and increase jobs and business profits. A better form of stimulus than gifting money to the banks, who lost it in the first place.
 
"7. No tax on profits kept in a business."
An incentive to invest in business growth, entrepreneurship and employment, not speculation.
 
"8. Free public transport in major cities. That would get people out of their cars."
Likely to save on roading, energy, and other costs long term.
 
"9. Victims get 100 per cent state compensation for loss or injury. Offenders work it off if necessary.
I hope that is extended to those who knowingly sell harmful products and politicians who work against their constituents best interests.
 
"10. Make KiwiSaver a state-owned fund and buy all the Government's non-core commercial assets."
Still doesn't give the investment in sustainable productivity we need for the future, but better than putting it in the financial lottery that is overseas financial markets. The same ones that lost all the US pension funds.

All in all a much more progressive and sound budget than National's recent mean spirited and dysfunctional, joke. 

The Reserve Bank, Debt and the Property Market

Kia-ora

In New Zealand we have the "Reserve Bank Act".

Which basically requires the reserve bank to kill the rest of the economy, whenever Auckland house prices, or wages, rise.

Originally enacted, as a circuit breaker, to cap excessive inflation in the 80's, politicians have kept it, long past its use by date, because in their limited view, what works once, briefly, will work perpetually.
It could be argued that it was somewhat successful in curbing very high inflation, on that limited occasion, though others would note that the end of very high inflation ended with the slowing of the rise in oil prices.

Now, every time the New Zealand productive economy struggles off its knees, the reserve bank delivers another knockout.


Howdaft.  Puts it so much better than I can.  I have republished his article here.

I have highlighted some in bold.

"The issues of house price rises in Auckland and Christchurch is prompting comment that it may be time for the Governor of the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates.   It is noted in the media that an increase in interest rates will result in foreign money seeking higher returns to enter the domestic market and this will also increase the value of the already overvalued dollar. 

What hasn’t been commented on is that an increase in interest rates will also penalise every business and household in the country including everyone resident in Auckland and Christchurch who already have a mortgage and have no intention of buying or selling a home.  There will be no beneficial behaviour change within that wide group who are not seeking to get further into debt but it will impose hardship and constrain the rest of the economy.  The interest rate rise would be imposed simply as an attempt to limit price rises in response to artificial shortages of housing in two localised parts of the property market. 

The more sensible action would be to address the cause of these shortages rather than attempt to alter the market response by raising interest rates.

The Reserve Bank Act is not only completely ineffectual at slowing property prices it is the root cause of property price inflation.  Because the Reserve Bank Act obliges debtors to pay over the market price for debt, it also guarantees lenders greater than normal market returns on investments.  The result is that foreign cash looking for high and secure returns has flooded into the New Zealand property market.  The banks are incentivised to actively inflate the property market because of the high returns it provides (thanks to the Reserve Bank Act) and because of the flood of money that they have to invest.  As a result the more the Reserve Bank increases interests rates above the natural rate for the marketplace the more money that flows into the property market, the less risk averse lenders need to be because they receive higher margins on loans and this results in banks adopting laxer lending practices, this then leads to property price inflation which results in the rate of increase in capital value of the property (in the overheated parts of the market) to exceed the cost of debt - for a while at least – the negative real rate of interest in this small part of the property market consequently further incentivises borrowing.

The end result is that we are as a nation carrying far more debt than is necessary for the economy to function effectively, we have a ruinously over valued property market, we have a grossly overvalued exchange rate, we are bleeding our scarce foreign earnings on interest payments on all the debt and meanwhile our productive sector is crippled by both the cost of borrowing and by the over-valued and highly unstable exchange rate, Instead of suppressing inflation, the Reserve Bank act causes inflation.

The Reserve Bank Act is singularly the most stupid element of the reforms of the 1980’s.  It is utterly illogical in that it defies the simplest of precepts of economics.  The answer to the problem of inflation is simple.  If a government wishes to increase the cost to the consumer of any element of the economy without increasing the supply of that element it imposes a tax not a compulsory price increase – alcohol and tobacco are excellent examples of this concept in action.   The government also targets only those activities it wants to constrain.  So when it taxes alcohol it does that based on alcohol content – it doesn’t tax all liquids.

A tax also allows for redistribution and targeting by the government to occur so if the tax imposes on lower income households this can be resolved through social payments with the tax on debt as a source of funds.  Similarly the tax can be linked to the asset class or region causing the problem so there may be a lower tax on business debt.  This is not difficult; the banks already set interest rates by the manner in which the debt is secured, the tax could be similarly targeted.   This is only one possible mechanism as there are is a range of possible taxation responses to this problem which these need to be linked into a wider strategic review of the role of taxation in the economy.

At a more fundamental level any market failure or physical circumstances causing the price pressure also needs to be addressed.  Auckland prices are being driven by a range of other policy actions by government that put inflationary pressure into the market.  These include allowing uncontrolled foreign ownership of residential real estate, immigration – from both within New Zealand and from off-shore - and from a failure to fully price the true cost to the national economy of growth of the major cities and the cost of internal migration of business and residents.  Property in the larger cities but particularly in Auckland is being subsidised in a number of ways while the rest of the national market is in one form or another languishing with surplus housing and infrastructure.  In addition to fostering policy that actively inflates the cost of housing nationally and causes our international debt to be excessive and our currency to be over-valued we are not as a nation using our existing investment in infrastructure wisely. 

We need to be asking ourselves collectively why we, who as a nation have the highest natural capital per capita and arguably the best system of society in the world, are one of its debt basket cases.  We are only being prevented from being another Greece or Cyprus by the dairy industry.  We also need to ask why we are not so much better off as a nation when countries like China and Singapore are doing so much with so comparatively little.  The answer is quite simple and that comes down to the vision and courage of their political leadership, could I commend you to read George Monbiot’s recent post

http://www.monbiot.com/2013/04/22/the-self-hating-state/ as it very accurately describes the malaise that we have inflicted upon ourselves with our reforms and our reliance on “The Market”  to provide."

Living wages.

Kia-ora

One of the "grass roots" initiatives that has arisen partly out of the occupy movement is The living wage movement. Living Wage

Predictably those who award themselves 100k bonuses and 17% pay rises, while dodging taxes are opposed.

Zetetic on a living wage.

"Don’t you love hearing the rich say the working poor can’t have more pay? The faux concern that higher wages cost jobs from the same people who support huge executive pay packets and tax cuts? If you really believed higher wages meant fewer jobs, you would cut the CEO’s pay in half, not dick around over a few dollars an hour for real workers. (Emphasis mine).

Of course, the truth is more money in working people’s hands means more demand for the basics, meaning more jobs. It’s well-established empirical fact. Anyone who argues otherwise is just using a false justification that masks their real – much less altruistic reasons – for wanting the poor to stay poor.""

 How, if low wages are good for the economy, do the  wealthiest justify awarding themselves higher pay while the rest of us have pay cuts.?
 We have a shortage of skilled technicians and trades in New Zealand. How is it econmically justified that their pay has been cut year by year, while financial finaglers, directors and "managers' where there is no shortage continually award themselves more pay? Japan and Germany seem to find competent managers, with pay differentials much less than ours.
How do managers, bankers or politicians, and other non-producing parasites, sleep at night when they collect 100's of thousands a year and put a miserly $13.50 an hour into their hard workers pay packets.

 At the same time, in New Zealand, half of our wealtheist people pay little or no tax. Wealthy dodge tax
One of the main reasons the PIG's went under is the lack of tax take from the wealthy. In Greece dodging taxes was a national sport. In New Zealand we just make the wealthy avoiding paying for the social and natural capital they use, legal.

The Poor don't ask for much, but apparently it is too much!.

Kia-ora

"I hate the sense of entitlement some people have - thinking they should have food, shelter, clothing etc. How dare they."

The poor do not ask for much.

The rich think they are entitled to millions, usually just because their parents had it, or they succeeded in gaming the system (stealing) it.


Like these, Corporate Thieves or these, Stealing the commons. or these, Bankers pay them selves highly while they destroy real wealth. or these. How Wall Street made Money by starving millions.

Is it too much to ask that everyone is entitled to a share in the prosperous societies, and plenty built on their ancestors and their own efforts. Not just the rich!

A living income.