Zardnaar
Deity
The great right vs left debate at CFC. Most of the time it seems that you're a communist or sell your grandmother for a buck neo nazi or something.
In general I believe in capitalism. No its not perfect and yes someone is going to probably get exploited somewhere but so be it. Leaving everything up to the free market however is a big mistake. The free market isn't good or evil but is totally amoral. Some services will never make money but are still required so the government or local council will need to fund them- firemen, police, the military etc.
You are also going to need some level of the welfare state. Historically countries almost never have full employment. The few rare exceptions include Nazi Germany and the USSR which both had massive and unsustainable levels of government spending, or the 50's in the aftermath of WW2 when millions died and europe needed rebuilding. New Zealand had less than 100 people unemployed while the USA didn't have to compete with China, Japan, Germany or Europe in general.
I live in a welfare state. The stereotype of the welfare quuen more or less doesn't exist. I have only meet one person who had basically said they don't want to work and want to raise a family on welfare. Alot more commen are women who don't care if they get pregnant due to the welfare state- the more kids you have the more $$$ you get.
We also have "free" healthcare paid for by taxes and you can go private if you want and health insurance isn't that expensive. Tax is high by american standards, low buy europe standards. Corporate taxe tops out at 33% IIRC while personal tax is around 17-39% although a right wing government has cut that to 33% which takes effect soon- a left wing government put it up from 33%-39%. A government service tax (GST)of 12.5% (rising to 15%) exists on all goods and services sold.
We have universal welfare- if you're over 18 you can get it automatically and for as long as you need it. I personally know people who have been on it for over 20-30 years. In some cases however you can get more on welfare than by working espicially if you have a large family. Its also not to hard to claim he DPB benefit while having a "border" who is actually your de facto partner. Other couples have "separated" and have split the family apart as 2 benefits pay more than a parent working and a parent staying at home in alot of cases (depending on income).
Most people I know who have been on welfare rip the system off to some extent. I don't mind if its in a minor way get an extra $20-$50 a week to survive on by babysitting or whatever but some live reasonably good lifestyles beyond what they could support by actually working. Selling pot is another great pocket money earner as you have the available time and guranteed income to do it.
In any event though the system isn't sustainable. Every political party knows this, but in order to win an election they tend to bribe the electorate usually by tax cuts (right) or increased social spending usually targeted at various groups (minorities, low and middle income earners-left). The problem is of course the demographs. New Zealand has an aging population and you get the pension at the age of 65 and the government has to support an old person for 20 odd years maybe more and pay the health costs as well. Putting up taxes only goes so far as a large number of skilled NZer's already leave the country and go overseas which offer higher wages and less tax. There is more or less a permanent shortage of health workers and teachers. They cut the top tax in the 80's from 66% to 33% and the tax intake actually went up.
In the 70's they brought in the domestic purposes benefit (DPB) the intent was to allow women in abusive relationships to leave the husband and support the children. They assumed about 4000 women would require it. However they didn't restrict it to married women only. Before the DPB was brought in NZ had about 3000 adoptions per year. 35 years later we know have around 100 000 people permanently on the DPB which has actually magnified the problem and created a permanent underclass here. In less than 40 years some of those familes are onto their 3rd generation of welfare dependency. If you have 1 child every 5 years and end up with 3 children you can collect welfare for 33 years. Welfare queens as such don't exist but there is actually financial incentive to have more children. The worst poor families have the extra kids but spend the extra $$$ on booze, drugs and tobacco. NZ has some of the worst child abuse statistics in the world. If you're rascist and leave out certain ethnic groups it is comparable to Europe though. You can get more ont he DPB than by working a oow income job and don't have to worry about paying for transport or childcare. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
A simialr deal also exists with sickness benefits and invalids benefits. You can get one ofr having depression. Apparently the amount of people here requiring them made NZ statistics look worse than a warzone. When unemployment fell below 4% the numbers on these benefits almost double IIRC. Creative book keeping on the governments behalf. I'm on welfare and I'm depressed- here have a sickness benefit (pays more) and you're no longer counted as unemployed. Genius
When you add it all up around 3rd-4th of the population recieves money from the government with an aging population. The baby boomers are starting to retire now and it is estimated that the social security net will start to collapse in 10-20 years time. From a population of 4 million almost 2 million will require government aid, and 400 000+ live in Australia with tens of thousands more living in the UK. Over 10% of the population mostly highly skilled and/or university educated live overseas.
Basically I think we're screwed long term mostly due to socialism such as it esists here. Old people also vote in the greatest numbers and we have a proportional voting system and they are going to make up the largest voting demograph as well. The systemwill collapse and it doesn't seem to be a question of if but when. The government won't have enough money and they can't stop the brain drain as skilled young NZer's can, and will leave the country and have been doing so for decades. At some point someone, sometime is going to hae to dismantle the welfare state or cut it back drastically as it will essentially collapse and NZ will go the way of Greece.
In general I believe in capitalism. No its not perfect and yes someone is going to probably get exploited somewhere but so be it. Leaving everything up to the free market however is a big mistake. The free market isn't good or evil but is totally amoral. Some services will never make money but are still required so the government or local council will need to fund them- firemen, police, the military etc.
You are also going to need some level of the welfare state. Historically countries almost never have full employment. The few rare exceptions include Nazi Germany and the USSR which both had massive and unsustainable levels of government spending, or the 50's in the aftermath of WW2 when millions died and europe needed rebuilding. New Zealand had less than 100 people unemployed while the USA didn't have to compete with China, Japan, Germany or Europe in general.
I live in a welfare state. The stereotype of the welfare quuen more or less doesn't exist. I have only meet one person who had basically said they don't want to work and want to raise a family on welfare. Alot more commen are women who don't care if they get pregnant due to the welfare state- the more kids you have the more $$$ you get.
We also have "free" healthcare paid for by taxes and you can go private if you want and health insurance isn't that expensive. Tax is high by american standards, low buy europe standards. Corporate taxe tops out at 33% IIRC while personal tax is around 17-39% although a right wing government has cut that to 33% which takes effect soon- a left wing government put it up from 33%-39%. A government service tax (GST)of 12.5% (rising to 15%) exists on all goods and services sold.
We have universal welfare- if you're over 18 you can get it automatically and for as long as you need it. I personally know people who have been on it for over 20-30 years. In some cases however you can get more on welfare than by working espicially if you have a large family. Its also not to hard to claim he DPB benefit while having a "border" who is actually your de facto partner. Other couples have "separated" and have split the family apart as 2 benefits pay more than a parent working and a parent staying at home in alot of cases (depending on income).
Most people I know who have been on welfare rip the system off to some extent. I don't mind if its in a minor way get an extra $20-$50 a week to survive on by babysitting or whatever but some live reasonably good lifestyles beyond what they could support by actually working. Selling pot is another great pocket money earner as you have the available time and guranteed income to do it.
In any event though the system isn't sustainable. Every political party knows this, but in order to win an election they tend to bribe the electorate usually by tax cuts (right) or increased social spending usually targeted at various groups (minorities, low and middle income earners-left). The problem is of course the demographs. New Zealand has an aging population and you get the pension at the age of 65 and the government has to support an old person for 20 odd years maybe more and pay the health costs as well. Putting up taxes only goes so far as a large number of skilled NZer's already leave the country and go overseas which offer higher wages and less tax. There is more or less a permanent shortage of health workers and teachers. They cut the top tax in the 80's from 66% to 33% and the tax intake actually went up.
In the 70's they brought in the domestic purposes benefit (DPB) the intent was to allow women in abusive relationships to leave the husband and support the children. They assumed about 4000 women would require it. However they didn't restrict it to married women only. Before the DPB was brought in NZ had about 3000 adoptions per year. 35 years later we know have around 100 000 people permanently on the DPB which has actually magnified the problem and created a permanent underclass here. In less than 40 years some of those familes are onto their 3rd generation of welfare dependency. If you have 1 child every 5 years and end up with 3 children you can collect welfare for 33 years. Welfare queens as such don't exist but there is actually financial incentive to have more children. The worst poor families have the extra kids but spend the extra $$$ on booze, drugs and tobacco. NZ has some of the worst child abuse statistics in the world. If you're rascist and leave out certain ethnic groups it is comparable to Europe though. You can get more ont he DPB than by working a oow income job and don't have to worry about paying for transport or childcare. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
A simialr deal also exists with sickness benefits and invalids benefits. You can get one ofr having depression. Apparently the amount of people here requiring them made NZ statistics look worse than a warzone. When unemployment fell below 4% the numbers on these benefits almost double IIRC. Creative book keeping on the governments behalf. I'm on welfare and I'm depressed- here have a sickness benefit (pays more) and you're no longer counted as unemployed. Genius
When you add it all up around 3rd-4th of the population recieves money from the government with an aging population. The baby boomers are starting to retire now and it is estimated that the social security net will start to collapse in 10-20 years time. From a population of 4 million almost 2 million will require government aid, and 400 000+ live in Australia with tens of thousands more living in the UK. Over 10% of the population mostly highly skilled and/or university educated live overseas.
Basically I think we're screwed long term mostly due to socialism such as it esists here. Old people also vote in the greatest numbers and we have a proportional voting system and they are going to make up the largest voting demograph as well. The systemwill collapse and it doesn't seem to be a question of if but when. The government won't have enough money and they can't stop the brain drain as skilled young NZer's can, and will leave the country and have been doing so for decades. At some point someone, sometime is going to hae to dismantle the welfare state or cut it back drastically as it will essentially collapse and NZ will go the way of Greece.
A larger poupation at higher densitiy also leads to other advantages as well in regards to infrastructure- more people to pay for it, less distance to build it.
