`Where to now for Labour, Greens, Māori Party and the NZ Left?‘
That is his heading and god forbid he ever gets into a position of strength where he has a say in how New Zealand is run economically – either that he is taking the mickey in a big way and I have been well and truly sucked in.
Here is his wish list for the next Lefty Government.
`There’s no point making workers pay more to rebuild our resilience, tax the rich!
-Sugar Tax
-Inheritance Tax
-Wealth Tax
-Financial Transactions Tax
-New top tax rate on people earning over $300 000 per year.
-Capital Gains Tax
-Windfall profit taxes
-First $10 000 tax free‘
Envy reigns supreme!!!!
I have browsed his full post but it would take a tougher stomach than mine to read it in full. Here is a link in case you want to take it on. BTW there should be a language warning on anything he writes so enter at your peril.
No Minister 
He seems to have two modes: sensible rational discussion points (remember his pro free speech stuff) even if you don’t agree with him, and full-on rant. Lately, it seems always the latter. Not for nothing is he referred to as the screaming beard.
Maybe once he has gone through the 5 stages of grief, there will be something a sensible article. A real contrast between him and Chris Trotter. The later knows his history and can link it together, even from a leftwards view.
Well said CM.
As you say Chris Trotter is entirely different and almost always well worth reading.
I notice Martyn/Martin claims he and McCarten ran Labour’s 2017 election campaign. Labour lost that election.
Having noted that I urge all those reading Mr Bradbury’s column to share it without comment with all those they know. Sharing it at least once every few months in the next 2 3/4 years.
The racists (Labour), the racists (Red/Green) and the racists (TPM) will breach the 10% barrier in 2016.
MTT I noticed that. Are you suggesting he was not involved to the extent he claims?
PDM, Labour lost.
Because of that, although new to me, I suspect his claim is genuine.
Its all click bait demented ravings.
He is try to be relevant to the <1% of the population
and get profile.
Drunks make more sense actually.
That list plus this one…
1: Feed every kid in NZ a free nutritious and healthy breakfast and lunch at every school using local product and school gardens with parents paid to come in and help.
2: 50 000 State Homes for life…
… has been published on that blog by Bradbury literally dozens of times, as if shear repetition will get them implemented.
He seems to think a blog is just an online protest, with him out front on the bullhorn shouting the same chant over and over, with the crowd behind him responding.
Tom , re this:
1: Feed every kid in NZ a free nutritious and healthy breakfast and lunch at every school using local product and school gardens with parents paid to come in and help.
Martyn/Martin appears to forget that we already pay people rather generously to do this very thing.
Right wingers call then “parents” and give them other responsibilities as well, such as making sure their little bastards actually attend school.
A body set up to ensure the “parents” are attending and working in the gardens as required may not be a bad idea though – let’s call them “Policemen”.
I don’t think they were included in this one Tom.
Mind you I did not read every word of this post – my glasses were fogging up.
Oh they’re there alright. I scanned all the way to the bottom and didn’t have to read it because I’ve read all those passages before and recognised them. He just cuts and pastes this stuff.
I’m not challenging you to do the same because, as you said, you haven’t got a strong enough stomach, so you’ll have to take my word for it. 🙂
Not that he’d take my advice but what he could do for a change is just pick one or two at a time in a dedicated post where he argues for them in more detail. But like I said, they’re more a bullhorn chant for the crowd than anything to argue about.
Re the tax situation, aside from the fact that the “rich” can and will employ armies of accountants and lawyers to avoid Bomber’s taxes there’s also the fact that higher tax rates and other new taxes that hit not-rich people also fail. Here’s the graph I put up the other day from my post on how the US cannot tax its way out deficits and debt…
I vividly recall an example from my own life when I pulled so many hours coding that I hit Triple Time (my then employer had weird union rules applying even to the IT staff). When I found out that, my response was “Woo Hoo!” and I eagerly awaited my next pay cheque.
But this was 1985 and the Douglas tax reforms had not yet kicked in so I got hammered by tax. I still recall taking the payslip to my boss and telling him that I would never work even Double Time, let alone Triple Time ever again. It just wasn’t worth the candle. He was amused by my outrage but agreed.
So there it was: I deliberately earned less money because of the marginal tax bullshit of the day and the government’s tax revenue therefore suffered; how many thousands more young guys and girls were there like me who just didn’t push to make more income. Bad for the economy, paradoxically bad for government tax revenue. You can imagine my amusement at seeing my practical reality appear in theory when I did a couple of economic papers a year or so later.
But Bradbury and company have never thought of that.
Tom, the Law pre-The-Great-and-Good Sir Roger actually forced us to work overtime.
If not for that law most of us (wage slaves) would have gone without, such were the taxes on that overtime (often meaning you got less per hour at t+1/2) in the hand than ordinary hours .
Your example is from the top end but those of us at the bottom end suffered worse.
I won’t mention how fantastic and brilliant the unions were at helping us stand up to those laws, such was their magnificence.
Oh and this….
Total hours spent at work per year (OECD):
Germany- 1330
Denmark- 1346
Japan- 1598
Australia- 1683
Canada- 1644
UK- 1367
New Zealand- 1739
…. is well known, at least to people who read about this sort of stuff, and it does suck and it is a condemnation of NZ’s economy and many, many governments.
But it can’t be solved with State bullshit like simply regulating wages higher and having higher state tax revenue. That lousy productivity means we’re not investing in capital – the machinery that has been the source of increased production per hour of human work since the start of the industrial revolution.
Bradbury’s only response is that this is because we don’t have a capital gains tax, meaning people invest in housing not machines and factories. But that’s also driven by NZ’s lousy history of good investment: after thousands were burned in 1987 they never went back to stock-market investment and played it safe. A Capital Gains tax is not going to change that calculation.
At least one thing we need to do (among many) is to figure out ways of boosting investment in factories and machines – which basically boils down to giving people more reasons to start up businesses that do that. Right now the only thing we’ve got, that we boast about, is how easy it is to set up a business here. True, but it’s damned hard to run one, especially in trying to grow it.
Interesting reading Chris Trotter’s take on Martin Bradbury’s article over at interest.co . The link gives the tone of the article.
https://www.interest.co.nz/public-policy/125736/there%E2%80%99s-no-point-looking-red-hot-chilli-peppers-paddock-planted-potatoes
I am surprised the comments section hasn’t caught fire.
I am surprised the comments section hasn’t caught fire.
I’m not. Although I’m not a regular browser of interest.co.nz it doesn’t strike me as the sort of place that many Lefties would hang out at.
I’ve noticed a couple of regulars have abandoned Trotter’s own blog and are now yapping over at TDB, and by the same token Trotter has not written a post there for almost a month. Given his support of Israel (with reservations) that’s not a surprise either as the place has gone full Zyklon B.