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6:00 am, April 12th, 2025 - 36 comments
Categories: open mike -
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Open mike is your post.
For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.
The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Step up to the mike …
https://www.anglicare.asn.au/2025/02/14/anglicare-australia-calls-for-tax-reform-to-curb-wealth-divide/
Worth throwing into the mix?
Good link thanks Stephen.
“Making these changes is about stopping inequality from getting worse, protecting our community from disunity, and restoring the faith of Australians that Government can work for them.”
That's the problem, government has stopped working for the majority of of people for 40 years now.
Cheers also for yesty’s link on Canada/Japan bond sale/ Tariffs ‘pause’.
Anglicare Australia is of course a charitable organisation which is part of the Anglican Church. It doesn't pay any tax. Isn't it amazing how organisations that are exempt from taxes are so keen on increasing the taxes for everyone else who does pay them?
Amazing too how trolls choose not to comprehend when tax reform is mentioned.
It does discount their opinion.
Hard to consider major tax reform with the entire world descending into economic chaos for years.
We should keep it simpler by us aligning to Australia's 0 rate for low incomes.
That cannot be afforded, we have an inability to find government now.
We have to raise revenues to afford government that we have had (and more for aging population cost + climate change cost + Paris Accord compliance + defence in an insecure world).
Completely untrue. Public sector spending levels were only just beginning to approach a healthy level at the end of the last govt term.
True, but this in no way refutes what I said.
We had a budget deficit in 2023 and thus were no position to afford a zero tax threshold then. Not with health still under-funded and with growing cost of super, old age care cost and provision of housing for those retiring without home ownership.
It does. Labour did no tax reform and it was going just fine.
Just fine?
They were voted out (for not doing enough) and were still running a deficit – which led to their effort at government spending austerity.
And I was replying to Ad proposing we not do tax revenue gain change (so as to afford more government spending), but reduce tax with a zero rate threshold instead.
One can only wonder what such a costed manifesto would look like.
They were not voted out for running a deficit, and the current lot will not be voted out for pushing out the anticipated return to surplus with their austerity policies either.
If not for running austerity policies, then for what?
Why would Anglicare pay tax. I assume it doesn't make any profit, but simply reroutes donations (on which tax has already been paid by the donors).
Just been reading comments on Reddit about the tariff binge & there's a bit of pushback from small US business owners & they're calling Trumps demands forcing them to build factories in the US as "communist". Wild stuff.
Lol….People aye : )
Measles on the rise. Can be deadly to kids and immunocompromised. Please Vaccinate !
Sadly, quite possibly due to antivaxxer mis and disinformation…
NZ measles epidemic possible?
Amerikas Cooker in Chief RFK jnr turns back the clock on Vaccination and…
He plans to visit. FFS ! To what end?
RFK jnr Amerikan cooker in chief has previous….
The Amerikan loon has other plans too ?..
Because he's a predator preying "on the desperation of parents of sick children, vaccinating his own kids while building a following, hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs".
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A meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Food and Drug Administration was intended to be an introduction between Kennedy and the agency staffers he oversees, but his remarks were so shocking that several people walked out, according to a report by Politico on Friday.
[…]
He also repeated his claims that Americans were healthier when he was a child than they are now, and raised eyebrows when he used the term “retarded” in a rant about his claims about the causes of chronic diseases and autism, touting the Kennedy family’s long history with the Special Olympics and other charities:
https://www.mediaite.com/news/fda-staffers-dish-on-unhinged-meeting-with-rfk-jr-where-he-called-special-olympics-athletes-retarded/
"All my kids are vaccinated" – RFK Jr at those recent hearings.
The coming Atlantic hurricane season will be one to watch.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Dorian%E2%80%93Alabama_controversy
The Trump administration intends to eliminate the research arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, close all weather and climate labs and eviscerate its budget along with several other NOAA offices, according to internal documents obtained by CNN.
The documents describe the administration’s budget proposal for 2026, but indicate the administration expects the agency to enact the changes immediately.
The cuts would devastate weather and climate research as weather is becoming more erratic, extreme and costly. It would cripple the US industries — including agriculture — that depend on free, accurate weather and climate data and expert analysis. It could also halt research on deadly weather, including severe storms and tornadoes.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/11/climate/trump-noaa-budget-cuts/index.html
No worries! The Chump knows where hurricanes are headed.
Chump knows about lotsa things.
President Trump has suggested multiple times to senior Homeland Security and national security officials that they explore using nuclear bombs to stop hurricanes from hitting the United States, according to sources who have heard the president's private remarks and been briefed on a National Security Council memorandum that recorded those comments.
https://www.axios.com/2019/08/25/trump-nuclear-bombs-hurricanes
AKA Sharpiegate !? Not seen this before. Fark you couldnt make this stuff up. Its like some kind of surreal satire. But sadly, all too real.
He and his fellow loons see Science…(well, Knowledge in general) as something to disparage,diminish, and delete.
Wealth and power are the only things of value to them.
Our own maga morons are doing the same here in NZ, with our NOAA equivalent, NIWA.
Apparently any mention of climate rattles tRump, I guess because it might mean someone is referring to climate change, so climate just had to go.
On the military spendup. From an adult perspective.
It is a common characteristic of inadequate and/or wannabee authoritarian Government to try and focus attention on an exterior threat. The irony of using China, the same country the Coalition of Cockups is busily selling us to, seems to be lost on many commentators
The actual sea lane issue is cutting off trade by others (not their own trade) and it would thus be shipping (from Europe via the Red Sea or from the Persian Gulf) to and from Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.
Panama Canal – doesn't anyone have concern that an irrational country, that believes it can violate international law as it likes, controls this vital trade route? What country is currently trying to break the global trading system by imposing tarrifs left, right, and cente?
To this point the US has been for the freedom of the seas.
And it has not controlled it, since Carter gave control of it to Panama.
This year Trump said there was a China threat to it (as a Hong Kong company owned ports at either end). Black Rock bought the two ports. That matter is now over.
+1000 KJT
No one has sold us to the Chinese. Not the government that signed the FTA, or the current one. We trade with them and others.
Is there a list of which NZ strategic assets are owned off shore? Including but not limited to China.
Watching the UK having to nationalise British Steel, currently owned by a Chinese company which had intended to shut one of the last steel furnaces.
Note interest to overseas bankers and profits repatriated to overseas owners.
The Coalition of Cockups reliance on “cargo cultism”, foreign direct investment, rather than Government investment, is going to make overseas claims on our national income, our balance of payments, much worse.
A much shorter list will be NZ strategic assets, Not controlled offshore.
Starting with two banks!
true darklol. But it would be good to make a list of who the owners are, and what our vulnerabilities are. I just read something about China not needing UK steel anymore because it's now got sufficient internal infrastructure to be self sufficient. No idea if that's true, and I'm sure there are other factors involved in teh UK situation, but it's weird we don't know these things. I expect the US tariff fuckery will make people think about it more, but not that much more as most people seem to be doubling down on neoliberalism via globalisation without the US.
Those keen on building up our war capability, fail to consider that we lack one of the most essential elements.
Shipping logistic support. No gas, no transport, as Germany found in 1945, means no winning a war.
The Navy recognised that when they bought a logistics ship, which cost a lot more than a subsidy to local ships, after our NZ owned and manned coastal fleet was decimated in the 90's. Tankers were owned overseas as long as I can remember.
Note the first ship into Lyttelton after the earthquakes, was our last NZ owned and manned cargo ship, (apart from the rail ferries).
Overseas owners and Governments, will not be prioritising NZ in either wars or major disasters.
Not that I know of.
https://www.treasury.govt.nz/information-and-services/regulation/systems-we-steward/overseas-investment-regulatory-system
There appears to be too much money chasing too little information in the far-right (and possibly no integrity, but that is a separate issue). See:
https://centrist.nz/media-mps-out-of-step-with-voters-on-treaty-principles-bill-data-deep-dive/
The so-called "Facts" are said to come from :
https://thefacts.nz/treaty-principles-poll-3/
and it is asserted that the polling is from Curia, sponsored by the ACT Party last December – there is also much made of the data coming from "polling from Curia, Freshwater Strategy, Verian, and others," but a conspicuous lack of any verification of anything. David Farrar may not be happy at the implication that he can produce poll results to fit any prejudices and pre-conceptions – lying is never supposed to become public, and certainly not raise again the spectre of Dirty Tricks . .
The question is how long before the website or at least this article gets pulled?
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