• Graduated income tax, rates, and the Communist Manifesto

The comments button is at the bottom right of this post.

What’s the link between these things? First, a little background information.

Income tax rates vary from 12.5% on income of less than $14,000, to 39% on income over $70,000. That’s graduated tax: the government steals from the rich to give to the poor.

Rates (local body taxes) are a graduated tax, since they’re based on the government valuation of the property (i.e. the thieves decide how much they’re going to steal). The rates rebate scheme for low income people exaggerates this effect even more.

The link is the Communist Manifesto, written in 1848 by Marx & Engels, where they listed ten steps for the transition from a capitalist society to a communist one. Step #2 applies here: ” A heavy progressive or graduated income tax”. It’s definitely heavy, with a true tax rate of about 45%, and it’s definitely graduated.

These ten steps are a method of accomplishing the following:

We have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy. [They obviously had a different idea of what democracy was. This was just a sales pitch; the proletariat never did gain power]

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie [e.g. steal their money with a graduated tax system], to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state [State Owned Enterprises, hospitals, etc, etc], i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class [so a communist revolution is just a change of rulers]; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic [despotic: think of Helen Clark or Sue Bradford and you've got the basic picture] inroads on the rights of property [money is property; we only lease our land from the government for 999 years and they can take it off us whenever they wish*; laws like the Resource Management Act restrict what we can do with the land], and on the conditions of bourgeois production [reminds me of the umpteen regulations that employers have to comply with]; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable [yes, Marxism is economically insufficient and untenable: it's not a good omen when an economic theory starts out with insufficient and untenable policies], but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves [how can insufficient and untenable measures outstrip themselves?], necessitate further inroads upon the old social order [this isn't just an economic doctrine, it's all about changing society], and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production.

Marxism is alive and well today, but it has a new name: Socialism. Poison is no less lethal if you call it cordial.

**********

*Step #1 “Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Joke of the day: Helen Clark invokes natural justice and fair process

Helen Clark is like a teflon-coated snake who can swim into a cesspit to visit her friends and then come out clean and fresh.

Today she admitted that Owen Glenn told her “pretty much what he said in the letter to the privileges committee”. That letter says that Peters solicited the donation, which Peters has denied. So Helen admits that she has known of a “conflict of evidence” since February, but there is no evidence (yet) to show that she knows who is lying. The snake is clean at this time, but see my warning here.

Glenn has little or nothing to lose by lying, and Peters has much to gain by concealing the truth. That, and Peters’ track record, causes me to think that Peters is lying. Also, Winston and his friends in parliament are clearly trying to cover up the stench of rotten scampi and other foodstuffs.

You will find the audio of Helen’s statement from this morning here. Near the end one of the tame journalists says, in regard to John Key refusing to deal with Peters after the election, “Do you think that was a premature call to make and what’s your response?”. Clark replies “From a natural justice and fair process perspective I think it is not a good approach”. Thankfully I wasn’t drinking coffee when I heard that, otherwise I would have been off to hospital with third degree burns.

This is the woman who made smacking illegal despite the opinion of more than 80% of NZers. It should have been a conscience vote for parliament, but Helen forced her cronies to vote on party lines. What about natural justice and fair process for the parents who have been wrongly accused of assault and separated from their children before conviction? See here, especially cases 11, 15, & 19. This is the woman who said on the radio several years ago that she wouldn’t make smacking illegal.

This is the woman who bought in the Electoral Finance Act to stifle free speech in election year. I can give my opinions here because it is a blog, but if I used any other method of communication I would have to comply with the regulations of the State that I am opposed to.  That is not free speech, that is speech with a ball and chain. Helen justified the EFA by saying that she didn’t want money buying elections: not only does the evidence show that money doesn’t buy elections, the Helen Party (commonly called the Labour Party) and Winston have received very large sums of money from Owen Glenn and others.

Helen’s definition of natural justice and fair process is “Whatever suits me at the time”. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has the words of Engels tattooed on her body somewhere: “A means can be justified only by its end”.

The best way to deal with a snake is to cut its head off; you will find the tools in a ballot booth this year.

National wants an investigation of the norovirus outbreak

Dunedin is just coming out of a norovirus (stomach flu) outbreak that saw their hospital locked down. Now National wants an independent investigation into what happened: what a waste of taxpayers’ money. Allow me to explain a bit about norovirus then I’ll get back to National.

Norovirus is highly contagious and is well known for outbreaks in hospitals, nursing homes, cruise ships, and the like. According to the Mayo Clinic you’re contagious as soon as you have the virus but it can take up to three days to see symptoms; in other words you can be spreading the bug around for up to three days without knowing it. Then you’re sick for a couple of days, and once you’re feeling better you’re contagious for at least three days more, or up to two weeks in some cases. Most people assume that they’re not contagious once they’re feeling better so they cease any precautions and spread the virus around. It’s a highly unpleasant bug causing vomiting and diarrhoea, amongst other things.

Obviously a bug like this will spread like wildfire in a hospital, or any place where people are in close proximity: a sick person just has to leave a small quantity of virus particles on a surface and the next person who touches that surface has the bug. Dunedin Hospital was described as “locked down” but it wasn’t really, because staff and a few visitors were going in and out. Most visitors weren’t allowed in but they could drop off items for patients, and the virus was able to get into the hospital on those items. The “lock down” might have helped a bit but it was pretty much window dressing, because unless you lock everyone inside the building – and don’t let anyone in – until at least three days after the last person appears well you haven’t got a true quarantine. A true quarantine is effective with viral illnesses but obviously that’s impractical for a hospital. A submarine that goes to sea for several months is in true quarantine if it doesn’t surface, and in those cases there will a lot of viral illness early on, then everyone will be fine for the rest of the trip.

Now National wants an independent investigation to see if the hospital had applied the so-called lock down soon enough. This is typical of the modern attitude which says that if something goes wrong, someone must be to blame. People cannot accept that bad things happen without apparent reason, because they have been bought up to expect life to be fair. If people believe that the natural order of life is fairness, then perceived unfairness is someone’s fault and someone owes them restitution*. The “poor” haven’t got as much money as the guys in the rich part of town? That isn’t fair, so it’s the government’s duty to steal money from the rich man and give it to the “poor” man. Someone caught norovirus? That isn’t fair, so someone is to blame for not locking down the hospital soon enough.

I live in a small house, while many people live in huge houses. I have clean water to drink, millions of people of people don’t. Life isn’t fair: as anyone who has had norovirus will tell you, “stuff” happens.

**********

* this is a Marxist attitude. Here Engels attempts to foment the sense of perceived injustice and unfairness that is rife today. Note that he mentions “social fairness”, which today is usually called “social justice” to make it sound like a moral issue. Engels considers social justice to be above and law and morality: in other words, whatever achieves this nebulous goal of social fairness is justifiable simply because it is achieving social fairness.

• Why isn’t the government’s monetary policy working?

The comments button is at the bottom right of this post.

Our government attempts to attain the “economic objective of achieving and maintaining stability in the general level of prices” via the Reserve Bank (does that remind you of Muldoon’s wage and price freeze?). Usually this is manifested in the Bank adjusting the Official Cash Rate to try and manipulate the rate of inflation. So why is this mechanism always beset with trouble?

In 2007 the government got a committee to look at the latest problems with the government’s monetary policy and Bruce Sheppard made a submission critical of the government. Part of his submission in regard to the causes of inflation was:

The Crowns activities in the property market through Housing New Zealand are also not helpful. The Crown is the largest holder of residential property in New Zealand, and to blame the baby boomers for the “scarcity” of homes is a little unfair. The Crowns holding is now valued at $13 billion.

Basically, houses are a popular investment in New Zealand, and because the government owns so many there are fewer available for purchase. High demand coupled with low supply drives prices and inflation up.

What is the common thread between the government’s manipulation of prices via the Reserve Bank and the government’s ownership of more houses than anyone else? Why are both policies causing economic harm? The common thread is this: both policies are directly from the Communist Manifesto.

The Communist Manifesto was written in 1848 by Marx and Engels, and listed ten stepping stones for the transition from a capitalist society to a communist one:

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. That’s government ownership of houses and administration of almost a third of New Zealand’s land area via the Department of Conservation.

5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. That’s the Reserve Bank.

It’s no wonder that these policies are a failure when they are based on communist economics. Such economics simply don’t work, as any Russian who queued for toilet paper between 1917 and 1991 will tell you.

There is a far simpler mechanism for “maintaining stability in the general level of prices”, and it doesn’t require hordes of expensive bureaucrats; it’s called the law of supply and demand. In other words, if the government stops interfering with supply and demand things will sort themselves out.

Attempting to fix a governmental monetary policy based upon the Communist Manifesto is akin to finding the skeleton of a horse and trying to get it to pull a cart.

What do you think about the points that I have made here?

~~~~~~~~~~