cold of winter to give it sweetness.”

(2) Which city is known as the coldest city on Earth? And you can

count on it, no matter how cold it gets this winter at your place it will

be positively balmy compared to this town where the temperature in

winter has been known to drop below -60 °C

(3) It is froid in French, freddo in Italian,

frio in Spanish and холодно (holodno) in Russian –

what is it in English?

(4) Who was the leader of the Great Siberian Ice March?

(5) How will you keep your house warm this winter?

The difference between us is just where the balance should be. You obviously support the status quo where the median family income is dropping and the wealthy are seeing their income increase twice as fast as those on lower incomes.

You only have to watch programmes such as “Undercover Boss” to appreciate the value that good employees provide to a business. If increases in productivity and profit isn’t shared with the workforce and those at the top of the management structure capture most of the gains, it patently isn’t fair. Wages have now fallen way behind productivity gains in New Zealand.

I agree with you that the burden of tax is now falling on the middle income earners ($60,000-$150,000?) who probably pay more of their income on tax than those above and below. Those earning less get tax benefits and discounted services and those earning more can use clever accounting, businesses and trusts to minimize tax.

It has been estimated that tax avoidance by the wealthy costs the Government around $6 billion a year and it they had to take legal action against the Australian banks to claw back billions in avoided tax. Rather than make it even tough for low and medium income earners to get the odd million in savings surely we should be chasing the areas where the greatest revenue losses are occurring.

I recently read a book about the collapse of US infrastructure (roads, rail, electricity, public services) because the wealth of the country has shifted to the top quintile of earners who now pay very little tax. This has meant that federal tax revenue has dropped and basic services can longer be maintained.

No problem with a requirement to be either impartial or professional. But if a career choice requires a person to be “apolitical” then it is in breech of section 21(1)(j) of the Human Rights Act 1993.

Political opinion is prohibited as grounds for discrimination.

Yes, one day we will retire and probably be quite comfortable. We may even retire a bit earlier than some (justified given the age we started at). But if events don’t go our way, then we could be flat broke.

When we reinvest profits in our own business the eventual outcome (as long as the economy is strong) is more jobs. Well paying jobs in a good and caring work environment.

The problem I have with increased taxes for the so-called rich is that it misses the point that some apparently wealthy individuals are also playing important social roles in the pursuit of their fortune. Not everyone, I know. There are some people out there who are just rich and greedy. They will be the ones who wriggle out of paying more tax. It’s the more moderate, compliant ones I worry about.

As much as we need young people to get into good jobs working for others, we also need young entrepreneurs. I think NZ has a long way to go to encourage our next generation of young job creators. Taxing success is sending all the wrong messages.

More taxes by all means if it truly helps the poor, but not by taxing success.

The tax cuts that the Government gave to the wealthy wasn’t something that was demanded, it was gifted, and many wealthy, like Sam Morgan, made public statements about how he felt guilty about how little tax he was actually paying. If taxes to upper income earners were raised back to past levels or a capital gains tax was introduced it won’t cause the economy to falter or result in widespread suffering. As I have explained before, many of our very wealthy pay less actual tax as a percentage of their income than the average wage earner. When incomes increased through the tax cuts, little actually went into job creation or was re-invested into the productive sector. Most went into building larger homes, the growing luxury car market and luxury goods.

However, it does cause suffering when the only job you can get pays $14 an hour and you have two work long hours to pay the high rental costs, the rising power costs and support a family.

If we continue as we are we are going to get a large section of society who are very poor and a large section who are extremely wealthy. If that is the sort of society we want in NZ then that’s fine, but it sounds a little like a banana republic to me and not the sort of society I want my children or grandchildren to live in.

If punishment and deterrents don’t work for those on welfare then they are not going to work for those at the top end either. Punishing higher earners with more tax isn’t going to “bully people into pulling their socks up” and increase the scale and quality of opportunities they provide for others.

That’s not what motivates us to get out of bed in the mornings and find work to keep our employees busy. Nor is it what motivates us to reinvest profits back in the business invariably leading to resilience, new projects, and more jobs down the track.

Wise governance is knowing when to intervene when market fail or when markets need to be properly established.

Nope.. $643,000 in April with a median of $566,000.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10881303

Remember too that an average means many properties much cheaper. I checked a QV pdf for 2010 and found 52 AK suburbs with median prices less than $400,000, many of these were under $300,000 and some under $250,000.

All of which means that a sensible family on the median income of $63,000 or average $79,000 has quite some scope to buy a house within their price range provided they do what their parents did, ie, buy in the cheaper areas and build from there.

JC