Despair is free. But so is a smile.

Why bad news can hide positive potentials

This article open for all.

Correction: A prior version of this article said the government changed the trust tax to 39%. That was a misprint - they kept the exemption at the lower 33% trust tax rate which means ~12% trusts will pay the higher tax rate.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
― Viktor E. Frankl

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Thought of the Day:

“If $1 equals 1 second of time, then $1 million seconds equals 11.57 days - less than a fortnight.

1 billion seconds equals 11,574 days - just over 31 years.”

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Synopsis:

When Luxon claimed $1000 a week of tax-free, taxpayers money for accommodation, because he didn’t want the 2 free properties he was offered, he said he was entitled to it. But according to the government, all beneficiaries now require harsher rules or risk having their entitlements stripped. Yet only ~5% aren’t compliant and last quarter, 1500 were cut off. What do the numbers say, and what are our choices under a Tory government in NZ?

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Job seekers cost 2.5% of Crown Revenue, Superannuation costs 15%

Yesterday, I asked a friend if my posts were making sense. It felt to me like I was writing so much that I’d become lost in a own psycho-bubble of my own making - too much information squandered away in a small meandering box brain - resulting in streams of consciousness.

This morning, it’s easy to chat about how Luxon is a bit of an out-of-his-depth tosser, and how the benefits roll out is already hitting people on the low. An accountant had his benefit cut, and he didn’t even realise why.

Remember, it takes two whole years now to get a record reset. And if a beneficiary fails to meet one obligation, such as making an appointment, it could result in them having to do community work or be controlled on how they spend their money. It’s all a bit dystopian and reminds me of futuristic scenes from ‘Andor’, the Star Wars series on Disney +.

And the ‘you have 5 days to sort it or get penalised’ message from government is a tough mental and physical barrier to cross - mail is lost, people get sick, times can be tough, might just forget to open a letter. And what about the mentally ill, homeless, or those who are already anxious?

It feels like it’s all more about kicking people off the statistics. Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics is very real - and none moreso under Luxon/Seymour/Peters.

This year, Nicola Willis adjusted the trust tax rate exemptions back to 33% from 39% siphoning ~$350mn of taxpayer money to the well-to-do

Except conservative friends - including some of mine, will only see it as a good thing. As the Greens or Labour protest the changes, the right will cement in their minds how the country can only fail under people who care too much about ‘leeches’ and ‘suckers’ who are taking from them as we circle the drain.

The over-application of anecdotes by the right has come home to roost.

Except the statistics don’t bear it out. The real answer for any structural weakness is complex - a multi-faceted interconnection of culture, under-investments in tech & infrastructure, over-investment in property and ag, inter-generational trauma & poverty, geography, population, demographic.

It didn’t happen overnight either. Successive governments and taxpayers bought into our system.

Let’s look at some # specific to job seekers.

From Treasury reports, it appears jobseekers cost ~$3.4 bn a year. And crown revenue sits around ~$135 bn these days.

So ~2.5% of the Crown’s intake - 90% funded from taxpayers - goes to support job seeker beneficiaries when the government’s austerity is actively increasing unemployment, and for people who fall on tough times. It happens.

Treasury 2024:

So when Luxon makes comments like below, and it sounds good to our conservative fellows, what they miss is context.

“In a country like New Zealand you have rights to be able to get the support you desperately need when you need it... But you also have a responsibility to your fellow citizens who are the taxpayers who are funding that welfare system to make sure you are doing everything you can.”

Context includes, for example,

• They could invest positively for structural reforms like stopping most of our money going into property investment, and invest in science, technology, green root industries, infrastructure to future proof the country;

• Luxon infers beneficiaries aren’t doing what they can - never mind 40% of those are on Health or Disability and many more already work part time, this government is causing a lot of the unemployment, and even Luxon admits only ~5% aren’t compliant;

• The $12bn that Nicola borrowed for tax cuts requires interest payments. $12bn is a phenomenal number - not only in interest but in opportunity cost ie. where else it could have been invested for ongoing dividends e.g. productivity, tech, infrastructure. (BTW here’s a list of pluses and minuses I wrote a few months ago regarding where tax cuts went.) And to give a sense of scale of the word ‘billions’, yesterday, in the comment section here, John Walker wrote:

  “If $1 equals 1 second of time, then $1 million seconds equals 11.57 days, less than a fortnight

  1 billion seconds equals 11,574 days, just over 31 years”

• Nicola Willis adjusted the trust laws to allow 33% trust tax exemptions and exclude them from the higher 39%. Under National, only 49,000 of the 400,000 trusts in NZ will pay higher trust tax rates now. Labour had tried to close the loophole, pointing out the wealthy appeared to be hiding their money and property in trusts with the top 5% of trusts accounting for 78% of all trustee income Labour estimated it would save NZ $350 million a year - so that appears to be how much National is funnelling back to the well-to-do, while going after beneficiaries.

• Finally, our government is supposed to use small portions of our money to help and support Kiwis, and not in a way that adds to their mental stress and distress. Because ultimately doing that serves society - economically and socially.

It’s OK to manage people who intentionally abuse the system, but it’s not OK to try to boot people from your numbers to look good or cause more harm and distress on those that are down.

Dignity is the most important attribute for any human being.

And not affording it can only manifest in domestic incidents, crime, suicide, medical needs, and earlier death and sickness, through stress, which has a very tangible effect on our bodies.

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Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

Punitive seems to be the vibe Luxon and Seymour are going for. “Do your thing or get punished.” I can’t help but think about Luxon’s pious Christian background, and wonder what sermons he attends.

Yes, jobseekers might get ~$260-$320 a week, which at the top end comes to ~$18,400 a year. Luxon claimed $1000 a week / $52,000 a year for accommodation and said he was entitled to it. (Another time, in selling the return of prescription fees, he had argued ‘If I/you can pay, we should’.)

So this all seems to be about how rich people deserve more and poor or down-on-their-luck people deserve a beating - as well as kicking people off benefits to achieve targets and the right Tory vibe.

Upton already admitted she didn’t know what happened to the 1500 cancelled beneficiaries last quarter. She was also keen to paint beneficiaries a certain way when she told media last year her anecdote of an unemployed person turning up to an interview in PJs. “'You'll not get a job if you turn up in your pyjamas” - Upston lectured, because we all know that happens all over NZ. /s

Luxon, continually driven by seeming deep levels of insecurity, needs to meet his artificial KPIs and sell his success.

And to the Coalition overall - beneficiaries are lost income. $3bn to landlords is a matter of grace. Beneficiaries are losers.

i.e. Yep, beneficiaries are quite possibly the bottom feeders Luxon said we shouldn’t focus on - seen in this video in 2022, saying:

“We don’t just do bottom feeding in NZ and focus on the bottom. We focus on people who want to be positive, ambitious, aspirational, and confident, right?”

The silliest thing about all this is Luxon told us who he was. So did Seymour.

NZ voted them in anyway.

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Resisting the Lure of the Den

Yesterday I read a heartfelt piece which argued that New Zealand is circling the drain, and I had to take a moment or few to really digest the perspective. I respected the writer’s piece, and felt what he said. But I had to really think about it.

I’m a cynical, pessimistic optimist at the best of times, but under all the ramblings and grumblings, at heart, I see the best in all people, and hold an undying flame of hope and positivity.

We all come from our own inner perceptions, and outer circumstances.

Victor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor who lost his family at the hands of the Nazis, wrote one of the most enlightening books of our time - Man’s Search for Meaning.

Here are some other quotes from it:

“No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.”

“For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth - that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.”

“Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.”

But for many the hard times are real.

Hemmed in by high rents, stagnating wages, a competitive and scarce job market, and soaring prices everywhere you look, life is quite possibly difficult.

If you’re a beneficiary, it just got a lot worse.

In that old chestnut from Maslow, we can’t move up to higher needs and wants until our base needs are taken care of -

But there is another way of looking at it - four fold:

1. We need to re-invent a sustainable, fair system that works for everyone. A kind reader sent me one of Hickey’s old podcasts and in it Hickey converses with Stephen Hale about a new economic model. Well I looked him up more, and loved what he had to say: “The current economic downturn is hard, but it’s also filled with opportunities to remake the world in a more sustainable way”. Yes! And ironically, as hard as this all is, a new way needs large scale buy-in. It appears most of us (humans) are only touched when we are impacted, so perhaps this is part of that equation, as harsh as that is.

2. We need to recognise that the world’s resources are voluminous, but it is us who are out of kilter. In other words, is there enough land, resources, food and energy to sustain us? I’d argue yes, but the allocation of resources in our economic systems is what is causing an over-allocation to some, and under-allocation to others i.e. when billionaires have hobbies such as space travel, funding USD $44 bn for a social media platform to trash it, and spend USD $42 million to build a clock, there’s something kind of amiss in that picture. I’m not a fan of the ‘eat the rich’ mentality but I do see that we need a change in our economic, media, and social models.

3. Try to work from top to bottom on the hierarchy. Start where you are. And cultivate a space that gives you the opportunity to find peace and sanctuary in challenging times. Start small. Even a moment of peace and joy can light a bigger flame in each person. Like Frankl demonstrated, and millions of people globally who find happiness and value with less can, creating from a place of inner joy and gratitude will always render a more positive result than that driven by fear or despair. I know this because I have friends who moved to some of the poorest regions in the world and share with me stories of great joy and activity.

4. Media, decision making, and communications needs a shake up to operate from fairness, integrity, and facts over lobbying, dark money, and coporate messaging. Remember fossil fuels, conservatives, and tobacco can spend literal billions to spread anti-climate and pro-tobacco messaging for a reason. And our systems and politicians are beholden to such forces - as the Ardern government found out the hard way. I’m not saying the answer is here, but what I am saying is if we each hold that intention, I believe we will find that way - without a doubt.

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This year, at ACT’s Annual Conference, their keynote speaker told listeners that NZ was deeply “in the shit”. It seems that despair, fear and negativity is the currency of the far right and right. And the numbers bear that out - record numbers of young people are fleeing overseas. And I think that’s positive - young people should travel. The world is our oyster and there is a lot to see and experience. Plus, getting out to see the world often renders a deeper appreciation of what Kiwi is, so that’s another positive in my books.

Nothing is a reason for alarm even if the trend is down now - it’s all just a better impetus to find a productive way forward. New Zealand is a country with vast natural resources and people of heart, energy and intellect. People from hundreds and thousands of years ago started great civilisations on that alone, what makes us think it’s some great tragedy to be where we are?

There’s nothing we can’t do if we come from a place of hope and peace - even when things are hard, or just, in my simplified words, that’s stupid.

After being released from the concentration camps, Frankl, a doctor, went on to head the neurological department at the General Polyclinic hospital in Austria. He died after completing his work, Ein Psycholog erlebt das Konzentrationslager (1946; “A Psychologist Experiences the Concentration Camp”; published in English as Man’s Search for Meaning).

No, we aren’t at that level of degradation yet, nor are we really at ‘Andor’ levels, fortunately, but it serves as a reminder that there’s always opportunity, even in the worst and stupidest of times - or governments.

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