It'll work great. I own multiple houses. I'll make a mint jacking up rents and squeezing the poor. I'm who the policy was made for. The rest is lies to explain how it's "good for the people".

The entire house renting situation is broken. I can deduct work on a rental, but not a house I live in. I can deduct interest on a loan for a rental house, but not the one I live in.

The result is, it's cheaper to rent than own. So if you live in a house you own, you are doing it wrong. Buy the house next door to the place you want to live. Rent out the house you want to live in. You'll pay less, and still be on the property ladder.

The "fix" is to tax income from a leasehold at 80%. Don't lease it, sell it and let someone else improve it. Also, eliminate all tax deductions for rental property, tax all income equally. Why do I get to deduct the cost of driving to inspect my rental property, but not the cost of driving to a salaried job?

I know the answer to that one. National exists only to make the 1% richer. Pay for parking to go to your rental you own? Deductible. Parking to work a salaried job? Nope.

UFB/RBI was subsidies to private companies to build what they were already building. This plan also looks like a plan to give subsidies to the rich. National thinks there's nothing that can't be solved by paying a rich person/company to do it.

Prosperous for some preposterous for others

@jamesabbott Congratulations on your first block vote. you are now ready to kick puppies and club baby seals.

My problem with National is that they think they are right. They are deliberately boosting the 1%, expecting the voodoo economics of "trickle down" to raise all ships. The US tried it 30 years ago. It was proven a failure. So why are we doing it again?

The only thing that has been proven to work (to rise all boats) is to help the bottom 80%. When those losers have money to spend, they improve their lives, and buy more things that boost the 1%. The "problem" with that is that the 1% isn't helped sufficiently disproportionately.

It's not an economic problem, it's a psychological one. The guy making $100,000 a year in the Congo (over 100 the average) is happier than the guy making $200,000 in NZ (still top 1/2 of 1%). It's not the money, it's the feeling of superiority over others, more than the 1% would like to acknowledge.

The 1% feels that the economy is a zero sum game. On a microscopic scale, that's right, but we live in a macroscopic world.

• no, you don't get more details on that, I could write a long paper defending that statement, both on the economics and the psychology, and then tie it in to our failed transportation policy. Something I'd much rather be working on.

Yeah, I'll digress for a moment. You can stop reading if you aren't interested in traffic engineering.

So, one guy getting on the motorway. He has the choice to speed up a little more (to above the average speed of the motorway), cut someone off (obviously having to brake after, as he's going faster than the cars around him), or he could build speed to ~80% of the motorway speed, then pick the spot to get on that least inconveniences all drivers.

The 1% mentality picks the first option. This results in him (and those behind him) braking to avoid a crash. In heavy traffic, this results in a brake-wave that can persist for hours (you know the ones, where you stop in the middle of the motorway for no particular reason, but just for a moment).

The most optimal for road throughput is the latter choice.

On a microscopic level, the guy who takes #1 "wins" because he is farther ahead than if he hadn't done it.

On a macroscopic level, the guy who takes #2 "wins" because everyone on the road gets where they are going faster.

The problem exists because there's a disconnect between the rules and conventions, and the psychology behind it. The 1% constantly pushes for more 1% benefits, without considering the overall result. If something hurts the 99% but doesn't hurt the 1%, that would be considered a "win" by the 1%, and something that results in everyone getting the same benefit, 1% or 99%, then the 1% would call that a loss, because the gap isn't widening.

Unfortunately, recognizing the root cause doesn't fix it. NZTA knows the traffic problems are psychological, not physical, but won't word it that way for traffic plans, but obviously understands it, as that was the point of "drive social" they spent millions on, and that didn't seem to help at all.

Whatever it takes glad you are on the team.

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