Bringing back a community
I met a woman from East Germany who had emigrated to New Zealand. A Kiwi was asking her about her experience. The question was: "What's it like to be living in freedom after all those years trapped in a Communist regime?" The response was
interesting.
"Until I came here, I had never paid for medical care, dental care, education fees, or public transport. I think you have been drinking some Kool-Aid about what it is like to live under Socialism."
Jacinda Ardern is doing what she can to redress the disparities between our richest citizens and the rest of us. We have become an appallingly self-interested and self-centred mob, and the Government is trying to turn us back into a community in which we all care for each other. It is not over-dramatising to say that unless we re-establish a sense of community we are going to go extinct. Until recently, that sort of idea was unthinkable.
But now, in the present day, we are faced with adverse climate changes that we alone have caused, and mutating diseases that might wipe us off the face of the earth.
What's the old saying? Nature bats last.
Bruce Rogan, Mangawhai Heads
Coveting capital
It would be helpful if those who think that market capitalism (and competition) creates inequality and excessive wealth for some were to suggest an alternative rather than the vague assertion that capitalism needs to be "reworked".
It seems necessarily implicit in such calls that the wealthy must return capital (i.e. have a "haircut") and limit earnings to a specified amount. Where do the wealth and earnings go? To those below the line or to Government for schemes to redress equity? And how would this be done?
Any cursory view of the benefits of competition, incentive and reward for individuals shows that it is by far the best means of providing dynamism, innovation and success for countries. In the main, it makes people better off. It is the greatest engine of human progress.
There have been rogues within capitalism and some wealth may have been accumulated by doubtful means or evasion of taxes, but prevention and mitigation of this is the responsibility of governance (which involves global effort and co-operation). Neither woolly idealism nor wealth envy assists in solving this problem.
John Collinge, St Mary's Bay.
Swiss model
Dr Dennis Wesselbaum's comments on the Government's proposed "unemployment insurance" (Herald 13 Dec) are thin on facts. There is a lot of theoretical economic jargon about all sorts of scenarios, without any fact about what the Government is proposing.
Indeed Dr Wesselbaum says, "We do not have details about its precise design".
There are quotes about how unemployment statistics went in Germany and Spain without any detail of their schemes. He is also assuming that the New Zealand scheme will be funded by an income tax increase, although this has not been stated anywhere.
It would have been good if he had looked at other overseas unemployment schemes successfully run in several European countries, such as the one operated in Switzerland, a country which definitely cannot be described as a "socialist welfare state", and where their unemployment insurance scheme is funded pretty much the same way as the successful ACC is in New Zealand. Workers and their families getting support from that scheme very much welcome this model.
Neil Anderson, Algies Bay.
Beyond economics
I suspect Dr Wesselbaum (NZ Herald, December 13) may place far too much emphasis on higher personal income, lower taxes and no emphasis on societal happiness.
The harsher capitalist society he apparently identifies with has shown itself as a failed/failing system, which is not wanted here or elsewhere by the majority.
All those countries have laws, particularly taxation laws, designed to enhance and fix in place inequality going forward.
Congratulations to Labour for understanding the happier-society goals moving forward.
That is the country I want to live in.
Dennis Pahl, Tauranga.
Stuck at lights
Isn't it nice that the Cabinet Ministers can toddle off to their holiday homes until Jan 17 and not have to bother with, oh... running the country?
In the meantime they will leave the country at "orange" on their barmy traffic light system until they can be bothered coming back to work.
I wonder how the hospitality industry feels about that? They will be working their butts off trying to stay afloat while Cabinet Ministers lie back in the sun and enjoy life.
One has to wonder what planet they are on. Do these clearly self-entitled people still not understand what the rest of us are going through? Are they that divorced from reality?
Is it beyond their abilities to have a quick get-together, say around January 3, to review the "settings" and thereby give businesses a boost?
Probably.
David Morris, Hillsborough.
