Tax poses threat to economy

If the recommendations of the Tax Working Group are enacted in entirety and personal tax rates imposed on the sale of farms, businesses, investment property and shares, these draconian impositions could threaten the economy. Together with higher wages and Labour's Fair Pay Agreement looming, little enthusiasm would exist to commence a fledgling enterprise. Oddly, with the Labour caucus calling the tune, few in their ranks can boast personal business experience, the “market place” alien to their existence, ever servants of the state. Only a nominal tax rate on the gain from the sale of rental property could instead be contemplated, failing this, capital will flow instead to the upgrade and sale of the family home, an industry spawned in the process. This in stark contradiction for the need to channel investment to the productive sector, instead of the preoccupation and insatiable appetite responsible for the over-investment in housing.

P.J.Edmondson, Tauranga.

Council contempt

So the lethal Lime scooters are being allowed back. Auckland Council has shown contempt for pedestrians. These fast, silent electric scooters give walkers little or no safety zone. Any miscalculation by the rider, often going flat out, and serious injury or even death awaits. There’s nothing preventing a non-driver or drunk hoon riding them at top speed along busy footpaths. I’ve narrowly avoided being taken out on several occasions. It makes walking in downtown Auckland quite nerve-racking.

Footpaths should be exclusively for walkers, not cyclists or scooters. They should have their own lanes. So-called responsible sharing rules are nonsense. So is the 5km/h speed limit few scooter riders obey. It’s bad enough having to dodge vehicles taking fast shortcuts on so called shared streets like Forte or O’Connell. The scooters take the madness to a new level.

The death of a pedestrian from a collision with a scooter is only a matter of time. When it happens I hope those responsible for putting the scooters on the streets are held to account. To me, it will be manslaughter. Jeff Hayward, Auckland.

Shares investment

In a recent letter from Susan Grimsdell there are some misunderstandings. She says buying shares in companies is not investment, the only investment being the initial purchase. Wrong. For every buyer of a share there is a seller and the new investment merely changes the ownership. She says that until now people buying shares have paid no tax. Very wrong; when the company declares its profit it becomes liable for tax; it then declares a dividend and pays the dividend proportionately to all shareholders, each of whom pays more tax, usually deducted by the company so that the shareholder obtains only the “tax-paid” sum. She asks whether money should go under the mattress and that is the worst option. Second worst today would probably be bank deposits but there are far better possibilities including KiwiSaver or other managed funds which have been consistently better than bank returns.

Pat Moore, Orewa.

CGT silence

What happened to all the Herald business journalists who advocated a CGT for years? Are they shocked into silence now the Government has bitten the bullet they demanded? Is National jumping on the disclaimer bandwagon (remember Muldoon and Compulsory Super?), desperate to be re-elected no matter what cost to the country? The populist National Party has been a disaster for Aotearoa since it first won an election back in 1949. I hope sensible debate is not drowned under their strident indignation.

Paul Cheshire, Maraetai.

Egos hurdle

Surely nobody outside North Korea thought the egos of Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump could allow them to reach a mutually acceptable agreement?

Mike Jarman, One Tree Hill.

Thought for Braunius

Please tell Steve Braunius we love him . . . for his honest human empathy . . . it fair shines through in all he writes. He deserves to find personal peace and love for himself. I really hope he can.

Larry Mitchell, Rothesay Bay.

Denier tactics

Scott Rabone uses a well-worn denier tactic to disparage school students striking for adult action on climate change: put up a straw man. Children are not demanding the end of electricity now, they are pleading to be left a planet to live on later.

In 1896 the Swedish Nobel Laureate Arrhenius calculated that a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would cause a surface temperature increase up to 6 degrees. He died in 1927.

Fortunately he left a direct descendant, Greta Thunberg (16), to lead the charge against the greed and stupidity of adults — 92 years later.

Flat asset

Christchurch asked “Why have we not had problems with Lime scooters?” The answer is obvious. Christchurch is flat, Auckland and Dunedin are hilly, and their use here demonstrates they are unsafe at any speed. May this silly idea go the way of the Segway. Robert Densem, New Lynn.

Under watch

Dennis N Horne, Howick.

There have been articles and your leader about spyware in computers supplied to schoolchildren. What the public don’t always realise, we are all being spied on 24/7 by way of cameras through police, local bodies, companies with fixed cameras. As well, shop-counter terminals record your shopping preferences and financial habits.

And every mode of transport has cameras recording passengers’ behaviour, as well as speed cameras and cameras over dangerous intersections.

We are rapidly losing our privacy to ensure we are protected. Once, everyone knew and looked after their neighbours. Now, we surround our properties with the highest legal fences we can.

Eric Strickett, Henderson.

Avoiding boom-bust

Your correspondent Jens Meder acknowledges banks cause house-price inflation, but surely he does not accept that the resulting poverty and inequality is the best we can do?

Current rules may limit bank money creation sufficiently to mitigate risk of a systemic bank failure, but they do not kick in nearly soon enough to prevent house prices ballooning beyond reach of a regular person. Few would agree that house prices doubling every 10 years, resulting in some of the most unaffordable housing in the world, is “limited inflation” in any meaningful sense.

I am not advocating for a governmentcontrolled Reserve Bank, so the comparison he makes is not relevant. Alternative solutions such as Sovereign Money do not hyper-inflate nonproductive assets like houses, but do deliver needed funds to the productive economy without big booms and busts.

There is much scaremongering about inflation when discussing alternative money systems. In 1936, the RBNZ created money “debt-free” and, via the State Advances Corporation, successfully funded the first state houses, infrastructure and some of today’s largest NZ businesses with absolutely no inflation. The current way is not the only way.

Cliff Hall, Blockhouse Bay.

Bumpy ride

No one has mentioned the unsuitability of our footpath surfaces for small wheels. I rode a three-wheeled travelscoot on Wellesley St and was appalled by the cracked, uneven surfaces, raised or lowered manhole covers and bumps and hollows in the tar seal and concrete. These paths require total rider concentration.

Tanya Fitzpatrick, Mt Wellington.

Valuing children

What a sad indictment on society. The Herald article in last Monday’s edition depicts clearly records information that questions whether we value children. It is suggested what would any child with the ability to read its contents think because, put bluntly, according to the article, they are but a financial liability to parents.

Since time immemorial, humans have created families because, presumably in the context of a loving relationship, they genuinely do want them and, when they are born, there are no words to describe the wonder of a new life. If those who think they want children, but are not prepared to make sacrifices, one being that their disposable income no longer stretches to provide for their previously DINK (double income no kids) lifestyle, they should not bother having them.

How ridiculous it is that a parent would spend $800 a year on clothing for a toddler? As for the mother who would obviously be “run ragged”, simply because society dictates she must, spends her entire income on full-time childcare costs, petrol and parking. It is insane and, ultimately, the children suffer and it is no wonder we have increasing child mental ill health with many experiencing anxiety and depression from an early age.

It is no wonder people of our babyboomer generation shake their heads in disbelief at the “treadmill” existence mothers are forced to live simply because of the liberalistic and politically correct madness increasingly evident in today’s world. Leonie Wilkinson, Waiuku.