Food more expensive in New Zealand

From the Herald:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10781926

One of the more pleasing surprises about moving to California is that basic grocery items are cheaper. Milk is 50c a litre cheaper at our local Trader Joes. This includes sales tax of approx 8%.

In short: New Zealand with it’s much higher sales tax is poked.

I was watching from the Parliament gallery in 2010 when Phil Goff gave a very clear and lucid explanation as to why an increase in GST was regressive and would hit lower incomes harder. His vision of a slowing economy seems to have come to pass.

New Zealand is trying to pay for a socialist ticket with a depleted revenue gathering tax base.

Can’t work- will never work with tinkering around the edges. Bold and drastic actions are called for.

Some ideas (not necessarily original) to get  the ball rolling.

1. Can all the big ticket items: Interest free student loans should be out the window first. Students are peasants with no original ideas until they come of age about 25; ignore their ignorant squealing.  Keep em busy with the equivalent of intellectual sudoku and arguments re reproductive rights and the most appropriate drinking age.  Hell – give them free fees but shitcan the troughing student allowances to compensate. They should be able to borrow for the living component; charge ’em market interest.

2. Bring in private insurance capacity –  we should all be coughing up for private insurance for elective surgery. Nuff said.

3. Reduce GST across the board. Bring in CGT for anything sold within 10 years of purchase. Including your Remuera family home. Automatically consider it a trade. This will not penalise genuine long term investors.

As a member of Gen X I take it personally that mine is the generation that will pay for the massive ideological swings left and right since 1991. A bit of moderation would be nice.