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Random Rants 5

Entry 535, on 2007-05-17 at 17:03:03 (Rating 3, News)

Here's a couple of random rants based on some stories I saw in the news today.

The New Zealand Labour lead government is about to release its latest budget. Its unlikely there will be any tax cuts for normal people, despite the fact the government has a huge surplus. Apparently it would be too inflationary to give anything back to the people. They will give tax cuts to business instead so that our hard-won surpluses will effectively be given to foreign investors. Gee, thanks a lot.

Its true that tax cuts would be inflationary but I've really got to ask under what circumstances the average worker would get anything back. If the country isn't doing well we all have to make sacrifices and accept lower wages, but when the country is doing well we still can't get any more because it would be inflationary. There is something deeply wrong with a system where people work for the economic system instead of the other way around.

On another matter of interest in the news, apparently Prince Harry won't be going to Iraq after all. The risk was considered too great, and that's a fairly sensible decision in the end. Of course, its also a victory to the insurgents (so called), because Britain has effectively admitted they don't have sufficient control in Iraq for Harry's safety to be reasonably assured. In an earlier blog entry I criticised the decision to send him, now I'm going to criticise the decision not to send him, because the option should never have arisen in the first place.

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