Greed is bad so why not a greed tax?
Sue Brooks May 3rd, 2010
Thank goodness for a long weekend practically free of Council related events etc. I think I’m nearly caught up with all things work related and even spent all day yesterday without turning on this PC or looking at my Blackberry more than once! Well twice really for the Bberry but even that little clever electronic bag of tricks was having a rest it seems.
It has been refreshing to get out into the garden and mow, weed and clean. Believe it or not I pressure washed the entire drive way over the last two days. I usually just do the outside sliding doors and windows but as Graham decided to clean the gutters (badly needed as they were merrily growing mini trees and things), I pressure washed them to clean the yuck off and one thing led to another so we actually now have an exposed aggregate driveway again rather than a black and slippery ugly looking thing. I do like pressure washers as they don’t use much water and really clean things quickly. I have give up the noisy blower thingy to preserve power and improve my fitness ( I sweep the old fashioned way) but I think the pressure washer is here to stay.
But today was back to the grind stone also as I had to read the board papers for our BMRG Board Meeting in Bundy tomorrow and the Council agenda for Wednesday.
So to the news. Lots ado about Henry and tax and about Council doing wrong by the SES some time back. I will ask questions about the SES issue so won’t comment further till I have some more facts but as I mowed and pressure washed I started thinking about tax and laws and government etc.
It seems that everywhere I go I hear people wanting their Governments to do more and more but they want to pay less and less. How do we resolve this issue? Locally people want more roads fixed and sealed, more footpaths and bikeways built, more drains fixed, more grass mowed, more money spent on economic activities and touristy stuff. We need a medical centre in Tiaro a conference / entertainment venue in the Bay and security cameras everywhere and … need I go on. At the same time I get asked to please not raise rates, to not levy infrastructure charges on developments and to keep fees and charges down as no one has enough money and the little that they do have they don’t want to give to Government.
So the real question for me, and I’m asking for comment please, is how do we decide what each layer of government should actually do and how do we fund it? I believe we have so much waste via duplication through the different layers of Government that one layer should go. Another thing I believe is that we need to really examine our health services and decide what we should spend money on. . But I will debate this entire topic more fully over the coming weeks as I want to write more about it than will fit here.
I would like to end this post however with this idea. Greed is the problem that needs addressing most of all in our society. The BER and insulation schemes designed to be of benefit to us, failed primarily due to greed. People decided to ‘rort’ the system and make a quick profit. Opportunistic GREEDY people dived in and exposed glaring loopholes in the process for insulation installation and building buildings in some schools.
We complain about our consumer driven materialistic society as if it is a bad thing. Is it really a bad thing to want the latest invention which might be a new plasma TV? I don’t believe so. There is nothing wrong with consuming goods and services in fact our economy depends on us doing just that. What is wrong is when companies and organisations use our need to consume to make insane profits by exploiting overseas workers etc. I detest greed and I want my Government to tax greed. Expand the new mining ‘big profit’ tax and make it much harder for greedy people and greedy companies to be greedy! Everyone should be able to make a profit but that profit should be a reasonable one. How good would that be?
- What do you think?
- Comments(2)
Hi Sue,
Now that you’ve cleaned the gunk from your drive, don’t forget mine needs doing to!
It may make very good sense to remove one layer of government and to tax companies making large profits, but realistically I think there is little chance of change. Are we really naive enough to believe that one level of government would consent to being voted out of existence. Heck, they can’t even agree on a health funding model.
Henry tax reforms aside, I’m not keen about taxing companies acording to a greed factor. Here’s something to consider… Joe Bloggs down the street has a brilliant idea on how to build a better mousetrap. He is certain his invention is going to be well received and he forms a company with his wife. The mousetrap is extremely well received and he cant keep up with demand so he increases his prices to relieve the pressure. He is now making ridiculous profits. Should he be deemed as greedy and taxed at a higher rate?
People who ignore the safety of staff and customers are the ones who should be targeted such as the insulation rip off merchants. The management of insulation companies who risked peoples lives (and lost) should face huge fines, compensation fees and time behind bars.
Thanks Paul. The Federal Government rules the roost so can decide the future of the other layers of Government but would need a mandate to do so I reckon.
Joe Bloggs can invent and produce his mouse trap and make big profits. Nothing wrong with that. But if he took his work overseas and employed Chinese labourers to produce the mouse traps cheaply just to make a bigger profit I reckon that is greedy. Otherwise pay staff locally and produce a product people want and go for it. It’s how you treat your customers and employees that is the test. Ripping off your customers by charging too much eg bank fees, managing the market to your advantage, price fixing and wanting more and more and bigger and bigger profits while treating people badly is what worries me.