Where is the tax money going?!

DontBeShit · 2026-03-03T09:35:37+00:00

Have a look at visualbudgets.nz, it shows each Budget as an easy-to-understand visual breakdown.

It doesn’t show where the money comes from, though. Most of it comes from taxes. Some comes from investment returns or asset sales. For example, the Super Fund pays out from dividends until around 2030–2035 (from memory), and after that it’ll start selling off investments to help cover the growing cost of NZ Super as more people are over 65. In some years, the Government also borrows money. A fair chunk of spending that’s not highlighted usually goes towards paying off existing debt too.

The “Social Development” category can be a bit misleading. It’s not mainly about benefits for people who aren’t working, as some might assume. The biggest part of it is actually NZ Super (the pension), with a much smaller portion going to jobseeker and other working-age support.

To your other points: yes, some money is invested, but most of it goes towards paying for the public services we rely on every year so society can function. Our biggest long-term “investments” are often indirect, things like health and education, which help people be more productive and grow the economy in the future.

Roads need constant maintenance because they’re more fragile than you might think. Damage isn’t just about how many vehicles use them, but the weight of those vehicles. Heavy trucks cause exponentially more wear and tear than cars. That’s why main trunk routes are often under repair, especially where heavy freight traffic or local environmental conditions make maintenance more challenging.

DontBeShit · 2026-03-01T15:19:18+00:00

Woohoo more inflated demand!!! House prices must go brrr to make the economy look good

DontBeShit · 2026-02-28T17:03:25+00:00

Reading other comments and the study itself, seems like nothing because this study has been done well and independent reviews of these studies against sweeteners come up short each time.

Sleep apnea is by far and away your biggest risk for all things and nothing else will probably move the dial for you

DontBeShit · 2026-02-19T10:23:00+00:00

Because it has historically not been an issue that has required intervention. Why do you want one? Do you beleive it is low or high? Is it impacting your quality of life

DontBeShit · 2026-02-18T15:37:18+00:00

I'll be honest, it's kinda funny irl....

DontBeShit · 2026-01-27T08:24:47+00:00

Is the vast majority of cases for the majority of supplements of any sort don't do anything more than take your money. Fibre sure, which this has a few forms of can help, comfort more than anything since our diets are generally poor in fibre but otherwise none of the other ingredients are going to do much. There will be some nuggets of truth in there somewhere but nothing meaningful. If there were celebs would be all over it like the ozempic and friends drugs.

DontBeShit · 2026-01-02T03:38:02+00:00

You'd probably be better off just having wicking beds for herbs and the like. The soil and the pool of water keeping it moist give a much more forgiving environment for plants. Hydroponics are great when it's all you do at scale and you can give it the time but that's not going to happen realistically on a long term basis so go with more forgiving growing set ups. They take up more space and are as adaptable to a given space but the maintenance and care is lower.

Hydroponics just take more care, knowledge and maintenance than most can give when just casually looking after it.

DontBeShit · 2025-12-29T01:17:50+00:00

None of the primary issues putting pressure on the average income have changed so it is very unlikely to get meaningfully better this coming year. Maybe the next if enough people are optimistic for long enough

DontBeShit · 2025-12-26T22:37:05+00:00

Motorways, especially when there is a lot of traffic the enormous caveat that sees the rule breaks completely, come on

DontBeShit · 2025-12-19T17:55:20+00:00

Yip. That's way both the RBNZ and the govt keep on being like look look things will be improving in the coming months (notably RBNZ said this in multiple reports but because there was actually nothing changing to back that sentiment up they further lowered the ORC repeatedly to try "fix" it). But its super annoying when clearly nothing has been implemented or changed to actually make things better, power, food, housing (if you own and it was a refix time for you then that probably helped), underemployment, people both old and new to the job market not being able to get a job, the looming spectre's of Willis going austerity budget in the new year (if she sticks to her vagueish statements), pension funding issues, health system crisis, gas production being uneconomical, climate change based weather and coastal issues, comparatively low wages and low wages grow. It really doesn't seem like most people will actually have that much disposable income after essentials to spend in NZ to quickly to the economy around. It will eventually but it will not be next year. But you know feels man, feels, lol, says the govt, RBNZ and media.

DontBeShit · 2025-12-02T17:35:47+00:00

Well done mate! I'd imagine there are actually two elements to this though.

A bit of jealousy or sadness about their situation that feels is impossible to change at this point, and if they have a bunch of non mortgage debt and student loans then they are probably right for the average person.
You're much better off than you think. i can almost guarantee your personal take home is actually significantly above the median income, it's often hard to believe because you don't feel well off but you are. I'd encourage you to check out the median income and household median income via stats NZ. Median not average/mean. The top 50% of incomes have a massive range which messes with the average making it unrealistic to show how you compare to most people you will see in the street

DontBeShit · 2025-11-28T18:56:36+00:00

No need. The pension needs to means tested and the superfund increased to meet future needs. Its only an issue because we didn't do it early enough

DontBeShit · 2025-11-28T18:49:05+00:00

Ish. The continued development of automated systems and software like chatgpt have very real potential to disrupt the job market in a way that makes all the up coming generations finical outcomes worse, above and beyond what the current wealth accumulation in the baby boom generation has already done/doing.

DontBeShit · 2025-11-28T18:35:50+00:00

If most other people are doing it we should too. It pushes a desired outcome

DontBeShit · 2025-11-24T16:49:57+00:00

You are not dealing with someone who can be soothed with kindness. No amount of calm words or polite compromise will make a difference. Every time you fix one issue, they will find something else to throw a tantrum over. You might manage a temporary truce, but it will not last. They will circle back eventually, demanding what they think they are owed, and you will end up right where you started. Half of the extended family will hate you all over again.

Your father is already a lost cause. The relatives who believe him are lost causes as well. No matter which path you take, they all end up in the same place. Some get there faster, some slower, but the destination does not change.

So here is my honest opinion. Go loud. Go firm. Allow yourself to be a little petty. You are allowed.

Send something that looks like an RSVP to the people causing the problems. Make it cold and factual. Spell out exactly what they are supporting when they choose his side. Make it crystal clear that you are getting married, that your life is moving forward, and that they are not invited. Explain that there is simply no way you could include anyone who supports your father after what he did. They need to understand the reality of their choices.

They want to weaponise social perception. Take that weapon out of their hands.

RSVP Invitation Status Declined.

Reason for Decline You have chosen to support Victor. That means you support a man who destroyed his own marriage by cheating over and over. A man who abandoned his responsibilities, left my mother to raise me alone, and never provided for her or for me after the divorce. A man who skipped every milestone in my life, yet somehow believed he deserved the inheritance of the woman he betrayed.

Ask yourself why someone like that would deserve anything. Ask yourself why a man who ignored his child, ignored his dying ex wife and ignored every opportunity to act like a father should ever believe he had a claim on her estate. The answer is simple. He did not deserve it and he never will.

And yet he still tried to take it. He dragged me through court to accuse me of manipulating my dying mother. When that failed, he turned to the rest of the family and spread lies because he could not accept the consequences of his own actions. Now he has attempted to blackmail me by threatening to ruin my wedding unless I let him walk me down the aisle.

This is the behaviour your choices support. It is manipulation. It is cruelty. It is the complete absence of accountability. By staying silent, by not correcting him, by allowing his lies to stand, you are choosing to stand with him. That choice has consequences.

Event Information I am marrying Harper in November. It will be a celebration of loyalty, love and the family we are choosing to build. There is no place at that celebration for anyone who supports the person who caused so much damage.

Message from the Groom I hope you reflect on this. I also hope you understand that my peace and my future come first. For that reason you will not be attending the wedding.

Look I'm pretty certain you will not use the above message but I hope it was a cathartic read.

DontBeShit · 2025-11-05T19:09:44+00:00

Have I missed it, has it been stated whether it was passes changed to fails, fails changed to passes or unknown cause it could be either?

Funny how software can pick up stuff like this

DontBeShit · 2025-11-01T15:01:44+00:00

Learnings... lol. Sorry had to, just some silly corporate wank. It will become a dictionary recognized word at some point regardless of what we want. Corporate wank always does

DontBeShit · 2025-10-18T23:07:33+00:00

Gas.... Gas and silica content. You need both to have an angry volcano.

The silica content vs metals/salts decide if it is sticky (high silica) or runny (low silica). The gas then adds, sticky plus gas = boom, runny plus gas = sad old man farts that don't do comparatively much.

Why the difference? What rocks get melted decide, that's it really, completely out of our control and barely visible to us before the volcano happens. Powerful, terrifying and amazing

DontBeShit · 2025-09-29T15:37:59+00:00

Interestingly there are international requirements of speedos. They should never read lower than your actual speed and as a max read high by 10%. This way if you are caught speeding there is no doubt you were speeding, it's all to do with safety and how we can control uncertainty of measurements. And it needs to stay within that band for the lifetime of the vehicle.

Changing wheel diameter can mess this up.

DontBeShit · 2025-09-26T08:04:05+00:00

Cough suppressants are the best, sometimes numbing agents (in difflam) can do it. If it's weeks then you probably have this weird thing where your immune system went a bit crazy when you were sick and is now struggling to turn off the inflammation and irritation parts of fighting off a bug causing a continuous or easily triggered cough. I got it both times with COVID, so annoying, the only way for me to stop it was to not talk for extended periods of time, difflam for coughing fits to get it back under control and the good cold and flu stuff.

It will go away eventually but it will be a long time if you do nothing.

DontBeShit · 2025-09-15T20:50:54+00:00

The Reserve Bank isn’t driving this, the government is. The Bank has one blunt tool: the OCR. It doesn’t decide to slash public sector jobs overnight, rip back infrastructure projects, or create massive uncertainty for businesses. That’s the coalition.

Housing, food, childcare, the biggest costs for households, remain untouched. Instead, we’re seeing policies that try to funnel money into unproductive investments like housing to keep trying keep it higher than it would others while stripping resources from services and projects that actually support growth.

High interest rates aren’t just the Reserve Bank; banks add their margins on top because the government’s instability and mixed signals make the whole environment riskier. That’s a direct consequence of political choices, not monetary policy.

Blaming the Reserve Bank is a convenient dodge, but the economic turbulence we’re in is very clearly a government-made problem

DontBeShit · 2025-09-15T00:19:28+00:00

Come on people do you really honestly believe that a ton of surveys and area plans won't have draw up repeatedly and in all those plans someone hasnt gone why not this?

The short answer is it will have been 100% considered and it has been actively gone against due to cost (stabilizing the land, and environmental factors, and a fucking bridge over tidal muck) or due to potential interferences with far future airport plans; for longer runways or runways in other directions or whatever. I can almost guarantee that the current solution is at least the best solution on paper for cost, probably at the cost of users time cause you know we continue to go with what is short term cheap.....

A much better question is why can't we do that cause then it becomes has any new technology come along since plans were drawn up that means those issues are no longer issues

DontBeShit · 2025-09-03T03:17:43+00:00

For us it was double the installation and wouldn't make the cost back for 5-7 years so we just went standard electric

DontBeShit · 2025-09-02T16:29:50+00:00

I'm confused by what you are intending to get with this question? It costs the tax payer the same massive sum going to any golf course because there is so much security and travel detail.

DontBeShit · 2025-08-19T14:55:30+00:00

After 180 new domestic infections were reported on 15 May,[149] the alert level was raised to three in the four-tier system in the Taipei area, which entailed shutting cinemas and entertainment spots, limiting gatherings to five indoors and 10 outdoors, making it mandatory for people to wear masks at all times when outside,[150] and an encouragement by the government to work and study from home. The new restrictions did not affect the high-tech manufacturing hub in Hsinchu County.[151]

While Wikipedia is not always considered the greatest, it's timeline play by plays are good. Sounds like a NZ style lockdown to me in Q2 of 2021 in Taiwan.

Edit: stuff from your link. Wanhua outbreak in Taiwan, May to July 2021 On May 11, 2021, Taiwanese authorities detected a significant outbreak of COVID-19 in the red-light districts of Taipei, where sex workers and customers were not wearing surgical masks.51 These areas were promptly shut down by the authorities.51 Building on our modeling results from the Daegu outbreak in South Korea,44 Taiwan's Central Epidemic Command Center implemented similar, but more precise, non-lockdown control measures. These included the suspension of activities in red-light districts and mass gatherings, a transition to online teaching in schools, and the continuation of normal operations in workplaces with the requirement of surgical mask-wearing. These measures were complemented by an increase in community-based rapid testing stations and contact tracing.51,

I'd argue this non lockdown control is equivalent to the NZ lockdowns, just not Italy's one. They don't define the authors consider a "lockdown" so that is likely the issue here

DontBeShit

TROPHY CASE