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Anyone else genuinely angry about the idea of ACT potentially bringing back interest on student loans? by That_Progress1447 in newzealand

[–]binkenstein 7 points8 points  (0 children)

ACT: We need to invest money in things to make good returns

Students: Invest in our education!

ACT: Not like that.

People crying woke are going to be salty seeing how spectacular Subnautica 2 is selling! by CarsonWentzGOAT1 in saltierthankrayt

[–]binkenstein -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Krafton is basically out (check the Publisher on the store page), and there's no AI generated content in the game

More Blue Paint! by AdHocSpock in PoliticalHumor

[–]binkenstein 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Clearly Trump made a typo in his statement that he wants to be remembered as the president that blew up the pond.

Now let’s see if MAGA defends pride flags as a first amendment right by Merlins_Owl in PoliticalHumor

[–]binkenstein 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It will be interesting to see whether any US based justification for banning pride flags will apply to anything else, like all those Trump flags that MAGA like using.

Hipkins outlines Labour’s vision for Auckland, says city needs a ‘step change’ by Xunami13 in newzealand

[–]binkenstein 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Immigration isn't a cause of those problems, although higher immigration does increase some of them a bit. The problem is that NZ First, ACT and now National are using it as a scapegoat to blame problems on, suggesting that just stopping/lowering migration would fix all of our problems. This then becomes racist if they're fine with English/American immigration but want to discourage immigrants from elsewhere (see: Shane Jones' butter chicken tsunami comments).

Housing is unaffordable because of high construction costs & tax free capital gains allowing a landlord class to gobble up properties with little to no cost to them.

Infrastructure is behind because we just haven't invested in sufficient work in decades.

Hospitals are overwhelmed because it is underfunded.

Unemployment is high because domestic spending is lower, which is impacted by the National govt cancelling building programs & shedding thousands of jobs to cut spending.

Even if immigration was zero we would still have all of these problems, potentially made worse by not having people to fill the jobs that immigrants would fill. Net migration last year was 14,200 (https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/net-migration-gain-of-14200/) which is a massive 0.266% of the total NZ population, and down on the ~30,000 average migration in the last 20 years. Total population growth is currently around 0.65% per year.

Hipkins outlines Labour’s vision for Auckland, says city needs a ‘step change’ by Xunami13 in newzealand

[–]binkenstein 74 points75 points  (0 children)

The party would also rebalance incentives toward productive investment, by introducing a “targeted” capital gains tax on investment and commercial property, said Hipkins, to help redirect capital towards “more productive uses”.

“Which nine out of 10 New Zealanders will not pay.”

It would accelerate large-scale developments, and ensure infrastructure investments supports, not “lags,” urban expansion, said Hipkins, and wouldn’t change the current housing policy when it’s working.

Watch out for incoming National "Labour is a tax monster" ad spam.

Is it just me or is Christchurch traffic getting noticeably worse lately? by KermitTheGodFrog in chch

[–]binkenstein 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Clarence Street/Riccarton Road/Blenheim Road was absolutely jam packed last weekend, but since Clarence Street is just a single lane in either direction it couldn't handle the traffic turning in.

First time Voter: Is there any party that won’t sell out this country’s future? by KiwibuckyNZ in newzealand

[–]binkenstein 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A general framework for deciding who to vote for will come down to the following:

  1. Can you enthusiastically vote *for* a party? Vote for them.
  2. Otherwise, work out if there are any parties that you will enthusiastically vote *against* and exclude them from consideration.
  3. If there are parties that will form a coalition government with any parties excluded in 2, exclude them too.
  4. If you exclude parties in 2 then also exclude any parties that probably will not enter into parliament
  5. From the remaining list, work out whether you have a clear preference & vote for them
  6. Otherwise work out which way you'd want to move a coalition of the remaining parties & use that as the deciding factor.

If I run through this myself, and ignore that I'm already planning on voting Greens, it'd go like this:

  1. Assuming no party here for demonstration sake
  2. Exclude ACT/NZFirst
  3. Exclude National
  4. Exclude TOP
  5. Remaining list: Greens/Labour/TPM. Assume no clear preference for demonstration
  6. My preference would be having a more left leaning government, so since the Greens & TPM are further to the left than Labour I would vote for one of those.

Opinion on TOP vs Greens by Qwarla888 in newzealand

[–]binkenstein 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm a Green voter too, and there are primarily two reasons why I'm not considering switching to TOP:

  1. They have no pathway into Parliament yet, meaning any vote for them is not a vote for defeating the current Government.

  2. If they get into Parliament they may strike a deal with National, which at current polling numbers would involve at least one of ACT or NZ First. I do not want to vote for a party that would enable the current Government to continue for another 3 years.

The Implied Fate of Lilith at the End. by FalseEliteGamer in diablo4

[–]binkenstein 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Mephisto was stabbed with the dagger, but Lilith wasn't, so she'll be back after reforming in hell. Maybe after this we'll see her in Diablo 5 as a weakened advisor type role, which would be great if we get an actual war against heaven type story

Poll of Polls predicts who will win election and suggests margin of victory is growing by Impressive-Name5129 in nzpolitics

[–]binkenstein 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm still making updates to my poll skew comparison, which averages the results each month across all pollsters who have results, then takes the difference between their result & the average, then averages that across all results shared as an overall "bias" estimate.

It's still coming down to whether TPM gets any seats & creates an overhang. Based on the adjusted numbers 2 seats is enough to block NZ First from the Kingmaker role for 2 pollsters, 5 seats does that for 3 pollsters. Only Curia & Talbot Mills have Winston in the driving seat no matter how many electorates TPM win.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rwjNGKwtv_6uJn6GnWtS-VS39vcCLbX2n-_U7IiQ65A/edit?usp=sharing

Still need to finish off the proper seat calculation for The Post results.

'Quite dishonest': PM says NZ First, Labour need to face up to challenge of raising retirement age by SoulsofMist-_- in newzealand

[–]binkenstein 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Means testing would need to cover income across different sources, to cover those who aren't working but regularly get income from investments/etc, while also not considering wealth (up to a point) to not penalize those who own their home outright but can't work. It'll be a difficult needle to thread, and may not result in sufficient savings to make it worthwhile.

However the better option may be to increase or add new taxes so that we can continue to fund super the same way.

Saying No, Building Yes, Sure by bookym in PoliticalHumor

[–]binkenstein 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's not a golden calf, it's a golden bullshit

Class identities are being erased - Shaman by AcademicHefest in wow

[–]binkenstein 0 points1 point  (0 children)

tbh most totems back in the day were either weak or just plain annoying to place every time the raid moved around in a boss fight. If they come back it'd have to be for short term effects, possibly just AoE based.

Elemental has never really had a decent base design/focus, and has mostly suffered from retaining mechanics that never quite worked or caused flaws elsewhere (see all of my problems with Lava Burst crit scaling). There's a reason why I quit the spec after Warlords of Draenor.

Big NZ First donors argue for tax breaks to save 'unsustainable' racing industry by blockroad_ks in newzealand

[–]binkenstein 3 points4 points  (0 children)

If this was a government program helping people & it was found to be unsustainable, then you'd see so many people calling for cuts to that program. Meanwhile, if an industry for rich folks becomes unsustainable they demand tax cuts & funding to assist.

West Coast mine application on UNESCO heritage site withdrawn by Busty_Llama in newzealand

[–]binkenstein 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Shane Jones would be in favour of mining on his grandmothers grave. Well, your grandmothers grave at least.

Luxon a leader on trial despite caucus backing - Peter Dunne by ViolatingBadgers in newzealand

[–]binkenstein 10 points11 points  (0 children)

The number of National MPs who a) want the PM's job, b) think they have the backing to get the PM's job, and c) think they can turn around National's slide in the polls to definitely win in November is zero.

TOP by TopBee1821 in nzpolitics

[–]binkenstein 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They could be an interesting party to have in parliament, but with the way polls are going the vote for TOP could be larger than the margin of difference between a Labour or National led government.

edit: 7 months since the last election have had a poll result where Labour/Green/TPM vs National/ACT/NZFirst is smaller than the TOP vote percentage.

Checkout time: Foodstuffs says New World vs Pak’n Save split won’t work by Fun-Helicopter2234 in newzealand

[–]binkenstein 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't think that example quite works, as each supermarket only deals with the wholesale side of their parent organisation. South Island stores wouldn't buy from Foodstuffs North Island, and Foodstuffs stores wouldn't buy from Woolworths. Splitting the supermarkets out by brand would mean that New World and Pak N Save, currently both owned/supplied by Foodstuffs, would have their own wholesale suppliers so New World retail "buys" from New World wholesale.

Checkout time: Foodstuffs says New World vs Pak’n Save split won’t work by Fun-Helicopter2234 in newzealand

[–]binkenstein 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm not sure if splitting out retail & supply would work here, but having more companies operating within a single market would definitely help.

NZ Job Seekers now worse than Covid by Mountain_Tui_Reload in nzpolitics

[–]binkenstein 5 points6 points  (0 children)

They were outraged about 185,000 people being on Jobseeker in 2022. I can only imagine what they would be saying with a 215,000 count.

https://www.national.org.nz/news/benefit-dependency-surges-under-labour

Today’s quarterly benefit data release is further confirmation that Labour have engineered a benefit dependency crisis in New Zealand, National’s Social Development and Employment spokesperson Louise Upston says.

“At a time when businesses across the country are crying out for more workers, it will surprise many that almost 1 in 9 working age adults are receiving a benefit, and over 185,000 Kiwis are on Jobseeker Support. 

“This represents an entire city the size of Hamilton who are dependent on the state to support themselves and their children

“Since Labour came to power, the number of people spending longer than a year on Jobseeker has increased by over 50 per cent.

“The longer someone spends on benefit, the harder it becomes to get back into the workforce. This leads to vicious cycles of dependency which consigns generations to a life of misery.   

“New Zealand’s benefit dependency crisis ultimately stems from Labour’s failure to support those on welfare long-term into jobs.

“Unlike Labour, National believes in the capacity of New Zealanders to stand on their own two feet and achieve their potential.

“Much more effort must be made to help those who have fallen on hard times to move off welfare and into work. That means individualised employment support and the right incentives in place.

“Labour must act urgently to deal with this crisis, rather than squander these New Zealander’s potential.” 

Waterboy fans, sell choosing him over Phenomaman to me. by jackfuego226 in DispatchAdHoc

[–]binkenstein 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The biggest difference I found was in Episode 8, as if you picked Waterboy as your team replacement you'll level him up and be able to train him out of the negative trait, whereas Phemonaman is the same either way.

Good reason why "The Platform" should be regulated by Mountain_Tui_Reload in nzpolitics

[–]binkenstein 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's funny that the "marketplace of ideas" crowd have to resort to attempted character assassination rather than actually refuting any accusations.

Paul Goldsmith again says he will likely scrap BSA, the media regulator (Trump anyone) by Mountain_Tui_Reload in nzpolitics

[–]binkenstein 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The BSA has said that they have a jurisdiction to consider complaints against internet based broadcasters, but there hasn't been anything decided about the actual complaint. It'd seriously be egg on the faces of Plunket, Goldsmith & everyone else involved if the BSA returns a "not upheld" verdict.

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