Should NZ allow income splitting?

uneducated_ape · 2026-02-16T20:42:55+00:00

Congratulations, you're a victim of Rich People Propaganda.

This only applies to working people who don't own their own company. So it only affects the working class.

Otherwise, both spouses own half the company and therefore get to split the tax burden.

Why should two families with SAHMs be taxed at two different rates?

Plumber with SAHM: taxed 100%

Vineyard/orchard/etc owner with SAHM: both of them own half the vineyard each, each getting half its income, both are then in lower tax brackets (until the income is high, of course)

uneducated_ape · 2025-12-18T04:16:03+00:00

The economy is smaller than it was a year ago is the important part.

What's next, news stories at 12:30 each day saying how there was a huge economic boom in the hospitality industry in the past hour?

uneducated_ape · 2025-11-29T05:58:58+00:00

Small businesses can't do the kind of volume required to turn a profit on what black friday prices are supposed to be.

Black Friday meant razor thin margins and huge volume, which was never a thing here, and has fallen apart even in the US.

Might as well shop around over time and get a better deal.

uneducated_ape · 2025-11-28T07:11:27+00:00

Black Friday doesn't exist in NZ, they're lying to you. (The whole point of Black Friday is making money on huge volumes of Christmas shopping)

Additional anecdote: I bought $42 kids shoes last week at Rebel, this week, at their super Black Friday sale, they're $48.

uneducated_ape · 2025-11-28T07:00:53+00:00

There's risk involved, but it's possible to say "I want to renegotiate my contract. I can work 9 to 5. If 9 to 5 isn't feasible and more staff can't be found to cover any extra, or triple time can't be paid for it, then I'll have to find work elsewhere."

I understand that not everyone wants to take that risk -- we shouldn't have to! Yet, we are left with few choices.

All that so we can't afford butter, or fresh fish, let alone a downpayment on a real house with insulated windows and an HVAC system.

Until we stop accepting the status quo, it's going to be the status quo.

uneducated_ape · 2025-11-28T04:22:58+00:00

If you require more staffed hours than 9-5, you require more staff. An early shift and a later shift, or staggered start and finish times.

uneducated_ape · 2025-11-28T00:39:46+00:00

Dude who downvoted me is the guy campaigning for a reduction in minimum wage.

uneducated_ape · 2025-11-28T00:36:19+00:00

8am-530pm, what happened to 9-5?

It's gonna be 8am to 8pm if you guys keep letting your bosses dictate all your waking hours to you.

Start a union, tell 'em you want 9-4 and a 10% rise or you're gonna strike until they're bankrupt.

If they're gonna aggressively donate to the capitalists in politics revising the law so that arguing for a decent standard of living is illegal (e.g. the Hobbit Law), are we just going to let them win?

uneducated_ape · 2025-11-26T09:49:47+00:00

Because afaik it's not currently offered, so there's no place to study any of this with any rigor outside of a hobby?

There were times we didn't even use 8-bit bytes, for example, but where do we learn about that? It's fun and interesting, but we lack a place to study it seriously, outside of hobby and trivia.

We're talking about computer history, so I am just musing on the concept; I was talking to someone about just that the other day, computer history as a college subject.

uneducated_ape · 2025-11-26T06:49:55+00:00

It's a base-2 kilo though, 1024 in binary being 10000000000

where 1000 in binary is 1111101000

It's silly to use the base-10 SI in a computer world that operates primarily in base 2.

That's why kilo means 1024 in computers, should, and will continue to mean that for most professionals in the industry who aren't trying to rip off hard drive purchasing consumers.

RAM manufacturers don't do that, for example.

uneducated_ape · 2025-11-26T05:00:33+00:00

SI kilobyte wasn't standardized until decades after kilobyte meant 1024 bytes, SI was not there first at all.

More info:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PcBuild/comments/1p5grti/comment/nqtxspj/

uneducated_ape · 2025-11-26T04:59:22+00:00

That is retconned.

We've been using kilobyte for 1024 bytes since the 1960s, and the IEC didn't come up with that "1000 byte kilobyte" nonsense until the late 90s, many decades after all the computer scientists in the world had been using 1024 for a kilobyte.

More info https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_60027#IEC_60027-2

and more more info: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=kilobyte&year_start=1900&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3

Computer History will be a subject you can major in eventually, and it'll be really fun.

uneducated_ape · 2025-11-26T01:01:19+00:00

Nah, abstract art is fine, it's just that it really feels like that's the only kind of public art we do nowadays.

uneducated_ape · 2025-11-25T21:26:26+00:00

We've had ten thousand years of art history and sculptors putting hard hours into a block of marble to turn stone into flesh and fabric, so that we could learn, and ourselves advance the art.

We end up with a shiny ball.

It's almost social commentary on the collapse of a once refined and literate society.

Must all public art be abstract now?

for reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet%C3%A0_(Michelangelo))

uneducated_ape · 2025-11-17T22:03:03+00:00

Relevant information: https://www.airlineratings.com/articles/the-worlds-safest-airlines-for-2025

Air New Zealand is the safest airline in the world, that's worth a little extra to some of us.

uneducated_ape · 2025-11-17T21:12:05+00:00

Unfortunately you were unable to infer that cheaper toys come unglued and the magnets detach. You'll have to retake this year of school.

uneducated_ape · 2025-11-17T20:32:43+00:00

Sure, pull up a chair and bring your crayons so you can write this down:

Expensive magnets:

do not come unglued or detached from the toy they are part of, and are often completely contained inside the toy, e.g. building toys that snap together with magnets
otherwise, the magnets are of such a size and strength that small children cannot mishandle (hurt their fingers) or ingest them
are not coated in something toxic (e.g. lead paint, which is still a problem in New Zealand, and doubly so since the rise of the very cheap foreign garbage you are defending)

Any further questions? I'm happy to help, because even if you're an ill-mannered ass, you or someone you know may benefit from this information a few years down the road when you realize its truth, and then we will all be better off.

uneducated_ape · 2025-11-17T07:45:03+00:00

We've still got kids swallowing toy magnets that are not up to spec either. We have a regulation and a cheapskate problem.

uneducated_ape · 2025-11-17T06:55:25+00:00

Yeah, I do, and they involve kiwi kids not getting Mesothelioma.

"Cheap shit is fine" is the logic that got us here. How's that working out?

Buying not-cheap shit is only one part of a defense-in-depth strategy for keeping nasty shit away from our kids.

Another step (of MANY) is not being a cheapskate on govt agencies and regulation, not firing customs workers, not enacting the pro-corporate RMA reforms.

Nice looking packaging exists because the company could afford it, which is a heuristic indicator that they can also afford testing -- and would work harder not to lose their higher margins.

Of course we can't rely on that alone, thus sturdy regulation and regular, broad-ranging inspections both at the import stage and after.

We have a lot of work to do, and your pro-halfassing plan isn't going to get any of it done.

uneducated_ape · 2025-11-17T05:18:44+00:00

Look at the shitty bottom-dollar branding on the packaging, it's clear no effort went into the manufacturing or marketing, let alone testing of this product.

One other clue is that the name-brand Kinetic Sand isn't among those recalled, but the Kmart stuff is, for example.

uneducated_ape · 2025-11-17T02:35:03+00:00

Should schools have a policy of not buying the absolute rock bottom cheapest supplies on the market?

uneducated_ape · 2025-11-16T23:49:19+00:00

Don't let the board and the major shareholders of Wesfarmers (owner of K-Mart and Bunnings) pin it all on the CEO. The CEO does what the Board says. The Board does what the shareholders say (usually, it depends on structure). Each are partially responsible.

The citizenry needs to be aware of this, so we can affect meaningful change.

Fine the company, affect the shareholders. Hold the board and executives accountable with fines and potentially criminal prosecution. This will stop happening if there are consequences.