Open Mike 17/08/25
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6:00 am, August 17th, 2025 - 19 comments
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Today's Posts (updated through the day):
anyone having trouble reading or commenting on TS this morning?
Yes. Very slow. Have given up.
Same as Anne – slow to load / respond, although not impossibly so.
Edit: It’s back to normal speed now.
I was in Rotorua this morning, and then in transit to Auckland. Problem is the very high proportion of un-cached mobile requests today. It is on Google discover.
I have put the CDN on mobile and added better caching. The caching causes issuse with the WSIWYG comment editor on mobile, so I have disabled it.
That should improve the speed over the whole site. Even now it is obviously getting a lot of traffic.
It will make it less slow.
Looks like those changes worked. In the last 20 minutes since I changed the CDN, the 30 minutes Users has jumped by nearly 200.
Are those page views?
still very slow loading for me on Safari/OS.
Yes. It will still be slow loading. But way faster than it was earlier. I could barely get into Admin.
Peaked at about 880 in 30 minutes about an hour or ago. Now back down to 408. You can see it in the dashboard. May have to enable the analytics dashboard widget in Screen Options.
Here is a technical problem for a modern civilisation to get our heads around. Electricity. 29.34m
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK8mw07DcPQ 🔌 How did a slow 0.2Hz wave trigger one of Europe’s biggest blackouts? On April 28, 2025, the Iberian power grid—spanning Spain and Portugal—collapsed in under 90 seconds. In this video, I explain exactly what went wrong, why it wasn’t a “renewables problem,” and how it could happen again.
capital gain taxes and tax paid has been occupying my mind these past few days. what is a really simple way to explain a CGT. Here is one from me
People go out to work each week and get paid a wage/salary, and pay tax on it
People work in a small business each week and make an annual profit, and pay tax on it
Chris Luxon sells one of his rental/investment homes for a profit, and may not pay tax on that profit
A CGT means that Chris Luxon, or me, pay tax on all our income, not just some of it.
That is a simple way. yes a CGT has a lot more to it but the basic premise is a $ earned is a dollar earned, and under a CGT a $ earned is a $ taxed rather than at the monent where some $ earned are not taxed.
I anticipate some right wingers will raise their little tax envy argument how under WFF some families pay no tax but get a big state hand out. I am not a huge fan of WFF but realise there is some need for it. My answer to that argument is that landlords receive a big state hand out as well, Rental Supplement is $2b per year which goes into their pocket, $10,000-12,000 on average a year. Lets cut WFF if they want to lower their rents by $200-240 p/w
I suspect there is a lot of confusion about a Capital Gains Tax, but discussing examples may hopefully make some things a bit clearer. My understanding is that we do not have a separate Capital Gains Tax; what we do have is Income Tax, and some Capital Gains will be counted as Income (and have tax paid), whereas some other gains which people think of as Capital Gains are not included in income for taxation . . .
A few examples – and it would be helpful if others could say which are right or wrong; I suspect I have not got them all correct.
So some of the above will be correct, some may be wrong (readers, please correct errors!), but the bottom line appears to be that landlords for rental houses do seem to be specially favoured. Is there anyone else getting favoured treatment that either reduced government tax income or means that the wealthy (yet again) pay lower rates than low to middle income earners?
The goods and services that a country produces make up it's income. If there is a capital gain on the sale of a property that gain does not represent income inasmuch as nothing additional has been produced thereby, since there has been no physical change to the property itself. In fact the gain is being paid for by a transfer of income from the buyer, income on which tax has, presumably, already been paid.
This of course does not mean that capital gain should not be taxed, but one would need to find grounds other than income on which to tax it. In any economy all sorts of things are taxed – one can instance GST, excise on tobacco, alcohol and motor spirits, land taxes, and tariffs on imports, are some examples; these help to reduce the amount of income tax that needs to be paid. It could be that a capital gains tax could serve a similar purpose but there are problems, and these problems are the reasons that we have so much argumentation.
Specious argument.
If it increases an individual's wealth, it is "income".
The exclusion of capital gains from income is simply an accounting convention which, conveniently for those who get their income from capital gains, treats them as different from other gains.
In reality it should be unearned gains which are taxed, before useful work.
The current favouring of capital gains for tax over work gains, hasn't benefited our economy or society.
The exclusion of capital gains from income is simply an accounting convention which, conveniently for those who get their income from capital gains, treats them as different from other gains.
In reality it should be unearned gains which are taxed, before useful work.
Then why exclude "family homes".
Capital gain does not simply involve an "accounting convention". There is a very real difference between gains which are backed up by useful production (income), and those which are not (transfers).
Unearned income – e.g. rent and interest – should be taxed but capital gain is not the same thing: rent and interest involve a sort of quasi service.
The current favouring of capital gains for tax over work gains, hasn't benefited our economy or society.
Has anybody ever claimed otherwise?
Personally, I think owning a rental property should be treated exactly like operating any other kind of business. Simplistically, you buy an asset, extract economic benefits from it, deduct operating costs and pay tax on the balance. Sell the asset at a profit? Pay tax on the income. If thats reasonable for say a builder, why not a landlord?
Sell the asset at a profit? Pay tax on the income
If you sell a million dollar property for a million dollars where is the income; where is the profit. If the value of the property includes capital gain then that gain gain has come about independently of the sale and it was not taxable at the time it occurred.
After all, the landlord is not only giving up the property, he is also giving up the future rent that he would have received had he not sold. It is this futrure rent, probably, that has given rise to the capital gain in the firsr place.
What hope that the Right Honourable Gerry Brownlee will (re)consider his actions?
Next to none – imho, it's not a spine that Gerry needs
Shows a monstrous head; that of Gerry Brownlee, Minister for Economic Development, in amongst the bush in a national park. [30 Aug 2009]
Senator Cruz wants the US to recognise Somaliland.
https://www.cruz.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sen-cruz-calls-for-us-recognition-of-somaliland
Fast follower of his X account, Damien Grant agrees.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360792126/damien-grant-we-cannot-move-dial-gaza-heres-where-nz-can-make-difference
AI notes the background.