1999

Be patriotic: send your money abroad
It is our duty to ourselves and to our dependents to nurture and protect our accumulated savings. If we can get growth on the investment of those monies then well and good. But as we age protecting them is what stands between us and financial ruin and loss of our independence.As it happens it is also our duty as New Zealanders to...
15 December 1999 - investment - Gareth Morgan

Lies, Damn Lies and Election Promises
The new government is installed, and some of its more loopy electioneering rhetoric is being jettisoned as it moves to establish credibility. Meanwhile within the private sector a gaggle of interests from yesteryear are jockeying for favours from the new regime. Our creditors clearly need to ensure their interests don't drown in the swill....
15 December 1999 - politics - Gareth Morgan

Business Welcomes Liberators
Like cheering civilians lining the streets to welcome the tanks of liberating forces, the business sector looks on at the new government with more than a little trepidation - all the while offering its congratulations. A poll carried out on Wellington business people this week by the Evening Post BRC displays the sector's schizophrenia. In short...
8 December 1999 - politics - Gareth Morgan

Looking after Number One under a Far-Left Regime
Labour''s won the election and congratulations to them. One point of difference is that after so many years in the cold they will hit the ground running, brimming with an enthusiasm to change the world. Helen Clark''s personal declared objective is to "reduce the gaps". Her approach we know entails tax increases and greater use of government force to redistribute wealth and income to her target...
7 December 1999 - investment - Gareth Morgan

Labour: Not a Trojan Horse for an Alliance Agenda?
Come back to New Zealand we're putting up taxes! - such was the election-night utterance from Jim Anderton as he basked with newly-appointed Prime Minister Helen Clark in the media glare. His bumbling plea to the successful of New Zealand's emigrants deservedly met with retorts of derision from Australia and the United Kingdom. Despite the...
1 December 1999 - politics - Gareth Morgan

Answering the critiques of tax reform
Now that we've completed the series on tax reform it's appropriate and hopefully helpful to answer some of the published criticisms/questions that have been raised by readers that I haven't already addressed. With a Labour government committed to substantial reform of taxation it is likely that issues of how to raise the equity, efficiency and...
24 November 1999 - taxation - Gareth Morgan

Impressions of Britain
Having been in the UK for the last 6 weeks one can't help but notice the contrast between life there and here. Certainly their economy is performing pretty well with unemployment now below 5% and job ads appearing in every third or fourth shop front - almost across the country. And employers are having to compete for labour against the super-charged...
19 November 1999 - overseas economies - Gareth Morgan

Portfolio Investment Skills: The key to higher living standards
One of the myths of modern day critiques of the New Zealand economy is that we don't "save enough" - either individually or as a nation. This oft-heard statement has little basis in fact and indeed detracts from the main issue with respect to economic performance and savings and investment.As an example of how too much saving can be bad for you one need...
19 November 1999 - investment - Gareth Morgan

Tax Series 7: The Tax Project's Objectives and its Political Reception
The primary reason for raising taxes is to fund government activities. If we accept this and that all taxes are likely to affect the way that private individuals organise their affairs to at least some degree, then the ideal tax system will be one that raises the required amount of revenue with minimal unintended distortions to private sector...
10 November 1999 - taxation - Gareth Morgan

Tax Series 6: GST as an Ideal Expenditure Tax
In the context of this series on achieving a better tax design, one might have thought that GST would be spared the rod of reform. But despite our "relatively" good GST there remains work to be done to make it more ideal. Its design should be changed so that all imports are exempt from GST, but all exports are liable for full GST. That...
3 November 1999 - taxation - Gareth Morgan

The cost of egalitarianism
New Zealanders like to think of this as a place where the ordinary battler gets a better deal than they would in some of the more affluent countries on the globe. Increasingly questionable though is the reality of this "better deal". Has our egalitarianism become a cross to bear?...
1 November 1999 - income distribution - Gareth Morgan

Fewer immigrants, lower quality
Much has been written about the brain drain - the rise in the numbers of people leaving New Zealand permanently who have a higher-than-average skill quotient. That the people involved are more than the traditional exodus of early-twenties off to do their OE is the relevant point. Flush from election success new deputy Prime Minister Anderton...
1 November 1999 - migration - Gareth Morgan

Tax Series 5: Integrating the tax and welfare system
Last week the economic costs of combining a progressive income tax scale with scope for an individual to choose which taxable entity they prefer, were outlined. This week nullifying the scope for that dodge is addressed - through a flat income tax rate in conjunction with a guaranteed minimum after-tax income (GMI) for every adult. Firstly...
27 October 1999 - taxation - Gareth Morgan