2000

The Madhatters Tax Reform
For several years now our governments have been lobbied by the financial sector to equalise the taxation treatment of income from investments made by New Zealanders. The use of a selective tax on capital gains has meant that, depending upon which investment vehicle New Zealanders use to make an investment, tax on capital gains may or may not...
13 December 2000 - taxation - Gareth Morgan

Tax reform without brains
Why is the government wasting money, time and effort on a review of taxation given that Finance Minister Cullen continues to reject any elements of tax reform that would make the system fairer, simpler and more efficient? The review, not even started, is bound at best to provide political justification for some marginal tweaking of the tax...
6 December 2000 - taxation - Gareth Morgan

Fear works, mollycoddling doesn't
So Michael Cullen thinks that fear is an inadequate motive to save. He should study Japan where after decades of an avaricious government that has taxed and spent, households are saving so much the economy can't sustain any recovery. The Cullen argument that the government needs to enforce people to save is one Japanese governments have used for an...
29 November 2000 - retirement / super - Gareth Morgan

Sorry, Who did you say the Selfish Generation was?
A lot was made of the behaviour of the so-called "selfish generation" when they dominated the ranks of political power in New Zealand over the 1970's and 1980's. Expanding welfare and mortgaging the next generations of taxpayers was the main...
17 November 2000 - families - Gareth Morgan

Property Relationships Bill, Anti-Liberal
Division of property on the breakup of a relationship has never been easy. The formula is being changed according to a formula devised by middle-aged, insecure women who have a rigid view of a sterotypical relationship they wish to apply to us all. The division of property after a relationship is set to be revolutionised in New Zealand by the...
15 November 2000 - families - Gareth Morgan

Dairy Industry, a valuable asset; Dairy Farming, a speculative bubble
The IMF has urged the government to get off its backside and deregulate the dairy industry. Dairy farm prices are booming. Incongruous? Not really, this has become the country's most damaging on-going speculative bubble that threatens, once it's inevitably pricked, to drown farm owners and their bankers in a sea of tears. That event would confirm to New...
8 November 2000 - farming - Gareth Morgan

Letter from North Korea
Standing at the wire between North and South Korea is a strange experience. Thoughts of course turn to Kim de Jung who just got the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to cajole his northern neighbour, the "Hermit Kingdom" from 50 years of darkness. Being the last surviving example of socialism gone horribly wrong it also of course...
25 October 2000 - politics - Gareth Morgan

Yes, we have more bananas
About half of the sell-off in the New Zealand dollar has been investor recognition that producing commodities doesn’t produce competitive returns. So what are we going to do? Produce more commodities stupid. Yes folks, you’ve seen it all before, if we can’t produce enough income to keep ourselves in the fashion...
4 October 2000 - industry policy - Gareth Morgan

Why Most Stock Investors are Losers
One of the intriguing facts about investing in stock markets is that most investors fail to make market average returns. Indeed it''s estimated that only 30% of them manage average returns or better in any year - and this includes professional fund managers! We shouldn''t really be surprised by this - after all in many facets of life a few do really well...
4 October 2000 - investment - Gareth Morgan

Bonds in Growth Portfolios: No diversification value
Why do investors have bonds in their portfolios? Generally there are two reasons. to provide income to provide a diversification from the returns from stocks The first reason has in my view a thin veil of legitimacy, the second has none. The consequence of this is that many New...
4 October 2000 - investment - Gareth Morgan

Knowing Your Tolerance for Losses
We always talk about how well markets, managers and individual stocks are doing but choose to ignore the reality that the necessary cost of achieving those gains is to have a tolerance for the irritant of short term losses. Those losses are most commonly month-to-month- but can even go out to year-to-year on occasion. That is the nature of stockmarkets - if you...
1 October 2000 - investment - Gareth Morgan

Fewer people, smaller meals
As the graph indicates, it is not our tradition to achieve strong growth in GDP per capita when population growth is faltering. Indeed the two move very much in tandem - when population growth is strong so is the rate of wealth generated per head. This puts in context the damage Winston Peters inflicted with his 1996 jihad against immigration of...
28 September 2000 - migration - Gareth Morgan

More evidence the Maori model is bunk
Last week I posited that the closed Maori societal tribal model with its lack of private property rights and bloodline-driven hierachies is an anachronism that needs substantial overhaul if its members are to enjoy economic and social outcomes comparable with mainstream society. Worse, I suggested government policy is increasingly seeking to use the...
27 September 2000 - maori - Gareth Morgan