Archive for politics
Are they human after all?
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It is always fascinating to watch politicians when they are under pressure. Certainly Australia is providing incredible entertainment right now as Gillard and Rudd hang each others laundry out all over the media.
I guess it is a reminder that it takes a certain kind of animal to survive in politics. In New Zealand we are a bit too kind so nice guys can hang in there but in Oz and the USA it really is a shark pool. And you have to admire their strategic cunning in the case of Rudd.
Having been bulldozed for being a narcissistic tyrant Rudd is displaying pure genius right now. He knows that Gillard will make Goff defeat look like a victory. No one can stand her. So he can go to all the previously disenfranchised back benchers and say to them:
Stick with Gillard and you are unemployed, work with me and we could win this thing. So better a shot in the dark than a shot in the head.
Stay tuned, we could just see The Rudd Resurrection.
And as long as the mining boom continues, nobody will really care over there anyway.
Only Passion will sustain you when everything turns to custard ~ Dean.
PS: Don’t forget our next USA CASHFLOW Webinar this Thursday!
Nek Minnit
Posted by: | CommentsThis came out a week before the election but proved to be rather “prophetic” 
Get Going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus
The Ant and the Grasshopper
Posted by: | Comments(Thanks to Paul H)
Original VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
MORAL OF THE OLD STORY:
Be responsible for yourself!
MODERN VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.
TV1,2 & 3 News, and Campbell Live show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
The country is stunned by the sharp contrast.
How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Sue B appears on Campbell Live with the grasshopper and everybody cries .
The Green Party stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where the news stations film the group singing, We shall overcome.
Green Party Leader Metiriea T condemns the ant and blames John Key , Rob Muldoon , Roger Douglas , Capitalism and Global warming for the grasshopper’s plight.
John M exclaims in an interview with TV News that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.
Finally to gain votes to win an election , the Government drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.
The ant is fined for failing to consider how his hard work and preparation has affected the Grasshoppers Mana and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated under the Government Land Repo Act and given to the grasshopper.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government confiscated house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn’t maintain it.
The ant has disappeared to Australia, never to be seen again.
The grasshopper is found dead in a drugs related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of Homeboy spiders who terrorize the once prosperous and peaceful, neighborhood.
MORAL OF THE STORY:
Be careful how you vote in 2011!!
Get going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus
Election Looming
Posted by: | CommentsI guess we are all biased about many things depending on our environment, what our parents did and our own conclusions. I must admit I lean towards the right politically based on all three of the above, however when it comes to investment you would be mad to look anywhere else wouldn’t you?
Property and housing policies
National
* Sell shares in state-owned assets to give an alternative to housing investment.
* Streamline the Resource Management Act.
* Has increased the Welcome Home Loan cap, giving more first-home buyers access to affordable finance. Removed depreciation tax allowances from all properties.
Labour
* Introduce capital gains tax on investment property -already in force in nearly all developed countries, including Australia, Britain and United States.
* The capital gains tax will not apply to the family home.
* Real estate in the Canterbury earthquake zone will be exempt for at least five years.
Greens
* Introduce a comprehensive capital gains tax on inflation-adjusted capital gains at the time the gains are realised. (Like Labour, family home is exempt.)
* Over time, tighten the rules covering loss attributing qualifying companies and equivalent tax deductions.
* On monetary policy, introduce measures to limit future asset – especially house – price inflation.
Act
* Supports National’s sale of non-controlling stakes in state assets such as power generation companies.
* Reform the Resource Management Act to reduce constraints on how property owners can use and develop their land, and to protect private property rights.
* Push the next government to lock in lower taxes by passing Act’s Spending Cap Bill.
So as an investor only National and Act have any interest in making this country wealthy and helping investors provide needed housing to other kiwis. We need to keep fixing what was broken through a decade of socialsim as I commented yesterday.
Get Going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus
Why the left is doomed to fail.
Posted by: | CommentsAn economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan”. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A…. (substituting grades for dollars – something closer to home and more readily understood by all).
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.
The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.
As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.
To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that SOCIALISMwould also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.
It could not be any simpler than that.
These are possibly the 5 best sentences you’ll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.
Get going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus
Referendum time, YAY!
Posted by: | CommentsI am hardly a political animal but I am delighted to see the long promised referendum on MMP finally happening. MMP would be right up there in terms of the “worst thing to happen to NZ politically”, as it has served to allow all sorts of ridiculous legislation and minority strong arming to unravel our otherwise robust and working system.
In reality we are now back to first past the post, as we had for generations pre MMP, and I hope an pray enough of us exercise our right to see things return to that. I can’t think of one single good thing to have come from MMP. We have a more cumbersome and expensive government that would be hamstrung were it not for the fact that one of the major parties always eventually ends up popular enough to go it alone. In other words we follow a first past the post system we just like to kid our selves that MMP makes a real difference.
I hope you will take the time to vote this out and let’s get a strong, small, efficient government system that can guide us through the next ten years of hard work till we see this recession truly behind us.
Remember this??
We don’t want the losers deciding who gets the gold!!
Get Going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus
Strategic Genius?
Posted by: | Comments
Arguably the most entertaining activity in the last week, after Hone’s evil comments, has been the ACT party leadership. If it was America they would make a best selling movie out of it and it has been quite fascinating, mostly because there must be more going on than we are being told.
My guess, and it is only a guess, is that either Key and Brash or even Hyde, Key and Brash planned the whole thing and have been waiting for the right time to push go.
It is a stroke of genius for National if this is the case because it dramatically improves their already strong position going into an election.
I don;t know if we will ever know the truth but if this was a well executed, “let’s make absolutely certain ACT and National get back in” plan then it is worthy of our admiration.
What they couldn’t have planned, but appears to have dropped into their laps, is Hone’s new party. I haven’t really followed the launch but saw the opening address on tv and he was surrounded by reject green MP’s and hardly a maori in sight. Being associated with the ex-greens would have to be a death knell before starting I would have thought and will further fragment any National opposition.
So I think we can take it as read that we will have another National government, short of some major scandal.
Whilst I think they dropped the ball in a few areas so far there is no credible alternative right now so better the devil you know I guess…….
Get Going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus
PS: Our late May trip to USA is now confirmed so get registered HERE. We have some incredible opportunities in Phoenix, Memphis and Atlanta on this trip. Cash flow to make your eyes water
