GST increase vs. Income tax decrease

Earlier, I provided a brief summary of the 2010 New Zealand budget.

Recall the following points (or, if you can't recall, re-read):
• GST up from 12.5% to 15%

• Adjusted income tax rates:
   o $0-$14000 at 10.5% (down from 12.5%)
   o $14001-$48000 at 17.5% (down from 21%)
   o $48001-$70000 at 30% (down from 33%)
   o $70001+ at 33% (down from 38%)

 So how does this even out? I threw everything into a spreadsheet and came up with some basic numbers:

(Click image for full size view)

The left column represents different gross (before tax) incomes, while the column at the top represents different proportions of income spent on GST-inclusive expenses. The purpose of specifying different percentages is that some things you do with your earnings will be GST exempt (mainly rent, mortgage repayments and savings).

You will thus have more effective purchasing power if you fall into at least one of the two following categories:

• You spend 90% or less of your income on GST-inclusive purchases (i.e. at least 20% is spent on other things, such as the aforementioned list of rent/mortgage/savings)
• Your pre-tax income is over $20,000 per annum.

Now anyone working full-time (40 hours/week) will fall into the second category automatically (minimum wage equates to $26,000). Of course if you're a poor student who pays neither rent nor mortgage and spends all your money, then I feel sorry for you. Although you most probably live with family and the difference will amount to perhaps one or two beers a month. You'll survive.


NB: I've tried to make sure the formulas are accurate. If your own calculations don't produce the same result as mine, then please let me know.

[NZ] Budget 2010

While I was in a seminar sharing my uninformed views of writing in late-medieval China, the latest New Zealand budget was announced. It coincided nicely with the University's fortnightly pay day.

To summarise the key points:

• Property depreciation will no longer be eligible to offset against income
• GST up from 12.5% to 15%

• Adjusted income tax rates:
o $0-$14000 at 10.5% (down from 12.5%)
o $14001-$48000 at 17.5% (down from 21%)
o $48001-$70000 at 30% (down from 33%)
o $70001+ at 33% (down from 38%)

• Additionally, the business and PIE (Portfolio Investment Entity) tax rates will drop to 28% (from 30%) while trusts remain at 33% (in-line with the top tax-bracket).

• Student allowances, superannuation, benefits etc will increase by 2.2% to offset the GST hike.


Overall, sizeable income tax reductions will more than offset the increased cost of living due to the GST hike. It certainly encourages saving and investment (particularly investment in something other than property) which is currently somewhat lacking in New Zealand. It is important to remember that the GST increase will not apply to things like rent and mortgage payments, or any interest/dividends you earn from savings.

In essence this is very much a pro-capitalist National budget. Where does this leave the socialist conveniences of the welfare state? Additional spending has been announced for the healthcare and education sectors, as well as infrastructure, particularly ultra-fast broadband (yay) and rail networks (good luck with this).

Bearing in mind that various governments, including New Zealand's, are trying to reduce deficit (particularly with the situation in Europe getting progressively worse, and the potential 2012 financial crisis looming), this is one of the better budget announcements in recent years. It provides for more taxation fairness (certainly a good thing), and reduces tax evasion by funneling income through trusts while qualifying for state support. It additionally encourages savings and investment, both foreign and domestic - particularly because Kiwi Saver is still intact.

Personally I don't have a problem with paying tax, as long as the money isn't being squandered and I can see tangible gain, either to myself or the country. I support the idea of a capital gains tax, and compulsory retirements savings/insurance. But on the other hand, I'm not going to complain about a bit of extra money every pay day.

This post is so powerful that it's not necessary to talk about it

I think my argument is so powerful it's not necessary to talk about it

- Rick Giles

If you haven't seen it yet, this is a quote from Rick Giles, who appeared on New Zealand's Sunrise (TV3 Breakfast show) program at the end of March this year. He's talking (ranting, even) about his support for Edison Hour, an anti-Earth Hour, and... well, you should just watch it:



Personally, I'm not convinced. But there's no need to talk about it. As you may have gathered, Rick is (was) a member of ACT on Campus, the University body associated with New Zealand's delightful liberal party ACT, which is currently one of the country's governing parties.

Of course Rick Giles should not be seen as representative of this party, and was dismissed from ACT on Campus shortly afterwards. Not apparently because he was clearly failing at communication, rationality and maintaining his mental faculties, but because he formulated a response video and the party had ordered him to desist.



It's not that his views are, to put it mildly, fucking batshit insane. His views are still fairly representative of ACT (he was, after all, the president of ACT on Campus), but they canned him because he wouldn't shut up. Which, I suppose, is reason enough.

Rick Giles did, however, have the last laugh: Sunrise was cancelled shortly afterwards and aired for the final time on April 8. Clearly, someone tried to disagree with his overly powerful argument.

Man has earned his right to hold this planet against all comers, by virtue of occasionally producing someone totally batshit insane.

- xkcd

Anyway, on to other matters. After much deliberation, I applied for, got offered and started a new full-time job on April 1. The result has been a substantial increase in income, which I'm not entirely sure what to do with so I just throw it liberally at poorly thought-out schemes until the problem goes away. Man, my life is so hard. Actually, if I was doing anywhere near as much study for my history degree as I ought to be, it'd be pretty hectic. Thankfully, I'm easily-distracted, poorly-motivated and lazy - yesterday was spent playing Chrono Trigger on the DS and flash games. And eating potato chips while hiding from the weather (which was seriously intense, the neighbouring building had a waterfall running down the side of it).

One of the reasons the post stream has been drying up a bit around here is that effort must be saved to write late-night assignments. Also, been thinking a lot without bothering to make the effort to put thoughts into written form and set them in a cohesive, legible and comprehensive order. Eventually either my work or my studies will become less demanding and I can work on other plans.

Reciprocity

A 100-word short story attempt. Written during study time, it ended up being exactly 100 words (no need to go back and mess around with adjectives and prepositions to hit the target count).

She sat down and began to write. Petals fell as brush caressed page in a creative dance of narrative. A world was born amidst fluid ink-laden strokes. In this world, a girl was born, a prodigal child, mastering wondrous magic. Yet as she grew up, evil befell the world, with the corruption of men bringing sorrow and pain. The girl, a woman now, opposed this evil, striving with all her talent. Endlessly she fought, finally sacrificing her life to restore hope.  Her daughter, wishing her memory to endure, decided to tell her story. She sat down and began to write.

[Legacy] Quest for Progress

Rather than actually coming up with something original, for which I don't get paid enough, I have decided to just rehash some old content. And by 'rehash' I mean repost. Partly for content, partly because I like the original post, and partly because I'm vaguely considering writing something like this, just for the hell of it.


Has anyone played Progress Quest? It's a little single-player RPG that takes the grinding out of RPGs. Which means that it just runs in the background spouting random RPG-related text to the GUI, with the net effect of looking like Kingdom of Loathing played by a bot.



You start it, it runs. It quests for you, kills stuff, empties bags, buys new gear, and you can watch those little Progress bars... progress. Slowly. And after a while, very slowly. And while this is doubtlessly more interesting than whatever work you're meant to be doing, homework you're procrastinating about, or blog you're trying to read, it's still a bit single-minded (GRIND GRIND GRIND!).

I'm thinking we can do better than this. Hereby introducing Quest for Progress. The non-interactive RPG of the future. It's so futuristic there won't even be a QFP1, but we'll move straight to QFP2. There will be a single player option that can start as soon as your computer loads, and a MMONIRPG (massively multiplayer online non-interactive role-playing game), with over 2 people per server!

This game will be so awesome that if you close it and then load it again later it can extrapolate what would've happened while it was off. No more losing game-time when a tornado takes out some pylons!

Further features (which in fact may or may not be implemented):
- no more spending ages deciding on a class, they're all the same anyway; QFP has the option of assigning you one automatically (defaults to "Village Idiot")
- no more spending ages deciding on a name, QFP has the option of assigning you one automatically (also defaults to "Village Idiot")
- the same goes for race, except that "Village Idiot" is not a race
- better quests: escorts, debaucherie, highland games, marry an heiress, earn a Darwin award, engage in massive public quests with other "Village Idiots"
- more MMO-realism: QFP will occasionally create an alt for you, and level that one instead (defaults to "other Village Idiot")
- PvP: QFP will include player-versus-player combat (well, QFP-versus-QFP combat)
- NPCs will have names, they may not be very good names, but they will exist
- trophies: QFP will randomly award you completely meaningless things for doing stuff you had no hand in doing (we're basing this on a beaureaucratic model). Other QFP 'players' may or may not view these.
- new hairstyles!
- new dances!
- destructible buildings (actually, no, that won't be happening)
- realm versus realm combat (also a nono, sorry)
- bugs!
- false promises!
- ambiguity!
- lag! (although not sure how we'll do this)
- free beer on fridays! (we are, in fact, working on this. But only on fridays)
- salvation and forgiveness for your sins! (QFP creators hereby forgive you for all sins committed before last summer)
- the wrong release date (next week, honest)
- colons in future titles, because more colon makes everything better!
- and many other things we'll add when we see that they work for other companies (currently considering Google ads)

Quest for Progress 2: we hope you'll join us
Your village called, they want their idiot back

Disclaimer:

DS Ex Machina in no way guarantees that any of the following will be included in any software it can be associated with (directly, indirectly, non-directly, recursively or otherwisely):
- monsters
- graphics
- spells
- items
- installability
- features

[Abridged] Sweet pancake recipe (with ground almonds)

This is the printable, useable version of the heavily annotated pancake recipe found here.


Sweet Pancakes with Ground Almonds (makes ~6)

Ingredients:
3/4 Cup white flour (not self-raising)
1/2 Cup ground almonds
2 Teaspoons white sugar (1A)
3/4 Cup Milk
2 Eggs
Oil for cooking

Mix everything in a mixing bowl. The batter should be fairly fluid and pour easily (add milk or flour as required).

Making the pancakes:

1. Heat about a Tablespoon of oil in a frying pan.
2. Pour a ladleful into the pan.
3. Spread the batter evenly.
4. Cook for 15-30 seconds, until firm.
5. Flip the pancake.
6. Cook until brown on both sides.

Serve with maple syrup, cinnamon sugar, lemon sugar, or fruit and cream.
Enjoy.

Sweet pancake recipe (with ground almonds)

For the shorter, practical version click here. If you continue reading, be warned, this is a scholarly work approximately 10 times longer than the actual recipe. A story if you like, a story of hope, and justice, of beauty and wonder, of true love and the triumph of evil over good.

I've always had a rather impromptu approach to cooking, one that I rather like. It generally involves tossing things together in a haphazard manner (rather than using accurate measurements), and, if necessary, making minor adjustments. It's rather unscientific, but so far has generally had acceptable results (I remember once cooking a lentil soup and having the top of the ground pepper container falling into the soup, together with a sizeable amount of the contents - this was, however, more an issue with someone not screwing the lid on properly than with my food preparation methodology). But in the interest of public knowledge, reproducibility and improvement potential, I have decided to, in some few cases, go for an approach whereby ingredients quantities are determined in standardised measurements (rather than add a lump of this, a handful of that). As such I'm going to share a sweet pancake recipe I've been working on for a while now.


Sweet Pancake Recipe with Ground Almonds (makes ~6) 

Equipment:
Mixing bowl - needs to hold at least a litre (4 Cups), preferably double that to prevent splashes when mixing
Measuring equipment (Teaspoon, 1/2 Cup and either 3/4 Cup or 1/4 Cup)
Whisk - or something equivalent for mixing the batter, a fork will do in a pinch
Frying pan (skillet) - non-stick is best
Spatula (a.k.a. fishslice or turner) - don't use metal with a non-stick pan!
Ladle (optional) - allows more control over pouring batter
Serving plate - dinner plates work fine

Ingredients:
3/4 Cup white flour (not self-raising)
1/2 Cup ground almonds
2 Teaspoons white sugar (1A)
3/4 Cup Milk
2 Eggs
Oil for cooking

Comments:
Flour - staple ingredient. I use High Grade, but standard will do just as well. Wholemeal flour will give the pancakes a thicker texture, although if you use this approach I'd recommend mixing with white flour.
Almonds - provide some excellent nutritional benefits as well as improving the texture of the pancakes and giving them a distinctive taste (nutty, unsurprisingly enough). Could possibly replace with flour if ground almonds are hard to come by (potentially wholemeal flour, see above).
Sugar - I find 2 teaspoons is about right for my preference, adjust for your own taste. Could omit this to make savoury pancakes with a nut touch.
Milk - I use blue top, which is around 3% fat. Unless you use full cream I doubt that it will make much difference.
Eggs - Roughly size 6 or 7. You may need to slightly adjust milk or flour if the eggs you use are significantly different.
Oil - The type is really up to preference. Butter has a low burning point and can start to burn after a while. All vegetable oils should be fine as you won't be cooking at a high temperature.

Method:
Mix everything in a mixing bowl. I like to whisk the ingredients until I get plentiful bubbles, as this produces a lighter pancake. The batter should be fairly fluid and pour easily, milk can be used to make it thinner and flour to make it thicker.
Everyone has their own prefered method of making pancakes, but I'll add my own method for reference.

1. Heat about a Tablespoon of oil in a frying pan, this obviously varies with the size and style of the pan - use more if you're not using a non-stick (teflon) frying pan. You do not need to cover the entire cooking surface, instead just tilt the pan to make the oil flow over the majority of the pan (I find that shaking the pan from side-to-side can also have good results), if it pools in a spot when you put the pan on the stove, it doesn't matter.
2. Give the pancake batter a quick whisk to mix it (it will settle and separate over time) and get some new air bubbles into it. Then take a ladle (my preference, otherwise you can just pour straight from the mixing bowl) and gently pour the batter into the pan, spiraling outwards from the centre.
3. Tilt the pan and/or use a spatula to spread the batter evenly. Lift the pan off the stove while you do this to ensure even cooking.
4. Replace pan on stove, turn the heat down and wait for a while (15-30 seconds, but varies with the heat of your stove). Start sliding the spatula under the edges of your pancake, once you notice it stops sticking lift the pancake up from all sides.
5. Flip the pancake. This requires a degree of practice. I use a spatula to flip, being unable to master the freestyle method; on occasion I have been known to use two spatulas (although this was more for filled omelets and quesadillas/sincronizadas).
6. Hopefully the pancake will be well-cooked underneath (but not burnt) and have a nice light-brown colour, if it's not completely cooked then just keep on flippin' until cooked on both sides. If the pancake is fairly thick it may need to be cooked for longer than just for the surfaces to brown, make sure you do this on low heat.
7. Once your pancake is cooked, flip it onto a plate. Either eat it (in which case turn the stove off) or resume cooking more using the steps above (you probably don't need to add as much oil for subsequent pancakes, since there may still be some left in the pan and it should be fairly greasy. Try to work out improvements if something didn't work quite right on previous attempts.
8. I use a 20cm diameter frying pan, and this recipe makes around six full-sized pancakes which fit nicely onto a dinner plate.

In terms of serving the pancakes, I recommend using maple syrup, cinnamon sugar, lemon sugar or even fresh fruit and cream. Other sweet condiments are of course fine as well. Pancakes are great either eaten piece-wise with knife and fork, or rolled up and devoured whole while dripping maple syrup everywhere.

Also, when preparing pancakes for multiple people, I think it's best to pile them up on a plate as you make them, and then taking the plate to a table for everyone to eat at once (rather than people grabbing them out of the pan with greedy little fingers as you make them). This, apart from being more sociable and fair to the cook, lets the pancakes cool down a bit which makes things like syrup and cream less runny (and drippy/messy).

While certainly being more time-intensive than toast or cereal, pancakes are a great food for when you can afford the time and make a great Sunday morning breakfast (or brunch/lunch).