Blog description.

Accentuating the Liberal in Classical Liberal: Advocating Ascendency of the Individual & a Politick & Literature to Fight the Rise & Rise of the Tax Surveillance State. 'Illigitum non carborundum'.

Liberty and freedom are two proud words that have been executed from the political lexicon: they were frog marched and stood before a wall of blank minds, then forcibly blindfolded, and shot, with the whimpering staccato of ‘equality’ and ‘fairness’ resounding over and over. And not only did this atrocity go unreported by journalists in the mainstream media, they were in the firing squad.

The premise of this blog is simple: the Soviets thought they had equality, and welfare from cradle to grave, until the illusory free lunch of redistribution took its inevitable course, and cost them everything they had. First to go was their privacy, after that their freedom, then on being ground down to an equality of poverty only, for many of them their lives as they tried to escape a life behind the Iron Curtain. In the state-enforced common good, was found only slavery to the prison of each other's mind; instead of the caring state, they had imposed the surveillance state to keep them in line. So why are we accumulating a national debt to build the slave state again in the West? Where is the contrarian, uncomfortable literature to put the state experiment finally to rest?

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Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Why There Must be No Compulsory Kiwisaver II: Inequality against Men and Maori – Personal Choices and Trade Offs. #Individualism

 

I finally get to use the term inequality for my side of the debate (any debate) for once. In my last post I wrote from an economic point of view on how Labour’s plan for a compulsory Kiwisaver will damage our prosperity. That is, a compulsory Kiwisaver via the then compulsory employer contributions, plus the higher income tax rates required to fund the government contribution, essentially drains (steals) the retained earnings that every small and medium sized employer can otherwise use – if they were left with their own profits - to innovate and grow their own businesses, and transfers it to a parasitic funds management industry trying to pick winners by investing this investment capital with an elite, small band of firms on the NZX. More crony capitalism, less innovation and diversity across the econosphere.
 

But I started that post with something that is unfashionable in the modern politick: political philosophy; namely the simple point that once the state introduces compulsion, the free and prosperous society is lost – there is no middle way on the form a society takes. Here’s the cost of that on individual lives; the below is breaking nothing new, but needs to repeated, often.
 

In research unrelated to Kiwisaver I happened to be looking at the 2010 Mortality and Demographic Data prepared and published by the Ministry of Health. Several things occurred to me upon reading this.
 

Firstly, males generally have a higher mortality rate than females: specifically 1.4 times that of females. Then I realised that when I looked at the main causes of male deaths, various forms of cancer and particularly heart disease, that I am a prime candidate. My father had his first open heart surgery when he was two years younger than I am now: 48 years old. More, I don’t do particularly much to help myself here: I drink way more than I probably should, I love food, plus while walking twice a day and kayaking in the Sounds, don’t really get the exercise I should. But here’s the thing: I’m happy with trade off in my own life of a shorter life, for being able to partake in that which I enjoy: food and drink, etc. Note, partly off topic, partly not, I also insure myself for the consequences (although from a public health point of view, my lifestyle is irrelevant to any debate over the dictates mandated by public health: indeed, I could argue that by dying sooner, quicker, I won’t be such a drag on the public health system, if I end up in that system at all. From a personal point of view, dying quicker will mean not having to find the increasing health insurance premiums generated from the actuarial tables as I progress through the age bands, (or not).)
 

And all this is fine, until I am forced by the state into a Kiwisaver that won’t payout until I’m 65, and possibly older as the goal posts are lengthened. There’s a very good possibility I won’t get to use the sum saved by that age, I’ll be dead, and it will be useless to me – though the SPCA’s gain, and noting further Mrs H, or I, are well catered for on the death of the other. For the purposes of this post, I am far better paid being able to spend this money now, or earlier, at least, than at 65 years old. The state has no right to deny me my shorter term pursuit of happiness, it’s my money, after all, and it’s immoral that it would seek to do so.
 

Now expand this out from me. Maori have a mortality rate 1.8 times higher than non-Maori. It is especially pronounced for male Maori who have a 1.9 times higher mortality rate over non-Maori males up to the age of 65. So, Maori males, whose main causes of death are heart disease and diabetes related afflictions, will be disadvantaged over non-Maori under a compulsory Kiwisaver, assuming they, like me, choose to not 'fix' their lifestyles either and thus the trade off of an earlier death. A compulsory Kiwisaver in this respect is a cause of inequality, surely? (He says, slightly mischievously.)
 

But this is how stupid we have become. I can guarantee, indeed, think I have already heard mooted the arguments from some groups who are mired in the slavery of identity politics that this means Maori should simply have a lower payout age. A different law is required, that is, to non-Maori. And so it goes on, as ever a proliferation of law upon law upon law to try and fix the unintended consequences of previous bad law, in this case compulsory Kiwisaver.
 

I end by simply pointing out the option the free society would take, the civilised society, is to leave such retirement decisions to the individuals who will me living their retirements: me, in other words. Do not force me into a savings plan that will be useless to me. I will plan my retirement and take the benefits of that and the consequences. I’m more than happy to do so. And don’t allow law makers, or the Labour Party, to be so patronising as to think Maori males aren’t just as well equipped and happy to do so, every individual one of them, indeed, statistics indicate it will be in their best interests. The only moral basis of law in a free society is according to this individualistic ethic, not a collectivist one, which is always the coercive boot of state in one's rump, which I'll grow to any width I like, thanks, it's only got to fit into my coffin and I'm paying the funeral costs.

 

 

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