Hi Mark, Mark Rickerby wrote: > Just to be clear (this thread is insanely OT, btw, but interesting)... > True :-) > It's absurd to suggest that money that the government allocates for > culture is money taken away from core services like health, when the > amount spent on these core services totals in the billions, rather > than the millions. > The amount doesn't affect the argument at all. > >From the budget, money gets explicitly earmarked for expenditure in > particular areas. So by the stage that these so-called gravy train > project the government has already decided that the money spent on > health, education, etc is set at the appropriate level. > I suspect the process is more complex than that. Wouldn't budgets get increased or decreased according to the ability of a Minister to justify the amount (and major line items)? It could get quite competitive. > The broken window argument is about unintended consequences (ie: so > called economic benefits of what might conventionally thought of as an > accident or loss). It is about the argument that wastage doesn't matter because the money is still doing some good in terms of all the people receiving it (e.g. web developers in Wellington). The problem with that reasoning is that it doesn't consider alternative, and potentially better, uses of that money. > I'm not sure how this applies to pejorative claims > about "wastage", since the money would have been allocated to this > sector regardless, See comments above. > it's not an unforseen event, and the microeconomics > is irrelevant unless you're one of the companies competing for > contracts. > > I recommend looking at the actual numbers... we're talking about less > than 0.3% of your annual taxes here. > A lot of good could be done with that money. Plus there is the fairness issue.
All the best, Grant > see: http://rowansimpson.com/2008/06/08/tax-statement/ > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ NZ PHP Users Group: http://groups.google.com/group/nzphpug To post, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
