BalpeenHammer

The idea is that the natural resources belong to everybody. This would include things like trees, clean air, water etc. I suppose one could tax the water which would be passed on the agriculture sector and the lease of grazing land etc.

I haven't read that book but I have heard the authors speak and my take is that they are kind of delusional and I didn't take them seriously.

I think the answers are obvious.

1. • Get off the grass (https://aucklanduniversitypress.co.nz/get-off-the-grass/). Shift the economy away from agriculture and towards intellectual property such as patents and copyrights.
2. • Spend more on R&D
3. • Invest in Education
4. • Invest in Healthcare
5. • Do anything you can to stem the brain drain and the fleeing of young people.
6. • Failing to do that get immigrants in here who are young and smart.
7. • Restructure the tax system to ease or reverse income inequality. This could mean capital gains tax, added tiers on the tax brackets, increased taxes on the rich, wealth tax, or even a financial transaction tax. Everything should be on the table.
8. • Build trust in the share market so people will invest in business instead of real estate. This means cracking down on fraud in the business sector. They need to put some people in jail in order to do this.
9. • Invest in infrastructure.

The bottom line is that we need to spend more which means we need to bring in more money. Right now somewhere in the world somebody is playing a Lorde song. When they play that song a little bit of money is coming into New Zealand. This is going to happen until the copyright runs out which will be 99 years after Lorde dies. It will cost nothing to ship that song. It will require virtually zero fuel, it will cause virtually zero carbon emissions.

Those are not the only natural resources we export. There is also agricultural products, milk, meat, logs etc.

LOL. He wants the health system to collapse so he can privatise the whole thing.

We should simply have a levy on exports of natural resources to feed the fund.

There are records of them entering so I presume it's trivial to identify them and deal with them.

But is this somehow a problem? Are they taking our jobs or violating our women or something?

Many countries have Sovereign wealth funds which are funded mainly by exports of natural resources. We export a lot of natural resources so it just makes sense that we set up a fund like most other countries do.

Is this available someplace in hi res so I can set it as my desktop?

Culture wars have always been the tool of right wing governments to distract from economic woes. You just blame economic suffering on the immigrants, the dark skinned people, gays, trans, communists, or whatever enemy you deem is a threat to the ignorant and slumbering population.

In NZ we don't have illegal immigrants coming over the border or on boats so National has decided to blame everything on the Maori and unions and trans people. I believe this strategy will ultimately work in NZ just as it has worked in Europe and the USA. We too will embrace the right wing as they promise to rid us of those uppity Maori and pesky unions and the ungodly trans people.

If you don't believe me look at the results of the local elections.

We as a population are no better than the Americans and the Brits and the Europeans.

Un insulated houses and businesses which refuse to close their doors when the weather is cold are a bigger problem.

I guess all the progressive people have fled the country.