Germany is leading the way with a debate on its constitution, the Basic Law. After seven decades in operation, politicians of all parties want to remove racist elements from it. Read more
If you try to make a balloon smaller by squeezing it, you should be careful. It tends not to work well. Read more
Never have governments and central banks spent other people’s money more freely to support incomes and boost banking system liquidity. Never before have the world’s major central banks’ policy interest rates been clustered so close to zero, if not already in negative territory. Read more
A new publication about Jacinda Ardern is hardly remarkable these days. The Prime Minister’s global celebrity status has created a small avalanche of books and magazine covers. Read more
This week, Trade and Export Minister David Parker was exposed to one of the world’s worst ailments: trade protectionism. After nearly two years of negotiations, the EU leaked its agricultural “offer” to New Zealand to European media. Read more
For the last couple of decades, public debt and banking system liquidity has been ratcheting up around the world after each recession or market correction. But no one appears to have any credible plan for restoring public debt, liquidity or central bank policy rates to normal levels. Read more
Ten weeks later, the coronavirus has revealed the government’s tightrope of managing the deeper changes happening to New Zealand’s economy. Crises always show the cracks. Read more
A government is not a household and reasoning from wrong assumptions can lead to errors. In the last recourse, households cannot print their own currency. Read more
An Overseas Experience is almost a rite of passage for Kiwis. Unfortunately, Covid-19 is likely to keep borders mostly shut for another year or two. Read more
With Alert Level 1 approaching, there are few signs the Government has shifted its thinking towards capitalising on New Zealand’s coronavirus-free status. On Wednesday, Minister for Economic Development Phil Twyford fielded yet more criticism, this time for refusing to let an overseas fishing vessel undergo repairs at a Nelson shipyard. Read more
Minister for Climate Change James Shaw this week announced substantial strengthening of New Zealand’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Total emissions will be capped, and carbon prices allowed to increase to help reduce New Zealand’s overall greenhouse gas emissions. Read more
To understand the mindset of European elites, it is worth going back to the words of the founding godfather or European integration, Jean Monnet: “Europe will be forged in crises and will be the sum of the solutions adopted for those crises." Monnet’s spirit of integration was alive in last week’s proposal to create a €750 billion fund to deal with the fallout of the coronavirus crisis. It is a gutsy move which pushes European fiscal integration to a new level. Read more
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The North Island’s drought is getting rather serious. Auckland’s urban water users have been urged to take shorter showers and only to use dishwashers and clothes washing machines when they’re full; they also have been banned from using water-blasters and garden hoses. Read more
When told the French peasants had no bread during a famine, the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, is said to have exclaimed “Qu'ils mangent de la brioche!" – loosely translated as “Let them eat cake!” Last week’s calls for extra holidays to support the ailing tourism industry are just as out of touch. New Zealand is a nation of small businesses. Read more