Blaming the thug for punching you is only one way of looking at things. After all, if a thug’s punch flies in the forest and your face is not there to meet it, there really is no problem at all. Read more
Economics provides us with a useful toolbox with which to analyse the world. From Pareto efficiency, to perfect competition and rational irrationality, there is an economic theory that will just about explain anything. Read more
“Will capitalism and globalisation survive the next Global Financial Crisis?” That was the question I put to a panel of international investment strategists at a PortfolioConstruction Forum conference in Sydney this week. To be more accurate, I only passed it on. Read more
As a general rule, heated policy debates do not really make for appropriate wedding banter. Regrettably, this was the situation in which this correspondent found herself over Waitangi weekend, stuck in a rather incoherent conversation with a heartily inebriated guest over whether the benefits generated by tertiary education are entirely public. Read more
If copyright changes are the dead rat we have to eat with our otherwise-tasty Trans-Pacific Partnership meal,* it is worth knowing a bit more about that rat. To do that, we have to go back to first principles on copyright and its purpose. Read more
If Donald Trump were seeking election in New Zealand, he’d have no need to promise a fence to keep out migrants. Nature has given us our own moat. Read more
I’m really glad I’m a millennial. If I wasn’t, I’d have a pretty hard time understanding exactly what they’re all about. Read more
Admittedly, Europe’s migration crisis is far more interesting and important, but we have to talk about Greece again. Amid all other crises plaguing Europe at the moment, the financial problems engulfing Athens had temporarily slipped off the front pages. Read more
The flagship policy in Labour’s ‘State of the Nation’ speech was the announcement to roll out three years of free tertiary education should Labour get in power at the next election. It is good politics since it will increase the party’s appeal to young people – and probably also to their parents. Read more
While traffic-bound Aucklanders celebrated the announcement last week that central government was bringing its funding for the City Rail Link (CRL) forward by two years, I could not help but feel that New Zealand has lost the infrastructure plot. Politically, this was a savvy move by Prime Minister John Key. Read more
Interest-free student loans have been very costly. The billions spent over the past decade subsidising student loans is only part of it. Read more
There are many things that are great about our cool little capital: Wellington’s wind, its regular earthquakes, and of course the Sevens. Though we can’t do much about the former two, at least we can destroy the latter. Read more
Is there anything in the world duller than cricket?* Cricket is one of those sports that is so painfully slow, that commentators have nothing to do but talk about the crowd. Or the weather. Read more
Last week, I wrote about the sorry state of Europe and the person most responsible for it: Angela Merkel (A mess of Merkel’s own making, January 28). This week, we will take a closer look at the German Chancellor, her record — and her prospects of staying in power. Read more
You may have heard last week that 62 individuals have the same wealth as the bottom half of humanity. That is, there are 62 people with the combined total wealth as the poorest 3.6 billion people in the world. Read more