OPINION

When the new Greek government took office in late January, I wondered whether they might be trying to play the ‘madman strategy’ in a game of chicken (The euro crisis has become a game of chicken, January 29). Behaving erratically and seemingly irrationally, so I wrote, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his finance minister Yanis Varoufakis might just drive the other Europeans to insanity -- and force them to surrender to prevent the worst. Read more

Have you ever heard the adage that you cannot have infinite economic growth in a finite planet? Or that economic growth is all well and good, but it is time New Zealand focussed our attention on other things? Read more

I moved to New Zealand in 2003 because I saw it as an island (well, three islands and change) of sanity in a world going mad. The Outside of the Asylum, as Douglas Adams might put it. Read more

When I was interviewed for this job, I was asked what three public policy changes I would make, if I could. They say that people's policy recommendations can reveal a lot about their priorities, and what they value. Read more

For foreign exchange traders, there is nothing more interesting than speculating on central bank policies. Changing interest rates obviously have an effect on exchange rates so traders need to follow the moves of the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and sometimes even the Reserve Bank of New Zealand with interest. Read more

This weekend I’m going to wash the house with a water blaster. I will probably also give the parched garden a good drenching, hose the car down, and then relax afterwards with a nice long shower. Read more

It was an unfortunate coincidence that earlier this week two interviews were published almost at the same time that demonstrated the schism between European wishful thinking and Europe’s not-so-wishful reality. Speaking to German conservative broadsheet Welt am Sonntag, EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called for a common European army. Read more

Imagine for a second that you are a small business owner, and one day while trawling through your emails, a bolt of lightning sizzles through the office window and strikes your assistant, killing him instantly. Then to compound the situation, the telephone rings, and it is the police. Read more

Picture this: a wealthy American couple buy a 3ha piece of land in a beautiful, sleepy town in rural New Zealand. Their plans for the land are ambitious; a redeveloped campground, information centre and community classroom. Read more

New Zealand is one of the world’s most expensive places to live. While there are a lot of reasons for that, a pretty substantial underlying reason is the country’s small population. Read more

Bloomberg has just published its list of the 15 most miserable economies in the world for 2015. Misery is measured as the sum of the unemployment rate and the inflation rate. Read more

This week Forbes released its 2015 billionaires list. There are 290 new billionaires in the world this year, including Travis Kalanick and Brian Chesky. Read more

It is fair to say that New Zealand and Portugal are not particularly close nations. Yes, there were a few Portuguese whalers in 19th century New Zealand but according to the latest census the NZ Portuguese population is estimated to be just under 1,000 people -- or roughly 0.02 per cent of the total population. Read more

There are two things that the changes currently shaking up the media sector can teach us. The first is that the digital transition process is painful. Read more

In two weeks the New Zealand Initiative releases its centerpiece report on economic growth. It may seem counterintuitive, but the researchers here at the Initiative don’t actually think it’s the government’s job to grow the economy. Read more