Author Archives: Brian Easton

Catholic Theology on the Economy

While many of the world’s Christian religions seem preoccupied with personal issues that Jesus, their founder, barely touched upon, they must engage with economic issues too. Robert Prevost, chose the name Leo on becoming the 267th Bishop of Rome – the Pope – in homage to Leo XIII (in office 1878-1903) who issued the 1891…
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A Commentary on Treasury’s Long-term Insights Briefing

A note prepared for some colleagues As its subtitle says, the Treasury’s 2025 Long-term Insights Briefing: Sustainable and resilient fiscal policy through economic shocks and cycles focuses on economic shocks and cycles. This commentary takes a slightly different point of view because it includes all shocks to the economy, not just economic ones. Among the…
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Alan John Gray, b January 13, 1937; d January 10, 2025

Post 8 May 2025 Dr Alan Gray’s achievements were never officially recognised by any royal honour or honorary doctorate. Extraordinary really, given the length and weight of his list of achievements. They include being central to the establishment and administration of two palliative care units: Mary Potter Hospice in Wellington and the King Faisal Specialist…
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A Patient-centred Healthcare System Needs to Support the Culture of Healthcare Workers

This note is work in progress which I circulated to some colleagues. This paper is about the importance of culture in the healthcare system. It argues that the changes to it should focus on enhancing a patient-centred approach by paying more attention to the culture of the medical professions. Without doing so, the changes in…
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Are We Paying Enough Attention to the Working Class?

A major American study suggests they are not This column is about the white working class. In the US 2024 elections they mainly voted for Donald Trump. Had they voted with the white middle class, Trump would have lost the election with only 42 percent of voters instead of the 50 percent he actually won….
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Viennese Refugees Who Changed the Way We Think

Four eighty-year-old books which are still vitally relevant today. Between 1942 and 1945, four refugees from Vienna each published a ground-breaking – seminal – book.* They left their country after Austria was taken over by fascists in 1934 and by Nazi Germany in 1938. Previously they had lived in ‘Red Vienna’; ruled by Social Democratic…
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The Centre Cannot Hold

A distinguished economist on the tensions of centralisation Newsroom. 16 April, 2025. It was not originally envisaged that the government of New Zealand would be highly centralised. The Colonial Secretary’s instructions to Hobson are about a minimalist state. That explains the provisions in Te Tiriti o Waitangi which allocate ‘kawantanga’ to the Crown and ‘rangatiratanga’…
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A Culture of Wokeness

This was offered to a media outlet but they chose another piece. Based on the Epilogue of ‘In Open Seas’. Because New Zealand is very centralised, its central government has considerable influence over the public discussion. Thus, a change of government, as happened in 2023, may change greatly the tone and even direction of cultural…
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Public-Private-Partnerships?

New Zealand’s economic development has always been a partnership between the public and private sectors. Public-Private-Partnerships (PPPs) have become fashionable again, partly because of the government’s ambitions to accelerate infrastructural development. There is, of course, an ideological element too, while some of the opposition to them is also ideological. PPPs come in so many different…
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Why Do Cryptocurrencies Appear to Be So Valuable?

It is said that economists know the price of everything and the value of nothing. That may be an exaggeration, but an even better response is to point out economists do know the difference. They did not at first. Classical economics thought that the price of something reflected the objective cost of producing it –…
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How Well in the New Zealand Healthcare System Doing? An International Comparison

Published by AHAA (Apologies for the tabulation presentations.) Introduction By way of background, doing some unrelated work I came across some international data on the healthcare sector which seemed to contradict my, and the conventional wisdom’s, view of the healthcare sector. Broadly, it is that the sector has been underfunded. That is not what the…
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Is the New Zealand Healthcare System Doing Badly?

By international standards the New Zealand healthcare system appears satisfactory – certainly no worse generally than average. Yet it is undergoing another redisorganisation. While doing some unrelated work, I came across some international data on the healthcare sector which seemed to contradict my – and the conventional wisdom’s – view of the healthcare sector. Broadly,…
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Can We Ignore the Environment?

Peter Frankopan’s The Earth Transformed: An Untold History is a compelling account of the interaction between humans and the environment. We would be unwise to ignore it. The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Oxford professor of history Peter Frankopan was initially widely admired. But critics point out that the book exaggerated…
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