Author Archives: Brian Easton

Heart Gains: David Hay, Pioneer Cardiac Physician

This entry was posted in Health, Listener on by .

Listener: 24 September, 2005.

Keywords: Health;

Although we think of lung cancer as the disease of tobacco, the weed is associated with other cancers, with respiratory disease (such as emphysema), and with heart and circulation conditions (cardiovascular disease). Not only do the chemicals in tobacco smoke trigger mutations within cells that lead to cancer, and damage the lungs, but they also stiffen the walls of the blood vessels. That requires the heart to work harder, so smokers are more prone to coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke. Stopping smoking is the best way of preventing heart disease.

Building Coalitions: the Banzhaf Index

This entry was posted in Political Economy & History, Statistics on by .

On Friday 23 2005, this was put on the No Right Turn website . It used the election night seat outruns. I have updated it to the final election seat outturns, and added a subsequent comment.

Keywords: Political Economy & History; Statistics;

One of the advantages of MMP is it enables us to think more systematically about the political process (although given much of the nonsense that is being written at the moment, it does not appear to force us to). What this note sets out is a a mathematical procedure which enables us to think systematically about coalitions (although, and as I shall explain, like most mathematical models it has imitations) .

The Economics and Politics Of Globalisation

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade on by .

Revised version of Paper for NZIIA Seminar “The Economic and Social Impacts of Globalisation” 21 September, 2005.

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; The Economics of Globalisation: An Introduction is a version of this paper with a more detailed economic analysis

Introduction

The Royal Society of New Zealand awarded me a Marsden Fund grant to study globalisation. The study is a continuation of my earlier research program, especially that which is summarised in my book In Stormy Seas with its central message that the fate of New Zealand will be largely a consequence of what happens overseas, together with our ability to seize the opportunities and manage the problems those events create.

Everything in Moderation

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy on by .

Canadian intellectual John Ralston Saul in conversation with Brian Easton about globalism, ideologues and rediscovering moderation.

The full edited version.

Listener: September 10, 2005.

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;

EASTON: You are a very cosmopolitan person. Canadian father and British mother. You have a degree in French from London, you’ve worked in Paris. You have a Chinese-Canadian wife. You’ve written successful novels as well as international bestsellers on contemporary issues, beginning with “Voltaire’s Bastards”, through another three to your latest, “The Collapse of Globalism”. Yet you seem to be a Canadian nationalist

SAUL: The non-ideological reality is that people come from somewhere. It is an impossible romantic dream that you can be from nowhere. I’ve always believed that the way human beings really live is that they come from somewhere and it colours or shapes the roots of what they think and then you try to find how that fits into the common good.

Everything in Moderation

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy on by .

This is the full edited version of Canadian intellectual John Ralston Saul in conversation with Brian Easton about globalism, ideologues and rediscovering moderation, from which the Listener version of September 10, 2005 was extracted.

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;

EASTON: It strikes me that you are a very cosmopolitan person – Canadian father and a British or English mother

What Are the Tax Cuts About?

This entry was posted in Listener, Regulation & Taxation on by .

Is National pandering to greed or promoting principle?

Listener: 3 September, 2005.

Keywords: Regulation & Taxation;

Other articles on the 2005 Election Tax Debate

In 1957 the Labour Opposition, led by an elderly Walter Nash desperate to have a turn as Prime Minister, ran its election campaign on “Do You Want £100 or not?”, promising to remit up to £100 to each income taxpayer. It was accused of pandering to greed, without any principle. In fact, the National government was offering the same total tax cuts but more directed to the rich and self-employed, whereas Labour has targeted the poor and workers. The cuts were funded by the introduction of PAYE. Without them, taxpayers would have paid double income tax in the first year: PAYE plus the previous year’s income tax.

Let’s Talk About Tax.

This entry was posted in Regulation & Taxation on by .

Ruth Laugesen, a senior writer for “The Sunday Star Times”, asked me a dozen questions for her article ‘The Truth About Tax’ of 28 August, 2005 (It does not seem to be on the Web). Here follows my full answers to her questions.

Keywords: Regulation & Taxation;

Other articles on the 2005 Election Tax Debate

1. Are New Zealanders paying through the nose when it comes to tax? No. On international measures, the total tax take in New Zealand is not high. I think we are very lucky. We have a reasonable health system, a reasonable education system, a generous minimum retirement income system. They could be better of course, but it is almost a miracle as how good they are, given the little tax we pay.

Rabin’s Law

This entry was posted in Distributional Economics, History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Listener on by .

Someone (almost) always suffers when a new policy improves the lot of others.

Listener: 27 August, 2005.

Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;

Matthew Rabin is a wonderfully eccentric economist. His University of California at Berkeley website is littered with jokes. But his research on how we behave economically is some of the most interesting being done today, promising the 42-year-old a deserved economics prize in honour of Alfred Nobel.

Waste Not, Want Not: It’s Harder Than It Seems.

This entry was posted in Governance, Regulation & Taxation on by .

This was prepared as a Listener economics column on the assumption that National would propose fiscally prudent tax cuts, based on their cutting ‘waste’ (they mean ‘programs’). However, when National announced the size of its cuts, I canned the column for another. It wont be used, because its ‘news’ significance will have gone after the election, although no doubt I shall cannibalise some of it. I am putting it on the website for the record.

Keywords: Governance; Regulation & Taxation;

Other articles on the 2005 Election Tax Debate

Politicians “are talking as though it will be easy to cut enough fat from the state to pay for tax cuts – it won’t be. Believe me I’ve been there and I have done that. The combination of the State Enterprises Act, the Public Finance Act and the State Sector Act, which I helped to design and implement, brought remarkable improvements in the effectiveness of public organisations and lower costs. I wrote a textbook about it. But those systems have not been used vigorously for a while and some slack has got into the system. We can get better value for money but it has to be done with a scalpel not an axe. … Designing tax cuts is child’s play. It is on the expenditure side where all the problems are and where skill and experience are needed.” (Graham Scott)

What the Tax Debate Is Really About

This entry was posted in Regulation & Taxation on by .

Paper to a lunch meeting of the Diplomatic Club of Wellington, August 2005, Lunch Meeting.

Keywords: Regulation & Taxation;

Other articles on the 2005 Election Tax Debate

When I offered this topic, I planned to talk about the political-philosophical implications of the New Zealand tax debate in an international context. Since then, the two major parties have released their tax proposals, and I owe my audience a commentary on the differences.

On Being Pakeha: Some Thoughts Of a New Zealander

This entry was posted in Literature and Culture, Maori, Political Economy & History on by .

For Kapiti U3A, August 11, 2005

Keywords: Maori; Political Economy & History;

This paper begins with a little about my experience of growing up a Pakeha New Zealander. Although I dont think there is much of interest in me, it is perhaps worth noting that most of us have similarly conventional histories. I will then talk about my relationship with the Maori, and try to draw a few useful conclusions. I will finish with a discussion on nationalism and being a New Zealander, which is the topic I am currently working on in the context of my Marsden Research Grant on globalisation.

Further Developments in Estimating the Social Costs Of Substance Abuse

This entry was posted in Health on by .

AVOIDABLE COSTS

The views in this report on the Avoidable Costs of Substance Abuse Workshop (Ottawa June 21-22) are my own and do not reflect those of the others involved. It focusses on issues particularly pertinent to New Zealand. The paper was presented to a seminar of officials on 7 August, 2005. Comments Welcome [1]

Keywords: Health;

Introduction

This report is on The Avoidable Costs Workshop held in Ottawa, Canada June 21-22, under the sponsorship of the Office of Research and Surveillance, Health Canada (Bureu de la rechercher and de la surveillance, Sante Canada).

What Does Reform Mean?

This entry was posted in Labour Studies, Listener on by .

How to preserve the social market economy in a modern Europe.

Listener: 30 July, 2005.

Keywords: Labour Studies;

Reform is a weasel word, avoiding specifics because advocates are either not sure what it means or they don’t want others to know. So, when the German Government and the Goethe-Institut offered me the opportunity to study the German economy, I just had to look at the reality of its “reforms” debate. Some of the implemented ones – pressures on the unemployed to take up work – seem not too different from ours. But some proposals have the ideology underpinning our Employment Contracts Act (ECA).

Is New Zealand the Best Place in the World to Bring Up Children?

This entry was posted in Social Policy on by .

Presentation to the Wellington WEA, 25 July 2005.

Keywords: Social Policy;

There is one outstanding fact about New Zealand poverty. Choose any reasonable poverty line, and you will find that over 80 percent of the poor are children and their parents. The figure would be even higher if one included other adults living in households with children. The economic problem of poverty is overwhelming children and the families they live in.

Educational Aspects Of My Time at Christchurch Boys’ High School: 1956-1960.

This entry was posted in Education on by .

This note was prepared on request of a educationalist who is writing a history of some aspects of the school for its 125th anniversary in 2006

Keywords: Education;

The mid 1950s must have been a pivotal time for Christchurch Boys’ High School. A number of new high schools opened up in Christchurch – Aranui, Cashmere, Linwood, Riccarton, Shirley Boys’. The challenge was not the drawing off of students, for this was a time of the ‘bulge’, and the reputation of the school was such that it still attracted a high proportion of the best students. But new schools need teachers. CBHS lost a number of its better younger ones to senior positions in the new schools. Their promotion at CBHS had been blocked by the older generation, many of whom had been there for decades, perhaps after returning from the Second (or even First) World War. Those teachers, near retirement, were too often tired and bored, at best teaching solidly rather than inspiringly.

Doha Dealing: Trade Talks, Not Tax Cuts, Will Decide Our Economic Future

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Listener on by .

Listener: 16 July, 2005.

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;

Unless major decisions are made this month, the Doha Round of international trade negotiations may be in trouble, and the New Zealand economy along with it. Although negotiations are occurring largely beneath the radar of most media, a good outcome is vital to New Zealand. Our economy has been doing well in recent years. The most important reason – other than we have not been doing anything too stupid – is the higher prices for our farm exports, a consequence of the Uruguay Round trade negotiations of the 1990s, which reduced some of the rich world’s subsidies on farm products, lifting world export prices, giving a boost to our farm and farm-processing incomes, and to the overall economy.