The flag debate tells us something about the quality of design in New Zealand I am not going to tell you about the right choice for New Zealand’s flag. That would invalidate the point of the column. Certainly I shall vote for one; much of my response will be an instinctive opinion. What I shall…
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The Northland by-election demonstrates we do not have a regional development policy. Should we? What might it look like? The government’s announcement that it would be upgrading ten one-way bridges in Northland was a response inspired by the forthcoming by-election. Whatever the politics, it well illustrated the feeble state of regional development policy in New…
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Probably most people who regularly read Pundit are in the cyberspace equivalent of the ‘beltway’ – the term for those who live in or work in inner Wellington and are intensely interested as to what is going on there, not just in parliament but in policy-making. (OK, OK, they are interested in the gossip too.)…
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The EU approach in trade deals is likely to protect the right of states to make public policy Pundit: 19 October, 2014. Keywords: Business & Finance; Globalisation & Trade; How can foreign investors in New Zealand be sure that we will treat them fairly? If they are not sure perhaps they…
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If New Zealand is heading for a housing market implosion, watch what you borrow. Listener: 24 June, 2014. Keywords: Business & Finance; Macroeconomics & Money; Regulation & Taxation; When commentator Jesse Colombo in business journal Forbes said New Zealand had a housing and credit bubble, Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce shot the…
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Wellington branch, NZ Shareholders Association, 10 June 2014 Keywords: Business & Finance; Macroeconomics & Money; My topic tonight is New Zealand as a bubble economy. But I need to start with a listener warning. I am an economist, not a financial adviser – registered or unregistered. Economic theory tells us something about the context of…
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Public Sector Conference: 5-6 September, 2013 Published in Foreign Control Watchdog 134, January 2014: p.46-50 Keywords: Business & Finance; Globalisation & Trade; Governance; Political Economy & History; If you look at the top ten companies on the New Zealand share market, you will find that half were once owned by the government or…
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These are some notes I prepared for a session on 15 August 2013 to students doing a Bachelor of Applied Management (Business Heritage, Culture and Sustainability section) of the Christchurch, Northland, Otago and Waikato Polytechs. Keywords: Business & Finance; Political Economy & History; To begin provocatively. Last week the government announced a…
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Carefully designed changes to the electricity-generation industry could make it work better. Listener: 25 May, 2013 Keywords: Business & Finance; Regulation & Taxation; Discussions on what to do about electricity have been so political and self-interested that almost all the public economic analysis has been puerile. So let’s begin with some basics….
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Driving the state asset share floats is a government that is happy to subsidise business. Listener: 13 April, 2013 Keywords: Business & Finance; Why has the Government not made a case for its partial privatisation programme? The failure is a contrast to the privatisations of the late 1980s and early 1990s, although…
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Managers don’t always do what their shareholders want, which may explain the SkyCity deal oddities. Listener: 30 March , 2013. Keywords: Business & Finance; Governance; Richina Pacific has hardly reported to its shareholders since 2008, according to NZ Herald business columnist Brian Gaynor. By ignoring them, Richina Pacific gave no information to…
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New technologies and light-handed regulation are a recipe for disaster. Listener: 16 March , 2013. Keywords: Business & Finance; Regulation & Taxation; The leaky-building debacle involved homes and commercial and public buildings being built with new technologies that the builders were not competent to use, coupled with weak supervision and regulation. The…
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Sarah Miles: The Christchurch Fiasco: The Insurance Aftershock and its Implications for New Zealand and Beyond. Dunmore Publishing, 2012 ($37.99) New Zealand Books: Volume 23, No1, Issue 101, Autumn 2013. Keywords: Business & Finance; Political Economy & History; Given New Zealand’s reputation as ‘The Shaky Isles’, together with its accompanying history of…
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Listener: 15 September, 2012. Austrian philosopher Ivan Illich coined the expression “iatrogenic medicine” to describe illness generated by the actions of physicians. An example is when the doctors prescribe some medicine, with resultant side effects, which are treated by further medication. The cycle repeats until a specialist reviews the patient’s entire record and stops all…
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A note prepared for discussion in September 2012. Keywords: Business & Finance; Distributional Economics; Globalisation & Trade; Growth & Innovation; Macroeconomics & Money; What is the Purpose of the Economy? * The purpose of the New Zealand economy is to maintain and increase the wellbeing of all New Zealanders. It is neither the…
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Listener: 18 August, 2012. One of the reasons King Charles I was beheaded in 1649 was that, without Parliament’s approval, he raised taxes and spent the proceeds. Forty years later, after the Glorious Revolution, the English Parliament passed the Bill of Rights, requiring that the Crown tax or spend only with Parliament’s approval. That act…
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Listener: 26 May, 2010. Keywords: Business & Finance; Governance; Regulation & Taxation; The row that has erupted over the proposed SkyCity convention centre in Auckland involves gambling, but there are deeper fiscal issues. But this is not a column about gambling, even though a study I was involved with found that pokies were the most…
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Listener: 14 April, 2012. Keywords: Business & Finance; Regulation & Taxation; Last year, this column argued for the mixed-ownership model of some state-owned enterprises as a means of deepening the capital market for private savers. Even then, it argued that not all partial privatisations were sensible. It depends on the market structure and the way…
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The Fine Line Between Gambling and Investment Listener: 3 August, 2011. Keywords: Business & Finance; Various people have produced their slant on the global financial crisis. The film Inside Job had little new in it, although some found it valuable. I greatly enjoyed the Circa play-reading of David Hare’s The Power of Yes – it…
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Those who favour privatisation can be divided into four camps … Listener: 5 March, 2011. Keywords: Business & Finance; Governance; Macroeconomics & Money; Ideologues who hate the Government succeeding and want to scale it back, even if it is costly, as was privatising the Telecom monopoly. They would do the same to the three electricity…
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