A key issue may not be what is in the TPPA, but that by not adopting it we may ruin the other international agreements we are pursuing. In the 1960s I was an active member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. It was a moral crusade with unrealisable objectives such as withdrawal from SEATO (a…
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World Sharemarkets Are Sneezing. What Does That Tell Us About the World Economy? Before discussing the state of the world economy – especially what is going on in China – it is useful to say something about the importance of the sharemarket (Americans call it ‘stock market’). It is far more important in pop-economics than…
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A book on the history of the Literary Fund raises broad questions of how our bureaucracy works. I was too closely involved with Elizabeth Caffin’s The Deepening Stream: A History of the New Zealand Literary Fund to review it. But it contributed to my understanding of some general issues; I think I am allowed to use the…
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The strange economic assessment of the proposed extension to Wellington Airport’s runway reduces to a plea for subsidies from tax and ratepayers. I am sometimes asked to assist voluntary groups with a critique of a commissioned economic assessment of a development project. I decline because of the high standard required from me – one which…
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The Ethnic Future for New Zealand Is Unknown. But It Will Be Diverse and Different The promise of increased future ethnic diversity is undoubtedly true, but often the statistical projections are both misleading and obscure the real issues. Each Population Census asks the respondents’ ethnicity. That is not their race, which is a genetic notion….
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A report on social services by the Productivity Commission raises serious problems about the quality of analysis in New Zealand. There is a widely held perception that the Productivity Commission, which makes recommendations to the government on how to increase productivity, is neoliberal. Partly that is because the commission was set up at the instigation…
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Given a long history of numerous trade agreements, why has the public become especially concerned about the TPP? At a recent public meeting, a retired Secretary of Foreign Affairs pointed out that although he had been involved in negotiating many free trade agreements, the TPP was the first one about which the public had showed…
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While TPP – any trade deal – compromises sovereignty it does not mean we cannot respond constructively to unsatisfactory aspects such as those involving intellectual property. The stupidest thing said about the TPP deal – thus far – is the claim that it does not reduce New Zealand’s sovereignty. Of course it does. Agreeing to…
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The book’s ‘message is as compelling as it is important: the social costs of mental illness are terribly high and the costs of effective treatments are surprisingly low’. Daniel Kahneman (psychologist and Nobel economics laureate). In due course this Penguin is likely to become fashionable – like The Sprit Level and Capital in the Twenty First Century – because it…
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Travel extends the mind. Here are some of the things I learned from a recent trip to Greece: about the age of the human condition, about how civilisations end with environmental depletion, about the stresses to the current Greek economy and about how trivial are New Zealand news websites. There are remnants of wall frescos…
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The more one is certain about the state of an economy, the more one is likely to be wrong; the more one is certain about the state of an economy, the greater the media coverage. No wonder the public is confused. I shan’t add to the confusion. In quick summary, the New Zealand’s economic growth…
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How Much of New Zealand Has to Be Owned and Controlled by Foreigners? This year is the fortieth anniversary of the founding of CAFCA – the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa – a Christchurch-based, but national, activist organisation. It ‘promotes the concept of an independent Aotearoa based on policies of economic, military and political…
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This was an introduction to a presentation by Stephen Jacobi: “TPP – Where to from Here (And How Did We Get Here Anyway)?” To a NZIIA lecture, 2 September 2015. (Some editing) It was suggested I first say a few words about the context in which the TPP and other trade negotiations are occurring. At…
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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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Also notes for Radio NZ Nights with Brian Crump: 11 August, 2014 The indications are that economic growth is slowing down from the boom rates of the last few years. The slowdown may turn into a contraction – that is, output may fall. There is a view that the contraction began in the middle of 2015. (It is…
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Trust Us? If you think you know what has been going on with the TPP, you have not been following closely enough. However, here are a few matters for clarification. Trade negotiations used to be like the following. Japan wants better access to the US market for the cars it produces, while the US wants…
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Allow me to share a puzzle. Public sector outsourcing (a.k.a. ‘contracting out’) has been increasing in recent decades. It is not the same as ‘privatisation’ because the government retains the role as a funder but it outsources the task to a private provider – which may be a corporation or non-government organisation. A recent prominent…
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Fracking has changed the energy outlook, with major geopolitical implications About a decade ago, there was much concern about ‘peak oil’ – that the production of oil would peak and then fall off quickly leaving the world’s transport system stranded. The idea is really an extension of the two hundred year old insight of Thomas…
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Whatever the answer, what are we going to do about it? Steven Joyce, Minister of Economic Development and most other economic things, was hardly helpful when he dismissed talk of an economic recession on a recent TV3 The Nation on Saturday. Economists outside officialdom can guess what his officials were generally telling him. It probably…
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Whatever the answer, what are we going to do about it? Steven Joyce, Minister of Economic Development and most other economic things, was hardly helpful when he dismissed talk of an economic recession on a recent TV3 The Nation on Saturday. Economists outside officialdom can guess what his officials were generally telling him. It probably…
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