Economy
This paper demonstrates the truism that for every financial liability is matched by an asset. A fiscal deficit creates a liability of the government. Somewhere outside government – somewhere in the private sector – there is a private asset matching this public liability.
Read MoreThe vast majority of tributes to the Listener hearken back to its glory days, with little reflection on the magazine as it was at its end.
Read MoreThe swan politicians may be gliding on the water, occasionally snapping at one another. Meanwhile, as the Covid19 crisis illustrates, the officials are desperately paddling below providing the real locomotion.
Read MoreLoyal opposition is no longer possible, so national unity is now required.
Read MoreIn November 1918 New Zealand was hit by the worldwide flu which killed around 9000 of us. Is there anything to learn from this and later experiences?
Read MoreThe government needs to go big or go home. Here are a few things Liam Hehir hopes it plans to announce.
Read MoreAs our record on gun control shows, too often we find it easier to put off addressing issues until it is too late.
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Has economic productivity suffered from the lowering of public trust?
Read MoreI prepared this note for some friends who were arguing with a government agency over whether they were adequately consulted. (It does not matter which one; the disagreement about consultation standards is widespread.) For sometimes a public servant says that there has been consultation on a matter of public interest. Yet many stakeholders cannot recall that happening. The dispute may revolves around the meaning of ‘consultation’.
Read MoreIt would be easy to report my latest findings on the income distribution with grandiose hysteria. But I am a social statistician and readers deserve a sober assessment. The conclusion that high incomes are rising faster than the rest is powerful enough on its own.
Read MoreThe proposed infrastructural spending on roads leaves open a whole range of issues such as who pays and who benefits.
Read MoreSometimes public policy in New Zealand is like the Red Queen who announced 'sentence first – verdict afterwards'.
Read MoreIt is time that the people demanded something be done about the parlous state of Archives New Zealand and the National Library and of public policy towards literacy and the text generally.
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The Building and Construction Industry shows that the light-handed regulation often does not work.
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David Skegg’s book not only argues for vigorous population-based health programs but also provides an uncomfortable account of how decisions in the public interest can be overwhelmed by short-term politics.
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