Americans Become Easy Targets In Nationwide Surveillance Dragnet The Wall Street Journal BY SHANE SHIFFLETT AND HANNAH CRITCHFIELD Liz McLellan spent a morning in January witnessing the work of federal agents who had arrived in Maine to pursue the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Like other community activists, protesters and passersby…
What’s Wrong With These Pictures?
Here’s three pictures of delicous full cream milk from New Zealand, with one massive, massive difference between them.Can you spot it?The first picture is from Woolworths Lower Hutt store, taken on the 17 December 2025. The second picture is from Pac n Save Lower Hutt, taken on the 19 December…
Dead Hand of Government – Kiwisaver Edition
Kiwisaver was a policy initiative introduced with a big hiss and a roar by Michael Cullen back in the Helen Clark government in May 2005.Convinced that he had single handedly created a government fiscal surplus through his superior fiscal rectitude, he seemed to think no one was as good at…
If it felt like it hurt, its because it did
Stats NZ updated their annual national accounts for the year ending March 2024 today. These updates bring their GDP stats into line with the Annual Enterprise Survey and other benchmark data sources. The annual measures shake out as much of the data vagaries that plague the quarterly measures, and reset…
Greenshoot of Recovery
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) this week dropped the Official Cash Rate (OCR) to 3.0% from 3.25%. In theory, that should flow through the banking system, and drop the “price of money” (the loan interest rate) which banks demand for mortgages.Cheaper interest rates “should” increase demand for mortgages,…
Faceplant – New Zealand Economics Style
New Zealand is currently in the worst economic recession since the Mother of All Budgets back in 1990. Our Golden Years (1998 – 2008) are well behind us. The business cycleHere’s a little thing I fizzed up when I was at the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research but have…
Wanna Be an Economist? Take the Test
Show us your skillsWelcome to XXXXXX – we specialise in statistics and numerical analysis.Your ability to read, process, analyse, interpretate and communicate statistical information to a lay audience is fundamental to the position you have applied for.This exercise is designed to allow you to demonstrate your skills at data manipulation,…
USA National Debt
I’ve previously written about how the US Dollar is the ultimate IOU: the USA seems impervious to monetary crisis. The US Government seems to be able to continuously borrow from the world running some weird sort of international ponzi scheme where it keeps issuing more debt, and international creditors keep…
Imperfect Substitutes: Immigration and Consumer Preferences
An interesting story in the business section of today’s New Zealand Herald: Tucked down the bottom was this comment below plucked from Burger Fuel’s annual report. It sounds like immigration is altering Burger Fuel’s traditional customer base. I really hope they adapt because I think their food is delicious (… says…
Normal Photo…
Check out this pretty normal photo in today’s (26 June 2025) New Zealand Auckland Herald from the NATO Head of Government meeting:… until you zoom in closer and wonder who let in THIS absolutely mad screamer… NATO Heads of GovernmentSo I went to the NATO website and pulled this picture…
Pay Equity Laws and “Structural Gender Discrimination”: Economics Component
As an Economist, this REALLY annoys me: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/560417/opposition-ramps-up-to-government-s-pay-equity-moveThe whole concept that you can look across different industries and try to equate remuneration rates without looking at the demand and supply pressures on the industries themselves is economic ignorance and massively annoying!For Economists, its like people claiming the Earth is flat…
Pay Equity Laws and “Structural Gender Discrimination”: Legal Component
Key Pay Equity CaselawWith a good head of steam built up, I dived into the main caselaw: Terranova Homes & Care Ltd V Service And Food Workers Union Nga Ringa Tota Inc Ca631/2013 [2014] NZCA 516 [28 October 2014] (Bartlett Case), fully expecting to find another ugly piece of activist…
The Trade Secret of Intellectual Trumpism
Extracted from the Wall Street JournalPOLITICAL ECONOMICS By Joseph C. Sternberg · Apr 11, 2025The goal of all these tariffs for avowed protectionists is to make Americans less able to purchase things.President Trump’s sudden reversal this week is unlikely to mark the beginning of the end of his adventures in…
History of New Caledonia
Book first published in 1993, so current up to then Land and Natural Resources Law
Comparative Grocery Pricing
So, here I am in New Caledonia. And as any right-thinking economist does, when they do their shopping, I’ve sourced comparative prices from New Zealand so I can check for systematic price differentials. 🙂Here’s the shopping bill from the local supermarket, Carrefour market, expressed in South Pacific Francs (XPF):I’ve typed…
When was Inflation Beat?
Yeah! Good News! New Zealand’s nailed inflation.Don’t get me wrong – I dislike inflation, and everything about it. I don’t like how sustained persistent inflation is created by the government spending money it doesn’t have and buying up large on both the taxpayer and consumers ticket (inflation is a tax)….
Information Technology: Is it Capital or Labour Intensive?
What got me into this blog topic was a recent posting by Real Engineering on Nebula looking at how video streaming services work. In the posting, the presenter gave some arm-wavy stats on the relative breakdown of their costs.Oh, by the way: Rebecca Drew is AWESOME (she told me if…
The Price of Booze and Smokes
Stats NZ released its Consumer Price Index today. Booze & Ciggie InflationHere’s what’s been happening to the relative cost of your weekly booze and smokes.Booze and smoke annual prices increased approximately 1.6% faster than other goods and services between 1988 and 2009. All other goods and services increased in price,…
Brisbane Construction Boom
Rebecca and I landed in Brisbane last night, and we’re staying at the Emporium Hotel in South Bank. We have this phenomenal view of the Brisbane CBD. Check out this photo. It wasn’t clearly defined, so I added red marks over each.There are 13 cranes helping construction in Brisbane’s CBD….
Milk Scarcity
Oddest sign…… why does NEW ZEALAND have milk supply issues?!?!But it looks like it’s backed up by evidence:I’ll be damned… That’s not good for both June GDP, and New Zealand, especially given inflation and a contracting monetary policy stance.🫤