No matter how much I bang on about it, it seems that no-one wants to believe me that GST is a neutral tax and so any increase in GST that is match by a decrease in income tax WITHOUT changing the degree of progressivity will not impact on low income people per see (ht Kiwiblog) […]
Bernard Hickey posted on the 10 reasons why Fitch should downgrade New Zealand’s credit rating, it is an interesting post that you should run off and read before looking at this 
Now that you have read that I am, for the sake of argument, going to counter each of these points. I cannot provide […]
ANZ has suggested that we need to broaden the RBNZ target to include asset prices. No. Everyone seems to be mixing up the RBNZ’s monetary policy goals and its financial stability goals. Now, inside of the financial stability targets a good look at asset prices and a dose of prudential regulation COULD be useful. In […]
So on the 14th of July Alan Bollard said the follow in a speech to the Hawke’s Bay Chamber of Commerce: Sustainable recovery, with rebalancing in demand and the economy’s productive base, is mostly a microeconomic matter. This means households, firms, banks and investors making the right decisions about where to allocate land, labour, capital […]
So Bill English has said there is now no room for tax cuts, specificially: New Zealand had to get out of the tax-cut “mode” it had been in for the past five years, he said, because of the new economic conditions, which see budget deficit forecasts of up $12 billion for the next 10 years. […]
Repeat after me: Private costs are not policy relevant Private costs are not policy relevant Private costs are not policy relevant Now when the Law Commision says (on pg 169) (ht Offsetting behaviour): These are controversial issues and the Law Commission is in no position as yet to arbitrate in this debate which has become […]