David Farrar has a very good reply to this post from Tane at the Standard. There are a few points I would like to make as well though. Tane says: David Farrar made the same fallacy the other day, the minimum wage isn’t there to make us all rich, it’s there to ensure that people […]
When I was cruising the data freeway that is Stats NZ today I noticed this on pg 15 of the HLFS (which has been revised): The fourth highlight in the Hot Off The Press that said “Seasonally adjusted total actual hours worked per week fell by 1.9 percent” now says “…fell by 0.5 percent”. This […]
I think this is an excellent policy. Employees will be able to trade their fourth week of annual holidays for cash by next year, Prime Minister John Key said today. This way, if there is some level of compensation that the employer is willing to make, and the employee is willing to accept, they can […]
Source NBNZ The RBNZ felt that the dollar would fall toward a TWI of 47 – not lift to 55. As the Bank is currently focused on short-term economic activity, rather than inflation, the sudden lift in the TWI will actually give them more reason to cut harder in April. Given this increasing risk of […]
I heard the following gem round the water cooler at work: Beer makes economics happen I felt that given it is a Friday, and given that there is a lot of economics going on, this quote was felt especially poignant. Personally I think Jagermeister is a better economic stimulant – but I understand that I’m […]
Fewer people are departing to Aussie this February than in Feb 08 (down 22%). The economics tea leaves never leave me wanting – maybe I need to incorporate them into my forecasting routine. This is a drastic slowdown – and is consistent with the sharp increase in unemployment over in Aussie. Now I’m just waiting […]