In an article filled with interesting facts, James Weir from the Dominion Post looks at the Paymark data. This data gives a strong indicator of what happened to eftpos sales over a month – which is probably relatively similar to what happened to retail sales itself. Now, I agree with them that these numbers indicate […]
The news stories all seem to indicate that Boxing day was a huge success for retailers (*,*). If this is the case, then the rapid slowdown in retail spending recorded over November and early December may have been the result of timing issues and price expectations, rather than poor consumer sentiment. What do I mean? […]
I noticed that there were some end of 2008 articles by Michael Laws and Fiona MacDonald. Both take economists to task, one for doomsaying and one for obsessing about growth. Fundamentally, both articles have one theme in common – economists are exaggerating the impact of the crisis for the man on the street. Sure, there […]
Over the holidays I had a little peek at “the Universe in a nutshell” by Stephen Hawking. Early on in the book he states that it is technology, not political systems or economic dogma, that has led to the vast improvement in living standards in modern times. Now to a large degree, economists agree with […]
In an interesting piece over at Economist’s View the case is made from moving away from “morality arguments” and just looking at how we can pull ourselves out of the depression now. Although the piece provides a clean argument, and involves discussions by economists as intelligent and convincing as Martin Wolf and Paul Krugman I […]
Have a good one. Try to avoid time inconsistent behaviour during the break 😛