I was just hanging out around Dani Rodrik’s blog when I read this interesting post. In it he criticizes Naomi Klein for celebrating the collapse of the Argentinian economy. Reading his comments, my own feelings, and NK’s comments I realised something – there is some level where we all agree. Fundamentally, we are all interested […]
So New Zealand gross domestic product slid 0.4% in the September quarter. If we stick to thinking about it in “C+I+G+X-M” terms, like we have earlier, it actually fell by 0.7%. Although everything came to pass as expected, it is still one hell of a downer – given that we are probably heading into a […]
It appears that economics is on the verge of war … ok maybe I’m being melodramatic – but the change in tone of economists recently (well, actually mainly macroeconomists) has been startling! During the credit crisis, more and more economists have moved towards a panicked position. However, the first true indication that this might be different than […]
Even with indications that consumer price growth is falling quickly, we know that at least one CPI is rising fast – the Christmas Price Index! In the US it appears that the price of the bundle of “Christmas goods” has risen by 8.1% over the past year. My suspicion is that the New Zealand index […]
The National Bank Business Outlook for December came out the other day, and it was another horrible looking figure for business confidence. Two key points for me, beyond what we have discussed earlier.: Own activity expectations are horrible, The inflation expectations measure collapsed. The first covers the most important statistic in the series – own […]
Chrysler has shut down production for a month, while Ford and GM have cut back substantially. Some people feel that this is a disaster – and that it indicates we need government intervention, and fast! But I’m confused. Car inventories are at record high levels, and demand for cars is very poor – as a […]