In a discussion on our trade balance frog blog states that mainstream economists won’t talk about the import side of the ledger. Now I’m a mainstream economist (I think I should put that on my business card 🙂 ) so I decided that I should take up the challenge. So lets have a look at […]
When people look at government they often see a group of people that they feel are responsible for taking care of the country. Looking deeper, some people see a representation of society that is supposed to do what is in the social interest. Looking again we might see an organisation who is dominated by interest […]
Following the freezing of Hanover finance’s finances we have heard that the National Australia Bank, and the Australia New Zealand Bank have both had to increase provisions for bad debt (NAB, ANZ). These revelations put the relatively dovish stance of the RBA and the RBNZ in perspective – after all, central bankers are more than […]
Idiot/Savant disputed our claim that market mechanisms are the best way to fight climate change on pragmatic grounds – namely stating that a regulatory solution that works would be better than a “market-based” solution that does nothing. Now I don’t disagree with this – however, I do think that I/S heavily mis-represented both our claim, […]
Over at the excellent intersection between anthropology and economics blog, there is a discussion about the Lil Wayne, his latest album, and how this fits into the idea of a gift economy. [Disclaimer: I haven’t listened to Lil Wayne, so my knowledge on the marginal benefit of his music is severely limited.] Here the question […]
Hi all, Does anyone know why ASB cut mortgage rates following the OCR decision? Bank credit funding costs have been going through the roof – which is why the RBNZ felt that it needed to cut the OCR just to prevent large increases in mortgage rates! I’ve heard that Kiwibank can cut rates because of […]