Note: Other posts in this discussion are available under the tag “inflation debate“. Thank you for all the insightful and intelligent comments (and posts on other blog) on the Re-thinking monetary policy post. Now that you guys have put down the important issues that we have to look at with monetary policy all I need […]
Hi all. Good to see people commenting on re-thinking interest rate policy here, I am going to give it another day for people to make comments (as I am waiting for some specific people) and then I’ll start writing things up on the weekend – so if there is anything you want to add, go […]
Note: Other posts in this discussion are available under the tag “inflation debate“. So Trevor Mallard is suggesting that New Zealand “re-thinks” its interest rate policy. Now his statements that the currency is a “one-way bet” is thinking that is associated with the NZX, while his statement that higher interest rates may have caused the […]
The Economist has an excellent piece on inflation expectations (*) (ht Anti-dismal and the Economist blog). In it they mention some of the difficulties of using the inflation expectation measures as a gauge of inflation, namely: The problem with survey measures: Consumer often mis-interpret inflation, and take increases in the price of certain goods (eg […]
So the economy shrank 0.3% over the March quarter (or 0.6% if you buy the expenditure measure instead) – the appropriate tables are here (*). This was bang on expectations. The stock boost we talked about was there, but everything else was sufficiently bad that it landed on expectations anyway 🙂 What concerned me was […]
In an interesting move, Federated Farmers president Charlie Pedersen stated that we should “thank god for the (food) producers” (*) in New Zealand, for providing us with food and/or wealth. Now I have to admit, I find this attitude a bit ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong, agricultural products do create a lot of wealth, hell […]