Is a clear plan regarding the medium term budget. A clear plan around how we will fund long-term expenditure. A movement towards treating asset classes the same way through the tax system. The reintroduction of interest on student loans I’m not being greedy, these four things will pretty much do me 😉 I’ve noticed that […]
Over at Rates Blog I have put up part 2 or a 6 part series on tax (it was going to be 5 but I’ve extended it. In part 1 we asked “why do we tax“. In part 2 we are digging deeper into the costs of taxation. We focus on two specific issues, the […]
On my list of future things to post on I had this post – which was intended to be a “bitch about rebalancing and targeting house prices for financial stability”. Ever since the crisis erupted I have, especially privately, called the “rebalancing” argument one of the most pathetic quasi-economic arguments imaginable. I found it difficult […]
Brian Fallow writing in his normal clear and intelligent manner has come out discussing the government budget. As he says, a slump is not the time for “austerity” in terms of cutting back the size of government, and we should allow temporary deficits to help ease the blow – the point of automatic stabilisers is […]
Via Bernard Hickey on Rates Blog I see the following: All you need to do is deregulate, privatise and target stable inflation and everything will work. Broadly, they still believe that. I listen every day to this group think in Wellington. Treasury, the Reserve Bank and the cabinet have not changed that mindset. The Global […]
I see that, due to concerns about systemic risk for the financial stemming from the housing market, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has decided to increase capital requirements for high loan-value mortgages. Fine, I think this can be fit inside our concept about why you want to deal with these types of issues, as […]