CoveragePost
September 21, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Over the last week I have subverted the western geo-cultural tropes of ‘Good versus Evil’ and ‘Beautiful versus Ugly’. (Geopolitical Rugby: Bad plays Evil, for the final World Cup 16 Sep 2025 and Lookism11 Sep 2025; both on Scoop and Evening Report.) Here I consider our new version of the former ... <a title="Keith Rankin on Nuclear Calculus" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/09/21/keith-rankin-on-nuclear-calculus/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin on Nuclear Calculus">Read more</a>
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September 16, 2025
Essay by Keith Rankin. Today’s geopolitics is already coming very close to a war (mainly of words, so far) between Asia and Europe (both entities broadly and loosely defined). For geopolitical purposes we may call this a war of hubris and cant between East and West. Conveniently for the West, the words East and Evil ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – Geopolitical rugby: Bad plays Evil, for the final World Cup" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/09/16/keith-rankin-essay-geopolitical-rugby-bad-plays-evil-for-the-final-world-cup/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – Geopolitical rugby: Bad plays Evil, for the final World Cup">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
September 14, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin Keith Rankin – One of our least-discussed discriminatory ‘isms’ is what I call ‘lookism’. Discrimination on the basis of a person’s or a group’s appearance, noting in particular features of ancestry, age, and culture. Discrimination based on how individuals and peoples look to other people. Discrimination on the basis of the presence ... <a title="Keith Rankin on Lookism" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/09/14/keith-rankin-on-lookism/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin on Lookism">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
September 5, 2025
Essay by Keith Rankin. The failing nation-states of Western Europe are not peacemakers. They are warmongers, the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ – the Coalition of Sanctimony and Hypocrisy. They are trying to frame the current geopolitical struggle between a unipolar versus a multipolar world order as a struggle of the ‘Democratic’ Axis of Good against ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – The Coalition of Sanctimony and Hypocrisy" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/09/05/keith-rankin-essay-the-coalition-of-sanctimony-and-hypocrisy/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – The Coalition of Sanctimony and Hypocrisy">Read more</a>
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August 31, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Public policy in New Zealand is paralysed by an unwavering mis-framing of the current economic stagnation. A key part of the problem is the popular attachment to the phrase ‘cost of living crisis’ as a catch-all for contemporary economic malaise. The first task towards clear thinking is to disentangle ‘cost of ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Intellectual Paralysis: Cost of Living, Inflation, and Interest Costs" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/08/31/keith-rankin-analysis-intellectual-paralysis-cost-of-living-inflation-and-interest-costs/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Intellectual Paralysis: Cost of Living, Inflation, and Interest Costs">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
August 22, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. This year, the heated non-debate in Aotearoa New Zealand about pay equity, has left important answers unquestioned. Equal Pay versus Pay Equity The first point that must be made is to distinguish ‘equal pay’ from ‘pay equity’. Equal pay means, for different identity groups, the same pay for the same work. ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Equal Pay, Pay Equity, and Cost-of-Living Narratives" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/08/22/keith-rankin-analysis-equal-pay-pay-equity-and-cost-of-living-narratives/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Equal Pay, Pay Equity, and Cost-of-Living Narratives">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
August 15, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. World War One is really the first conflagration of a Great World War which lasted between 1914 and 1945. That great war was a ‘”game” of two halves’ with an extended and less violent mid-war phase; total war, with an interregnum which exacerbated rather than resolved the trigger issues of early ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Goodies and Baddies? Lessons since the World War of 1914" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/08/15/keith-rankin-analysis-goodies-and-baddies-lessons-since-the-world-war-of-1914/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Goodies and Baddies? Lessons since the World War of 1914">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
August 8, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. In the wake of the recent release of labour force data (Household Labour Force Survey, HLFS, Nicola Willis bemoans ‘glass half empty’ view of unemployment figures, RNZ 6 August 2025), 1918-1920 National Party Leader Simon Bridges, has called for economic “stimulus” to rescue in particular the dire Auckland economy. (See Call ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Stimulate or Suffocate, in the light of Older Women’s Spending?" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/08/08/keith-rankin-analysis-stimulate-or-suffocate-in-the-light-of-older-womens-spending/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Stimulate or Suffocate, in the light of Older Women’s Spending?">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
August 8, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. The above chart shows – in red – the annual percentage increase (since 1988) in numbers employed of women aged 65-69, based on Household Labour Force Survey employment data. (And it shows, for comparison, males aged 30-34; in blue, their percentages are shown on the right-hand side of the chart. I ... <a title="Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – Employment growth in New Zealand for retirement-age women" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/08/08/keith-rankin-chart-analysis-employment-growth-in-new-zealand-for-retirement-age-women/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – Employment growth in New Zealand for retirement-age women">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
August 7, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Quarterly Labour market data in Aotearoa New Zealand was released today. Much of the data is functionally useless, because of definitions which disguise rather than reveal important trends and turning points. I have focussed on employment data (although the definition of ’employment’ is too generous to be optimally useful) relative to ... <a title="Keith Rankin Chart Analysis: Employment in New Zealand – especially of women – at the Age Margins" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/08/07/keith-rankin-chart-analysis-employment-in-new-zealand-especially-of-women-at-the-age-margins/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Chart Analysis: Employment in New Zealand – especially of women – at the Age Margins">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
August 4, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. The most important measure of the favourability or otherwise of the international economic environment is called a country’s ‘Terms of Trade’. This label essentially means ‘barter price’, reflecting that international trade is essentially one country’s barter with the rest of the world. (Digression. We note that such ‘barter’ is rarely the ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – New Zealand’s highly favourable Terms of Trade" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/08/04/keith-rankin-analysis-new-zealands-highly-favourable-terms-of-trade/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – New Zealand’s highly favourable Terms of Trade">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
July 29, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. The following two tables show New Zealand and the 24 other economies in the world most easily and fruitfully compared to New Zealand. The countries are sorted with the worst-performing economies (in terms of economic growth per capita) listed at the top. Thus, taking four-year compounded growth for 2020, 2021, 2022 ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – How did New Zealand compare in the first half of the 2020s?" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/07/29/keith-rankin-analysis-how-did-new-zealand-compare-in-the-first-half-of-the-2020s/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – How did New Zealand compare in the first half of the 2020s?">Read more</a>
