CoveragePost
May 20, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Government-owned Kiwirail is supposed to be presiding over the New Zealand Main Trunk (Railway) Line, from Auckland to Invercargill. As such it runs a ferry service (The Interislander) between New Zealand’s North and South Islands. We are being told by Kiwirail (and see today’s report on Radio NZ) that the only ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – The Aratere and the New Zealand Main Trunk Line" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/05/20/keith-rankin-analysis-the-aratere-and-the-new-zealand-main-trunk-line/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – The Aratere and the New Zealand Main Trunk Line">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
May 9, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Donald Trump is a mercantilist, as noted in Trump’s tariffs: Short-term damage or long-term ruin? ‘The Bottom Line’, Al Jazeera, 11 April 2025 (or here on YouTube). But the United States, in today’s world, is not a mercantilist country. Or at least not a successful mercantilist country, though it is inhabited ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Make Deficits Great Again: Maintaining a Pragmatic Balance" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/05/09/keith-rankin-analysis-make-deficits-great-again-maintaining-a-pragmatic-balance/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Make Deficits Great Again: Maintaining a Pragmatic Balance">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
May 8, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. The ‘see-saw’ chart above shows the accumulated ‘excess benefits’ that Aotearoa New Zealand, and a few other countries, have enjoyed from international trade over the last 40 years. These are benefits arising from ‘unbalanced trade’ which are in addition to the regular benefits – arising from efficient specialisation – of ‘balanced’ ... <a title="Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – International Trade over time: gifts with strings" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/05/08/keith-rankin-chart-analysis-international-trade-over-time-gifts-with-strings/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – International Trade over time: gifts with strings">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
May 2, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. On Anzac Day we remembered World War One and World War Two, or at least the peripheral little bits of those imperial wars that New Zealand was involved in. There was and is little context given to how New Zealand got involved with such far-away wars which need never have become ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – The Great World War 1914-1945: Germany, Russia, Ukraine" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/05/02/keith-rankin-analysis-the-great-world-war-1914-1945-germany-russia-ukraine/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – The Great World War 1914-1945: Germany, Russia, Ukraine">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
April 17, 2025
Essay by Keith Rankin. Operation Gomorrah may have been the most cynical event of World War Two (WW2). Not only did the name fully convey the intent of the war crimes about to be committed, it, also represented the single biggest 24-hour murder toll for the European war that I have come across. On the ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – Barbecued Hamburgers and Churchill’s Bestie" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/04/17/keith-rankin-essay-barbecued-hamburgers-and-churchills-bestie/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – Barbecued Hamburgers and Churchill’s Bestie">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
April 10, 2025
Essay by Keith Rankin. ‘Rational Expectations’ is a problematic theory in economics. Here I want to focus more away from economics; and more on the meanings of ‘rationality’ in decision-making, than on the problematic ambiguity of the word ‘expect’ (and its derivatives such as ‘expectations’). ‘Expectation’ here means what we believe ‘will’ happen, not ‘should’ ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – Rational Expectations, Intelligence, and War" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/04/10/keith-rankin-essay-rational-expectations-intelligence-and-war/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – Rational Expectations, Intelligence, and War">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
March 27, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. While World War Two (WW2) always was a set of intersecting conflicts – with Japan fighting a war of imperialism in East Asia and the Western Pacific – the war in Europe has been cast as the ultimate battle of ‘Good’ versus ‘Evil’. Hence the narrative of the Good War. Further, ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Learning the correct lessons from World War Two in Europe" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/03/27/keith-rankin-analysis-learning-the-correct-lessons-from-world-war-two-in-europe/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Learning the correct lessons from World War Two in Europe">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
March 18, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. As most of us appreciate, there is a whole geopolitical world that overlays the formal political world of about 200 ‘nation states’ (aka ‘polities’). Geopolitical fractures – a result of the ‘big games’ over and above the ‘rules-based order’ – occur in all sorts of places, sometimes through provinces, even counties. ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Geopolitical fractures, and untidy yet workable solutions" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/03/18/keith-rankin-analysis-geopolitical-fractures-and-untidy-yet-workable-solutions/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Geopolitical fractures, and untidy yet workable solutions">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
March 13, 2025
Opinion-Analysis – by Keith Rankin. Former ambassador Phil Goff is the latest (so far) and (probably) the least of many ‘statesmen’ who have invoked Munich and the ‘resolute’ Winston Churchill (a backbench MP in 1938) in the cause of good-war mongering. (Refer Winston Peters sacks Phil Goff as UK High Commissioner RNZ 6 March 2025, ... <a title="Opinion-Analysis by Keith Rankin – Invoking Munich, ‘Appeasement’, and the ‘Lessons of History’" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/03/13/opinion-analysis-by-keith-rankin-invoking-munich-appeasement-and-the-lessons-of-history/" aria-label="Read more about Opinion-Analysis by Keith Rankin – Invoking Munich, ‘Appeasement’, and the ‘Lessons of History’">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
March 12, 2025
Opinion Analysis by Keith Rankin. This story, Germany to ease government debt limits in major step aimed at boosting economy, defense spending,AP, 6 March 2015, reflects my comments in Germany’s Election 2025. (And note Reforming the debt brake: Now or never! Landesbank Baden-Württemberg, 28 Feb 2025. And Germany’s election victor must ditch its debt rules—immediately, ... <a title="Opinion Analysis by Keith Rankin – Dodgy Democracy, the Fiscal Double Standard, and the application of the Domino Theory to Ukraine" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/03/12/opinion-analysis-by-keith-rankin-dodgy-democracy-the-fiscal-double-standard-and-the-application-of-the-domino-theory-to-ukraine/" aria-label="Read more about Opinion Analysis by Keith Rankin – Dodgy Democracy, the Fiscal Double Standard, and the application of the Domino Theory to Ukraine">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
March 6, 2025
Opinion/Analysis by Keith Rankin. Germany’s important election last week struggled to make the news cycle, even on Germany’s own Deutsche Welle(DW), Germany’s equivalent of Britain’s BBC. Especially (but not only) in the international media, most of the focus was on a single party (AFD, Alliance for Germany) that was never going to have the most ... <a title="OPINION: Keith Rankin – Germany’s Election 2025: Far Establishment-Right versus Far Non-Establishment-Right?" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/03/06/opinion-keith-rankin-germanys-election-2025-far-establishment-right-versus-far-non-establishment-right/" aria-label="Read more about OPINION: Keith Rankin – Germany’s Election 2025: Far Establishment-Right versus Far Non-Establishment-Right?">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
February 27, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. The above chart traces the vote-share of Germany’s establishment political parties: the right-wing CDU/CSU and the now-centre-right SPD (essentially the Christian Democrats, just like National in New Zealand) and the Social Democrats (just like Labour). And it compares Germany with England to show a similar process there. An increasingly stale political centre ... <a title="Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – Germany’s stale (and still pale) political mainstream" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/02/27/keith-rankin-chart-analysis-germanys-stale-and-still-pale-political-mainstream/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – Germany’s stale (and still pale) political mainstream">Read more</a>
