CoveragePost
August 15, 2023
Essay by Keith Rankin. Fresh vegetables and fruit – quality foods – are what economists call a merit good, like primary health care, education and urban public transport. By contrast, ‘junk food’ – rich in sugar – is a demerit good. We in New Zealand and many other countries have a problem: too much unhealthy ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – Subsidise Vegetables and Fruit" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2023/08/15/keith-rankin-essay-subsidise-vegetables-and-fruit/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – Subsidise Vegetables and Fruit">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
May 29, 2023
Analysis by Keith Rankin. The topic of financial debt is one of the hardest for humans to get their heads around. The normal understanding of a debt is a sacrifice made by one party (the owner of the debt) in favour of another party (the ower) which will be remedied some time in the future ... <a title="Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – Visualising Countries’ Deficits and Debts, Surpluses and Credits, in context of the US Government’s Debt Ceiling" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2023/05/29/keith-rankin-chart-analysis-visualising-countries-deficits-and-debts-surpluses-and-credits-in-context-of-the-us-governments-debt-ceiling/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – Visualising Countries’ Deficits and Debts, Surpluses and Credits, in context of the US Government’s Debt Ceiling">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
December 6, 2022
Analysis by Keith Rankin. On 29 October 2022, the New Zealand Listener published 10 Billion reasons to be cheerful, an article by Greg Dixon summarising “futurologist” Hamish McRae’s 2022 book The World in 2050: How to think about the future. (Note also the accompanying article, A blast from the past; and the letters responses.) The ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – Predicting the Coming Quarter Century" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2022/12/06/keith-rankin-essay-predicting-the-coming-quarter-century/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – Predicting the Coming Quarter Century">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
December 2, 2022
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Economics is a profound and important discipline. But its practice is prone to self-censorship, and still reflects in large part its (Victorian era) glory days and the sensibilities of that era. The father and mother of today’s textbook economics were Alfred Marshall and Mary Paley who published The Economics of Industry ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – Using the Sex Industry to Critique Textbook Economics" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2022/12/02/keith-rankin-essay-using-the-sex-industry-to-critique-textbook-economics/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – Using the Sex Industry to Critique Textbook Economics">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
December 2, 2022
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards. Political Roundup: Clawing back $7bn of corporate welfare The taxpayer is short of billions of dollars that were overpaid to businesses during Covid according to Christchurch philanthropists Grant and Marilyn Nelson. They are taking legal action against state agencies to push them to recoup up to $7bn that was wrongly paid ... <a title="Bryce Edwards’ Political Roundup: Clawing back $7bn of corporate welfare" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2022/12/02/bryce-edwards-political-roundup-clawing-back-7bn-of-corporate-welfare/" aria-label="Read more about Bryce Edwards’ Political Roundup: Clawing back $7bn of corporate welfare">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
November 30, 2022
Analysis by Keith Rankin. The academic study of history, more than anything else, is about the relationships between social elites and the lower classes. Yet, when it comes to the present, the relationships between elites and wider society is under-discussed, both popularly and academically. (In academia, it is the province of sociology, a social ‘science’ ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – How do Left-Wing Elites Make their Money?" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2022/11/30/keith-rankin-essay-how-do-left-wing-elites-make-their-money/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – How do Left-Wing Elites Make their Money?">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
November 9, 2022
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards. Political Roundup: Will the Govt act on mega bank profits and reform the banking sector? The corporate retail banks are making mega profits on the back of Government policies and indirect subsidies of recent years. As a result, there are calls from across almost the whole political spectrum for greater regulation ... <a title="Bryce Edwards’ Political Roundup: Will the Govt act on mega bank profits and reform the banking sector?" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2022/11/09/bryce-edwards-political-roundup-will-the-govt-act-on-mega-bank-profits-and-reform-the-banking-sector/" aria-label="Read more about Bryce Edwards’ Political Roundup: Will the Govt act on mega bank profits and reform the banking sector?">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
November 9, 2022
Analysis by Keith Rankin. The present cost-of-living crisis, and the present inflation, are global issues. It is just silly to discuss these, to address these, in predominantly nationalist terms. The next key point to note is that rises in the cost-of-living and inflation are not the same thing, yet public discussion largely treats them as ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – The Cost-of-Living Crisis, and Inflation" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2022/11/09/keith-rankin-analysis-the-cost-of-living-crisis-and-inflation/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – The Cost-of-Living Crisis, and Inflation">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
November 7, 2022
Analysis by Keith Rankin. In the last three months, Elizabeth (Liz) Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng performed an amazing political boom and bust routine. They captured the British Conservative Party at a time that such a capture meant a direct route to power in the United Kingdom. (More commonly, at least in New Zealand, political party ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng: What they were Thinking" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2022/11/07/keith-rankin-analysis-liz-truss-and-kwasi-kwarteng-what-they-were-thinking/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng: What they were Thinking">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
April 21, 2022
Analysis by Keith Rankin. The new (though not unfamiliar to older New Zealanders) crisis of 2022 (and most likely beyond) has become, alternatively, a ‘cost of living’ or an ‘inflation’ crisis. The public discussion treats these two ‘enemies of the people’ as one and the same thing. But they are not. Indeed such conflation is ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – Problem of Price Increases: ‘Cost of Living’ versus ‘Inflation’" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2022/04/21/keith-rankin-essay-problem-of-price-increases-cost-of-living-versus-inflation/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – Problem of Price Increases: ‘Cost of Living’ versus ‘Inflation’">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
March 23, 2022
Analysis by Keith Rankin. On 1 December 2021 the CCCFA (Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act) entered Aotearoa New Zealand with more stealth than the Omicron BA2 variant. It resulted in unintended consequences that were (and are) entirely predictable. There are two sets of ‘unintended but predictable consequences’: those consequences that make anxious and desperate ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Borrowing Hurdles: Unintended Consequences arising from Wilful Blindness" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2022/03/23/keith-rankin-analysis-borrowing-hurdles-unintended-consequences-arising-from-wilful-blindness/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Borrowing Hurdles: Unintended Consequences arising from Wilful Blindness">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
March 3, 2022
A View from Afar – In this podcast, political scientist Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning discuss the ongoing Russian attacks against Ukraine, including: Whether the Russian Federation’s president Vladimir Putin has lost the support of significant leaders of allied nations, and if so what does this mean for Russia as a global power?