CoveragePost
November 28, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. TVNZ’s special programme on Tuesday (News Special: You, Me and the Economy; 25 November 2025) included (about two-thirds of the way into the programme) among a number of helpful and unhelpful suggestions, a call for New Zealanders to get onto the compound interest bandwagon, the magic formula of getting rich in ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Compound Interest in New Zealand’s last 100 Years" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/11/28/keith-rankin-analysis-compound-interest-in-new-zealands-last-100-years/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Compound Interest in New Zealand’s last 100 Years">Read more</a>
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November 14, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Labour Party Policies Last month the New Zealand Labour Party announced two policies: a second sovereign wealth fund, and a capital gains tax on non-owner-occupier real estate. For me, both are worrying, representing further steps in the financialisation of an already over-financialised economy. Then yesterday, I heard a story (Report highlights ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – The Mansion as a Metaphor for Neoliberal Finance Capitalism" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/11/14/keith-rankin-essay-the-mansion-as-a-metaphor-for-neoliberal-finance-capitalism/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – The Mansion as a Metaphor for Neoliberal Finance Capitalism">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
November 7, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Are wars affordable? The answer of course is ‘yes and no’. Affording a war is different from financing a war. To make any new thing affordable, either there must be a reallocation of resources or a deployment of resources not otherwise in use. Or a mix of both. Further, resources get ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Affording and Financing Wars, with reference to the United States" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/11/07/keith-rankin-analysis-affording-and-financing-wars-with-reference-to-the-united-states/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Affording and Financing Wars, with reference to the United States">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
October 24, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Earlier this week, in The Truth about Prices in New Zealand, (on Evening Report, and on Scoop), I showed how the Consumers Price Index (CPI) is a lagging measure of inflation, and that the Producers Price Index (and the use of six-monthly rather than annual data) gives more timely information about turning points in ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – A Quarter-Century of New Zealand’s CPI Inflation" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/10/24/keith-rankin-analysis-a-quarter-century-of-new-zealands-cpi-inflation/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – A Quarter-Century of New Zealand’s CPI Inflation">Read more</a>
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October 21, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. The first chart shows annual price increases in New Zealand for businesses (PPI: Producers Price Index) and consumers (CPI: Consumers Price Index), since 1999. We note that the latest CPI datapoint is for the third quarter of 2025, meaning that it’s centred on mid-August. The most recent PPI data is for the second ... <a title="Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – The Truth about Prices in New Zealand" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/10/21/keith-rankin-chart-analysis-the-truth-about-prices-in-new-zealand/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – The Truth about Prices in New Zealand">Read more</a>
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October 3, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Last week I looked at how, for modern day purposes, monetary policy started around 1750. It began with the departure from the presumption that money is wealth to the idea that money is a veil and that therefore wealth is something else. That was, in a sense, the beginning of political ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – A Brief History of Monetary Policy (Part Two), including Modern Monetary Theory" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/10/03/keith-rankin-analysis-a-brief-history-of-monetary-policy-part-two-including-modern-monetary-theory/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – A Brief History of Monetary Policy (Part Two), including Modern Monetary Theory">Read more</a>
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September 26, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. On Monday (Pushing a String; Ineffective Monetary Policy, 22 September 2025) I wrote about how, in circumstances of economic depression or structural recession, monetary policy is ineffective as the sole policy to induce a country’s economic recovery. Here I look at the historical antecedents of today’s monetary policy narrative. Understandings of ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – A Brief History of Monetary Policy (Part One)" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/09/26/keith-rankin-analysis-a-brief-history-of-monetary-policy-part-one/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – A Brief History of Monetary Policy (Part One)">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
July 10, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. I just heard on Radio New Zealand a claim by a British commentator, Hugo Gye (Political Editor of The i Paper), that the United Kingdom (among other countries) has a major public debt crisis, and that if nothing is done about it (such as what Rachel Reeves – Chancellor of the ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Public Debt, Japan, and Wilful Blindness" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/07/10/keith-rankin-analysis-public-debt-japan-and-wilful-blindness/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Public Debt, Japan, and Wilful Blindness">Read more</a>
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August 14, 2024
Department of Mum and Dad Analysis by Keith Rankin. On 12 August, the national-led government announced a new policy program to impose more sanctions on New Zealand’s beneficiaries, meaning people of working age (18-64) whose primary income is a government benefit. (Refer RNZ Government further increases sanctions for beneficiaries, 12 August 2024.) This policy direction ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Department of Mum and Dad, in the context of a more restrictive welfare state" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2024/08/14/keith-rankin-analysis-department-of-mum-and-dad-in-the-context-of-a-more-restrictive-welfare-state/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Department of Mum and Dad, in the context of a more restrictive welfare state">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
July 31, 2024
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Today is ‘tax cut day’. The present round of income tax cuts has been controversial, despite the fact that they are not ‘real’ tax cuts, only bracket adjustments which partially compensate for CPI inflation this decade. (Here is an interview today with University of Auckland economist Susan St John, which suggests ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Tax Cuts: 1982 and 2024" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2024/07/31/keith-rankin-analysis-tax-cuts-1982-and-2024/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Tax Cuts: 1982 and 2024">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
July 31, 2024
Analysis by Keith Rankin. The above chart shows CPI inflation in New Zealand in historical context. The chart shows (in orange) the present policy target band of one to three percent annual inflation. And it shows the ‘home-ownership’ component of the CPI. The chart looks different to most charts of CPI inflation, because it uses ... <a title="Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – New Zealand’s Consumers Price Index: CPI Inflation past and present" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2024/07/31/keith-rankin-chart-analysis-new-zealands-consumers-price-index-cpi-inflation-past-and-present/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – New Zealand’s Consumers Price Index: CPI Inflation past and present">Read more</a>
