CoveragePost
December 16, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin, 16 December 2025 RNZ news item, 12pm 9 Dec 2025: “Finance Minister Nicola Willis has challenged one of her predecessors Ruth Richardson to debate her on how to best manage the country’s finances. Our political reporter Anneke Smith has more: ‘The taxpayers union is poised to launch a pressure campaign targeting ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Fire! Fire! Today’s Vestiges of Ruthenasia and Classical Austerity" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/12/16/keith-rankin-analysis-fire-fire-todays-vestiges-of-ruthenasia-and-classical-austerity/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Fire! Fire! Today’s Vestiges of Ruthenasia and Classical Austerity">Read more</a>
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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 30, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. The chart above summarises Japan’s financial balance sheet since 1980. A wall of red below the line, and blue above. Additionally, a persistent ‘slice’ of green below the line, indicating that Japan – the country, not the government – is very much a creditor (ie saver) nation. This red wall has ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Red Gold: Japan’s Lesson for the World" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/10/30/keith-rankin-analysis-red-gold-japans-lesson-for-the-world/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Red Gold: Japan’s Lesson for the World">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>
CoveragePost
October 8, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. New Zealand’s monetary policy decision today was presented as a “line call” (RNZ news) between a cut of 0.25 or 0.50 percentage points. In that context, the correct decision was made; 0.50%. In the context of the understood policy narrative, it was a binary choice. In the mainstream expert and pundit ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Official Cash Rate: The Correct Decision. But?" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/10/08/keith-rankin-analysis-official-cash-rate-the-correct-decision-but/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Official Cash Rate: The Correct Decision. But?">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
September 24, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Back in the day, Economics 101 students learned that trying to recover from a depressed economy using monetary policy alone was like ‘pushing on a string’. Easy monetary policy is supposed to work by getting people – households, businesses, and governments – to incur more debt; in a phrase, to borrow ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Pushing a String: Ineffective Monetary Policy" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/09/24/keith-rankin-analysis-pushing-a-string-ineffective-monetary-policy/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Pushing a String: Ineffective Monetary Policy">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
September 21, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Yesterday the provisional Quarterly Economic Growth data was released. It showed that, seasonally adjusted, remunerated output (ie GDP, gross domestic product) fell 0.9% in April-to-June compared to January-to-March. While the resulting media hoo-ha overstated the significance of this result, there was still very little coverage of the underlying problem; New Zealand ... <a title="Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – Structural Recession" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/09/21/keith-rankin-chart-analysis-structural-recession/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – Structural Recession">Read more</a>
