CoveragePost
June 9, 2020
Analysis by Keith Rankin. How many current pandemics? The word ‘pandemic’ is not entirely defined on narrow public health criteria. (Likewise, an economic depression has no technical definition.) In an important sense it is a word of history, a word to describe significant health events of the past that had substantial diffusion beyond any particular locality. ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – A Plague of Pandemics, including a Pandemic of Plague" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2020/06/09/keith-rankin-analysis-a-plague-of-pandemics-including-a-pandemic-of-plague/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – A Plague of Pandemics, including a Pandemic of Plague">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
June 8, 2020
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Good or Bad? Are there good or bad signature patterns for countries. The most obvious answer is that every country should ideally look like Portugal in 2019. Government sector and foreign sector balances would be close to zero. Private sector balances would also be close to zero, with household surpluses (net household ... <a title="Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – Financial Signatures: Portugal and New Zealand compared" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2020/06/08/keith-rankin-chart-analysis-financial-signatures-portugal-and-new-zealand-compared/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – Financial Signatures: Portugal and New Zealand compared">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
June 5, 2020
Analysis by Keith Rankin. The conversation around the 2020 covid19 pandemic has been widely framed as ‘health versus the economy’. It has been quite political, with people leaning to the left emphasising ‘health’, and people leaning to the right emphasising ‘the economy’. A couple of weeks ago (27 May), on RNZ I heard outspoken British ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Economic Impacts of Pandemics" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2020/06/05/keith-rankin-analysis-economic-impacts-of-pandemics/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Economic Impacts of Pandemics">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
June 3, 2020
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Economic Life, Economics and Economism When things go wrong with economic life, it’s easy to blame economics; that is, the academic discipline called ‘economics’. We all live economic lives, and use metaphors to give meaning to that amorphous thing we call ‘the economy’ and to our individual places within it. Shared ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Mindframes and Doughnuts" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2020/06/03/keith-rankin-analysis-mindframes-and-doughnuts/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Mindframes and Doughnuts">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
May 31, 2020
Analysis by Keith Rankin. The large western economies account for by far the most covid19 deaths in the world. Even Germany, with a covid19 death incidence of 100 per million is well above the world average to date of 50 deaths per million people. Of these large countries, only the United States looks likely to ... <a title="Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – Covid19: Deaths and Cases to the end of May 2020" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2020/05/31/keith-rankin-chart-analysis-covid19-deaths-and-cases-to-the-end-of-may-2020/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – Covid19: Deaths and Cases to the end of May 2020">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
May 30, 2020
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Sweden has lost 400 of its ten million people to Covid 19 in the week to 28 May. And there is little sign, yet, of a significant slowdown in deaths. Sweden’s weekly death rate has been this high for the last eight weeks; ie since the beginning of April. It would ... <a title="Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – Covid19: Deaths and Cases in the last week of May 2020" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2020/05/30/keith-rankin-chart-analysis-covid19-deaths-and-cases-in-the-last-week-of-may-2020/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – Covid19: Deaths and Cases in the last week of May 2020">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
May 28, 2020
Analysis by Keith Rankin. On Project Syndicate – and in other places in recent months – orthodox US economist Kenneth Rogoff has presented the case for deeply negative interest rates. Another financial sacred cow falls; yes, interest rates can be negative, even substantially negative. It can take a while, though, for shot sacred cows to ... <a title="Keith Rankin on Deeply Negative Interest Rates" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2020/05/28/keith-rankin-on-deeply-negative-interest-rates/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin on Deeply Negative Interest Rates">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
May 27, 2020
Analysis by Keith Rankin. 1980s: Sweden like New Zealand and Australia Sweden in the 1980s, financially speaking, looked something like New Zealand and Australia. It was a period of stress from high oil prices, and global inflation. Governments ‘took up the slack’, running deficit balances. In Sweden, the slack was caused mainly by private-sector surpluses. ... <a title="Keith Rankin’s Chart Analysis – Financial Signatures: Sweden and Australia" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2020/05/27/keith-rankins-chart-analysis-financial-signatures-sweden-and-australia/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin’s Chart Analysis – Financial Signatures: Sweden and Australia">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
May 26, 2020
Analysis by Keith Rankin. From an interview with Geoff Bertram, on The Panel, RNZ 22 May 2020 Wallace Chapman: “Are we setting up our future generations, our future children, to be born into a life of national debt?” [He mentions the on-line Fabian Society discussion, held on 23 May, and introduces Geoff Bertram.] Wallace Chapman: ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Government and Money during a Major Economic Downturn" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2020/05/26/keith-rankin-analysis-government-and-money-during-a-major-economic-downturn/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Government and Money during a Major Economic Downturn">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
May 25, 2020
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Surpluses and Deficits of Different Economic Sectors This new series of weekly charts looks at forty years of surpluses and deficits in different countries, showing what makes these countries tick, and why they were where they were – financially speaking – at the end of the 2010s. (We may note, for ... <a title="Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – Financial Signatures: Japan" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2020/05/25/keith-rankin-chart-analysis-financial-signatures-japan/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – Financial Signatures: Japan">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
May 22, 2020
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Covid19 case incidence is a reflection of both the actual infection rate, and the extent to which infections have been reported. Thus, countries like Sweden and Brazil with low testing rates have actual infection rates substantially higher than reported. Qatar is so high in part because, like Iceland, testing rates have ... <a title="Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – Covid19: Cumulative Cases and Deaths" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2020/05/22/keith-rankin-chart-analysis-covid19-cumulative-cases-and-deaths/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – Covid19: Cumulative Cases and Deaths">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
May 21, 2020
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Budget-related Economic Chatter Last week in New Zealand was Budget week, and the chatter about the burden of government debt reached a crescendo. I will highlight here comments made, on Monday 11 May, by four economists with substantial media profiles, from Radio New Zealand’s Nine to Noon (hosted by Kathryn Ryan), ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Unpacking our Fear of Government Debt" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2020/05/21/keith-rankin-analysis-unpacking-our-fear-of-government-debt/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Unpacking our Fear of Government Debt">Read more</a>
