CoveragePost
August 15, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. World War One is really the first conflagration of a Great World War which lasted between 1914 and 1945. That great war was a ‘”game” of two halves’ with an extended and less violent mid-war phase; total war, with an interregnum which exacerbated rather than resolved the trigger issues of early ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Goodies and Baddies? Lessons since the World War of 1914" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/08/15/keith-rankin-analysis-goodies-and-baddies-lessons-since-the-world-war-of-1914/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Goodies and Baddies? Lessons since the World War of 1914">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
August 8, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. In the wake of the recent release of labour force data (Household Labour Force Survey, HLFS, Nicola Willis bemoans ‘glass half empty’ view of unemployment figures, RNZ 6 August 2025), 1918-1920 National Party Leader Simon Bridges, has called for economic “stimulus” to rescue in particular the dire Auckland economy. (See Call ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Stimulate or Suffocate, in the light of Older Women’s Spending?" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/08/08/keith-rankin-analysis-stimulate-or-suffocate-in-the-light-of-older-womens-spending/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Stimulate or Suffocate, in the light of Older Women’s Spending?">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
August 8, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. The above chart shows – in red – the annual percentage increase (since 1988) in numbers employed of women aged 65-69, based on Household Labour Force Survey employment data. (And it shows, for comparison, males aged 30-34; in blue, their percentages are shown on the right-hand side of the chart. I ... <a title="Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – Employment growth in New Zealand for retirement-age women" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/08/08/keith-rankin-chart-analysis-employment-growth-in-new-zealand-for-retirement-age-women/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – Employment growth in New Zealand for retirement-age women">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
August 7, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Quarterly Labour market data in Aotearoa New Zealand was released today. Much of the data is functionally useless, because of definitions which disguise rather than reveal important trends and turning points. I have focussed on employment data (although the definition of ’employment’ is too generous to be optimally useful) relative to ... <a title="Keith Rankin Chart Analysis: Employment in New Zealand – especially of women – at the Age Margins" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/08/07/keith-rankin-chart-analysis-employment-in-new-zealand-especially-of-women-at-the-age-margins/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Chart Analysis: Employment in New Zealand – especially of women – at the Age Margins">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
August 4, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. The most important measure of the favourability or otherwise of the international economic environment is called a country’s ‘Terms of Trade’. This label essentially means ‘barter price’, reflecting that international trade is essentially one country’s barter with the rest of the world. (Digression. We note that such ‘barter’ is rarely the ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – New Zealand’s highly favourable Terms of Trade" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/08/04/keith-rankin-analysis-new-zealands-highly-favourable-terms-of-trade/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – New Zealand’s highly favourable Terms of Trade">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
July 29, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. The following two tables show New Zealand and the 24 other economies in the world most easily and fruitfully compared to New Zealand. The countries are sorted with the worst-performing economies (in terms of economic growth per capita) listed at the top. Thus, taking four-year compounded growth for 2020, 2021, 2022 ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – How did New Zealand compare in the first half of the 2020s?" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/07/29/keith-rankin-analysis-how-did-new-zealand-compare-in-the-first-half-of-the-2020s/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – How did New Zealand compare in the first half of the 2020s?">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
July 28, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Have you noticed how, in New Zealand news items and weather reports, Nelson and Marlborough are called the “top” of the South Island rather than the ‘north’ of that island. We also get phrases such as the “lower North Island” and the “upper North Island”. And New Zealand’s narrators regularly refer ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Representation versus Reality; Reaching a Low Point" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/07/28/keith-rankin-analysis-representation-versus-reality-reaching-a-low-point/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Representation versus Reality; Reaching a Low Point">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
July 18, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. On Saturday I came into possession of this letter, transcript below. I will note that the recipient of the letter is someone I know a bit about; I would like to know more about his time in London, circa 1930-1932. I understand that he attended the London School of Economics. I ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Letter from Westphalia, Germany; 6 June 1933" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/07/18/keith-rankin-analysis-letter-from-westphalia-germany-6-june-1933/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Letter from Westphalia, Germany; 6 June 1933">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
July 15, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Yesterday I listened to RNZ’s political commentators. The principal topic was an aspect of the recently released May 2025 international migration. Kathryn Ryan starts by reminding us of the “old saying, would the last person to leave New Zealand please turn out the lights” (a saying which has been used in ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Reporting International Migration: Less than the Truth" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/07/15/keith-rankin-analysis-reporting-international-migration-less-than-the-truth/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Reporting International Migration: Less than the Truth">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>
CoveragePost
June 25, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. It’s time that the nations of the world (or at least the influential western nations) accept the reality that all the lands that constituted 1920-1948 Mandatory Palestine should be formally recognised as a single nation-state; ideally called Palestine Israel or Israel-Palestine, but more realistically called Israel. In other words, the never-viable ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Palestine Israel: Implementing a One-State Solution" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/06/25/keith-rankin-analysis-palestine-israel-implementing-a-one-state-solution/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Palestine Israel: Implementing a One-State Solution">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
June 20, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. The United States has always fancied itself as the founder of modern democracy (aka ‘Democracy’). And, although that country has been self-absorbed for most of its history, it has always sensed that Democracy was its greatest export. ‘America’ became involved in Africa and the ‘Middle East’ very early in its history. ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – America’s imperial ‘gifts’: ‘Crusader Democracy’ and ‘Christian Nationalism’" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/06/20/keith-rankin-analysis-americas-imperial-gift-crusader-democracy-versus-christian-nationalism/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – America’s imperial ‘gifts’: ‘Crusader Democracy’ and ‘Christian Nationalism’">Read more</a>
