Independent Analysis and Reportage
Recorded Live - A View from Afar - In this episode, political scientist and former Pentagon Analyst Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning deep-dive into: The End of the Liberal Internationalist Order and the Rise of Illiberalism.
LIVE@ 12:30PM (NZ TIME): A View from Afar podcast. Series 06, Episode 03 – In this episode, political scientist and former Pentagon Analyst… Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning will deep-dive into: The End of the Liberal Internationalist Order and the Rise of Illiberalism. The topics to discuss are: A Global Transition Process – What is this ... <a title="Podcast: The End of the Liberal Internationalist Order and the Rise of Illiberalism – AVFA" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2026/04/20/podcast-the-end-of-the-liberal-internationalist-order-and-the-rise-of-illiberalism-avfa/" aria-label="Read more about Podcast: The End of the Liberal Internationalist Order and the Rise of Illiberalism – AVFA">Read more</a>
Analysis by Keith Rankin. One puzzling feature of the present Israel-Iran war is the almost complete absence of reference – in the western media at least – to the Iranian President, Masoud Pezeshkian. The American president claimed that Israel had killed the Iranian President, but he was referring to the Supreme Leader. Killing Ali Khamenei, ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – The Enigma of the Iranian President" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2026/03/27/keith-rankin-analysis-the-enigma-of-the-iranian-president/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – The Enigma of the Iranian President">Read more</a>
PODCAST: A View from Afar - Paul G. Buchanan: “The sad fact, though, is that the US is the center of our earthly geopolitical universe, serving as the first rock to drop in the global pond whose ripple effects are extensive, negative, and washing up in unexpected and unforeseen ways. That rock, in fact, is a black hole sucking the remnants of the rule based order into oblivion, or if not oblivion, irrelevance in a new age of power politics (might makes right, etc.). It is a dark force from which things as they exist cannot return.”
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>
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>
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>
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Public policy in New Zealand is paralysed by an unwavering mis-framing of the current economic stagnation. A key part of the problem is the popular attachment to the phrase ‘cost of living crisis’ as a catch-all for contemporary economic malaise. The first task towards clear thinking is to disentangle ‘cost of ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Intellectual Paralysis: Cost of Living, Inflation, and Interest Costs" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/08/31/keith-rankin-analysis-intellectual-paralysis-cost-of-living-inflation-and-interest-costs/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Intellectual Paralysis: Cost of Living, Inflation, and Interest Costs">Read more</a>
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>
Analysis by Keith Rankin. People of a certain age will be aware that the 1962 Cuba Missile Crisis was, for the world as a whole, the most dangerous moment of the Cold War. The 1962 ‘Battle of Cuba’ was a ‘cold battle’ in the same sense that the Cold War was a ‘cold war’. (Only ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – Using Cuba 1962 to explain Trump’s brinkmanship" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/05/27/keith-rankin-analysis-using-cuba-1962-to-explain-trumps-brinkmanship/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – Using Cuba 1962 to explain Trump’s brinkmanship">Read more</a>
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Government-owned Kiwirail is supposed to be presiding over the New Zealand Main Trunk (Railway) Line, from Auckland to Invercargill. As such it runs a ferry service (The Interislander) between New Zealand’s North and South Islands. We are being told by Kiwirail (and see today’s report on Radio NZ) that the only ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – The Aratere and the New Zealand Main Trunk Line" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/05/20/keith-rankin-analysis-the-aratere-and-the-new-zealand-main-trunk-line/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – The Aratere and the New Zealand Main Trunk Line">Read more</a>
Essay by Keith Rankin. ‘Rational Expectations’ is a problematic theory in economics. Here I want to focus more away from economics; and more on the meanings of ‘rationality’ in decision-making, than on the problematic ambiguity of the word ‘expect’ (and its derivatives such as ‘expectations’). ‘Expectation’ here means what we believe ‘will’ happen, not ‘should’ ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – Rational Expectations, Intelligence, and War" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/04/10/keith-rankin-essay-rational-expectations-intelligence-and-war/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – Rational Expectations, Intelligence, and War">Read more</a>