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 the never-never through thrift. Jam tomorrow, never today; which seems to be our main narrative towards fixing the West’s economic woes.

The spokesperson for compound interest on the program sort-of acknowledged that ordinary compound interest (ie “conservative” compound interest) was hardly good enough; she pushed for an amplified “high growth” version of compound interest.

She was correct, if understated, on her point about conservative returns.

Ordinary Compound Interest

If we go back 100 years, to 1925, the equivalent of today’s minimum wage was $120 per year. If a person saved $120 then, and allowed it to compound (say in the form of a one-year bank term deposit) through to 2025, an average after-tax interest rate of 4.23 percent would have been required to make that ‘investment’ worth $7,540 today. $7,540 represents compounded CPI inflation over those 100 years. Thus, in principle, $120 (actually £60) would have had the same purchasing power as $7,540 today. In reality, the average term-deposit interest rate over the last century was well under 4.23 percent before tax, let alone after tax.

(We note that tax on interest is charged at a person’s marginal rate – commonly known as the secondary tax rate – and is nowadays withdrawn at source. For most of the last 100 years, tax on interest was more easily evaded, and it was paid separately, meaning that the compounding appeared to relate to before-tax interest income.)

In 1925, $120 per year supported, in many cases, low-income families. Imagine any family trying to live on an annual income of $7,540 today! The better way of evaluating past compound interest is to compare the compounded present value with today’s annual minimum wage, which is $48,800. For $120 in 1925 to compound to $48,800 in 2025, an average after-tax interest rate of 6.2% would have been required. That’s vastly in excess of what term deposit interest rates actually were, on average.

We should note that an average interest rate of seven percent would have compounded the $120 term-deposit to $104,000 today, and that an average interest rate of eight percent would have compounded the $120 term-deposit to $264,000 today. So, the magical exponential outcome of compound interest can occur, but only if the interest rate is sufficiently above inflation (ie above the compounded growth of prices); or, more pertinently, sufficiently above the compounded minimum-wage rate.

Other starting years

My calculations show that if the approximate minimum wage was invested in 1935, an after-tax average interest rate of 7.1% would have been required to achieve today’s minimum wage. (Wages were about twenty percent lower in 1935 than in 1925.)

In late 1970, I was earning seventy cents an hour milking cows every Sunday morning. That was about the minimum wage then. In 1980 I was in a well-paid IT job, earning $13,000 per year, which was more than double the before-tax minimum-wage-equivalent of the time. I have estimated annual minimum-wage equivalents for those years of $1,500 (for 1970) and $5,000 (for 1980).

For $1,500 in 1970 to compound to $48,800 in 2025, an average interest rate of 6.54% would have been required. For $5,000 in 1980 to compound to $48,800 in 2025, an average after-tax interest rate of 5.19% would have been required. (For the 1980 example, a before-tax annual average interest rate of about ten percent would have been required for such 1980 savers to have achieved three times today’s minimum wage.)

For a $30,000 term deposit in 2015 (again, set close to the minimum wage), an average after tax interest rate of five percent would have been required to compound that amount to today’s minimum wage.

Today’s one-year term deposit rate is 3.4% before tax, 2.4% after tax (applying a secondary tax rate of 30%). A $30,000 minimum-wage term deposit in 2015, compounded for ten years at today’s rate, would now be worth $38,000; well under today’s annual minimum wage (for a 40-hour per week job) which is nearly $49,000.

In the last 80 years, many people did make investment fortunes; but through property and other debt, not through saving.

Target Audience

We note that the target audience for this compound-interest narrative is young adults, because compound interest – like Mainland cheese – takes time. Most young adults in New Zealand today can only afford to save in this way if the money is taken from them ‘at source’ (eg through KiwiSaver), and then (if they are trying to live independent lives) they have to incur higher levels of debt than they otherwise would to be able to make those obligatory savings. Further, employer contributions to KiwiSaver are very much a part of the cost of labour, and are therefore factored in with employers offering lower wages than they otherwise would; after-tax employee remuneration is just a part – albeit a large part – of labour cost.

“High Growth” Compound Interest

The above simple mathematics show why the savings industry is trying to push products that simulate high-growth compound interest. In the years before 2008, and in the mid-2010s, these products rode the property bubble wave. Those ‘investments’ now appear rather naïve. But the industry of professional optimism always looks forward; it almost never looks back.

Today, amplified compound interest is (allegedly) being achieved through riding the world’s stock markets, with an emphasis on military stocks and ‘tech’ stocks (especially those of the ‘AI’ companies), and on cryptocurrencies. The ‘tech’ stocks (which the New Zealand Super Fund is highly exposed to) are one modern-day equivalent of mining-company shares; shares which historically have been amongst the most volatile. And crypto-currency mining is the virtual – and equally unsustainable – equivalent today of gold-mining as in the days of the Klondike, Ballarat, and Tuapeka gold-rushes. (Re gold rushes, 2025 is a global gold-rush year, though the years of the individual undercapitalised goldminer-made-good are in the past.)

Speculations on AI, Bitcoin, or African gold are no more routes to financial security or future abundance than is prosaic money-losing compound interest.

What are they thinking?

Compound interest without compounding economic growth.

We have to think about the compound interest narrative in two contexts, that of a static economy, and that of a perpetually growing economy.

The basic idea of a static economy is that there is no inflation nor economic growth. To keep it simple, imagine no population growth as well. And no taxes.

The mathematics of compound interest in this case are real. If you were able to save a sum of money and to wait for it to compound at two percent per year, you would more than double your money after fifty years, and increase it tenfold in less than 120 years. These gains to you and your entitled grandchildren would be fully funded by some other people and their impoverished grandchildren; every dollar of interest received is paid by someone else. It would be a zero-sum game for society; for every winner there would be a loser.

To propose compound interest like this sounds ludicrous, and it is. But, the whole object of monetary policy in New Zealand and like countries is to create a world in which the rate of interest is about two percent higher than the rate of inflation. That is precisely what I have described here. To achieve that goal, monetary policy ends up creating a structural recession, a perpetual state of zero economic growth; ‘green shoots’ only appear when the rate of interest is allowed to fall to at or below the rate of inflation.

In reality, compound interest has always been for the few, not the many. It’s an accounting trick that depends on the majority of the beneficiaries of compound interest never realising their apparent gains; never spending their paper bonanzas. Paper wealth can be converted to real wealth by just a few. Paper wealth – financial claims – can be inflated, infinitely, so long as it remains just that; paper wealth or its digital equivalent.

Compound interest with compounding economic growth.

The advocates of compound interest will respond by saying that compound interest depends additionally on economic growth, real economic growth.

In this story, there are two versions: either compound interest parasitically exploits economic growth, or it enables economic growth. Either way, the supposition is infinite exponential growth.

The simplest scenario here is of an economy with zero inflation, zero population growth, two-percent annual interest, and two-percent annual growth of real GDP. So, in this case, the two-percent compound interest simply represents the fruits of that economic growth; the only debtors would be firms, not households. In principle everyone could be doing it; the interest payable to every household would be paid by business growth.

There are two obvious problems. One is that real exponential growth cannot go on forever. If average real incomes today had been growing by two-percent per year since the early days of the Roman Empire, today we would on average have living standards 16 million trillion times greater than those of Jesus Christ and his Disciples.

The illusion (really delusion) of long-term sustained economic growth has been made possible by early-modern humans’ learning to extract energy in the form of fossil fuels, and to dump waste products into the environmental commons. Late-modern humans could have invested – financially and intellectually – in systems to maintain high living standards beyond the fossil fuel age; but haven’t. Our home planet, though forgiving in many respects, is finite.

The other obvious problem is that if too many households are saving rather than spending much of their incomes, then there would be insufficient demand for final goods during the long period of saving. This kind of saving behaviour breeches Say’s Law, which is the basis of the belief-system of classical-liberal supply-side economics – manifest today as neoliberalism. Say’s Law supposes that policymakers do not and should not concern themselves with matters of ‘upside demand’ – aka ‘stimulus’. Nor should they concern themselves with ‘downside demand’ – aka ‘counter-stimulus’ – yet that’s exactly what we got with the openly touted manufactured recession created by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand from 2021. (Refer Adrian Orr admits Reserve Bank is ‘deliberately engineering recession’, Stuff, 24 November 2022.)

The required economic growth would not continue, because there would be insufficient demand for the extra output; demand is created by the creation of and spending of claims, the prerogative of sovereign governments and of banks.

Saving must be balanced by investment; too much saving disincentivises investment spending, sometimes dramatically so. We can see that, the reason for today’s weak investment climate; so we depend on the Deus ex machina (or cargo cult) of exogenous foreign demand. Exports featured prominently as the principal narrative of You, Me and the Economy.

The other mantra word is ‘productivity’. Most cafes do not need more cost-saving devices to improve their productivity; rather, to improve their productivity, cafés need more customers.

See Our inability to understand the exponential function is our biggest weakness, YouTube, posted by Professor Albert Bartlett about a month ago. All exponential growth, in nature, ends; sometimes catastrophically.

Finally

Why don’t the people we believe to be experts tell us these things? Could it be that the experts we most see and hear are experts in the arts of storytelling and story-marketing; in this case, experts in the fantasy rather than in the reality of growth? (Refer Greta Thunberg’s radical climate change fairy tale is exactly the story we need, The Conversation, 28 September 2019.)

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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

The growing number and share of older persons in Asia and the Pacific represent success stories of declining fertility and increasing longevity; the result of advances in social and economic development. This demographic transition is taking place against the backdrop of the accelerating Fourth Industrial Revolution. But COVID-19, with its epicentre now in Asia and the Pacific, has exacerbated the suffering of older persons in vulnerable situations and demonstrated the fragility of this progress.

Asia and the Pacific is home to the largest number of older persons in the world – and rapidly ageing. When the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted in 2015, 8 per cent of the region’s total population was 65 years or older. By 2030, when the Agenda comes to an end, it is projected that 12 per cent of the total population – one in eight people – will comprise older persons. Fifty-four per cent of all older persons in the region will be women, and their share will increase with age.

Asia and the Pacific has made much progress in connecting the region through information and communication technologies (ICTs). At the same time, it is still the most digitally divided region in the world. Approximately half of its population lacks Internet access. Women and older persons – especially older women – are the least likely to be digitally connected.

COVID-19 has demonstrated how technologies can help fight the spread of the virus, sustain daily life, support business continuity and keep people socially connected. It has also shown that those who are excluded from the digital transformation, including older persons, are at increased risk of being permanently left behind. Digital equity for all ages is, therefore, more important than ever.

The next few years provide an opportunity for Asia and the Pacific to build on its successes with regard to population ageing and rapid digital transformation, learn from the tragic consequences of the pandemic, and promote and strengthen the inclusion of older persons in the digital world. The 2022 Fourth Review and Appraisal of the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing and the further elaboration of the Asia-Pacific Information Superhighway will allow countries to develop policies and action plans to achieve digital equity for all ages.

Among those policies, it is particularly important to promote digital literacy and narrow digital skills gaps of older persons through tailored peer-to-peer or intergenerational training programmes. In the fast-changing digital environment, developing, strengthening and maintaining digital literacy requires a life-course approach.

Moreover, providing accessible, affordable and reliable Internet connectivity for persons of all ages must be a priority. Expanding digital infrastructure, geographical coverage and digital inclusion of older persons through targeted policies and programmes will improve access, enable greater social participation, empower older persons, and enhance their ability to live independently.

As highlighted in the Madrid Plan of Action, technology can reduce health risks and promote cost-efficient access to health care for older persons, for instance, through telemedicine or robotic surgery. Assistive technology devices and solutions can support more and safer mobility for older persons, especially those with disabilities or living alone. Social media platforms can promote social interaction and reduce social isolation and loneliness.

The ESCAP Guidebook on using Information Communication Technologies to address the health-care needs of older persons has documented good practices from around the region. It also includes policy recommendations and a checklist for policymakers to mainstream ICTs in policies affecting older persons.

While older persons are among the least digitally connected population groups, they are among the most vulnerable to cyberthreats. It is, therefore, critical to establish adequate safety measures, raise awareness, and teach older users to be cautious online.

As we commemorate the United Nations International Day of Older Persons 2021, let us remind ourselves that the risks and vulnerabilities experienced by older persons during the pandemic are not new. Many older persons in the region lack social protection such as access to universal health care and pensions.

The COVID-19 recovery is an opportunity to set the stage for a more inclusive, equitable and age-friendly society, anchored in human rights and guided by the promise of the 2030 Agenda to leave no one behind. Digital equity for all ages, highlighted  in the 2030 Agenda, goes beyond national interests. Greater digital cooperation by governments and stakeholders is instrumental for both inclusive and sustainable development and building back better. At the regional and subregional levels, digital cooperation can be fruitfully leveraged to build consensus and share good practices, lessons learned, and policy recommendations. These, in turn, can supplement national level policy and decision-making for the benefit of all age groups.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

There will almost certainly be another major financial crisis, just like there will be another big earthquake (or, as the Australians would instead say, another big bushfire). We can do much to improve our monitoring of systemic stresses, our awareness of critical-state dynamics, and our before-and-after mitigation processes. Wilful blindness is not a strategy that works well.

In the pre-World War 1 capitalist era, financial crises happened approximately every ten years. Some were worse than others, and they became increasingly global in reach. Melbourne’s massive financial crisis of 1893 was initiated by the financial failure of the Buenos Aires Water Supply and Drainage Company, and the ensuing bank crisis in London. But the economy of Victoria in general and Melbourne in particular was in a critical state then, and would have suffered a financial collapse in the 1890s regardless of those particular precipitating events.

The ‘Long Depression’ of the 1880s in New Zealand was triggered by the collapse of the City of Glasgow Bank in 1879; a collapse that was largely caused by that bank’s unsupervised exposure to rampant land speculation in Canterbury.

This month’s chart suggests that, while there is more than enough unspent income to fuel a financial crisis, the global financial system is not presently in a critical state. We still have learning time.

The chart shows global financial balances for the private (non-government) and government sectors from 1981 to 2017. As can be seen clearly, the normal state of the world is for the global private sector to run financial surpluses (ie spending less than its total revenue; this is the ‘private urge to save’), which means that the combined governments of the world must run accommodating deficits (ie spending more than their global total revenues). It’s a zero-sum system. The financial balances of all sectors combined add to zero. This means that the private sector persists in striving for substantial surpluses AND governments persistently seek to avoid deficits, then the capitalist economy finds itself in a state of collapse.

Capitalist collapse is avoided by governments accommodating the private urge to save (Japan’s government provides our best example of accommodating deficits), or by us having periodic private debt‑fuelled spending binges (which enable governments to collect more taxes and run surpluses for a while); binges which lead to acute financial crises within the private sector. Or by our addressing and countering the unsustainable accumulation of financial assets, thereby rendering financial crises unnecessary.

The chart shows three of these private-sector ‘binges’, in the mid-late-1980s, in the late 1990s, and in the mid-late 2000s. The chart shows a different pattern in the mid-late 2010s. The banks struggle to get private households and businesses to spend more, despite record-low interest rates.

Following the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC), the private sector responded to its insolvency by paying down large amounts of debt, and by taking on much less new debt. This private sector objective was partially accommodated by unusually high government deficits (‘fiscal stimulus’) – governments taking on new debt, and running down (or halting contributions to) sovereign wealth funds.

This objective and was somewhat thwarted, however; fiscal stimulus in most countries was never more than a partial accommodation to extreme private caution. The thwarting intensified in 2010 through government ‘fiscal consolidation’ programmes, otherwise known as ‘austerity’. The most egregious example of ‘thwarting’ was the European Union (EU) programme to balance government budgets in the Eurozone countries. Fortunately, governments in the emerging and developing economies were able to increase their deficits, helping the government sector to effectively offset private surpluses in the mid‑2010s.

We can get a sense, from the chart, that world private surpluses (especially those in excess of economic growth rates) represent fuel to be consumed during future crises. A dramatic fall in private balances represents the beginning of an acute financial crisis. In the 1987-92 period, the crisis happened in two parts; New Zealand and the United States (and others) mainly experienced the 1987 shock, while Australia, Japan and Scandinavia experienced their financial crises in 1991. In the 1997 financial crisis, east Asia was most affected, while the United States was little affected until late 2000. In 2008 the crisis was global, although Europe descended into its more chronic crisis around 2011.

The chart also tells us that an early-decade pattern of falling private balances has halted; debt-enabled spending looks unlikely to accelerate in 1919 or 1920. The next major crisis may not occur until the 1927-31 period. And a crisis then likely will be different in character to both the 2008-09 GFC, and the Great Depression of the early 1930s. There may be a critical mass of accumulated private surpluses to fuel the crisis of 2029 (the midpoint of 2027-31), a new ‘yuppie’ generation with little memory of the GFC, and an academic establishment no more equipped to anticipate a sudden change of circumstance than there was in 1928 or in 2007.

The chart shows only one form of dichotomous interconnection – that between private individuals/organisations and governments. There are other financial dichotomies that may prove to be equally as important in the twenty-first century, but generally are much harder to get data for. These include households versus businesses (before the GFC, business surpluses were accommodated by household deficits), advanced current account surplus economies versus developing deficit economies (data is plentiful in this case), young versus old (older persons’ financial surpluses are accommodated by younger persons’ deficits), and rich versus poor (richer persons’ [eg world’s wealthiest five percent] surpluses need to be accommodated by the deficits of the remaining 95 percent as well as the deficits of governments. The cessation of any of these present accommodations can be expected to precipitate financial consequences that we are unprepared for. Unknown unknowns; so long as we persist in a bubble of wilful ignorance.

As private surpluses accumulate (the blue columns in the chart), the tension builds. As the tension builds, accommodating sectors cannot (or, unwittingly, choose not) to play their necessary deficit roles. Debtors default, or otherwise stop spending in favour of debt ‘deleverage’. Asset values diminish as sellers of goods, services and assets struggle to find buyers. Deflation sets in. Real interest rates need to be negative to restore a semblance of balance, meaning that interest rates actually should be more negative than inflation rates. (Negative interest rates since 2014 have already substantially eased financial tensions in non‑Eurozone Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark.)

What can we do today to avert a crisis of liberal capitalism in about ten years’ time?

Governments can commit to long-run deficit targets of two‑three percent per annum. (This is contrary to the fiscal accord that all parties currently in the New Zealand Parliament have signed up to.) Younger people can continue to borrow, and purchase goods/services rather than assets, and then turn to bankruptcy as an accommodating mechanism. (The bankruptcies of persons without assets does represent a systemic rebalancing, albeit an unpalatable one.)

Or other new methods of containing the growth of income inequality (with a view to reducing inequality eventually to 1960s’ levels) – methods other than higher wages, which coexist with unsustainable economic growth – should be adopted. Such methods do exist. It is up to each of us to learn about them; to be willing to see. Don’t wait for the politicians, nor the entrenched political left or right. We, in civil society, need to reclaim our public equity.