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Hickey on debt

Written By: - Date published: 10:33 am, October 16th, 2016 - 31 comments

Hickey in The Herald on Sunday: “Our household debt to income ratio of 165 per cent is now about 5 per cent above those previous highs of 2008 and rising quickly as debt rises around twice as fast as incomes.”

Economics is still lost

Written By: - Date published: 12:25 pm, September 20th, 2016 - 54 comments

Paul Romer is an economist highly respected by his peers, and about to become the Chief Economist at the World Bank. He’s also just published a paper rubbishing the last 3 decades of macroeconomics.

Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator at the Financial Times is challenging fractional reserve banking. It’s certainly time for some new ideas.

Robertson: Lessons from the Future of Work Commission

Written By: - Date published: 1:22 pm, August 26th, 2016 - 10 comments

Robertson: “What is the economic paradigm that will meet the challenge of world of less secure work, more automation?”

Between what we want and what we need

Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, August 19th, 2016 - 122 comments

New Zealand is slowly losing faith with this Government and this is why.

Spark – kudos

Written By: - Date published: 8:05 am, August 15th, 2016 - 30 comments

Our wages are too low generally, and this is one of the main economic challenges that we face. A few more employers committing to paying a living wage would be a good place to start.

Globalisation and global incomes (the “elephant graph”)

Written By: - Date published: 7:01 am, August 14th, 2016 - 55 comments

An elegant graph explains why free trade is a good thing, but why it is causing a backlash in rich “Western” countries.

Left Side Story: What do New Zealanders actually earn?

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, August 12th, 2016 - 91 comments

Reprinted with permission, by Deborah Russell from Left Side Story: What do New Zealanders actually earn? And why we need to understand these figures.

Immigration jobs and housing

Written By: - Date published: 12:46 pm, August 11th, 2016 - 88 comments

Until we sort out our housing and unemployment problems it is surely time to reign in NZ’s currently record levels of immigration.

Reserve bank cuts OCR to record low

Written By: - Date published: 9:21 am, August 11th, 2016 - 28 comments

The Reserve Bank just cut the OCR to a historic low of 2%. And no it’s not good (economic) news.

Stiglitz on the globalisation revolt

Written By: - Date published: 7:54 am, August 8th, 2016 - 69 comments

Globalisation is facing a popular revolt. Economist Joseph Stiglitz explains why.

Employers failing Kiwsaver obligations

Written By: - Date published: 11:40 am, August 5th, 2016 - 35 comments

In a sign of just how stressed our economy is: “Inland Revenue is chasing employers for unpaid KiwiSaver contributions worth tens of millions of dollars.”

We can’t say we weren’t warned

Written By: - Date published: 7:12 am, August 1st, 2016 - 190 comments

When the Auckland housing bubble bursts a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money. They won’t be able to say they weren’t warned.

The future of work

Written By: - Date published: 8:41 am, July 29th, 2016 - 25 comments

The Herald (Liam Dann) had a Terminator themed piece on the future of work yesterday. If only there was a party that was thinking about these long term issues!

Oram – seven warning signs for the economy

Written By: - Date published: 10:07 am, July 24th, 2016 - 23 comments

Rod Oram’s Sunday Star-Times, reprinted on Facebook here, adds yet another voice to the chorous of economic warnings: “Our Road Runner economy is zooming towards the cliff-edge”…

National’s Rodeo.

Written By: - Date published: 12:21 pm, July 15th, 2016 - 23 comments

The fiction that National is doing a competent job of managing the economy is entirely due, now that the boom from Dairy and Christchurch rebuilding is ending, to immigration and rising house prices.

They are now riding a bolting horse that they cannot dismount, caused by their own inaction.

Our zombie economy

Written By: - Date published: 7:04 am, June 22nd, 2016 - 149 comments

It’s basically flat-lining – only partially animated by immigration and a housing bubble.

Official climate change fraud

Written By: - Date published: 7:39 am, June 14th, 2016 - 136 comments

Scientists and experts have been knowingly understating the unfolding climate change catastrophe to governments and decision makers. Why? For the sake of what is “politically palatable”.

Essential reading – Hickey on immigration

Written By: - Date published: 10:26 am, June 12th, 2016 - 133 comments

Hickey: “Helping employers to bring in low-skilled migrants instead of investing in new technology and becoming more productive so they can pay local workers more is essentially stunting our productivity and real GDP per capita.”

Indigenous Perspectives

Written By: - Date published: 1:55 pm, May 29th, 2016 - 30 comments

“It is possible to live in a society with a world view that does not include empire”

– Winona LaDuke

Budget 2016 – F for Fail

Written By: - Date published: 8:15 am, May 27th, 2016 - 31 comments

budget-quote
— Deborah Russell

Budget Live

Written By: - Date published: 1:45 pm, May 26th, 2016 - 84 comments

Live coverage of the budget starts around 2pm.

Well that was boring.

Pre-budget reading

Written By: - Date published: 9:52 am, May 26th, 2016 - 20 comments

Budget day! Here’s a little light reading to get us started. Write your own line for the budget!

Vernon Small on Key’s fiscal Tardis

Written By: - Date published: 10:22 am, May 19th, 2016 - 21 comments

Small: “Only this week Prime Minister John Key managed to spend one, save it and outline a plan to give it back to taxpayers all at the same time.”

Trade deficit worst in seven years

Written By: - Date published: 11:49 am, April 28th, 2016 - 122 comments

Add it to our record debt, our record pollution, our record housing unaffordability, our rising inequality, our terrible carbon emissions…

Stalled global economy and helicopter money

Written By: - Date published: 10:08 am, April 20th, 2016 - 21 comments

The global economy has been stuck in an ongoing crisis since 2008. Printing more money won’t fix it, but it looks like we’re going to try it anyway.

Job losses everywhere

Written By: - Date published: 8:29 am, April 16th, 2016 - 57 comments

Brighter Future. Cusp of Something Special. Tell it to the newly jobless.

Holding back our productivity

Written By: - Date published: 7:17 am, April 14th, 2016 - 72 comments

Our “business leaders” are doing an objectively poor job. Perhaps instead of insulting Kiwi workers as “pretty damned hopeless”, Bill English should be taking aim at these captains of industry.

Imperator Fish: The terrifying cost of Labour’s UBI

Written By: - Date published: 8:01 am, April 1st, 2016 - 221 comments

Imperator Fish warns us of the terrifying cost of Labour’s UBI.

It’s even worse than you think.

Hickey on the UBI

Written By: - Date published: 11:19 am, March 27th, 2016 - 200 comments

Bernard Hickey makes some excellent points on the Unconditional Basic Income / Guaranteed Minimum Income.

Labour’s Ten Big Ideas

Written By: - Date published: 7:32 am, March 26th, 2016 - 167 comments

National’s only idea this term has just been shot down by the public. Meanwhile Labour has been thinking about the future and the issues that confront NZ.

Future of Work Conference

Written By: - Date published: 3:05 pm, March 23rd, 2016 - 69 comments

Labour’s Future of Work Conference is under way. There is a page with information and live stream here.

Looking to the future – planning to adapt and protect people – this is work a government should be doing. In this case, a government in waiting…