To keep international investors’ trust, we must remain squeaky clean in our fundamental economic institutions. If we are not, New Zealand will come out of the Covid-19 crisis as a broken economy and a failed state. [...]
It must indeed be tempting to binge on infrastructure spending as Berlin can now borrow for 30 years at a negative interest rate of 0.11 percent. But should the Germans do so? [...]
As New Zealand is looking ahead to a series of budget surpluses, it becomes imperative for the government to have an answer to those reflexes. And it has to be an attractive answer to stop the fiscal dogs from salivating. [...]
If there is one art Prime Minister John Key’s New Zealand government has mastered, it is expectation management. So for its eighth budget, delivered yesterday, expectations were low. Hence nobody was disappointed when Minister of Finance Bill English delivered it. [...]
Albert Einstein said, “for an idea that does not first seem insane, there is no hope.” If Einstein is right, there is hope for the Greens’ proposal to establish a new office to cost political parties’ new policies. [...]
Budget 2015 shows there is work to do to make New Zealand more productive. Unfortunately, it did not give us any suggestions on how the government would want to achieve this. [...]