OPINION

When Germany’s statistics office released the economic growth rate for the second quarter, the disappointing 0.1 percent decline added to the troubles on Wall St. Read more

It would be insane to do the same thing over and over again and still expect different results. It’s a lesson those embroiled in the politics of the night have yet to learn. Read more

On Monday, Adrian Orr was interviewed on TV One’s Q+A programme. If you had not known that Orr is the Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, you could have mistaken him for a politician.Orr expressed clear views not just on monetary policy but on fiscal policy as well. He urged the Government to spend more, especially on infrastructure.The two policy areas are important to each other but they are not the same. Read more

It is the hope that this time it will be different that really kills you. Sisyphus at least knew his labours were futile and could resign himself to the task of forever pushing the boulder uphill.A decade ago, Matt Burgess and I went through BERL’s headline-grabbing $4.8 billion measure of alcohol’s social cost. Sir Geoffrey Palmer, heading the Law Commission’s alcohol legislation review, had cited the gap between BERL’s measure of social cost and alcohol tax revenue to justify imposing... Read more

Few parents would give their child a cough medicine that had not been trialled. The potential risks of doing so are endless. Plus, established, effective alternatives exist. Of course, few of us have read the clinical papers or understood the trials, but Medsafe and the Consumer Guarantees Act do that on our behalf. Read more

For someone with a hammer, everything looks like a nail, they say. For politicians, large-scale restructuring and reorganisations are sometimes that hammer. No matter the nature or cause of a problem, the hammer will fix it. Read more

As Doctor Frankenfurter prepared to step up the reactor power input three more points and bring life to the Rocky Horror in the classic Rocky Horror Picture Show, he welcomed the assembled “unconventional conventionists” who would witness his triumph. Read more

When US President John F. Kennedy approved the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, he relied on advice from his staff, the defence force and the secret service. Nobody dared to voice any doubts this military attack on Cuba would be a success. Read more

These are strange times, even for economists. Fearmongers are urging governments to pump up their spending in order to maintain economic activity. Read more

They say you should never let a good crisis go to waste. Read more

Eighties glam-metal band Cinderella taught us we don't know what we've got until it's gone. But it can be harder to know what you could have had if you never had it at all. Read more

Alan Duff’s latest book – A Conversation with My Country: Where we have come from. Where we can go. – takes a characteristically thoughtful and constructive look at the pockets of pathological behaviours our welfare state has nurtured for decades. Read more

When the smallish Skatbank, a direct bank based in Germany’s east, started charging its wealthy private depositors interest in November 2014, it made international headlines. It was the first German bank to do so, and negative interest rates were still regarded as a ridiculous aberration. Read more

A collegial relationship between Treasury and the Reserve Bank is a good thing in principle. Monetary and fiscal policy remain the most important levers of economic policy, and the two institutions in charge of those levers need to exchange their views. Read more