covidplanb.co.nz A group of New Zealand health practitioners have joined a growing international movement that says COVID-19 is not a sufficient threat to warrant the elimination strategy and lockdowns. The founding signatories felt obliged by their professional ethics to express support by signing a statement of principles
Ananish Chaudhuri With the government borrowing heavily to fund its pandemic response and recovery, it has been suggested it could simply cancel its debt by printing more money. That sounds like an attractive idea, but it is one that would have seriously adverse consequences. Derived from “modern monetary theory” (MMT)
Launceston has long grown accustomed to empty shopfronts in its CBD, a trend only exacerbated by the Wuhan plague. So, when a new shopfront opens it naturally piques local interest. The more so when the shop sports entirely Chinese-language livery, is stocked with row upon row of baby formula
Jacinda Ardern’s landslide election is widely – and almost certainly, rightly – attributed to her handling of the Wuhan pandemic. But it is also true that Ardern was able to capitalise on the Chinese virus because voters are yet to really feel the effects of her panicked resort to lockdowns and
Well, I suppose it’s nice to know that the great minds who get the big bucks for pontificating in the national daily are thinking alike to your humble correspondent. In my Insight column today I argue that Jacinda Ardern’s landslide election win may well turn out to be
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Economist Thomas Sowell warns, in Basic Economics, that no matter how well-intentioned, government interventions in the housing market almost invariably result in a short supply and increasing cost. New Zealanders who’ve watched the Ardern government’s spectacularly failed Kiwibuild policy have grim experience of this economic rule. But
Judith Collins has raised the spectre of Labour supporting the Greens’ idea of a wealth tax; so much so that Labour will implement the tax if they win the election. Labour’s response is that they have denied this many times and that National is “desperate”. Labelling the opposition as
Judith Collins’ main policy this week is to “win the election” “New Zealand needs to grow its way out of this economic crisis, which will only be possible with the hard work, ingenuity and determination of the private sector. “National’s NZ Tech 2030 Plan will diversify our exports, level
John Tamny aier.org It’s long been a proper article of faith among members of the right that the free flow of goods within countries isn’t just brilliant because it expands the global division of labour. There’s also a world peace angle to trade. An open market
Governments throwing around money is always going to be politically popular. But, as Margaret Thatcher famously noted, sooner or later governments run out of other peoples’ money. When the Rudd government announced its first stimulus measure in the face of the GFC – a $900 cash payment to all Australians – the
As I wrote this week, the great economic danger facing Australia as it struggles – hopefully – out of COVID panic is an explosion in government debt. Debt is not of course an evil in itself, as any business which has ever taken out a loan to finance growth knows. But, as
