Archive for January 2008
The Warehouse Saga drags on…..
Posted by: agnitio on: January 31, 2008
We’ve previously talked quite a bit about the issues around the Warehouse case (here,here,here,here,here,here). The Commerce Commission pretty much set a new record in how many times they delayed their original decision. At the end of last year the high court overturned the Commission’s decision clearing the way for Woolworths and Foodstuffs to try and [...]
The curse of the forecast
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: January 31, 2008
This article came out at 9.30am stating that the New Zealand dollar was going to test $US0.80 again. Even with an positive surprise in the merchandise trade figures, this is what happened: Macro-man notices a similar trend with Economist magazine covers. Update: If anyone wonders why the dollar is falling, it is because of concerns [...]
Fed cuts rates to 3.0%, GDP growth poor
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: January 31, 2008
As the market expected the Fed cut its Federal Funds rate to 3.0% (down 50 basis points), a full 125 basis points lower than it was at the last meeting. In the accompanying statement they touched on all the issues that they have previously complained about: Weak housing market, softening labour market, and the erratic [...]
Education for the Dole : Why does it sound dirty?
Posted by: agnitio on: January 30, 2008
Yesterday John Key delivered the National Party’s new plan for youth. I leave commenting on the many social issues related to the plan to others with who are better equipped to discuss whether his ideas will work. The thing that bothered me was when I was watching the news last night and they mentioned that [...]
Kiwisaver and Income Equality: Must not have checked my mailbox…..
Posted by: agnitio on: January 29, 2008
David Farrar links to a Herald article on a report that came out of Waikato University’s management school saying that Kiwisaver is going to increase income inequality. Their policy analysis that rich people will restructure their activities to get tax benefits in a way that poor people cannot seams relatively sensible. I don’t claim to [...]
A world scared of recession
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: January 29, 2008
I was just looking at the economics chat meter at 26 econ and noticed this interesting graph: The graph shows the frequency of use of the word ‘recession’ in blog posts since the 2nd of August – a few days after the subprime mortgage market woes began to drag on market confidence. January has been [...]
Have Radiohead shown us the future of music?
Posted by: rauparaha on: January 28, 2008
As everyone knows, Radiohead recently released their album ‘In Rainbows’ online for a nominal sum. It was suggested to me today that perhaps that is the future of the music industry and record labels will soon be obsolete. I agree that a release similar to Radiohead’s could be a good move for some groups, but [...]
Discretion vs Rule: The eatery edition
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: January 28, 2008
What do the Reserve Bank and eateries have in common? Both implement rule based policies instead of discretionary policies and both suffer criticism from their clientèle for doing so even though it is in the clients ultimate interest. I noticed this today when I went to get some food for lunch. A man in front [...]
Ignoring costs and misrepresentation – People’s attitude to economists
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: January 25, 2008
One thing that gets to me is the fact that people from both sides of the political spectrum love to avoid costs. As economists pride themselves in discussing the opportunity cost associated with any given policy or action, we end up being attacked by both sides (Update: Including psychologists it seems. Dang I thought they [...]
Household chores: are men really slackers?
Posted by: rauparaha on: January 25, 2008
In houses all around the world women are cleaning and doing chores right now while their husbands sit in front of the TV. Depending upon which you are it’s either a pretty sweet arrangement, or a manifestation of the oppressive patriarchal regime into which you were born (or something more moderate and boring sounding in [...]
The future of the music industry
Posted by: rauparaha on: January 24, 2008
The Economist laments the death of the music industry as we know it: the results from 2007 confirm what EMI’s focus group showed: that the record industry’s main product, the CD, which in 2006 accounted for over 80% of total global sales, is rapidly fading away. In America, according to Nielsen SoundScan, the volume of [...]
January 08 OCR review: OCR on hold at 8.25%
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: January 24, 2008
As everyone expected the OCR is unchanged at 8.25%. The statement was decidedly neutral, stating that everything is happening inline with their December forecasts, however uncertainty has increased. As they did not state whether it is downside or upside risk they are concerned about (we cannot just presume it is downside risk), any change in [...]
Government stimulus: Will Cullen be able to save the day?
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: January 24, 2008
There has been a lot of discussion around the internet about whether and what type of fiscal stimulus is appropriate in the US. That is not the issue I am going to discuss here. This is a New Zealand blog, and as a result, I’m more interested in the claim that Michael Cullen will be [...]
Ten things people will say economists said
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: January 23, 2008
Over at the Big Picture they are discussing how silly the decoupling thesis is (the idea that that world economic growth now functions separately from US economic growth). Near the end they mention ten things that seemingly intelligent people have said, that have turned out to be complete rubbish, namely: The Yield Curve no longer [...]
The moral high ground
Posted by: rauparaha on: January 23, 2008
- In: Methodology | Philosophy
- 4 Comments
Economists are often seen as cold and calculating by the public. I have personally been referred to as a ‘deranged sociopath’ for a post I made on this blog. Today’s post by Eliezer at Overcoming Bias (yeah, it’s my blog of the moment) reassures me that we economists really do have the moral high ground [...]
Matt Nolan
rauparaha
agnitio
dant03
stevedoogue
Robbie Allan
goonix
metrosideros
cpworthington
Recent Comments