by Michael Bassett Archifacts, Oct 1999, p.60-65.
Keywords: Political Economy & History;
According to the author “[t]his book originated in a chance conversation I had in 1993 with Roger Kerr, Executive Director of the New Zealand Business Roundtable. In response to a question about my writing, I told him that I intended to recount the story of the Fourth Labour Government after 1984, but that I first had to understand how it was that New Zealand had come to the stage where drastic restructuring had become a matter of urgency. Roger Kerr suggested that I might undertake that initial study; the Business Roundtable would pay some of the expenses involved in the researching such a big project.”
Listener: 23 October, 1999
Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money;
Two major economic indicators for the June quarter were released a couple of days before the Prime Minister announced the election date. Both were depressing: the current account deficit – how much New Zealand has to borrow overseas – was at near record levels; while GDP – how much New Zealand produces – declined. There will be no further major official statistics released before November 27th, although the importance of each minor one will be over-played. (Both the Treasury and the Reserve Bank macro-economic forecasts published during the election campaign are likely to be more subdued in comparison to their last ones.)
Listener 9 October, 1999.
Keywords: Business & Finance;
Every time a share is sold, someone else buys it. So the dollars that someone puts into the sharemarket to buy shares equals the amount the ex-shareholders takes out. Suppose there are more people who want to put dollars in than who want to take them out. The potential buyers will have to give an incentive to some shareholders to turn their shares into cash. That inducement is the price of the share going up. So if cash is trying to get into the sharemarket, the prices of shares rise: if cash is trying to get out, they fall. However, in the actual trading the amount of cash that gets in equals the amount that gets out.
New Zealand Books, October 1999, p.3-4.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;
Malcolm Templeton’s Human Rights and Sporting Contacts and Trevor Richards’ Dancing on our Bones are about the same issue although sometimes the reader might think they were in different countries, so different are their perspectives: Templeton provides a comprehensive account of New Zealand’s fraught relationship with apartheid South Africa in the context of New Zealand’s entire foreign diplomacy; Richards’ account is that of the much vilified, but eventually successful (nowadays even respected), protest movement which he led.
