Free Trade? Lets have the real thing

Trendy as hell to identify oneself as a supporter of Free Trade. (FT) Also trendy to disparage anyone who does not support it as some kind of extreme left authoritarian anti-free market throwback. Had a few exchanges with pain in the arse Libertarians on Twitter recently, and unsurprisingly, especially when it come to those who…

It’s cronyism, not capitalism..!!

If there’s one thing that shows how crosswired the left are its how often they make the claim that NZ is on the road to hell because of the unbridled capitalism encouraged by John Key. According to the left, we’re suffering because of a rampant free market that is exploiting every last cent from the…

Govt greed for more and more tax signals economic failure

One of the memes currently being pushed by the progressive mainstream media is the idea that not enough tax is collected from corporations. So we have this enthusiastic witch hunt where companies and individuals are named and shamed as not paying their “fair share”. The real problem is that govts already take too much tax…

China’s restrictions on foreign property purchases

The Chinese government in 2010 passed laws limiting the purchase of commercial and residential real estate by foreigners. The idea of the regulations was to slow down real estate speculation and control inflation. The Wall Street Journal reports from Shanghai the effect of the new regulations would likely be small, since foreigners make up a…

Australia at risk of losing AAA credit rating

The SMH reports that Australia, one of only 12 countries with an AAA credit rating, risks a ratings downgrade for the first time since 1989, United States investment bank Goldman Sachs has warned, saying the country could be hit with a “negative outlook” within months. Goldman Sachs made the assessment in a research note released…

Western govts still hooked on debt

Jeremy Warner writes an interesting article in the UK Telegraph on the global debt market. An excerpt- What makes today’s negative interest rate environment so worrying is this; to the extent that demand is growing at all in the world economy, it seems again to be almost entirely dependent on rising levels of debt. The…