Pundit

Pundit is a New Zealand-based online platform dedicated to current events and culture, providing insightful perspectives on important issues both locally and globally. The website was co-founded in late 2007 by Tim Watkin, who has a rich background as the former deputy editor of the Listener and has worked with the Guardian in the UK as well as producing shows like Q+A, The Vote, and The Nation. He currently serves as the Executive Producer of Podcasts at RNZ. His partner, Eleanor Black, has also made her mark as the former deputy editor at Next, an associate editor for California magazine, and as the Entertainment and Lifestyle Editor at Stuff. With the support of broadcaster Ian Fraser, Pundit officially launched in 2009.

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Economic Bullies — Pundit

1 week ago | pundit.co.nz | Brian Easton

Monopsonies – dominant purchasers – need to be restrained as much as monopolies – dominant sellers. That is what pay equity is about. This column is not about you-know-who. There are many other political bullies offshore; sometimes there are local ones, as when a politician attacks a group which cannot defend itself or a cabinet minister has a crack at local government.
Budget 2025 - Pundit

2 weeks ago | pundit.co.nz | Brian Easton

Perhaps the state of the economy is not as sound as we are being told. There was an odd little story over the 2025 Budget, hardly worth relating except that it tells something about budget politics. The original invitations to the lockdown, the meeting which gives a preview of the budget to the media so they can prepare for the release of what is a complicated set of documents.
Catholic Theology on the Economy — Pundit

3 weeks ago | pundit.co.nz | Brian Easton

While many of the world’s Christian religions seem preoccupied with personal issues that Jesus, their founder, barely touched upon, they must engage with economic issues too. Robert Prevost, chose the name Leo on becoming the 267th Bishop of Rome – the Pope – in homage to Leo XIII (in office 1878-1903) who issued the 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum or the Rights and Duties of Capital and Labour.
Seeking Fiscal Balance — Pundit

1 month ago | pundit.co.nz | Brian Easton

Should we pursue a ‘Golden Rule’ where any public borrowing for consumption is temporary? This columnist is a fiscal conservative who is cautious about government borrowing for public consumption. I was not originally. The Keynesian model I first studied said borrow as much as is necessary to sustain demand. But the model was of a closed economy. In a small open economy, borrowing blows out through the external current account which can lead to painful interactions with overseas creditors.
Are We Paying Enough Attention to the Working Class? — Pundit

1 month ago | pundit.co.nz | Brian Easton

A major American study suggests they are not? This column is about the white working class. In the US 2024 elections they mainly voted for Donald Trump. Had they voted with the white middle class, Trump would have lost the election with only 42 percent of voters instead of the 50 percent he actually won.
The 2025 Budget in a World of Trade Warfare — Pundit

1 month ago | pundit.co.nz | Brian Easton

The budget runup is far from easy. Budget 2025 day is Thursday 22 May. About a month earlier in a normal year, the macroeconomic forecasts would be completed (the fiscal ones would still be tidying up) and the main policy decisions would have been made (but there would still be a lot of policy detail to be worked on). This is not a normal year as Donald Trump zigzags from policy to policy.
Viennese Refugees Who Changed the Way We Think — Pundit

1 month ago | pundit.co.nz | Brian Easton

Four eighty-year-old books which are still vitally relevant today. Between 1942 and 1945, four refugees from Vienna each published a ground-breaking – seminal – book.* They left their country after Austria was taken over by fascists in 1934 and by Nazi Germany in 1938. Previously they had lived in ‘Red Vienna’; ruled by Social Democratic Workers' Party between 1918 and 1934, which had a brilliant record housing the population (but could be intrusive at the personal level).
Countervailing Trumpian Sense — Pundit

1 month ago | pundit.co.nz | Brian Easton

A modest attempt to analyse Donald Trump’s tariff policies. Alfred Marshall, whose text book was still in use 40 years after he died wrote ‘every short statement about economics is misleading with the possible exception of my present one.’ (The text book is 719 pages.) It’s a timely reminder that any short analysis of Trump’s tariff initiatives is likely to be misleading and any long one will be so riddled with caveats that it will be impenetrable.
Resource Management and Property Rights — Pundit

2 months ago | pundit.co.nz | Brian Easton

While there have been decades of complaints – from all sides – about the workings of the Resource Management Act (RMA), replacing is proving difficult. The Coalition Government is making another attempt.
Public-Private-Partnerships? - Pundit

2 months ago | pundit.co.nz | Brian Easton

New Zealand’s economic development has always been a partnership between the public and private sectors. Public-Private-Partnerships (PPPs) have become fashionable again, partly because of the government’s ambitions to accelerate infrastructural development. There is, of course, an ideological element too, while some of the opposition to them is also ideological. PPPs come in so many different forms that it is tedious to characterise them all. Some of those forms have been used in the past.