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Keith Rankin
Political Economist, Scoop Columnist
Keith Rankin taught economics at Unitec in Mt Albert since 1999. An economic historian by training, his research has included an analysis of labour supply in the Great Depression of the 1930s, and has included estimates of New Zealand's GNP going back to the 1850s.
Keith believes that many of the economic issues that beguile us cannot be understood by relying on the orthodox interpretations of our social science disciplines. Keith favours a critical approach that emphasises new perspectives rather than simply opposing those practices and policies that we don't like.
Keith retired in 2020 and lives with his family in Glen Eden, Auckland.
Keith Rankin - Latest News [Page 1]
Is New Zealand Geopolitically Invisible?
Tuesday, 27 October 2026, 4:45 pm | Keith Rankin
For the most part, the elite world – especially Europe – doesn't see New Zealand at all, hiding as it does on the far side of Australia. More >>
Are We Really ALL Living Longer?
Friday, 23 October 2026, 2:56 pm | Keith Rankin
The life expectancy statistics which we rely on are derived from past mortality, especially from people who were young in the 1950s and 1960s. Yet the concept of life expectancy is a conceptualisation of the future. More >>
Has The Opportunity Party Missed Some Opportunities To Talk Tax?
Wednesday, 21 October 2026, 4:38 pm | Keith Rankin
And Opportunity should be clear that by 'Citizen' they neither mean 'passport-holder' nor only persons who have been in the country for at least five years. Think of the denizens whose labour contributes so much to New Zealand. More >>
Interview Question The Commentators Ignored: NZ And The EU
Monday, 19 October 2026, 4:54 pm | Keith Rankin
Two of the three most ego-driven politicians in the world today are the leaders of Israel and Ukraine; and neither of these two men cares in the slightest bit about the impact of their behaviour on the wider world. More >>
New Zealand International Migration By Age
Friday, 16 October 2026, 2:57 pm | Keith Rankin
What we can expect in the immediate future is continued immigration and emigration at persistently higher levels than took place before 2011. More >>
David Seymour Is A Financial Mercantilist
Wednesday, 14 October 2026, 5:12 pm | Keith Rankin
Under ACT's policy, most of us aged under 60 will have to wait until they are 67 years-old before they can get a universal pension; a pension which will probably be indexed at the lower of average wages or average prices. More >>
Munich Syndrome
Friday, 9 October 2026, 4:49 pm | Keith Rankin
Munich Syndrome – trying to correct for past weakness as a form of present penance – risks converting one overstated past mistake into a much bigger present mistake with existential consequences for the near future. More >>
Negative Campaigning And Strategic Voting
Tuesday, 6 October 2026, 4:34 pm | Keith Rankin
Under our MMP system in 2026 there will be 49 list MPs and at least 71 electorate MPs. The predominant focus of strategic voting this year will be the 'race' to get extra – ie 'overhang' – MPs. More >>
Sliding New Zealand Dollar?
Monday, 5 October 2026, 4:20 pm | Keith Rankin
Countries' currency movements can be destabilising – escalating – exactly the opposite of what the floating mechanism is supposed to achieve. More >>
Feedback Economics: Stabilisation Versus Escalation
Friday, 2 October 2026, 3:11 pm | Keith Rankin
Economic narrative is entering an era of financial mercantilism, an era of linear pseudo-social-science in which the goal of humanity is to extract as much 'money' from the Earth-system as humans and other 'intelligences' can. More >>
Surviving Nuclear War
Wednesday, 23 September 2026, 4:10 pm | Keith Rankin
Jacobsen's Nuclear War is very northern hemisphere centric. New Zealand gets a single mention near the end, with the underexamined assumption that New Zealand, Australia and Argentina would have a few survivors. More >>
Tone Deaf KiwiSaver And The Circular Flow Of Income
Friday, 18 September 2026, 4:34 pm | Keith Rankin
Policy 'doves' have a bias (ie leaning) towards stimulatory circular-flow political management, and policy 'hawks' have a bias towards constrictive circular-flow policy. More >>
AI Holocaust Versus Nuclear Apocalypse
Friday, 11 September 2026, 12:55 pm | Keith Rankin
My key point is that a nuclear apocalypse would be more than a single-species suicide: it could be a murder-suicide that would destroy all life on Earth; indeed all life in the Universe if Earth is the only place with life. More >>
An MMP Election In Germany: Saxony-Anhalt 2026
Thursday, 10 September 2026, 2:54 pm | Keith Rankin
In the 1930s, the liberals failed big-time, and the population turned to the far-right for solutions. This time, it looks like the failing 'liberals' may be morphing into a new-far-right. More >>
Christopher Luxon's Uneasy Relationship With Known Knowns
Tuesday, 8 September 2026, 3:07 pm | Keith Rankin
Our present generation of political leaders seem to find the known truth – the known knowns – a source of political tension and defensiveness. More >>
Challenging the Pedlars of Austerity
Thursday, 3 September 2026, 8:25 pm | Keith Rankin
We must not let the austerity pedlars take over, unchallenged. More >>
Helpless, Hapless, And Hopeless Governments
Tuesday, 1 September 2026, 4:15 pm | Keith Rankin
The problem is being presented as a contradiction whereby the Treasury does not want higher interest rates while the Bank of England does want higher interest rates. More >>
Context: The New Zealand Residential Property Market
Monday, 31 August 2026, 4:47 pm | Keith Rankin
The real story about the 2021/22 property mini-bubble was not what started it, but what stopped it in its tracks. More >>
Is Mr Luxon Contemplating A Grand Coalition?
Tuesday, 25 August 2026, 5:03 pm | Keith Rankin
At present the grand coalition parties are behaving more like insurance companies which look for opportunities to renege on their obligations; like collectives unwilling to perform their societal function. More >>
Activities And Inactivities Of New Zealanders Aged 15-24
Friday, 21 August 2026, 2:27 pm | Keith Rankin
Some might say that, with education and training much more dominant today as measured activities, NZ is investing in its young people. But investment in people is a 'game of two halves'. NZ is only really playing the first half; formal education More >>
