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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 13]
Keith Rankin: Rent AND Buy
Thursday, 29 January 2015, 5:00 pm | Keith Rankin
The Auckland housing debate debacle is important because it reveals some key aspects of the workings of global financial capitalism. Of course, because of the diverse interests at stake – including the fact that more New Zealanders than we might ... More >>
Keith Rankin: The Future of 'Wealth' and 'Work'
Thursday, 29 January 2015, 12:01 pm | Keith Rankin
Andrew Little uses 'wealth' in two different ways. When he says "wealth has to be created first" he means economic wealth , goods and services produced. Later when he refers to "the combined wealth of the richest 1 percent" he is talking about financial ... More >>
Thought for the Day: Debating Inequality
Wednesday, 28 January 2015, 10:30 am | Keith Rankin
In the weekend I watched A Richer World, but for Whom? BBC's 'World Debate' from the 2015 World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland. Martin Sorrell and Klaus Kleinfeld represented the capitalist rich. On the fence were 'political economists' loosely ... More >>
Keith Rankin : Deflation
Tuesday, 27 January 2015, 8:59 am | Keith Rankin
In December 2014 I wrote in The Daily Blog about a possible clash of global economic crises that might reach its fullest intensity in the 2030s. More >>
Speculation: Vanishing Acts, Financial Instability
Monday, 24 March 2014, 5:06 pm | Keith Rankin
'Speculation' is generally understood as a pejorative word, as in "that [idea] is mere speculation", or "speculation is ruining the economy". Actually, speculation is generally a good thing; it is the essence of the deductive method through which ... More >>
Meltdown, Accommodating Monetary Policy and Queen's Question
Friday, 7 March 2014, 11:53 am | Keith Rankin
Yesterday I watched the final part of Al Jazeera's four-part series "Meltdown". The series raised some interesting issues, and noted in particular that our economic and financial behaviour has barely changed since the global financial crisis of the ... More >>
Global Savings Glut
Friday, 21 February 2014, 12:20 pm | Keith Rankin
Last week I presented two papers at the 2014 Asia-Pacific Economic History conference in Hamilton. One paper, about global financial imbalances, started by considering the world economy (in the 2000s' decade) as a whole and then looking (back as far ... More >>
Inequality the Biggest Problem
Monday, 27 January 2014, 2:04 pm | Keith Rankin
For this year's World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland, the biggest issue and challenge has been identified as inequality. Not just inequality of income or unequal access to goods and services; the NZ Herald article "Ahead of Davos: The $1.7 trillion ... More >>
Money, Debt and Liberal Economics
Thursday, 16 January 2014, 11:49 am | Keith Rankin
One of the most interesting books I have read this summer is "Money; The Unauthorised Biography", by Felix Martin (2013, Bodley Head). This is a thought-provoking book that suggests that the history of money is quite different to what most of us assume ... More >>
Black Swans and the Global Financial Crisis
Thursday, 12 December 2013, 10:59 am | Keith Rankin
One of the more interesting recent economic metaphors is that of the 'black swan'. It is used to mean an unknowable event; or at least an event deemed too unlikely to be predictable by any academic model. Like rain from a blue sky. More >>
Population and Housing in the Auckland Isthmus
Thursday, 31 October 2013, 5:30 pm | Keith Rankin
Housing patterns are changing radically in the former Auckland City, essentially the central isthmus bounded by the Tamaki and Whau rivers. With house prices becoming out of reach for young owner-occupiers, houses in these central suburbs are increasingly ... More >>
Acornomics – Fallacies about Economics and Saving
Wednesday, 30 October 2013, 1:00 pm | Keith Rankin
Communication about economics has a number of blind spots. As a result, most people who have learnt a little economics tend to subscribe to a form of popular economics that I call 'acornomics'. More >>
Preparing for the Retirement Bulge - Keith Rankin
Monday, 21 October 2013, 10:06 am | Keith Rankin
We keep hearing about the need to save much more for our retirement, and that the present public superannuation system is unsustainable. Much of the intensification of this discussion appears to be self-serving advocacy on behalf of the financial ... More >>
The Growth of Unreal Employment and Contemporary Capitalism
Friday, 27 September 2013, 11:20 am | Keith Rankin
In an important article, republished by the Sydney Morning Herald, David Graeber (London School of Economics, author of Debt, the First 5,000 Years) argues that the widely-held mid-twentieth century prediction that "real jobs" would only require ... More >>
Auckland House Prices --- The Ongoing Saga
Wednesday, 31 July 2013, 2:09 pm | Keith Rankin
Keith Rankin, 31 July 2013 Auckland's housing problem is not all that it seems. The price of housing - as opposed to the price of houses - is falling, not rising. Recent reports indicate a shortfall in demand for rental properties. ( Renting in ... More >>
Fixing the European economic crisis
Monday, 28 May 2012, 12:58 pm | Keith Rankin
All of the knowledge required to fix the Eurozone crisis is available now, and has been available since the 1930s. While the known solution is a growth solution, modified solutions that emphasise environmental sustainability are technically possible. More >>
Greece, Germany and Euro: who are the bad guys?
Thursday, 5 April 2012, 1:28 pm | Keith Rankin
The financial and economic problems of the Eurozone seem to be in abeyance at the moment, at least in the New Zealand media. But the European crisis is a story that is not going away, with the European Union as a whole moving into recession - negative ... More >>
Keith Rankin: Our Oceans Past - an Austronesian Enigma
Thursday, 29 March 2012, 3:10 pm | Keith Rankin
A book to be published this week, "T o the End of the Earth", claims that ancient Europeans visited and even lived in New Zealand 2,000 or more years ago. (Refer Egyptians, Greeks came to New Zealand first - book , stuff.co.nz, 23/03/2012). More >>
Keith Rankin: "Intellectuals" as an Academic Sub-Species
Friday, 24 February 2012, 1:31 pm | Keith Rankin
On the 3rd of February this year, Chris Barton of the New Zealand Herald published an article called "Who is speaking out on today's big issues?" He included a non-exhaustive list of New Zealanders, who by virtue of their expertise and willingness to engage ... More >>
Public Ownership of Energy Companies and Water
Monday, 13 February 2012, 3:24 pm | Keith Rankin
by Keith Rankin, 13 February 2012 The Crown Ownership Monitoring Unit's 2011 Valuation Report suggests that the four big energy companies of which the government plans to sell half - Mighty River Power, Genesis, Meridian, Solid Energy - are worth 14.4 ... More >>
