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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 16]
Keith Rankin : Sugarnomics
Thursday, 12 March 2015, 12:32 pm | Keith Rankin
I watched TVNZ's Sunday item (8 March) about Rob Beaglehole's campaign to tax sugar drinks ( One man's mission to get rid of our sweet tooth ). More >>
'Competitiveness' is not an Economic Concept | Keith Rankin
Tuesday, 10 March 2015, 10:56 am | Keith Rankin
On Q+A on Sunday, Kim Campbell (CEO of the Employers and Manufacturers Association) expressed the 'popular' productionist view of economics to a tee ( http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news/kim-campbell-supports-labour-s-campaign-cut-back-acc-levies-video-6249884 ). More >>
Northland, Vernon Cracknell, Social Credit : Keith Rankin
Monday, 9 March 2015, 9:36 am | Keith Rankin
Watching the weekend coverage of the coming Northland by-election, I was hoping to see some mention of the 1966 precedent, when Northland (under the name of Hobson) was centre of attention in a general election. More >>
Fixing Tax Evadance through Public Equity | Keith Rankin
Thursday, 5 March 2015, 3:15 pm | Keith Rankin
On Sunday I watched a BBC Panorama programme about the widespread use in Britain of secret Swiss bank accounts for the purpose of tax avoidance, with particular focus on the Swiss operations of HSBC. More >>
Thought for this Day: Balance of Reasonable Doubt
Tuesday, 3 March 2015, 9:07 am | Keith Rankin
I watched the final of series 2 of Broadchurch (TV1) on Sunday. This drama depicted the trial a person the audience already knew to be guilty (from series 1). The defence of the accused was based purely on creating doubt, and the main device for creating ... More >>
Keith Rankin : Inflation, Deflation, Balance
Monday, 2 March 2015, 9:00 am | Keith Rankin
Journalistic economics tends to see 'good' or 'bad' in the various economic measures that we frequently hear in the news. This motivated me to write a piece Normative Economic Journalism (28 Feb 2015) in The Daily Blog about the use of colour shading ... More >>
Media Imagination: Asking the Right Questions : Keith Rankin
Friday, 27 February 2015, 9:35 am | Keith Rankin
There are many concerns about the state of the 'free' (as in 'free speech' not 'free lunch') media today, and many of them relate to the conflicting pressures to inform, to make the powerful accountable, and to make a profit. Clearly the latter two pressures ... More >>
Thought for the Day: Addressing the Islamic State
Thursday, 26 February 2015, 10:43 am | Keith Rankin
The brutal and publicity-seeking behaviour of the Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL) in the places we westerners call 'Middle-East' and 'Iraq' and 'Syria' is certainly a challenge to western liberal democracies. More >>
Thought for the Day: Foreigners Driving on the Left
Tuesday, 24 February 2015, 9:55 am | Keith Rankin
We are hearing a lot on the news this summer about the high numbers of serious car crashes in New Zealand linked to foreign drivers. The assumption always made is that it's because people in other countries drive on the other (right) side of the road. ... More >>
Thought for the Day: Greece unshackling?
Monday, 23 February 2015, 11:27 am | Keith Rankin
Several years ago, Greece was slammed into the debtors' prison by a group of northern European countries led by Germany. The country only gets out of jail when its government has implemented policies that suit external creditor interests. More >>
Thought for Day: Buy-Sell Balance, USA versus Netherlands
Friday, 20 February 2015, 9:39 am | Keith Rankin
We hear quite a lot about work-life balance, but what about buy-sell balance? For the former balance we ask, do we live to work or work to live? For the buy-sell balance the question is: Is our economic purpose to make money or is it to enjoy goods and ... More >>
Thought for the Day: Contribution through Innovation
Thursday, 19 February 2015, 9:36 am | Keith Rankin
A few days ago I noted these stories ( Biggest house prefabricator in hands of receivers and House builder owes $17.5m to creditors ) in the NZ Herald relating to the receivership of eHome. If the housing problem that we face was just about the cost of building ... More >>
Thought for the Day: Determining Total Income Tax Revenue
Wednesday, 18 February 2015, 8:31 am | Keith Rankin
This OECD item ( http://www.oecd.org/ctp/consumption/revenue-statistics-and-consumption-tax-trends-2014-new-zealand.pdf ) comparing the tax "burdens" of different countries came into my inbox a few days ago. More >>
Thought for the Day: Chinese Investment Worldwide
Tuesday, 17 February 2015, 11:18 am | Keith Rankin
We are in the habit of calling asset purchases 'investment'. And a big issue around the world is how the beneficiaries of China's rapid economic growth are placing the savings generated by this growth. It's clear that one of the most significant destinations ... More >>
Thought for the Day: Income Distribution, not Redistribution
Monday, 16 February 2015, 10:01 am | Keith Rankin
I have been taking a new look at Gareth Morgan's 2011 book The Big Kahuna: Turning Tax and Welfare in New Zealand on its Head . By and large it's an excellent popular contribution by an economist to the debate about the need for some kind of unconditional ... More >>
Thought for the Day: Learning and Imagination
Friday, 13 February 2015, 9:31 am | Keith Rankin
Economics as a subject in higher education is on the wane, at both university and institute of technology levels. It is less likely these days to be a compulsory part of a business degree, and is likely to be dropped from the New Zealand Diploma in ... More >>
Thought for the Day: Learning and Imagination
Friday, 13 February 2015, 8:56 am | Keith Rankin
Economics as a subject in higher education is on the wane, at both university and institute of technology levels. It is less likely these days to be a compulsory part of a business degree, and is likely to be dropped from the New Zealand Diploma in ... More >>
Thought for Day: Competitiveness in Popular Neoliberalism
Thursday, 12 February 2015, 2:44 pm | Keith Rankin
I have been reading Guy Standing's The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class (2011). Standing gives a very interesting account (pp.132-3) of the philosophical origins of neoliberalism as a 'panopticon' utopia inspired by the late eighteenth century ... More >>
Thought for the Day: Cycling Tourism
Wednesday, 11 February 2015, 10:52 am | Keith Rankin
I heard a radio news item yesterday (Radio NZ, 10 Feb) about how cycling tourism is revitalising provincial economies (audio here ). I think this growth of cycle trails is great; indeed my teenage son and I had wonderful experiences cycling the ... More >>
Thought for the Day: Discouraged Workers?
Tuesday, 10 February 2015, 9:19 am | Keith Rankin
I heard a radio news item a few days ago (Radio NZ, 4 Feb) describing a "robust labour market, with more people 'looking for work'". More >>
