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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 5]
Clio: Whose Side Is 'History' On?
Friday, 13 June 2025, 4:43 pm | Keith Rankin
Is history binary? A judge of past behaviour with just two available options: thumbs-up, or thumbs-down? If you are not on the 'right side' of history, are you therefore on the 'wrong side'? Can there be a 'right side of history'? Given the contexts that ... More >>
Remembering New Zealand's Missing Tragedy
Monday, 9 June 2025, 5:38 pm | Keith Rankin
The forgotten tragedy was actually a twin-tragedy; two smaller (but not small) tragedies may more easily fall below the memory radar than one bigger tragedy. The dates were 22 July 1973 and January 1974. More >>
Equity Rights: UBI, SUI, BUI, HUI, Or GUI?
Friday, 6 June 2025, 5:20 pm | Keith Rankin
The missing ingredient from the capitalism that most of us know is 'public equity'. The crisis of capitalism can be addressed through development of public property rights, which we may call 'public equity'. It is the establishment of public property ... More >>
Who, Neither Politician Nor Monarch, Executed 100,000 Civilians In A Single Night?
Thursday, 29 May 2025, 4:51 pm | Keith Rankin
The main reason for the executions was some kind of 'impunity'; they did it because they could. The more they failed to bring the war to an end, the more they persevered in doing the executions that hadn't achieved their stated goals. Just one more city. More >>
Using Cuba 1962 To Explain Trump's Brinkmanship
Tuesday, 27 May 2025, 6:19 pm | Keith Rankin
Two longstanding mercantilist economic nations (China, European Union) and one mercantilist leader are slugging it out to see who can export more goods and services to the world; the prize being a mix of gold and virtual-gold, the proceeds of unbalanced trade. More >>
Zero-Sum Fiscal Narratives
Thursday, 22 May 2025, 11:34 am | Keith Rankin
Business sector deficits were substantially the norm in the twentieth century, but not since about 1990. Government balanced budgets were possible – though not normal – for much of the previous century. More >>
War In Sudan
Wednesday, 21 May 2025, 5:52 pm | Keith Rankin
The present Sudan Civil War is an international 'proxy war'; fuelled by extra-national powers – regional if not global. More >>
The Aratere And The New Zealand Main Trunk Line
Tuesday, 20 May 2025, 3:01 pm | Keith Rankin
After all, for over 100 years, before 1960, Wellington to Lyttelton was the essential 'main trunk' link between the two islands. More >>
Make Deficits Great Again: Maintaining A Pragmatic Balance
Friday, 9 May 2025, 3:28 pm | Keith Rankin
Just as the deficit countries are the world's 'spendthrifts', the surplus countries are the world's 'misers'. The global economy maintains a successful equilibrium so long as the willing spendthrifts balance out the insistent misers. More >>
The Great World War 1914-1945: Germany, Russia, Ukraine
Friday, 2 May 2025, 11:13 am | Keith Rankin
By looking at 1914 to 1945, as a single albeit complex conflict, we can easily see that the essence of the struggle was a conflict between the waxing German and Russian Empires; the central prizes were the Russian imperial territories of Ukraine and the Caucasus, and the waning Ottoman Empire. More >>
Barbecued Hamburgers And Churchill's Bestie
Thursday, 17 April 2025, 12:16 pm | Keith Rankin
Hamburg was, literally, a dry run for what came later; the aim was to maximise the number of barbecued civilians by, among other things, choosing perfect weather conditions for an experiment in incendiary murder. More >>
Rational Expectations, Intelligence, And War
Thursday, 10 April 2025, 4:23 pm | Keith Rankin
It is through our ManualI – our manual override, our consciousness, our awareness – that we have the opportunity to make rational valuations which incorporate morality. Our AutoI, while rational in its own terms, is also amoral. Our automatic benefit-cost ... More >>
Learning The Correct Lessons From World War Two In Europe
Thursday, 27 March 2025, 5:56 pm | Keith Rankin
While World War Two (WW2) always was a set of intersecting conflicts – with Japan fighting a war of imperialism in East Asia and the Western Pacific – the war in Europe has been cast as the ultimate battle of 'Good' versus 'Evil'. Hence the narrative ... More >>
Donald Trump's Views On The World Trading-system
Friday, 21 March 2025, 11:28 am | Keith Rankin
There is a name for Donald Trump's understanding of international trade: 'mercantilism'. While he is an unreconstructed mercantilist, in some ways the deeper 'reconstructed' mercantilism of miserly politicians like Angela Merkel and Olaf Scholz – and of ... More >>
Geopolitical Fractures, And Untidy Yet Workable Solutions
Tuesday, 18 March 2025, 4:01 pm | Keith Rankin
At present, it would seem, the United States of America, which sees itself as the world's preeminent geopolitical player, is impatient for conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine to end, so that it can get on with its 'game of choice', namely the 'new ... More >>
Invoking Munich, 'Appeasement', And The 'Lessons Of History'
Thursday, 13 March 2025, 6:32 pm | Keith Rankin
The Munich narrative is central to the 'Good War' morality trope, through which democracies (especially the United States) justified wars of aggression; what used to be called 'gunboat-diplomacy' in the British days of empire. More >>
Dodgy Democracy, The Fiscal Double Standard, And The Application Of The Domino Theory To Ukraine
Tuesday, 11 March 2025, 12:12 pm | Keith Rankin
The Russia-Ukraine War is a mucky border conflict between two countries with a long and intertwined shared history, and with more than enough 'stirring of the pot' from outside to convert a regional security dispute into an existential global security ... More >>
Germany's Election 2025: Far Establishment-Right Versus Far Non-Establishment-Right?
Thursday, 6 March 2025, 1:19 pm | Keith Rankin
The result in Germany proved to be very much like that of the United Kingdom in 2024: a slide in support for the two major parties ('the establishment centre'), a consolidation of power to the self-same establishment centre, and a shift of that establishment ... More >>
Judaism, Antisemitism, And Israel
Wednesday, 18 December 2024, 7:09 pm | Keith Rankin
Israel today has arisen as a consequence of two millenniums of antisemitism in its various Christian forms. Israel is a nation-state which must abide by the same rules as any other nation state. Criticism of Israel is not antisemitism. More >>
Al Aqsa Provocation And The Media Game 'Israel Says'
Monday, 9 December 2024, 8:19 pm | Keith Rankin
When Benjamin Netanyahu said 'jump', the media moguls effectively said 'how high?' Since then, like Groundhog Day, media copywriters have been playing the game 'Israel says'. When institutions succumb to narratives of the 'Israel says' variety, they ... More >>
