STRAIGHT AND TRUE
Trump's tariffs
05/04/25
Those people who said we shouldn’t sign the Trans-Pacific-Partnerships must be happy that America has finally freed itself from the tyranny of being able to buy stuff from other countries.
Joining TPP made us part of a non-tariff bloc comprising 34% of global trade. The US comprises 15%. We are better placed than the Heard and McDonald Islands, which have been singled out for tariffs despite having a population of no-one but rock-hopper penguins.
If I buy a packet of freshly baked hot cross buns for $5, then the US logic says I would be better off if I charged myself $10 for them.
But tariffs might not be inflationary. Following the US stock market crash in 1929. President Herbert Hoover signed into law the Smoot-Hawley Tariff. Trading partners suffered reduced output, and so did the United States. “The Smoot-Hawley tariff ignited an international trade war and helped sink our country into the Great Depression,” President Ronald Reagan said in 1986.
It is foolhardy to believe this will all blow over in four years and normality will be restored.
Read Josie's Post column about America's trade craziness.
Joining TPP made us part of a non-tariff bloc comprising 34% of global trade. The US comprises 15%. We are better placed than the Heard and McDonald Islands, which have been singled out for tariffs despite having a population of no-one but rock-hopper penguins.
If I buy a packet of freshly baked hot cross buns for $5, then the US logic says I would be better off if I charged myself $10 for them.
But tariffs might not be inflationary. Following the US stock market crash in 1929. President Herbert Hoover signed into law the Smoot-Hawley Tariff. Trading partners suffered reduced output, and so did the United States. “The Smoot-Hawley tariff ignited an international trade war and helped sink our country into the Great Depression,” President Ronald Reagan said in 1986.
It is foolhardy to believe this will all blow over in four years and normality will be restored.
Read Josie's Post column about America's trade craziness.
Dear Aunty
22/03/25
Easter is the season for fake reports that have deeper philosophical meaning. To be clear, Father, I’m referring to the Bunny.
Anyway, if they can sell hot-cross buns now, let me get into the spirit of Easter a month early, with my own fake agony aunt column.
Dear Aunty,
I own a Tesla. Why do I feel like I’m driving around 1938 Munich in an open-top Mercedes, humming Ich Liebe Dich?
Aunty: Please indicate your intentions to make a turn by using your indicator. Not by holding your right arm out at a 45 degree angle with the palm turned down.
More here.
Anyway, if they can sell hot-cross buns now, let me get into the spirit of Easter a month early, with my own fake agony aunt column.
Dear Aunty,
I own a Tesla. Why do I feel like I’m driving around 1938 Munich in an open-top Mercedes, humming Ich Liebe Dich?
Aunty: Please indicate your intentions to make a turn by using your indicator. Not by holding your right arm out at a 45 degree angle with the palm turned down.
More here.
Moral foreign policy as the US leaves its Western alliances
08/03/25
The world realigned at the end of WWII and again after the fall of Berlin’s wall. It is realigning again but the future is not written: it will be created by brave folk doing what is right for all humanity.
Josie's Post column argues against appeasement.
Josie's Post column argues against appeasement.
What an agenda for growth could look like
26/02/25
Josie sets out an agenda the government could follow to put the economy on a much faster growth track:
Radicalise the competitive intensity in the economy.
Reform the way government works with technology. AI can radically improve public services.
Overhaul those parts of government activity where spending is going to keep growing faster than the economy:
Radicalise the competitive intensity in the economy.
Reform the way government works with technology. AI can radically improve public services.
Overhaul those parts of government activity where spending is going to keep growing faster than the economy:
- Introduce workplace insurance for health care,
- Increase the superannuation age in line with life expectancy and increase contributions to Kiwisaver,
- Put infrastructure spending through an independent bank that can introduce private capital without privatising and directors spending to the highest value projects.
