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:

• 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.

President Trump is floating fantasy annexations of Canada, Gaza, and Panama, motivated by the same imperial twitch as President Putin, seeking to restore the Russian Empire. Trump doesn’t want Greenland just so that he can rename it Orangeland.

He is an imperialist.

Which raises the diverting question of what ideas imperialists share with ethno-nationalist MAGA isolationists, and the oligarch libertarians who have formed his kitchen cabinet, like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.

All these political philosophies are motivated by the idea that an elite class is more worthy than others. The gains should go to the powerful. The poor are losers.

Compared to the oligarchs, you are poor. Smaller countries, like Canada and Denmark, are weak. Losers.

Josie on the US President's plans to axe USAID.