Tourism is our second-biggest export earner. The Government has made it a priority for growth. But it’s all volume, little value. Cram people into buses, drive to spots to look at the view, put them up in bog-standard over-priced hotels, sell them some tack, extract everything you can for as little as possible in return. No need to charm visitors you never expect to return.

The late Paul Callaghan pointed out that we won’t grow more prosperous from tourism. Every tourism job in New Zealand reduces the average wage.

He calculated, back in 2011, that the value of a job in tourism to the economy was about $80,000. A dairying job created $350,000 of value. The gap can’t be closed by downgrading hotel loo-paper to single ply and selling more souvenir key rings.

Josie's Post column argues that tourism is a low-wage, low-productivity strategy, at least the way it is offered now. It is one of the reasons Kiwis work longer and harder than just about anybody, but earn less per hour than nearly all other countries we compare ourselves to

In her Post column, Josie argued that scarcity versus abundance, nation-building versus moralising about behaviour, are the next fault lines of politics.

We used to think that global versus local was replacing capital versus labour as a dividing line, then populism versus rule of law and liberalism.

Abundance politics appeals because it harnesses the vitality and optimism that fuels populist movements, promising to sweep away decay and the stultifying institutions of governments. Instead of defending failure, as establishments have tried, or emulating populists, abundance politics leaves a legacy of new achievement.

Reading pre-Budget comments this week, I noticed National defending KiwiSaver and the NZ Super Fund. National opposed them both when they were brought in. Yet today it wouldn’t dare sweep them away.

But I noticed no new legacy plan from Labour. Chris Hipkins argued Labour didn’t get everything right in government, but you were better off and the country was heading in the right direction. You made a terrible mistake in voting them out and you will have the chance to correct your error at the next election.

Read the column here.

Smell the sheep,” Pope Francis used to say. Live and eat with the people. I wonder what he’d make of New Zealand?

Josie's column in the Post looks at the vast numbers of New Zealanders being left behind and it's relationship to populism.

Our politics cater to those who opt in. They see those who have fallen off life’s train, but they don’t know what to do for them. Governments throw them pity, at best, and the gap keeps widening between those who are part of the system and trust it, and the big chunk of people who have opted out and mistrust.

This week the John Bates Clark medal was won by Stefanie Stantcheva. The medal is awarded each year to the top American economist under the age of 40, so I read about her work. One of her studies looked at how well public views align with established economic theories. The study found that Americans think inflation is caused by overseas aid, wars, oil prices and supply chains.

“There is a widespread belief that managing inflation can be achieved without significant trade-offs, such as reducing economic activity or increasing unemployment. These perceptions are hard to move,” it said. People don’t accept that reducing inflation involves higher interest rates, slowing the economy, with more unemployment.

“The widespread misconception that inflation rises following increases in interest rates even leads to support for rate cuts to reduce inflation,” the study found.

Once people believe there are easy answers that don’t have trade-offs, they will sooner or later become attracted to populist movements that seek blame and culture wars. The conditions ripen for blaming outsiders, bludgers, the rich, the poor, or immigrants.