Far, far from the troubles at the home front, Prime Minister John Key was visibly enjoying the military honours and his joint press conference with Chancellor Angela Merkel on his visit to Berlin last week. A better use of his time would have been studying the effects of delaying superannuation reforms. Although last month’s budget once again confirmed the rising costs of superannuation, the Prime Minister ruled out reneging on his 2008 campaign promise not to increase the age of eligibility. Read more

Saying something genuinely new on the euro crisis is getting more difficult as time passes. The problems never change, only the sums involved. Read more

“A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.” That’s not a new research finding but a quote by Aristotle (384-322 BC). It opened an event on Dunedin’s Economic Development Strategy on Tuesday, which I attended as a guest speaker. Read more

Newspapers are reporting increasing pressure from Germany for Spain to accept a European bailout. The story is all the more credible as the Spanish government, refusing a bailout, has strongly denied any such bullying. Read more

Analysing the link between the Holocaust and the European crisis is far more interesting than solving the crisis. At least if you are German. Read more

As a newcomer to New Zealand, one of the biggest surprises to me was the degree of polarisation I perceived in its political discourse. In the complex world of 21st century globalisation the way in which debates are still conducted as "Left versus Right" is not only anachronistic. Read more