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Two years ago, Paul Romer warned the incoming President of the World Bank that the Bank should outsource its research function because “diplomacy and science cannot both thrive under the same roof.” The Bank depends on good relations with member countries. Romer had been World Bank Chief Economist from 2015 through his early 2018 departure, winning the Nobel Prize in Economics later in 2018. Read more

The blackout which affected thousands of North Island households two weeks ago was shocking in part because blackouts have become so rare. Keeping the lights on requires an almost perfect balance of electricity supplied to and taken from the grid every second of every day. Read more

Events have rather overtaken last week’s blackout. The outage on the evening of 9 August left 35,000 households in the dark for up to two hours on the coldest night of the year. Read more

Reports about the Government reconsidering the controversial Auckland cycling bridge are welcome. At projected costs of $785 million, the bridge always looked excessively expensive. Read more

In late May, Budget 2021 revealed that work was underway to develop an unemployment insurance scheme. This would see benefits tied to past employment and wages in some way. Read more

KiwiBuild never made any sense and could not work. The reason was simple. Read more

A 500-gram punnet of grapes: $1.89. A 2 litre bottle of Coca-Cola: also $1.89. Read more