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A hard task for government is getting the books in order after a recession. A harder task is choosing how best to distribute tax revenue once stability is restored. Read more

Our executive director at the New Zealand Initiative, Oliver Hartwich, has always had a strange antique monkey’s paw on his desk. I never thought much of it – perhaps a bit creepy but maybe it’s normal for Germans. Read more

Nearly a decade ago, I first encountered millennials’ strange fascination with avocados. A younger colleague in Sydney often prepared her office lunch with fresh avocado, spread thick across a slice of bread. Read more

Elon Musk, of Paypal and Tesla fame, is boring a tunnel under Los Angeles. Musk believes he will be able to transport cars between L.A.’s West Coast and centre in five minutes. Read more

We probably all remember those school exams in which we desperately tried to copy the answers from our much better neighbours. Ahem, I meant of course we all remember those school exams in which our struggling neighbours desperately tried to copy from us. Read more

Are Aesop’s fables, such as “The Ant and the Grasshopper” still taught to school children? When winter arrives the industrious and thrifty ant refuses to share its food with the hungry grasshopper who had frivolously spent the summer singing. Read more

Peter Jackson took a few liberties with Tolkien’s text for the Lord of the Rings films. Most of them, I didn’t like. But one addition I rather liked came at the start. Read more

Should you be familiar with German children’s literature, you would have encountered a curious character: the illusory giant (Scheinriese). In the works of Michael Ende, best known for his The Never-Ending Story, there is a fearsome giant called Herr Tur Tur. Read more

If your main exposure to economics is hearing bank economists talk on morning radio, you might not have the most accurate picture of what economists do. Trying to guess what interest rates might do, or telling stories about the latest moves in the stock market, are not really what economics is about. Read more