According to Martin Feldstein (hat tip Greg Mankiw): “Even if the Fed decides that it should not cut rates further at the present time, it would not raise rates to offset the stimulus effect of the fiscal change. From the Fed’s point of view, the tax cuts can provide a desirable short-run stimulus without the […]
The December quarter monetary policy statement was released today. Alongside this they announced that the OCR would remain unchanged, as they believe “current level of the OCR remains consistent with future inflation outcomes of 1 to 3 percent on average over the medium term”. This times they give the feeling that tax cuts are incorporated […]
The Reserve Bank of Australia kept their target cash rate on hold yesterday. In a push to increase transparency, they now release a statement with every decisions, which is awesome. Yesterday’s statement was relatively neutral, however as my esteemed colleague CPW says, there is nothing to compare it too so its hard to tell exactly […]
So the High Courts documents on the Warehouse merger ruling have been released. After skimming a couple of things I thought I would say something, then when I’ve actually read the document I can join in the criticism of it 🙂 It seems that the High Court overturned the Commerce Commissions decision as it felt […]
Following the discuss on lower GST for healthy foods I feel it is appropriate to discuss the other side of the coin, a tax on inherently unhealthy food, a fat tax. You know the type of foods I’m talking about, chocolate bars, chips, V’s (I can see all this on my desk, looks like this […]
Over at Kiwiblog, Mr Farrar noticed a newspaper article on removing the GST tax from fruit and veg. I agree with him on both his points, 1) that the response of consumers to a 12.5% reduction in the price of fruit and veg will likely be small (items that only take up a small part […]