Post
Jane Kelsey was making essentially the same point a decade ago in her 2015 book The FIRE Economy;
https://www.bwb.co.nz/books/the-fire-economy
FIRE here stands for Finance, Insurance and Real Estate. Kelsey argued that the vast majority of economic activity in post-Rogernomics Aotearoa consists of financing purchases people can't really afford, insuring the assets of those lucky enough to have any, and playing a game of Monopoly with the housing stock, and commercial property.
"Auckland University economist Robert MacCulloch has identified the country’s business leaders — particularly those at the helm of large, incumbent firms — as the real drag on New Zealand and the primary “source of our malaise”. His research presents a stunning picture of corporate failure that cannot be blamed on government policy or market headwinds."
#BryceEdwards, 2025
https://theintegrityinstitute.substack.com/p/integrity-briefing-are-business-leaders
"Such poor performance leads MacCulloch to ask a provocative and essential question: how is it possible that these executives are 'so incompetently useless they can’t make a buck even when they have no competition?'. He notes that it is difficult to find another developed country where multiple virtual monopolies are effectively 'run at a loss' in terms of shareholder value ..."
#BryceEdwards, 2025
https://theintegrityinstitute.substack.com/p/integrity-briefing-are-business-leaders
(1/2)
Worth noting that a lack of return on capital in publicly-owned industries, through the 1970s and early 80s, was the justification given by Rogernomes and Ruthenistas for corporatising them all. Imposing rigidly top-down managerialism, laying off huge numbers of workers, asset-stripping the resources that had been reserved for future development, and ultimately, selling a bunch of them off.
Now we see "private sector" monopolies doing just as badly, but without any public oversight. Hmm.
(2/2)
"Economist Cameron Bagrie puts it bluntly: after New Zealand’s bold pro-competition reforms of the 1980s, 'it feels like [we have] gone 360 degrees'. Many industries reconsolidated into powerful duopolies, oligopolies and cartels. Bagrie warns that 'Weak competition just inhibits innovation and drives complacency'. And that is exactly what we now face."
#BryceEdwards, 2025
https://theintegrityinstitute.substack.com/p/integrity-briefing-how-crony-capitalism
The myth of "pro-competition reforms" is as persistent as gorse in paddocks and just as unhelpful
If you ignore the smokescreen of "free market" justifications, and actually examine the details 1980s/90s policy changes, you can easily see how it sowed the seeds of the anti-competitive, corporate-domination that now dominates the NZ economy. This outcome was predicted by critics on the left at the time, and a case can be made that it was the goal all along.
"Ironically, the very parties that should be fixing New Zealand’s rigged markets are hampered by their own ideological blind spots and elite alignments. The result is a government that talks a big game about change, but in practice shrinks from challenging the powerful vested interests behind our dysfunctional economy."
#BryceEdwards, 2025
https://theintegrityinstitute.substack.com/p/integrity-briefing-nationals-crony
Edwards is describing the current coalition parties here, but he could just as easily be describing the 2017 Labour coalition.
A space for Bonfire maintainers and contributors to communicate
