Mike's Minute: Our economy is an increasingly large hole

Right, let's deal to the economy.

There were two interesting things yesterday.

The first was the food price inflation number showed it is not contained.

Why it is increasing beyond broad inflation is a many and varied thing, and the upside of these numbers is we can control them to a degree.

Peter Williams: A Bold Economic Plan

Because news editors probably think it’s boring, the state of our economy and what to do about it doesn’t get as much airtime or column space as it should.

But two recent podcasts - one with former Finance Minister Ruth Richardson and the other with economics professor Rob MacCulloch – tell me this country is in a financial state worse than 1984, the year David Lange’s Fourth Labour government began their radical reshaping of the country’s economy.

Dr Bryce Wilkinson: Government's budget plan is lacklustre and possibly illegal

The New Zealand Treasury's latest forecasts and the Government's Budget Policy Statement (BPS) are disquieting. Public debt management looks lax and possibly illegal, government spending entrenches excess rather than tackles it, and productivity growth measures are welcome but piecemeal.

The BPS’s approach to managing public debt appears to fall short of legal requirements. The Public Finance Act sets the rules for how governments manage public money. One section requires each government to do two crucial things: determine what a "prudent" level of public debt should be and set out a clear timeline for achieving it.

Mike's Minute: Confidence in our economy is growing

The good news is confidence in our economy is improving.

It has been a decent week: farmers confidence is up and markedly, our confidence is up a bit —still overall pessimistic, but up nevertheless— and last week we saw business confidence rise a bit.

Then come the newest numbers, our current account.