Afternoon roundup

A much belated closing of the browser tabs brings the following worthies:

• Jenny Ruth goes through advice MBIE commissioned on the RBNZ's capital adequacy proposals of last year. The advice sounds a lot like what we at the Initiative were saying, and for which we were castigated by the RBNZ Governor as having been in the pockets of the Big Banks or some such nonsense. 


• Winston Peters is keen on a more state-by-state approach to a Trans-Tasman bubble. That isn't at all crazy: they have internal quarantine restrictions on mobility across states because of those differences, and some states remain rather risky. But what is absolutely nuts is that they're not opening the border to COVID-free Pacific Islands until they've sorted out the Trans-Tasman deal. There's no reason to link the two. 


• Helen Clark agrees: NZ should re-open its borders with COVID-free Pacific Islands. It's just incredible that the government maintains it has a kindness-based approach while failing to fix this. 

  Can't see problem with NZ & #COVID19 #Pacific states forming travel bubble now to boost those Pacific economies. My development experience tells me that a hand up in that way now is far more beneficial than having to rush to support of heavily debt-distressed nations later.

  — Helen Clark (@HelenClarkNZ) June 10, 2020

   
• The government's whole approach on quarantine is backward. Rather than renting spaces for up to 250 arrivals per day, and then rationing those by the economic worthiness of those coming in from risky places, it should allow entry by anyone with a booking in an authorised quarantine facility. Then supply can rise to meet demand under a user-pays framework. It's just so painfully backwards and costly. And because they're focused on just how economically important it is to subsidise new Avatar movies, safety can slip. Under a safety standard, the Avatar worker who broke protocol would be deported immediately. It wouldn't take many deportations to encourage better behaviour. But because "Oh, Avatar is so very very important and Minister Twyford said that Avatar is so very very important", well, there just can't be consequences under that backward framework right? 


• The Police Commissioner rules out bringing back Armed Response Teams. Good. 


• And hoorah for Trade Minister Parker in excoriating EU protectionism. See also Politik.


• New Zealand's sperm and egg shortage: price ceilings do have their consequences. This is hardly a new problem. It is utterly predictable. Everyone else involved in fertility treatments are compensated for their time and efforts in ways that allow markets to clear. But not donors. And so we have what we have. 


• The Institute for Humane Studies is running their summer seminars this year online, and open access. If you're a student in economics, politics, philosophy, history - and you feel like you've been missing out on really important things that should have been in the curriculum but weren't - you absolutely should be attending. The one I attended in the summer of 1997 was mindblowing. I went from thinking I was the only person who thought like me to seeing the tradition of scholarship in those lines - I just cannot recommend it strongly enough. Attend! They're free!


• George Selgin knows a lot about history. Here's the Fed's attempt at lending to business during the Great Depression.