September | 2025 | croaking cassandra
10 posts published by Michael Reddell during September 2025| croaking cassandra
10 posts published by Michael Reddell during September 2025| croaking cassandra
We were away for a month and it has taken time to work through the backlog that inevitably builds up over such a mid-year absence. In the meantime, a fair bit more detail has emerged about the Orr/Quigley/Willis saga, between various OIA responses to me, one I’ve seen to another person, a bit more on … Continue reading RB still defending a series of costly mistakes| croaking cassandra
A couple of weeks ago the editor of Central Banking magazine (something of an house journal for central bankers, and for whom I’ve done book reviews for some years) invited me to write a fairly full article for a non-NZ audience on the extraordinary events of recent months. The request/invitation was for a piece along … Continue reading Article for Central Banking magazine on Orr/Quigley/Willis saga, and lessons| croaking cassandra
A couple of nights ago, shortly after the Minister and Treasury finally released the suite of texts between Willis and Rennie, ZB featured interviewer Heather du Plessis-Allan talking to Herald journalist Jenee Tibshraeny (who has been over the Orr/Quigley/Willis saga issue from day one). There wasn’t anything concrete that was new in the conversation but … Continue reading Outstanding questions| croaking cassandra
Peter Nicholl was the Reserve Bank’s chief economist back when I joined the Bank and later oversaw (from the Bank’s side) the entire overhaul of the Reserve Bank Act in the late 1980s that culminated in the model that governed the Bank for decades (and more recent changes are mostly in the nature of refinements). … Continue reading A former Deputy Governor on the RB shambles| croaking cassandra
Yes, Orr/Quigley/Willis again. For everyone’s sake now – well, perhaps except her own – one can only wish that the Minister of Finance would finally decide, more than six months on, to make a full and complete disclosure of what actually went on around the exit of Orr and the aftermath. Instead, the snippet by … Continue reading Tangled webs| croaking cassandra
It isn’t impossible that you, readers, are getting tired of the still-unfolding Orr/Quigley/Willis saga. You wouldn’t be alone in that. I have many more intrinsically interesting things to do (spent yesterday writing a review of new academic history of US banking supervision from 1798 to 1980, and am reading a history of little-known sovereign borrowing … Continue reading Another snippet| croaking cassandra
It was six months ago this afternoon that the resignation of the Governor of the Reserve Bank was announced, and with it the tangled and ongoing web of deception and obstruction. I wasn’t planning to write anything today, but information continues to seep out – occasionally proactively, sometimes involuntarily, and sometimes (apparently) through journalists’ sources. … Continue reading Six months today| croaking cassandra
I think my post yesterday made a pretty conclusive case that the Minister of Finance had been fully part of the choice to deliberately mislead New Zealanders about what went on with the resignation of Adrian Orr. It might, initially, have been a fairly passive involvement re the proposed comms lines – when she, as … Continue reading Willis and the Reserve Bank Board and Governor| croaking cassandra
I had an OIA response yesterday from the Reserve Bank. There is more obstructionism, so a letter will be going off to the Ombudsman this morning, but there was also some interesting information released. A while ago the Bank’s Board started publishing proactively minutes (carefully crafted ones) of its meetings. It seemed like (and was) … Continue reading One more bit in the timeline| croaking cassandra
That was the Minister of Finance’s chief press secretary responding on behalf of the Minister to an inquiry from Stuff journalists shortly after Neil Quigley’s ill-starred press confere…| croaking cassandra
Economics, public policy, monetary policy, financial regulation, with a New Zealand perspective| croaking cassandra
It is sometimes hard to tell when Reserve Bank actions are concerted, when somewhat chaotic, and quite what mix applies in any particular case. Earlier this week I wrote about MPC member Peter Harr…| croaking cassandra
Regular readers will recall that since June I’ve been on the trail of events surrounding the appointment of Rodger Finlay as, first, a “transitional board” member (attending actua…| croaking cassandra
6 posts published by Michael Reddell during December 2022| croaking cassandra
There is increasing attention being paid (among a certain class of nerdy central bank watcher) to the scale of the losses to the taxpayer central banks have run up as a result of their large-scale …| croaking cassandra
For just over six months now I’ve been on the trail of questionable appointments to the new Reserve Bank Board. Most of the Board members aren’t really fit for office in anything other …| croaking cassandra
Since taking office, the new government has replaced quite a number of chairs of government entities. I’m sure there are many others but NZTA, Health NZ, Pharmac, and the FMA are just the exa…| croaking cassandra
