Mortgage rates would have been much higher under Brash policy

Had Don Brash been governor pursuing National's early 1990s annual inflation target of zero to 2%, mortgage interest rates would currently be up to one percentage point higher than they are, Progressive MP Matt Robson says.

"If Don Brash's and National's monetary policy was in force then floating home mortgages would now be above 10%.

"And instead of having one of the fastest growing economies in the world, we would instead have much slower growth and many more in welfare," Matt Robson said.

"The Reserve Bank would be permanently maintaining a higher interest rate structure to deliver National's artificially low inflation target year-in and year-out," Matt Robson said.

These days, the Reserve Bank aims to keep annual inflation within a range of 1% to 3% over economic cycles. The Reserve Bank has just reviewed interest rates for the last time this year and left the official cash rate unchanged at 6.5 percent.

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>