I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
Third in my Christmas read stack was Richard Prebble’s ‘Out of the Red’ which covered the privatisation of New Zealand 20 years ago.
I like NZ Political reads. This vintage of politicians has a great sense of humour and as you know some of the characters and can remember events they are a good read. Like most of maddogs books it can be consumed in a couple of sessions.
I found the suggestion that applying some fairly basic management techniques turned the SOE model around a bit simplistic but there were some useful business culture lessons in there that make it worthwhile and sharpened up my thoughts.
I especially liked this tidbit …
… watch the cash. A clever accountant can, for a period, get the books to say almost anything. What he can’t do is create cash.
I sounds like we got really close to a Flat Tax under Lange. The idea of a flat tax rate really appears to my limited understanding of economics and sense of fairness.
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