I cannot believe I'm posting a link to the "famous" song by Merle Hazard about the "dual mandate" of "price stability" and "maximum sustainable employment" given to Central Banks now that National wants to return to a "single mandate" focussing solely on price stability. The reason is that I posted this same video when Labour changed the law in the opposite direction five years ago. Newshub say the new coalition is not acting in line with Treasury advice, but if you listen to Merle, he says its "awfully hard" to implement the dual mandate. His song explains why the NZ Treasury's "advice" to our incoming government is wrong - Treasury claims there's no problem implementing the dual mandate since the two objectives of low inflation and high employment are almost always "aligned". However, according to Merle, its "harder than you'll ever know". Maybe in three years time I will post the video again when Labour change it back again. Its worth watching, if only to remind us how sad the debate has become:
rmacculloch