Guest Post: The Reserve Bank Board
A guest post by a reader:
“The Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson, has just released one of his most important press releases of the year, perhaps even this term of Government. He has announced the new Board of the Reserve Bank effective 1 July 2022. The statutory remit of the Reserve Bank board is: “overall responsibility for our strategic direction, functions and operations, and ultimate accountability for the delivery of our outcomes.”
One of the most important Board’s in New Zealand and one might expect stacked with the best and brightest economics and financial people in New Zealand, and from our global diaspora. A mix of heavyweight academics at masters, preferably PhD, level in finance and economics with significant research experience in monetary policy or similar. And balanced against that would be business people with heavyweight real world experience in how economies work and how the Reserve Bank can execute its obligations so there’s an environment where businesses can thrive and help create wealth and prosperity for all New Zealanders: people who’ve who have demonstrated an executive ability to understand and drive the economy, not just get appointed to boards.
You be the judge of the four new appointments. Here they are, referencing their Reserve Bank profiles:
Jeremy Banks: BSc (Hons) in Computer Science from Otago University. Co- founder and CEO of Plink Software, a software company based in Nelson that produces a free te reo learning app, and similar. In 2019 Plink had 4 staff, but I expect its bigger now. A few minor governance roles.
Professor Rawinia Higgins: Deputy Vice Chancellor Maori at Victoria University with research expertise in Maori language revitalisation, She has a PhD from Otago University, but the subject isn’t disclosed. Based on the
disclosed undergraduate qualification and her current role, we can confidently exclude economics or finance.
Byron Pepper: LLb and Bachelor of Management Studies (Finance) from Waikato University. 22 years with Goldman Sachs in investment banking.
Hinerangi Raumati-Tu’ua: Masters in Management Studies (university not disclosed) and fellow of Chartered Accountants ANZ. Previous CFO of Tainui Group Holdings and lots of past governance roles in public, Maori and
resources sectors.
The continuing members are:
Prof Neil Quigley: Vice-Chancellor Waikato University. PhD from Toronto University (doesn’t say what in) but has research interests in industrial organisation, money and finance and economic history.
Susan Patterson: a pharmacist with an MBA from London Business School and lots of Government and mid-level board experience.
Rodger Finlay: BCA from Otago. An accountant with lots of Government, Maori related and mid-level board experience.
So there you have it, the seven people who the Minister of Finance believes have the collective wisdom and experience to oversee and guide our Reserve Bank. In summary:
Two accountants who’ve practiced at mid-size domestic entities.
A software developer running a small business in Nelson.
Two academics, one with expertise irrelevant to the core role of the Reserve Bank and the other with expertise peripherally relevant.
One ex-investment banker.
No-one with a PhD level qualification in a relevant discipline.
No-one with substantive treasury experience.
No-one with a senior commercial banking background.
No-one with senior executive experience (eg CEO or CFO) of a substantial international company, organisation or research entity, or even an NZX10 company like Spark or Fisher & Paykel Healthcare
At least three with a deep knowledge of Maori custom , knowledge and language.
An abundance of mid-level and Government governance roles.
Quite frankly, you couldn’t make this up if you tried.
DPF: I would slightly dispute the characterisation of Professor Quigley as only having peripherally relevant expertise as he in fact lectured me in monetary economics at Victoria University. But I agree with the concern expressed by the reader that the board is very light on people with expertise in monetary.
Response:
RE: YOUR ARTICLE HERE ABOUT THE ‘BOARD OF THE NZ RESERVE BANK’
The writer suggests that the ‘Board’ of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand controls the bank on behalf of the Government. Technically this is true and the bank is owned by the Crown. However, in reality, all the 60 odd reserve banks around the world are not at all controlled by their ‘Boards’ at all. They are directly controlled behind the scenes (including the United States Federal Reserve through the eight shareholders of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York) by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland, which in turn is controlled by the Bank of England.
From the time of William the Conqueror, after he brought French Jewish bankers from Rouen in Normandy to London around 1070 to reform the banking system in Britain, headed by Aaron of Lincoln – the Jews have controlled global banking largely ever since – (with a break between 1290 after the Edict of Expulsion until the time of Oliver Cromwell) who allowed European Jews to flood back into London and later New York.
During this time, the standard practice, to relieve the stupid Gentiles of most of their wealth and assets has been a very simple formula called ‘Economic Harvesting of the Goy (cattle)’. First, make credit easily available to borrow at super low interest rates to suck all the naive Gentiles in. Then create a war and use that as an excuse to increase taxes, tighten credit and rapidly increase interest rates. In Aaron of Lincoln’s case, 40 to 50% interest rates! In less than 50 years, using this basic banking strategy, he and his associates ended up owning almost all of England. Now, through the Bank of England’s control of the Bank of International Settlements program called THE BASEL FRAMEWORK they are doing this to the world!
https://www.bis.org/basel_framework/
All the 60 reserve banks around the world (including the New Zealand and Australian reserve banks) that are members of the BIS, must comply with these accords and framework which regulates their capital structure, credit, interest rates and so on. That is why there has been such widespread GLOBAL inflation caused by too rapid credit expansion and super low interest rates that have pushed up asset bubbles. What they are now doing is implementing the second stage of ‘Financial Harvesting’ – in creating a war (War against COVID, War against Climate Change, Ukraine, and soon-coming probably something much worse) to justify now urgently tightening credit and rapidly increasing world interest rates until the great mass of stupid Gentiles can’t service their huge, unsustainable debt obligations, this includes Central Governments, Local Governments, Companies, Corporations, farmers and homeowners – and presto! – a handful of central bankers will literally own the world. That is what is happening right now!
So my point is, whoever sits on the Board of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, in the end makes NO DIFFERENCE at all to what the bank eventually does. The Government can influence the bank’s decisions by pressurizing the bank and Treasury to sell more and more bonds to finance as they are out-of-control Government deficit spending (which the international bankers love because it gets everyone mort-gaged (French – ‘death bonded) to them even quicker) – but in the end of the day, it is the “King’s Jews” in Threadneedle Street who call the tune on everybody! How long they will get away with it is still open to conjecture, but by the level of ignorance pervading in this country at present, I hesitate to say they may succeed!