Shamubeel Eaqub, economist and consultant with Sense Partners. Photo / Supplied
"We're very unsophisticated in the way we have these debates," says economist Shamubeel Eaqub, as he talks about the politics of inflation in New Zealand.
"It's black or white. A lot of economics is shades of grey.
"Here we're saying it's all because of central banks that we have this inflation," says Eaqub.
"About a third of it is coming from food and fuel. Is it really the case that because of the central bank policies that food and fuel went up? That's stupid, right?
"I think there is a lack of humility and a lack of uncertainty," he says. "The more time I've been an economist, the more I have realised that I know very little and that things are going to surprise me over and over again."
Our interview, for the Money Talks Podcast, is mostly about growing up and career choices and attitudes to money.
But it wouldn't be a decent chat with the high-profile economist if it didn't involve some frank observations about the current state of the economy.
Never short of an opinion, Eaqub is uniquely placed to put the chaos of capitalism's ebbs and flows into context.
Through the global financial crisis he was chief economist for Goldman Sachs NZ before changing gear and working for himself.
He is now with Wellington-based consultants Sense Partners.
Eaqub grew up in Bangladesh, then moved to Samoa where his dad had a teaching job.
His family arrived in New Zealand when he was 13 and they settled in Lincoln, near Christchurch.
"My family, we've been quite open about money," he says.
"When we moved to New Zealand in the 90s my dad was very clear, you've got to have your own bank account, your own card, your own money - so when you get a job you'll be able to look after all of that."
Settling into New Zealand life wasn't difficult at all, Eaqub says.
"It was really fun, I really loved living in Lincoln, I had an amazing bunch of mates. It was a quiet place but it was very multicultural because of the university."
He recalls the tough economy of the time.
"It was the early 90s and there was a lot of tension, we'd been through the [economic] reforms, things were very uncertain, the currency was very weak.
"Certainly from a family perspective, moving here, we were moving money into the country to buy a home, so it was: what are interest rates going to do?
"My memories as a 13-year-old are limited, but when I look back at the data I see that it was really an interesting period for New Zealand."
Eaqub acknowledges that many New Zealanders of a certain age were scarred by almost two decades of inflation from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s.
"That was their lived reality. That period was extraordinarily frightening. Inflation was extremely embedded and was really hard to stamp out.
"So I don't think we should diminish their lived experience ... when inflation gets out of control it becomes embedded in a society and economy.
"But at the same time, New Zealand is not what it was. We have labour markets that are extraordinarily flexible, we have wage setting that is extremely individualised. We have seen the relationship between wages and unemployment broken down."
The fears of the 1980s and 90s experience might not be appropriate for this age, he says.
"I think it's important that when we talk about this stuff that there is a discount for age because there are a whole lot of old guys saying old-guy stuff and it may not be relevant for today."
Of course, Eaqub is old enough to have been in the thick of this century's biggest financial crash and economic downturn, working at Goldman Sachs through the peak of the GFC.
"Being in an investment bank during a global financial crisis was extraordinarily interesting," he says.
"We got to see all the thinking that was going on and the explanations that were being put forward about how the GFC unfolded, what the linkages were, what the spread would be."
The thing is to be around the people involved, he says.
That's been the appeal of consultancy, getting around the country and working with different businesses in different sectors.
Eaqub did economics at school but his main focus then was maths and science.
It wasn't until he went to Lincoln University that the passion for economics grabbed him.
"I had a lecturer, Bert Ward, who was really amazing, an inspiration, and got us interested in data and models.
"It wasn't just the theory. It's not just something in textbooks. The beauty of economics is that it's actually about people and society."
Sometimes we lose that, he says.
"We think it's all about business, sort of, but business is made up of people and is for people by people.
"And so is the economy. Having that grounding and ability to see that is quite powerful."
Eaqub graduated in 2001, at a time when the reforms of the 1980s had been settled into policy.
"We were figuring out if they were working," he says.
There were always question marks. "Those questions were being asked from the beginning."
Eaqub sees economics as deeply political.
"Sometimes we miss that in the way that economics is taught and talked about," he says.
"We like to think that somehow it's separate. The boundaries, the rules, the incentives we have in the economy are quite often decided through the systems of politics. So politics is absolutely integrated into the economics."
Eaqub's poorest time was his student days, when spare money mostly went on beer.
He isn't particularly extravagant with his spending but he does believe money should be about more than the necessities - that we should try to enjoy things even if they are small indulgences.
When he got his first professional job, he made a habit of buying a coffee every morning and allowing himself some quiet time to drink it by himself.
"My first job was at StatsNZ. I moved to Wellington at 20 and it was wonderful."
He moved on to work for the ANZ here and then in Melbourne before joining Goldman.
"I don't think I was actively looking for more money in my jobs," he says now. "It was about the opportunity to learn to do something different.
"In my mind work is very important and we spend so much time doing it. It should be interesting, and interesting people."
Leaving the hard-edged world of investment banking wasn't a rejection of that world, he says.
"I loved it. It was a hard working environment. But there was something about being in that pressure cooker that was fabulous," he says.
"But also, it means you don't have time to do these other things that are also important. The reasons were very personal. Selena and I had just gotten married and we wanted to spend more time with each other."
In the past decade Eaqub's media profile has grown and grown.
"It's not a deliberate decision to be in the media," he says. "In most cases the media comes to me."
Eaqub has also adopted a more socially conscious approach to his economics in the past few years.
"Totally," he says. "Because I started my career as a macro [economist] - you didn't see any individuals. You saw the totals and the averages and the aggregates.
"I think as you grow older you have a greater sense of appreciation of diversity and the differences of outcomes and consequences.
"But also the lesson of having actually lived through a recession and seeing the human cost of the changes in the economy."
In the past decade or so he has spent more time visiting communities and engaging with different organisations, he says.
"It has given me a much better depth of understanding that there is real poverty in New Zealand. If you just look at the averages you wouldn't think so. There is real poverty, material hardship and deprivation."
So why is it that some people are destined to be wealthy while others never will be?
"A lot of it is around luck," says Eaqub. "If you're lucky enough to be born in a particular time and place and particular family ... more often that is the biggest predictor of where you'll go in life."
But it's also because of the choices we make as a society around education, welfare, access to jobs and amenities, he says.
"Success is not the same for everyone. It is very easy to be materialistic as an economist and say that if you earn this many dollars you're successful, but if you earn this many you're not."
Eaqub believes we should invest more in addressing inequality.
"The big thing that we could do with poverty is around having sufficient taxes to fund our social services properly," he says.
"We have pretty good safety nets but they are mean and stingy and the reason for that is we don't raise enough tax for our welfare system to do what it is designed to do.
"I don't think things are fundamentally broken in New Zealand. I live in this country and love this country because it has so much potential and life is good for so many," he says.
"But we also know that is not the case for some. I don't think the fixes are nearly as fundamental and structural as people think.
"I feel so optimistic when I go around the country because there are so many good things happening. But if we could put the safety net a little bit higher, a little bit broader, a little bit kinder, I believe we could do things better."
• Money Talks is a podcast run by the NZ Herald. It isn't about personal finance and isn't about economics - it's just well-known New Zealanders talking about money and sharing some stories about the impact it's had on their lives and how it has shaped them.
• Money Talks is available on IHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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