NZ's business culture is very different from that of the US (which that FT article from the weekend was about). IMO, it's much more scelrotic and makes Australia's old boy's club look dynamic.
I read it this weekend. It was dumb then, and it's dumb now. Correlation does not imply causation - this is taught in the first week of high school statistics.
The significant amount of superfund sites also confounds with mass industry, which can make the epigenetic theory moot.
I recall these predictions 10-15 years ago. Since then, for all the advantages every other country had compared to the China, the other BRICS have gone nowhere relatively speaking.
Obviously every central bank in the world, and certainly every BRICS central bank can and does print money. 08, numerous EM crisis, COVID etc. Not like people are shy about it.
As for "fudging some numbers" - economic data is all surveys and samples. Methodologies are "revised" regularly ostensibly to "better capture the reality". You have the subtle ones like inflation baskets (CPI), and survey for manufacturing or services (PMI) and the less subtle ones like 2015 India redoing their GDP methodology and finding an extra 1.5% a year down the back of the sofa.
It doesn't exactly take a deep dive into the field to see it is not limited to BRICS either.
