Ireland? What about New Zealand?

[aprilia_RS250]

NZ won't be fucked. It has felt economic pain but not to the extent western Europe and the US have. Fundamentals that portray this are a small population, bundled with good resources (eg meat and wood) which are inelastic goods and exported with varying free trade economies. Import of electronics is cheap (ex Japan which has experienced major deflation + added benefit of a high NZD). Debt is debt, and many people do not understand debt and are frightened of it. Put it simply, debt is cheap, interest rates are low, why not borrow to induce investment in infrastructure (exactly what Key has been doing).

As long as you don't have the idiots from Labour, Greens, Alliance etc running this country consider your self safe. Anyone who worries more about the unskilled and unmotivated class of people in this country vs the man who starts up his business and creates real work, jobs and pays taxes doesn't get a tick in my book!

A worse disaster would be if some virus, disease affected our exports majorly. E.g. foot and mouth. I'd say we would be in BIG BIG trouble. Imagine your house devalues to 20% of it's current value overnight, NZD slumps to 0.05, international sanctions on NZ...

[Winston001]

Be calm. Take deep breaths everyone. The sky is not falling.

We are experiencing an economic recession which happens in cycles and is predictable. That is no comfort to the many people hurt. Nevertheless it is normal and not the end of civilisation.

In fact, despite recessions/depressions etc since the 17th century, technology has continued to advance and the wealth of the individual to expand. It might not feel like that for everyone, and certainly there are groups/places which have diminished in wealth for a period but overall the advantages available to the average human grows with every generation.

[Winston001]

......

debt allows us to have that big screen tv , or that new motorbike ,,,,or an Education

it also enslaves people and in one way i am happy to hear that man speak , as Ive been banging on about the same thing since the late eighties


but the selling of state assets will not be any good for anyone , no matter WHAT , ..you increase the size of the farm to export more..... then how will the run off be managed ,,the water needed to sustain these increased yields ????....

Good post and I particularly liked the William Blake quip.

Ok, debt is common throughout history. In fact its essential to an economy. Debt is the temporary transfer of wealth from the saver to the spender. If nobody borrowed, savings wouldn't earn any interest. If nobody lent, there would be few businesses and homes.

Where debt comes unstuck is when "prudent" lending rules are ignored. It used to be that only a few people took on high risk debt, sometimes being successful, and sometimes not. But lately consumers in OECD nations have all become significant borrowers with no safety net........and the day of reckoning arrived.

As for increasing the size of a farm - that's an illusion. It is merely buying the farm next door. No more land is created.

As for selling state assets: I'm half with you on this one. There are certain key assets which I think make more sense to be owned by the state eg. electricity.

[Brian d marge]

Good post and I particularly liked the William Blake quip.

Thank you ! I have more !

Ok, debt is common throughout history. In fact its essential to an economy. Debt is the temporary transfer of wealth from the saver to the spender. If nobody borrowed, savings wouldn't earn any interest. If nobody lent, there would be few businesses and homes.

true as with any product, a profit needs to be generated , but with the fractional reserve , money is being lent on money that really doesn't exist , then by manipulating the debt , organizations who do not have the common mans interest at heart use the debt to profit from and out off the perceived financial woes

As I pointed out in an earlier post , the explosion of credit from early seventies has benefited only a few ( and not new Zealand )

Where debt comes unstuck is when "prudent" lending rules are ignored. It used to be that only a few people took on high risk debt, sometimes being successful, and sometimes not. But lately consumers in OECD nations have all become significant borrowers with no safety net........and the day of reckoning arrived.

See above

As for increasing the size of a farm - that's an illusion. It is merely buying the farm next door. No more land is created.


sorry my bad I meant to say the increased production of the land , as the need for profit increases

As for selling state assets: I'm half with you on this one. There are certain key assets which I think make more sense to be owned by the state eg. electricity.

All utilities that are essential should be in the hands of the people that need them , agreed on this !

[avgas]

A worse disaster would be if some virus, disease affected our exports majorly. E.g. foot and mouth. I'd say we would be in BIG BIG trouble. Imagine your house devalues to 20% of it's current value overnight, NZD slumps to 0.05, international sanctions on NZ...

Nah we will be fine.....
Truth be told - we seem to fuck this up every 10 years or so. So how we keep standing is everyone guess.
I put it down that for the same reason people have contradicting ideas - the NZ economy floats. Some invest more here, others there.....
We never make any progress - as we assume meat is the biggest export. But likewise we never fuck it up when said "stable economies" collapse in on their selves.
Classic case is the kiwifruit industry. This is the third time in 20 years the KF board have fucked it up on such a major level. Did the dollar waver? Nope? because we were all looking elsewhere.
Yet when Aussie announce that steel prices have dropped - the whole economy goes into recession.