evnafets:

 

It is arguably partly the governments fault that it is affecting us this much, because it has been government policy that has been instrumental in making us dependent on the rest of the world. 

 

I don't know how old you are, but back in my day the government tried to make NZ more self sufficient in everything it could. We used to make* TVs, stereos and even cars in this country. It was great because we had jobs where we made stuff.

The bad part of all this was for the people who bought the stuff we made. Because we made stuff, the government made it really really hard to just import stuff and cut the stuff we made out of the market. That meant if it wasn't made in this country, it was really hard to buy it. People just got used to the fact that you couldn't easily get the latest stuff. After all, this was the old days and we all felt pretty good about wearing flares and having mullets.

I admit it was frustrating when you met someone who went overseas on holiday and brought back something way better (and cheaper) than was available locally.

Things were expensive compared to overseas too. I guess our little factories just couldn't compete with a massive one pumping out much more for a world market but at least we had jobs.

We could go back to a highly regulated economy but I'm not sure if you'd like all aspects of that.