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Why isn’t New Zealand richer and more productive?

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Re: Why isn’t New Zealand richer and more productive?

#111

Post by sophacles »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #73
thesimpsons1022 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the other person is wrong, the poor are definitely hated in america. they are villianized as lazy welfare queens. remember the 47 percent thing with Romney? turn on fox news for 10 minutes, John Stossel even villianizes the homeless. they also try to get rid of school lunches/food assistance for the poor.

Be careful with the dissonance between the television narrative and reality.

Be careful with the dissonance between your social circle and "everyone".

(In this case for instance - living in the midwest puts me into contact with a very large number of people who's beliefs align nearly perfectly with the television narrative).

Re: Why isn’t New Zealand richer and more productive?

#112

Post by rudin »

Compared to Australia, New Zealand has a significant Maori / Polynesian population. If you combine a part of Australia with a part of Fiji, you would get similar mix of people and also a similar economic output to New Zealand. While this obviously doesn't explain all of it, it is important to consider the historical and demographics reasons as well.

Re: Why isn’t New Zealand richer and more productive?

#113

Post by demallien »

gibrown wrote: post #51
cylinder wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone is a bit more ambitious but still wants a mix of the aforementioned lifestyle I would recommend Australia. Much bigger population and resources and better opportunities than NZ with a good safety net that doesn't cost the government much and doesn't suffer rampant abuse. I wouldn't recommend NZ for an American, except for perhaps retirement; it would just be too tough, the isolation and small pop. would be…

I lived in NZ (mostly Christchurch) for about a year, and I think your characterization is way too general. NZ has a similar population to Colorado (where I now live) and a similar land area. It is far away from where my family lives (and hence I am not still there), but "crushing" "isolation" it is not. Kiwis are some of the warmest folks I have ever met. When my wife and I arrived at the airport our friends had for…

You're selling the US short. When I was there last year, I was passing through Gettysburg, and stopped to get something to eat. You might expect a town like Gettysburg to be really over tourists, but whilst I was trying to figure out how to make a parking meter work, the first random stranger walking past offered first to give me done change, because he thought that was the problem, and then once I had explained that I was a clueless Aussie who couldn't figure out how to make the damn thing work, showed me what I was doing wrong.

Or when I was in a small town in Virginia with a friend, we were in a shop, and discussing whether the museum there would be open the next day. The shop assistant overheard and offered to call them for us. Even people in DC were wonderfully polite and friendly! So much so that I'm heading back for another holiday in a couple of weeks time.

Re: Why isn’t New Zealand richer and more productive?

#114

Post by vacri »

Varcht wrote: post #48
cryoshon wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the related phenomenon that in the US, the rich are in the spotlight of society and the poor are decidedly disliked.

I would disagree that "poor are decidedly disliked" here as a rule. There are plenty of "poor" that are accepted, liked and even esteemed. Think of the starving artists, musicians, olympic athletes, working class poor, the startup set, etc. There is dislike for the poor that resort to crime, thuggery, drugs etc. At least this is how I see it from my middle class perspective.

The fact that you characterise the artists as starving pretty much suggests that people dislike their work. That it isn't valued.

Re: Why isn’t New Zealand richer and more productive?

#115

Post by vacri »

crb wrote: post #52

Living in NZ is, by and large, a lifestyle choice for smart, capable New Zealanders. It's trivial to work in Australia [1], reasonably easy [2] to work in the UK, and NZers have a good enough reputation to go to any other majority English-speaking country with little trouble. Because the country is so small - and generally without a class system - it's possible, on a relatively small income, to have everything you mi…

Claiming benefits is no longer automatic for NZ citizens in Australia. It was stopped over a decade ago, with the Australian pollies happy because of the reduced welfare load, and the NZ pollies happy because of the reduced exflux of young adults.

Re: Why isn’t New Zealand richer and more productive?

#116

Post by seanmcdirmid »

zo1 wrote: post #92
HarryHirsch wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and those who realize they have enough ignore the rich If you only could. The problem is that in the US a great portion of taxes are locally raised and spent, and the way of dealing with poverty is to price the poor out of areas where they aren't wanted. To get access to halfway decent schools you need to move to the suburbs, and what's available there in housing is hugely outsized. You cannot save on heating, coolin…

"Locally raised and spent" If only. That would be a great form of funding community governance. Where local communities help themselves up, instead of practically begging for scraps from a wealthy government that really doesn't care until it gets them votes. Change has to come from within. And it won't come so long as people think like you. i.e. "Change can come when funding comes from better places" Which completely…

Property taxes are very regressive in the sense that rich people typically live with other rich people. Ghettos and shanty towns are a direct result of thinking such as yours.

Re: Why isn’t New Zealand richer and more productive?

#117

Post by vacri »

tezza wrote: post #41

Although I'm an Australian, I was born in South Africa, and so was rather surprised to find that there is a standing joke in Oz: How does a Kiwi get a small business?, you give them a large business. That's just a cruel joke and yet another data point in why Kiwis (rightly) think Aussies are pricks to them. From my personal anecdotal experience of NZ: * they have a much more laid back attitude * many of the hard work…

That's just a cruel joke and yet another data point in why Kiwis (rightly) think Aussies are pricks to them.

You may have missed that it's actually friendly sibling rivalry between the two. Most of the kiwis I've known make their own comedic jabs at Australia. It's all in good fun.

the government takes big stands on things ... No American nuclear ships allowed to dock there

This really isn't that big a stand. If NZ was where Borneo is, I doubt they'd have made that stand. NZ has effectively zero military needs due to its isolation. The closest potential threat to NZ is Indonesia, which is a quarter of the planet away. Not that Indonesia has any such desire, but Australia and PNG don't have the amount of armed forces required for an occupation, and the small islander nations just don't have enough people (with a few living off NZ aid in the first place).

Re: Why isn’t New Zealand richer and more productive?

#118

Post by levosmetalo »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #106
cowsandmilk wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you are so off-base The point of the post is that NZL has 20% below OECD average GDP per capita, when it would be predicted for them to be 20% above. The key figure is Figure 3 from http://www.productivity.govt.nz/sites/default/files/internat... In that, you can see NZL at the far bottom right. On the other hand, Norway, Sweden, and Finland are all above the line, meaning they have higher GDP per capita than…

On the other hand, Norway, Sweden, and Finland are all above the line, meaning they have higher GDP per capita than predicted. The only nordic country below the line is Denmark, and they are barely below the line. Oil revenues make such comparisons tricky at best. You would need to consider the hypothetical case of a New Zealand with lots of oil to sell, or a Norway without any.

How exactly Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland benefit anything from oil? It's only Norway that has significant oil reserves, and all other have none.

Re: Why isn’t New Zealand richer and more productive?

#119

Post by vacri »

reshambabble wrote: post #76

Singapore is also a tiny island with a limited population that has to import most everything. Over 40 years they've somehow created a culture of hard-working over-achievers and have one of the highest GDPs per capita in the world (they're currently #3). Being dependent on imported goods doesn't seem to be much of a problem here, so perhaps the secret lies in their carefully planned cultural shift. (But if it were me,…

Singapore is on every shipping lane between east Asia and every location west of East Asia until you hit the far end of Europe and Africa. You effectively have to specifically go out of your way to avoid it.

New Zealand is so isolated that there's an entire continent between them and "through traffic" shipping lanes.

Re: Why isn’t New Zealand richer and more productive?

#120

Post by thesimpsons1022 »

zo1 wrote: post #91
thesimpsons1022 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the other person is wrong, the poor are definitely hated in america. they are villianized as lazy welfare queens. remember the 47 percent thing with Romney? turn on fox news for 10 minutes, John Stossel even villianizes the homeless. they also try to get rid of school lunches/food assistance for the poor.

That's the media for you, and not necessarily "Fox" or whatever x-wing group you seem to dislike. Fox news is only seen as "bad" because it doesn't exaggerate reality to the side that the majority like. The other news media outlets do the exact same thing, just towards the other side of the narrative. Both sides of the media play on peoples' emotions. The real question is: are you intellectually honest enough to ente…

what’s your point? everyone knows this. Who said I dismissed them because they were from those sources? use logic just for one second. The original person that the poor aren't looked down upon, and i responded by listing people/shows that look down on poor people. What the hell does that have to do with judging a point by its source? its a totally different subject. I agree with you, judge the logic, not the source. That's why I disagree that only women or minorities can have an opinion about issues concerning them.
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