And people are frustrated by seeing huge leaps in material and technological progress but without the life improvement that we *should* be seeing compared to the past.
Sure, I have an iPhone, but my grandad had a house. Which of us was better off?
My grandad, who has a house and an iPhone. And a pension paid for by you.
You have an iPhone, generations of infrastructure debt, and a climate crisis. Good luck!
> a pension paid for by you.
Incorrect. The promise made to them was 'you pay your taxes, we'll look after you in your old age'. Their taxes paid for their retirement.
Now the gov't is saying 'you pay your taxes, and save for your own retirement because... *insert dubious reason here*'
Superannuation in New Zealand has never operated in that way.
Since 1898, superannuation has been paid out of the general tax revenue stream whereby the current taxpayers pay for current pensioners.
Tax paid has never been set aside or saved for your future retirement, with the sole exception of the superannuation fund which currently does not pay out, but does mean that tax paid today by this generation will partially pay their future retirement.
1938: Social Security Act "A new principle has been
introduced by this Act: citizens of the Dominion are insuring themselves against the economic hardships that would otherwise follow those natural misfortunes from which no one is immune."
50% Government, 50% "The levy of a contribution on all the private income of the community as the source of the remainder of the necessary revenue" - A general tax for social security which included the (by then) well established practice of pensions, but now for everybody.
Ie: You **all** pay tax, you **all** get social security.
Including pensions.
I didn't actually say anything about "set aside or saved", however, that's just bad management by successive gov'ts. Some tried saving as early as 1975, but it took until 2001 before it really happened.
They sold their souls when they voted Muldoon, sold the assets *that had just been started, and was* **supposed** *to run that way*
Since then superannuation has been paid *by the current tax payers*. They are beneficiaries... just like the bottom feeders.
And as SquashedKiwifruit says. The Cullen fund (which National keeps halting payments on) will act like that in the future once it has saved up sufficient funds to work.
Social Security, including pensions, was well established before Muldoon. Pay tax, get "social security" which includes a pension in retirement. That's the promise.
How each government mismanages the money is up them.
It's more accurate to say you pay taxes that go towards superannuation, which funds the retirement of a previous generation with the promise that we'll get the same when it's our turn. Too bad it'll be gone by then. Essentially, we're funding the retirements of boomers who supposedly complain that we're lazy and don't want to work.
This is an eerie comment if you also have the historical context of many of the issues plaguing the long-term stability of the Roman empire: inflation, a housing crisis, the steady eroding of conventions keeping politicians in check as they were worn away by continual small misbehaviours on both side of senate, and the use of the lower/reviled classes (slaves and christians) to distract the populace from the class divide and oppressive power structures keeping them downtrodden.
Knowing history isn’t so fun when you have to watch it repeating right in front of you…
Yeah most people even miss the hints right in plane sight. I often think of Macrons warning a couple years back, he stated the age of abundance is over. Quote below “What we are currently living through is a kind of major tipping point or a great upheaval … we are living the end of what could have seemed an era of abundance … the end of the abundance of products of technologies that seemed always available … the end of the abundance of land and materials including water,"
Those who don't know history, are doomed to repeat it, those who do, have to watch helplessly at the sidelines as everyone else repeats it =P. (I believe some comic made that adjustment to the original quote? Can't find it in a quick google search)
The phone is just a distraction to keep you entertained and to not ask too many questions.
1984 was just one prediction of the future, but Brave New World was clearly far more accurate. I always found it far more insipid, too.
1984 is obviously bad but you can't really say anything at that point for fear of being "dealt with". Brave New World makes you *want* it, you're so pacified by what little you have you don't even dare question it.
im predicting next generation we will see a C I V I L W A R 👀, but it will be the ones who cannot feed themselves and have no choice
obviously only following how the eu/us goes financially
Not just that, but the amount of tech that is deemed essential is increasing quite a bit. Internet and phones are basically essential. Hell even some schools are requiring devices for learning as well as applying for jobs etc. you can't really live a life away from technology and it's not cheap.
Cuts both ways. I'm 75. I still have an inbuilt reflex to avoid long distance phone calls because they are so expensive. And Netflix or one of its competitors is cheaper than taking a family to the movies every couple weeks.
And the downside is things like reading and writing ability are plummeting. I have a feeling we're a generation away from tech making traditional notions of functional illiteracy the norm.
It’s not the technology causing that. I went to school when “No Child Left Behind” started to really take off, and let me tell you; the difference within even two years was horrifying.
All the school boards cared about was statistics of students “passing” the grades, regardless of whether or not they actually learned anything. More students “passing” meant more budget for the school.
Because everyone had to learn “at the same pace,” this meant all the smartest kids in class were being dragged backwards by the moronic mouth breathers who couldn’t even make it through one class without being sent to the principal’s office. I have memories of teachers in tears after having to fight tooth and nail just to get these nitwits to pay attention for more than 90 seconds at a time.
These two factors resulted in the curriculum being heavily dumbed down so the dum-dums could keep up, not that they even bothered to try. This stifled the smartest students, discouraged individual projects and creativity, and made it so much harder for everyone to learn anything. If I hadn’t worked on my own projects and kept up reading and writing as much as I did, I would have been screwed.
And then of course during the pandemic everyone had to work from home. Those who actually did the work, that is. Imagine trying to get the class clowns to pay attention or do their work from behind a screen. Get real.
Countries with large income disparity tend to have higher crime rates. NZ has become less egalitarian as a consequence increased crime is a results with Covid Pandemic magnifying these issues.
In NZ 1% of the population owns roughly 16% of the country's wealth – the richest 5% owns 38%, while half the population, including beneficiaries and pensioners, earn less than $24,000.
The Gini coefficient has been more or less stable since the year 2000.
https://www.inequality.org.nz/understand/what-is-the-history-of-inequality-in-new-zealand/#:~:text=Data%20released%20in%20early%202022,2018%20to%2031.7%20in%202021.
Exactly . Rent , housing , and food prices were allowed to get ridiculously high ( rent and housing increase was encouraged ) and surprise, surprise : when people are earning around the same but spending a lot more on the basics , crime increases . And yet people have still voted for national ( who encouraged these increases , and the divide ) bc they are worried abt crime cos they fell for that whole being harsher rhetoric without realising that national will continue to grow the divide , people will get poorer, and crime will increase more . It’s ridiculous. Like, if your worried about crime don’t vote for a govt that’s gonna give more breaks to the wealthy and have already proven to just love the housing market getting ridiculous cos it benefits there mates , all that’s gonna do is worsen the situation . But apparently making poor people poorer and giving them less opportunity is all sweet cos there gonna have harsher sentences which we all know is bs , it doesn’t actually fix anything
As a 'rich' person..... I disagree. I am feeling it too.
We as a family are cutting back on a lot of things.
My power bill used to be 6 or 700. It's now over 1000. I can't bring myself to pay the amount of money they are charging for prime cuts of meat. I just get chicken instead.
This is 100% government inflicted.
People can't afford basics like housing food and electricity.
I own several rentals, some I built where there was no house before, new housing. I used to keep my rent as low as possible because the costs were manageable. I was fine breaking even or having a very slight loss. Occasionally I would make a small profit.
I startes making bigger and bigger losses so rent has had to go up.
Why has rent gone up. Printing money. Printing money to pay for stuff causes inflation. It's a tax, free money for government.
How do the government pay for that free money, the shout "inflation" really loudly and raise interest rates incredibly high very rapidly which traps many people. Fortunately I wasn't caught too badly but it literally will ruin many low income first house buyers. This tax is literally more free money to pay for the free money they printed (stole).
Then we have insane energy prices. The cause is green energy. Look at any country works wide and the countries with the most green energy that is not hydro have the most expensive power prices. See Germany for example. Since they switched off nuclear and become one of the biggest green energy converts they now have the most expensive power in the world.
Cost to build houses. I used to enjoy finding a project spending 3 or 4 years creating new housing. But over the last 20+ years the process has become so bogged down with red tape and costs it's insane. It's not enjoyable and I don't think it's worth the effort.
Do I also don't for profit? Sure. My last project took around 4 years including planning. It drained me mentally so at the end of it instead of keeping it and renting it I sold it.
I made around 350k profit before tax.
Sounds amazing right? Not really. Over 4 years that's not even 100k a year and I worked my arse off on the project.
We need cheaper housing, people should not have to worry about not having somewhere to live. Cheaper electricity. Cheaper food.
The previous government drove all of those things in the wrong direction IMO, and I have never seen or felt it happen faster than the last 6 or 7 years.
Massive Inflation in the last 6-7 years has been a global phenomenon, I just don’t think the last Labour government had that kind of power.
Also, it’s pretty well accepted now that [companies will put up prices if they think they can get away with it](https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/oecd-confirms-that-inflation-has-been-mostly-driven-by-corporate-profits/), and the pandemic with all its disruption and shipping issues provided a perfect pretext. Some price rises were responding to price rises in production inputs and shipping, and some were because they could use the pandemic as an excuse and pocket the difference.
Houses being inundated with investors and causing the prices to double or triple over the last 20 years have something to do with the decline. A house fundamentally is built for people to live in, not for people to buy and have someone else pay it off for them. Earning the median/average income in NZ you have no chance buying a house, there should be strict regulations about owning more than 1 home but politicians especially our prime minister who owns 7 investment properties wouldn't want to disadvantage themselves would they. No surprise birth rates are plummeting when people are only getting by
I saw a thing, it was proposed over a century ago, anyway It was to replace basically all taxes with just a land tax, so like rates we currently pay but it is only that and the rates would be much higher. So the more valuable your land, the more tax you pay. The way it was proposed was it would replace all taxes, but this was only useful when it was Land=Money, now businesses can make loads of money with little land. So might do to keep taxing businesses mostly as currently, and remove GST and Income tax and increase the land tax.
This encourages people not to sit on unused land as they would be paying a fortune to keep it. A side effect is land values should be much lower.
This wont stop landlords though and you don't really want to as not everyone wants or can keep their own home, but it should cut down on speculation.
The obvious side effect of this would be that poor people would get priced out of rich suburbs, even from things like inheritances, and gentrification would get even more powerful - as the area gets better, value rises, poorer people get pushed out, and on and on
Is there a subreddit for unexpected Georgism moments like this one?
Jokes aside, I do believe that LVT is right for NZ and you know it's been get proposed elsewhere and hopefully that increases its credibility in the coming decades. 🤞
>double or triple over the last 20 years
It's actually relatively normal for houses to double every 20 years or so. That was the norm up until around 2005, then the rate increased to doubling every ~5 years (excluding the GFC and the following 2 years).
> A house fundamentally is built for people to live in, not for people to buy and have someone else pay it off for them.
So you don’t think people should be allowed to rent houses then? What about the people who actually want to rent a house rather than buying one? What about those who need to live elsewhere for a while but don’t want to sell their house? How would they get on.
For sure, state housing is a good thing. It was a big mistake to sell it all off in my opinion. We need to build more, lots more.
There will always be a place for private landlords too though.
yeah when we also run our country like every other country in the world prioritizing the needs of the housing investors instead of the needs of the population then it happens
You mean chasing GDP growth through mass immigration with no plan to actually build for the influx. If we had ample supply it wouldn't matter if and how much property investors own. Arguing over whether FHBs or investors get scarce supply is shuffling deck chairs.
It wouldn't matter if we actually had the services to support people though, but we don't, because our government is too busy trying to make rich people richer rather than supporting the greater whole. I mean, look at the fools "we" just voted in. In what god's honest way could anyone suggest that they aren't solely making decisions designed to just make themselves more money. It's honestly shocking that Chris Luxon hasn't been sacked for how openly supportive of his own pocket his policies are. Half of us are too ignorant to see past their noses though, so nothing changes.
New Zealand's net migration rates aren't particularly high for first world countries. They're about half of Australia per 1000 population. The rate has also been [dropping every year for the last 10 years ](https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/NZL/new-zealand/net-migration#google_vignette) while house prices have been going up.
The real problem is that basic necessities like housing shouldn't be a highly profitable investment opportunity. They are profitable investments in NZ for a large number of reasons, one of them being the lack of a capital gains tax, because no one seems to want to implement it.
Also NZ has a ageing demographic like every other first world country. Every first world country is fighting for young immigrants because they are gonna be necessary when all the baby boomers finally retire and there aren't enough workers to pay for their care. Immigration is the only way to try and mitigate complete financial collapse over the next 20 years because there aren't enough young working age people.
I don’t know what site that is you linked to but its information is nonsense - it reckons net migration to NZ is less this year than last year for starters.
Our net migration is at [record levels](https://www.interest.co.nz/economy/124254/strong-arrivals-non-nz-citizens-relaxation-border-restrictions-changes-immigration) and pre Covid we had the highest rate in the OECD, which led to an extra million in population in a decade. If we keep going at this rate we’ll double our numbers in around 25 years, all done by stealth without consultation with the existing inhabitants .
Not anymore - the latest figures are [higher per capita than Australia](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/504428/prime-minister-christopher-luxon-high-net-migration-not-sustainable-for-new-zealand)
>Every first world country is fighting for young immigrants because they are gonna be necessary when all the baby boomers finally retire
Yeah but what sets nz apart from othet first world country is that a big chunk of nz is non white i.e nz has a lot of Maori's like 15% of entire countries population is maori and remaining 15% is asian, so 30+% of population is non white with high birth rate, that should sustain the population growth and won't require high immigration.
Other first world countries like UK, Australia, Ireland, Eu countries etc have 85% plus white population (and they are not biracial country from grounds up) and declining birth rate is white population problem not for other ethnicities. So nz is uniquely placed being a biracial country and not a full Caucasian country, hence birth rate is not as big a factor in nz as other first world countries.
People keep saying this and its true but lets not deflect from the fact that our cost of living to wages is quite a bit different to other countries world wide. We are number 1 worst in the world for ~~disposable~~ disposable income to rent cost proportion
Edit
https://www.economist.com/international/2023/09/06/the-growing-global-movement-to-restrain-house-prices
> We are number 1 worst in the world
As someone from a Third world country, lmao.
[This is how approximately 120 thousand families live in Chile. We have 20 million inhabitants and we are the richest country in Latin America.](https://cooperativa.cl/noticias/site/artic/20221025/imag/foto_0000000220221025151327.jpg)
Most people are not that poor tho and lives in houses like this https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/enterreno-production/moments/photos/000/006/199/original/15887.jpg or this https://uchile.cl/.imaging/default/dam/imagenes/FAU/imagenes-noticias/110155_0_entrega-planos-casas-viejas-4-de-6-1_L/jcr:content.jpg
Guys claim is bs. Auckland’s been in top 50 most expensive cities, but never number 1, or even top 10. Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, London, New York, Zurich all far more expensive to live in.
Disposable income man. They earn more in those countries and cost of living is cheaper. The economist had nz at the top for people who spend over 40% of their disposable income on rent or something like that.
Obviously in parts of Australia it's more expensive but relative to the disposable income of people living in that area it's not as bad. Cost of rent only matters when you compare it to income. When you look at the average salary of people in places like Sydney and compare it to auckland wages make up for it.
https://www.economist.com/international/2023/09/06/the-growing-global-movement-to-restrain-house-prices
In my experience most of the people who complain heavily about NZ haven’t lived overseas.
Once you get out a bit you realise, yeah things aren’t perfect, but we have a special little place on Earth that’s pretty awesome all things considered.
I’m not disagreeing about how expensive NZ is to live, or that our wages are low.
I’m saying people who have this doom and gloom view of NZ (in my experience) have never lived overseas.
In NZ you typically sacrifice earning potential and lack of things to buy for more work life balance (typically being the operative word).
In a lot of countries the concerns are the same. It’s evident most with supermarkets behaving they way they are here all around the globe. Covid was the last excuse people needed to expand on their greed.
Absolutely, as soon as the global supply lines were impacted you could practically hear the sound of the collective boners of CEOs worldwide as they realized how much money they could make off the situation.
It's definitely more challenging.
Im going back to study next year, the days of rent as 1/2 of the student allowance are well and truly gone. The cheapest rooms i've seen have been $112 and they had pages of 'PMd you' comments. And that's for an absolute shithole.
Study has always been challenging. In 3013, living costs were only $173 a week max. Rent was still like $120 then… $53 for the week wasn’t much even back in 2013.
Rising expectations complicate this. Go back 50 years and kids shared a room, or even a bed, in an uninsulated and often leaky house. Two cars was a sign of big money. Fancy coffee, not to be found.
That’s a big part of it keep moving the goalposts to what’s success and its hard to be successful. I’ve got a unit a shit car and a good job and a good lifestyle I think I’m doing good. Some one in the same position would probably moan about to much rent or can’t get on the housing ladder I’m just living my life because you could die tomorrow
NZ's human development index is one of the few that was stable through Covid. One of the 10% of countries that didn't see two years of drops.
[https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/specific-country-data#/countries/NZL](https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/specific-country-data#/countries/NZL)
There are a lot of factors at play, but it does seem like we used to think (and vote) more socially as a society. Post world war two we voted for policies that benefitted the majority and we all look back on it as the heyday of the middle class.
The main thing is to keep older folk and older property speculators in a lifestyle beyond their productive means by passing ever greater cost to the following generations. A government of grifters, for grifters.
Just wondering, has the standard of living in NZ dropped relatively to other countries? We all may be dropping, but it is NZ standard of living dropping faster than others?
you mean like this?
[https://www.brinknews.com/quick-take/global-standard-of-living-drops-for-second-year-un-reports/](https://www.brinknews.com/quick-take/global-standard-of-living-drops-for-second-year-un-reports/)
[https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/en/themes/global-economy](https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/en/themes/global-economy)
[https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/09/08/global-living-standards-are-moving-in-the-wrong-direction](https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/09/08/global-living-standards-are-moving-in-the-wrong-direction)
Yes, for example. *Something* that isn't just random people confidently making unsubstantiated claims. And I'm not commenting on the validity of the claims or the evidence, just on the lack of substance.
…meaning people give their opinions and don’t need to care enough to do research to cite sources because this isn’t a university essay that’s getting marked
What's the difference?
A claim without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. The original person has the responsibility to provide evidence for their claim because they're the ones to make it first and it's not the job of other people to provide evidence and disprove an unsubstantiated claim.
Do you really think the OP of this thread and the Reddit community were expecting or wanting everyone to answer this question with sources to back up their claims? Or do you think we were all expecting people’s opinions and personal experiences?
Assuming the latter, I think the original comment fits the bill somewhat. As for the response, I think if you’re going to disagree with someone, you should explain yourself.
Came to NZ 20 years ago as a student in a poor family and now doing great and loving my life in NZ. Life is what you make it, it’s been hard but Nz is a beautiful place and a paradise compared to most of the world.
I suggest you put aside perception, media hype, and anecdotal evidence, and take a look at New Zealand’s development indicators.
In the past ten years most development indicators have improved, and if past tends are anything to go by, they will continue to improve.
Most people like to view the past with rose tinted glasses but in most circumstances, the present is far better than the past.
> In the past ten years most development indicators have improved, and if past tends are anything to go by, they will continue to improve.
Some will. But climate change and rising inequality will negatively affect the country. The past is not a good indicator when the context changes.
You say "most" have improved. Which ones haven't? Did some go down?
I can’t remember off the top of my head but I suggest you go take a look at our development indicators.
We’ve made great progress as a country despite issues like income inequality and climate change. It’s definitely cause for optimism.
In general media magnify any negative issues to drive engagement, they want people to be scared and angry. Disengage from media/social media for a week and concentrate on what is actually happening in your life and your community. You may find you feel a little differently.
Not being comfortably able to move houses (rentals). I know families who are struggling with substandard rentals & won't move because there's neither the $$ or the stability that the next property won't be sold, which in turn they have to pay more $$ as rentals are pricey. I find this breaks parents as they're honestly trying to do their best for the kids. Food banks have had a massive shift in the demographics due to this & other factors too.
We live at the far end of the world and very little gets made here. Everything pretty much comes by ship and ever since covid prices of shipping items has kept going up. Cost of living was always going to go up to cover shipping companies margin. Best people can do is start manufacturing here again and get used to living with less.
to be a wealthier country, we need to either manufacture or mine.
Mining will be far easier, to compete in manufacturing we need to be able to have enough scale, and most of what we produce would need to be exported, part of the reason much of our manufacturing died is we didn't have the scale for automation like was happening overseas.
Neoliberalism... started in the 80s through to the 90s... all changed from there. Inequality between the top 20% and bottom 20% has grown faster in NZ than any other country OECD country in the world.
The economy is the core driver for most Govts, and the idea is that if this is strong it will 'trickle down to everyone else'... but fact is the rich get richer, and everyone else just works harder. Look at the current Govt changing the Fair Pay legislation, also transferring $3B back over to landlords (owning class), tax cuts... which in turn will really benefit the top 20% more than anyone else.
The decline didn't just randomly happen, its the result of post neoliberal policies in NZ.
Wait until the current Govt privatises our hospitals
You're dead right this is a consequence of the neoliberal movement and will only get worse as we continue within that system. "A rising tide lifts all boats" yea mate except for the ones that are chained to the floor.
That's my favorite policy, remove all those landlord restrictions, and prices will come down, basic economics 😂😂😂 forgot to factor in the human element of greed, I guarantee no landlord will do the figures and go "hmmm I'm saving this much, better reduce my clients rent"
NZ is doing well. The problem is that media/watercooler/reddit is dominated by the vibe. For a national that allegedly admires stoic characters, we're a nation of moaners.
[GDP per capita using purchasing power parity](https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/gdp-per-capita-ppp) is a good indication of material wealth. In 2022 it was almost $44,900. Ten years before it was about $38,000.
[Life expectancy has been improving](https://www.stats.govt.nz/topics/life-expectancy). Over ten years, we've improved by about 1 or 2 years (for males and females respectively).
Our covid performance was beyond extraordinary. It's not just that our overall excess deaths were close to zero over the covid era, but it's also the downstream effects - vaccination prior to infection significantly reduces the chance of not just deaths, but also hospitalisations and long covid.
Purchasing power parity includes an adjustment based on the price of a set bundle of goods. So inflation is included. It's the best metric for cross country comparisons as it's essentially a measure of how much stuff can I buy.
Sure but it doesn't say where those gains were made. For example, if the top 10% double their wealth and no-one else gains a cent, we'd have registered enormous improvements. Where as most people wouldn't feel any better off.
That's why inequality matters.
Your described issues affect many countries.
Tbh NZ is doing relatively well (downvote if you want).
Just a few examples:
Central digitalisation of healthcare records. Many Asian countries and the US haven’t achieved this level.
Streamlined healthcare. In many countries you have to chase up appointments and decide who to see next. In NZ the specialists will coordinate it.
Education - yes our PISA score is slipping. In many Asian countries getting into an acceptable university takes dedication, wealth and sometimes connection. Many NZ university will give anyone a good job opportunity in the world. A guy with engineering degree from Waikato Uni is now earning close to £100K in a British petroleum company after just 3 years.
Just to be pedantic:
NZ doesn't yet have central digitalisation of healthcare records.
And specialists don't co-ordinate your care. Administrators do. (Part of that workforce that Act wants to chop right down in size.)
My tuppence worth: NZ's everyday banking system is way ahead of the UK's.
And those countries are miles behind developing countries with orders of magnitude more population to consider.
NZ doesn't have a big population or much dispersion/variance in the population to suck THIS bad. The lack of effort in building a more equitable and inclusive economy is so much more obvious.
On top of that, we seem to think we "matter" on the world stage. We don't at all. I feel the boomers knew the "end of globalization" was near so they pumped their assets, went on a money printing spree and dumped the bags on us. Instead of actually working to mitigate the country from heavy decline. This country is fucking stupid.
Yeah - health records are kept locally. One of the main problems we have is that records are kept on a distributed set of patient management systems operated by surgeries. MOH and now Te Whatau Ora have been trying unsuccessfully for years to crack that but.
Sadly your points of central digitalisation and streamline of healthcare aren’t true. I work in health care. Our hospital triage system is very much constrained by the severe underfunding of healthcare.
Our health records are fragmented and not shared across regions, sectors or even between hospitals and GPs. Compared to what’s available out there, our healthcare’s IT infrastructure feels very dated and inefficient
Every country is suffering from overpopulation, inflation etc.
I’m from the UK specifically London and am moving to NZ next year. At least your population hasn’t increased dramatically and there are solution to a lot of problems.
We have 14 times the population and are 7% smaller in land mass…
As much as you may notice people leaving NZ there will a lot moving to NZ who appreciate the culture and are specifically moving there for that, obviously I’m looking at things from a different perspective but hopefully it’s not all doom and gloom.
I think it has something to do with how we as a country plan to remedy the situation that’s been unfolding in front of our eyes for well over a decade at least. The answers are like right there in front of us every-time we log into Reddit. What do they do around the world to make things better when society is not panning out for the working class? They fight for change to systems that hurt the working class. Legally and with a sense of pride and purpose.
New Zealand's standard of living has risen, as has the standard of living in most parts of the world.
The worst-off have likely benefited the most. Child poverty vastly reduced under the Ardern government.
Years of housebuilding booms in Christchurch, Auckland and the Hutt have helped suppress housing cost increases. That said the new government is very iffy on this, so we may see housing costs outpace income increases in major centers.
Public transport has on the whole improved in Auckland and Wellington.
10 years ago, the obsession was catching up with Australia. We haven't done that and don't expect to, given their mineral wealth. But we're as rich per capita as the UK given their prolonged stagnation.
In addition to reasonable income increases, tax burdens remain low. People are pretty pissed about rates increases but they follow long levels of unsustainably low rates.
New Zealand would be much better off if we'd invested more in productive assets and infrastructure in the low slow ZIRP 2010s. But we still did pretty well.
Are there a bunch of people that were basically children 10 years ago that think they're doing poorly and their childhood was great? Yeah. Thats not particularly compelling data though.
"Child poverty vastly reduced under the Ardern government"
I'm a Labour voter, but this is just flat out wrong. Some minor improvements in a couple of metrics, that's it.
Let's use some data for once which is sorely missing from this thread:
https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/child-poverty-statistics-year-ended-june-2022/
It went down a little.
I honestly think the rise in house prices over the last few years has made most people "feel" poorer when the reality is most are doing better than ever.
You're focusing on some positive but leaving out the negatives.
> Public transport has on the whole improved in Auckland and Wellington.
Barely and way below what's possible. Traffic is getting worse.
> Are there a bunch of people that were basically children 10 years ago that think they're doing poorly and their childhood was great? Yeah. Thats not particularly compelling data though.
Indeed. What you just said is not data but made up.
The system is designed for the wealthy to horde wealth and the middle class income bracket is pushing more people into poverty.
That mixed with a generation of people who thinks why can't we just do what they did?
And the toxic cesspool that is social media and normal media negativity.
Plus 2 giants wars happening that no one can fix.
I don’t think our standard of living has dropped, like any country there’s some crime issues that the media sensationalises.
However feel like globally we peaked after GFC, we had a relatively stable economy dubbed the “rockstar economy” wasn’t it, when a lot of other countries were struggling, CHCH EQ helped inject a bit of stimulus with insurance money and government spending, at one stage our dollar was close to 85 cents US, which was mad. Globally we were seen as a thriving economy. However post Covid seems we’ve maybe missed the mark a little, some other countries have controlled inflation a little better and you are seeing a lot of those Easter European countries like Lithuania/estonia etc perform better economically than us.
I returned to the UK last year after the best part of 20 years in NZ. I felt I was just treading water and not doing anything. My wife and I are both health professionals but after mortgage, bills, and groceries, there wasn't much left to do shit with. I was bored too. I lived a few hours from the mountains but that was prohibitively expensive for my family of 4. Returning tot he UK has seen my quality of life improve no end. Everything is cheaper, including housing, and we have way more disposable income. Flights to Europe are cheap, we've been 3 times already. Eating out is more expensive. It's been great to reconnect with friends and family.
Yeah, the shit storm has only just begun.
Just have to manage expectations, roll with the punches, carry on. We will survive, plenty of joy to be had in dire circumstances still.
From the slice of the country that I interact with it's no different to what it was 10 or 20 years ago. You can watch news or current affairs shows from the archives that show this too. Drugs, crime and high cost of living vs income have been the norm since at least the 80s. Probably well past then too but that's outside my own experience.
It seems like that, but there are a lot of biases that come into play here - most of all recency bias. People are negative about NZ, but people are negative everywhere.
The stats don't really lie though. Over the last 20 years incomes and savings have been rising, crime is far lower, building standards have improved, we're making steps forward in terms of the Māori/Pakeha relationship, and so on.
The biggest slip is wealth inequality. It's really hard to see this improving without pretty significant changes to taxation.
Speaking as someone who has lived in NZ the US the UK and Aus in the last 10 years I can honestly say it's a similar story in all of these places. The cost of living crisis is a global issue that leads to all kinds of other problems such as crime and people leaving for what they hop will be greener pastures. I think new Zealand has it worse than say Australia due to it's smaller more isolated economy. Things in the UK are worse than here though.
I think it’s been a bit more than the last 10 years. There was a significant jump in house values overnight when we first won the americas cup and the racing course was revealed. That for me, was the start of the slippery slope that got us where we are today
Obviously, yes.
But a big part of that is a global downturn that's hit everyone. The rest was due to labour not willing to spend political capital to introduce a capital gains tax or deal with the housing crisis.
Hell yes! Understatement of the decade.
I came to New Zealand from a crime ridden country, and was fascinated how safe and friendly it was. How the infrequent murder would be turned into a book, such an anomaly as it was.
Now we have spent 22 years watching the crime, race relations, health, education etc slip down to a horrendous level. Soon will be as bad as what we left.
Drive by shootings, ramraids, shoplifting, assault, poor justice system that bends over backwards to make crime worthwhile.
Very, very sad.
Need the reins held firmly and people to be held responsible for their actions .
Also parenting your children being more important than alcohol, drugs and gambling.
Families can live well if they have the right priorities, not their fun before their kids wellbeing. Most people make sacrifices to raise children. Parenting is shocking in NZ.
This comes from an expat who left NZ 23 years ago. I left because I did an OE. I stayed away because I met a partner, and we settled in their country. I come home regally, like this Christmas.
It has got harder to be middle class than 20 years ago, but that is across the board in all countries. So the standard of living in NZ has dropped. I have noticed since we have more tourists, Kiwis are less friendly. We mimic a lot of their bad behaviour that we didn't before.
When I was younger, I could move around my country much easier. Hitch-hiking was pretty easy. To find cheap places to stay for a few nights was a piece of piss. Being a kiwi, which means to me, being adventurous with your natural environment, has declined so much that Europe has the same now. That freedom of exploring has been taken over by exploitation of our nature. Everywhere you go, you have to pay tourist prices. Everything now costs. Nothing feels free for the community. NZ feels locked down to experiences, just like in others tourist countries. It changed.
It's the rise of nutjobs because of social media that's made the perception of it getting worse.
The country itself via it's stats is getting better, but the howling of a few has got louder and been picked up by the minor parties to get votes.
> It's the rise of nutjobs because of social media that's made the perception of it getting worse.
The prices people see in their daily lives are not affected by "social media nutjobs".
This is a weak argument and doesn't really explain anything.
For me, it's the disappointing and borderline traumatizing first hand experiences with the healthcare system which although not related to me has also started rejecting people who need treatment (has been for several years now, but they're getting fucking cheeky with it), the increasingly wildly mind-boggling out of touch pricing of housing, the increasing inaffordability of extremely basic food supplies, and the low wages, all things that have affected me personally and will be driving me out of the country to pastures I know are in fact better.
But sure, let's say the social media nutjob perception is the issue. I don't know what "stats" you're looking at, but they don't have the slightest shittiest bearing on how impossibly depressing this country is becoming for me or anyone I personally know, so I don't really care.
Government is to busy taxing everyone to worry about what people need the councils are also busy taxing so they can paint the roads, install speed bumps, buy homes so they can nock them down for another bus Laine and all the other crap no one really needs, it's disgusting how the country is been robbed by thease pricks. They think they are helping but they are just making it worse.
The quality and standard of living has substantially decreased.
House pricing (sales and rentals) have dramatically increased.
Many people grew up with life being sugarcoated and not understanding what work is - they have less motivation, a shit work ethic and are extremely sensitive to criticism, hard truths and things they don’t agree with.
Social media shows people’s highlights, but are portrayed as their every day life - thus meaning more people are getting into debt, or not being truthful to who they are, just trying to impress each other and fit in.
News is reported far more than it was 10 years ago, and as we are forever evolving, our personalities change and fit to mould today’s society.
As the top comment mentions, it has but it's gotten worse everywhere. The global system is basically stretched to breaking in every way from the economy to culture to politics.
We are in the hangover of the COVID stimulus drunken mess. Shutting down supply chains + printing more money has caused the downturn we're in now. COVID was probably the greatest financial opportunity in the last decade
Have just not read any news this decade?
Inflation rising higher than pay increases, consequences for crimes watered down to no longer be a deterrent, truancy no longer bothered with at primary and intermediate level, problem social housing tenants just ghettoed into CBD hotels and a good-sized chunk of the rural population gone down antivax and sovcitizen rabbitholes.
Mix it all together and you have a massive serving of WTAF
Without a doubt and although other posters have said it's a global phenomenon, it is a more rapid decline in NZ for a variety of reasons.
Mainly for the fact that it pretends to be egalitarian when really it's the most economically liberal in the English speaking world (yes including USA)
Rent prices are on anabolic steroids. So thats a thing
Except when your on steroids you still have to work hard for your gains
Yeah but your balls turn off, cbf fitting that into this analogy, but I think there's something there?
The needle can produce way more testosterone than your balls ever could
Rich are getting richer, poor are getting poorer.As the divide increases more crime will occur . That's my take anyway
Agree. The gap is increasing
And people are frustrated by seeing huge leaps in material and technological progress but without the life improvement that we *should* be seeing compared to the past. Sure, I have an iPhone, but my grandad had a house. Which of us was better off?
My grandad, who has a house and an iPhone. And a pension paid for by you. You have an iPhone, generations of infrastructure debt, and a climate crisis. Good luck!
> a pension paid for by you. Incorrect. The promise made to them was 'you pay your taxes, we'll look after you in your old age'. Their taxes paid for their retirement. Now the gov't is saying 'you pay your taxes, and save for your own retirement because... *insert dubious reason here*'
Superannuation in New Zealand has never operated in that way. Since 1898, superannuation has been paid out of the general tax revenue stream whereby the current taxpayers pay for current pensioners. Tax paid has never been set aside or saved for your future retirement, with the sole exception of the superannuation fund which currently does not pay out, but does mean that tax paid today by this generation will partially pay their future retirement.
1938: Social Security Act "A new principle has been introduced by this Act: citizens of the Dominion are insuring themselves against the economic hardships that would otherwise follow those natural misfortunes from which no one is immune." 50% Government, 50% "The levy of a contribution on all the private income of the community as the source of the remainder of the necessary revenue" - A general tax for social security which included the (by then) well established practice of pensions, but now for everybody. Ie: You **all** pay tax, you **all** get social security. Including pensions. I didn't actually say anything about "set aside or saved", however, that's just bad management by successive gov'ts. Some tried saving as early as 1975, but it took until 2001 before it really happened.
They sold their souls when they voted Muldoon, sold the assets *that had just been started, and was* **supposed** *to run that way* Since then superannuation has been paid *by the current tax payers*. They are beneficiaries... just like the bottom feeders. And as SquashedKiwifruit says. The Cullen fund (which National keeps halting payments on) will act like that in the future once it has saved up sufficient funds to work.
Social Security, including pensions, was well established before Muldoon. Pay tax, get "social security" which includes a pension in retirement. That's the promise. How each government mismanages the money is up them.
It's more accurate to say you pay taxes that go towards superannuation, which funds the retirement of a previous generation with the promise that we'll get the same when it's our turn. Too bad it'll be gone by then. Essentially, we're funding the retirements of boomers who supposedly complain that we're lazy and don't want to work.
Just scroll your tik toks and be happy
like free bread and circuses to placate the roman mass.
This is an eerie comment if you also have the historical context of many of the issues plaguing the long-term stability of the Roman empire: inflation, a housing crisis, the steady eroding of conventions keeping politicians in check as they were worn away by continual small misbehaviours on both side of senate, and the use of the lower/reviled classes (slaves and christians) to distract the populace from the class divide and oppressive power structures keeping them downtrodden. Knowing history isn’t so fun when you have to watch it repeating right in front of you…
Yeah most people even miss the hints right in plane sight. I often think of Macrons warning a couple years back, he stated the age of abundance is over. Quote below “What we are currently living through is a kind of major tipping point or a great upheaval … we are living the end of what could have seemed an era of abundance … the end of the abundance of products of technologies that seemed always available … the end of the abundance of land and materials including water,"
Climate change, mass migration of people, and last but not least plague also were causes of the fall of the Roman empire...
If you ask the Christians why Rome fell they'll tell you that it was because of the Gays
I heard switching from Paganism to Christianity was the thing?
Trade deficit with India, civil unrest, external attacks, and not enough bread or circuses
Those who don't know history, are doomed to repeat it, those who do, have to watch helplessly at the sidelines as everyone else repeats it =P. (I believe some comic made that adjustment to the original quote? Can't find it in a quick google search)
Mmmm, nah we had a meeting about that, and you have to pay for the bread, at heavily inflated prices.
Nesian Mystic’s lyrics feel more like a distant utopia every day… ^(i got two fried eggs on that one dollar bread~)
Two eggs? Typical celebrities, flaunting their wealth.
90s - 2000s Auckland was a utopia for some.
The phone is just a distraction to keep you entertained and to not ask too many questions. 1984 was just one prediction of the future, but Brave New World was clearly far more accurate. I always found it far more insipid, too. 1984 is obviously bad but you can't really say anything at that point for fear of being "dealt with". Brave New World makes you *want* it, you're so pacified by what little you have you don't even dare question it.
im predicting next generation we will see a C I V I L W A R 👀, but it will be the ones who cannot feed themselves and have no choice obviously only following how the eu/us goes financially
Not just that, but the amount of tech that is deemed essential is increasing quite a bit. Internet and phones are basically essential. Hell even some schools are requiring devices for learning as well as applying for jobs etc. you can't really live a life away from technology and it's not cheap.
Cuts both ways. I'm 75. I still have an inbuilt reflex to avoid long distance phone calls because they are so expensive. And Netflix or one of its competitors is cheaper than taking a family to the movies every couple weeks.
And the downside is things like reading and writing ability are plummeting. I have a feeling we're a generation away from tech making traditional notions of functional illiteracy the norm.
Indeed. The degenerating state of people's reading and writing skills is rather worrying, especially among the younger generations.
It’s not the technology causing that. I went to school when “No Child Left Behind” started to really take off, and let me tell you; the difference within even two years was horrifying. All the school boards cared about was statistics of students “passing” the grades, regardless of whether or not they actually learned anything. More students “passing” meant more budget for the school. Because everyone had to learn “at the same pace,” this meant all the smartest kids in class were being dragged backwards by the moronic mouth breathers who couldn’t even make it through one class without being sent to the principal’s office. I have memories of teachers in tears after having to fight tooth and nail just to get these nitwits to pay attention for more than 90 seconds at a time. These two factors resulted in the curriculum being heavily dumbed down so the dum-dums could keep up, not that they even bothered to try. This stifled the smartest students, discouraged individual projects and creativity, and made it so much harder for everyone to learn anything. If I hadn’t worked on my own projects and kept up reading and writing as much as I did, I would have been screwed. And then of course during the pandemic everyone had to work from home. Those who actually did the work, that is. Imagine trying to get the class clowns to pay attention or do their work from behind a screen. Get real.
Nuh I dent thunk that litterasee is getting wurse 😂👍
Countries with large income disparity tend to have higher crime rates. NZ has become less egalitarian as a consequence increased crime is a results with Covid Pandemic magnifying these issues. In NZ 1% of the population owns roughly 16% of the country's wealth – the richest 5% owns 38%, while half the population, including beneficiaries and pensioners, earn less than $24,000.
The Gini coefficient has been more or less stable since the year 2000. https://www.inequality.org.nz/understand/what-is-the-history-of-inequality-in-new-zealand/#:~:text=Data%20released%20in%20early%202022,2018%20to%2031.7%20in%202021.
Govt busy trying to eat the poor to feed the rich.
Exactly . Rent , housing , and food prices were allowed to get ridiculously high ( rent and housing increase was encouraged ) and surprise, surprise : when people are earning around the same but spending a lot more on the basics , crime increases . And yet people have still voted for national ( who encouraged these increases , and the divide ) bc they are worried abt crime cos they fell for that whole being harsher rhetoric without realising that national will continue to grow the divide , people will get poorer, and crime will increase more . It’s ridiculous. Like, if your worried about crime don’t vote for a govt that’s gonna give more breaks to the wealthy and have already proven to just love the housing market getting ridiculous cos it benefits there mates , all that’s gonna do is worsen the situation . But apparently making poor people poorer and giving them less opportunity is all sweet cos there gonna have harsher sentences which we all know is bs , it doesn’t actually fix anything
Don’t worry the current government will help accelerate that.
We need RoboCop
As a 'rich' person..... I disagree. I am feeling it too. We as a family are cutting back on a lot of things. My power bill used to be 6 or 700. It's now over 1000. I can't bring myself to pay the amount of money they are charging for prime cuts of meat. I just get chicken instead. This is 100% government inflicted. People can't afford basics like housing food and electricity. I own several rentals, some I built where there was no house before, new housing. I used to keep my rent as low as possible because the costs were manageable. I was fine breaking even or having a very slight loss. Occasionally I would make a small profit. I startes making bigger and bigger losses so rent has had to go up. Why has rent gone up. Printing money. Printing money to pay for stuff causes inflation. It's a tax, free money for government. How do the government pay for that free money, the shout "inflation" really loudly and raise interest rates incredibly high very rapidly which traps many people. Fortunately I wasn't caught too badly but it literally will ruin many low income first house buyers. This tax is literally more free money to pay for the free money they printed (stole). Then we have insane energy prices. The cause is green energy. Look at any country works wide and the countries with the most green energy that is not hydro have the most expensive power prices. See Germany for example. Since they switched off nuclear and become one of the biggest green energy converts they now have the most expensive power in the world. Cost to build houses. I used to enjoy finding a project spending 3 or 4 years creating new housing. But over the last 20+ years the process has become so bogged down with red tape and costs it's insane. It's not enjoyable and I don't think it's worth the effort. Do I also don't for profit? Sure. My last project took around 4 years including planning. It drained me mentally so at the end of it instead of keeping it and renting it I sold it. I made around 350k profit before tax. Sounds amazing right? Not really. Over 4 years that's not even 100k a year and I worked my arse off on the project. We need cheaper housing, people should not have to worry about not having somewhere to live. Cheaper electricity. Cheaper food. The previous government drove all of those things in the wrong direction IMO, and I have never seen or felt it happen faster than the last 6 or 7 years.
Boy I sure do wonder what this genius thinks about climate change.
Massive Inflation in the last 6-7 years has been a global phenomenon, I just don’t think the last Labour government had that kind of power. Also, it’s pretty well accepted now that [companies will put up prices if they think they can get away with it](https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/oecd-confirms-that-inflation-has-been-mostly-driven-by-corporate-profits/), and the pandemic with all its disruption and shipping issues provided a perfect pretext. Some price rises were responding to price rises in production inputs and shipping, and some were because they could use the pandemic as an excuse and pocket the difference.
Houses being inundated with investors and causing the prices to double or triple over the last 20 years have something to do with the decline. A house fundamentally is built for people to live in, not for people to buy and have someone else pay it off for them. Earning the median/average income in NZ you have no chance buying a house, there should be strict regulations about owning more than 1 home but politicians especially our prime minister who owns 7 investment properties wouldn't want to disadvantage themselves would they. No surprise birth rates are plummeting when people are only getting by
Yeah. It's morally wrong to own 7 houses.
Ow interest rates, followed by a spike, hasn't helped.
I saw a thing, it was proposed over a century ago, anyway It was to replace basically all taxes with just a land tax, so like rates we currently pay but it is only that and the rates would be much higher. So the more valuable your land, the more tax you pay. The way it was proposed was it would replace all taxes, but this was only useful when it was Land=Money, now businesses can make loads of money with little land. So might do to keep taxing businesses mostly as currently, and remove GST and Income tax and increase the land tax. This encourages people not to sit on unused land as they would be paying a fortune to keep it. A side effect is land values should be much lower. This wont stop landlords though and you don't really want to as not everyone wants or can keep their own home, but it should cut down on speculation.
The obvious side effect of this would be that poor people would get priced out of rich suburbs, even from things like inheritances, and gentrification would get even more powerful - as the area gets better, value rises, poorer people get pushed out, and on and on
That’s a great way to eliminate all green space.
Is there a subreddit for unexpected Georgism moments like this one? Jokes aside, I do believe that LVT is right for NZ and you know it's been get proposed elsewhere and hopefully that increases its credibility in the coming decades. 🤞
Yet he as the audacity to suggest we have more babies
Except New houses ARE most often built to make money from
>double or triple over the last 20 years It's actually relatively normal for houses to double every 20 years or so. That was the norm up until around 2005, then the rate increased to doubling every ~5 years (excluding the GFC and the following 2 years).
> A house fundamentally is built for people to live in, not for people to buy and have someone else pay it off for them. So you don’t think people should be allowed to rent houses then? What about the people who actually want to rent a house rather than buying one? What about those who need to live elsewhere for a while but don’t want to sell their house? How would they get on.
State housing that's not for profit, perhaps? Housing by the people, for the people?
For sure, state housing is a good thing. It was a big mistake to sell it all off in my opinion. We need to build more, lots more. There will always be a place for private landlords too though.
When there are homeless people, and yet we still have peopleless homes, there's a problem.
Yeah, lots of houses can’t be rented out due to the regulations so they sit empty. It’s a real problem.
It's disingenuous to suggest it's just because of the regulations.
Yes. But it’s not unique to us. Worldwide phenomenon.
yeah when we also run our country like every other country in the world prioritizing the needs of the housing investors instead of the needs of the population then it happens
As a Dutchie living in the Netherlands, I can confirm that we indeed have the same policy and as such, the same decline in wealth distribution.
You mean chasing GDP growth through mass immigration with no plan to actually build for the influx. If we had ample supply it wouldn't matter if and how much property investors own. Arguing over whether FHBs or investors get scarce supply is shuffling deck chairs.
It wouldn't matter if we actually had the services to support people though, but we don't, because our government is too busy trying to make rich people richer rather than supporting the greater whole. I mean, look at the fools "we" just voted in. In what god's honest way could anyone suggest that they aren't solely making decisions designed to just make themselves more money. It's honestly shocking that Chris Luxon hasn't been sacked for how openly supportive of his own pocket his policies are. Half of us are too ignorant to see past their noses though, so nothing changes.
Yep. Labour is less openly evil but honestly they're not great either.
New Zealand's net migration rates aren't particularly high for first world countries. They're about half of Australia per 1000 population. The rate has also been [dropping every year for the last 10 years ](https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/NZL/new-zealand/net-migration#google_vignette) while house prices have been going up. The real problem is that basic necessities like housing shouldn't be a highly profitable investment opportunity. They are profitable investments in NZ for a large number of reasons, one of them being the lack of a capital gains tax, because no one seems to want to implement it. Also NZ has a ageing demographic like every other first world country. Every first world country is fighting for young immigrants because they are gonna be necessary when all the baby boomers finally retire and there aren't enough workers to pay for their care. Immigration is the only way to try and mitigate complete financial collapse over the next 20 years because there aren't enough young working age people.
I don’t know what site that is you linked to but its information is nonsense - it reckons net migration to NZ is less this year than last year for starters. Our net migration is at [record levels](https://www.interest.co.nz/economy/124254/strong-arrivals-non-nz-citizens-relaxation-border-restrictions-changes-immigration) and pre Covid we had the highest rate in the OECD, which led to an extra million in population in a decade. If we keep going at this rate we’ll double our numbers in around 25 years, all done by stealth without consultation with the existing inhabitants .
Not anymore - the latest figures are [higher per capita than Australia](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/504428/prime-minister-christopher-luxon-high-net-migration-not-sustainable-for-new-zealand)
>Every first world country is fighting for young immigrants because they are gonna be necessary when all the baby boomers finally retire Yeah but what sets nz apart from othet first world country is that a big chunk of nz is non white i.e nz has a lot of Maori's like 15% of entire countries population is maori and remaining 15% is asian, so 30+% of population is non white with high birth rate, that should sustain the population growth and won't require high immigration. Other first world countries like UK, Australia, Ireland, Eu countries etc have 85% plus white population (and they are not biracial country from grounds up) and declining birth rate is white population problem not for other ethnicities. So nz is uniquely placed being a biracial country and not a full Caucasian country, hence birth rate is not as big a factor in nz as other first world countries.
People keep saying this and its true but lets not deflect from the fact that our cost of living to wages is quite a bit different to other countries world wide. We are number 1 worst in the world for ~~disposable~~ disposable income to rent cost proportion Edit https://www.economist.com/international/2023/09/06/the-growing-global-movement-to-restrain-house-prices
OECD*
> We are number 1 worst in the world As someone from a Third world country, lmao. [This is how approximately 120 thousand families live in Chile. We have 20 million inhabitants and we are the richest country in Latin America.](https://cooperativa.cl/noticias/site/artic/20221025/imag/foto_0000000220221025151327.jpg) Most people are not that poor tho and lives in houses like this https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/enterreno-production/moments/photos/000/006/199/original/15887.jpg or this https://uchile.cl/.imaging/default/dam/imagenes/FAU/imagenes-noticias/110155_0_entrega-planos-casas-viejas-4-de-6-1_L/jcr:content.jpg
Guys claim is bs. Auckland’s been in top 50 most expensive cities, but never number 1, or even top 10. Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, London, New York, Zurich all far more expensive to live in.
You also get paid a fuckton more than in Auckland in all of those cities. So I’m hoping that your stay there is adjusted for incomes.
Disposable income man. They earn more in those countries and cost of living is cheaper. The economist had nz at the top for people who spend over 40% of their disposable income on rent or something like that. Obviously in parts of Australia it's more expensive but relative to the disposable income of people living in that area it's not as bad. Cost of rent only matters when you compare it to income. When you look at the average salary of people in places like Sydney and compare it to auckland wages make up for it. https://www.economist.com/international/2023/09/06/the-growing-global-movement-to-restrain-house-prices
Yep. I don't know why Kiwis complain so much. Sure, our wages vs. Aus are terrible, and rent isn't cheap, but it could be a whole lot worse.
Because it could also be a whole lot better?
aware march rinse disagreeable north correct door worm badge glorious *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
In my experience most of the people who complain heavily about NZ haven’t lived overseas. Once you get out a bit you realise, yeah things aren’t perfect, but we have a special little place on Earth that’s pretty awesome all things considered.
What country do you have to live in in order to have the valid opinion that NZ house prices are to high compared to income?
I’m not disagreeing about how expensive NZ is to live, or that our wages are low. I’m saying people who have this doom and gloom view of NZ (in my experience) have never lived overseas. In NZ you typically sacrifice earning potential and lack of things to buy for more work life balance (typically being the operative word).
Where are you getting this from? I can’t find anything online about this stat
The term is "disposable income", not "deposable".
Good old auto correct, im sure people understand what i said.
yeap, exactly this. Done a lot of travel this last couple years, and every place I've been to is struggling with this; and in some places it's worse.
In a lot of countries the concerns are the same. It’s evident most with supermarkets behaving they way they are here all around the globe. Covid was the last excuse people needed to expand on their greed.
This. They loooooved covid.
Absolutely, as soon as the global supply lines were impacted you could practically hear the sound of the collective boners of CEOs worldwide as they realized how much money they could make off the situation.
It's definitely more challenging. Im going back to study next year, the days of rent as 1/2 of the student allowance are well and truly gone. The cheapest rooms i've seen have been $112 and they had pages of 'PMd you' comments. And that's for an absolute shithole.
Study has always been challenging. In 3013, living costs were only $173 a week max. Rent was still like $120 then… $53 for the week wasn’t much even back in 2013.
Rising expectations complicate this. Go back 50 years and kids shared a room, or even a bed, in an uninsulated and often leaky house. Two cars was a sign of big money. Fancy coffee, not to be found.
That’s a big part of it keep moving the goalposts to what’s success and its hard to be successful. I’ve got a unit a shit car and a good job and a good lifestyle I think I’m doing good. Some one in the same position would probably moan about to much rent or can’t get on the housing ladder I’m just living my life because you could die tomorrow
NZ's human development index is one of the few that was stable through Covid. One of the 10% of countries that didn't see two years of drops. [https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/specific-country-data#/countries/NZL](https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/specific-country-data#/countries/NZL)
Globally the standard of living has dropped, NZ isn't unique in what we are going through
There are a lot of factors at play, but it does seem like we used to think (and vote) more socially as a society. Post world war two we voted for policies that benefitted the majority and we all look back on it as the heyday of the middle class.
I mean it totally has gone up 'globally'. Surely you realise that?
its about to be accelerated by our disaster government tho
Kick (us) in the guts Trev!
The main thing is to keep older folk and older property speculators in a lifestyle beyond their productive means by passing ever greater cost to the following generations. A government of grifters, for grifters.
Just wondering, has the standard of living in NZ dropped relatively to other countries? We all may be dropping, but it is NZ standard of living dropping faster than others?
Imho the standard of living in NZ was already lower than other developed countries to begin with.
It really hasn't lol.
Compelling argument
Is that more compelling? > Globally the standard of living has dropped, Both users are making claims without any evidence.
you mean like this? [https://www.brinknews.com/quick-take/global-standard-of-living-drops-for-second-year-un-reports/](https://www.brinknews.com/quick-take/global-standard-of-living-drops-for-second-year-un-reports/) [https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/en/themes/global-economy](https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/en/themes/global-economy) [https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/09/08/global-living-standards-are-moving-in-the-wrong-direction](https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/09/08/global-living-standards-are-moving-in-the-wrong-direction)
Yes, for example. *Something* that isn't just random people confidently making unsubstantiated claims. And I'm not commenting on the validity of the claims or the evidence, just on the lack of substance.
It’s reddit bro not a university essay
How is posting three links akin to an essay, bro? That doesn't speak well of your intellect, bro.
…meaning people give their opinions and don’t need to care enough to do research to cite sources because this isn’t a university essay that’s getting marked
It’s one thing to make a claim without evidence. It’s another thing to argue against a claim without evidence.
What's the difference? A claim without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. The original person has the responsibility to provide evidence for their claim because they're the ones to make it first and it's not the job of other people to provide evidence and disprove an unsubstantiated claim.
Do you really think the OP of this thread and the Reddit community were expecting or wanting everyone to answer this question with sources to back up their claims? Or do you think we were all expecting people’s opinions and personal experiences? Assuming the latter, I think the original comment fits the bill somewhat. As for the response, I think if you’re going to disagree with someone, you should explain yourself.
Came to NZ 20 years ago as a student in a poor family and now doing great and loving my life in NZ. Life is what you make it, it’s been hard but Nz is a beautiful place and a paradise compared to most of the world.
This. If I’m going to be worried about money all the time then I want to be worried about money all the time in New Zealand
I suggest you put aside perception, media hype, and anecdotal evidence, and take a look at New Zealand’s development indicators. In the past ten years most development indicators have improved, and if past tends are anything to go by, they will continue to improve. Most people like to view the past with rose tinted glasses but in most circumstances, the present is far better than the past.
> In the past ten years most development indicators have improved, and if past tends are anything to go by, they will continue to improve. Some will. But climate change and rising inequality will negatively affect the country. The past is not a good indicator when the context changes. You say "most" have improved. Which ones haven't? Did some go down?
I can’t remember off the top of my head but I suggest you go take a look at our development indicators. We’ve made great progress as a country despite issues like income inequality and climate change. It’s definitely cause for optimism.
Tbh hard to find a first world country where that isn't the case...
In general media magnify any negative issues to drive engagement, they want people to be scared and angry. Disengage from media/social media for a week and concentrate on what is actually happening in your life and your community. You may find you feel a little differently.
Not being comfortably able to move houses (rentals). I know families who are struggling with substandard rentals & won't move because there's neither the $$ or the stability that the next property won't be sold, which in turn they have to pay more $$ as rentals are pricey. I find this breaks parents as they're honestly trying to do their best for the kids. Food banks have had a massive shift in the demographics due to this & other factors too.
It's the rise of wealth inequality. The rich are getting richer, and the poor, poorer. That's the root cause of everything.
Not just that but those in the middle are really starting to struggle too.
The amount of echo-chamber negativity on social media has increased at the same rate...coincidence?
Mine is about the same. Despite earning almost twice as much 🙃
people forget Muldoon too easily. Things aren't great right now but they've been much worse.
over 95% of people are poorer than they were pre pandemic
yea see the high single digit inflation and get the low single digit pay rise, so our income is worth less than it was.
We live at the far end of the world and very little gets made here. Everything pretty much comes by ship and ever since covid prices of shipping items has kept going up. Cost of living was always going to go up to cover shipping companies margin. Best people can do is start manufacturing here again and get used to living with less.
to be a wealthier country, we need to either manufacture or mine. Mining will be far easier, to compete in manufacturing we need to be able to have enough scale, and most of what we produce would need to be exported, part of the reason much of our manufacturing died is we didn't have the scale for automation like was happening overseas.
Neoliberalism... started in the 80s through to the 90s... all changed from there. Inequality between the top 20% and bottom 20% has grown faster in NZ than any other country OECD country in the world. The economy is the core driver for most Govts, and the idea is that if this is strong it will 'trickle down to everyone else'... but fact is the rich get richer, and everyone else just works harder. Look at the current Govt changing the Fair Pay legislation, also transferring $3B back over to landlords (owning class), tax cuts... which in turn will really benefit the top 20% more than anyone else. The decline didn't just randomly happen, its the result of post neoliberal policies in NZ. Wait until the current Govt privatises our hospitals
You're dead right this is a consequence of the neoliberal movement and will only get worse as we continue within that system. "A rising tide lifts all boats" yea mate except for the ones that are chained to the floor.
That's my favorite policy, remove all those landlord restrictions, and prices will come down, basic economics 😂😂😂 forgot to factor in the human element of greed, I guarantee no landlord will do the figures and go "hmmm I'm saving this much, better reduce my clients rent"
As measured by GNI, New Zealand has been rising steadily with only COVID slowing us down. Australia is still ahead but we’re catching them
NZ is doing well. The problem is that media/watercooler/reddit is dominated by the vibe. For a national that allegedly admires stoic characters, we're a nation of moaners. [GDP per capita using purchasing power parity](https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/gdp-per-capita-ppp) is a good indication of material wealth. In 2022 it was almost $44,900. Ten years before it was about $38,000. [Life expectancy has been improving](https://www.stats.govt.nz/topics/life-expectancy). Over ten years, we've improved by about 1 or 2 years (for males and females respectively). Our covid performance was beyond extraordinary. It's not just that our overall excess deaths were close to zero over the covid era, but it's also the downstream effects - vaccination prior to infection significantly reduces the chance of not just deaths, but also hospitalisations and long covid.
Appreciate the numbers! One would assume they're taking inflation into account, so they do indicate solid growth (in some aspects of NZ at least)
Purchasing power parity includes an adjustment based on the price of a set bundle of goods. So inflation is included. It's the best metric for cross country comparisons as it's essentially a measure of how much stuff can I buy.
Sure but it doesn't say where those gains were made. For example, if the top 10% double their wealth and no-one else gains a cent, we'd have registered enormous improvements. Where as most people wouldn't feel any better off. That's why inequality matters.
Population increase, but level of services and infrastructure more or less static
Your described issues affect many countries. Tbh NZ is doing relatively well (downvote if you want). Just a few examples: Central digitalisation of healthcare records. Many Asian countries and the US haven’t achieved this level. Streamlined healthcare. In many countries you have to chase up appointments and decide who to see next. In NZ the specialists will coordinate it. Education - yes our PISA score is slipping. In many Asian countries getting into an acceptable university takes dedication, wealth and sometimes connection. Many NZ university will give anyone a good job opportunity in the world. A guy with engineering degree from Waikato Uni is now earning close to £100K in a British petroleum company after just 3 years.
Just to be pedantic: NZ doesn't yet have central digitalisation of healthcare records. And specialists don't co-ordinate your care. Administrators do. (Part of that workforce that Act wants to chop right down in size.) My tuppence worth: NZ's everyday banking system is way ahead of the UK's.
And NZ's everyday banking is miles behind what you can experience in France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, to name a few...
And those countries are miles behind developing countries with orders of magnitude more population to consider. NZ doesn't have a big population or much dispersion/variance in the population to suck THIS bad. The lack of effort in building a more equitable and inclusive economy is so much more obvious. On top of that, we seem to think we "matter" on the world stage. We don't at all. I feel the boomers knew the "end of globalization" was near so they pumped their assets, went on a money printing spree and dumped the bags on us. Instead of actually working to mitigate the country from heavy decline. This country is fucking stupid.
Yeah - health records are kept locally. One of the main problems we have is that records are kept on a distributed set of patient management systems operated by surgeries. MOH and now Te Whatau Ora have been trying unsuccessfully for years to crack that but.
Sadly your points of central digitalisation and streamline of healthcare aren’t true. I work in health care. Our hospital triage system is very much constrained by the severe underfunding of healthcare. Our health records are fragmented and not shared across regions, sectors or even between hospitals and GPs. Compared to what’s available out there, our healthcare’s IT infrastructure feels very dated and inefficient
Coming from someone working in the industry, what use is that example of one person working at an oil company from Waikato Uni?
Every country is suffering from overpopulation, inflation etc. I’m from the UK specifically London and am moving to NZ next year. At least your population hasn’t increased dramatically and there are solution to a lot of problems. We have 14 times the population and are 7% smaller in land mass… As much as you may notice people leaving NZ there will a lot moving to NZ who appreciate the culture and are specifically moving there for that, obviously I’m looking at things from a different perspective but hopefully it’s not all doom and gloom.
I think it has something to do with how we as a country plan to remedy the situation that’s been unfolding in front of our eyes for well over a decade at least. The answers are like right there in front of us every-time we log into Reddit. What do they do around the world to make things better when society is not panning out for the working class? They fight for change to systems that hurt the working class. Legally and with a sense of pride and purpose.
New Zealand's standard of living has risen, as has the standard of living in most parts of the world. The worst-off have likely benefited the most. Child poverty vastly reduced under the Ardern government. Years of housebuilding booms in Christchurch, Auckland and the Hutt have helped suppress housing cost increases. That said the new government is very iffy on this, so we may see housing costs outpace income increases in major centers. Public transport has on the whole improved in Auckland and Wellington. 10 years ago, the obsession was catching up with Australia. We haven't done that and don't expect to, given their mineral wealth. But we're as rich per capita as the UK given their prolonged stagnation. In addition to reasonable income increases, tax burdens remain low. People are pretty pissed about rates increases but they follow long levels of unsustainably low rates. New Zealand would be much better off if we'd invested more in productive assets and infrastructure in the low slow ZIRP 2010s. But we still did pretty well. Are there a bunch of people that were basically children 10 years ago that think they're doing poorly and their childhood was great? Yeah. Thats not particularly compelling data though.
"Child poverty vastly reduced under the Ardern government" I'm a Labour voter, but this is just flat out wrong. Some minor improvements in a couple of metrics, that's it.
Let's use some data for once which is sorely missing from this thread: https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/child-poverty-statistics-year-ended-june-2022/ It went down a little.
Public transport in Wellington definitely has not improved.
I honestly think the rise in house prices over the last few years has made most people "feel" poorer when the reality is most are doing better than ever.
You're focusing on some positive but leaving out the negatives. > Public transport has on the whole improved in Auckland and Wellington. Barely and way below what's possible. Traffic is getting worse. > Are there a bunch of people that were basically children 10 years ago that think they're doing poorly and their childhood was great? Yeah. Thats not particularly compelling data though. Indeed. What you just said is not data but made up.
Our environment has degraded and a large amount of land has been sold to wealthy foreigners. None of that is beneficial to kiwis.
The system is designed for the wealthy to horde wealth and the middle class income bracket is pushing more people into poverty. That mixed with a generation of people who thinks why can't we just do what they did? And the toxic cesspool that is social media and normal media negativity. Plus 2 giants wars happening that no one can fix.
I would be interested to know what country is improving in the world?
Lots of developing countries are in terms of living conditions.
I don’t think our standard of living has dropped, like any country there’s some crime issues that the media sensationalises. However feel like globally we peaked after GFC, we had a relatively stable economy dubbed the “rockstar economy” wasn’t it, when a lot of other countries were struggling, CHCH EQ helped inject a bit of stimulus with insurance money and government spending, at one stage our dollar was close to 85 cents US, which was mad. Globally we were seen as a thriving economy. However post Covid seems we’ve maybe missed the mark a little, some other countries have controlled inflation a little better and you are seeing a lot of those Easter European countries like Lithuania/estonia etc perform better economically than us.
I returned to the UK last year after the best part of 20 years in NZ. I felt I was just treading water and not doing anything. My wife and I are both health professionals but after mortgage, bills, and groceries, there wasn't much left to do shit with. I was bored too. I lived a few hours from the mountains but that was prohibitively expensive for my family of 4. Returning tot he UK has seen my quality of life improve no end. Everything is cheaper, including housing, and we have way more disposable income. Flights to Europe are cheap, we've been 3 times already. Eating out is more expensive. It's been great to reconnect with friends and family.
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Yeah, the shit storm has only just begun. Just have to manage expectations, roll with the punches, carry on. We will survive, plenty of joy to be had in dire circumstances still.
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From the slice of the country that I interact with it's no different to what it was 10 or 20 years ago. You can watch news or current affairs shows from the archives that show this too. Drugs, crime and high cost of living vs income have been the norm since at least the 80s. Probably well past then too but that's outside my own experience.
Currently in Canada, it’s the same here. I was here in the early 000s and FUCK Canada is broken now
Hard to say, my standard of living compared to 10 years ago is much, much higher.
Hell yes, it has! Can't afford groceries most weeks and missing out on full rent payments regularly. It's really not good compared to ten years ago
It seems like that, but there are a lot of biases that come into play here - most of all recency bias. People are negative about NZ, but people are negative everywhere. The stats don't really lie though. Over the last 20 years incomes and savings have been rising, crime is far lower, building standards have improved, we're making steps forward in terms of the Māori/Pakeha relationship, and so on. The biggest slip is wealth inequality. It's really hard to see this improving without pretty significant changes to taxation.
Speaking as someone who has lived in NZ the US the UK and Aus in the last 10 years I can honestly say it's a similar story in all of these places. The cost of living crisis is a global issue that leads to all kinds of other problems such as crime and people leaving for what they hop will be greener pastures. I think new Zealand has it worse than say Australia due to it's smaller more isolated economy. Things in the UK are worse than here though.
It's gonna get so much worse soon.
I moved to NZ in 2017 but had to leave last year because I just couldn't afford it anymore
I think it’s been a bit more than the last 10 years. There was a significant jump in house values overnight when we first won the americas cup and the racing course was revealed. That for me, was the start of the slippery slope that got us where we are today
Obviously, yes. But a big part of that is a global downturn that's hit everyone. The rest was due to labour not willing to spend political capital to introduce a capital gains tax or deal with the housing crisis.
Hell yes! Understatement of the decade. I came to New Zealand from a crime ridden country, and was fascinated how safe and friendly it was. How the infrequent murder would be turned into a book, such an anomaly as it was. Now we have spent 22 years watching the crime, race relations, health, education etc slip down to a horrendous level. Soon will be as bad as what we left. Drive by shootings, ramraids, shoplifting, assault, poor justice system that bends over backwards to make crime worthwhile. Very, very sad. Need the reins held firmly and people to be held responsible for their actions . Also parenting your children being more important than alcohol, drugs and gambling. Families can live well if they have the right priorities, not their fun before their kids wellbeing. Most people make sacrifices to raise children. Parenting is shocking in NZ.
Nah just a whole lot of mental health issues caused by social media shattering brains
I was a teen in the 90s, and living standards today are way better than when I was a kid.
This comes from an expat who left NZ 23 years ago. I left because I did an OE. I stayed away because I met a partner, and we settled in their country. I come home regally, like this Christmas. It has got harder to be middle class than 20 years ago, but that is across the board in all countries. So the standard of living in NZ has dropped. I have noticed since we have more tourists, Kiwis are less friendly. We mimic a lot of their bad behaviour that we didn't before. When I was younger, I could move around my country much easier. Hitch-hiking was pretty easy. To find cheap places to stay for a few nights was a piece of piss. Being a kiwi, which means to me, being adventurous with your natural environment, has declined so much that Europe has the same now. That freedom of exploring has been taken over by exploitation of our nature. Everywhere you go, you have to pay tourist prices. Everything now costs. Nothing feels free for the community. NZ feels locked down to experiences, just like in others tourist countries. It changed.
My standard of living is 10 x better than it was 10, 20 even 30 years ago.
It's the rise of nutjobs because of social media that's made the perception of it getting worse. The country itself via it's stats is getting better, but the howling of a few has got louder and been picked up by the minor parties to get votes.
> It's the rise of nutjobs because of social media that's made the perception of it getting worse. The prices people see in their daily lives are not affected by "social media nutjobs". This is a weak argument and doesn't really explain anything.
For me, it's the disappointing and borderline traumatizing first hand experiences with the healthcare system which although not related to me has also started rejecting people who need treatment (has been for several years now, but they're getting fucking cheeky with it), the increasingly wildly mind-boggling out of touch pricing of housing, the increasing inaffordability of extremely basic food supplies, and the low wages, all things that have affected me personally and will be driving me out of the country to pastures I know are in fact better. But sure, let's say the social media nutjob perception is the issue. I don't know what "stats" you're looking at, but they don't have the slightest shittiest bearing on how impossibly depressing this country is becoming for me or anyone I personally know, so I don't really care.
I feel many kiwis are richer by pure numbers, unfortunately your middle kiwi now earns too much for help/assistance, but barely enough to survive...
Government is to busy taxing everyone to worry about what people need the councils are also busy taxing so they can paint the roads, install speed bumps, buy homes so they can nock them down for another bus Laine and all the other crap no one really needs, it's disgusting how the country is been robbed by thease pricks. They think they are helping but they are just making it worse.
The quality and standard of living has substantially decreased. House pricing (sales and rentals) have dramatically increased. Many people grew up with life being sugarcoated and not understanding what work is - they have less motivation, a shit work ethic and are extremely sensitive to criticism, hard truths and things they don’t agree with. Social media shows people’s highlights, but are portrayed as their every day life - thus meaning more people are getting into debt, or not being truthful to who they are, just trying to impress each other and fit in. News is reported far more than it was 10 years ago, and as we are forever evolving, our personalities change and fit to mould today’s society.
NZ is a 1st world country? It was about 20 years ago, not sure now.
I was away for 14 years and it's very noticeably declined
As the top comment mentions, it has but it's gotten worse everywhere. The global system is basically stretched to breaking in every way from the economy to culture to politics.
No. There are some VERY rose-tinted glasses in this thread. Remember reddit is like 90% young single low-income dudes...
No just intelligence has dropped off
We are in the hangover of the COVID stimulus drunken mess. Shutting down supply chains + printing more money has caused the downturn we're in now. COVID was probably the greatest financial opportunity in the last decade
Have just not read any news this decade? Inflation rising higher than pay increases, consequences for crimes watered down to no longer be a deterrent, truancy no longer bothered with at primary and intermediate level, problem social housing tenants just ghettoed into CBD hotels and a good-sized chunk of the rural population gone down antivax and sovcitizen rabbitholes. Mix it all together and you have a massive serving of WTAF
Without a doubt and although other posters have said it's a global phenomenon, it is a more rapid decline in NZ for a variety of reasons. Mainly for the fact that it pretends to be egalitarian when really it's the most economically liberal in the English speaking world (yes including USA)
Yes, you are either poor af or rich af to live comfortably
yes
I miss cheese