This is Alan Vallis Henderson’s weblog.
My aim is to make more New Zealanders aware of just how badly served we have been by politicians of all stripes for at least the last 50 years and just how bad our economic situation is.
The country is sliding steadily backwards relative to almost everyone other nation and despite the triennial promises from current and would-be politicians nothing is being done to stem the ebbing tide.
Since John Key promised to help us catch up with Australia, New Zealand has fallen 5 places in the OECD’s GDP-per-capita ranking. Australia has risen 5 places. (From the CIA’s World Factbook figures, there’s a full explanation in this post). OK, it’s too early to expect miracles, but ask yourself “What has been done to expedite that aim?”
We should bear in mind that Australia is not a paragon of economic virtue on which to base our expectations. Over the last few decades they’ve performed badly relative to most of their competitors too. Just nowhere near as badly as we have.
We need to make changes. Big changes. The system is not working.
Please help. I don’t have all the answers. I’m asking you to assist by providing your feedback in comments on my posts and other pages. Everything here is flexible, where I’m shown to be wrong I’ll change it and when you give me new data I’ll attribute it to you.
If you feel that you’re erudite and knowledgeable enough to contribute content and your comments back that up I’m looking for an extra editor or two.
There’s a contact link on the top menu.