National’s economic doom spiral is now upon us and social cohesion is disintegrating – why running NZ as a company is killing us 

New Zealand’s economic warning lights are flashing red. Inflation pressures are rising, unemployment is climbing, the fuel crisis is biting, and social cohesion is fraying. The promise that the country could be run like a company is colliding with the brutal reality that a nation is not a balance sheet.

The economists keep underestimating how badly the economy is functioning under this Government’s ideological experiment of budget austerity for hollowed out public service budgets, corporate welfare to their donor mates and a religious level faith that cutting back the state sees the market come in and do it cheaper.

Labour is good for capitalism.

National is good for the capitalists.

The reality about NZ is that we are 3 enormous, sparsely populated Islands that has always required the State to step in as the 40% foundation stone upon which everything is built!

This is why free market neoliberalism struggles in NZ, because for the full impact of the competition dynamics that lift productivity, you need to have high population density, the is something NZ doesn’t have!

We have always relied on the State to be this 40% foundational stone, what the Political Right want to do is underfund public services until they collapse and then argue privatisation is the solution!

They believe that if the State steps back and the market steps in, the product is cheaper.

Sure, but cheaper damages.

Take the school lunches.

Under Labour it was $8 per lunch.

That created healthy, nutritional food that was made by locals and created thousands of local jobs.

ACT degraded that to meals costing $3.18 which is 40 cents more than meals in prison. The meals are 30% less nutritious and cost all those local jobs.

Sure, ACT saved money, but at a cost to the nutritional value and local jobs.

We don’t need more free market neoliberal experiments, we need solid State infrastructure and fully funded public services paid for by taxing the rich!

Luxon believes he is the CEO of NZ because the narrative for the Right is that Business knows best.

National use small business morality to camouflage their Corporate Interests!

But a Country isn’t a Business!

It’s a country!

Our Pakeha forebears fled the class systems of Europe and combined with Māori culture communalism alongside an intellectual culture that has fought and won some of the great civil liberties of the 19th and 20th Century to produce an egalitarian frame work for a society.

Well funded and positive Universal Basic Services provide the foundation stone upon which we build our nation.

These Universal Basic Services  must be funded by taxing the Polluters, the Vice, the Corporations, the Banks, the Sugar pimps, the Speculators and the Billionaires!

The neoliberal experiment in NZ has borne a bitter harvest of division and class misery.

National’s economic doom spiral is now upon us…

Govt reveals worst case oil shock economic scenarios for NZ

The minister detailed three scenarios that Treasury developed to estimate the potential fallout from continued disruption to oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz.

A fragile ceasefire between the US-Israel and Iran remains in place, but the critical waterway remained shut to most maritime traffic, with the overall disruption to overseas energy markets expected to be far longer lasting.

The figures ranged from a short conflict with oil at US$110 a barrel to a severe, prolonged disruption with oil reaching US$180.

With Brent crude at US$102 today, Willis said the mildest scenario looked most likely.

Under that model, inflation would reach 3.9%; growth would slow to 2%; and unemployment would hit 5.3%. The worst-case scenario being planned for, which required oil prices to nearly double from current levels, would spike inflation to 7.4% and increase unemployment to 6.6% by mid-2027.

TVNZ

The economic spiral is accelerating

…and social cohesion is disintegrating…

The Kiwi dream of ‘work hard, live well’ is falling to pieces

A new report from the Helen Clark Foundation shows that our social cohesion has dropped across every dimension measured: sense of belonging, sense of worth, social inclusion and justice, participation, and acceptance and rejection.

Right now, more than one in four New Zealanders (28%) are feeling alienated from the promise of our country. Almost half of Māori and Pasifika are in this group. So are nearly half of Green voters and seven in ten New Zealand First voters. These are people who disagree on most other things, but they’re increasingly likely to agree that New Zealand isn’t working for them.

Stuff

…Police integrity is disintegrating…

When economic pain turns into social collapse

Review of police integrity finds reset ‘urgently needed’

A scathing review of police by the Public Service Commission has found an “integrity reset is urgently needed” with a perceived culture that holds seniors to a “lesser standard than juniors”.

It also found a “wave of crime” arriving on New Zealand shores and says police are “struggling to keep up”.

The report reveals that only 21 percent of homicide, sexual assault and serious assault investigations were finalised within 12 months in 2024/25 down from 40 percent in 2020/2021. Police’s performance standard for 2024/25 was greater than 60 percent.

In response, police have developed an implementation plan which includes a 10-year police Capability Plan.

The Public Service Commission (PSC) released its Performance Improvement Review (PIR) of police on Thursday.

RNZ

…people are so poor right now they can’t afford the petrol to pick up food from the food banks…

Fuel crisis sends poorest into ‘doom spiral’ as Auckland charities see dip in food parcel pick-ups

Auckland charities are reporting a deceptive dip in food parcel pick-ups because the city’s most disadvantaged are unable to even afford petrol to reach distribution hubs.

NZ Herald

The problem with New Zealand is that we never paused to evaluate the 40 year neoliberal experiment, and the bitter harvest of wrath it is bringing us will shatter the political spectrum.

Running New Zealand as a company is killing us.