Ummm, are NZ Business leaders delusional? Drunk? Stoned? Or all of the above?
Ummmmm.
What?
Behold, another Quarterly Survey of Business Delusion
The NZIER’s QSBO survey published yesterday showed businesses remain stubbornly confident about the wider economy and their own businesses, despite their own ‘experienced activity’ in the June quarter being much, much worse than they had expected just three months ago.
That ‘delusion gap’ between expectations for the next quarter and what actually happened in the next quarter’s survey widened to its worst levels ever of minus 35% in the June quarter, just as concerns about a lack of consumer demand rose to an 11-year high and architects’ confidence about future construction work collapsed to record lows, particularly for Government infrastructure work.
The latest Stats NZ figures show in the past 12 months food prices have gone up 4.4 percent – the highest increase since December 2023.
RNZ have been comparing supermarket shopping and found that In May 2022, their first shop at Woolworths Greenlane cost $238 dollars and $217 at PAK’nSAVE Royal Oak.
But in 2025, those same items at Woolworths have shot up to $305 dollars – an extra $67 dollars at the checkout where as the PAK’nSAVE shop, was now $270, an extra $53 dollars in cost.
Despite promising to tackle the cost of living crisis, the Government has failed us.
But it gets so much worse than that…
758 construction businesses have gone into liquidation in the last 12 months, thanks in part to the Government’s freeze on transport, housing and hospital investment spending at the beginning of 2024, Centrix reported this morning. Construction jobs have fallen by 12,723 in the last year!
Worker and employer expectations of real wage deflation are worsening as the economy slides back into a mid-year stagnation, and as administered prices such as Government and council fees and rates rise faster than inflation, as do prices in the monopoly-bound food, insurance and electricity sectors.
…ego, vacant optimism and the medicinal cannabis market is all that is holding the economy together right now.
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They are getting what they voted for .They thought it would just be the bottom feeders that would be crushed ,but now find they are the new bottom feeders.How is it ok that their employees have to live in cars on the street because the cost of living is not met by their pay .
And if you read the NZ Herald opinion pieces they are calling for more cuts to government spending as the solution to a stalled economy and a misplaced obsession with government debt to GDP.
Overlooking the fact that government bonds are private sector savings not a bank loan.
It’s patently clear that many out there are “empty headed” or just plain “brain dead”. How anyone can think this CoC is going to recover with their current policies/plans is Disneyland behaviour. But again, they simply don’t care – they’re “sorted” so who gives a stuff if those in need are starving or living in garages, cars, doorways etc. As long as ‘I’m’ ok then that’s all that matters. Nothing is ever going to change with this lot in power as they don’t see New Zealanders as a group; they just see rich and poor and to hell with the poor. My g/dau has a school friend who comes to stay quite often as there is insufficient food in their house despite the parents working their butts off and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. FGS open your eyes, along with continuous “distractions” we are being “brain washed” by our inept, RW media. If you believe what the ZB trolls tell you, then you are dumber than I thought. Meanwhile our PM ponces around o/seas like he’s a big time player, wasting good money and returning with NOTHING, no trade deals, just empty promises and more lies. But again he’s “sorted” and living a great life! Way past time for a major shake-up!
The reason that the business class and it’s media don’t really care about the economy? They can always maintain profits by adjusting their labor force to match demand. So for many business – all they have to do is lay off staff and their margins remain intact.
In many respects the private sector is emulating the government since it’s the largest employer and investor in the NZ economy. For the private sector it’s all about who can shoot themselves in the foot multiple times and still stay standing upright as the economy continues to stall and drift downward.