Wonder what might have happened if the US Government had not rescued the banks in 2008 and let all the big investment banks go under...might have cleaned up the system better, paving for a regeneration more quickly. Now, it is just printing money and hoarding. Retail investors are out, too scared. Only Governments and large institutions are the players, which mean more concentration of wealth and power in fewer hands. Innovation and Enterprise have been killed..Only Greed and Avarice and Trickery are flourishing. Governments are clueless and the wealthy are dictating policies that suit them. 

Sounds like you might be suggesting a revolution

Foreign owned banks reckless borrowing is at the root of NZds economic  problem - on all fronts farming, property etc..

Unfortunately the people who are in positions to do the rebuilding are the same ones who have benifitted from the way it has always been
No change coming anytime soon.

Those people who borrowed more than they can ever repay are still in play.
What's new.
These include our erstwhile Poll-ies.
To pay for their sins they have to remain in Limbo.
The tax take is down, so they keep BORROWING, which the country could not afford, before, let alone now.
(It has always lived beyond its means...as many a FARMER may be realising, that debt is not going away, due to increased...OVERHEADS)
So....This is to maintain the life styles of the very culprits who allowed the situation to occur.
So though some may be whining and dining in Awkland, those actually working, have stopped spending to reduce their debt, even at the very lowest rates ever imagined, they are struggling, because the OVERHEADS keep going up.
These overheads apply to anyone who pays TAXES, RATES and other totally INFLATED costs of those who are totally.......... NON-PRODUCTIVE.
And we have a basket case non-productive element here...more so than most countries per head of capita.
(This was hidden in the past, but WFF and other major overheads are still in play...WTF).
Socialising debt, does not make it go away, just take another form.
You can witter on and on about how much money a few people in AWKLAND made from their inflated priced houses, this was brought about by foreign buyers bailing from the dreaded debts and businesses, as they milked the systems of the past to rort their own WORKERS and countries.
So they are now seeking a safe haven and No Zeal-and is seen as that.
We even pay em to do so....HOW STRANGE IS THAT.
Sum people are so deperate...for a little money.
Low interest rates also encouraged those who also bought to buy and also encouraged those who were not MUGS...to sell.
They may never work again, cos they are rich compared with those over borrowed here, now repaying debt...IE...DELEVERAGING.
In business It is much better to get rid of any overheads that pertain....that do not pay.
This applies to all of NO Zealand today, except a few who now Borrow in other ways, hoping to make a buck by AMALGAMATION.
This includes Vodafone and Telstra...for instance...so they can make profit from CHANGE.(They hope and pray)
There are many such deals in progress.
But still some cannot get reliable and FAST...BROADBAND, even though the income earners of this fair land...
(And I do not mean AWK-land)...they are just moving around the piddly bits of money they made...elsewhere.
They even STOPPED...the Trade me funded new CABLE ...cos the poor bastard who made a mint from TRADEME...had not made enough to completely FUND it...so had to shelve that...
So we still pay through the nose for crap responses, primarily from crap polly-ticians and crap TELECOMM...that had a major outage...yesterday.
Lucky I was not with em...I left them idiots many years ago.
TELECOMM even tried to sell me an update recently, even though I told em years ago, never to bite the hand that feeds you.....cos I am ...A SORE-LOSER....so they and a lot of other similar idiots lost my business, cos they thought we were all MUGS, here in ..No Zeal-and.
I explained KINDLY to the poor mug on the other end of the Sales Pitch, why I would never, EVER return to Telecomm.....once bitten...twice shy.
Similarly why I will never vote National, Labour, Green, Maori, Jehovas Witness and DESTINY CHURCH.
Cos some of us are not that STUPID.
Likewise......why I did not lose any money in too good to be true riporf schemes pertaining today. (The No Zeal-and way)
Taking the public all for mugs, is what is wrong with the hole system.
The hole system is designed to TAKE from  the middle and give to the layabouts I like to call the OVERHEADS in No Zealand.
And we is importing a lot more OVERHEADS, than actually sane people who will make a difference...and not just to the the JAILS, RORTS and other PONZI schemes in play today.
No Zealanders will rip orf anything...and that includes the WELFARE SYTEMS of the Rich and Poor.
They even try it on when in POWER...in GOVERMENT.....it is called MMP. 
Buy the idiot who makes the deciding VOTES.
And that is ANYONE...on a BENEFIT.
Like...........WARNER BROS.......and other charities.
I could keep this up all day...and write a book...
NOT WORTH THE EFFORT...IF I MAY BE SO....BOLD.
I watched some poll-lies on TV this morning whilst eating breakfast...
They convinced me that there is no hope for NO ZEAL-AND.....
(Each and every one of em...me..me...me..first....Even...no-zeal-and...LAST)
They want to clog up the place and build monstrosities of a city...AWKLAND...filled with millionaires and plonkers and ticky takky shakkies....no Thanks..
Mostly to maintain their own lifestyle...cos they THINK...they know best.
Well the proof of the pudding has been the past 40 years....
THEY BLEEDING WELL.....DON'T.
Hence why they are all shouting their mouths orf....on TV.
Hence...why I am a very....SORE-LOSER.
Lucky I  do not work for them.......................AND NEVER WILL.
And why I rant.....to wind people up.
Even though my version of the truth....often HURTS....and sum people do not like me to use my CAPITAL...so I do..
And WELLINGTON is not that great a place to live either...BURN-HARD.
Been there done that....one road in, one out......and that is the best one..to take.
Re-build.....what...another FIASCO...no thanks...
I like it just the way it was..........when life was simple.
And so was I......
Life is still a beach....but not with the other bleeders...anywhere in site.
And reception is only...INTERMITTANT.
 
 
 

Bernard, To carry on your analogy, I assume NZ is the neighbour with the barbeque, which we have on hire purchase. It only partly works because of the neighbours squirting fuel at it; and in any case because the exchange rate with the neighbours is all wrong, it's usually cheaper to head down to the takeaway shop rather than fire up the barbecue.
Our house is heavily mortgaged to the neighbours. The only thing that works pretty well is the garden, with a sheep and a very productive cow, along with some fruit and veggies. The garden though is also separately very heavily mortgaged to the neighbours. That's okay though because the neighbours are now offering to buy it outright and reemploy some of our people albeit on pretty low wages to keep gardening it. Even there, if we run out of people, or our people want too much money or something, the neighbours send over some of their people to help out (even frankly if we're not sure we need them). Recently that's been really helpful, as some of our best workers have ducked next door to the neighbours on the other side to help them dig up their back yard and sell it off. 
We haven't really worked out what will happen when the big neighbours with the stuffed up lawn mower find that their whole system is stuffed. For sure you would think they will stop squirting petrol at the barbecue, which means it probably won't work at all then. And they'll stop loaning us money for the takeaways and everything else. And pay us less for the veggies and milk; so they might well foreclose on the house and the garden. Am sure we'll still be able to stay in the house, because as the ANZ says, it's not moving. Can't imagine we'll be paid much though, and the lifestyle won't be much good. Low wages and high rent.
Maybe we should stop the petrol coming over the fence while we can; and get the barbeque working ourselves, partly by accepting the lower exchange rate that stopping the petrol will help cause.

Bernard, you must know, in your heart of hearts that any change just ain't gona happen. This is all about globalisation which both National and Labour support.
 
Each day we have container after container of cars, TV's, smartphones, ipads, computers, kids toys, cloths, cans of food, frozen food, furniture, tools, etc etc unloading at our ports from all over the world but mostly China. This all adds to our NZ supply of goods and services.
 
Everyday we have money pouring into the country to buy our property (houses and farms), state assets, banks and government borrowing and so on. This all adds to our NZ demand.
 
In short our economy is made up of global supply and global demand, yes, right here in little old NZ, and that means the same old same old, just like Europe, until we get fiscal union and a common currency for the Asia region. That is what this is all about, and it's not going to go away just becouse you or i dont like it.
Its going to take a middle eastern type revolution to make a small dent in it and that's not going to happen either.
So we better all get used to it

Sorry Bernard..'rebuilding' is a myth...'new normal' is here to stay...This is it.
 

This is how I see it :
1/ for the last 30+ yrs the USA has had profoundly excessive credit growth.... Ironically it has been globalization that has enabled this to happen, without inflationsry pressures ie. the deflationary    impact of manufacturing shifting to very low cost countries.
2/ This vastely excessive credit growth resulted in aggregate demand  expand ing dramatically...far beyond what it should have been.
3/ Labour arbitrage.... not only has globalization had an effect on consumer prices it has had an impact on wage rate growths in western Countries.. ie. wages in real terms ahve been declining since the 1970s'.
4/ Now that we no longer have excessive credit growth ..because of consumers having far less disposable income and also being maxed in terms of taking on more credit .... we have a profound problem.
5/ there is a large gap between Global aggregate demand with excessive credit growth and what I might call "natural demand".. ( demand with consumers only spending what they earn ).
SO.....  there is a massive output gap... but not in the traditional sense... The output gap I'm talking about is the difference between GDP with credit growth and GDP without credit  growth.
The irony is that Global output actually has to shrink....BUT ... that would involve a severe recession/depression
The key question is.....  Can we have a soft landing..???  We took 30-40 yrs to get into this mess.. maybe we can take 10-20 yrs to get out of it....   ( If our leadership can see the problem and come up with a plan )
I'm mainly talking about USA... but this applies to all western countries.
NZ is no different.... In fact NZ has the luxury of haveing one more credit cycle before our OCR is at zero and we have our own version of "QE"....
By the looks of it.....  our leaders have learnt little and we are going to go thru another business cycle with pseudo GDP growth ... and expanding credit....  ie.. the debt hole becomes deeper....  The big problem is that the opportuinty for change that was there for NZ in the last GFC might not be so easy to make when NZ faces the next crisis.
 

A good place to start the reformation - if it can be done by anyone other than Government local or national then government should get out of that activity. 4m people will always find better ways of achieving things than a few thousand public servants and politicians, add on binding referendums with the power of recall and some balance in favour of the average voter will push the process along.