Ironic is it not that before all the so called good and necessary things were introduced we had near full employment, you could buy a house and bring up a family on one income, every worker earned a liveable wage, we had more hospitals and schools, our Uni students were actively head hunted from overseas before they had completed their studies, our children left school being able to read and write properly, we had loads of manufacturing and assembly industries and a small spread out population. Sure we did not have thirty different models of car/cell pone/TV's/computers et al to choose from. However what we did have was of reasonable quality and modern technology would still have come.

We then had Rogernomics, the Mother of all budgets, the ECA and now the TPPA. All were/are supposed to make the country wealthy and along with it all of its citizens.

We now have a much larger centrally condensed population, virtually non existent manufacturing and assembly industries, less hospitals, less schools, many kids are leaving school with no reading/writing or arithmetic skills, Uni students are having to find work now, house prices in Auckland are over priced for the poor quality being built. The general person can no longer buy a house and bring up a family on one income, we have cheap shoddy and sometimes dangerous goods flood our $2 economy and with the increase in population one would expect prices for services to come down. Economy of scale and all that. Yet it has gone the other way. The "real" cost of living, not the touchy feely feel good one is really high. On the plus side, we have a huge choice and variety of what we can buy. Even if it only lasts a year and is imported.

Frankly I feel privileged to have grown up in the pre Douglas era. The youth of today have no idea what a paradise or Godzone NZ really was until the free market deregulated global economy ideologues got their hands on the reigns of power.

Some will throw the old Telecom example around about waiting days for a phone connection. From my experience, not much has changed, especially when Chorus is involved. Back then, who cared. They will also throw the old we would have been bankrupt without those changes, Mmmmm. We are a hundred odd billion in debt and rising daily today.

I still remember our old party line. The young can look that up and have a laugh.

Rose tinted glasses I suppose. However I despair at what I see happening today and what is in store for my grandchildren.

Apologize for the grump. My RC car has just blown a driveshaft and I needed a place to vent.

Thanks.