US inflation eases less than expected, jobless claims rise; China struggles to control the impact of its policy measures; German retail rises; shipping costs fall; UST 10yr 4.10%; gold and oil firmer, NZ$1 = 60.8 USc; TWI = 69.1

I agree but don't believe cost is the only issue.

We have lost the knowhow/skill to produce things for more than a generation and abjectly lack the capital depth, infrastructure and supply chains to begin anything.

High cost isn't a major dealbreaker if you can match it with high productivity. 

"Things are simply too expensive to make here now."

There are a couple of issues to consider however....too expensive in relation to what is one?...how productivity is measured another.

We may be (currently) more expensive than other sources, but that is not set in stone...there are variables, including exchange rate, accessability, abilities and need.

Ultimately we can afford what we can afford so price will meet the ability to pay IF we can provide....and if we provide for ourselves we dont rely upon the whims of others (or much less so)

We have a net Productivity problem? If we stopped buying unnecessary 'wacked on label' stuff and stuck to necessities, our balance of trade should rebalance. But tens of thousands of retailers of that stuff would close down; unemployment would rise and wages plummet. Debt servicing and Asset prices would collapse, and financial ruin would stalk the land.

So we have what we have made for ourselves. A consumption reliant economy based on more Private Debt (that has replaced productive viable wages as the mean of survival),further consumption and Debt accumulation. Until, as you might be suggesting, that too fails. And maybe that's only a matter of time.

Simple answer is lifting productivity is hard & close to impossible as diminishing returns kicks in.

All the easy gains were made when we had new land to convert / plunder and sea to tap ... all with a lower population base.

After that we subdivided, imported people and built a greater fool wealth Ponzi based round leveraging up the balance sheet.

Now we are here.

And its a world wide problem

"Things are simply too expensive to make here now"

Correct. And you can even argue some of our big industries like Dairy cant actually produce cheap products anymore - ie products with prices that consumers can actually afford ... comes a time where you run out of viable customers at scale

I dunno. ... NZ could do well exporting education as some US states do.

No. ... Wait ... Three New Zealand universities drop in international rankings 

... Oh well. ... They'll climb back under this govt's Austerity plan, right?

High house prices are absolutely related. Our high cost of living is driven by house prices and is a cancer in our society. 

While I know many people are more productive working from home, some no doubt are not.

But one thing is for sure - no one, even those who can do something productive either being chauffeured around like our PM, or being chauffeured on public transport, can ever hope to be that productive on their daily commute.

So our government is ensuring less wasted hours on the daily commute, right?

Apparently not. Workers called back to the office as Census data shows a growing WFH preference

We do this in a few ways:

• Huge tax breaks for R&D done in this country (we will never have huge factories, but small R&D labs are the way)
• Invest seriously in our Universities to do research and commercialise findings
• Invest seriously in the future, that's AI, genetics, etc
• Change our tax system completely to productive enterprise
• Change our bank settings to promote lending to businesses

All in the too hard basket for the last 10 governments or so, including this one.  And the results will only be realised 10-20 years out, so nobody cares in the political establishment.

 "We don't actually make anything!"

As the most evangelical neoliberal state on planet Earth, why is this such a surprise? We sold our assets. We outsourced our production. We turned our population into obedient consumers.

This is the future planned for us. A hollowed out country, with an economy that relies on selling real estate to each other, at increasing prices, with lots of bank largesse and immigration greasing the pole. All Western countries are playing this game, NZ is just the most extreme. 

The last company I worked for in NZ (Been in AU for 1 year now) was in an industry where the three main players manufactured in NZ. I loved that about it.

Within the last year, my previous company has shut down their Auckland factory and moved production to Australia, and one of the other main players have moved their production to China.

Sad sad sad.

compared to our NZ GDP growth we should be trying to replicate them.  There automation in increasing, have109m employed in manafactoring and they dominate many industries. 

• 5.2% (2023)
• 4.6%-5.0% (2024)
• 4.1% (2025)^[4]

You are so wrong HM, China is so far ahead of us it's like they are on a different planet. Farming is the only thing we do well in this country and although food production is vitally important, it boarders 3rd world comparisons with other countries.

Imagine how good it would have felt if we were still on the "Labour Track".  

from the article: "He said he dealt with another case recently where the break costs would have been $4500 to save $5000. "They said 'that's ok we'll chuck that on the mortgage'. But when I said you've got to actually come up with the $4500 to do it, they didn't have that so I said 'well what you've got to do is wait it out'. You realise it's only $500 we're talking about, it's not $4500."

Hmmm. Switching banks wasn't an option? i.e. that's what cash-backs can be used for.

Man how good would it be if the commerce commission enforced something like that here? I wonder if that would incentivise more people to go longer with their mortgage fixes, knowing that they wouldn't get shafted by break fees if something changed?