Go back a century and visualise a nation. Until 1890 (at the earliest) the nation was seen as quite backward; little more than a pioneering frontier backwater, well behind the times compared with much of the rest of the world but things changed rather rapidly and it quickly became very modern. The country had a proud history with a few ups and downs; its people enjoyed innovating and getting stuck in and doing things.
Starting around 1900 there was a period when the country underwent significant changes and the people lost their confidence for a couple of decades. For twenty years the economy had grown rather anaemically and all economic growth was due to a huge influx of immigrants. Many people – rather amusingly in retrospect – looked at demographic changes in the communities they and their families had lived in for generations and felt perhaps the country’s best years were behind it.
If this wasn’t bad enough, busybody government intrusion into the lives of businesses and the population in the early 1900s frustrated many and contributed significantly to the lack of economic boom times which seemed a distant memory. Even worse were globalist show-off activities in the decade of the 1910s which a sizeable chunk of the population were uneasy about at best, and considered foolhardy at worst.
A pandemic and its aftermath was almost the final straw for many – especially when the ‘aftermath’ comprised an economic crash in 1921. This, together with weak, corrupt leadership in the early 1920s meant that by 1923 the “good old days” were not just a distant memory, but many wondered if they’d ever occurred at all. The crisis of confidence was palpable.
This nation I am describing is America. Fast forward all the dates precisely one century and it could describe New Zealand in recent times.
But go back to America exactly a century ago and an obscure, nondescript man – Calvin Coolidge – became US President, declared “the business of America is business”, swept away a long, long list of straitjackets on the economy, and the country boomed. If you fast forward to New Zealand today – once again; precisely one century later – does it remind you of anything which has occurred over the last week or so? Is it starting to ring any bells?
Like many people, I’ve experienced New Zealand’s history since the turn of the century and endured the frustrations, the false starts, the crisis of confidence and numerous other problems that have engulfed us. I look back fondly to the glorious days of the 1980s and 90s when we all had a lot of fun and we had governments which didn’t stick jackboots on the throats of the people, and wonder where it all went.
But being an optimistic sort of fellow I’ve always felt someone would emerge and do the right thing by the people: would emerge to create the conditions for boom times and enduring prosperity. Enable New Zealand to be a world leader for business reasons rather than show off virtue signalling. I truly believe this time has arrived and in the same way, the average American in December 1923 was so shell-shocked it may have seemed a bit too good to be true, we could all be forgiven for wondering if it’s all been a dream.
Do not be surprised if there’s a short transitional period, but in 2025/26/27 (etc) we have 5% economic growth, 1% inflation, and boom times we haven’t seen since 1997.
