I'm 65

Oh well, it had to happen sometime! It seems far more significant to me because I am now able to receive the "NZ Super". Which if you are working, gets trimmed back. Which is fine as far as I'm concerned. Like every other country in the world it seems that NZ is spending more than it is earning, so any savings made by the government must be looked on as a good thing.

Seems to me that this idea that countries are able to borrow money is a dangerous idea. If I were in the business of writing a constitution for a country, I would make it mandatory that no borrowing of money was to be done.

What we are seeing now in the world is the sad results of this policy.

I have just checked http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt

and the New Zealand debt is $219,589,000,000, which is $50, 260 each person. Which seems high compared to other countries. For instance, expressed as a % of GDP, ours is 127%!

Which is strange, because in the USA they are wringing their hands, and saying the end of the world is nigh at only 99%.

There are a lot of ifs and buts though-this is external debt, somewhere like the USA, only about a third of United States public debt is external.

Seems a bit strange- our unemployment rate is 6%, USA it is supposedly 9%.