If National wins ...

[Daytr]

Yep agree Craic, seems criminal that we import so much Aussie meat.
In our local supermarket we had US citrus in the middle of the citrus season !
Good to see HB is doing well, after quite a few tough years. Unfortunately not all regions are doing the same.
Perhaps as the Auckland money spreads we will see a mini boom, however unfortunately there hasn't been the money spent on the infrastructure to support the growth.

Jamie Whyte doesn't know when to keep quiet. I am really start to think he's a bit of a moron.
This naïve & simplistic view of trade & the TPPA case in point.
NZ should get naked first in regards trade barriers and take it on the chin that others will subsidise.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/n...ectid=11492506

[BlackPeter]

Yep agree Craic, seems criminal that we import so much Aussie meat.
In our local supermarket we had US citrus in the middle of the citrus season !
Good to see HB is doing well, after quite a few tough years. Unfortunately not all regions are doing the same.
Perhaps as the Auckland money spreads we will see a mini boom, however unfortunately there hasn't been the money spent on the infrastructure to support the growth.

Jamie Whyte doesn't know when to keep quiet. I am really start to think he's a bit of a moron.
This naïve & simplistic view of trade & the TPPA case in point.
NZ should get naked first in regards trade barriers and take it on the chin that others will subsidise.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/n...ectid=11492506

Sure - NZ was so much better off in the time with high trade barriers ... I heard that in the 60'ies and 70'ies in trade protected NZ you had to order a fridge several years in advance - and hey, you could pick from all but one model. Not much different if you wanted to buy a new car. But sure - everybody was wearing the same stuff and eating mutton so no need to envy thy neighbour. What a happy people this must have been. I guess this is the past Green, Labour and NZF want to return us to?

[Daytr]

Short answer, NO.
You always seem to want to jump to extremes.
But you don't enter into a 'trade' agreement where you are offering better protections for others such as patents & copyright and don't get anything back. Its a huge game of poker with big stakes & I don't know where anyone has shown their hand first & gone all in & won.
Jamie Whyte like the ACT party has a simplistic & naïve view on how things work.
Lets completely expose ourselves even if others wont as they will be worse off in the long run and it will eventually all come good.
Its so ridiculous its laughable.

Sure - NZ was so much better off in the time with high trade barriers ... I heard that in the 60'ies and 70'ies in trade protected NZ you had to order a fridge several years in advance - and hey, you could pick from all but one model. Not much different if you wanted to buy a new car. But sure - everybody was wearing the same stuff and eating mutton so no need to envy thy neighbour. What a happy people this must have been. I guess this is the past Green, Labour and NZF want to return us to?

[RGR367]

Yep agree Craic, seems criminal that we import so much Aussie meat.
In our local supermarket we had US citrus in the middle of the citrus season !
Good to see HB is doing well, after quite a few tough years. Unfortunately not all regions are doing the same.
Perhaps as the Auckland money spreads we will see a mini boom, however unfortunately there hasn't been the money spent on the infrastructure to support the growth.

Jamie Whyte doesn't know when to keep quiet. I am really start to think he's a bit of a moron.
This naïve & simplistic view of trade & the TPPA case in point.
NZ should get naked first in regards trade barriers and take it on the chin that others will subsidise.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/n...ectid=11492506

And why having US citrus in the middle of the citrus season is bad? All other things considered, I think it's good as long as they're cheaper on what's available as citrus.

And why don't you want a simplistic view of trade? Is trade really that complicated for us to benefit?

[blackcap]

Sure - NZ was so much better off in the time with high trade barriers ... I heard that in the 60'ies and 70'ies in trade protected NZ you had to order a fridge several years in advance - and hey, you could pick from all but one model. Not much different if you wanted to buy a new car. But sure - everybody was wearing the same stuff and eating mutton so no need to envy thy neighbour. What a happy people this must have been. I guess this is the past Green, Labour and NZF want to return us to?

I spoke with my mother recently on this issue. She arrived here in 1980 and was mortified that you could not even purchase coffee in NZ. Well you could but only instant and only one sort. She alluded to many similar items that just were not available in NZ. This all improved drastically and vastly after 1984. Would have been interesting to have been old enough to experience that "system".

[Daytr]

Do I really need to explain why that is bad RGR367? Do you think the US has made money on that citrus or is it just being dumped on the market?
Why don't we just import everything? One problem, if we don't actually produce anything, we don't have jobs & the money to pay for goods & services.
How about the environmental side of things. Shipping goods half way around the world that are produced here & produced here at a reasonable price.

The problem oh having simplistic view on trade as not everyone is as simple as Jamie Whyte.
You know what it reminds me of? Jack and the bean stalk.
We know others subsidise their agriculture heavily, I'm not saying we should join them, but don't give them concessions in other areas when they are not willing to concede where it counts. Why on earth would we agree to longer patents on drugs for instance? They have protections already, we certainly don't need to extend a monopoly.

And why having US citrus in the middle of the citrus season is bad? All other things considered, I think it's good as long as they're cheaper on what's available as citrus.

And why don't you want a simplistic view of trade? Is trade really that complicated for us to benefit?

[craic]

I hate disagreeing with peoples mothers but I came here in 1959 and in 1973 started work in the Probation Service (March 12th) under the DPO who wa a Londoner who refused to drink Nescafe and insisted on Greggs or Bushells. Those of us who preferred Nescafe resorted to buying Nescafe and tipping it into a Bushells jar. He never knew the difference

I spoke with my mother recently on this issue. She arrived here in 1980 and was mortified that you could not even purchase coffee in NZ. Well you could but only instant and only one sort. She alluded to many similar items that just were not available in NZ. This all improved drastically and vastly after 1984. Would have been interesting to have been old enough to experience that "system".

[blackcap]

Fair call Craic, (feel free to disagree with my mother all you like, I do often enough as well) but she was used to drinking "real" coffee not instant, and swears she could not get any in The Wairarapa back then But yeah, Nestle, Greggs and Bushells says it all really :P

[Daytr]

I don't think the restrictions of what was available had much to do with free trade, but that most things still had to come by ship & we didn't have the frequency or banking set up to facilitate international trade. NZ was probably 20 years behind Britain & 30 years behind the States in those days purely because we are so far from anywhere else. Europe had massive subsidies in agriculture of course. So not much has changed then really!

[fungus pudding]

Sure - NZ was so much better off in the time with high trade barriers ... I heard that in the 60'ies and 70'ies in trade protected NZ you had to order a fridge several years in advance - and hey, you could pick from all but one model. Not much different if you wanted to buy a new car. But sure - everybody was wearing the same stuff and eating mutton so no need to envy thy neighbour. What a happy people this must have been. I guess this is the past Green, Labour and NZF want to return us to?

Those wonderful days - illegal to dance in a bar, margarine could only be bought, from the chemist, with a doctor's prescription. Only carpet permitted was wool. Pubs closed at 6 p.m. Hard to travel overseas without private accommodation as daily allowance barely covered hotel tariff. To buy a new car you needed a trade-in, so they would sell you a dunger and then buy it back at a lower price. No trade-in. Back of the queue please.
If you hung around the wharves you might be able to buy a smuggled in camera or pocket radio. God it was a sad place. Getting a BYO licence - forget it.