My Kiwimerican family lived in Featherston for almost two years. What I, an American, could never understand was the lack of window screens! We couldn't have lights on at night without every moth and mozzie and who-knows-what deciding to come in and say hello. Forget having the window open and reading in bed or cooking anything fragrant. My favorite was deciding if I wanted to air out the toilet during #2 with an open window (there was no vent fan), or swat away swarming flies. This house was built in 2016 with a toilet that felt like a small step up from an outhouse.
We ended up buying window screens, some magnetic ones that blew off in a strong wind but overall worked. My Kiwi husband was very embarrassed about it, although privately admitted it made our life much better. 100% the Kiwi ethos of being proud of enduring discomfort, even if the solution is as simple as a $20 bit of wire mesh.
Thanks for the article, finally helped me put to words what I noticed all the time living there! With the way the US is trending now, despite our luxurious window screens, we may find ourselves back before too long.
Good ol Feathy! I worked at the library there awhile. Thanks for your note! I TOTALLY feel this about window screens. It seems so basic? Now summer's coming: too hot to sleep with window closed, but window open = mossies....I do like that windows here (and even doors!) are just, like, open all the time? Feel like most folks at home stopped opening their windows decades ago, with the AC. Maybe there's a metaphor there...
Dan, late comer here but as an Angeleno-expat to Wellington for fourteen years and then back again (primarily for healthcare and supports that we discovered NZ wasn't able to offer him because, well, it's a bit too small and a bit too poor), this article reminded me of all the things that I love and miss about NZ, and all of the things that infuriated me.
NZ is a lovely country, but I almost always describe it as 'a country that desires the social services and infrastructure of Denmark, but with the tax base and tax rates of Greece.'
Hi Jason! Thanks for reading! Denmark in spirit, Greece in the wallet: wow, you've totally nailed it. I'm visited the US now and have already quoted this as an explainer to family. Thanks, man!
What I can never tell is where the line is between the two. Or I guess, how the Greece side works exactly? When is it that NZ *can't* afford a thing, just because it's a rainswept island on the far side of the world, and when is it that NZ *choses not to afford a thing*, because number 8 wire and she'll be right? When should I be sympathetic to its limits, and when should I be mad about its cheapness? The ferry feels like the latter. But this American often struggles to draw the line.
I think it's a bit simpler than that, and more complex, all at the same time. I do think in most instances it is that NZ 'can't' afford things - people think this is because of the high cost of living (true), but this comes about primarily because incomes are low, and an economy that is primarily extractive and not particularly innovative.
I suppose it could also be exacerbated by the tyranny of distance, but, being all economist-y for just a moment, NZ is poor because NZ has small companies that are not capital intensive and internationally non-competitive.
This is not because NZers are necessarily any cheaper or lazier than workers in other countries - they certainly struck me as some of the hardest workers. They often just didn't invent or invest in many things that people overseas wanted to buy, except cows.
Incomes are low because NZ has very few global companies. Fonterra is the largest company by some margin, and it only earns $15B USD per year in revenue.
By contrast, Denmark - a country with roughly the same population - has four companies in the Fortune 500, including Novo Nordisk (Ozempic), Maersk, and Ørsted (utilities and international wind farms), amongst others. Oh, and Lego. All of those companies have either market capitalizations or revenue that are multiples higher than Fonterra.
This is how Denmark affords its social services - it has a large corporate tax base to draw from. New Zealand does not.
New Zealand has so many inherent advantages but can often be very insular and inward looking. It could have an amazing space industry, or develop a thriving biotech sector.
Instead, it decides to give tax breaks to the landlords of mouldy houses that were last renovated in 1958, by all accounts. This is also what it votes for.
Thanks for this! Good point. I am not economisty myself and I am always glad to learn. This makes a lot of sense to me. There's a feeling one gets watching those logs roll out to China...the sense of a global food chain with NZ's extractive industries at the bottom...And the landlord taxbreaks, good lord. Bernard Hickey's line: 'A housing market with a country attached.' Maybe Denmark would loan us enough legos to build a new ferry....?
In Costa Rica last week: while I placidly gazed out the bus windows, absorbing the countryside, the Bay Area grandfather behind me jabbered on/on = criticizing the country/people/roads/food, pontificating about how it all SHOULD BE IMPROVED. Not a Kiwi frame of mind. Puro Americano.
Love this! Bless our American hearts. Always something better. Reminds me of Mexican President Calderon's VIVIR MEJOR vs. Evo's VIVIR BIEN. Both pathologies when taken too far, I suppose...
Fantastic piece, Dan. Whenever there's a heavy weather event and an infrastructure failure, I too tend to slump and worry we're on a sliding scale toward doom and slum hood as a low-income, low-population economy. But also: who else truly has it better than us? It's a daily paradox. Lovely writing
Thanks, Leah! And thanks so much for the recommendation, that's sent me some new subscribers coming over the hill! I think the failure-to-build worry plagues Americans too, it's just that NZ's size and geography make it feel so much closer to the edge? Part of the incredible beauty of the place, too. The paradox indeed!
My Kiwimerican family lived in Featherston for almost two years. What I, an American, could never understand was the lack of window screens! We couldn't have lights on at night without every moth and mozzie and who-knows-what deciding to come in and say hello. Forget having the window open and reading in bed or cooking anything fragrant. My favorite was deciding if I wanted to air out the toilet during #2 with an open window (there was no vent fan), or swat away swarming flies. This house was built in 2016 with a toilet that felt like a small step up from an outhouse.
We ended up buying window screens, some magnetic ones that blew off in a strong wind but overall worked. My Kiwi husband was very embarrassed about it, although privately admitted it made our life much better. 100% the Kiwi ethos of being proud of enduring discomfort, even if the solution is as simple as a $20 bit of wire mesh.
Thanks for the article, finally helped me put to words what I noticed all the time living there! With the way the US is trending now, despite our luxurious window screens, we may find ourselves back before too long.
Good ol Feathy! I worked at the library there awhile. Thanks for your note! I TOTALLY feel this about window screens. It seems so basic? Now summer's coming: too hot to sleep with window closed, but window open = mossies....I do like that windows here (and even doors!) are just, like, open all the time? Feel like most folks at home stopped opening their windows decades ago, with the AC. Maybe there's a metaphor there...
Dan, late comer here but as an Angeleno-expat to Wellington for fourteen years and then back again (primarily for healthcare and supports that we discovered NZ wasn't able to offer him because, well, it's a bit too small and a bit too poor), this article reminded me of all the things that I love and miss about NZ, and all of the things that infuriated me.
NZ is a lovely country, but I almost always describe it as 'a country that desires the social services and infrastructure of Denmark, but with the tax base and tax rates of Greece.'
Hi Jason! Thanks for reading! Denmark in spirit, Greece in the wallet: wow, you've totally nailed it. I'm visited the US now and have already quoted this as an explainer to family. Thanks, man!
What I can never tell is where the line is between the two. Or I guess, how the Greece side works exactly? When is it that NZ *can't* afford a thing, just because it's a rainswept island on the far side of the world, and when is it that NZ *choses not to afford a thing*, because number 8 wire and she'll be right? When should I be sympathetic to its limits, and when should I be mad about its cheapness? The ferry feels like the latter. But this American often struggles to draw the line.
I think it's a bit simpler than that, and more complex, all at the same time. I do think in most instances it is that NZ 'can't' afford things - people think this is because of the high cost of living (true), but this comes about primarily because incomes are low, and an economy that is primarily extractive and not particularly innovative.
I suppose it could also be exacerbated by the tyranny of distance, but, being all economist-y for just a moment, NZ is poor because NZ has small companies that are not capital intensive and internationally non-competitive.
This is not because NZers are necessarily any cheaper or lazier than workers in other countries - they certainly struck me as some of the hardest workers. They often just didn't invent or invest in many things that people overseas wanted to buy, except cows.
Incomes are low because NZ has very few global companies. Fonterra is the largest company by some margin, and it only earns $15B USD per year in revenue.
By contrast, Denmark - a country with roughly the same population - has four companies in the Fortune 500, including Novo Nordisk (Ozempic), Maersk, and Ørsted (utilities and international wind farms), amongst others. Oh, and Lego. All of those companies have either market capitalizations or revenue that are multiples higher than Fonterra.
This is how Denmark affords its social services - it has a large corporate tax base to draw from. New Zealand does not.
New Zealand has so many inherent advantages but can often be very insular and inward looking. It could have an amazing space industry, or develop a thriving biotech sector.
Instead, it decides to give tax breaks to the landlords of mouldy houses that were last renovated in 1958, by all accounts. This is also what it votes for.
Thanks for this! Good point. I am not economisty myself and I am always glad to learn. This makes a lot of sense to me. There's a feeling one gets watching those logs roll out to China...the sense of a global food chain with NZ's extractive industries at the bottom...And the landlord taxbreaks, good lord. Bernard Hickey's line: 'A housing market with a country attached.' Maybe Denmark would loan us enough legos to build a new ferry....?
In Costa Rica last week: while I placidly gazed out the bus windows, absorbing the countryside, the Bay Area grandfather behind me jabbered on/on = criticizing the country/people/roads/food, pontificating about how it all SHOULD BE IMPROVED. Not a Kiwi frame of mind. Puro Americano.
Love this! Bless our American hearts. Always something better. Reminds me of Mexican President Calderon's VIVIR MEJOR vs. Evo's VIVIR BIEN. Both pathologies when taken too far, I suppose...
Fantastic piece, Dan. Whenever there's a heavy weather event and an infrastructure failure, I too tend to slump and worry we're on a sliding scale toward doom and slum hood as a low-income, low-population economy. But also: who else truly has it better than us? It's a daily paradox. Lovely writing
Thanks, Leah! And thanks so much for the recommendation, that's sent me some new subscribers coming over the hill! I think the failure-to-build worry plagues Americans too, it's just that NZ's size and geography make it feel so much closer to the edge? Part of the incredible beauty of the place, too. The paradox indeed!