Recession

I was chatting with my friend a while ago about the recession in NZ. He was commenting about how bad it was in the job market at the moment. He was getting sick of his day job and contemplating on starting a his own business. But business is hard to come by these days especially in the area where I lived at the moment. But this is only a tip of the iceberg, apparently even the shopping district in City of Sails and Wellywood are punctuated with "For Leasing" signs all over place, many shops had closed and deserted the place.

Then we got talking about how Kiwi expatriates with high flying careers returned to NZ only to be greeted by a rude shock because they could not find jobs in NZ. Moreover, I have heard that many migrants who came to NZ have to leave the country because there is nothing much to offer here. They also discovered that living in NZ is far worst than their home country and so they packed their bags and go. Even the net migration is at it lowest. Worst still, a lot of people I known of had left the country and crossed the ditch. 

These days when you flip the newspaper, apart from crime news, civil disobedience, public bickering and political circus, the rest will be gloomy news about so-and-so company is closing, so-and-so finance company went into receivership, more jobs were cut due to cost cutting measures by the government and the private companies. Makes one wonder whether there is an economy exist in this country.  

All the great news from the government, the Treasury and Statistics department telling us that this country has come out of recession is just a big lie. All the happy news about how NZ is one of the most desirable country to live in is just smoke and mirrors to cover up the true deplorable state of this country. To be honest, apart from the scenery, there is nothing much NZ can offer here. Even the scenery are not that special because they can be found in other places as well.

I have been through many cycle of recessions throughout my life. I was born right smack in the Middle East oil crisis in the 70s. Then came another economic doldrums in the early to mid 80s which affected a lot of factories and manufacturing sector in my home country. Just when we thought we had a breather, the 1987 Black Monday brought the stock market down and it prolonged till early 90s. By end of 90s, we experienced the currency crisis in the financial and currency market. Then the dot com bust in early 2000 followed after that. And now we have this financial and property market collapse thanks to the reckless bankers and  unethical speculators in the western countries.

Throughout those recession cycles, we have been hit hardest and we really had to grit our teeth to make ends meet and to keep moving on. But it starts to get weary because it's just never ending and I wondered how long I can keep going to put up with all this crap.

At the end of the conversation, my friend told me that he decided to stay on his job because he felt grateful to have a steady income. As for me, I am not sure about my situation and I am really exhausted to think what the future might hold.

Maybe I am just tired of living...