The United Nations has released its annual Human Development Report, showing that New Zealand is the fifth most developed country in the world. This is dramatically at odds of the perception our business class tells us, of a country of economic losers in need of NeoLiberal "reform" to get us back to the top of the ranking tables, so what's up? Simple: The HDR takes into account not just living standards, but also life expectency and education, things NeoLiberals do not care about. And on those measures, we do very well indeed. The result is that we rank a full 30 places above our GDP ranking, just behind the United States.
Which just goes to show that these rankings are a matter of what you care about. If all you care about is money, then you hide our real achievements as a nation. And if you impose austerity and neoLiberlaism, then those achievements stand a good chance of being destroyed.
