However, my concern is that - forgive me pinching a great line - New Zealanders’ “irrational exuberance” for getting into debt, in the hope of making money out of now non-existent inflation, is still distorting the New Zealand economy. So, the question remains, why that passion for debt to finance speculative real estate?
Why have people, when it comes to their personal finances, failed to learn the lessons of low inflation that they have learnt very well indeed in the work place? One of my staff has come up with an interesting proposition. He says it’s all the Reserve Bank’s fault. Maybe we’ve sold the message wrongly. Maybe our advocacy has been at fault.