So on Monday the PM announced New Zealand will be moving out of lockdown to Alert Level III this coming Monday at 11:59pm. So for most people Alert Level 3 starts on Tuesday. This was chosen because we have a Public Holiday on Monday called ANZAC Day (think Veteran’s Day).
Essentially when you boils it down nuts and bolts it’s Lockdown but with more products available. Food outlets can sell if they have a delivery service. Hardware stores that are open online can sell any of their stock not just essential stuff. And people can buy and sell anything on TradeMe (New Zealand’s version of eBay).
Hopefully many businesses looked into creating an online shopping system for their businesses over the lockdown period because otherwise it could be too little too late doing it during Alert 3. That sounds harsh but the writing has been on the wall for a long time and those slow to online will fail pretty much.
Economists are writing doom and gloom for the economy but I don’t think it will. Compared to some other countries New Zealand’s economy isn’t in too bad a state. We already came out of the Financial Crisis in 2008 relatively unscathed. I’m not saying there won’t be businesses that will fail as a result of Covid19 but I don’t think the economy will take too much of a hit and will be back pretty good in the coming months.
What I’m hoping will happen is a lot of smaller businesses come up from failed big business and creating specialist jobs and bringing manufacturing back to New Zealand in order to make New Zealand self-sufficient again. This way New Zealand can survive pretty much anything thrown at it. So I’m thinking packaging manufacturing, maybe some tech, but certainly oil and gas which is going stronger than most think despite government regulations and the doomsayers of fossil fuels.
I don’t think the government should concentrate on getting big business up and running but getting small businesses off the ground. Big business has failed the nation plain and simple.
Today I was what I like to call a Ride Day. It’s a day where I had so little mail that I am basically a motorcyclist who periodically delivers mail. I love days like this especially since we’ve been under the pump the entire lockdown period.
I saw a helicopter body in a garage on my run. I turned around to see if my eyes were correct and sure enough it was. It turned out it was decommissioned and the guy was turning the cockpit into a play house for his kids. It also turned out that he used to administer the Taranaki Rescue Helicopter and he told me all we need to do is call in and see if someone is there and they might allow us to have a look. My boy is mad keen on the Rescue Helicopter because we see it most days as we live in the flight path of it. It’s a great machine and apparently one of two of the fastest helicopters in the country.
Other than that not a lot left to discuss.