Here's my grand conspiracy theory.  It's 2007 and you realise that your puppet Bush & co is not going to be in office forever and that wars eventually end.  Your next pet President is a has-been who is unlikley to get power.  Your oil producing, weapons manufacturing empire is under threat.  What do you do? 

Well, how about an old fashioned recession?  Its worked in the past, right?  You can make a few quick billion on the stock market and use that to invest in the bargains that will follow the crash.  Rattle a few cages and the price of oil will go up.  Make sure your President pardons a few friends and free's up some land for development before he goes.  Then make a bit of a mess for the next do-gooder President to keep him busy enough so that he leaves you alone for a while.

Hey, this would make a great board game!  Call it Global Domination or Get Richer Quicker.  It could work like Monopoly, except you would start with 400 hotels and $12 Billion.  The idea would be to steal as much money off the other players as you can by manipulating politicians and the media, buying up the hotels and killing off the employees.

It's very hard not to be cynical but I believe that the current global financial crisis has largely bypassed New Zealand - or it may just be that the IT industry is more sheltered from it than other industries.

I have plenty of work. I'm not worried about being laid-off any time soon.  My employer is doing pretty well this year.  Other IT companies I know have plenty of work.  There are still lots of jobs available in IT.  Basically, everything is pretty much the same as it always is.

The main difference I can see is that people are slower at paying bills and the news media are constantly reminding us of the doom and gloom.

Recessions are great for some people.  There is a lot of money to be made for those that are prepared and there is no better way to be ready for a recession than to start one yourself!  I have no doubt that this has been created for the benefit of a few individuals and companies.  Fortunately, New Zealand is small enough to be ignored most of the time.