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You see it whenever you go shopping: Shops that have closed; shops that are about to; and shops that are staying open, but sales have dried to a trickle.
It’s almost like you can smell the stench of retail death.
Retail NZ told me this week that 32% of all retailers don’t think they will last the year. Taken from percentages into cold, hard figures that equals about 12,800 retail outlets that might shut up shop in the next year.
For them it’ll be over, they can’t do it any more. We’re talking everyone from the “mum and dad” owners and operators to the likes of Auckland’s Smith & Caughey’s department store.
It’s not just money – or lack of – that is the problem, but it is, as the saying goes, the root of all evil. Or desperation. Poverty and crime, things like ram raids and shoplifting, go hand-in-hand.
But now that the amount that tax cuts will bring us has been revealed, can those cuts save us from this collapse? Perhaps around the margins, but I doubt they’re a silver bullet.
The government needs voters to smile again, be happy and feel confident that they are getting ahead. But, despite Finance Minister Nicola Willis dumping $14b into the economy over four years – the first tax cuts in 14 years – all the evidence is that the pain is still coming.
Let’s be honest, if the confirmed $20 a week really excites most of us then maybe we are deeper and more stuck in this mud than any of us really knew.
The brutal reality about getting inflation down is that someone has to lose and right now the losers are starting to pile up. Shop owners, public servants, the cleaners, the person who buys the office stationery or the florist who just lost six contracts across six government departments.
But Willis and the rest of the government do not hold that power solely. One of the biggest influencers doesn’t care what you think of him, he’s not seeking your approval and he doesn’t need you to vote for him.
He’s Adrian Orr, the Governor of the Reserve Bank, and he’s doing his job of getting inflation under control in the most ruthless of ways. In my opinion, he’s like the overpaid equivalent of a council parking warden giving out tickets; sure, he’s doing his job, but he’s become unpopular in doing so.
The housing market has entered its annual winter slumber, which only makes our economy drag its heels a little more. Largely, people appear to be sitting on the sidelines of life waiting for something to change so we can all get our mojo back.
An immediate and meaningful cut to interest rates would help families more than any headline-grabbing tax cut, but that’s inflationary, so Orr is more likely to get an All Blacks call up than ease the stranglehold he has over the economy.
That takes us back to tax cuts and whether they’ll make a difference. I’m not overly confident it will supercharge us out of the rut we’ve been in for far too long, especially with the government making it clear this week we have at least another year of tough times.
Which takes me back to the shopkeepers, the ones doing it hard right now.
If we stop spending in their shops, there is more chance they’ll close. They have been on the brink for some time and the collapse and closure of thousands of retailers has now been signalled.
But we can try to help, by supporting our local retailers whenever we can and, when we’re shopping, remembering the people who staff these businesses are people, too, and don’t need us taking our bad days out on them.
Inflation is nasty. Let this be our lesson that we need to avoid it getting out of control again. The pain is too much for so many and life is too short to keep doing this over and over again. That’s why National has a mandate to rein things in for some time to come.
But let’s learn from this period. If we do, we’ll live happier lives. And surely we all want that.
