Tuesday, 24 February 2026

"It is the opening that matters most."

 

"These reforms dismantled the import quotas and regulatory walls that had kept Australian manufacturers comfortable and unchallenged for the better part of a century. Industry had to compete with the world. Not because a regulator told firms to behave, but because Japanese cars and European appliances were suddenly on showroom floors, at prices local manufacturers could not match.

"Yes, competition law played a part. But the real transformation came from opening the economy.

"Take household appliances. During the reform period, the number of local manufacturers shrank and the industry became more concentrated. By the logic of competition law, this should have been a disaster. Fewer producers means less competition. Consumers should have suffered.

"They did not. Prices fell and choice exploded. Tariffs on refrigerators dropped from 47.5 per cent to 5 per cent. In 1999, the Productivity Commission studied what had happened. It attributed the gains to trade reforms that reduced “barriers to market entry,” not to competition law. Anyone in the world could now sell a fridge in Sydney.

"The economist Israel Kirzner, now 96 and long overdue for a Nobel Prize, spent his career at New York University making exactly this point. His work shaped my own doctoral research in the law and economics of competition.

"Kirzner’s central argument is that competition is not a snapshot of how many firms happen to sit in a market at any given moment. It is a process, driven by entrepreneurs spotting opportunities and entering markets to challenge incumbents. A market with two players can be fiercely competitive if both know a third could arrive tomorrow. A market with twenty can be sleepy if regulation keeps the twenty-first from showing up.

"Hawke and Keating grasped this, perhaps instinctively. The way to make an economy competitive is to open it up, let foreign goods in, let new businesses form and remove the barriers that protect incumbents from challenge. Competition law can help keep the game honest once the field is open.

"But it is the opening that matters most."
~ Oliver Hartwich from his post 'Dismantling the competition myth'

8 comments:

  1. Cresswellian isn't just "wrong" he’s a demolition man who calls the wreckage "progress." He quotes 96 yr old new york fckn globalist while the South Island bleeds fckn out, preaching a gospel of "opening" that is nothing more than Industrial Fckn Euthanasia.

    Pull up a bloody stool, shut your mouth, and listen to the truth they won't tell ya on the six o'clock fckn bs news. we will talk about that Cresswellian fckn rot ! Those ivory tower architects of fckn destruction ! sitting on their high horses while the rest of us are out here eating fckn dirt?

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  2. The whole Cresswellian mindset is a delusional sabotage artist’s fckn manual, simple as fckn that. They’ve spent forty fckn yrs preaching the "Free Market" gospel, quoting some 96 yr-old New York academic globalist city of london fckn traitor  like he’s Moses coming down from the fckn mount, while the foundation of this country has rotted right through to the fckn piles.

    The "Cheap Fridge" Betrayal
    The Cresswellian crowd has the gall to brag about "cheap fridges" from the 90s. "Oh, the tariffs dropped and choice exploded!"
    Choice? My fat fckn arse. We traded the Mitsubishi plant, the textile mills, and Fisher & Paykel’s soul for a couple of bucks off a plastic box made in a fckn slave labor sweat fckn shop .

    Now look at us in Feb 2026. The NZD is a 0.45 lead fckn sinker. That "cheap" fridge now costs a month's bloody wages because we don't make anything to trade for it! The Cresswellian slave labour model traded our muscles for coupons, and now the NY boys city of london WEF globalist are calling in the usury fckn fraud debt. It didn't give us fckn "choice" it gave us fckn vassalage.

    The "Kirzner" Fairy Tale
    The Cresswellian logic,  logic lol quotes this Kirzner bloke globalist city of london fckn traitor saying competition is a "process" !!
    The process is a bloody funeral! Where are these "entrepreneurs" the Cresswellian plan promised? They aren't building high tech factories in Ashburton or Gore. They're flipping fckn houses, clipping tickets on imports, and sucking the fckn life out of the working man via mortgage interest fraud .

    You can't fckn "spontaneously discover" a car industry once you've let the skills and the tools go to the scrap heap, moron !. That’s not "market entry" that’s industrial fckn suicide ! The Cresswellian "opening of the economy" was just opening the fckn veins so the globalist vampires could have a feed.

    The 2026 "Fortress" Reality Check
    Cresswellian WEF Bullshit The Brutal South Island Truth
    "Open Borders" Empty Towns. The shops are full of fckn junk we can't afford.
    "Unfettered Markets" $600B Debt. We’re fckn slaves to the NY Boys.
    "No Tariffs" Industrial Fckn Graveyard. We ship raw logs and buy back fckn toothpicks.
    "Individualism" Loneliness. No community, just debt units in a fckn

    The "Sovereign Risk" Stench
    The Cresswellian lot rants about the "nanny state" but they're silent while the Aussie Banks and the London Swap Desks hold a gun to our fckn heads !
    We can’t refine our own fckn diesel because Marsden Point is a ghost town thanks to Cresswellian Fckn Euthanasia.
    We can’t clothe our kids because the woollen mills are apartments now.
    We are 100% dependent on foreign ships and foreign whims scams and fckn fraud.
    In 2026, if the NY Boys decide they don't like our "sovereign risk," the lights go fckn out. And the Cresswellian cult will be there, clutching their NYU textbooks, telling us it’s all "efficient." Efficiency is a fckn suicide note when you can’t feed yourself !


    The Final Word Destroy the Fckn Rot
    A Cresswellian architect is someone who designs a house with no fckn roof and tells you it’s "unrestricted access to the sky." It’s a globalist mouthpiece wrapped in a "liberty" flag. They’d see the last foundry in Dunedin turned into a boutique cat cafe if it satisfied their "economic theory of Fckn Euthanasia

    The Fortress starts fckn now. We slap a 25% Kirzner Tax on every imported luxury crap box. We re open the mills. We grow the hemp, we refine the fuel, and we tell the Cresswellian ghouls we tell the Kirzner quoting ghouls to take their "processes" and shove em where the sun don't shine 

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  3. Finish your bloody pint and lean in cuz, cause we’re about to skin this Cresswellian rot once and for fckn all. Let’s talk about the Economic Fckn Treason of these ivory tower desk jockeys WEF globalist Neoliberalism the Cresswellian and he uni fckn party suck of !
    The Cresswellian cult uni party isn't just fckn wrong they’re a bloody demolition crew calling the wreckage "progress." They’re quoting a 96 yr old new york wankers WEF globalist ! while the South Island bleeds fckn out, preaching a gospel of "opening" that’s nothing but Industrial fckn Euthanasia for the working man

    The Fckn "Entrepreneurial" Corpse The Cresswellian hero, Kirzner, prattles on about entrepreneurs "spotting opportunities."
    The Fckn Reality In Feb 2026, the only "opportunity" spotted in New Zealand is some suit flipping a piece of suburban dirt to a foreign vulture for a profit.

    The "Choice" of a Slave the Cresswellian crowd brags that "choice exploded."

    The Fckn Truth you’ve got 50 brands of fridges, but you’ve got zero choice in whether your nation survives when the supply chain fckn snaps.

    The 2026 Snap Back with the NZD at 45, with the swaps that "choice" is a sick fckn joke. You’re "free" to choose which imported crap you can no longer afford because we stopped making things of fckn value. We traded our Sovereign Muscles for Consumer Candy, aka fckn shit ! and now we’re toothless, weak, and begging for fckn scraps !

    The Supermarket "Duopoly" Stranglehold
    While the Cresswellian rants about the "nanny state," they’ve sat back and let two foreign owned giants Foodstuffs and Woolworths strangle every fckn farmer from Nelson to fckn Bluff !

    The 2026 Fact the Commerce Commission is "warning" them? Pull the other one the Cresswellian answer is always "more market led solutions "

    The Fortress Fckn Response to hell with the we’re moving to Structural Divestment. If you own the wholesale, you don’t touch the fckn retail. We’re breaking the "Express Lane" for foreign junk and building a Direct to Table line for the Coast !

    The Cresswellian Cult vs. The Fortress Reality

    The Cresswellian / WEF Lie The Brutal 2026 Fact
    "Barriers to entry are gone." The barrier is the fckn Grave. You can't re-open a mill once the skills are fckn dead.
    "Incumbents are challenged." Incumbents are fckn Monopolies. They don't compete; they fckn colonize !
    "Prices fell for consumers." The Nation is fckn Skint. Cheap fridges don't pay off $600B in debt moron !
    "The field is open." The field is a fckn Minefield. We need foreign permission just to fckn eat.

    The "Intellectual" Fraud the Cresswellian "Objectivism" claims to value the producer, but their policies destroy the fckn producer !
    They worship the "Mind," but they’re happy to see Kiwi hands go fckn idle.

    They are Globalists traitors in a Tui Billboard ! , using "Freedom" as a cloak to turn New Zealand into a vassal state for international fckn capital and poverty for the middle class ! . As said they’d see the last foundry in Dunedin turned into a boutique cat fckn cafe if it satisfied their "economic theory of Fckn Euthanasia."

    The Fortress Commandment We don’t want fckn suicide "openings." We want fckn Walls ! . We want the 25% Kirzner Tax on every piece of imported fckn junk. We want State Mandated Industrial Credit to rebuild the South Island core. We want the Cresswellian "opening" slammed fckn shut until we can feed, clothe, and fuel our own people.

    The Bottom Line: They didn't build a cathedral of liberty they built a hollow monument to debt. The Cresswellian era ends now. The Fortress begins.

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  4. Get round here and listen in cuz, cause I’m only gonna say this once before the bar shuts. Sovereign Seizure Order No. 1 This is how we stop the fckn bleeding and start the building. No more of that Cresswellian "market led" horseshit, Euthanasia !!! just the raw, cold iron of the fckn law.

    It’s Feb 2026, and while those Aussie bank criminals middle mangers fat cats are prepping to send our hard earned back to Sydney to pay for their harbor view lattes, we’re stepping in. This order turns their "liquidity" into our "solidity."

    SOVEREIGN SEIZURE ORDER THE GREYMOUTH PROTOCOL

    THE CREDIT RECLAMATION
    Effective fckn now, any bank operating on the Coast that’s been getting fat off our mortgages has to cough fckn up. We’re taking 15% of their liquid reserves and dumping it straight into the National Sovereign Development Fund .

    The Fckn Logic If they want to clip the ticket with fraud on our roofs, they’re gonna pay for our fckn sheds. No more shipping our fckn lifeblood across the Tasman while we fckn starve.

    THE HEMP FUEL MANDATE GREYMOUTH REFINERY
    The first $500M of that seized cash is going straight into the Greymouth Industrial Bio Refinery
    The Feedstock Guaranteed contracts for Coast and Canterbury farmers to grow industrial hemp
    The Output 100% home grown biodiesel for the whitebaiters, the logging trucks, and the West Coast rail. We’re fueling the Fckn Coast with the Coast.

    THE CRESSWELLIAN EXIT FEE
    We’re slapping a 40% Exit Fckn Tax on any capital trying to flee the country. You want to send our money to Sydney or London? You leave half of it at the border to fund the West Coast Steel Works. You don't get to gut the house and then walk away with the fckn copper pipes.

    2026 From Debt Slaves to Tool Owners
    The Cresswellian Trap The Sovereign Reality
    Bank Profits Sent to Sydney to pay for some wanker's fckn yacht.
    Local Credit Locked in a housing bubble that’s about to fckn pop.
    Coast Identity A "tourist park" for Aucklanders to look at trees.
    Sovereignty Something a NYU professor wanks on about.

    The Verdict from the Fckn Pub
    The Cresswellian uni party globalist ghouls will be fckn screaming "Theft!" and "Socialism!" from their safe spaces in the city. We call it Settling the fckn Score. For forty years, they stole the future of our kids by telling us we didn't need to make anything. They "opened" the fckn door so wide the whole fckn house got burgled.
    By the time that refinery is humming in Greymouth and the first Hilux roars past on 100% Coast Grown Bio-Diesel, the "PC" era will be a bad joke told by fckn losers. We’re not asking for permission anymore. We’re building the wall, and we’re using the banks own gold to buy the fck cement.

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  5. Park your arse on that fckn stool and listen tight, cuz, cause I’m about to lay out the final nail in the coffin for these Cresswellian uni partys WEF globalist grifters. If we’re seizing the banks gold and building the gear in Greymouth, we aren’t doing it just to create more "employees" for some globalist wankers spreadsheet. We’re creating fckn Owners.

    The Cresswellian lot loves to talk about "labor markets" like we’re just a commodity like a sack of coal or a barrel of oil to be traded by psychopath suits in London. Well, it’s Feb 2026, and we’re telling them exactly where to shove their fraudulent swap "market fckn bs rates."

    THE SOVEREIGN LABOR CODE THE "COAST BOND"

    KILLING THE 30 YR SLAVERY MORTGAGES
    Under the Cresswellian rot, you bust your guts forty hours a fckn week just to hand sixty percent of it straight back to an Aussie middle mangers fckn bank in usury interest. Not in the fckn Fortress, mates.

    The Deal You work in a Sovereign Industry the Hemp-Refineries, the Steel Mills, the Coastal Shipping and your wage is split. You get the cash to live, and the rest is Fckn Fortress

    The Result After five yrs of solid graft, the Fortress titles your house to you, stone cold fckn free. No interest, no NY Boys no Aussie fckn bankers sniffing around. You don't "rent" your bloody life from Sydney anymore.

    THE "NO SUITS" FCKN RULE
    For every 20 blokes on the refinery floor or the hemp harvester, there’s only allowed to be one person sitting in an office. We’re hollowing out the middle management parasites like a rotten fckn log.

    The Pay The top dog in the refinery can only earn three times what the bloke cleaning the sludge out of the tanks makes. If the Cresswellian CEOs don't like it, they can bugger off back to London. We’ll keep the guys who actually know which way to turn a wrench.

    THE APPRENTICESHIP MANDATE
    You don’t get a job in the Fortress because you’ve got some "Diversity" degree from a woke Auckland uni.
    The Rule Every Fortress factory has to have one apprentice for every four tradesmen Fckn Period. We’re rebuilding the Industrial Memory of the Coast. We’re teaching 19 yr olds how to weld, how to refine, and how to fix the machines that make us fckn free.

    2026 The "Wage Slave" vs The "Fortress Freeman"

    The Cresswellian Market Scum The Sovereign Labor Code
    Rent/Mortgage 60% of your pay gone to usury fckn banks. Housing Earned in 5 yrs. $0 fckn debt.
    Security Fired by a global HR bot in Singapore. Security You own the equity. You ARE the fckn company.
    Retirement A gamble in a "KiwiSaver" Ponzi. Retirement A direct share of fuel and steel profits.
    Identity A "unit of labor" on a spreadsheet. Identity: A bloody Legend of the Fckn Coast.

    The Final Word from the Bar The Cresswellian uni party globlist crowd will be screaming blue murder about "distorting the market." Too fckn right we are, cuz! We’re distorting it back in favor of the people who actually fckn sweat. While the "Not PC" ghouls are still waiting for their "Kirznerian discovery" to fix the fact that they're fckn skint, we’re sitting in the Grey with a full tank of home grown fuel and a house that no bank can ever fckn touch.

    The Fortress isn't just a wall against the world it’s a wall against the debt vultures who’ve been picking us clean for forty fckn years.

    The wall is built. The fuel is flowing. The banks are bled. The Cresswellian era is dead and buried under six feet of West Coast rain

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  6. Park your arse and listen close, cuz, cause this is the final nail in the bloody coffin. We’ve seized the usury banks gold, the hemp fuel is humming in the tanks, and the boys have got the titles to their houses. Now, we’re going after the very ground beneath our fckn boots.

    The Cresswellian Euthanasia uni party spent decades tellin us that the gold, the coal, and the minerals in our hills belonged to "the global market" which is just fancy talk for "whoever’s got the biggest checkbook in New York or Beijing." Well, it’s Feb Fckn 2026, and the auction is fckn closed.

    THE SOVEREIGN RESOURCE ACT THE COAST RETAINMENT

    1 THE DEATH OF THE ROYALTY SCAM
    Under that Cresswellian uni party rot, foreign outfits dig up our fckn wealth, tosses a BS 2 percent "royalty" to the sold out fckn suits in the Wellington, crime fckn family uni fck party ! and ships the rest offshore to build someone else’s fckn empire !

    The New Fckn Law If it comes out of South Island soil, it stays in the South Island system. We aren't exporting raw dirt ever fckn again ! . You want our lithium or our coal? You build the battery plant or the steel mill right here in Brunner or Fckn Reefton. We don't export dirt we export finished, high fckn value gear made by Coast hands.

    KICKING OUT THE "NY BOYS" The fckn traitor Cresswellian uni party globlist scum !
    Any mining permit held by a company with more than 20% foreign ownership is hereby fckn cancelled. Finished !

    The Reclaim Those permits are handed over to Local Resource Co ops. The blokes down the pits own the fckn mine. The profits don't vanish to a shareholder front for the city of london crime family WEF globlists in fckn Sydney, they go into the Greymouth hospital, the local schools, and the Fortress fckn power grid !

    THE STRATEGIC RESERVE MANDATE
    We aren't letting globalist uni party ghouls "spot price" us into the fckn poorhouse anymore !
    The Rule 50% of everything we dig up or pump out is locked into the Sovereign Reserve ! . This means no matter how much the world goes mental, the price for a Coast farmer or a Fortress factory never goes up. We’ve cut the cord to the world’s madness. aka the city of london crime family WEF globlists

    2026 The "Export Colony" vs The "Resource Fortress"

    Cresswellian Dig and Dump The Sovereign Resource Act
    Minerals Shipped raw to China for peanuts. Minerals Forged into steel and tech right here.
    Profits Vanished into offshore fckn tax havens. Profit: Paved into our roads and fckn bridges.
    Environment Left with a hole and a "sorry" fckn note. Environment Managed by locals who drink the fckn water.
    Power Paying "global rates" for our own juice. Power The Fortress gets first dibs at cost fckn price.

    The Final Shout

    The Cresswellian ghouls Wellington, crime fckn family will be foaming at the mouth, screaming about "international law" and "trade agreements." Let em scream. Those agreements were signed by traitors who never spent a frozen winter on the fckn Coast.

    We’ve made the biggest discovery of all, cuz: We don't need em. We have the fuel, we have the steel, we have the food, and now we have the ground itself. The Fortress is fckn complete.

    While the rest of the world is tearing itself to bits for the last scraps of a dying system, the West Coast is standing fckn tall fueled by hemp, built with South Island iron, and owned by the legends who actually do the fckn graft.

    The Cresswellian uni party dream of a "borderless world" is dead and buried. The Fortress is alive. Pull that handle again, cuz the first round of the New Republic is on me!

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  7. Finish your bloody pint and lean in close, cuz, ‘cause if you think the banks and the mines were the only ones picking our pockets, you’ve got another thing fckn coming. We’ve still got the Globalist Rot festering in the very things that keep us aliveour houses, our water, and our medicine.

    It’s Feb 2026, and while we’ve been out here building the wall, the suits in Wellington have been busy opening the back door for every vulture with a checkbook.

    The "Foreign Buyer" Ghost Train Just two months ago, in Dec 2025, they passed a treasonous law under urgency to let the "Ultra-High-Net-Worth" vultures back into the housing market. They call it a "carve-out" for anyone with five million bucks to spare.

    The Fckn Scam:They reckon it won’t affect affordability because it’s "only the luxury end the fckn reality pull the other one, mates! It turns our land into a global safety fckn deposit box. While a Coastie family is fighting for a scrap of fckn dirt, some globlist fckn billionaire from silicon valley is buying a "lifestyle block" in the Southern Lakes as a backup plan for when their own Fckn BS fraudulent system fckn collapses.

    The Fortress Fix We aren't just banning foreign buyers we’re reclaiming the fckn titles. If you aren't a tax paying resident with your boots in our fckn mud, you don't own the fckn dirt. Period. End of fckn story.

    The Great Fckn Water Heist
    The Cresswellian ghouls Uni Fckn Party Traitors are rolling back the safeguards on water bottling as we fckn speak. They’ve granted Chinese owned outfits Mafia like Nongfu Spring permission to expand while our own farmers are being told to "manage their footprint" and watch their fckn meters !
    The Fckn Treason they’re literally pumping the lifeblood of this country into plastic fckn bottles and shipping it offshore for a few cents in tax !

    The Fortress Fix Water is a Sovereign fckn Asset. No foreign company owns a single fckn drop. We’re cancelling every bottling permit held by offshore interests and turning the taps back to our own soil and our own people.

    The "Carbon Credit" Land Grab Scam
    This is the sneakiest rot of fckn all. Foreign "investors" are buying up prime South Island sheep and beef country just to plant it in permanent pine forests for Carbon Credits. That fckn scam !!!

    The Result they get to keep polluting in London or Frankfurt while our rural communities are hollowed fckn out. No jobs, no schools, no shearers just rows of trees owned by a bloody spreadsheet in Zurich these are the Cresswellian uni party dream of a "borderless world

    The Fortress Fckn Fix You can't offset your global filth and yes is a fckn scam this global warming BS !…. on our food-producing land. We’re slapping a 100% Sovereign Levy on any carbon credit generated by a foreign owned forest fck scam . If they want to plant trees, they can do it on their own turf and leave our paddocks alone.

    The 2026 Rot List What’s Left to Burn
    The Globalist Parasite The Cresswellian Lie The Fortress Cure
    Luxury Housing "Attracts high-value investment." Sovereign Title. Residents only.
    Water Bottling "Creates 60 local jobs." Resource Lockdown. Our water stays here.
    Carbon Forestry "Helps meet Paris targets." Food First. Ban foreign pine con conversion.
    Pharmac Pressure "Increases therapeutic choice." Domestic Labs. We make our own basics.


    The Final Word from the Tap

    The Cresswellian era Uni party didn't just sell the factory it sold the fckn garden, the fckn well, and the fckn medicine cabinet. They want us to be a "plug-and-play" economy where nothing is ours and everything is for sale to the highest usury bidder.

    But the Coast fckn remembers. We know that Freedom isn't a "market choice" with swaps frauds it's the ability to tell the rest of the world to bugger fckn off because you’ve got everything you need right here in your own fckn backyard.

    The wall isn't just made of fckn stone and steel, cuz it’s made of the laws that say "New Zealand belongs to New Zealanders."

    ReplyDelete
  8. Mr Anonymous, you lost a lot of credibility and most of your readership at the first use of "fckn". It just makes you appear shallow and not worthy of the time to read. Have some respect for the other people visiting this site. If you don't, then how can you expect anyone to respect you? How can you expect anyone to consider what you write when it is so unpleasantly coarse (unnecessarily so)? I do not think you reasonably can expect that people will take you seriously when you behave as you have done.

    Perhaps you do have some valid points to argue. Perhaps you can back them up. Perhaps they are worth having a conversation or even a debate over. Perhaps there are many people who would do you the courtesy of listening to your argument, analysing it, asking questions about it and comparing it to what they already know about. Perhaps there may be a few, or many, areas where you could end up rewarded with converts to your point of view. Perhaps.

    None of that happens when you contribute what looks to be an over-emotional rant. None of that happens when you play the man. None of that happens when you go out of your way to insult the host of the site, Mr PC.
    Had you not noticed he allows dissent? He might not agree with you but he does not ban people for that. You definitely ought to pause and consider.

    Why not be civil and argue respectfully? Perhaps you could ask some questions of Mr PC to clarify what his position is and why he holds it. You're more likely to get progress if you do. Remember, a writer needs to persuade his readers if his message is to be accepted and distributed. Looking back at your postings here on this page, ask yourself just how many people would have waded through it all. Very few. A minority. How many would have been impressed enough to consider any of it seriously? Think on how tiny that small number is. It may even be zero. Do better.

    Moderate your language and you will be surprised at the response. Remember, not everyone is going to agree with you. Be respectful anyway.

    Henry J


    ReplyDelete

We welcome thoughtful disagreement.
But we do (ir)regularly moderate comments -- and we *will* delete any with insulting or abusive language. Or if they're just inane. It’s okay to disagree, but pretend you’re having a drink in the living room with the person you’re disagreeing with. This includes me.
PS: Have the honesty and courage to use your real name. That gives added weight to any opinion.