seem upset about something, Robert, although not entirely sure what...(freedom of speech and opinions perhaps?).

Southland is getting into oil exploration to a large degree, as there is something like 100 years worth of New Zealand's oil requirements there, so we shall see what happens.

(As an amusing aside, a company L and M Petroleum did a share issue a few weeks ago, raising money for their oil exploration in Southland.
Some of us bought the shares for 21 cents, sold them for 35 cents, bought them back again at 9 cents and they are curretly at 11 cents...who said there was no money in oil? sure beats doing something silly like actually drilling for the stuff!)

However, I wish you all the best in Kansas, it seems a very nice part of the World...but there is no need to knock New Zealand, as there are 1000001 opportunities for those who seek them...(the acres of diamonds).

Actually he has looked at NZ's geological data and it isn't worth his companies while. And judging from the lack of Big oil companies in those areas that's the expert consensus. Judging from the profusion of oil equipment on the Prairie compared to Southland (where I was born) and Taranaki (where I first went to school), I'd say there's more oil in Kansas (where I live now) and Oklahoma than NZ.

Whomever intimated that I was unemployed or even unemployable in NZ?

Your own tone seems to imply that there is a way I can ply my choosen trade in a market where the customer holds a legislative gun to my head and dictates to me the price it will pay for the products of my labour? I suppose that there might be if I got into bed with the government.

But why should I have to? Especially when the grass is in fact greener outside NZ's borders. A fact you seem hell-bent on denying.

suppose if your brother was into developing oil fields, he could look in the direction of Southland or Taranaki ...(and to be seemingly unaware of those oilfields says it all!)

With regards to yourself...in view of your blinkered, snippy attitudes, I think your unemployment has nothing to do with the location of New Zealand.

Ah, and that would be true of all fields of endeavour would it?

One of my brothers works for a Petrochemical company as a research Geologist. Kind of hard to earn a living finding and developing oil fields if you refuse to leave NZ is it not?

I myself would like to stay in the field of pharmaceutical research and development. Again, there's fuck all use pursuing that dream in NZ.

For instance:

"There is another bedevilling factor for health-sector biotechs and university researchers alike: a dispute between drug giants and Pharmac, the government's pharmaceutical bulk-buying agency. Pharmac has a policy of setting a purchasing price for all drugs in a class based on the price of the cheapest available drug in that class. This decision angers the pharmas because they receive less money from sales in New Zealand than they would like. "Companies are in a dilemma," Gluckman says. "Do they even want to be in the New Zealand market when they're being forced into pricing regimes that they perceive as being disadvantageous, because it might create a precedent that would flow into other countries?"

"...In May, Pfizer made its feelings clear when it announced it was cancelling a NZ$40 million research contract with the Auckland Cancer Research Centre, a unit ranked as one of the world's top 10 university-based cancer-research groups producing anti-cancer drugs for trials. Mark Crotty, Pfizer's New Zealand manager, said the company could not continue this research investment in New Zealand without an improvement in the "overall operating environment". "If New Zealand wants a biotech-based future, which the government says it does, then a solution to this impasse must be found," says Gluckman."

Translation: "the customer (the NZ government) is using it's monopoly position to dictate the price it will pay for drugs it uses in it's monopolized health care operation."

From the rest of the article you will see that scientists are bemoaning the lack of private investment capital. One reason for that is that any Biotech firm that starts up actually funds its competition through its taxes.

Another is that if your research involves GE or animals, the regulatory burden is such that only sure-fire companies can survive.

But the last and probably most significant is: why bother trying to make a product at the "last bus stop on the planet?" It's far easier and cheaper to move your operations closer to your most important markets (Europe and America) and save money on shipping your product. And that's a significant cost with the products I'm thinking of: air-shipping on dry-ice is extremely expensive.

This 'Westie Trailer-Trash' would like to tell you where you could stick your cynicism but you'd probably enjoy it.

Elijah, judging from your comments and posts it certainly seems that you have acquired a knack for scaring up lucre on the markets, seemingly at will.

What kind of trading do you specialize in, and for how long have you been doing it?

What niche did you spot in Wanganui?

I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the starless night, -- blown and flared by passion's storm, -- and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains.- - Robert Green Ingersoll

are probably quite right about Queensland being vibrant at the moment, certainly doing sharemarket deals in Australia is a lot more lucrative than here in NZ.

I just have a certain cynicism about New Zealanders heading off to live overseas in search of greener grass, or 'opportunities'...and Ron Brierley is the only New Zealander who springs to mind as being a success in Australia.

I am a great believer in "Acres of Diamonds"...that whatever you want, (whether it be money, career, business, love, happiness in general) is right "under your feet', so to speak....if only you bother to look for it.

The greatest amount of money I have ever made was in Wanganui! ...a place decried by all the locals as being a dead end town bordering on sepulchral.

The moment I first went to Wanganui I spotted it as a "Land of Opportunity", with dollar signs jumping out at me.

Everyone I know thought I was mad to move there 2 weeks later, use a bit of lateral thinking and start extracting enormous profits from what is a lovely City...(and I was only there a year!)

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/rconwellacresofdiamonds.htm

Perhaps your estimation of Queensland was valid a couple of years ago, but it has become the fastest growing and most dynamic part of Australia for the last 4 years or so.

The place is positively buzzing. Come spend a couple of months here on the Gold Coast, and I suggest you'd also want to mess up and move here instead.

As for the kiwis here, you'd be wrong on that score too.

Most of them have come in search of greener grass and methinks they have found it, and I am yet to run into kiwi trailer trash.

Overall IMO though, Robert is right, If I hadn't been a family man you would have found me in NYC, or the slums of Kansas for that matter. It still is the center of the world.

I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the starless night, -- blown and flared by passion's storm, -- and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains.- - Robert Green Ingersoll

Why Australia are the World Champions of a disproportionate (given their population) number of sports.

Why is their economy so much more vibrant than NZ's. Why are there so many more f---ing jobs in that country for PhD's than there are in NZ?

Why is PC's blog awash with examples of the productive being stymied by arse-hats in government?

I used to live in West Auckland and let me tell you this: I'd trade the slums of Kansas City for NZ any day of the fucking week. Despite the filth and violence the governments in this place are no where near as anti-capitalist as the Clarkistani and Hubbard governments in NZ.

You're welcome to rot in the Socialist Republic of Outer-roa. The US is the strongest economy in the world and that's where the opportunities are and that's why so many are trying to get in here.

My parents had three sons all of whom have PhDs. Two now reside in the USA, one went to the UK with his wife (a lawyer) and returned when his contract ended. How long for remains to be seen...

is quite right about Australia being the place people go when they have made a mess of things

The greatest myth ever created is that New Zealand has a 'Brain Drain' to Australia....a "Westie Trailer Trash Drain to Queensland" is more accurate

The last thing New Zealand needs is for these types to return!

Last I checked, America is still a net importer of folks with graduate degrees -- and folks seeking graduate degrees -- despite its ever-increasing oppression of the intellect.

The export has been the marginal loss of some marginal entertainers caught by the previous hypocrisy of their threats to leave the land of aggressive wars...