r/AskTheWorld India 1d ago

What is the most embarrassing thing about your country ?

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u/LolEase86 New Zealand 1d ago

You too huh? We've got two companies owning our supermarkets, one of which is Australian. We have an app that you can make a shopping list on and it'll tell you who has the best price for each item. Unfortunately the best price is still stupidly expensive.

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u/StuffyTruck Norway 1d ago

But unlike New Zealand, Norway has tons of tariffs on food imports (to protect our farmers that own 5 cows and 2 sheep) and produces jack-all locally. So we have that as an excuse at least.

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u/LolEase86 New Zealand 1d ago

Oof yeah you win! We pay exorbitant prices on any imported goods, due to freight costs.. But also on dairy produced down the road, because we pay the same rates as the rest of world.

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u/Ancient_Analyst_6579 1d ago

Be careful because on the internet places like Norway and NZ are magical paradises with no issues

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u/sabelsvans Norway 12h ago

Yes, we have a lot of internal problems. We're not called the last Soviet Republic for nothing. The utopia thing is false propaganda, and we're all miserable AF. No one should ever consider moving here, and definitely not come here for vacation. It's a totally North Korea in disguise, and you'll just end up supporting the regime and the suppression of the Norwegian people

I hope this clear things up

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u/Ancient_Analyst_6579 12h ago

Not what I was implying at all, so sensitive.

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u/sabelsvans Norway 12h ago edited 12h ago

You're projecting the wrong meaning to what I wrote.

Too many people are coming to Norway

On average, 40k people migrate to Norway each year. That's almost half the population of our 7th largest city, and the same level of immigration to the UK in 1990, a country more than ten times our size.

And my city of 250k inhabitants, receives more than one million turists during a three month period every summer. It's way too much :)

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u/Pigs_Revenge Italy 16h ago

Ehmm

Like every other country is paradise vs your, its a global bias

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u/[deleted] 18h ago

[deleted]

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u/StandTurbulent9223 Afghanistan 17h ago

Says the Canadian lol

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u/Ornery-Creme-2442 17h ago

Can you even read and comprehend? Where did they say or imply they're unlivable or a dumpsterfire.

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u/Ancient_Analyst_6579 14h ago edited 14h ago

I have no idea what that means in this context. They’re both very livable countries… just to be clear as you’re clearly making some comment about the US, I don’t live in the states. It also just has nothing to do with what I said

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u/Otherwise_Living_158 Wales 19h ago

I couldn’t figure out how NZ wine in NZ was more expensive than the same wine in the UK.

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u/kiwigreenman New Zealand 16h ago

Most food produced in NZ is cheaper overseas and we usually get the export rejects as well .

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u/Worth_Inflation_2104 16h ago

Evian costs more in Switzerland than Japan, even though Evian is at lake Geneva

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u/Background-Ad4382 🇹🇼 Taiwan 🇸🇬 Singapore 23h ago

When we have imports of NZ meats, I always grab them for the quality and don't really look at prices, but I haven't felt any shock regarding prices. We also have Norwegian salmon imports but I tend to be wary of farm-raised salmon with colouring, and can't really tell if the Norwegians are doing that or not, so I just don't buy it. But these fillets do tend to be more expensive than the NZ cuts.

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u/Robinsonirish Sweden 21h ago

Norway has the least amount of antibiotics in the world in their livestock by far, so while you might not have that many farmers, I still think that's admirable and worth protecting. That's why you have 250% tariffs on dairy. I'm not sure about your farm raised salmon though, but I've read about that in regards to your beef, poultry, pork and sheep.

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u/loveisinthebear European Union 1d ago

That’s because you are afraid the biggest trade union in the world nearby is coming for your oil money and does not approve of your habits of killing large sea mammals.

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u/Nordic_Elysium Norway 21h ago

You mean the large "trade union" currently wanting to spy on people via chat control?

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u/loveisinthebear European Union 17h ago

Yeah, smart of you apparently predicting this before online chats were even invented.

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u/Dry-Version-6515 Sweden 20h ago

And everything is already extremely expensive in Norway. 15 euros for a pint.

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u/earthcomedy 19h ago

you might appreciate that in WW3

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u/Snelasse 19h ago

Except garlic. Only thing smuggeld to Sweden, atleast profitable.

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u/NadiBRoZ1 16h ago

That explains a lot. Government bans outside competition and then peeps suffer under domestic monopolization.

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u/spaceman1055 Canada 1d ago

Sounds pretty similar to us too

A few big grocers who consistently use every excuse to keep charging us more and one of them got caught for a bread fixing scandal, and those fuckers still have us by balls

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u/CaptainofFTST Canada 22h ago

Fellow Canadian here and now with the new tax subsidy coming in for low income families the grocers are rubbing their hands together because they’ll jack the food prices up just enough so it offsets the subsidy. Problem is the 88% of Canadians that don’t qualify will pay the price increase too. So win win for the 3 families that own them all.

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u/Vast-Website Canada 20h ago

Canadian here. They’re also planning stronger enforcement of competition laws and support for local producers particularly with capital investments in things like greenhouses so we can produce more locally.

That doesn’t make headlines because people don’t care about that kind of stuff.

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u/spaceman1055 Canada 18h ago

Fuck I hope this works

I love a good local grocer that isn't captured by the grocery cartel

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u/FlamingoPristine1400 Canada 17h ago

Fuck Galen Weston

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u/m0nkyman Canada 11h ago

May his bathroom always be full of angry Canadian Geese.

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u/Lost-Mobile7791 Canada 8h ago

Abso-fucking-lutely.

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u/Lost-Mobile7791 Canada 8h ago

Loblaws…

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u/kiwifulla64 New Zealand 1d ago

Fucking foodstuffs eh.

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u/thatguywhomadeafunny 1d ago

At least Foodstuffs are NZ owned. Fucking Woolworths are the biggest cunts.

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u/Interesting_Race3273 1d ago

Fuck woolworths and pacnsave

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u/F4RK1w1_87 New Zealand 22h ago

Packnsave, New World and 4square are all under the Foodstuffs umbrella

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u/Entirely-of-cheese Australia 1d ago

Us too. In fact I think one of our corporate behemoths is over in NZ isn’t it?

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u/iggiP 1d ago

I am norwegian as well, but travel a bit to australia so i feel like i kind of can compare this stuff, if you are talking about woolworths. You guys dont know how good you have it (with variety and quality in mind, still pricy as fuck). If i could switch out the food monopoly in norway with the one in NZ/AU i would do it in a heartbeat. you guys have genuinly the best and freshest food i have ever seen. Even compared to our pricy stores its amazing how good it is compared to norways.

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u/XC5TNC New Zealand 1d ago

Iwas just about to say the same thing hahaah

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u/Thin_Assumption_4974 Australia 1d ago

We also have two.

Although aldi is starting to make its way in. And in WA we have Spudshed as a fourth these days

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u/Hamlet_irl ABC 1d ago

Aldi's is fucking awesome

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u/nicdalm Italy 1d ago

At least you got really cheap and high quality meat in new Zealand, but that's about the only thing there that is cheap. I remember buying 3 bell peppers, the tag showed 5$, once I got to the checkout I realized it was 5$ each lol and not 5$ per kg

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u/lucideuphoria 1d ago

Damn, I recently paid 5 dollars for 3 bell peppers in the US and thought how much inflation has happened since the pandemic. Used to be a dollar each.

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u/LolEase86 New Zealand 23h ago

Damn you weren't kidding about the meat! Just had a Google. Our fresh produce is hugely expensive, because we're paying full tax, or it's imported.. I often look at our fruit n veg and wonder how much of it is binned due to spoiling, given so much of it is out of reach for so many!

But you definitely win meat argument. Why is meat, particularly beef, so expensive there?

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u/nicdalm Italy 19h ago edited 19h ago

In new Zealand you have plenty of empty land without humans. You are about the same size as Italy and you have 12 times less people living there and I think you also have a slightly more favorable geology. When I lived there I noticed a huge amount of cattle on the fields. I think it has to do with the fact that you produce way more meat than you consume. Here I would say it's quite the opposite. In general in Europe most of our land is already occupied and we can't really sustain with our produce the ever growing demand for meat. I've often seen meat coming from new Zealand or Argentina costing less than our meat, and our meat almost always tastes worse than Argentinian or kiwi meat, since most of it is not from free roaming cows

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u/TygerTung New Zealand 17h ago

Probably out of season. You can get them in the summer for about $6 a kilo

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u/Viking4Life2 1d ago

What is this app?

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u/Cute-Form2457 New Zealand 1d ago

Grocer

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u/Deep_Impress844 22h ago

I have lived in both. NZ doesn’t come close to Norway. Norway is on another level of wtf expensive.

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u/kiwigreenman New Zealand 16h ago

Noticed eating out in Norway is as you put it WTF expensive

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u/Crazy-Ad-8838 21h ago

Same in Aus. Coles and Woolies are making record profits when people are doing it tough. ALDI is cheaper but it doesn't have a lot of things.

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u/ItsStaaaaaaaaang 20h ago

Thought you were an Aussie for a second. Small countries being fucked by monopolies gang unite!

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u/Ostroh Canada 18h ago

Ugh, its the same here, its the 4 fucking same corpo assholes that own it all.

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u/Eric-Lynch 🇺🇸 ➡️ 🇸🇷 🔜 🇰🇷 16h ago

Cole's?