KEY POINTS:
Last night, dozens of MPs and at least two Government ministers got a taste of what it feels like to be made redundant.
In the US, unemployment last week reached a 14-year high of 6.5 per cent; British unemployment is forecast to hit 7.1 per cent.
It is "only" 4.2 per cent here - but rising fast.
Dow-Jones, FTSE, NZX, the stockmarkets all continue their ragged slump. In the once-glittering global capitals of London and New York, the big deals are now done on the eBay trading floor, as redundant bankers auction off Lehman Brothers coffee cups and baseball caps.
Yet throughout the election campaign, John Key and Helen Clark behaved as if the prospect of the worst recession in more than 60 years was nothing more than fleeting turbulence. It would be nice if they were right - but they are not.
Forget about getting New Zealand's economic growth into the top half of OECD nations - our economy shrank in the last quarter. Fewer houses are being built. Consumer prices rose 5.1 per cent in the 12 months to September, the biggest increase since the last Labour Government was booted out in 1990. Fruit and veges cost 14 per cent more than they did a year ago.
Mike Moore, the former Labour prime minister and World Trade Organisation Secretary-General, told this newspaper that his hand would shake as he ticked "Labour" this time round.
He could not believe that shower water pressure and cocktail party tapes dominated newspaper front pages, when the rest of the world is trying to bail out the foundering global economy.
In London, it is sobering to see the young Masters of the Universe carrying their personal effects out of the trading banks from which once they collected million-quid bonuses.
But in New Zealand we keep supping our lattes, as nearly 500 Carter Holt Harvey timber mill workers are laid off in the Bay of Plenty, as 430 Fisher and Paykel factory workers lose their jobs in Mosgiel.
John Key and Helen Clark both announced "economic stimulus" packages that were largely created by rebranding existing policies.
Labour would extend railway lines a bit faster, to create Depression-style public work schemes for workers who are made redundant. "Men with hand tools," Clark said evocatively.
Key would send his pick-swinging labourers out to work on the roads - that is the main difference.
The Maori Party: well, they want the Government to give $500 cash as a Christmas present to every low-income family and pensioner. Brilliant. That will stimulate a good economy about as effectively as a crate of DB stimulates good sex.
Throughout the campaign, all I wanted to see was a sense of urgency from the man and woman vying for the premiership.
I wanted them to acknowledge the extent of the problem facing us all - and explain how they would do their bit, in this little corner of the world, to help us face it.
Finally, from John Key, in the campaign's final week, we received a 100-day action plan. Good. Great. But while it enunciated the urgency, it offered no new and inspirational substance to assure us he had a plan for grabbing this little economy by the scruff of the neck.
Over the past 10 years, "vision" has become a dirty word in New Zealand politics. We rightly demand managerial competence, pragmatism, an ability to compromise.
But the times when a country really does need a visionary leader are not the good times, the boom times. No, it is when the going gets tough, as Billy Ocean sang, that the tough get going.
So, Mr Key, let's see it. Please show us that you have the grit, and the imagination, to get us through this. Most of all, please do us the basic courtesy of telling us just how much trouble we're in.
