I hear what you're saying 74 and remoak and of course you're right, I agree with you the only thing that matters is the cost of living once you're home, nobody cares about exchange rates.
But, every single one of us kiwis who are currently busting our balls overseas on contract in third world countries, is trying to save enough money so we can actually get home one day. The sooner the better. And the money that we are saving, we are sending back to NZ as fast as we can send it. I sure as hell don't want to stay here til I'm 65
The accepted kiwi wisdom has always been that if you want to make the big bucks you have to go overseas. And whenever I've been sitting round in the pub talking about it I've always been more along the lines of Split Flap from a couple of pages ago, "bah I'll never get to go home I couldn't afford the pay cut from what I make now".
So I was actually as surprised as anyone else to discover, when I was doing the calculations the other day, that I would actually be better off to go home, especially to go work for an airline that has taken a relentless bagging on PPRUNE its entire life for paying despicably sub-standard wages
It will be a game changer in the contract world if the $AU and $NZ stay high long term, I don't mean that they'll be able to get away with paying less at the likes of Jetstar, but the overseas contracts will have to up their game considerably or they certainly won't be able to get kiwis and especially aussies to leave home and go work there ... and we do comprise a massively high percentage of the worldwide contractors.