In mid-1984 a newly-elected government in New Zealand tackled severe economic crises by abruptly adopting neo-liberal economic policies to curtail government activities and shrink the national debt. Retrenchment continued into the mid-1990s. New Zealand’s experiment, which attracted wide international attention, originated from an unexpected quarter. A Labor government moved the country from its status as the most regulated OECD economy to the least controlled. The sudden adoption of radical steps remain controversial, criticized as a “blitzkrieg” of liberalization that brought no swift improvements, or defended as an incomplete revolution that ended the circumstances of a growing number of poor exactly when national productively was falling. One indicator of social havoc is the male suicide rate. It rose for young adults, suggesting a connection between restructuring, youth pessimism, and suicide. With many jurisdictions around the world currently embarking on austerity measures, the social consequences of the New Zealand experiment warrant exposure.