Just The Cotter Pin

What if the problems we keep treating separately are actually connected?

Why does it feel harder to start and grow a business in New Zealand? Why do communities feel different? Why does trust seem harder to build? Why are people working harder yet struggling to get ahead? And as artificial intelligence becomes part of everyday decision-making, how do we make sure people remain part of the conversation?

Just the Cotter Pin is not an economics textbook, a political argument, or a book claiming to have all the answers.

It is one New Zealander asking a lot of questions.

Drawing on a lifetime across farming, transport, crane operation, business ownership, community organization's and the occasional boardroom, Rick Burgess explores the connections between business, community, productivity, capital, technology, trust and participation. The journey moves from truck cabs and local businesses to banking algorithms and artificial intelligence, asking what happens when thousands of individually sensible decisions combine to create outcomes that don't always make sense.

Along the way, an AI named Atlas becomes another seat at the table—not to provide the answers, but to challenge assumptions, test ideas and sometimes ask a better question.

At its heart, Just the Cotter Pin is about people: the people who build businesses, keep communities moving, take risks, volunteer, create opportunities and decide each morning whether it's still worth having another go.

Because perhaps the biggest systems are held together by surprisingly small things.

And sometimes all it takes is one missing cotter pin to realize how everything connects.

Approximately 23,000 words.