KEY POINTS:
I wonder what odds the TAB is offering on Alan Bollard's chances of success in squeezing the life out of the housing market. Probably very long odds indeed, given that he's using the same blunt instrument - interest rate increases - that he's used over the past couple of years. They haven't worked yet and there seems to be no real prospect that they will.
Not while banks are loaning panicked young couples 100 per cent mortgages. Not while housing as an investment is given a privileged position over investment in shares. And not while young ones heed the warnings of their parents who lost their shirts in the '87 stockmarket crash.
And yet the damage being done to the long-term health of the country's economy is very real. Exporters are the lifeblood of this country. People who have a bright idea, then the determination and the tenacity to turn that idea into something tangible, and who then put everything on the line to sell their bright idea to a global market - these are people we should be celebrating. They have more to do with the nation's wellbeing than our cricket team.
Yet rising interest rates and the subsequent strength of the dollar is hurting this sector. Export intentions have fallen to a 14-month low and business confidence has fallen for the second consecutive month.
Just a couple of days ago, Fisher & Paykel announced it would be relocating some of its operations to Thailand with the loss of 350 jobs. Skellerup and Sleepyhead have both warned they may also have to make the hard call to bail from New Zealand. It's a roller coaster ride, being in business and, for the most part, exporters understand that, but I think most of them would just like an even playing field. Or at the very least, not to be hampered in their efforts to take on the world.
There are amazing success stories out there. Every now and then I'll MC business seminars - morale boosters for local business communities - and the speakers are extraordinary individuals. People who've refused to take no for an answer, who've worked incredibly hard and who've taken calculated risks to become successful entrepreneurs and employers. The Business Herald magazine is also full of tales of Kiwis who've made it, and yet most New Zealanders have never heard of these men and women. It's high time we celebrated our success stories, not just in the sporting field, but in the business field as well.
I'm a child of the 80s - I remember when the robber barons gave all rich buggers a bad name.
But exporters are quite different to the stock-and-share shape-shifters of yesteryear. These are people who make stuff, who are in the game for the long haul.
There have been numerous suggestions as to what can be done to improve the lot of the nation's businesspeople and the long-term prospects of the country's citizens: a capital gains tax on property, excluding the family home; increasing the amount of capital required before banks will lend money for a mortgage; reforming the tax system to stop advantaging property investors; aligning the New Zealand dollar to the American; reducing the number of government bureaucrats.
Michael Cullen, who's doing a remarkably good impersonation of Pontius Pilate, washing his hands of the whole situation, needs to provide some leadership and make a few tough calls in consultation with those at the coalface. And the grasshoppers who are enjoying the economic sunshine and who are drowning out the warning cries of the ants by turning up the volume on their new, imported stereo systems may well find themselves wishing they'd resisted the twin temptations of easy cash and easier credit. When the fiscal winter hits, it's going to be a bleak one.
