Wendyl Nissen: Corporates keen to try emperor's new clothes

Is the latest recession simply another case of Y2K? I've been pondering this question, which I conveniently posed to myself at 4am last week when I couldn't find any other sources of stress to mull over at the time I usually do.

I lay there and recalled the fear that spread throughout the world because we all thought computers would crash on January 1, 2000 when their internal clocks wound over and were unable to compute the date. Planes would fall from the sky, power plants would shut down, hospitals would cease to function and the world would be plunged into darkness.

Here in New Zealand, the Prime Minister set up the Y2K task force stating that "the risk of failure and the resulting impact on the social and economic infrastructure and the health and safety of all New Zealanders demands that the Government takes an active leadership role ...".

It was the Japanese heading down our way during World War II all over again. We were one step away from digging air-raid shelters in our backyards and rationing sugar. The Y2K Readiness Commission ran around "raising awareness" in case we hadn't realised that the world was about to end.

And then the year 2000 rolled around and nothing happened - except the rapid disbanding of the Y2K Task Force and the Y2K Readiness Commission before anyone asked any difficult questions with the words "how much" and "why" in them.

What we had just witnessed was a belief system based on one news story about a computer geek in Toronto suggesting that some computers might have a few problems with the date. It was then stretched and tugged into a world crisis we were happy to believe.

Now we have the recession starring in its own world crisis, which we are accepting with Y2K enthusiasm.

And I don't believe for one moment that there is one. I'm supported in my thinking by Christine Hutana, one of the 160 workers recently made redundant from Sealord's Nelson plant, who told TV3 that losing her job was "nothing to do with the financial crisis we're in, it's to do with more money they want to get." Precisely. It is very convenient that the recession is there to blame for job cuts, poor company performances and house market declines.

It sounds so much better explaining to your shareholders that, despite a personal take-home pay of a few million dollars, you have failed to meet budget forecasts, which has nothing to do with your abilities but everything to do with the recession.

We seem to be witnessing a "let's do all those staff cuts we were going to do anyway but blame it on the recession" shedding.

Air New Zealand axes 200 jobs, ANZ 200 jobs, PPC closes Oringi meatworks with the loss of 446 jobs and Fisher&Paykel Appliances lays off 1000 workers, and it appears wouldn't be averse to a hand-out if the Government was offering one - to which our PM resisted the urge to set up a Task Force, but did say: "Governments around the world have taken that course and we reserve the right to do so."

Obviously he had yet to learn that Fisher&Paykel Healthcare down the road was booming, took on an extra 150 staff last year and will add a further 100 this year.

The two companies are separate, which seems convenient when you have your hand out to the Government for a fistful of my tax dollars.

Meanwhile, mortgage interest rates are lower than they have been in years, shares have never been better buying, petrol prices have come down and tax cuts are on their way. Where's that recession again?

And just like Y2K, it makes a great story. Type in the word "recession" on the New Zealand Herald website and you'll get 118 stories in just one week. I'm off to dig my bunker.