Caroline Ritchie
Reporting in from Japan this week.
The snow is fluffy, the ski fields are pristine and it is all very easy to believe that things are completely right with the world, secluded here in the mountains of Hakuba.
The Japanese way is perfectionism of structure, while seeking beauty in the ordinary.
I love it.
I quite forget that the extended balance sheet worldwide of the too-big-to-fail banks is now one quadrillion dollars, (one thousand trillion dollars).
That's because we have a fractional reserve banking system, it is all leveraged from a very teeny amount of actual money.
The thought that the old models of economics are on their last legs, yet that's what everyone is clinging to, and where will it all end, don't bother me, not a jot.
I especially do not think, NO SIR, about the volatility now in charge of all this, the irrationality at the top of the tree, the scary speed with which things are taking place. I am just a simple country girl trying to enjoy her ski holiday ...
When it all does get a bit overwhelming, I spend time looking at businesses that have traditionally been resilient to recession.
There has to be a silver lining to all this and I hold the view that in the apocalypse, simplicity will be where it's at.
The mundane will become special. You will be more favourable to purchasing toilet paper than you will a book about the impact of quantitative easing on swap spreads, for example.
Choosing toothpaste, if there is any left in supermarkets, might be the highlight of your week. No one will be able to afford steak anymore, so it will be back to vegetables and things we can grow from the ground.
Garden centres will finally have their golden age as inner city families race to buy planter pots and seeds. On the plus side, cardiovascular disease will improve dramatically, as it did during the mass livestock confiscations in the Netherlands in World War II. Meat, dairy and saturated fat intake plummeted and the population was temporarily much more healthy, despite the incredible stress of the times.
"Lipstick effects" seem to last through every financial cycle, and it is hard to imagine women abandoning makeup under any circumstances, even when the bombs are flying.
I'm pretty sure I'll make my last stand for the Resistance with a foundation brush firmly in hand and three emergency glosses secured to my epaulettes.
Bicycles, in particular locally made ones, will be pretty handy when cars are banned and the market for tyres, inner tubes and cool stickers you can put on the front forks to cheer yourself you up will boom. Contact lenses might be hard to get hold of as we face the final analysis, so get laser eye surgery RIGHT NOW, like the CEO of Reddit Steve Huffman did, just in case. Build a bunker, too.
As I exaggerate, or that I hope that I am, investors, if you are of the same opinion, might want to look at the consumer goods and staples categories.
Here you will find the giants that supply all the things we cannot/will not live without. Think Nestle SA, The Procter & Gamble Company, Unilever, L'Oreal SA, Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Colgate Palmolive, Johnson & Johnson.
There won't be much excitement in these stocks, but should the worst happen, perhaps a little salvation.
*Caroline Ritchie is a former AFA, sharebroker & portfolio manager. She runs Investment Stuff, a sharemarket based investment coaching service. Visit her at www.investmentstuff.co.nz This column is not personalised financial advice.
The House was suspended briefly after the haka disrupted voting.