Mark’s Blog
Ain’t it funny how an item of news comes along and you somehow feel like everything will be alright.
After all I’m sure when we look back at this time in our history we will think of dark days of recession.
It’s a bit like what we feel when we think of 1987.
If you are like me you don’t generally think of our first (and only) World Cup win when ’87 is mentioned I’m sure you think of the last financial meltdown.
And I’m also sure 2009/2010 will have a similar effect.
But the good news that gave me a lift this week was the decision by Fonterra to hold the forecast payout to between $6.90 and $7.10.
It just made you feel like someone has faith in what our dairy boys and girls do and, that at least they will have decent earnings with hopefully a flow on effect for the rest of our economy.
I know most farmers will be retiring debt and not splashing out on new boats or Range Rovers, but money circulating, even if it is into the banks’ coffers, will help.
And the good news is timely after a wet winter in the North and a bloody cold one in the South. We’ve reached the point where we’re all pretty much over it, and starting to get a hint of Spring in the air and a corresponding boost in optimism. The grass is growing, the cows are munching and milking and the payout’s going to be good.
Dairy Chairman Lachlan McKenzie also makes an interesting point when he says commentators shouldn’t be so quick to read the worst into a payout review.
While those supposedly in the know predicted that because Fonterra was reviewing the payout then it would definitely go down, and the world as we know it would never be the same, in reality the review came out with a positive response.
It this case the negative sentiment was wrong but it makes you wonder if these negative angles in the media can be self-fulfilling. If you talk about gloom and doom everyone feels gloomy. If you talk about positives we all feel more optimistic.
Only problem is negative stuff sells. We seem to have some vicarious fascination or perhaps even warped pleasure when someone else is having a bad time. As long as it’s not us.
And of course in this little far flung country of ours the world is a much more optimistic place when the All Blacks have a great win.
I think we should balance the forward pass before Richie’s try with the fact that a similar indiscretion clipped us at the World Cup in ‘07 - so that makes it even!
