The Scandal of Lack of Business Confidence

The Scandal of Lack of Business Confidence

Thakur Ranjit Singh

The biggest scandal the world has seen was the Y2K BUG or THE MILLENNIUM BUG. 

Then we have some home-grown scandal and red-herring in New Zealand. One is the National Party’s mantra and gravy-train of a ROCK STAR ECONOMY. 

And the third scandal which is also home grown in NZ is so-called LACK OF BUSINESS CONFIDENCE in the new Labour led coalition government.

What is significant is that the business survey which says there is lack of business confidence is carried out  by ANZ bank which is chaired by former Prime Minister, Sir John Key, who boogied to popularity and then abandoned a sinking ship under the scam of a rock star economy (which we subsequently found was, in fact, rotten)

For your information, this ANZ Bank made an after tax profit of $1.780 billion dollars in 2017 and $1.986 billion in 2018 in New Zealand, in supposedly an environment with lack of business confidence!

Ha ha ha, what a rotten joke to discredit the new government under a survey which reeks of political punishment by businesses supporting  National Party which lost power.

Read on to be shocked….and informed.

We have seen some famous scandals, red-herrings and gossips over our lifetime. I will enumerate three.

World's biggest scandal -THE Y2K BUG or the MILLENNIUM BUG. Nothing happened despite predictions of the pundits of doomsday. Similarly, NZ has politically-oriented economic pundits predicting lack of business confidence despite such a rosy outlook. Just another politicised  lie and scandal.

The first and perhaps most notorious scandal and scare the world has seen was the Y2K bug or millennium bug, which scared daylights out of us. We were told the world would come to a standstill or it will go haywire when the clock ticks at midnight of 31 December, 1999. Nothing happened when the clocks ticked 2000.

The second such nonsense and claptrap is National Party’s “rock star economy.” Now Labour- led government is discovering the garbage, trash and rottenness under those rocks with no sight of any stars. They have been busy cleaning up years of neglect, under-funding in essential services, under-paying key (pun intended) people and lack of proper investment in infrastructure. While this made National’s books look good, such carelessness and lack of judgement nevertheless left a country with a veneer of good economic management but underneath, rotten to the core.

Another Scandal of a ROCK STAR ECONOMY under the mantra of which, former Prime Minister Sir John Key danced to prominence, while National Party slept on the job and housing market went out of control. Yes, Sir John gained out of dereliction of duty when he sold his Parnell mansion for over $20m to a Chinese buyer in an over-heated housing market his government ignored to tackle. So, he did gain out of that so-called rock-star economy, while we are now finding the rot in what National Government left behind.

And this brings us to the third scandal, and that is business confidence, or lack of it. This questionable measure has been given much oxygen by certain right-wing journalists in some mainstream media. They still cannot fathom the concept of MMP and the fact that National Party is no longer in power now. Hence they need to stop being cheerleaders of the Opposition.

As with the lack of acceptance of reality from sections of media about change in government, there appears to be a similar lack of approval from businesses. David McLean, Chief Executive of Westpac Bank seems to have a better appreciation of this fact where some CEO’s appear traumatised with National sitting in opposition. Mc Lean observed that this debate generated more heat than light, as irrespective of who is in government, there would be many challenges. This is because economic growth has its peaks and troughs in cycles.

Jacinda Ardern and her team now has to clean up the mess and make up for all all those under-funding in the National Government's so-called rock-star economy. Teachers, nurses, doctors, police and other strikes or threat of them are just the tip of those floating rock star economy icebergs.

Many business leaders are optimistic about performance of their own business in future, hence this talk about imagery business confidence needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

This grain of salt tastes saltier once you decipher the link between this business confidence survey and those undertaking it. ANZ Bank? Yes, ANZ Bank which is chaired by none other than the Knight who abandoned ship from a so-called rock star economy - Sir John Key. He has a vested interest to rubbish Labour-led government, as he has already taken opportunity do this, riding atop a questionable survey undertaken by the bank he chairs. A mere co-incidence? He appears to be helping a hapless leader of National Party, Simon Bridges who is too engrossed in stopping a leak that has given Streisand effect a new meaning (FIJI PUNDIT will explain this effect in another article) 

In a recent meeting Prime Minister Ardern had with business leaders, she argued that business expectations as projected by such surveys did not correlate with economic indicators and unprecedented GDP performance. Others in the community have raised alarm about the serious disconnect between negativity of such surveys and daily optimistic comments on the economy.  This appears to be a matter of political prejudice rather than economic fact.

Business surveys reflect value judgements and government has been warned not be distracted by it lest those who voted it for change will be short-changed. 
Singer Bob Dylan said, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.’” No weather can be tamed or accurately reported by computers. Best sunshine is judged by looking out the window when the weatherman predicts a cloudy day.

Similarly, the politicised views of selected CEOs will not determine economic outlook or performance which look a great deal more confident than those painted by the questionable surveys.

You do not need a weatherman to tell you the wind direction. Similarly, you do not need a questionable survey to tell you about business confidence. A look out of window on the clogged motorway with business moving on trucks and traffic is a better barometer.

All you need to do is to look out the windows. Loaded trucks leaving the wharf clog motorways, building industry is booming, more and more flights are coming, booming visitor numbers are bursting tourism industry at seams, spending is greatest, stock exchange is doing better, reduced dollar is good news for exporters, shopping malls are crowded at all hours of the day, we are running short of hotels, and so much more is happening.

As you do not need a weatherman to tell you the wind direction, similarly you do not need a survey to tell you how we are progressing - all you need to do is look out the window.


In fact the view out of window of that clogged motorway with loaded goods trucks is a better barometer of the country’s business confidence than some politically-tainted subjective survey. 

[Thakur Ranjit Singh is a media commentator and runs his blog, FIJI PUNDIT]