Risk Management.

The fact that businesses can’t survive more than a few days without income, and people are living paycheque to pay cheque emphasises the appalling state of self-reliance in the country.

I realise this crisis is different to others but when you analyse the financial situation it is not worse than droughts, floods and wars.

When I thought about where I am now this is the 7^th time, I have gone through trauma like this.

1. In 73 the market crashed 58% and I had just come out of Uni. No jobs and no money.
2.  In 1977 I was in the UK studying when the $A was dropped 17% and my funds were in $A. I had another 8 months to survive on a budget cut of 17% overnight.
3.  In the early ’80s, there was a massive drought and as tanners, we couldn’t get any raw material. We had just spent a fortune on new computer-controlled equipment and there was no turnover to pay the loans off.
4. In the late ’80s, the bank called and said they wanted a third of their business loan back in 14 days. That was 25 times my salary at the time.
5. Then the government spent 20 years trying to drive us out of business through various methods under the name of economic rationalism. This was really death by a thousand cuts, or actually the opposite, death by a thousand red tapes.
6. Then the GFC when the market crashed 51%. By this time I had no earned income.
7. COVID-19 is number 7.

(Have a look at the attached graphs.)

Then there were all the times that things were thrown at you from left field and there was a real danger of going bankrupt. Many people will tell you the boomers have had it easy. We just haven’t whinged because we had it easy compared to our parents. 

Which of the 7 times was worse? I don’t know, but I do know that I do not have that gut-wrenching feeling of wanting to throw up which I did on many of the others. Comparing them:

1. I was 20 years old and bulletproof, but my self-esteem did take a pounding.
2. I was doing a 2-year course in one year so no time for a job. I lost a lot of weight and did a lot of walking.
3. That was the first real scare millions of dollars of new equipment and no work.
4. This was more than financial life threatens and the banks and the government were out there to kill us not help us.
5. This one was disappointing and unnecessary. We watched as Australian policy exported pollution and human misery to China. Let me tell you that in those days a denier of economic rationalism was th
6. reated like a climate denier today. We needed industry for four reasons:
   • Supply of products needs to be viewed from a distribution channel perspective and not just an ex factory price. See footnote.
   • We need to be a self-reliant nation.
   • Manufacturing needs to be viewed as part of cultural heritage. I discussed in TPU that migrants came to Australia and worked in manufacturing while learning the language and integrating into our culture. 
   • Shipping jobs offshore to places where there was little pollution control and few human rights was contrary to everything that was being said here.
7. When your 60 years of age and have no earned income and no likelihood of an earned income and you watch 50% of your capital disappear there is a level of concern.
8. The scariest thing today is to recognise that you are not only perceived but classified as old and weak. My natural instinct is to get out there and fight, but I can’t. Having said that I am watching as the community splits into the three groups as it did with cyclone Yasi. Those that are head down and arse up, those that are hiding and those that took their $750 to Dan Murphy’s or whinge at the hotel they are given to stay in.