Bill Dalton

I have always said that my generation is the lucky generation.  Lucky because we haven’t known war or depression – both very strong influences in our parents’ lives.

But I’m beginning to re-think this “lucky” tag.  The communities our parents lived in, from my observation, seemed to be much nicer communities.  Murders were so infrequent they made headline news for days.  Certainly they didn’t have to cope with communities that contained the insidious gangs we now have to put up with.

We used to think that these appalling gangs, financed and fuelled by P, were confined to the big cities – largely South Auckland.  Now right here in Hawkes Bay we have them gate crashing parties and chopping and bashing people up with machetes and iron bars.  What is our society becoming and where to from here?

I’m sure our parents didn’t have to cope with the topsy turvy situation we find our financial sector in today.

Over the last couple of years we have seen a number of pretty rumpty financial companies fall over and I’m sure that poorly run companies have always collapsed.

But now with the so-called benefit of instant communications, we are starting to see sound, well run companies striking difficulties.  The problem is confidence or more specifically the lack of it.

Under the new continuous disclosure rules – finance companies have to report regularly the state of their finances.  Now you might think that’s a good idea but it can cause problems.

Most companies, at some stage, go through difficulties and in most cases trade through them and regain their strength.  When they have to tell the world they are having difficulties, even small problems seem huge in the eyes of an already nervous investing public.

So often small problems, become big problems because investors know information that in the past they would not have, and naturally take a conservative view.

The problem we have in New Zealand at the moment is a crisis of confidence.

The one thing my parents didn’t have in their day was a Governor of the Reserve Bank who could give some leadership.

In my view that is one thing that hasn’t changed.