Finance with Don Fraser Fraser Farm Finance

 Ruminations of an ‘old Fart’.

Mr Google defines ‘Hell in a handcart’ as “to be in an extremely and increasingly bad or ruinous condition; to be on the inevitable path to failure or ruin.”  I kid you not!  Look it up for yourself.

So, where do I start?  There is much to talk about.

Centralisation – or is it moving to state control.

We are seeing increasing pressure to take everything away from the people, councils, hospitals and centralise into bureaucrats’ hands.  Three waters is a classic example.  Take all the assets away from council, centralise it, control it, borrow against it (did I read $140 billion by 2050) on the promise of reduced cost of water?

Centralisation of the DHB.  Again, amalgamation of assets, more bureaucrats in charge, watering down the services.  Local GPs are probably best equipped and most able to vaccinate their people whom they generally know, but oh no, DHBs have tried with very limited success and now we are facing a race against time to get the vaccination rate up.  Private enterprise would have sorted it all out long ago.  Now they have a strategy to let it go and hope that enough of us are jabbed!

Dare I mention the poor old farmer!  He has had his business hung drawn and quartered with so much regulation. Some of the bigger operations employ somebody whose job it is to fill out compliance stuff.  Stuff it literally is, with no increase in real outcome or productivity.  Thank goodness the payout looks likely to have an ‘8’ in front of it this year.  If it was not for the farmers providing all the overseas income, this country would be in serious s..t.

Every government department seems to have had a recent name change, to names most New Zealanders are struggling to understand.

Then there is the eye-watering level of borrowing.  There are no new schools, roads, bridges, hospitals or utilities in sight. Heaven help our grandchildren.  Sadly, the flow of billions into our economy has provided easy money everywhere.  A pet dog is now worth $5,000 as a pup!  Eh??

House prices have accelerated with the huge amount of liquidity.  As a result, who has been penalised?  The poor old first home buyers, who have been shut out of the market with prices too high and an inability to service the debt.

With all these changes and new government departments, with names we struggle to understand, are there enough capable and suitably qualified people to administer the entities or have they all got fed up and moved to Australia?  I wonder.

I notice the Groundswell Movement got conveniently ignored by government, but they are coming again on 21^st November and all New Zealand is invited, so please join in.

My final pitch is how the media have been silenced by the government with a $55 million advance.   The top businesspeople were invited to Wellington at the start of the Covid outbreak for a ‘think-tank’ with government, and guess what, they all had to sign a confidentiality agreement that they would not disagree with government later.

I dare not mention the 79 people employed in the government media team, let alone all the TV and radio presenters who are being silenced, or disappeared.  What is going on?

So, in summary I am beginning to think Mr Google is probably right with his definition.  I, like many others, worry about where this is all going.

Are we going to ‘hell in a handcart?’

Disclaimer – these are the opinions of Don Fraser (an old Fart).  Any decisions made should not be based on this article alone and appropriate professional assistance should be sought.

Don Fraser is the retired Principal of Fraser Farm Finance and was a consultant to the farming industry for many decades.

You can still contact him on 021 777 675