There's nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing
2 February 2010
Sean Russo
IT WAS Toad's friend Rat (or Kenneth Graeme for the pedants) who once said, “Believe me, my young friend, there's nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats”. After two weeks of doing just that I have to heartily agree.
It took a while to slow myself down to the maximum 7 knots our 52-year-old mullet boat, Margaret C, could muster, but as I did I found cruising along almost like meditation. To some extent I suppose it’s like stepping back into the time when the old girl was new. A time when people weren’t in such a hurry; a time where people saved a deposit to buy a house without the thought of “flipping it”; a time where people bought shares as much for dividends as they did for capital gain; a time where companies and boats were built to last and last!
Three mates and I bought Maggie in Brisbane late last year. The inspection was carried out at the Tripcony boat yard in Breakfast Creek, the same place she was built all those years ago. Hardly surprising I suppose that a business that made such an enduring product still endures itself.
My mates and I recognise and appreciate that you don’t own a boat like Maggie, you are a custodian of a piece of Australia’s maritime history. We have a responsibility to keep this boat on the water for following generations to enjoy. In that sense it’s rather like the challenge of a company director to ensure they make decisions that benefit the corporation such that future shareholders are considered as much as current ones. A company, like Maggie, should be able to outlive its current owners/custodians if the right decisions are made.
No boat is an investment in the financial sense; “a hole in the water you throw money into”, etc, etc ... you’ve heard them all before. But of course there are returns to be had for owner and custodian alike. The dividend is the pleasure you derive whilst “messing around”. I can’t even count the “free” seafood acquired on our cruise because it will be years before we recoup the recent investments in fishing tackle!
For me it was love at first sight. Maggie is the mistress my kids love, my wife tolerates and three other blokes share the upkeep. The surprise for me has been the delight the boat brings others. Maggie is known in the waters around Sydney and attracts the type of attention usually reserved for the only woman on a mine site or a new girl from out of town propped on the bar at a small town RSL. Older people reminisce, younger people are intrigued by the history and boats divert their course to come over and chat and check her out; everyone wants to know her and her story.
What becomes very clear to me in these Maggie-induced interactions with people is there is a part of all of us that has grown tired with the pace of change, constant growth for growth’s sake, corporate greed, and governments insisting there is low inflation while everything gets more expensive. We yearn for a simpler time where we had more time and needed less money to buy things that were built to last.
The growth of farmers markets is an interesting example. They are not cheaper; they are all about getting in touch with where food comes from and knowing about the quality of the process that leads to us putting that stuff in our mouths and the mouths of our kids. I believe they are also a protest at the big supermarkets who, with our tacit consent, have removed the taste of tomatoes to improve their “ship-ability”, store apples for a year and then sell them as fresh, soak things like prawns in saline so we pay $35/kg for salt; all the while destroying the margins and livelihoods of our hardy kinfolk who live on the land.
The rapid growth in second-hand clothes markets and clothes swap meets is another example.
As you can see at a speed of seven knots the mind wanders all over the place because one doesn’t need to concentrate in the way you do skipping over the waves at 30 knots or down the highway at 120kmph. Mine constantly wandered to what 2010 will bring for the markets and our clients. I came to the conclusion that while change is the only constant, the direction of change can also change. In fact it can go into reverse. I think to do ourselves justice in 2010 we need to consider opposites. We need to think about what the ramifications are if we the people all decide to save a bit more and spend a bit less. What if banks can’t lend like they were even if governments continue to “create” money because we the people don’t want to borrow it? Politicians are desperate to create inflation but we the people might create deflation as we crave for a simpler time or are simply forced to face the reality that we don’t really need a new car or another plasma this year and we decide to reduce our debt instead.
The money that was “bet” last year on inflation taking hold in 2010 was enormous. If the punters are right then they have probably already priced it into the markets they ran to and they will likely be disappointed even if they are right. If we disappoint them by not playing the game, the damage to those same “inflation markets” as they scramble to exit could get ugly.
If ever there was a year to be contrarian to the “popular view” and cautious as to the extent of just how wrong that popular view could be I believe 2010 is that year. Anything could happen but please make sure you can survive the thing most people least expect.
As I messed about my thoughts were only disturbed when I got hit by the wake of some plastic fantastic boat with a name like ‘Dividends are for Wimps’ or ‘Hedging Gene Removed’ rushed past us. I wondered where those boats would be in 50 years. I doubt they will be giving the owners of the polar fleeces they have likely been recycled into the pleasure Maggie will be giving her custodians when she turns 100.