Flash Gordon

Every now and again there are truly "cringe-worthy" moments. Episodes that are so awful and embarrassing that they go beyond the mere horrific and find a deep, dark place of shuddering discomfort.

We just had one.

It was bad enough for poor beleaguered Gordon Brown to be paraded up and down a highly decorated hallway with the three presidential hopefuls. Each one of them looking confident and elegant and Brown along side, lumpish and graceless. It reminded me of the scene in the film "About a boy" when the young lad is warned that his attachment to the punk girlfriend looks "more like owner and pet".

No, the real moment of horror was saved for the surreal press conference in the Rose Garden. The two unpopular leaders, trapped in the civility and grandeur that holding positions of state require were forced into an exchange of platitudes.

George Bush, with presumably nothing better to say, offered to cook supper that night. Nothing special in this manifestation of the peculiar idiocy for which Bush is justly celebrated. And with that entree, Brown could have simply thanked him and offered to do the washing up.

But no. Brown opened his mouth and then in the full view of the world's press thanked Bush...."for his leadership."

I looked around to see if anyone else heard it. The Labrador continued to snooze blissfully.

Maybe, I wondered, was Brown being disrespectfully sarcastic? Maybe, by his choice of the word "leadership" he was implying that we all ( including the majority of the US public) can't wait to see the back of him?

Bush and Brown share a strikingly similar world view for two politicians that appear to be poles apart on the political spectrum, and where better to illustrate this than their approach to small business. Neither like small business as they are generally run by independently minded individuals operating in the "true" market place. Small business leaders want real action on real problems, the type of action that politicians are unable to provide. You know, decisions and stuff like that.

Large corporations love these types of politicians because large business doesn't really exist in a free market world. We have proof of this now. Big companies, especially big financial companies are considered too big to fail. Wouldn't it make life easier for all of us if that overdraft we had was actually underwritten by the Government!

And then there are taxes. Browns approach to this provides even more illustration. Remove the 10p tax band from the least well off and tax the Billionaire Non-Doms £30,000. Thirty grand off a billion is a few hours of interest payments. And let's not even go there on the subject of business taper relief.....

No, none of it makes much sense. But then Gordon Brown praising George Bush for his leadership is a bit of science fiction anyhow.

Confidence Trick

Confidence is an awkward emotion to describe. Having confidence in another person implies a kind of trust that, if tainted, makes us look a fool. We may have been "too trusting". It is as if our cynical self is always just a step behind our trusting self waiting to smugly point out our gullibility.

However, confidence is vital. I don't know about you but I wouldn't get on an airplane if I didn't have confidence in the capability of Airbus to produce a decent product and confidence in the Pilot and his ability to fly the thing.

I don't go to the Doctor very much, but I certainly would go to see him if I thought there was something wrong. I have confidence in his judgement and skill. I trust his judgement.

But what if the confidence that we have in an institution turns out to have been misplaced? What if the trust we have placed in a whole system ends up being wrong. How should we feel then? Let down? Betrayed? Just plain angry?

I think that this is the situation that we are all in right now. Some of the very pillars of our economic system appear to be shaky. The people we trusted to be intelligent and insightful with our money appear to have been wrong. Our confidence in these systems and these people is severely compromised. Our trust has been shown to have been injudicious.

From the top down, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Investment Bankers, the Regulators, the traders, the fund managers and bank managers have all held our collective confidence and it now appears to have been imprudently handled.

And yet there is no little voice gloating that we have been fooled, that we were "too trusting". No, these people and these institutions were above that threshold. In fact they have had our confidence unreservedly. In looking after themselves, so the wisdom went, they would look after us. Go on. Pay yourself a fortune as long as you make me a pile.

How wrong we were. It has been the ultimate Confidence Trick.

Wait and see pie.

As we fast approach the 2008 Beijing Olympics the whole subject of China and its place on the world stage come into sharp focus. I can't help feeling that the whole "China Story" is a little oversold.

There is no doubt that the Chinese Government has successfully exploited its massive population of under-paid workers to drive a nail into the coffin of Western manufacturers, but how long can this last? The seeds of the end of this cost advantage are already being sown. We hear almost daily of the new Chinese middle class. Last time I looked the middle class don't work for 50p a day.

And then there is the fact that China (careful you mustn't say this out loud) is a Communist Military Dictatorship. I thought we didn't like CMD's?

And then there is the thorny issue of Tibet. There have been well organised protests around the globe for the past fifteen years calling for an end to Chinese occupation of the mountain nation. I wonder if all those activists have spotted that the Olympics are going to be held in Beijing this summer....hmmm....maybe they'll not bother to organise some massive disruption in front of the world's media. No, they'll pass on this one. Not.

And then there is Rice. Hunger is one of the sure ways to guarantee a restless populace. The Chinese consume a lot of Rice. In fact with Rice shortages around the globe occurring, we can assume that the Chinese are going to be in the market paying whatever is necessary to keep their population fed. The price of Rice escalating further leading to a double whammy. Less Rice per person and more expensive to boot.

Over the years our manufacturing base has been eroded by cheaper goods from the East. We have tried to compensate by finding niches in the demand chain. Higher spec, quicker delivery, better payment options, whatever the market requires. It has made us a little cleverer, a little more fleet of foot. Maybe a little more able to respond to our customer's needs.

Of course, we are going to have our problems, possible recession, house price falls etc. but don't think the Chinese are immune from their own problems. Inflation, commodity price increases, wage increases, social unrest and more.

It is not clear how this is all going to play out this summer, but we are certainly living in interesting times.

A Crisis for the MTV Generation

So that was that. Crisis over. Phew.

Like the rapid fire editing on a music video we move from one situation to another. Boom this week, bust next. You would be excused for getting a headache if you read the papers regularly. If house prices aren't just about to collapse, they are just about to take off again. If the stock market isn't about to fall through the floor, it's just about to go through the roof.

This type of schizophrenic "wolf-crying" tends to dull the reality of the situation. Getting a clear picture of the nature of an event becomes harder and harder. Are we meant to batten down the hatches or throw open the widows?

For business owners planning for the future just gets a little more difficult.

I was talking to a lifelong Bank Manager to other day and asked him if there was one piece of advice that he would give to business clients what would it be.

Communication was his reply. Keep in touch with the bank and don't ignore the situation. "In difficult times" he recalled, " we would always look more favourably on clients who communicated regularly with us, gave us up to date information and didn't try to gloss over any problems".

Good advice in any weather.