The end isn’t nigh.
Having just had a couple of weeks off I’ve been able to leisurely observe some of the goings on around the world.
Brexit was fascinating. I spent more than a few hours following the coverage on Al Jazeera, BCC and ITV.
Much of it was good fun as I watch from the comfort and safety of my neutral armchair on the other side of the world.
It’s something I’ve been keeping an eye on for more than a year as I edit the world pages of Farmers Weekly so the result didn’t come as a great surprise or shock to me.
However, it did come as a shock to many of the supposed experts and commentators.
Disaster was predicted.
Europe would fall to bits, Britain would die like an aged relative living forgotten in a granny flat and the flow-on to the rest of the world was too horrible to contemplate.
The money men, or should I say people these days, were the worst.
These people must have outstandingly quick reflexes they way they knee-jerk when anything they consider unexpected or out of line with their view of the world happens. They must be in permanent danger of doing themselves a serious injury.
It’s almost as if they deliberately create self-fulfilling prophecies when something they don’t like happens. And as they control much of the money they have the power to do it.
It’s most noticeable straight away in currency markets and stock exchanges.
There were big blips immediately after this lot said there would be. Fortunately, sanity returned quickly and the markets stabilised as people realised the commentators might have exaggerated and the world wasn’t ending.
The same thing has happened here over the weekend with dire warnings the continued inability of Australians to make up their minds about who should be prime minister will mean penury for those of fortunate enough to live on the right side of the Tasman Sea.
It won’t. Nor will the Brexit cause us to move into the poor house.
These things will mean changes. But change is what the modern world is about. I’m an old fart these days so I’ve had a culture shock and had to learn to adapt to the pace of change.
I started work in an office with a wind-up telephone. We used to take a copy of our stories to the Post Office for them to be sent by telegram to the Press Association for distribution.
Younger readers might now be confused. Some of them have probably never had a landline telephone while Post Offices, telegrams and the Press Association are all extinct.
These events reinforced what I’ve been hearing and saying for some time.
We can insulate ourselves against some of the wilder, unpredictable and erratic reactions to world events by making sure we’re selling the right stuff to people who want it and want it from us.
It’s all about building those relationships we hear about. Giving a quid pro quo, as the saying goes.
We’ve seen some of that happening with companies with milk companies, Zespri, Alliance and Silver Fern Farms though the latter is still in limbo.
It is also about getting out of the commodity markets and into targeted, value-added products.
I also took in some of the coverage of the American presidential campaigning.
I’m at a loss to understand how Americans think and see the world. Most of the coverage there is about domestic issues – admittedly some, like gun control, are major issues for them.
But there seems little of substance in the debates or the coverage. I think voters are expected to make up their minds on the basis of slogans and who throws the best insults. Much of what is reported there about what the candidates say about each other would land us in front of a jury here facing a hefty bill for defamation.
The few mentions of the rest of the world in relation to the American election were in terms of how many people they don’t like around the globe should be killed.
I saw only one mention of trade and the Trans Pacific Partnership. It was a question from a reporter but the interviewee quickly digressed to something else and the reporter didn’t persist.
I suppose the next big knee-jerk reaction will be if the Americans elect either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.
Imagine, who could have seen that coming?
