We will recover: remember where you read it first
In a world that revolves around economic cycles, you'll always get it right eventually, writes Brendan O'Connor
Sunday June 29 2008
NOT to alarm you or anything but there have been a few mutterings about a recession, which is a nice word for a depression. The reactions to this have been interesting. The media seems to be thrilled about it. They've had great crack in the last week indulging in recession nostalgia. They seem to think it's going to be some kind of an Eighties revival, like a good wedding band or something. You get the impression they also think it's a good thing.
At least, they seem to be saying, we're getting back to being ourselves. Being well-off never really suited us and it was wrong and now at last we can revert to our true nature -- poor, unhappy and glum. The fact that the weather has been bad, too, has been a bonus for them.
Of course these were the people who never really trusted the boom. They believed that prosperity was intrinsically wrong for the Irish people, that it stole our souls, our God and our traditions. They want a return to innocence, to Christy Moore and hand-me-downs. And, of course, most of them don't think in a million years that their fat pay cheques or secure jobs will be hit. So they have the luxury of enjoying the recession.
They might not be entirely wrong about this recession being a good thing. In business, change can be an opportunity or a threat. And how you do in this recession will depend on how you approach it. For people with cajones, fortunes and reputations can be made during a recession, as long as you are willing to play the long game.
I've decided to view this recession as an opportunity, and therefore I am about to become the first person to predict that this will not last and that there will eventually be a recovery and possibly even a boom. I am not prepared at this point to say when this will occur, but my view is it has to happen sometime -- and when it does I can claim to have been right all the time.
Let me stress again that this boom I am predicting with certainty could be anything up to 10 years away, but that does not make me wrong in predicting it. Vindication will be mine. Look at George Lee and David McWilliams. They had to wait a while to be proven right and there was a certain amount of humiliation to be dealt with in the meantime, but they stuck to their guns and now they are the poster boys of the recession, as they do a lap of honour around the TV and radio studios of the country: "We were right. Everything has turned to crap! Thank you and goodnight."
So you can expect to see me turning up everywhere now to mutter darkly how this recession can't continue and that people have to understand how easily it can all turn good again.
And trust me, it will happen. As much as everyone, including the present and the last Minister for Finance, appear to be surprised at the cyclical nature of economics, despite the fact that it's been working like that for years, I've done my research and I'm confident that it may take a while, but things will eventually get better. Remember where you heard it first.
