There’s no doubting the stupidity of some of our business “leaders”.
Just as Australia’s (half) measures seem to be having at least some positive effect in slowing the spread of infections, the call has come to weaken our already globally weak restrictions to “get the economy moving”.
The Australian Financial Review, whose COVID-19 coverage has generally been strong, couldn’t help but publish the views of middling or washed up business leaders whose views on COVID19 are about as reliable as their management skills.
Leading the charge was former AMP boss Andrew Mohl, who claimed:
Australia is flattening out the curve as we’d hoped. The elderly are being well protected. The economic and social costs should be considered in the next phase, when an easing of shutdown policies is likely to be warranted.
Mohl (who, incidentally, hasn’t been a business leader since scurrying from the disgraced CBA board in 2018) wasn’t the only expert the AFR was relying on. It also deferred to embattled Flight Centre boss Graham Turner, who just weeks ago was criticising the since-vaunted travel ban, saying “the devastation to the economy has got to be taken into account to some extent”.
A few pages later, Joe Aston observed that Turner (and his Flight Centre co-founders) were contributing less to the company’s emergency discounted capital raising than they received last year in dividends.
Then there’s former Macquarie leasing exec and now CEO of struggling Allied Credit Group John Moodie, who ventured, “I wonder how many of the global deaths that will be attributed to COVID-19 would have occurred within the next year or two anyway? It’s time for our political leaders to take a reality pill before it’s too late.”
Moodie must not have gotten the memo. The “only old people die anyway” principle doesn’t look so smart now that hundreds of Italian doctors have been killed, or that 20% of New York ICU admissions are aged under 44.
While likely not strong enough, Australia’s shutdowns are working and, without question, have saved lives. The notion of winding back a successful policy in favour of something killing thousands of Italians and New Yorkers is the very definition of stupidity.
Even more nonsensical is the notion that saving lives and saving the economy are mutually exclusive. They’re almost completely correlated.
As I’ve repeatedly argued, the hardest element for business owners and managers to navigate is the uncertainty that flows from an extended lockdown. Most businesses (other than those which probably would have folded anyway) can survive a month or two of zero revenues (many businesses intentionally shut for a month over Christmas).
What businesses can’t cope with is six or twelve months of little or no revenue. This is why we need a hard lockdown. A harder lockdown means a shorter lockdown. This not only going to saves lives, but it’s going to save a lot more businesses.
The only reason to ease restrictions now is on the basis that getting new infections down is not possible. But China showed that it is not only possible, it can be done in a little over a month.
Is it really a choice between ruined economy or needless deaths? The gap between those two extremes must contain some opportunities surely? Why does government so frequently push the “my way or the highway” line? Is human creativity really so limited?
“Business leaders”. Isn’t that an oxymoron?
Yes.
Adam, you neglected to mention the incoherent call from the Australian Institute of Company Directors, reported last night on the ABC, for a relaxation of directors’ duties. One would have thought that those generally insufficient ‘duties’ are more crucial in times like these. Blatant stupidity from the AICD ignorantly displayed for all.
Secondly, ‘lockdown’ is not subject to an on/off switch. When restrictions are eased, there will be no ‘snapping back’ (an inane #ScottyFromMarketing catch cry). Until there is a cure, or even a treatment that vastly reduces mortality, or a vaccine, nothing will be ‘normal’. There will be substantial costs associated with necessary controls to minimise social transmission and that will go on for a long time.’
Further, for the ScrewTurners of this world and the death-boat cruising industry, international borders will not be open until a vaccine is widely and globally available. So international tourism is dead for a long time. We have not seen the half of the economic devastation yet. And all the business ‘leaders’ calling for a balance between the deaths we are prepared to tolerate and restoring economic activity are clearly deluded that all will be well if we can just re-open retail. Nonsense. Nothing will be the same again and these self-identified ‘leaders’ should be planning for a vastly different future, not dreaming about fictional ‘snap back’.
A snapback is apparently some sort of baseball cap, so perfectly suited to Morrison-speak.
But any idea of a sudden and rapid return to the old order ‘on the other side’ is an illusion, as a study of rationing in Australia after WW2 will show – it didn’t stop in August 1945, it took another five years and a lot of unhappiness to get to that point.
That’s the thing there seems to be an illusion that things will as (Scotty from marketing) assures us will “snap back,” herein will lie the political & social pain, which will surely follow, but this will mostly likely be the sacrificial lamb courtesy of the LNP as this continues intothe months or years ahead..
Hey BA, been making the point on my rounds that international travel is dead, apart from nationals coming home, for a minimum of 18 months. You’re the only other person I’ve seen mention this.
Even with a vaccine with world wide distribution it will be another 6 months to get around, and likely we will see gradual travel treaties between individual countries. Open slather international travel may be 3 years away, or more.
And cruise ships! Scutter them for artificial reefs around the place, especially with real reefs now dying.
I recall visiting the US the year after the swine-flu epidemic and requiring proof that I had been vaccinated for the virus in order to get a visa to visit.
I imagine that such requirements would be adopted worldwide for international travel to resume.
You used to have a bit of a swagger in your stride once, Adam. A good bit of biffo and step outside stuff. I think the MSM is scaring the pants of you over this covid19 thing and you wanna go hiding in a corner. Are you a bit too comfortable these days? Don’t wanna rock any boats? Do the research with virologists and microbiologists and open up a new page and see the figures for what they really are. Then take them on? Remember those fearless cage-fighting days? Those hungry years? Looks like you’ve hung up your gloves and ran for cover.
Broadly agree, but trust China’s official figures. Nah, never.