The art of the deal

A friend lent me a book recently titled: How to Get Rich. The author is Donald Trump. The book was written in 2004 about the time when Trump was hosting the incredibly popular TV show The Apprentice. The book was largely panned by critics, many who saw it as being self-serving and egotistical. To some extent it is, but there are some interesting insights given that it was written 12 years ago and much water has passed under the bridge since then.

For instance Trump writes that in the year 2000 he thought about running for president as a third party candidate. He proposed sensible ideas like tax cuts for the middle class, tougher trade deals, a ban on unregulated soft money in campaigns and comprehensive health care reforms. He then realised he was too blunt to be a politician and had he entered the race he would have been very unpopular. He noticed even during the few months he was considering the candidacy people were starting to treat him differently - in a more reserved, less friendly way. Before he had been “The Donald” someone they would wave and smile at. The lack of adoration and personal doubts compelled him to withdraw. “A lot of successful business people think they can apply their management skills to politics, but I’ve noticed only a select few succeed. Most others lack the temperament for it.” he concluded.

So he doesn’t always follow his own advice.

Despite being much-criticised for his own self-pride Trump has a whole chapter advising his readers to have “have an ego.” Other chapter headings of interest: Read Carl Jung, Sign a Nuptial Agreement, Play Golf and The Art of the Hair in which he describes his coiffure. “My hair is one hundred percent mine, no animals have been harmed in the creation of my hairstyle.” The chapter was apparently written at the insistence of his publisher.

A surprising idiosyncrasy is his propensity to avoid shaking hands whenever possible. He writes: “Some business executives believe in a firm handshake. I believe in no handshake. It’s a terrible practice. So often I see someone who is obviously sick with a bad cold or the flu who approaches me and says, ‘Mr Trump, I would like to shake your hand.’ It’s a medical fact that this is how germs are spread. I wish we could follow the Japanese custom of bowing instead.”

Trump’s nearest rival for the republican presidential nomination, Ted Cruz, reckons Trump was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, hence his business success. Trump’s father was certainly a wealthy builder and developer and left his children well-heeled, but when the real estate market crashed in the 1980s Trump owed his banks $9.2 billion. He tells the story of how he passed a beggar on the street and realised the beggar was worth $9.2 billion more than he was. He wound up dealing with some understanding bankers who worked out a fair compromise and after being the king of the eighties, survived the early nineties and by the mid-to-late nineties was thriving again.

Would he make a good president? That’s anybody’s guess, but it would be fascinating to see bowing become the new norm in America.

“When everything seems to be going against you, remember the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” - Henry Ford

Read More...

Looking back for guidance

I was very sorry to read that South Wairarapa farmer Alex Benton has lost the farm that had been in his family for seven generations. Mr. Benton had bought the property off his father, worked hard and was eventually debt free, but an irrigation system incurred inexplicable cost overruns which meant that he eventually found himself nearly $5 million in default. The bank foreclosed, sold the property for $3.5 million and left Benton bankrupt, unemployed and homeless.

I know Mr. Benton. I visited his farm some years ago when I was a regional councillor. At the time I got a shock off one of his electric fences. He good-naturedly blamed my poor quality footwear and during a Wairarapa Committee meeting at the council offices in Masterton he generously presented me with a brand new pair of “Red Band” gumboots.

Mr. Benton is a dairy farmer and the low payouts will have exacerbated his problems. But farming has always been a precarious pursuit. Agricultural businesses are subject to fluctuations in pricing and uncertain weather patterns. Droughts can cause strife to sheep and beef farmers and horticulturists as well as dairy farmers and although the lifestyle may be compelling, the economic risks for all sectors are never too far below the surface.

Surprisingly, there has always been another option.

Four thousand years ago in the Old Testament Moses was given the law that the Hebrews were to live under. God created a cycle of seven years. Every seventh year the land was to lie fallow. Then after seven groups of these seven years - a total of 49 years - the land was to lie fallow two years in a row. In this fiftieth year, which was called the year of Jubilee, not only was the land to lie fallow, but all debts were to be cancelled, all indentured servants set free and all the land reverted back to the original owner.

So there was a natural flushing out of the economy. At the beginning of the fifty year cycle long-term borrowing would be common, but as the cycle began to draw to a close, money would only be available for a few years and then in the forty-ninth year people would only loan money for one year because on the fiftieth year those debts would be cancelled.

This also created a real estate cycle. If you bought some land at the very beginning of the cycle then you could use it for fifty years so it had a high value. However if you bought it forty years into the cycle, the land would be worth much less because you could only use it for ten years before the title went back to the original owner. So of course real estate prices would drop rapidly as the fiftieth year approached.

That economic system kept the Hebrew nation going for over 2000 years. The human race has tried to improve on this system, but with varying success.

Perhaps it’s as well for the Pakeha that the missionaries who came to New Zealand from the other side of the world expounded from the New Testament. Had they preached from the Old, the Maoris might still own all the land.

“Give fools their gold and knaves their power; let fortune’s bubbles rise and fall; who sows a field, or trains a flower, or plants a tree is more than all.” - John Greenleaf Whittier

Read More...

Shedding worldly goods

We recently shifted into a new home. We’ve downsized; not too much, we still have three bedrooms and two bathrooms, but in the process we have lost an extra living room, an art studio and an office. My desktop computer is now stationed in one of the bedrooms and instead of a two-car garage we now have what was described by the seller’s agent as being a one-and-a-half car garage. I have seen a half-car; I recall a stunt on Candid Camera many years ago where they cut a Volkswagen in half and then filmed the reactions of passers-by.

But half-cars never really caught on.

To be fair the car does have to share the garage with the washing machine, dryer and washtub, a modern concept making dedicated laundry’s redundant.

Like new cars, new homes have numerous neoteric advances that make life even more comfortable. I would list these as light switches that light up, smoke alarms in the kitchen that turn off all the kitchen appliances if smoke is detected, a carpeted garage and double glazing. None of the above featured in our previous houses and I’m amazed I managed to live without them for so long.

But shifting house can be traumatic, particularly if you’re scaling down. There is so much decision-making in what to keep and what to discard. In the mix is furniture, clothing and a whole host of “things” you’ve hoarded over the years.

Our offspring found room for the excess furniture which means I can on the odd occasion sit in my favourite chair and marvel over its comfort compared to the one I resolved to keep instead.

Over our married life we’ve owned five homes, all of them fit-for-purpose for our circumstances at the time. Inevitably cupboards and attics got filled with consumer items we considered essential when purchased, but their indispensability waned quite quickly.

In the shift we sent trailer-loads of these “hoardings” to the landfill, often in haste, and wondered if we weren’t a little impulsive in deciding what was important and what wasn’t.

And so I was placated somewhat by Frank Trentmann’s recent book “Empire of Things” a masterpiece of research and story-telling, many years in the making, that records the epic history of the goods that have seduced, enriched and unsettled our lives over the past 600 years.

Trentmann, a professor of history at Birkbeck University of London, reckons humanity has a “stuff” problem. He writes even in frugal Germany the average person owns 10,000 objects and as an outcome our trash has clogged the oceans’ surfaces with 18,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometre. He suggests we can’t reverse course without acknowledging how emotionally attached we’ve become to our possessions.

Six centuries ago the average person owned limited utilitarian goods, but now with the modern markets cheap prices and abundance of choice, more people can make personal statements about their identity through cars, clothes and kitchenware.

To protect our planet and ourselves Trentmann concludes that we need to better appreciate the pleasures that come from a longer lasting connection to fewer things.

By accident or design, that’s something I’m just beginning to comprehend.

“You give little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.” - Khalil Gibran

Read More...

Wonderfully made in Taiwan

An old friend has died. Shine Leu’s family emailed me last week to say their 66 year-old much loved husband and father had lost his battle with cancer. Back in 1996 I was involved in helping to set up home for the Taiwanese family who had decided to immigrate to New Zealand and settle in Masterton. Shine Leu and his wife Lin Chen and their two sons Robin and David were encouraged here by the board of Masterton Business Enterprise to grow tea in our district for export.

Lin arrived with her two sons six weeks ahead of her husband and I had to find them somewhere to rent.

The family came with only clothing and personal effects and a smattering of English and so I needed to accompany Lin to help her purchase household items. I don’t know what the local shopkeepers thought. It must have looked like I was setting up house with an attractive Asian woman as we set about buying such items as a double bed (as well as two singles) and the pillows, pillowcases and linen to fit them. We also purchased crockery and cutlery, toaster, jug, iron, and every manner of household item you can think of; plus a car and a fax machine. I then enrolled the boys at Wairarapa College and took them to school on their first day!

When Shine arrived he was eternally grateful for the help I had given his family getting settled and they subsequently purchased a home with a few acres on the outskirts of town.

We became close friends and I recall going around to Shine and Lin’s for dinner on one occasion and as usual the fare was scrumptious. The family had become amazingly self-sufficient. Lin told us the only item she had purchased for the meal was a few chicken breasts and yet the table was laden with food. There was a lovely pink fleshed trout Shine had caught in the Ruamahunga River, and marinated goat meat from an animal David had shot at Kaituna. Fresh eggs from chooks they had roaming around the section and vegetables from Shines prolific garden. The delicious flavours and aromas accompanying all the courses were in the main from herbs also grown in their backyard. A lot of this meal was cooked on a simple wok, fueled by bottled gas.

Bob Francis, mayor at the time and also a firm friend of the Leu family, said their haven reminded him of the television show “The Good Life”. I agreed, though they were far more assertive than their television counterparts.

The tea growing was not successful; many of the plants had died while in quarantine in Auckland and our climate was not conducive. They eventually shifted to Taupiri where Shine grew tea and Lin opened a Taiwanese restaurant in nearby Hamilton.

Excelling at Wairarapa College, the two boys went on to graduate from Waikato University.

Shine was a brilliant photographer and before coming to New Zealand he was a fine arts teacher at a secondary school in Taiwan. I always considered he had the perfect name; his warm smile could light up a room.

Rest in peace.

“The land flourished because it was fed from so many sources – because it was nourished by so many cultures and traditions and peoples.” – Lyndon B Johnson

Read More...