Notes on Wine and Recession

The proprietor has been travelling the world in earnest these last few months doing what he can to staunch the haemorrhage in the world economy (5/8 of s.f.a.). However he has come to some fairly firm if mildly delusional solutions – some of which he passed on to the charming P.M. John Key last month.  We await major policy decisions from Wellington.

1. Apart from some really dud banking, some dodgy bilking from Hedge Funders etc, most of what has engulfed the world appears to have been a massive loss of confidence in reaction to an overblown and over confident market and economy in recent years. In short – panic.

However we think we could learn from  (of all people) George W. Bush. Bush, you may remember, rather perplexingly declared war on an emotion - the so-called “War on Terror.” More useful than that dubious enterprise might be a “War on Panic.”

• Our motto could well be that marvellous British WWII number “Keep Calm and Carry On”. Just the ticket for a blitz or a recession.
• In the War on Panic, be careful to handle statistics properly (they are volatile and can damage) for instance, 5% unemployment is also actually 95% employment.
• It is also important to identify and neutralize the purveyors of panic. Here we need to corral the business page editors, the T.V. pundits, the doomsday economists and so on and firmly exclude them from the process. They should be sent out for a good long lunch lasting for, oh, some six months. Their consumption alone at that old fashioned thing, the business lunch, will kick start the most flagging of economies! And fortified by half a year of pinot noir they will return to their desks cheerier and more constructive.

You know it makes sense! You’re either for us or you’re against us!

2. It is well documented that the Royal Navy rationed a tot of rum to its men every day for the purposes of morale. While we should not emulate the R.N. in all things – they did after all invent keel-hauling – we do think there’s something in this. Rum, however would not be our choice as a weapon in a war on low morale – a nice glass of red wine to all citizens looking a little peaky or depressed could work wonders. It certainly does for us. (Do not serve in lead beakers – that seems to have finished off the Roman Empire.)