Kerre Woodham: Can you survive until 25?

I first heard the catchphrase Survive to 25 when I was talking to be at large, Liam Dann.  It appears to have come out of the US and implies that if mortgagees and small businesses can just hang on till next year things will start to come right. Because let's face it, we're not going to see interest rates drop any time soon. Despite some of the banks predicting that there would be a drop in mortgage interest rates towards the end of the year, the Reserve Bank poured cold water on that. Great for those with term deposits, less welcome news for anyone with debt.   

Finance Minister Nicola Willis made it abundantly clear that the Reserve Bank had just one job and that was to get inflation back to target - 3 then 2%. She says the tax cuts will not be inflationary because the government itself has really cut back on its spending. That they’re not borrowing, she says, to pay for tax cuts, they’re coming from savings. And she says that most people who receive the tax cuts will use them to pare down debt, so it’s not going to be inflationary. Adrian Orr is not budging, so people are just going to have to white-knuckle it to the end.  

You have to wonder what is the end? What is it gonna look like? What’s the trading landscape going to look like by the time we hit 2025? Some people have used up all their reserves. I’ve heard from some traders, some small business owners that things need to turn, and need to turn pretty quick. Consumer confidence needs to pick up for businesses to survive. Forget ‘survive to 25’, they’re just hoping to survive the next three months. But is it an unequal recession as well? Are some businesses going gangbusters while others are doing it tough?  

For those with mortgages, if the Reserve Bank keeps the OCR at 5.5% until September of next year, many borrowers are going to be caught short when they come to refix their loans. Borrowers have, for some time, been betting on the OCR falling sometime soon, sometime this year. Since the start of last year, people are just fixing for one year. I was talking to some young colleagues in the newsroom. They’ve got mortgages coming up in a few months, they’re going to fix for a year, hoping that by next year things will look better.  

Survive to 25. The popularity of one-year mortgages has taken off since the start of the year. Fixing for six months has become more common at the cost of two-year mortgages. So if you have a mortgage coming up and it needs to be refixed, are you going to go for the six month, the one-year, the two year? If you are a small business owner, ‘Survive to 25’, is that your mantra? Is that the reason to hold on, that by the time we get to 2025, things will have improved? Consumers will have a bit more in their pocket, they’ll have a bit more money around for treats like bouquets of flowers, new pair of shoes, that sort of thing. 

We hear all the decision makers having their say, making their predictions, implementing their policy, having their reckons because ultimately, that’s all they are about: what is it going to do to the economy long term? But for those of us at the business end of things, at the sharp end of things, where are you at? Can you survive through to 25? And for those who've been around for a while who've been in business for a while, how does doing business now compare to doing business during the global financial crisis? That was a tough time with unemployment, with an absolute contraction of the economy, with businesses wondering how they were going to survive.  

There is still, as I mentioned the other day, incredible young people who are opening businesses, who have faith, and optimism, and belief that they have a product or a service that is amazing, that people will want to buy. That they will be able to make a living doing what they’re good at, doing what they love. Even in this market, there are baby businesses being born every day. 

There is so much to battle. 

I mean, you must feel like one of those characters in a video game where you are deflecting missiles that are coming at you left, right, and centre with high inflation, and decreasing human confidence, and high staff wages, and online sales. Deflecting left, right, and centre, and yet still businesses are being born every day, which is a credit to the entrepreneurial spirit, and a credit to people who put a stake in the ground and say no, I have a vision. I have something that I can sell. I'm going to damn well get out there and do it. 

Can you survive to 25? 

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