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Global Financial Crisis.  Say it quickly enough and it sounds like something that simply happened.  We were all merrily going about our lives, making money and minding our own businesses, when all of a sudden: GFC.  Just like everything else that isn’t our fault (war, poverty and a decaying planet) we vocally protested and quickly pointed out just who was to blame.  Now, as the dust settles and the Freddies and Fannies of this world have become household names around the globe, I quietly raise my hand and say “I had something to do with that”.

As one of hundreds of thousands of small business owners in Australia, I always pushed the envelope during the good times.  Operating a contract for a national parcel freight carrier, my focus has always been on charging as much as the market (or in this case my one customer) would bear and expending as little as possible getting the job done in the process.  That’s business.  In fact, it’s my obligation as a company director under the Corporations Act.  The money charged for freight movements is one way or another reflected in the consumer goods landed price, so as long as the carrier can charge their customers enough everybody’s happy.  Greed.

That, of course, was until the public started to worry about their jobs and their ability to fund excessive consumerism.  They stopped buying stuff and it no longer needed delivery.  So the world’s highest-paid bean counters running the world’s largest parcel freight company inserted their Staedtler HB pencils into the electric sharpeners on their desks and took to the T-ledger with gusto.  To save the contractors?  No.  To save the company?  Possibly.  To save their jobs?  Now we might be close to the truth.  As we’ve seen already, although executive salaries are on the bottom of the list of places expenditure can be cut, nobody is immune to the GFC.

Now as I begin to miss operating that courier contract (they converted it to a company-operated run, poaching my only member of staff  to do the job) and the considerable cashflow it generated, I turn my focus to capitalising on the next phase of our economic cycle.  The power company get paid late for the first time in years and some of the local restaurants miss a patron or two, but only momentarily.  I have greed on my side.

Charity, and having to say “No”?  That’s the next post.

-Greg

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1. Charity & saying “No”

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