Liam Dann: Why so gloomy? Where's the post-pandemic party?

Post-war fun: Ex-servicemen voluntarily assist in the cafeteria of the Auckland Teachers Training College hostel for students in 1946. Photo / NZ Herald archive

OPINION:

This week the New Zealand Herald published its annual Mood of the Boardroom survey... and the mood wasn't great.

Surprised? Probably not right?

Confidence in the Government and the outlook for the economy was down. The tone of some of the comments was downright bleak.

As a cross-section of New Zealanders, business leaders almost certainly skew to the political right, but I don't think the general trends in the poll were widely out of line with those of the general public.

Through almost every tier of the social spectrum, there seems to be an excess layer of tension and anxiety creating conflict and division.

Post-war fun: Ex-servicemen voluntarily assist in the cafeteria of the Auckland Teachers Training College hostel for students in 1946. Photo / NZ Herald archive

Whether it's the homeless fighting outside central city supermarkets, gang shootings, or the fisticuffs of middle-class parents at posh PTA fundraisers - the nation seems to be at boiling point.

But why?

The mood wasn't exactly great in 2020 and 2021 either, but we were locked down and living in the shadow of a deadly pandemic.

Now the Covid restrictions are gone, shouldn't we be dancing in the streets and enthusiastically making plans for our post-pandemic freedom?

I'm beginning to think we might all have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Looking back to the dark days of the pandemic - the first wave of panic, last year's long lockdown and even the Omicron peak this year - I had hopes that its passing would result in a wave of collective elation, like the end of World War II.

But I think I had missed a key point about those post-war boom years. They took a while to kick in.

In reality, the immediate aftermath of the war probably wasn't much fun at all.

They wouldn't have called it PTSD back then but it's a good bet they had it.

Popular history doesn't seem to have much to say about what life was like in the late 1940s.

The first few post-war years seem to be something of a black hole in the collective consciousness.

We zone out of the narrative after the surrender of Japan and leap back in with the arrival of Elvis a decade later.

Economically everything gets bundled into a chapter about the great post-war boom that didn't really kick in until the 1950s.

After the war Europe was literally shell-shocked of course.

The US and the rest of the West also suffered a recession in 1946 and 1947 as government spending shrank drastically.

In the coming years, a monumental surge in private production lifted living standards sharply.

But initially, people clearly weren't feeling great.

In 1945 British war hero Winston Churchill was dumped in a heavy election defeat.

In the US in 1946 the incumbent Democrats suffered a big defeat in mid-term elections, losing both the House and Senate.

In New Zealand the same year, the incumbent Labour Party held on to power, but only just and with a greatly reduced majority.

That was despite our economy actually holding up well due to post-war demand for commodities.

There's a similar situation now with commodity prices keeping our economy out of recession but people facing an economic squeeze due to inflation and the policy measures required to address it.

When it gets down to it, the cost of living is probably the big issue worrying most New Zealanders.

But as ASB research showed this week, many New Zealanders aren't going backwards as badly as you'd think.

Household incomes had risen by around $100 per week in the year to June 2022. Wage and salary earners did particularly well, registering an 8.7 per cent increase in income.

That's ahead of the 7.3 per cent inflation rate.

The latest Westpac McDermott Miller Consumer confidence survey also offered some clues to the national psyche.

Consumer confidence has bounced back fast - but only for the under-30s. Photo / Sylvie Whinray

Confidence is still at historic lows but actual retail spending data is not.

People seem to be saying it's a terrible time to buy a new car or major household appliance and then doing it anyway.

But the most revealing thing about the state of the nation was the age split.

Confidence amongst consumers aged 18 to 29 has already rebounded back above pre-pandemic levels.

Those aged 50-plus (my demographic these days) are the gloomiest.

Westpac senior economist Satish Ranchhod notes that young people are less likely to care about interest rate rises because they don't have a house yet.

They are also benefiting most from the strong job markets and are more able to switch jobs to boost their earnings.

They are currently blessed with job options and paths of upward mobility that haven't been experienced in this country for decades.

I suspect they are also more adaptable and less set in their ways than us oldies.

But if we really crunched the numbers on wealth, those of us with houses and savings are still in much better financial shape than the younger generation.

So it seems odd to be letting Government policy - whether we like it or not - control our mood.

I'm no hard-core neo-liberal but I am in favour of personal responsibility and not relying on state support to get ahead in life.

There's plenty of things about the Government that seem deficient right now - both in terms of policy and execution.

We all get to decide on their future in about 12 months.

But that's too long to stay gloomy. In the meantime we need to cheer up and get on with this recovery.