There’s a lesson there, and it’s one you might think a 50-something-year-old bloke should have learned already.
There are no shortcuts in life. Or at least none that don’t have consequences and complications of their own.
So no prizes for guessing where this analogy is headed ...
These days, we’re talking a lot about the state of the economic recovery.
We’re frustrated because it is taking longer than we’d like.
And yes, New Zealand took an almighty dose of over-the-counter stimulus to deal with the economic fallout from Covid-19.
For a time, it felt like we’d avoided the worst of the symptoms, but then we overheated, and then we crashed.
Now we’re in recovery. And it’s a hard-fought one. It’s making us sweat.
It’s the kind of recovery we have to earn, and I think that, as painful as it feels now, it might be good for us in the long run.
It’s so hard precisely because it isn’t pumped up by Government stimulus, it isn’t pumped up by immigration, and it isn’t pumped up by rising house prices making us richer than we are.
We’ve relied on those three drivers to inflate our sense of economic progress for a long time.
The disappearance of a “wealth effect” based on house prices has been a shock to New Zealand’s economic system
I think it probably accounts for the slower pace of recovery as much as anything else in the myriad puzzle pieces.
Gareth Kiernan, chief forecaster at Infometrics, said last week that his forecasts were for house price inflation to average 3.1% a year over the five years to June 2030.
In nominal terms, prices would pass their 2021 peak in mid-2029, he said.
But adjusted for inflation, prices in mid-2030 would still be a fifth below the peak.
That would represent a bigger drop than we saw in the global financial crisis (GFC), when prices fell 14% in real terms.
Long-term forecasts are notoriously unreliable and other economists aren’t so downbeat.
But if Kiernan is right and the days of the wild housing booms are over, then it would represent a huge cultural shift that could reshape our economy.
We have dealt with many of the big supply constraints that were limiting the amount of house building a decade ago.
There’s also a demographic shift under way. A large bubble of boomers (is that the collective noun?) will be looking to sell down in the next few years.
And, of course, migration has been subdued with a net population gain of just 21,000 in the year to May – down from a staggering peak of 138,000 in the year to October 2023.
Perhaps this Government or the next will panic about house prices and start enacting policies to push them higher.
But the politics of housing are shifting, and a growing number of non-home-owning voters is likely to keep the pressure on to keep supply open.
Creating new demand isn’t as simple as throwing open the borders either; we need an economy that is creating jobs to attract more migrants.
I’m not convinced house price growth will stay as subdued for as long as Kiernan suggests.
But I agree that there is no sign of another boom on the horizon to turbo-charge this economic cycle.
So what’s the good news? Where’s the payoff for the economy?
The early 20th-century Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter had a thing or two to say about the value of difficult economic cycles.
He is famous for a concept called “creative destruction”. He argued that downturns weeded out inefficient parts of the economy and ultimately made economies more innovative and efficient.
His views can sound pretty hard-hearted when you consider the human cost of business failures and job losses.
But he had a point about tough conditions driving new innovation and efficiencies in an economy.
Faced with squeezed margins and slow revenue growth, businesses have to think creatively about what they do.
They have to look at improving productivity, whether that is through cost-cutting or investing in new technology and exploring new products or new markets.
Without property sitting there as an easy investment option, Kiwis will also have to get smarter about where they put their money.
Capital is more likely to flow to the productive parts of the economy.
It is a great relief that our agricultural export sector is humming this year.
Without that, there may have been no recovery at all.
Economies can and do get trapped in recessionary feedback cycles that are no good for anyone.
But we have some momentum, and we have a central bank that has regained control of inflation.
It may need to pause its interest rate cuts in July, to make sure it still has that control.
But with plenty of spare capacity in the economy, the medium-term outlook for inflation remains subdued. The RBNZ still has scope to go lower if required.
Yes, this recovery is a slow and painful process. We’re being forced to sweat it out for every small gain in an uphill slog.
I’m hopeful that it will see us emerge leaner and fitter.
We’ll be better placed for the period of sustained growth we’ll need to start solving our fiscal woes and the social challenges we’re facing in the coming decades.
Liam Dann is business editor-at-large for the New Zealand Herald. He is a senior writer and columnist, and also presents and produces videos and podcasts. He joined the Herald in 2003.
