Caroline Ritchie: Belief is what leads to change

Whether it passed you by a whisker or a mile, and no matter which man gave the valedictory speech, by today most voters will be over the election and carrying on with life as they know it.

It's a globalised condition: big events come and go - and we celebrate or commiserate in style - but it's all forgotten by lunchtime. Unless these events directly pertain to material changes in your life, the memories of them slip away into the dark pool.

Rhetoric is a wonderful selling tool and politicians employ it to maximum advantage through local spin doctors. They are hired to invade our Facebook pages with slanderous promises, to stand on fire engines and belt out negativity to the fullest extent allowed under the law. A slight thorn in the side of it all is that, whether red, blue or another colour in between, life after the election goes on, groundhog, pretty much the same.

Many voters don't quite believe that things can actually be that different, whomever's in charge.

It is the same antipathy that investors develop and the point is worth making because the topics intertwine. When the chips are down, the easy route is to believe that nothing makes a difference, in politics or money.

Both persuasions are highly psychological; in fact the very definition of politics is "power games". If you believe nothing will change no matter what surrounds you, the likelihood is nothing will.

It's a funny fact that sometimes we are our own worst investing enemies - and on a national level.

You may hear wry commentaries about our domestic fixed-interest opportunities, yet it might interest you to know that our little bond market, here in these small islands, is the second best-performing in the world this year. Bloomberg, the most widely read international and professional-used news and dealing system apart from Reuters, is raving about us and our bonds. We are guilty of taking ourselves too seriously, and yet not seriously enough all at the same time.

Voting in other countries is a much bigger deal. In fact for some nationalities, it is literally a matter of life and death. Real change rings true in the beliefs of those who make it to the ballot box in these countries. These are not principalities with developed stock markets. No milk and honey at the end of each salaried employee. No running water is more like it.

Investing here can be as mortally hazardous as voting. Imagine an economy in which banks regularly failed, sucking your cash with them, and what the broke banks didn't lose, the corruption took care of. Not pretty, but the point is that despite our advantages, we are guilty of complacency.

Here, in comparison with others, we have it good, but we have little faith in our ability to change and our tall-poppy-investor-syndrome rages on.

We need a major tune-up.

Caroline Ritchie is an authorised financial adviser with Forsyth Barr in Napier. She can be contacted on 0800 367 227 or caroline.ritchie@forsythbarr.co.nz This column is general in nature and should not be regarded as personalised investment advice. Disclosure statements are available on request and free of charge.