This article, by Justin Baiocchi, was originally published in The Northern Daily Leader on 25 February 2017.
Now that I am on the wrong side of 40 (to be fair, I’ve been on the wrong side for some time), I have noticed a very unwelcome development. Every night, while I sleep, something or someone, is slowly transplanting John Howard’s eyebrows onto my own. It started off innocently enough – a stray eyebrow hair here, the odd misaligned hair over there…now however, whomever is doing this to me is working very diligently at giving me the full John Howard makeover. My hair appears to be in on the act too, rapidly pushing me to a place where I’ll be forced to ask the hairdresser for the ‘John Howard’ look when it comes time to discussing potential styles. It’s got to the point where complete strangers stop me in the street to discuss WorkChoices. Seriously though, why is it, that as you age your body stops growing where you want it to keep going – your brain, your hair – but keeps growing just where you want it to stop – your nose, your ears and your eyebrows? Why can’t your body direct its meagre resources to where they are needed most? Don’t give me ears the size of dinner plates, give me a head of hair that would make an Afghan Hound proud.
The slow and insidious process of relocating John Howard’s eyebrows onto my own is an example of significant change happening at such a slow pace that it is easily missed. I only noticed it myself when my wife lunged at me one day with the garden shears and a whipper snipper. It’s very easy to miss the fact that a series of small, seemingly unimportant changes, actually amount to a complete paradigm shift. Global events over the past twelve months may well represent one of those occasions. Political developments in the UK, US and Europe may not individually be earth-shattering, but taken together there is evidence to suggest that serious change is afoot. Brexit, Trump and political events in Europe all have underlying commonalities which should not be ignored. From an investment perspective, change can be both an opportunity and a threat. The threat, of course, is that political change brings economic and financial change which your investments are ill-equipped to manage. The opportunity is to make changes to your investment approach such that you are ahead of the curve. It may well be that we are entering a period where return of your capital is more important than return on your capital. Taking a conservative approach is of course one which John Howard himself would approve.