“Grab your dressing gowns … we’re going on a magical mystery farm field trip”, I announced to the kids.
Their little eyes lit up as we trekked out of the house, through the gate, past our rapidly evaporating dam, and down to our 200,000-litre rainwater tank.
“How much water is in our tank?” I asked the kids.
My eldest started knocking the side of the tank – and found it was as hollow as Albo’s re-election pitch.
“It’s practically empty!” he gasped.
“Exactly!” I cried.
And so, with my little troops lined up in their jimjams, I went into full ‘Drill Sergeant Dad’ mode:
“And do you know what that means?” I said, eyeballing each of them.
“No flushing the toilet anymore?” giggled my four-year-old.
“No, that’s disgusting! It means that, until we get a good rain, you’re all sharing a bath!” I said sternly.
End of field trip.
Welcome to life on the farm.
“Farmers in Western Victoria grapple with the worst drought conditions in almost two decades”, said a headline from the ABC last week.
Uh-huh.
The article continued:
“BOM senior meteorologist Zhi-Weng Chua isn’t seeing any drought-ending rain in the forecast.”
What a … BOM-mer!
Yet hang on a minute, how does the Bureau of Meteorology know what the weather will do in a month’s time?
They don’t!
And this is exactly like the share market right now.
“Aussies super in freefall because of Trump” …
“Fortunes lost in blink of an eye” …
“Markets are in crisis today as Donald Trump’s reign sparks terror across America. And we might not be able to escape the fallout” …
… screamed the headlines this week.
Holy Hector!
Yet another, way less exciting, way of writing that headline would be:
“Stocks have fallen to levels not seen since … last August.”
I know, I know, I’m hitting you with the sensible stick. And the question you really want to know is … is this the start of a much bigger Trump slump that will actually see your super in freefall?
Well, the honest answer is that I have no idea. However, what I do know is that the world has faced much bigger threats than Trumpty Dumpty and his untrusty sidekick the Muskrat:
Like World War I, World War II, the Great Depression, the Spanish flu, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the Holden Captiva, the Global Financial Crisis, Covid.
And, throughout all that, since 1900, the Aussie share market has had 101 ‘up’ years and 24 ‘down’ years.