Comment – Prepared, Not Panicking

If you’ve looked at the headlines this week, you might think it’s all doom and gloom out there. Cheer up, Eeyores, because it’s really not that bad!

Yes, there’s talk of an AI-fuelled market wobble, but anyone who hasn’t been doing business from a bunker saw that bubble coming a mile off. There’s also been the biggest cryptocurrency heist ever. Don’t worry about me, though: my fortune is safely tied up in some older tractors, a few ewes with a bit of a limp and a very respectable firewood pile. And the government has kindly suggested we all keep three days’ worth of supplies at home.

I must gently object to that last one. Only three days? I come from a long line of farmers, and anyone in our family with fewer than three freezers would have got some funny looks. After all, what else are you supposed to do when a beast goes in the freezer? Exactly. I’m also down to my last three generators, plus assorted red and white diesel tanks and a modest 1,500 hay bales. The village chattering classes like to call us “preppers”, but we’re perfectly normal really. In fact, we’d probably sail through a zombie apocalypse without noticing for a few weeks, until someone needed to nip out for a sack of potatoes or a pint of milk.

Mind you, the neighbours always come round to our way of thinking when the snow arrives and a truck with a 4WD button suddenly looks very useful for the supermarket run. Their freezers, bless them, stock only the true essentials: ice and vodka.

The advice to keep a wind-up radio is spot on, though I suspect most of our workshops already have a trusty short-wave set from the first time round.

There’s a serious point in there too. If we ran our businesses on three days’ cash, stock and inventory, we’d be in a right pickle already. The machinery supply chain (& farming) has always been about planning ahead, and it turns out we were quietly getting it right all along.

As for cryptocurrency, I’ve never dabbled. As far as I know, Carrs Billington and the filling station still don’t take it, so I’ll stick with what works!

I still feel that the jury is out for AI being a game changer for all, in specific instances it’s great, but as my dad says ‘it won’t mend the wall gaps’. Quite.

Reading this back, I promise I didn’t get out of the wrong side of the bed. I’m just feeling well stocked and in good spirits.

You may perhaps forgive me for not commenting on the budget this week. I’m nonplussed.

Have a cracking week!

Andy