Finance Companies - How many more failures?
AUTHOR: Peter Dunne
Almost 20 finance companies have failed in the last two years. Maybe it does not sound much when you put it that way, but what about the tens of thousands of investors who have lost millions of dollars of their lifetime savings as a consequence? That brings it home to you. It is easy to talk about the global credit crunch, and unwise investment decisions, but behind each one of these company failures lies a myriad of personal stories, of lives shattered, or dreams unfulfilled. And very few of them have any realistic chance of ever seeing their money again. Sometimes I think it is a little easy for the directors of these companies who simply resign or put the company into receivership when the things go horribly wrong and walk away almost unscathed personally, while others suffer. A correspondent reminded me recently of I a letter I had sent him when Associate Minister of Justice way back in 1990. I had written of recently passed legislation to "investigate fraudulent or recklessly run companies" and of the need to "clean up New Zealand's 'wild west' corporate image." While times have changed, there is still an awful sense of deja vu. UnitedFuture is urging the government to take immediate steps to deal with the current crisis, and to restore a sense of public confidence in the finance sector.