Rich Listers and their ways

Most super-rich people I have met (not that many, I admit) have a healthy sense of self-deprecation, though this is sometimes balanced by the inability to judge when they have said too much (they are not used to being interrupted).

Within a couple of days in the past week I read about one – the legendary Wall Street investor Julian Robertson – and heard another in the flesh – Gerry Harvey, half of the Harvey Norman retail empire.

Mr Harvey just missed out on being the top 10 Rich List Australians, as compiled by Forbes magazine. At $A1.3 billion, he was reported to be down a billion this time last year, before the sharemarket rebounded.

“In a way I’m sort of proud&hellipI never thought I’d have it to lose,” Forbes quotes him as saying.

Speaking to guests at the Westbury Stud, Karaka – formerly owned by Eric Watson – Mr Harvey was dismissive of his wealth: “Do I make money or lose money [on race horses]? I don’t know, I don’t need to know.”

Mr Harvey’s modus operandi is to own some top stallions (all though syndication) and as many broodmares as possible. That way he figures he is bound to come up with a winner or three worth millions. (Mr Harvey co-owns the Magic Millions with John Singleton, whom he describes as the luckiest man in the world when it comes to horses.)

Mr Harvey has big plans for his two New Zealand studs’ future – a dozen stallions and 100 mares, out of a total 1000 horses he owns all up at his Australian stud farms.

He also likes to pretend he knows nothing about horses, so hires the best trainers – he has 50 on a total of five stud farms. (You can read more about this in this week's print edition of the NBR.)

In this he is similar to Mr Robertson, who started one of the first hedge funds on Wall Street (Tiger Capital) and who has invested heavily in golf courses and resorts here, as well as being a major philanthropist (for example, a $115 million donation of art to the Auckland City Gallery and scholarships for bright students).

Smartest guy in the room

Like Mr Harvey, Mr Robertson says his secret is to hire people who know more than he does and, in a fascinating profile by the Dominion Post’s Marty Sharpe, reveals come penetrating political insights:

"I've made a pretty good living over the years by never hiring anyone that wasn't a lot smarter than I am. So when I go in a room I know I'm not the smartest person in the room, not even approaching it.

"Now Obama, from all I read, thinks that on every occasion that he is the smartest person in the room. And I think he often probably is, but you can't run the biggest business in the world having never run even a country store.

"And he's running into that and he's just doing an awful job and people see it. He's enough of a politician to see it – although he's so cocky maybe he doesn't see it."

This is an interesting conclusion, as President Obama has whipped up strong reactions from both Right and Left. Yet others, including conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks, view him as a pragmatic centrist with more tenacity and follow through than either Bill Clinton or George W Bush.

In particular, Brooks cites policies such as healthcare, teaching standards, foreign policy and even the financial crisis as areas where most others would have given up when faced with the widespread opposition,

In the war against terrorism, for example, President Obama has adopted 80% of the Bush administration’s policies, winning in Iraq and now pursuing a course against the Taliban in Afghanistan that will also bring victory.

Picking the Budget winners

The minister in charge of the knowledge economy, Wayne Mapp, says science “will be the winner in the Budget."

He told the Higher Education Summit in Auckland this week that the reforms the government had in mind would replace the “shambles of the past 20 years” with a clear set of priorities for a sector that is essential to economic growth.

From what we know so far, the government has struck a strong chord with its science andtechnology policies – even given the government’s constrained spending due to maintaining entitlements while not having the money to pay for them.

One specific programme that will benefit in the Budget is Technology New Zealand (now known as TechNZ), a little recognised funding source for innovation in the private sector.

For most of their nine-year existence to 2007, I helped judge the Technology Commendation Awards that were made to companies who had accessed the fund.

Giving public money direct to business has its dangers, but I suspect little of the $450 million spent was wasted. The latest list of grants to some 200 companies shows enterprises ranging in size from Fonterra down to startups, and amounts from as little as $1500 to ones of more than $1 million.

Here's hoping more for TechNZ in the shakeout to come.

Domebusters – Who’s gonna call them?

The so-called “peace movement” is delighted about its victory in a Wellington court where three motivated but misguided vandals were cleared of charges over their million dollar’s worth of damage to the Waihopai communications complex in April 2008.

The Greens and the Anti Bases Campaign (run by veteran radical Murray Horton) both emailed me with ecstatic praise for the pacifist-minded jury, which agreed that virtually anything is allowed if you’re opposed to American foreign policy.

Mr Horton claims

Waihopai operates, in all but name, as an outpost of US intelligence on NZ soil; it makes NZ a partner in crime with the US in each and every war that it is fighting; it means that New Zealanders, involuntarily and unknowingly, have blood on our hands.

And the real guilty parties?

... shadowy spy bosses and their political masters should face a jury, either domestically or internationally, for active participation in waging wars and crimes against humanity.

Not everyone – hardly anyone? – would agree with Mr Horton's summation. But as the protest movement takes most of its inspiration from foreign activists, maybe we will see attempts to have these "shadowy spy bosses" and their "political masters" being dragged before a pacifist Kiwi (or should that be Kangaroo?) court.