Happy about the future?
(posted 9-1-01)

Relentless Press optimism on our economic future in 2001, probably fuelled by holiday alcohol excesses, has been tempered by a downturn in US manufacturing orders, expected bank bankruptcies and a consequent run on the once weak Euro as investors go in search of safer bets.

So what's new? Nothing really. But it does reinforce the point that no matter how jolly you feel about the future, old problems just get recycled, as two stories from very different parts of the world illustrate.

Scottish salmon farmers are reeling from a report that shows their fish could contain up to 10 times more industrial toxins (PCBs and dioxins) than wild fish. This is because the fish meal used by the farmers is often sourced from contaminated seas and bioaccumulates in the fatty salmon.

So when you choose the pink fish - slimming and supposedly full of healthy Omega 3s, it might be better to go wild. Then again, it might not. Much depends in which seas the salmon have swum. (Hint: steer clear of any fish that has made it out of the Baltic).
In India, Enron, the Texas-based energy company, is beginning a publicity campaign to try and change its undeserved image as a horrible, exploitative multinational.

Enron's problems emerge from an innovative deal struck in the early 90s when it contracted to provide electricity to western India in return for regular payments. The $2.2 billion deal to build a generator remains India's biggest single foreign investment.

But there have been tensions between private business and the politicians. Now the west Indian state of Maharashtra is so unhappy that it is reviewing the tariff it pays. Enron has launched a local advertising campaign to address the 'myths and realities' of its image - a difficult, demanding and probably un-winnable task. Maybe it should take some advice from Monsanto - it's been there before and has learned a few things about the futility of unrelenting optimism.