Repercussions of finance company foolishness go beyond losses of investors – they will hurt all of us

The collapse and behaviour of the finance companies has done more than just wipe out the wealth of individual investors, it’s put a serious dent in our hopes for creating an economy that’s based on productive investment.

Kiwis, with their heightened sense of ‘fair dos’, expect pretty high standards of behaviour from our businesses.

So news like Strategic Finance’s bosses helping themselves to six-figure pay packets as the finance company threatened to go down the gurgler ain’t going to do much to restore the faith.

And that’s what we need if we’re to get Kiwis out of their housing fixation and into investing in Kiwi businesses, either directly through the sharemarket or indirectly for example through managed funds that have business portfolio investments.

The danger is we’ll just stick our money in the bank, leaving our cash starved, but ambitious businesses short of the growth funds they need.

And that’s very bad news.