Sir John Key

约翰基爵士

Sir John Key was New Zealand’s Prime Minister from 19th November 2008 to 12 December 2016. In this article, journalist Liam Dann discussed with Sir John a part of his life that was seldom known to the public.

约翰·基爵士于 2008 年 11 月 19 日至 2016 年 12 月 12 日担任新西兰总理。在这篇文章中，记者利亚姆·丹恩与约翰爵士讨论了他生活中鲜为人知的一部分。

Money Talks: Sir John Key shares his best financial advice, his biggest political regret and his most indulgent purchase

By Liam Dann

17 Sep, 2022 05:00 AM

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Sir John Key. Photo / NZME

Sir John Key: ‘Nothing terrifies people more than that they’ll run out of money’

金钱谈话：约翰基爵士分享了他最好的财务建议、他最大的政治遗憾和他最放纵的购买.  作者：利亚姆·丹恩     
2022 年 9 月 17 日 05:00     
新西兰前总理约翰·基爵士。照片 / NZME   
约翰基爵士：“没有什么比钱花光更让人们害怕的了”

Sir John Key: ‘Nothing terrifies people more than that they’ll run out of money’

Sep 17, 2022 • 37 min

Sir John Key wanted to be a horse trainer.

Based on his track record across a diverse career, he’d probably have had more than his share of winners.

But his mother wasn’t having a bar of his plans.

“My friend’s uncle was a great horse trainer in Christchurch and I got really interested,” Key recalls on the Money Talks podcast.  

“If I’m completely honest, my friend and I were more interested in backing the horses than mucking out the pens and so on. But I started doing some work out there.

“Anyway, as you do when you’re 15 years of age, I came home one day to declare to my mother that I was leaving school and I was going to work for the horse trainer.”

But Key’s mother had firm views about the need for some financial security in his life. She made it very clear that he should forget about the horses and stick with plans to study accountancy at university.

约翰基爵士想成为一名驯马师。
根据他在多元化职业生涯中的记录，他可能获得的获奖者数量超过了他的份额。
但他的母亲对他的计划并不满意。她坚持说他在大学学习是为了成为一名会计师。
“我朋友的叔叔是基督城的一位出色的驯马师，我对此非常感兴趣，” 约翰基爵士 在 Money Talks 播客中回忆道。
“如果我完全诚实，我和我的朋友更感兴趣的是支持马匹而不是清理围栏等等。但我开始在那里做一些工作。
“不管怎样，就像你15岁的时候一样，有一天我回家向我妈妈宣布我要离开学校，我要去为驯马师工作。”  但基的母亲对他的生活中需要一些财务保障有着坚定的看法。她说得很清楚，他应该忘掉那些马，坚持在大学学习会计的计划。

“I can tell you that conversation lasted about as long as the KiwiSaver GST tax the other day,” says the former prime minister.  Key seems to be in his element talking money - perhaps because he grew up without a lot of it, perhaps because he’s since made a lot of it.

Whatever the reason, he is relaxed and happy to rattle through anecdotes and observations about personal finance and economics.

And Key is not shy of sharing his best money advice or his most indulgent purchases.

“我可以告诉你，谈话的持续时间与前几天 KiwiSaver 消费税一样长，”这位前总理说。关键似乎是在谈论金钱——也许是因为他在没有钱的情况下长大，也许是因为他后来赚了很多钱。
不管是什么原因，他很放松，很乐意通过关于个人财务和经济的轶事和观察来喋喋不休。
约翰基爵士 并不羞于分享他最好的理财建议或他最放纵的购买。

“To be honest, I’ve just bought myself a helicopter because I’ve been learning to fly,” he says. “It’s only a little helicopter, it’s a very cute little one and it comes next year.” That suggests that whatever his net worth, Key must be doing OK because he says the best financial advice he’s been given is to live within your means.

He’s not a fan of debt, he says, with the exception of using it to buy a property.  His other tip for young people: understand the power of compound interest and buy property.

“I know people will say that’s a very hard thing to do if you don’t have a deposit and you don’t have the bank of mum and dad, I get all that stuff,” he says.

“And it’s not because I think its so tax advantageous, even though there are some tax advantages.

“It makes you save. You pay off some principal and some interest on your loan; if you have some spare cash or a bonus or something you pay off some more.”

“说实话，我刚给自己买了一架直升机，因为我一直在学习飞行，”他说。 “这只是一架小直升机，非常可爱，明年就来了。”这表明无论他的净资产如何，约翰基爵士 一定做得很好，因为他说他得到的最好的财务建议是量入为出。
他说，除了用它来购买房产外，他不喜欢债务。他给年轻人的另一个建议：了解复利的力量并购买房产。 “这并不是因为我认为它有税收优势，尽管它有一些税收优势。
“它让你存钱。你还清了一些本金和一些贷款利息；如果你有一些闲钱或奖金或其他东西，你就还清了一些。”

Now the chair of ANZ New Zealand (and on the ANZ Group board), Key is also on the board of global cybersecurity giant Palo Alto, an adviser to global media giant Comcast and sits on the advisory board of BP in London.

Locally he’s also an adviser to Zespri and a board member of education consultants Crimson.

He got involved in Crimson after meeting founder Jamie Beaton through his son Max.

Key rates Beaton highly as an entrepreneur and sees lifting educational achievement as a key to improving New Zealand’s performance.

It does all sound like a lot of work for someone who could afford to be doing much less.

现在是 ANZ New Zealand 的主席（以及 ANZ 集团董事会成员），约翰基爵士 还是全球网络安全巨头 Palo Alto 的董事会成员、全球媒体巨头 Comcast 的顾问，并且是 BP 在伦敦的顾问委员会成员。
在当地，他还是佳沛的顾问和教育咨询公司 Crimson 的董事会成员。 
约翰基爵士 高度评价 Beaton 作为企业家，并认为提高教育成就是改善新西兰业绩的关键。
对于能够负担得起做更少事情的人来说，这听起来确实是很多工作。

“It’s funny, my son said to me the other day ‘why do you bother working? You could be playing golf or flying helicopters or whatever’.

“Partly it’s intellectual stimulation and I enjoy it. Although I don’t want to die working. I am happy to retire but I guess there is part of me that just feels I should keep just working to make sure.”

Key famously grew up in a state house, and while he might not have been poor, money and financial security loomed very large - especially for his mother.

“There was never a situation where we couldn’t eat,” he says.

“这很有趣，前几天我儿子对我说‘你为什么要工作？你可能在打高尔夫球或开直升机什么的。’
“部分是智力上的刺激，我喜欢它。虽然我不想死去工作。我很高兴退休，但我想我的一部分只是觉得我应该继续努力确保。”  
众所周知，约翰基爵士在州府长大，虽然他可能并不贫穷，但金钱和财务保障却迫在眉睫——尤其是对他的母亲而言。
“从来没有过我们不能吃东西的情况，” 他说。

“Did I get Christmas presents? Yes, to the best of my memory. There was a lot of love and a lot of everything good. But we did grow up in a state house and did I go to other friends’ houses and notice their things were cool and ours weren’t? Truthfully, yeah.”

Key’s mother was so keen to instil the importance of money into her son that when he was about seven she took him to meet the bank manager at the local branch of the Canterbury Savings Bank.

“That was because she had borrowed money to buy a house and she said, ‘look you have to know the bank manager’,” he says.   “She was absolutely desperate for me to be an accountant and she thought: the bank manager - that’s got to be the most important accountant in her mind that she knew.

“She had been an Austrian Jewish refugee - that got out when the Nazis invaded - and came from a wealthy family actually, to effectively no resources at all,” Key says.

“She ended up in London pre-WWII with her and her brother not speaking English and with no financial resources. She had learnt that life can throw up these incredible things. Circumstances that you can never imagine.

“我收到圣诞礼物了吗？是的，就我的记忆而言。有很多爱和很多美好的事物。但我们确实是在州府长大的，我是否去其他朋友的家并注意到他们的事情很酷，而我们的不是？说实话，是的。"  
约翰基爵士 的母亲非常热衷于向她的儿子灌输金钱的重要性，以至于在他大约七岁时，她带他去见了坎特伯雷储蓄银行当地分行的银行经理。
那是因为她借钱买了房子，她说，‘看你必须认识银行经理’，” 他说。 “她绝对渴望我成为一名会计师，她认为：银行经理 - 这一定是她所知道的最重要的会计师。
“她曾是一名奥地利犹太难民——在纳粹入侵时逃了出去——实际上来自一个富裕的家庭，实际上根本没有任何资源，”基说。  
“她在二战前来到伦敦，她和她的兄弟不会说英语，也没有经济资源。她了解到生活会引发这些不可思议的事情。你永远无法想象的情况。

“Money really matters - nothing terrifies people more than that they’ll run out of money and have no money to retire on.”

But money isn’t the only driver.

If he was a slave to it, Key would never have dropped out of the finance sector to spend 15 years as a politician, he says.

“Initially working is about money and putting food on the table but the reality is there are so many other things that come out of that.

“It’s that connectivity, it’s going to be one of the really interesting things when one day we explore what the future of work looks like post-Covid.

“I reckon it will be a hybrid world, but I reckon that people will drift back.”

Young people in particular learn by osmosis, he says.

“They learn by being there, they want to be noticed. And actually, working off the end of their bed in some grotty flat somewhere probably isn’t that seductive.”

“钱真的很重要——没有什么比钱花光、没有钱退休更让人们害怕的了。”  但金钱并不是唯一的驱动力。
他说，如果他是它的奴隶，基 永远不会退出金融部门，担任 15 年的政治家。
“最初工作是为了钱和把食物放在桌子上，但现实是还有很多其他的事情会由此产生。
“就是这种连通性，当有一天我们探索新冠疫情后工作的未来是什么样子时，这将是一件非常有趣的事情。
“我认为这将是一个混合世界，但我认为人们会倒退。”  
他说，尤其是年轻人通过渗透来学习。
“他们在那里学习，他们想被注意到。实际上，在某个破烂的公寓里工作可能并不那么诱人。”

Key eventually got his commerce degree and started life as an accountant in Christchurch - but he quickly knew it wasn’t for him.

“My boss was a lovely guy,” he says.

“He was quite young, thinking back. I was 21. I had been in the job for three or four months and we were having a beer after work one night and I said to him: ‘Do you really enjoy this?'”

His boss admitted the job was dull, he didn’t enjoy it, and explained that it was just a means to fund a small farm in Templeton and other things he wanted to do.

Key recalls going home that night and saying to [future wife] Bronagh: “God I can’t spend the next 40 years of my life doing something I don’t want to do to pay the bills.”

Key jumped ship, using a connection his sister had to land a job as a project manager at Lane Walker Rudkin - which at the time produced the Canterbury Authentics sportswear brand, and was one of the biggest businesses in Christchurch.

基 最终获得了商业学位，并在基督城开始了会计师的生活——但他很快就知道这不适合他。
“我的老板是个可爱的人，” 他说。
“他很年轻，回想起来。我当时 21 岁。我已经工作了三四个月，一天晚上下班后我们喝啤酒，我对他说：'你真的喜欢这个工作吗？'”  
他的老板承认这份工作很枯燥，他不喜欢这份工作，并解释说这只是为坦普尔顿的一个小农场和其他他想做的事情提供资金的一种手段。
基 回忆说那天晚上回家后对 [未来的妻子] Bronagh 说：“上帝啊，我不能在接下来的 40 年里做一些我不想做的事情来支付账单。”  
基 跳槽了，因为他的妹妹不得不在 Lane Walker Rudkin 找到一份项目经理的工作，该公司当时生产 Canterbury Authentics 运动服品牌，是基督城最大的企业之一。

It provided a chance to hone his skills as a salesman, he says, recalling a big deal he did.

“One thing about men’s fashion is we’re attracted when see a shop window to all this gold and red and white … and we don’t buy any of it. We buy navy, grey and black.

“So anyway, these designers would design these incredible bloody ranges in all these colours,” he says.

“We had one particular designer who went nuts on this and my boss said to me ‘we have a warehouse full of this stuff, your job is to get this written off and get rid of it all’.”

“So I went off to England and found this guy who was like an Arthur Daley type character and we sold the entire warehouse to him - tens of millions of dollars worth of it - and it all went off to Poland and Eastern Europe. So they were wearing the red shorts, they’re probably still wearing it.”

Perhaps Key could ended up as a men’s fashion executive but, famously, he moved on.

He was swept up into the 1980s market boom as a currency trader working his way to the top at global investment bank Merrill Lynch before returning home to enter politics.

他说，这为他提供了一个磨练推销员技能的机会，并回忆起他做过的一件大事。
“关于男士时尚的一件事是，当我们看到所有这些金色、红色和白色的商店橱窗时，我们就会被吸引……我们什么都不买。我们买海军蓝、灰色和黑色。
“所以无论如何，这些设计师会用所有这些颜色设计这些令人难以置信的血腥系列，” 他说。
“我们有一个特别的设计师对此很疯狂，我的老板对我说'我们有一个装满这些东西的仓库，你的工作就是把它注销并把它全部处理掉'。”  
“所以我去了英国，找到了这个像 Arthur Daley 类型的人，我们把整个仓库卖给了他——价值数千万美元——然后全部卖到了波兰和东欧。所以他们穿着红色短裤，他们可能还穿着它。 
也许 基 最终会成为一名男装时尚主管，但众所周知的是，他继续前进。  
作为一名外汇交易员，他被卷入了 1980 年代的市场繁荣，他在全球投资银行美林证券 (Merrill Lynch) 工作，然后回到家乡进入政界。

On reflection, he has just one regret from his time in politics, he says.

“I wanted to do a big cancer facility,” he says. “I wanted to do the equivalent of Starship [children’s hospital] for cancer.

“I got talked out of it. But if I had my time again I’d do it because I think generations of New Zealanders would look back and say that was a good use of our taxpayer dollars.”

他说，回想起来，他从政时只有一个遗憾。“我想做一个大型的癌症设施，” 他说。 
“我想做类似 Starship [儿童医院] 的癌症治疗。
“我被说服了。但如果我有时间，我会这样做，因为我认为几代新西兰人会回顾并说这是对我们纳税人的钱的一种很好的利用。”

His son, Max, his wife, Bronagh, and his daughter Stephie were with him in 2008 when his party, National, won 45% of the total votes to become the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

2008 年，他的儿子 Max、妻子 Bronagh 和女儿 Stephie 与他同在，当时他的政党国家党赢得了 45% 的选票，成为新西兰总理。