By Scott Patterson

Given the world, and even some local events, that have occurred during 2011 it is probably little wonder that when it comes to business and financial matters many people are feeling less than confident. The United States economy has been struggling and the sovereign debt issues that have been plaguing Europe combined with the natural disasters that have rocked Japan and New Zealand mean that from a global perspective, 2011 has certainly been a challenging year. At a domestic level there have been the natural disasters of last summer, a State government that has been less than convincing and a minority government at Federal level. It seems that around every corner there is another testing situation that shakes both our resilience and our confidence.