Welcome to My Blog

Economy The Treasury this week published its economic stimulus plan. I cannot speak for the efficacy of the plan but, like I suspect most South Africans, recognise that anything in this respect is better than nothing. For political factions to criticise the plan,...

Economy Listening to the Prez on the issue of compulsory pension investments in SOEs: his lack of denial would indicate that this proposal is certainly not off the table. Why does the State not invest the pension funds it holds on behalf of state employees in those...

Economy South Africans are awash in grim economic news led by a faltering GDP, burgeoning population growth and political incompetency. Some notes on green shoots were published this week past: Citadel reports on high 2018 FDI investment which it believes signifies a...

Economy Engineeringnews ran an article by Bloomberg, reporting that foreigners are ditching SA bonds and stocks at the fastest pace on record (i.e. since 1998) and outflows are accelerating. You must love how this is explained: SA’s fundamental picture remains very...

Economy This week past newspapers reported that Egypt had floated its currency and accepted the pain that went with that. The result was that Egypt’s inflation slowed to single figures and FDI into Egypt has been higher than anywhere else in Africa. Now in Zimbabwe…...

Economy Moody’s reports that South Africa has the highest private sector debt to GDP ratio in sub Saharan Africa at 148%. The next highest is Kenya at 28%. Its conclusion is that the potential for organic growth by banks in South Africa could only be had by...

Economy President Mnangagwa says that the re-introduction of the Zimbabwe dollar will be a “return to normalcy”. If one were a sceptic, normalcy means bankruptcy and high inflation. The US dollar is predicted to slide into a modest bear market; i.e. 5 – 10% from...

Economy The week before last it was reported that Zimbabwe would be releasing its own currency by year end. It’s interim currency, the RTGS $ has plunged 60% against the US $since February and things are getting worse (its annual inflation reached 97% in May alone)....

Economy The SA BER index remained unchanged in Q2 at 28 points. RMB opined that a technical recession for the first half of this year remains a possibility. This week Prof Malikane (Wits) flighted an article on the South African debt situation. He estimates our...

Economy Silver bullet economics: post-election economic debate has centred on job creation and the Reserve Bank. Calls are made by a variety of worthies for the Reserve Bank to be privatised, and for it to drop interest rates, create jobs, release its reserves and...

Economy Stats SA reports that 44% of SA households receive at least one social grant, up from 30% 15 years ago. This somewhat depressing news prompted me to look further: I was lent a copy of the SA Survey 2019 by the IRR; the statistics are most interesting. Some of...

Economy Despite the exuberance that accompanied the swearing in of our latest Parliament, our economic outlook remains bleak: the OECD now estimates our growth forecast for this year at 1.2%. Kganyago (the governor of the Reserve Bank) forecasts only 1% growth. Heck,...

Economy Stats SA reports that retail sales registered pedestrian growth of just 0.2% yoy for the first quarter of this year. It is estimated that our GDP may have dropped by about 2% quarter-on-quarter. Mining output had plunged 8.1% in February and had contracted...

Economy Business confidence dropped further to 91.8% in March, holds the SA Chamber of Commerce’s BCI. The primary factors contributing to this are the Rand exchange rate, interrupted power supply, electricity tariff increases and slowing manufacturing output. On the...