Welcome to My Blog
Articles and advice on all things legalSnippet 2023 – 20
Economy & Business; Trends: Hearteningly, there appears to be green shoots in what had been rather dismal financial predictions of late. Y-o-y private sector capital expenditure in the last quarter is up by almost a third, FDI has been boosted by our clean-tech drive,...
Snippet 2023 – 19
Economy & Business; MTBPS Budget: Our Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement has come and gone and there is little to be said about our economy which is not common news. The following is our Finance Minister’s part-solution to the problem: “We propose a strategy of...
Snippet 2023 – 18
Economy & business; Trends: Times are tough, financially speaking, in South Africa today. This is reflected in Famous Brands’ (think Steers, Debonairs, Wimpy, Mug & Bean, FishAways etc.) drop in earnings of late. Government spending and income has been much in the...
Snippet 2023 – 17
Economy & business Trends Our exchange rate was trading at its worst level against the dollar since early June this week past. This prompted one writer to start talking currency crash; down from R13.7 in mid-2021 to a current level of about R19.1 to the US $. Market...
Snippet 2023 – 16
Economy and business Trends: There is little new to report, save to comment that our economy appears to be holding up better than one would have thought – inflation appears to be abating with core inflation dropping. The Rand has strengthened on the back of, amongst...
Snippet 2023 – 15
Commercial and business Trends Our Rand exchange rate has been quite volatile of late and, aside from the accepted understanding that its value will depreciate against most major currencies, the last Big Mac Index report (before the Rand fell fairly dramatically)...
Snippet 2023 – 14
Economy and business Trends: Our Rand flattered but deceived: it strengthened but is again weakening on the back of the usual including, surprisingly, a trade deficit. Our S&P PMI is down to its second-lowest level in two years and our manufacturing activity fell to...
Snippet 2023 – 13
Economy and business Trends: The African Development Bank opined that our GDP rate for this year should weaken to 0.2% – the IMF says 0.3%. Yawn. Noteworthy, however, is ADB’s footnote that South Africa is the worst GDP performer in the Southern African region for...
Snippet 2023 – 12
Economy and business Trends: Our Consumer Confidence Index is at its second lowest level on record. For all practical purposes we are in a technical recession with low growth and high unemployment. Foreign investment in South African bonds is down, as may be seen from...
Snippet 2023 – 11
Economy / Business Little interesting news is available on our economic front. The following graph gives our expected GDP growth by the IMF: Other than the dismal news above, is the introduction of a new economic index by, of all entities, Bloomberg. So much for the...
Snippet 2023 – 10
Economy In GEAR? Definitely not: our state is flirting with a recession owing primarily to politics which restrict our growth possibilities. The latest and most visible of this is the possibility of a Putin pass-by which caused the Rand to tank as investors expect...
Snippet 2023 – 09
Economy and business Our economy is taking a pounding; this has happened before, but the greater threat is that our outlook for recovery is bleak. Consider the following graph and you will note that ours is the only one of the countries listed for which the IMF...
Snippet 2023 – 08
Economics / business I chanced upon a term which wonderfully describes our economic situation i.e., polycrises: a convergence in South Africa of once-in-a-generation risks such as the Ukraine war, the recent pandemic and a confluence of self-disruptions such as...
Snippet 2023 – 07
Economy / business The IMF has cut its forecast for global GDP in the next two years by 0.1 percentage and, worse, warned that South Africa’s fiscal position could deteriorate.That organisation has predicted our economic growth to be 0.1% for this year. The fact is...
Snippet 2023 – 06
Economy and business The PIC says that blackouts has reduced the size of our economy by a fifth since 2008. This ,and other policy and political issues (naturally in this country!), has resulted in our GDP growth forecasts for this year, ranging from an optimistic...
Snippet 2023 – 05
Economy and business We are on the cusp of a mild recession, and this is reflected in our latest global financial ranking. In such circumstances, businesses plan according to Treasury and SARB predictions. The question we should ask ourselves is whether these...
Snippet 2023 – 04
Economy There is little fresh that a layperson (yes, I am PC) can say about our economy which has not been aired in the past week. What remains is to step back – consider the following graph drawn from Statista: This, accompanied by our debt service costs, drawn from...
Snippet 2023 – 03
Economy There is little, which is favourable, to report on our economy. The fact is that our country, at most levels, has deteriorated under the current political leadership. This has led to not only the immediate disastrous results (a projected two quarter “technical...