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…
CSI expenditure in South Africa amounted to R 9.7 billion last year. Some 60% of companies limited such investments to 1 – 4 initiatives per year; not a sustained effort which would deliver consistent and sustained efforts. I know of one bunch which waits until year end to see what is required for BEE (brownie?) points and invests only then; clearly a grudge purchase.
The economic benefit that population growth brings into an economy is known as the demographic dividend: the Tanzanian president urged women to set their ovaries free (sic) and bear more children. As a newly married man, we, the future of the volk, were harangued by the dominee in like manner if there were no children to baptise on the first Sunday of any month. In defence of which a friend responded, on being asked when he would start a family at huisbesoek, that he was intending to start immediately after – which did put a damper on proceedings.
Statistics on our GINI coefficient by PwC, in which it stripped out the effect of our very large unemployed population, takes us from a value of some 63 to a value of some 43; not great but a jump to number 41 out of 158 rated countries instead of top of the log.
Reference
Facebook’s announcement, that it would issue an own digital coin, the Libra, has elicited a response, headed up by France, asking that the G7 investigate crypto-currencies and impose a regulator. One suspects that the potential scale of such a currency and both the anonymity (think money-laundering) as well as the invasion of a financial terrain traditionally reserved for governments, will drive regulation of such as this.
Business
All the British leading accounting firms have failed to hit the quality targets set by the British regulator for the second year in a row with Grant Thornton and PwC singled out for focused supervision together with KPMG.
Reports about mobile South Africans hedging their financial bits overseas have increased: one such report, in Fin24, holds that higher net worth individuals are internationalising their investments. Do this certainly, but do your homework, as SARS is an ever-present companion.
Property
SAHL has presented the GEPF/PIC with a housing finance proposal. This the PIC will not accept unless SAHL has a BEE partner (which one wonders would bring what to the table). As I understand things, the front-runner for this position is MMI, which entity had wanted to borrow money from the PIC to exit JP Morgan and which had instituted legal action against the PIC for failure to honour a R45m transaction fee arrangement et cetera et cetera: a very confusing scenario from a bunch which is seriously intertwined.
Absa reports that the residential property market has recovered a little in the second quarter this year – to the level of the fourth quarter last year. This translates to slow and is wonderfully reported as a buyers’ market! Optimism at its best: buy now, there is no better time to enter the real estate market!
Part of the same report was data from Light stern Property that bond registrations over March and April increased by 13.2% since the first quarter and 18.5% yoy. The number of transfers between April and June this year is up by 6% from the same time last year.
A squabble between estate agents, one quite appropriately named Harlequin Duck, about commission which was fixed in a contract, but which had been orally amended, may be read at the following link: be careful of non-variation clauses and casual handshake agreements. Reference
Random stuff:
Tips on becoming a better agent. Reference
A tip on picking an agent. The agent promising you the world is not whom you want.
Reference
There is some unpleasantness around the Property24 costings for leads : Reference
tips on finding property online: Reference
Practice
An assistant master of the High Court, Kimberly was arrested on a bribe charge on Friday.
Reference
ProxiSmart has turned to the Constitutional Court to appeal the dismissal of its application for leave to appeal against the judgement which barred it from doing limited conveyancing work. Here we go again!
A short note on ADR by BakerMcKenzie might be worth a look: Reference
Did you know that if you award a usufruct to your wife, where the end-owners are your children, she will have to give security for the return of the property in the state it was in on receipt thereof. If it were the other way around, i.e. she gave you usufruct over the same property in the same circumstances, because you are a man, you would not have to provide such security. I hold an article by Dr Grobler, ask me for a copy.
Quotes
“When I was five years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”
John Lennon
Comments
On his terms. Nummawan has agreed to continue testifying before Judge Zondo on state capture on his terms; hardly a way to get at the truth?
“We train for war. It is not the first time that the defence force has assisted the police when deployed with the police, we have a specific role to play.” Gen Shoke
I suspect that the general public would welcome the SADF shooting a few gangsters – in self-defence of course!
Why are algorithms called algorithms? Reference
