Economy
The Economist published a note on the effect of CV19 on the world markets: it says that the fault lines that will develop between the jabs-had and the jabs-not will increase. The economies of countries, which attain full inoculation against CV19, will burgeon, compared to those who do not. Together with this will come the withdrawal of stimulus by reserve banks – as may be seen from China now – as will aid to the poor and so on. Low-income countries are in a bind: they should be benefiting from surging global demand for commodities and goods, but are struggling. The effect of this will be that the gap between the wealthy and the poor will grow.
Digging in: more parochially, the fact is that we will not stick to our self-imposed budget to tame government spending. Overspending will inevitably cause a deeper descent into junk status and greater service-delivery shortfall. The latter was shown up quite clearly in SADF deployment – the SADF is so broke that, in Durban, businesses have had to sponsor vehicles and accommodation for the soldiers come to save us. At the same time, SA is committed to spending R1bn to send 1500 soldiers into Mozambique for three months: do the sum – that is R666K per soldier.
The World Bank has recommended that our seven financial ombuds be condensed into a single ombud (think credit, short-term insurance, banking services, long-term insurance, pension funds adjudicator, financial services, and stock exchange) to reduce jurisdiction overlap, and cost.
The tax bonanza, generated by the commodities boom, will apparently pay for the BIG extension scheme. In any event, who cares about the budget when your country is going up in flames. The difficulty with such a scheme, if extended further, is that the money tree may not last. The fact is that, if one institutes a universal basic income grant, you have the situation that taxpayers maintain non-taxpayers – in South Africa the maintainees are more than those who maintain.
Is there a pattern in this or are these unsettling times just accidental? Perhaps not: Bloomberg published an article on this topic and I invite you to take a look at the graph headed Turmoil on the Rise, more or less in the middle of this article at Reference The conclusion is that mankind is headed towards a transitional phase, which will be, ahem, difficult. I am not a pessimist but the conclusion, that our government, born of revolution, is not geared for normal governance, is inescapable. In fact, agreeing with Wierzycka is understandable – Reference
Business
That our government is broke, is old news – the ANC now wants the state to pay towards the maintenance of political parties…as it cannot pay its staff. ’Nuff said.
On this topic, the latest is a court case against the SABC by the SA Music Performance Rights Association – why – because artists’ royalties were are not being paid in full.
Business news this week is as dull as dishwater: the short is that FNB has announced looting relief for its customers, Mango is broke, et cetera et cetera.
What is mildly interesting, is a note by Moneyweb stating the obvious – with all our personal data at their fingertips, why are banks not personalising their services to us? The term, incidentally, is hyper- personalised.
BlackBerry is back – maybe. It promises a launch of a 5G smartphone, with a physical keyboard, running off Android. It will be interesting to see what happens – being cool in 2013 is not cool today.
Virtually the only contentious issue, is the proposal by Treasury that everyone must make a contribution to retirement savings and that one third of a pension will be accessible before retirement. Tito’s pious wish that such sums be spent wisely, is only that.
Practice
Our Public Protector is doing her Zuma thing in that she wants Parliament to call off its enquiry against her fitness for office and has re-approached the Constitutional Court to correct its totally erroneous judgement. One bite at an apple is clearly not for her. That one such as she, occupies the office that she does, and is totally blind to her shortcomings, leaves one breathless.
I was most amused by a note in GoLegal that the SCA and High Court refuse to tolerate objections to virtual hearings. Yet the KZN, the High Court, in the prosecution case of Mr Zuma, has humoured him. Equal before the law – not on your nellie! Reference
When I think back on the good old days, I long for some of the hanging judges that we had then – if you dared approach the High Court with anything less than a serious argument, you literally did not even get out of the blocks. Stalingrad, my ass!
See on this topic: Reference
Do take a look at the Cybercrimes act: Reference
Property
Like business news, not much is happening on the property-news front:
Tonkin Clacey tackled the question of sacrificial rituals taking place within the sectional title schemes but, unfortunately, gives a vanilla answer: Reference
A much more interesting case was reported on by STBB – does a caravan home scheme contravene the prohibition on subdividing agricultural land containing act 70/70? Take a look: Reference
Quotables
“That, being said, as a human rights institution, the CGE cannot put a blind eye to various videos circulating in the social media platforms wherein men, women, the elderly and children were treated in an inhumane manner for stealing.”
Mathebula, convenor of the Comission for Gender Equality
Comment
But I said I’m sorry!
Jackie Shandu, convenor of Justice for Phoenix Massacre Victims apologised for his problematic comments, with the benefit of hindsight. BS: you cannot chant one settler/Indian, one bullet and then turn around and say this was in the heat of the moment. Below is comment on what has now become popularised as the Phoenix Massacre. Saying to another that he deserves a bullet, for being of another race, is as deserving of censure, than killing him.
Phoenix massacre:
Some 20 people died in what is now termed the Phoenix Massacre. That Indians killed blacks, is now assumed to be owing to racism. The fact is that the vast majority of looters were black and the neighbouring town, incidentally, is predominantly populated by Indians. What happened cannot necessarily be attributed to racism: a community, who happened to be Indian, simply stood up for itself. The fact is that if the black community had not looted, and threatened the Indian community, no one would have died. It is convenient to carry on about inhumane treatment of looters and lose sight of mobs intentionally destroying the livelihood of many and almost bringing our country to the brink of anarchy.̃
Africanised? Eight of the twelve business schools on our continent that are accredited by the international Association of MBAs, and which are situate with in South Africa, may not meet the accreditation standards of the Association of African Business Schools because they are not “African” enough. Words fail me – knowledge should not be buttonholed.̃
In 1994, the official SA unemployment rate was just less than 2m, and the expanded unemployment rate approximately 3,6m. Today, those numbers stand at 7.2m and 11.4m. We are goin backwards or/and producing too many children.
