The JSE did a good job. No glitches anywhere during their presentation of 34 slides explaining how prepared they were for the volumes associated with Futures Close-out. It was clear that if there were going to be problems (and there weren’t) they were ready to sidestep any blame in a slick and well prepared manner. Just one thing bothers me though. How come that even the slides showing the computer links with The London Stock Exchange carried the “Proudly South African” logo? Is the LSE, like the England cricket team also heavily infiltrated with ‘bokke?
While the market did peak just as the 100 minute close-out event began yesterday afternoon , that record was quickly erased in today’s trading. Fueling the buyers is the gold price now confidently well north of $455 and the gold shares are doing the heavy lifting. Nevertheless industrial companies’ reports out this week continue largely to boast of solid earnings growth.
In defence of their limited and costly broadband access to the internet, Telkom’s Business Market and Government Executive (whatever that may mean) claimed that the cost of PCs (currently at an all time low) and lack of compelling content (currently at several billion pages and growing faster than ever before) were also to blame for SA’s lack of connectivity. I wonder if this fellow has ever actually Googled anything.
While reeling from this piece of ill-considered waffling I noted the story that any company trying to obey every rule and regulation needs to keep up to 170 different types of records. Some of these must be archived indefinitely. From New York comes the news that The Federal Reserve has called in 14 of the world’s largest banks for a little chat about a backlog of paperwork in the $8.4tr market for credit derivatives. It seems that everyone is far too busy doing deals to bother with recording and confirming them. Is there a storm far worse than Katrina brewing in the wings?
Back home, our own Reserve Bank is planning a big refurbishment and is seeking “gender and disability sensitive” contractors able to supply it with office furniture. Meanwhile the Governor, presumably making do with his insensitive old desk, offered the observation that the SARB would not allow second-round effects from the oil price to develop into an inflationary spiral. While this suggests that the next interest rate move (possibly in December) will not be down, it also makes one wonder how he believes business will absorb the transport price shock.
Another SARB initiative called Labour Market Frontiers was published this week. It reportedly offers the tentative research conclusion that the lower the level of education of the work-seeker the more likely they were to inquire directly at the workplace. Those who can read and write are more likely to respond to job advertisements. Presumably the research is a bit clearer on the issue of how brain surgeons look for work! It is high time we stopped wasting public money on this kind of rubbish. Even the BBC used their licence payer’s money to do a survey that shows South Africans to be amongst those nations that most trust politicians! Surely these are not the same politicians that have presided over a doubling of the number of people living below the poverty line in just six years? Not to worry. Just this week SA won the “African Country of the Future” award. Can anyone remember who won the previous one? That might give us an idea of how long the future will last
James Greener
16th September 2005
