The US obediently followed my forecast and this week cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point. However, the debt dragon is already far too big to be worried by such puny actions. His fiery breath is licking into every corner of the US and illuminating more and more cowering damsels in severe distress. It almost seems as if no one who borrowed money in America in the last few years had any intention of paying it back. The banks and intermediaries disguised this fact from the lenders (and it seems, from even their own bosses) by slicing and dicing and packaging and wrapping the toxic messes in ever more mysterious ways. But now the blood is not just dripping from the corner of the smelly and battered suitcase. It is pouring out at such a rate that just maybe the share market can no longer ignore it. There have been some bad down days in the Dow and buyers worldwide are now pondering their purchases a bit more carefully than before.
The dual-listed rand hedge shares on the JSE have been the best performers of the week as the rand has given up much of the gains that followed the news of the big Chinese purchase of Standard Bank. The quarterly reports from the gold mining companies and the outfits that claim one day that they might become one, have been appearing and it is sad to see the near collapse of this as a viable South African industry. Gold shares are now only for the very brave, nimble and risk-hungry. Investors need no longer give this sector any time at all. Someone should tell the SABC that they could make more time for cabinet ministers to preen themselves by dropping any mention of the gold index from their news programs
The chaps down at the Financial Services Board have ensured themselves a merry Christmas with a couple of multi-million rand fines slapped upon some hapless traders who manipulated share prices in March 2003. Based on this speed of justice, if anyone who helped give the JSE prices that big push in the final minutes of trading on Halloween is worried about the cops, they have plenty of time. The Soccer World Cup will be over and they will be able to travel to Pretoria for their hearing on the Gautrain.
The Department of Home Affairs has decided that the Post Office is the source of all its lamentable inefficiency and failures. In a somewhat garbled tirade it appears that that the department uses the Post Office for tasks like moving documents from the “front” office” to the “back office” or other such nonsense. Admittedly, it is rare to see any government employee shuffling from one place to another burdened with anything more than a single sheet of paper, but to use the mail to get something to the next room seems extreme. I have long been in an industry for which the SAPO is an unavoidable partner and I think that generally the service is pretty good. For example, if I overlook the fact that they were sold out of standard postage stamps in those convenient dispenser rolls, they did manage to deliver to most of my clients their October statements within 48 hours of being posted. In a probably deluded attempt to ensure that the mail keeps working, I refuse to use anything other than the post for my correspondence with the tax man. Sadly, so far his assessments and demands have never gone astray.
I am grateful to the person who pointed out that England rewarded their World Cup-winning coach with a knighthood. In South Africa we have allowed politicians to use Jake White to send a message about government power to the nation. It is a pitiful, shameful, embarrassing and alarming development. Those of us who nurture a hope that there really is something special that can grow in our rainbow nation, have been reminded that we are naïve. Politics before people. Oh dear.
James Greener
2nd November 2007
