It is very worrying that the newest hot button topic among the leadership is the concept of nationalising anything and anyone who catches their eye. What exactly is it that these excitable politicians have in mind? My understanding of the process of nationalisation is that the state identifies an enterprise which they believe is either too vulnerable or too valuable to be left in the hands of mere private citizens. The bureaucrats, almost none of whom have any skill or experience in working for a living, one day declare that they are offended by an organisation selling goods and services at prices which exceed the costs of creating and providing those goods and services. This practice is declared to be not “in the public interest” and it is “policy” that the state should gain control of that business. The price negotiations will be rich with irony and vested interests. The buyer is using public money which includes tax paid by the business and its employees. The sellers will include many cronies who had the foresight to pile into the shares before the announcement. The chorus will demand that the capitalists be punished. You know how it ends.
So then how does one nationalise an individual? Do they plan a deal where the state pays money to the families in return for these fellows becoming some kind of government slave? Curious. Perhaps the word they were looking for was confiscation not nationalisation. Even more alarming.
But then of course another bunch of suits denied any knowledge of the government having plans to nationalise anything.
However there is widespread agreement that far too many people in the country are unable to find employment. The disagreement arises in how this ought to be fixed with many putting a lot of faith in policies that were agreed to last year at a talk fest in dusty distant Polokwane. So far however, the only obvious policy enactment has been to attack the practice of labour broking which does actually enable some folk to find some work. Nevertheless a rash of ministers announced with satisfaction that their frameworks, charters, targets and programs were in place and ready for implementation. None of them, I’ll bet, conclude that less intervention is required. Instead they will be tasks that the government wants carried out by people who already have jobs trying to satisfy paying customers. The tasks will probably result in costs that will ultimately be passed to the customer who will be tempted to go elsewhere, leaving no one better off. Central planning is a seriously bad idea.
It turns out that somebody forgot to switch off the computers when they left for the night and after hours the little devils decided to trade the rand all on their own. Before anyone could stop them, one was happily selling rands at more than 8 to the dollar and that triggered a whole lot of other computers to panic and start selling as well. It was only when the cleaners opened up the next morning it was found that the nation’s currency had been trashed and they turned the thing off at the wall. Happily real people are now back at their desks and the rand is around seven and a half to the dollar again. However the trade union’s insistence that interest rates be set at 3% will see a bit of a race for the exits again.
There were also scares in the equity markets with some heavyweight bears being granted airtime and terrifying the punters. This lightweight bear is also unable to assemble any reason to be fully invested right now and the sight of Nedbank’s very negative trading statement deepened the mood.
Now I had better go and look up Leicester on the map to see where the ‘bokke have been sent to. Is it like Bloemfontein, but wetter?
James Greener
6th November 2009.
