It really is very odd. Every day the anti-capitalist debate ratchets up another notch and the masses demand that the state should do more and yet every day demand for the rand also increases. Do foreigners really want to own South African assets in the belief that the state will buy them out at better prices quite soon? A further error in this model is that even if this were vaguely possible, the scrum at the currency exit doors thereafter would presumably soon erode any putative profits. And while the data suggests that exports are growing faster than imports, is the currency effect of this really overwhelming the ingrained habit of South Africans to get money offshore at every opportunity? Like everyone else I just shrug and mutter about the “carry trade”. But even that needs more players or money to be joining the game all the time in order to explain the strengthening rand.
Oh and the gold price keeps going up.
Some alarmingly influential voices are starting to agree with the crazies that nationalization is perhaps not such a dirty word after all. What is going on? Are they putting something in the water? Name just one area – other than tax collection – where the state shows the least aptitude or ability or even interest in running an effective and efficient organization. And even tax collection is tending to degenerate into shrill threats akin to extracting money with menaces. I wonder when someone at SARS will spot the terrifying idea being floated in Britain that salaries and pensions ought all be paid directly to the Receiver of Revenue who will subtract what he feels is due before sending the balance on to the mugs. Really, governments world-wide are getting far too large and self-important. Remember, THEY work for US.
This sad decline has been quantified by the announcement that South Africa has in the last 10 years fallen 40 places to 82nd in the world economic freedom rankings. The ranking process scores dozens of different areas and sectors before aggregating them to obtain the overall position. In the areas where the government has so far not managed to interfere too much our rankings are rather good and the JSE’s settlement systems even scored first place. But in places where the state either needs to or has chosen to operate, like the regulation of business, security of property rights, health and education this nation is vying with some very dodgy and failed regimes for the bottom of the league tables.
Current contributions in the race to the bottom are being made not far from here, where catering with talking opportunities has been arranged for the party elite and crowds of hangers on in a large conference centre. The city council has closed the streets around the venue to traffic. Blue-light convoys wail along the freeways at all hours. The perceived threat to delegate comfort is clearly more important than ratepayer convenience. Ever since the world cup, the traffic cops are eager to try their skills at traffic disruption at any opportunity. Pigspotter, the splendidly named addition to cyberspace, now has associates in the kingdom. Few will believe that the authority’s anger at people using technology to alert each other to speed traps and road blocks has anything to do with road safety. More likely it is a reaction to the threat of disrupting both formal and informal revenue collection.
I was delighted with the news that Sasol is now producing a fuel from coal feedstock that is good enough for aircraft to use. I remember a vintage cartoon, lampooning the new fangled aviation industry, depicting a sweating engineer frantically shovelling coal into a boiler in order to raise enough steam to keep a string and paper plane-like contraption aloft. And now it happens. I wonder what fuel the military jets and helicopters showing off over the conference venue are using? Come to think of it what are they doing there anyway? It’s just a party talk-shop.
New events at the Commonwealth games include concrete mixing and pouring, stadium seat installing and pin the blame on the donkey.
James Greener
23rd September 2010.
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