Short term US
interest rates are back up at the levels they were a decade ago when the US
Federal Reserve decided it knew better than anyone else how to fix the
financial morass caused by people not repaying their loans. They dropped the
price of money to almost zero and kept it there for more than half a dozen
years. Chroniclers of this period will need of course to point out that banks
were foolishly making those loans to obvious deadbeats and to explain the
political background of governments spending money they too did not have. How
successful all these official interventions were at increasing the welfare of individuals
has already spawned trillions of words which fortunately today are stored “in
the cloud” instead of sending forests of trees to the paper mill. Inevitably
the outcomes were very mixed with contrasts as wide as our ex-minister of sport
enjoying private jet travel to Russia to watch a tournament in which SA doesn’t
have a presence to the rest of us wondering when and where the next power
outage or violent crime incident will take place.
It’s hard to
keep these commentaries from becoming a list of failures and corruption. Even the
respected minister Pravin Gordhan appears to have managed little more in the
Eskom wage debacle than to express the belief that the prolonged load shedding
will have a huge negative effect on the already struggling economy. If he needs
to spell this out for his colleagues, well…
Health
minister Motsoaledi has revisited his Laudable that everyone in SA should be
able to get the same level of health care. Is it boring to note that getting to
that nirvana must begin from the current system of which he is already in
charge and which doesn’t do very good job? Aside from the tired old mantra that
“the rich will pay for the poor” he needs to show us his workings on the
numbers of qualified specialists, doctors, nurses and other industry workers
that the dream entails, where they will be trained and what they will be paid. These
figures will undoubtedly show that despite appearances, the rich are woefully
incapable of funding such a grandiose dream. Far richer nations than ours are grappling
with this sort of problem. It doesn’t help that here our population growth far
outstrips our economic one.
There’s an
odd story about the T-shirt that we are expected to buy to celebrate Nelson
Mandela’s 100th birthday. This apparently simple fund-raising project
looks like a rat’s nest of broken pledges and hypocritical deal making. The
T-shirt which carries an unfamiliar portrait of a smiling Madiba also carries
the words “Embedded in the African DNA”. This meaningless scientific jargon helps to
divert attention from the news that the cloth on which it is printed is cotton
that was grown, spun, woven and dyed all in Mauritius, which is deemed to be African
on those occasions when it is useful. Apparently,
this offshore production is OK, because the factory on that island is owned by
the South African Clothing and Textile Workers Union. Workers there are reportedly
paid by output and not by hours worked, a system not encouraged by that union
in South Africa. It is uncertain if they
are members of their employer’s union. Further on this theme, has the bickering
about who will control and benefit from public access to Mandela’s burial place
in Qunu been resolved yet? The good news for those in the running there is that
Highgate cemetery in London is now charging visitors to Karl Marx’s grave. A
nice capitalist postscript for one of the founders of modern socialism.
This ‘bok
strategy of coming from behind after a terrible start is not good for those of
us with a heart condition or indeed any Springbok supporter. A convincing win
tomorrow for a whitewash series will be very satisfactory. It’s slightly embarrassing
to admit that it is quite fun watching the soccer world cup. The back to back
immediacy of the tournament which is now at the stage where favourites are
being ejected is almost exciting. Also, it’s fascinating to witness how players
are able to inflict life-threatening injury on each other with the lightest of
touches. Fortunately, most of the victims do also have miraculous powers of
recovery soon after they find out that no one, especially the referee, cares
very much.
James Greener
Friday 22nd
June 2018
