The US dollar
is once again heading for parity with the Euro. That is one dollar will buy
just one euro. Is this because President Trump has dodged the impeachment
bullet or maybe because cheese is still on the supermarket shelves in Britain
despite being out of the EU for a whole week? Some would suggest that its
because the Corona Virus reportedly may have lost its sting. The real story about
the virus though is the amazingly speedy and apparently politics-free
scientific collaboration effort. Anyway there was a general feeling of goodwill
everywhere and even our markets improved. It seems as if someone may have paid as
much as R25 000 for a single Krugerrand!
Loyal readers
by now must be thoroughly fed up with the monthly wail about the huge and rapidly
growing gap between the government’s income and its expenditure. But it is
really terrifying and getting worse rapidly. Rumour has it that the official
response is going to be more and higher taxes. And the tax collector (SARS) has
announced that they are going to catch tax dodgers with some high-tech tricks,
including the dreaded “multi-pronged strategy”. Not to forget the appearance of
The Fourth Industrial Revolution. Cabinet
and other high ups in the government have been allowed to spend far too much
time with glib promoters of the Fourth Industrial Revolution as a panacea for
the nation’s very severe difficulties. Track suits and blazers with a 4IR badge
are everywhere.
Little, if anything
has been said about the spending side of the budget which too can be used to
trim the deficit In fact it probably is now the only real effective weapon left.
The fact that
the 2019 edition is sold out, even priced at £450.00 a copy, indicates good
demand for Debrett's Peerage & Baronetage. This is a printed
reference guide to the titled families of the United Kingdom, which like much
of its material, is very thick. Often unkindly called the Stud Book for the
Upper Classes this tome provides a valuable guide for those fishing in this
particular gene pool for suitable breeding partners Now South Africa is rapidly
evolving a society where just a few families are in positions of control in almost all of
our state agencies as well as many private enterprises, It is simply
amazing who is related to whom. This gene pool is shallow, colourful and murky.
This week it turned out that Ms Portia Derby, the just appointed CEO for Transnet,
was once married to Brian Molefe., the chap who spent much of his remarkably
short time in the hot seat at Eskom arranging for an unforgettable pension.
Really? Where is he now? To whom is he married?
The local
work would need to be computerised and copiously illustrated with colour coded
family trees and jobs held in both a temporary and permanent capacity in order
to keep up with the prodigious pace of job-hopping that goes on. Now there’s a
task for 4IR tools like artificial intelligence and facial recognition. The
other feature of our top people is their fecundity. JZ is credited almost two
dozen offspring and nearly half as many wives and even a fiancé, (who
complained this week about the trials of being a single parent. The father of
her child. she implied, was too busy keeping out of prison (with dodgy sick
notes) to spend quality time with his newest.
In the meantime,
all kinds of people including Labour Union head honchos are warming to the
terrible idea of “investing” workers’ pension fund money by lending it to state
owned enterprises who have used up all other avenues of funding. One champion
of this plan pointed out that asset managers put far too much money into dud
companies like Steinhof while ignoring the job-creating potential of already
egregiously over-staffed state owned enterprises. Pensioners he suggested needed
returns on their money. It’s unreported if fund managers are offering him a
job.
The rain in
Durban this morning was unsurprising. Important cricket marches invariably
summon the clouds over Kingsmead.
James
Greener
Friday 7th
February 2020
