AFRICAN AMERICAN NOW THE WORLD’S RICHEST PERSON

Like many of the world’s stock markets, prices on the JSE have begun the year in ebullient mood. It is always hard to separate out to what extent local share price strength is a result of rand weakness (i.e. more rands needed to buy a dollar) but those of our exporters still in business will welcome any help. Sadly the global trend of comfortably off public employees making decisions inimical if not lethal for large swathes of private enterprise strengthened considerably during the festive season. Presumably, it’s the sudden recent surge in the dollar price of the so-called crypto currencies that is triggering the annoying floods of adverts and assurances that these instruments are the undoubted path to great wealth. This old sceptic notes that predicting the share price behaviour of entities for which there are audited (for what that’s worth!) valuations of net asset values and earnings forecasts, is rarely correct. Why a virtual asset with no intrinsic value beyond its theoretical scarcity should be a better investment pick is hard to fathom. As always though, Caveat Emptor. At the risk of triggering another wave of requests to be removed from the list of those to whom I email this scurrilous and seditious (and free) denial of all that is known to be true and real (irony alert), I ask the following question. Why are the regulators, bureaucracies and other financially invested bodies, almost all of whom have yet to miss a single pay check because of the lockdown programs, actively seeking to curtail our freedoms, crush our financial independence and insult our knowledge and common sense? Tidemarks bought a new cell phone at Christmas. The timing was partly the season but the visit of tech-savvy youth capable of making these things perform magic was also a major factor as was the fact that the previous device got dropped once too often. As the saying goes “the devil is in the detail” which in this case means that the answer to a query about a vital piece of information (like how to make the damn thing simply ring when a call is received) is buried in the third level of menus. When at last I was happily ensconced with a beer and browsing through the news channels on my fiendishly smart device, President Cyril was on the wee screen closing bottle stores and weeping. His topic was of course his government’s latest plans for (again) controlling the spread of the Corona virus infection. He belongs firmly in the camp where doing the same thing repeatedly and getting much the same nil result each time, is countered but not explained with the rhetorical question about what would have happened if the 10-month-old multi-layered lockdown strategy had not been announced and in some measure obeyed? Nobody knows. But the one thing that is certain is that the monies needed to run the crusade have been ill-directed and undoubtedly, in large part, filched. The newest target for the amoral plunderers of the public purse is of course the nation’s need to purchase vaccines. Once again, the truth is hard to find but one fact seems undeniable. Very simply it is that this nation is unlikely to get or be able to afford all the muthi it needs and so a priority list for recipients will be necessary. Already there is a lot of pushing and shoving at the head of the queue, amongst whom are numerous deadbeats who the rest of us think do not deserve any kind of priority. Those of us who derive our knowledge about the wastes of Saudi from the 1962 (yes that old!) Lawrence of Arabia movie are being continually surprised by the astonishing landscapes appearing in the Dakar Rally. There is undoubtedly a lot of sand. A lot. But the more solid pieces including those which are manmade (and often very old) are curiously lovely and impressive. Why is it that the French seem to excel at organising incredibly long and exceptionally tough races for cars, bikes (Le Tour) and yachts (Vende ́e Globe)? James Greener Friday 8th January 2021 Hint. He was born in Pretoria. medicine