The biggest bad egg in the rapidly unfolding record-setting financial scam is a chap named Sam Bankman-Fried. The news readers insist on pronouncing the second part of this double-barrelled surname as “freed” but that is an act of kindness as Sam appears to have “fried” a large number of banks., their money and their client’s money. Tens of billions of dollars have simply disappeared, as FTX, a so-called “crypto exchange” has collapsed. Latest estimates are that at least a million “investors” are today wondering where their money went. Scurrilous and malicious commentators have been pointing out that the US government has in the last few months poured a similar number of dollars into the black hole that is labelled “Aid for Ukraine”. But suffice for the moment to revel in the nominative determinism of Sam the fraudster! The collateral damage is huge with very bright spotlights and withering analyses from Warren Buffet and other financial old fogies making life hard for those who claim to understand the investment case for crypto currencies.
Meanwhile in Britain, whoever is in charge this week, has firmly seized on the utterly false idea that leaving people to decide how best to spend their own money is very foolish. Just weeks after a previous Chancellor (minister of finance to us) tried to achieve the exact opposite, the present one has decided to tax citizens into prosperity! Really, parents who produce offspring that turn out to be politicians should be dealt with firmly. We really need to drain that gene pool.
An unhappy feature of SA politics is the dreadful insistence never to stop flogging a dead horse. The SAA rescue saga reappeared this week replete with all the usual suspects but none of them bringing any actual cash to pay the debtors. Meanwhile over at Eskom they caught a chap sabotaging the repair he had just completed so that he would be paid to come back and repair it again. Among the doom-laden analyses that pour down the data lines is an interview by Alec Hogg of one K W Miller, a US energy restructuring specialist. His research has found that corruption has completely eviscerated our electricity utility whose debt now is so large that analysts combine it with the far smaller government debt portfolio and rate it as way lower than t junk status. For someone who remembers when Eskom debt was rated higher quality than the sovereign RSA bonds it is a tragedy.
It is the time of year when Tidemarks packs his binoculars and anti-mozzie muthi (mosquito repellent) and heads off to the Kruger. This season’s excursion is longer than usual as I’m the excited beneficiary of a very generous gift from a loyal reader and long-time friend of a few days in his private lodge. It’s how the rich and famous live. The next edition of this unmissable commentary will therefore next appear only in mid-December.
But few will notice this hiatus, as it coincides almost exactly with the staging of the Soccer World Cup and even if you are not a round-ball football fan, plenty of off-the-ball incidents are bound to pop up and seize your attention. For a start the eminently unsuitable host nation, Qatar, has already started to harass sponsor Budweiser and their customers (beer drinking soccer fans) with even more regulations and utterly outrageous beer prices of reportedly well over R200 per 500ml. However, the thousands of official delegates flocking to this shindig, courtesy of their taxpayers, won’t be overly concerned about the cost of a beer. Their more exotic tipple will be eagerly poured for them by regiments of influencers (dreadful word and concept) and advisors! The South African contingent includes our very own brand-new King Misuzulu Zulu, but no actual soccer players – Bafana sadly failed to qualify. Although their victory dance routine is pretty neat.
James Greener
Friday 18th November 2022
