PRACTICE OF DUPLICITY

The last time the rand was this strong against the US dollar was just before we went into lockdown. There were moments this week when one could buy a dollar for less than R15.50! The price of gold is falling, and the traditional signals of fear are leaking away. President Cyril renewed the state of disaster for another month, but one could see his heart was not in it. He threw open our borders and bottle stores but did grumble a bit about people’s propensity to party in the face of a pandemic that isn’t going away. In fact, it seems it may never go away totally and most of us have now come to terms with that and have each adopted our own strategy for coping. These include schools, many of which are now gearing up to offer a wholly online remote teaching experience. This is very sad but obviously the demand is there and its not as if we could have a very much worse state education system than we have at present. The smorgasbord of opinions, recommendations and undoubted facts about this wee bug grows larger every day and this week there was a flurry of information about vaccines. The one was a notice about the hurried termination of trial of a potion – presumably because it was proving harmful. The second was a very excited claim by Pfizer, a major pharmaceutical house, that their vaccine was ready. This good news was somewhat tainted by the story that the CEO of the company had simultaneously sold a large portion of his shareholdings in the business. Not the greatest of timing there. The cold hard truth is that chemical control of this virus is likely to be a long way off and it is still difficult to separate facts from things we would like to be true. Official responses to alarming “second waves” of infection have become increasingly erratic and inexplicable and one wonders if governments are not competing for some sort of award for managing to inconvenience and terrify their populace the most. Only three South African bars made it into a list of the globe’s top 100 such establishments: They are called: Sin + Tax (69th place), Cause Effect Cocktail Kitchen (75th place) and Art of Duplicity (88th place). None of these are in Durban and with names like these it seems unlikely that they specialise in serving bitterly cold Castle Lite in Zulu Dumpy bottles. Readers must not therefore expect any reviews from Tidemarks. Nevertheless, it’s nice to report yet another sign of our pre-virus old hedonistic lifestyles returning. Also, it feels as if more of the tunnels have real lights at the end of them. One of the nation’s head honchos, Ace Magashule, who is the secretary-general of the ANC ruling party, will soon appear in court on corruption charges related to a R255-million contract that he signed while he was premier of Free Sate province. The details are tedious and grubby but as always relate to money moving in unusual directions. Reportedly Ace is riffling through his pack of “get out of jail free” cards and so far, has played the conspiracy one. Nameless forces are out to get him it seems. The race card is sure to follow. Should these proceedings end in jail time for Ace – and provided the case does not drag on for years – others will begin to get uneasy. And why can’t we get the extradition agreement with Dubai ratified and haul in a few Guptas? Augusta National golf course in the northern hemisphere autumn is a sight normally available only to members. But because of COVID-19, this year’s Masters tournament had to be postponed from its usual spring timing and is only now being played. The lack of azalea blossom along the course is causing even more commentary than the competitors, but it still looks like a very special place. Even non-golfers are interested to watch the new generation of muscle men who can drive a golf ball 400 yards. Tidemarks is going on holiday and I am really looking forward to getting back to the Kruger National Park after a two-year break. The next letter should be offered on 11th December, by which time who knows what 2020 will have served up. James Greener Friday 13th November 2020

VOTE EARLY AND OFTEN

In general, the share markets seem happy with the lack of a clear winner in the USA election and prices are rising. It’s probably just relief that the pollsters and pundits will be put on ice for four more years. Its very comforting to read that the head tax collector has embarked on a three-stage turnaround that will “Exit Out” (staff members) who are believed to compromise the organisation. Just so long as he also “Enters In” sufficient replacements to reduce the queue for telephonic help from the current “you are number one – one – seven – four in the queue and the wait rime is approximately one hour and forty seven minutes”! That last S, standing for Service in the SARS acronym, has always been a worry. Man, but this democracy stuff is hard hey? Firstly, you have to create a list of the names of people eligible to vote and then you have to tick them off when they do. Then you have to count the ballots. Stories emerging from the USA at election times always indicate that the nation that put a man on the moon still can’t do these simple three things. So far, the greatest surprise is that in many cases the number of people who voted exceeds the number of names on the lists. Surely that means that some people voted more than once, so should not that invalidate the election? Apparently not. Then it turns out that very large batches of sequentially counted votes are all for the same candidate which statistically is highly unlikely and suggests ballot rigging which also might be a case for invalidating the election. And then there is the collegial system which attempts to make all individual votes have approximately the same weight. Inevitably this final process drives the losers nuts! Sadly, the USA is slowly but inevitably losing its claim to be the moral and intellectual leader of the worlds “western” democracies. By the way, does anyone remember if we stopped counting the votes in our 1994 election? Meanwhile the Zondo Commission of Enquiry has unearthed some real beauties. Their attitude and responses to the questions have been hilarious but tragic. Ms Yakhe Kwinana who chaired the board of SAA Technical as well as sitting on the main SAA board has been exposed as having scant skills to offer in either of those posts except for scoring enormous kickbacks from any company trying to win contracts with the national airline. Her “boss”, Ms Dudu Myeni, erstwhile chair of the main board has become very edgy about incriminating herself and has declined to say much of anything except “I won’t answer that question”. The witnesses are fortunate to be present on screen only for that surely prevents either Judge Zondo himself or evidence leader advocate Kate Hofmeyr from walking over and delivering an attitude-adjusting klap. The astonishing thing to emerge from these proceedings is that none of the witnesses seem to keep any sort of diary or journal. They are always very hazy on who, where and when. This includes things like wedding anniversaries! President Cyril is going to address us next week. He has declared that he is worried that people seem to have given up caring very much about Covid-19. Given the really extreme measure being re-imposed in some nations overseas, he may decide to follow suit. The fact is that citizens have simply lost faith and interest in any government plan “to save thousands of lives” involving lockdowns. Most of the livelihood-destroying measures attempted since March have caused more pain than the pandemic. And the medical profession has sown confusion and dismay by continually issuing authoritative declarations that contradict the previous one. By now, we each have formed our own strategies about masks, sanitising (or is it Satanizing?) and social distancing. And we reject the notion that there are such things as non-essential businesses. So will government please now step away and go and do something useful like replacing the broken and stolen infrastructure that is having a far greater impact on our lives that this virus, which is doing its own thing, oblivious to just about anything we try. The new Supersport TV line up does have some nice features. Like screening sports where there are real live fans like baseball and American football. James Greener Friday 6th November 2020

PLEASE DECLARE YOUR BITCOIN TRADING PROFITS

Share prices world wide have taken a bit of a hit in the last few days. Is this due in part to a rising expectation that the US election on Tuesday will be won by the Democrats? Removing Trump from the Presidency may probably be bad for most industries except for a few tech behemoths. Have you heard of the alleged existence of a Technocracy? But those giant corporations are the companies that dominate the US indices so perhaps the falls are signalling the view that Trump will be re-elected. In recent years opinion polls have been very wrong about election outcomes all over the world as the social media shuffles and swaps truth and falsehood at the speed of light. And bloody-minded voters have lied to pollsters. Soon it will all be revealed, except of course that the USA, for all its might, seems to adopt voting methods and systems that can generate huge and lasting controversies. COSATU, a trade union organisation, is rather disappointed in chef Tito Mboweni’s medium term budget speech. They are not alone. It seems that Tito finally got the memo – it must have been mixed up with his collection of recipe books – and is now back on track with the party line. And so, the key point of his speech which he delivered on Wednesday in parliament, is that the ANC is determined to try and resuscitate SAA, the utterly broke and now half dismantled state airline. A document accompanying the speech spells out exactly how much will be deducted from the original budget allocation to each of the 40 or so ministries, to make up the R10bn that someone thinks will be the price of this resurrection. In consequence, most of COSATU’s members will not get the pay rises promised in an agreement made in the era before pandemics and shattered economies. Uh oh. It is quite astonishing how the ANC and the government press on with grandiose pie-in-the-sky plans and schemes for the future when every single scrap of credible evidence paints a picture of a near technically bankrupt state. National Treasury is barely able to find the money each month to cover salaries for state employees, handouts for social benefit recipients, and interest to pay the lenders. To do so it needs to borrow, so that last item gets bigger every month. When is someone, well President Cyril, going to attack the expenditure side? For that is our sole route to any chance of salvation. This old-fashioned stockbroker is rather alarmed by the proliferation of get rich quick schemes that are being touted based on the new asset class known as crypto currencies. Even the tax collector, SARS, has added a question about this intangible asset to the personal income tax return form. Presumably, they too are intrigued by the claims of huge trading profits that await investors in these products. Doesn’t this somewhat belie the alleged attraction of this currency as being beyond the reach of nosy governments? Tidemarks willingly admits to not understanding Bitcoin and its competitors and for that reason alone would not “invest” in anything like that. The “valuation” of these instruments poses many problems to this old bear who is learning that even audited financial statements mean extraordinarily little. The total amount of money available to sport via TV rights, advertising and sponsorships and even ticket sales is a finite amount and must surely be declining. The last of these funding sources is generating almost nothing as the majority opinion is that sports stadia are deadly places that fans must avoid. The absence of crowds is now affecting my enjoyment of the televised events and watching habits and if this is common, perhaps even marketing spend may be suffering by now. Car seat hopping in Formula 1 has reached Olympic standard and those who like to remind us how terrible slavery was, might consider the way that soccer players are priced and traded! And the IPL cricket is a circus with fireworks, lights and dancing girls. Rugby has become a geography exam. Are these all the symptoms of an industry going through a change of life adjusting to less money? James Greener Friday 30th October 2020

THE DOOM OGRE WRITES

Tidemarks spends little time analysing the local markets, an exercise that was once its bread and butter. One reason for this is that the JSE is now a very pale shadow of its former self. The number of significant counters worthy of possible investment shrinks every week. And with almost every company still deep in survival mode, their financials and reports are exceptionally hard to interpret. Comparisons with prior years are meaningless and solid dependable guidelines about the economic future are non-existent. Recoveries in the bond and currency markets are totally dependant on whether the government is capable of slashing its expenditure and borrowings. Something that may be impossible for the socialists seemingly intent of following the Venezuelan example. Unless or until the decision makers and leaders of our government and its institutions are required to endure the conditions that the rest of us do there is little chance that things can get any better. For example, a government increasingly desperate for income sees nothing wrong with the tax man’s help line telling us that we are 976th in a queue and the wait will be around half an hour. Our nation is awash with roosting chickens clucking their anger and disapproval of the government’s assumption that we are satisfied with the dismal and failing services coupled to rising prices. The Covid-19 excuse is no longer working. Even the President muttered about government employees not doing any work. You think Cyril? The long-promoted idea that all politicians must, upon election, convert their savings into government bonds, use only public transport, security, schooling and hospitals needs an extension to include anyone drawing a salary funded by taxpayers. Simply it would require that no one can be employed by the state until they have worked in the private sector for at least 5 years. Not only would this ensure that all civil servants were mature and experienced but hopefully by then they will be disabused of the idea that money grows on trees. 2020 has been a dreadful year for sports fans, school pupils, university students, hospital patients and most people trying to make a living from providing goods and services to customers and clients. Small islands of success and prosperity do exist, but a great proportion of those have relied on corruption to survive and flourish. In South Africa an unexpected bonanza has been enjoyed by luxury car dealers and suppliers of medical masks, gloves and gowns. Skimming relief food parcels apparently is also fruitful. In those state-owned enterprises which are expected to collect at least a portion of their own income, matters are parlous as their customers also are unable and reluctant to pay for the frequently poor service and products that they now deliver. State broadcaster SABC has hit upon a plan to beef up TV licence fee collections. They want to declare that any device capable of displaying a movie is close enough to being a TV, that the owners of smart phones, tablets, laptops etc must therefore buy a TV licence. Not only that, but the content providers, like Netflix, must collect the fee and pass it on to the SABC. Really? No. Voetsak. Closely allied to this sort of thinking is the official concern that certain sports events should be free to view and that commercial channels must drop their paywalls when broadcasting them. Well OK, but only if the broadcaster be allowed to deduct the cost of the broadcasting rights paid to the sport from their tax payments. After all, if the state wants everyone to see these events then the state must pay. And of course a bigger audience will attract a bigger fee for the rights. These Marxists so badly need to learn how markets work and that sadly life is not fair. Greta Thunberg, the shrill young activist against global warming, has been nick-named “The Doom Pixie” as she battles to regain the headlines so suddenly seized from her topic by the Virus. Conspiracy theorists note the similarities in the way that “the Science” for both phenomena are foisted upon us and mutter deeply. We are led to believe that only governments have the wisdom and wherewithal to understand and interpret such facts as there are. And now the Formula 1 champion, Lewis Hamilton is recording an album. Is he bored or does he not have enough money? James Greener Friday 23rd October 2020

MONEY MONEY MONEY

Clearly our tireless civil servants here in SA have been very busy during the various stages of lockdown. While almost 10% of the workforce were being laid off and wondering how to feed their families, the bureaucrats, free of such worries, were crafting screeds of new laws and regulations. The unexpected but gleefully accepted opportunity afforded by the State of Disaster (now extended for a further month) will one day cease and so our leaders are keen to have laws that will keep us dancing to their tunes. The list of new legislation we can expect includes a tightening of the drinking and driving laws, giving the state further powers to confiscate our stuff, a change in the format of vehicle number plates, the next step in introducing the National Health Insurance, changes to how the Post Office and municipalities will operate, changes to the TV licence system and a new law about how to label food and a number of new taxes (particularly with an eye to emigrants) to help pay for it all. These were topped off this week by another of Presidents Cyril’s wish lists which apparently took National Treasury by surprise and they asked for a 1-week postponement of the so called mini-budget to the 28th of this month. Ominous. Reaction to all of this starts with wondering if our President actually reads and discusses with wise advisors any of his speeches beforehand. By now he must surely realise that they merely waft into the atmosphere unheeded because they are utterly divorced from reality. It doesn’t really matter what the monetary values are that Cyril throws about when he announces his ludicrous plans. It is infuriating, disappointing and astonishing how the affordability question never seems to enter the grandiose plans. The money for most of these schemes simply is not there and will not ever be, until, at the very least, his government spends less than it collects in taxes and levies. There are three major tax-eating constituencies dependent on the state for the greatest portion of their income and tinkering with these could be career-ending for any politician who attempts to do so. First in line is the massive and all-powerful patronage network that feeds off the government procurement programs and whose kickback practices fund many lavish lifestyles. Then there is the powerful lobby of overpaid supernumerary state employees. But the most worrying group is the rapidly growing list of desperate beneficiaries of the state social grants and other direct relief programs. These are weak and vulnerable people who are starving and who everyone (barring a few saintly charities) tries to ignore All of these must be fed before a cent can be spent on filling a single pothole, repairing a sewer or replacing a street light. While debt is one way to fund capital projects – aka Cyril’s much vaunted infrastructure program – the fact is that a decade of successive ratings downgrades shows that lenders know what we are really worth and so borrowing has become rather expensive. Even servicing current debt is making the pips squeak. One thing for certain as far as improved performance is concerned is that professional sports men and women have learned how to tap into the riches that massive TV audiences can potentially provide. Insofar that this is private money voluntarily spent by couch potatoes, it is a fascinating example of capitalism at work. The fact that talent and effort are not evenly distributed so that only the very best athletes achieve fame and pocket the bulk of the money seems to offend those who prefer low level equality and so for decades sport has attracted politicians and administrators keen to sort things out in return for some of the spoils. From time to time these developments anger the potatoes and they fumble with their TV remote controls, a fact keenly observed by the sponsors and advertisers and an upheaval takes place. A good example of this is currently taking place in professional basketball in the USA. A similar development is wracking the major sports of soccer, rugby, and cricket here in SA where the COVID excuse is being trotted out to smokescreen all manner of issues mainly related to selection on merit. James Greener Friday 16th October 2020

(LOCKDOWN) GAME OVER

A trawl through a selection of price charts covering shares, fixed interest instruments, commodities and currencies suggests that markets are not wracked with either panic or euphoria. Reading the reports and backstories however makes it clear that there are industries and economies damaged almost beyond repair. And it is not in the least reassuring that the people who took us to this point now believe that they are capable of taking us out of the mire. Governments are still trying to make everyone believe that it was only due to their wise actions that life in their country and indeed the whole planet managed to survive one of the greatest threats civilisation had ever experienced. But that story is so 2020 and discredited and we need now to be left alone to rebuild from the social and economic wreckage that our leaders even now are still callously creating. The further unravelling of the attempted minutiae of social control was on display this week when yet another state ministry tried to craft regulations for controlling who can travel where. Their particular concern is with list of so-called high-risk countries to which leisure travel is not allowed. There are of course exceptions for “business travellers with scarce and critical skills including diplomats, repatriated persons, investors, and people participating in professional sporting events”! No word however on what might constitute a scarce and critical skill nor why anyone would think that a diplomat might have them. And that term “investors” pretty much renders the regulation pointless. Just stop it please Mr President. Even if this rash of arrests and court appearances is government’s attempt to raise a bit of sorely needed cash, the nets are starting to close around the baddies who have stolen so much of our public wealth in the past decade or so. People are indeed being carted off to court appearances and presented with reams of charges largely to do with money moving in mysterious directions. Sadly, not much of it will be recoverable as the crooks had a great fondness for high priced consumables. In a way it is a pity that despite loud denunciations of all things colonial and western our government have clung so fiercely to the canons and structures of a rather ancient European legal system. Processing these fraudsters through the courts systems will be time consuming and incredibly costly. Let us just send every government employee earning more than half a million a year official salary, for a lifestyle audit (quaint term) and all who fail go immediately to Robben Island for 27 years. And no replacements to be appointed. And while we are at it private employees too. There is something broken about CEO remuneration levels. We are all so jaded and blasé about the scare stories that have informed our lives this year that there was no significant reaction to the news that President Trump had tested positive for Covid 19 infection. More astonishing is that his recovery has been so swift. This has, however, inflamed further the anger of those who despise the man and reportedly they are now scouring the US constitution for sanction to use the suspicion of witchcraft to have him immediately removed from office. Formula 1 motor racing seems to be slowly disintegrating before our startled eyes. Egos are being taken out for extensive airings. Of course, it’s a fantastically expensive enterprise but as long as it consumes just private money so what? Technically the sport is in a mess with unexplained differences in identically specified power units. There is suspicion of partial regulation enforcement. Yet another sports Covid victim missing the fans? James Greener Friday 9th October 2020

THE 2.3 TRILLION RAND CHALLENGE

Once again the machinations of bureaucrat-think leave one breathless. This time it’s the definition of unemployment which one would imagine should be pretty straightforward. It turns out that to be counted as unemployed it is necessary to have been actively trying to find a job. But during lockdown when there were no jobs and people were locked down, job-hunting came to an abrupt halt and so the count of unemployed also plunged!  But wait there is more. The gnomes at StatsSA noted that domestic workers were particularly hard hit compared to other professions, because they were unable to work from home, during lockdown. This cynicism is probably not just a South African speciality but likely follows international methodologies. But what it does do is highlight the near worthlessness of data collected by people who are not going to use it themselves to add value.

This is very similar to government money claimed and borrowed from (in the end) people. The story about our leader’s hope to spend R2.3 trillion on infrastructure has been resuscitated as the pandemic loses its ability to scare people into compliant behaviour and dominate headlines. This is an incredibly large amount of money even if it is to be spent on an “infrastructure program” over the next 10 years. Even the government realises this and the talismanic “Green Bonds” phrase has been pressed into service in the belief that terms like sustainability and carbon-neutral will hide from prospective lenders the nasty fact that the borrower is basically bust. Undoubtedly the nation is in dire need of an infrastructural upgrade, especially since the hungry, desperate and criminal took the opportunity of police occupied arresting surfers and stripped the country bare. It will need a great deal of money just to get the nation back to the condition it was two decades ago. Only then should we think about bullet trains and teaching robotics. The wholesale theft of railway lines has produced astonishing pictures of shunting yards without any track and raised questions of just where it went to. But the biggest concern is that, as the Gupta debacle reveals, government is simply incapable of controlling and spending large sums of money without corruption and decimating the value obtained for the money raised.

An unexpected benefit of Covid is that the everyone, especially government, has been unable to spend very much on official jaunts. Our peripatetic President Cyril who has shown a penchant for popping off  to pester people for loose change has been largely confined to barracks. This week he delivered a virtual address to a UN conference on biodiversity in which he told his audience about the need to get women and indigenous populations involved in bioprospecting. Whatever this is, surely the embarrassing success of our species is proof that over the last several million years our ancestors successfully identified which plants should neither be eaten nor smoked. He also promoted the idea of a “circular economy”, which presumably refers to the ANC’s practice of recycling deadbeat and crooked party members through successive posts.

Agriculture Minister Thoko Didiza has announced the immediate release of 0.7 million hectares of underutilised government-owned land for lease to those who think they could put it to better use. Now that’s a step in the right direction. Anything that loosens the clammy hand of the state from any assets is a welcome move. Now can she please go and slap some sense into her idiot colleagues still trying to resuscitate SAA.

The debate between the two US presidential candidates prompted the proposal that it could be the basis of a drinking game where one takes a glug every time you find yourself “staring at the TV gripped by the harsh reality that those two men are the only 2 options in a country of 328 million people.” {The breaking news that President Trump and his wife have both tested positive for Covid-19 is a gamechanger}

 It is rather sad that the farewell game for the venerable and historic Newlands Rugby Stadium will be without any fans in the seats. The match itself should be interesting with so many new names running out as potential ‘bokke. Meanwhile the maybe unlamented demise of the Super Rugby format seems to have triggered a squabble between the antipodeans. They miss us already.

James Greener

Friday 2^nd October 2020