AND AFTER THE WOOD RUNS OUT?

Financial markets have a remarkable attitude towards calendars. They largely ignore any dates which are marked  up as significant. In places like the US where listed companies are required to report quarterly (here we tend to think a semi annual contribution to the fiction shelves of the library should be sufficient.)  it’s a godsend for the talking heads who need to fill reports and studios with hot words. So just to add my observation tuppence worth – the rand is at a 1 year low versus most major currencies.

Tidemarks’ has always had a deep dislike for and distrust of bureaucracy. Supporters of Brexit have never managed to convince me that having more layers of lawyers drawing income from the public purse was a good thing for anyone other than the paper shufflers who see incomplete forms as an offence. A classic example appeared this week when the European Union told Elon Musk that his recently purchased computer program named  Twitter, must employ more staff to keep an eye on what its customers write about. Apparently the EU has enacted legislation with the totally misleading title of “ Digital Services Act” (basically a censorship scheme ) and they think Elon is incapable of complying with this attack on freedom of speech unless he employs more busybodies with blue pencils. That’s just way too many interfering activities right there. Long term, history tends to favour the freedom seekers, so the wise money should be on the boytjie from Pretoria in this squabble.

It was entirely characteristic of President Frogboiler that he should take so long to announce the outcome of his long-awaited cabinet re-shuffle. Even the TV broadcast on the night was delayed by several hours, but in the end, we learned that Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa would be the nation’s first Minister of Electricity. Later on ,however, Dr Kgosientsho explained   that his job description was silent on loadshedding. This was a bit of a surprise to most of his audience.  In fact, he went on to explain that he had been appointed to ensure delivery of the government’s energy plan. This is a document, already announced by President Ramaphosa but clearly not yet implemented! Puzzling.

Students of this genre of government-speak are pretty sure the country has been down this path many times before. The new minister is indeed a very smart guy and the list of his academic achievements include a BSc in Civil Engineering , two Masters degrees (one in Business Leadership & one in Public Administration)  and  a PhD in Public Affairs. Notably however, his CV opens with the declaration that he is an African National Congress (ANC) politician; a status confirmed by the multimillion rand wristwatch on his arm.   Now President Cyril has a well-known preference for party unity and loyalty above all else. And some of us are now starting to worry that Kgosientsho’s selection process might have bowled Cyril around his legs.

It’s certainly not funny for those people living through this ultra cold spell currently disrupting the Northern Hemisphere but the complaints appearing in the social media are amusing. Apparently it’s not as windy as it usually is at this time of year and that’s giving the renewable wind energy fans a hiding. The sun’s gone AWOL too, and many energy utilities are being forced to fire up the coal-stoked boilers and send a letter of apology to the Doom Pixie, Greta Thunberg.  Amazingly the data indicate that some places are using an energy source called “American firewood” or is that a joke? Hopefully what is really happening is that more and more sensible people with real responsibilities (i.e. not politicians) are realising that planning and managing the electricity supply systems for real live economies doing important stuff like manufacturing,  health, education and production are  ideally lifetime career choice for adults.  There are few alternatives for supplying the amount and reliability of power that the population of this planet requires .None of the so called “renewables” have delivered anything more than irrelevant entertainments for people who can’t do the physics and chemistry. The time for pretending that intellectual dilettantes are doing anything but massive harm is over. “Net Zero” is a total scam.

James Greener

Friday 10^th March 2023

 

 

BLACK HORSES ONLY MAY BE ENTERED IN “THE JULY”

If we as a species had the faintest idea about some of the world’s greatest mysteries, Tidemarks’ weekly amble through a large selection of price charts would be enlightening instead of merely interesting. Perhaps the most significant number for those who still believe that the US and everything it says and does is significant, is the price of the greenback – the US dollar. Expressed in units of percent per annum (i.e. how many dollars it costs to borrow one hundred dollars for one year) it is always worth a look and a think. When almost exactly three years ago, the covid virus started to wander about the planet and Armageddon was confidently forecast, the infinitely wise men and women of Washington moved the price sharply down in a single move from a dollar seventy-five to 25 cents overnight. It remained pegged there for 2 years.

Then something important happened (who knows what?) and in the next 12 months this so-called Fedfunds rate has been ratcheted up inexorably, and currently stands at 4.75% pa.  In passing, please note that this supposedly very critical price is far too important to be allowed to be determined by market forces. People with desks the size of aircraft carriers are tasked with meeting and deciding and setting the level. Funny that. This is historically very high so they (?) must be hoping to achieve something very important with this number. The odd thing is that the text books are rather insistent that expensive money is a bad thing for getting economies to grow. I did warn you that problems like this are not given to us mere mortals to solve! Most nations operate a political system that is supposed to identify and install the people who think they can do this incredibly tricky task. The evidence for this method of choosing clever decision-makers is however not encouraging. Consider for example our own president who may or may not have been doing some rather dodgy deals involving foreign exchange, expensive game and dairy animals and the imprudent use of upholstered furniture as a banking facility. At glacial pace -- it is, after all, ultimately their employer they are investigating so they are not keen to upset any apple carts -- a posse of civil servants are trying to work out what Cyril did and whether or not any of it was legal or better still, not illegal. This week the suspect, President Cyril, moaned that it is difficult to do proper Presidential type stuff while this investigation into his hobby is ongoing, so please can it be cancelled. And anyway, he has already assured the nation that it was all innocent and fine. Hmm.

Tidemark’s TV watching is mostly confined to the sports channels. These days it is increasingly hard to be sure what is coming up. Firstly, significant growth in women’s sport is complicating matters. It would help enormously it the men and women national teams adopted different symbols.  In the certainty that this will annoy many readers, I believe that national teams themselves have earned the sole privilege to choose their own symbols and names. The concept of bureaucrats on the public payroll who have never chased a ball (etc.) in their lives, selecting teams and sports emblems is abhorrent. Please Cyril, close down the Sports Ministry when you get a moment. Who plays in what team under which name has absolutely nothing to do with any politician. In my world, men’s national players are all Springboks. But if they (the team itself) prefer and choose Bafana Bafana that’s great. A related but important niggle for me is the fiction that the country had no history in anything, including sport before 1994. This leads to garbage statements like “The 2019 rugby side led by Siya Kolisi was the first truly representative South African national side to achieve something great.”   Thousands of sports men and women sides represented South Africa since and even before the country was created in 1910. They were selected (sometimes!) in accordance with the social and political practices of the time. The way the “woke” nonsense is developing some idiot will soon insist that boys and girls SA national sides may comprise only men who have been pregnant!

James Greener

Friday 3^rd March 2023

SURELY SOMEONE WANTS TO BE THE MINISTER OF ELECTRICITY?

All the tomfoolery that has unfolded to and through the State of the Nation non-event has been wearisome if not outright depressing. It has certainly provided fertile ground for widespread speculation about what the future holds. Well, it holds a National Budget for a start. Some talking heads feel that government have now arrived at the place between a rock and a hard place and will have to scale back on the free stuff, which of course includes paying thousands what is called a salary but in the absence of productivity is really a grant.

It won’t help those who have long dismissed gold as a not particular rare mineral that’s costly to own and clearly(?) being superseded as a store of value by Bitcoin, to be reminded that the rand price of the yellow metal has doubled in the last 5 years. In the meantime, not only have many “blue-chip” listed shares been tainted by the smell of cooking books, but also now the exchanges they were listed on, are closing. Our civilisations and system were built on the now rare concepts of honesty and trust. Which are now crumbling in the absence of any rule of law. The Marxists won in the end.

It is so confusing trying to follow an American story about energy. It really is time they learned that the liquid fuel we put in our cars is called “petrol” and that the stuff that (mostly) comes out of the ground alongside crude oil is “gas” This is the substance that Europe (and even the USA uses to cook and heat their homes with and which President Biden sabotaged by destroying Russian gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea. The word “gasoline” has reached its sell by date! It’s so 20^th century.

There are at least two phenomena unrolling in our world that have the potential to make profound impacts on our lives far sooner than we would think possible. Both are happening at an incredible rate. The one is so called artificial intelligence where computers are apparently able to perform in ways that are indistinguishable from what human beings can do, think and say. We are already familiar with Google suggesting the best place for purchases of things we have been researching. But now it is moving to a higher level and the so called “chatbots” are reportedly well on the way to writing Tidemarks every week.  With better punch lines.

The second is the appearance of central bank digital currencies. This is quite a hard topic to understand but is the ultimate goal of authoritarian governments who are sure they can make far better decisions about how to live your life than you do. This week a perhaps deluded individual allowed himself to be implanted with a microchip thereby identifying himself indelibly. He should never lose his credit card again because it is now buried under the skin in is left wrist! He’ll also never be able to pop down to the pub for a quiet beer without everyone knowing. Already we can track our cars and our kids (think cell phone). The notion of the digital currency is quite difficulty to think about but we already mostly have given up using cash and strongly suspect  that our banks readily share whatever they know about us with some bureaucrat. The threat however lies in the idea that if you do something the governments don’t approve of – like vote for the wrong party – access to your account can be frozen and you quickly become a hungry unemployable pawn. Tax evasion will be a thing of the past!

As you read this the second day of the Dusi marathon canoe race is navigating the sewers of outer Durban . Brave folk those. If they fail to stop at the mouth of the Umgeni they could well find themselves in the midst of Chinese and Russian sailors showing off their toys in Exercise Musi II. Our own chaps are blowing up balloons for the visitors to shoot down.

James Greener

Friday 17^th February 2023

 

WELL, SONA WAS A WASTE OF TIME

 

Presumably this “State of the Nation Address” (SONA) jaw-wag by the Leader to his or her subjects was dreamed up by a clipboard wielding PR executive years ago. This is when the nation’s state was reasonable and critically, far better than the previous year. The fearless leader could don some glad rags, drape himself in awards (if any) and invite an “A” list of tax-eating layabouts (aka other politicians and alleged VIPs) to do the same and come and listen politely. Moments of adulation, awe and reverence could be marked with applause. Their reward is a red-carpet moment followed by the serving of viands and liquor normally only enjoyed by the best connected of the criminal classes. For the last few decades however the nation’s state has been awful and deteriorating and the PR executives must surely have melted into embarrassed obscurity.

The shindig however, marches on. And it took place yesterday. Hopefully only those who had temporarily mislaid the remote might have watched.  There was a lot of bad behaviour, the declaration of a State of Disaster and an increase to the cabinet headcount. Same old same old.

A grizzled old stockbroker such as I, is totally amazed what apparently is allowed when it comes to advertising investment services and products. For example, a slick TV production introduces a would-be investor worrying if the smorgasbord of things to buy is safe. A gorgeous and obviously well-off young lady slides into focus to assure the audience that everything they sell “is licenced””. Wow. Just Wow. A big selling point is often how easy it is to begin buying your first investments. Even the Springbok rugby captain apparently uses his mobile phone to open an account and begin trading! What happened to FICA? That wodge of state sponsored paperwork designed to give the illusion that the government has your back when it comes to investment risk. Has all that “proof of residence” stuff reduced financial crimes? NO?!  But “Why not?”  you cry. “Look! It has a certification no older than 3 months!”

And then there is RICA which supposedly enables government in the name of crime control to link people to their mobile phone numbers? Really? Any cell phone company emporium or “hole in the wall” shoppe will today sell you a “pre-RICAed” SIM card. For a few pennies and no questions asked. This was the week when the national broadcaster claimed to have begun to seek TV licence payments from all users of computer monitors that are TV capable.

Do the big corporates still employ compliance officers? About as useful as the men who install direction indicators on a BMW.

The recent apparent attempt to murder Eskom CEO Andre De Ruyter by poisoning him is bizarre and medieval. His later revelation that the two cops who came along to find out what happened and presumably begin investigating the crime, were totally clueless lends a typical weird and amusing South African theme to the very serious incident. The serious side is it demonstrates the ruthless and dangerous criminal culture that has infiltrated the electricity utility. Or indeed anywhere large sums of state money are loosely controlled. Government, who actually is as clueless as those cops when it comes to running any commercial entity are throwing money at the problem in a not very effective attempt to keep the lights on, the trains running, and the sewage controlled. Of course, the cockroaches are coming out of the dark.  

It is time for this nation to stop thinking it has a permanent lien on the Nobel Peace Prize and start treating the bad guys with less respect. Let’s start with those would-be poisoners and have them behind bars for 10 years before the end of this month. It’s time to go and fetch the Guptas and bring them home overland in the back of a Bedford for a brisk trial with courts working a full 8 hours a day and waffling lawyers silenced. No more Mr Nice Guy and Human “Rights” for these people. Apparently, the Robben Island Jail is deteriorating from lack of maintenance. Perfect. Winter is coming. And disconnect the WiFi.as well as the power --- oh wait!

James Greener

Friday 10^th February 2023

BUT RWANDA ARE PAYING ARSENAL TO DO THE SAME THING

 The US share markets obviously approve of the news that the so-called Tech companies have been firing staff at an unprecedented rate. The Nasdaq index is up almost 20% for the year. Remember when computers were supposed to help everyone get along with fewer staff?  Don’t cry for the nerds though. It has been noted that many of the newly unemployed are finding jobs with Chinese companies. Remember this is the poster child sector for having staff who have no idea where the office is. Even our own All Share is powering upwards despite no good news about how industry are coping with critical shortage of power. And the US have raised interest rates again.

It’s three years since our government gave in to international peer pressure and declared a State of Disaster. Wise men (and women) warned at the time that little good would come of it and in particular, worried that politicians, once they tasted the heady potion of unfettered power, would only come back for more. How right they were.  That time the panic was about  a medical infection event that we were assured  would depopulate the world in weeks.  This time it is a loss of control of the nation’s electrical power supply(or what is left of it)  to criminal elements which only mobilisation of the army can possibly restore! Hang on a minute Cyril. Let’s try a few other things before letting the cabinet loose! Last time they banned liquor and tobacco sales and open toed sandals and take-away food. None of which had any effect on a rather nasty respiratory bug. Now at least start by firing the Prat in the Hat for impersonating a police minister, and please dump the ex-president’s ex-wife who refuses to say what happened last time. Then send the cops in to fix the crime -- it’s their job, isn’t it?

Here is a little scene we would all love to witness. It takes place in the Presidential Suite at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. President Frogboiler is hard at work with his rare cattle bloodstock book. The phone warbles and he answers it. From our side the conversation goes like this. He listens for a long time to what is obviously a very excited woman shrieking. Eventually he manages to slow her down and asks a question: “Totty what Spurs?” The answer does not seem to help and he moves on to another question “How much did you say?” His next question seems to puzzle the other party. “Why?” and there is a bit of a silence. What we all wish to hear next would be a snort of derision and the following. “No. No.  Don’t be silly Lindiwe” “ It’s this Spurfowl Ham outfit that should be paying us. Do you know what English soccer players get paid? Be a good girl and run along and put this nonsense out of your mind and I won’t tell the cabinet about it”. 

It is well known that it is only the supply of diesel fuel to Eskom’s generators is which helps to keep (some) of the lights on. But it is a costly business especially when Petro SA – the state oil company—are reportedly supplying the fuel at a premium price! This seems intrinsically wrong!  Let’s hope that Eskom do at least insist on not  paying the taxes and retail margins.  

Some very dim people have come to the conclusion that pretty much everything we do to make life worth living is heating the planet. They are undoubtedly correct when they point out that heat leaks from ovens and hot plates and indeed all household appliances. In fact when the cooked food is taken out and served it also cools down and can melt glaciers and stuff leading ultimately to “endangering your health”.  But wouldn’t not eating also be rather bad for your health too? After all the amazing scientific and engineering progress of the last few centuries why on earth are so many of us behaving like ignorant morons?

To beat England 2-1 in the ODI series was very satisfactory.  The heat wave has returned to Durban so the Sharks vs Stormers fixture is going to be sweaty tomorrow.

James Greener

Friday 3^rd February 2023

SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES

 At 7.25%pa the repo rate is now higher than it was since 2009 and at anytime since the global calamity which was covid. Expensive money is not really the way to help a nation without a  reliable electricity supplyto  keep going and competitive. This week we all discovered just how critical electricity is in the poultry business which most of us fondly picture is mostly about a jovial man in a hat scattering mealies. The nation’s staple meal, KFC, is under threat.

We also learned that that our Defence Force is planning a joint exercise named Operation Mosi - the Tswana word for smoke --  with fleets from both Russia and China. Our contribution is a mere 350 personnel, many of whom will probably be covered in officers’ gold braid and unable to do much harm except peer through binoculars and be on time for meals (if not incapacitated by seasickness). It does, however, signal clearly whose side we are on, and The USA has already reacted by cancelling an agreement involving supplies and parts for our sole nuclear power plant.

Most politicians and others who eagerly and willingly take momentous decisions on our behalf, are clueless ignorant oxygen thieves oblivious to the concepts of embarrassment and humiliation. These characteristics are a global phenomenon, but here in SA they are coated with a thick veneer of racism. The school-leaving exam results were released recently, and it remains clear that this government, who invented the 30% pass mark, still don’t understand that a decade aiming for too easy an educational target has done the nation a grave disservice. No one who uses a calculator to work out the change due from a R50 note tendered for a R20 purchase will be able to aspire to much more than a lifetime of menial labour and with luck, state handouts. But perhaps that’s what the lefties wish for as the future of their nations.  

The agenda of global warming now dominates all debate at every level and in every subject. The thesis is that thoughtless greedy human consumers have adopted or even just aspire to a life style that produces uncontrollable clouds of carbon dioxide which in turn, through a process known as the “greenhouse effect”, is forcing an unprecedented and unsustainable increase to the ambient temperature of the planet.  Which is a very bad thing. 

Tidemarks believes that most of this thesis is nonsense but is in awe of how successful it has been at creating an industry rich in pickings for entrepreneurs, academics, and charlatans (politicians).  It is even giving birth to disciples who claim that they alone know the truth and where to find it. For a fee. Here, for free, is the simple elegant, exciting and satisfying real story. All our energy comes from the sun in the form of light and heat. Once it reaches Earth the glorious biological process, otherwise known as “life”, uses, captures and stores some of this energy in and on our planet. The timescales for some of these conversion processes are unbelievably long and must be measured in millions of years. The longer they are, the greater the concentration of the energy captured.  Coal, oil, gas and biofuels are common descriptions for these commodities.  However, they produce carbon dioxide when burned. This is not a problem if you believe that the properties of this important gas are well understood and not particularly harmful. In fact Nature has stored energy in the nuclei of all the chemical elements, of which Uranium is already known to be very important and reasonably carbon dioxide benign. Green Hydrogen” is trendy but still in need of much more understanding.

In the meantime supporters of so called wind and solar (the latter through direct heating or via photovoltaic  conversion of light energy) try hard to disguise the fact that they are  just modern day versions of perpetual motion machines. This effort is made because it is well funded. Puzzling but true. “

The Blitzbokke really have lost their way. But the SA20 is unearthing all kinds of talent.

James Greener

Friday, 27^th January 2023