The market was a little jittery this week and held off from breaking out through the 24 000 level on the All Share index. As usual there has been no shortage of items that can be either blamed or praised for causing the indecision among investors. Despite much excitement beforehand, President Zuma’s State of the Nation address has probably had scant effect, however. It contained very little about the state of the nation as it is now. Rather he seemed very keen to tell us what it was that he wanted it to look like. Markets like to think that they all about the future already, so after a while it lost interest and wandered off.
The speech began with no fewer than 20 levels of salutation of which the last was “Fellow South Africans”, preceded by “Distinguished guests, comrades and friends” It is disappointing that a list as long as this failed to give even a small nod of acknowledgement towards “Revered and beleaguered taxpayers”.
As with almost any speech delivered by a politician it left me wondering whether they actually read the stuff before they begin to waffle. For example can his speech writer even count to half a million let alone dream that 3000 people a day are going to find jobs before Christmas? Another strange remark was that The Early Childhood Development Programme will be stepped up …to double “the number of 0-4 year old children by 2014”. This gravely unwise target was I hope an error but then I saw the picture of the President posing proudly after the speech with all three of his impeccably attired wives. He personally is well equipped to attain this target but not all of us have secured the services of a financial advisor able to arrange salary modifications that stretch to families of that size.
Yesterday I watched the large and very beautiful Sun Princess cruise liner enter Durban harbour at dawn. She sailed just 12 hours later but in that time I rather hoped that substantial amounts of forex was tipped into the local exchequer in exchange for artworks made of wire, wood, beads and bits of dead animal; as well as to replenish her obviously capacious cellars and pantries. Let’s hope all the passengers went away with favourable impressions and all their personal possessions
After years of talk, the JSE has just obtained permission from the Competition Tribunal to merge with the Bond Exchange and so the country will have just one exchange. Almost immediately the chairman of that same tribunal appeared in the headlines to say he is pleased to agree that cartel action “will be a crime”. Curious. I wonder which of the bosses of the two exchanges will do the spell in prison.
It is alarming to see that electricity consumption in April was down about 6% year on year. Power usage should have a very good correlation with economic activity so anyone needing to see “green shoots” will probably have to stay out in the herbaceous border for a bit longer yet.
The best thing we as a nation can do for the British and Irish Lions is to give them such a beating that they bury their poor mascot Lenny the Lion in the soil of Africa before they leave. He is a dejected and pathetic piece of yellow synthetic fur and stuffing and does not deserve to cross the equator again.
James Greener
5th June 2009.
