Yesterday the JSE turnover reached nearly R24bn as one of those mysterious close-out rituals took place when computers appear to trade with each other for a couple of hours. On Tuesday the wind gauge outside this office clocked a gust at 51km/hr. I don’t think the events were related but there is certainly weird stuff happening which most people have never seen before. Demand for the rand and gold is surging. The All Share index is more than 40% above the March low but the big banks continue to warn about severe and lengthy contraction in their businesses. Bears are baffled. Patience is no longer enough.
It is both amusing and infuriating to watch the responses of the politicos to the realization that they are collecting a whole lot less tax than they hoped for. Ideas for new and sexier taxes are sprouting everywhere. There was even some very confused waffle about prostitution being a viable employment (and presumably tax generating) enterprise. Almost completely absent has been any suggestion that they might like to compensate for the shortfall by trimming back on the costs side of their business. After all, that is exactly why tax receipts are slowing. Employers are cutting back on wage bills and consumers are cutting back on spending. Government needs to follow suit. Why not start with the big ticket items? For example, lop 15% off the salary of every civil servant earning over R50 000 a month, and another 10% off salaries over R75 000 a month. The usual bleat that the state and its various agencies need to pay this sort of money in order to retain top talent and prevent it defecting to private industry deserves to be tested. My guess is that there are very few people who are currently driving desks and BMW’s on the public payroll who will be swamped by calls from the head hunters. The latest figures from National Treasury reveal that while Revenue receipts are growing at a disappointing 4%pa, the figure for the Requisitions side is 20%pa. Minister Gordhan himself has noted that it is the larger of these numbers that needs attention.
Equally silly ideas for changing the face of South Africa for the benefit of its people include turning game farms and golf estates into mielie lands. I am pretty sure that the rates and taxes currently paid by both those types of enterprises are now far greater than they ever were in the past and certainly create far more wealth than any mielies which might survive on them in the future. The reason for being able to say this is that simply the desire to maximise income and return will have guided the private landowner’s choice of use for the property.
However, someone close to government did this week take a giant step in the war against obesity by airing the idea of complete nationalisation of all food production. In a related move their colleagues over at the Competition Commission are taking a close look at the supermarkets. Rest assured the moment that the bureaucrats start to interfere, food will disappear and we will once again be a thin and fit nation. This will in any case be very necessary if we are to mobilise an army able to start a third world war as threatened by some dimwit, who has managed to escalate a terribly sad incident caused by incompetent sports administrators into a international mocking contest.
It is reported that each soccer world cup venue will need the services of 100 chefs on match days. Their task will be to revive with tempting viands the high Pooh-Bahs of FIFA who arrive at the suite shocked and exhausted by the unaccustomed horrors of life on the southern tip. They might even have glimpsed a rogue sign for a non-approved beverage or credit card that the local authority had failed to purge from their so-called protocol route. Just how big was the fee and to whom was it paid, that has permitted FIFA to drape the rest of this country over a barrel?
James Greener
18th September 2009.
