Although the JSE All Share index is around 40% above its March lows it has actually been stalled within a 5% range either side of its average over the last 8 weeks or so. The resources have been slightly the more jumpy of the sectors, but nothing really has required much attention. The cement and minerals industries released doleful figures during the week showing that there is little demand for their products. It is hard to make a case for buying many shares. While the dollar price of gold is setting records, the strong rand is ensuring that local mines are getting only a disappointing reward for their efforts.
Potential bond buyers were also rather scarce. Capital raising plans are becoming popular and investors and lenders are holding back a bit to see what each particular slotted tin shaker is offering in return for their money. Among the less appealing proposals was the provision of luxury hotel suites as temporarily accommodation for a civil servant and his hangers-on whose official home is being renovated. Why could he not have moved to the back rooms and camped under drop sheets for a bit like the rest of us do when the painters arrive? Even more insulting, was the minister’s claim that he was unaware how costly the digs were. As the man in charge of the police, it is his duty to spot rip-offs.
To buy anyone a pair of shoes as a present is a little odd, but when the recipient is the state president it is bizarre. How well do you have to know someone before you can go shoe-shopping for them? Picture the scene when the president ripped open the tissue paper and muttered words of thanks, embarrassment and praise for the donor’s taste in style, colour and lacing layout. Did he try them on immediately and then sashay around the room? Did attendants murmur compliments or did they clap and whistle? Astonishing.
And it was of this ex-president that I first thought when I saw the headline that the ever-vigilant competition chappies had unearthed a pipe cartel. However, it turns out not to be tobacco pipes but the boring yet vital concrete and plastic sort. In the absence of anyone making enough money to pay tax, the state’s tack seems now to be to find reasons to slap fines onto people. This may not be a sustainable source of funds. Neither too are electricity consumers who are reportedly going to face tariffs that will more than double. Eskom’s plans on this matter were rightly thought to be so outrageous that even the leaked document carried a warning that it might cause unhappiness if the public were to see it! The sole amusing side to this story, is that it provides another example of the utter failure of most folk to grasp that anything they write down or even say and perhaps just think, can leak on to the internet in a mouse click. And the more dirty the secret, the faster and wider it will travel.
Investment research was an early victim of this distribution technology. Today no snippet of information can remain secret for very long, but nevertheless regulators believe that they can now identify items that too few people knew about too early and fines are imposed! Not so long ago stockbroker’s research reports were typed, printed and posted. The most important clients were favoured with a phone call to alert them to what the analyst had discovered No one mentioned the clients who had to wait for the postman.
Why are three “assessors” required to determine if the egregiously overpaid Coach Santana is up to scratch? A glance at the national football results tells a clear story that Joel and the boys of Bafana have yet to understand that goals are scored by popping the ball into the net. Perhaps the assessors will delay reporting until they too have spent a few weeks on the beaches of Rio which apparently are a far better site for a training camp than some damp field in the Freestate.
James Greener
9th October 2009.
