Most of the
market’s first half performance of about 7% was established in just the first
few weeks of the year. Since then it has been range trading either side of a
pretty steady mean, although of late the ranges have expanded a bit. This has
triggered excited talk of a “break-out” with bulls naturally opting for the
upside kind, citing the ever lengthening spell of negative real rates of return
for cash and the need to be invested in shares.
It is now clear, however, that
the euro will not survive. The experiment is drawing to a close, derailed by
impurities in the ingredients that were shaken up together in the test tube. The
experimental procedure does not describe what to do under these circumstances
and the proposal of adding more and more of the strongest one has foundered
because the lid of that jar is now screwed on very tightly. The most vocal
supporters of the euro now are probably only those whose careers, pensions and
reputation are embedded in the founding principles and institutions of the
countryless currency, and anyone who has recently converted their dollars,
pounds, yen or even rands into euros. The end will perhaps be swift and
unexpected but certainly messy and painful – especially for the weak and vulnerable.
Powerful and rich entities will even now be planning and engineering graceful
strategies to preserve their wealth and positions. In due course the euro will
be no more than a deep pile of data to be mined by graduate students of the
dismal science in search of a doctorate.
Similarly the story of how a determinedly ideological and wilfully
vindictive government regime managed to destroy a national minerals industry
will also one day be read with astonishment. Hopefully, here and there, hidden
from view, there are actually some areas and enterprises where our state is
indeed helping citizens risk their own money and time to extract minerals from
the ground. But out in the open air of public knowledge there is very little
evidence to suggest that the leadership is able to accept that the mining
business is about extracting, processing and marketing their products in a way
that simultaneously maximises both client demand and their own profits. In the
process they create jobs and pay taxes and royalties. Sadly our leaders can’t
accept that almost any intervention in such a system developed over centuries
is very likely to break it.
So now we might have the reason why the authorities in Limpopo are reluctant to deliver those textbooks to the
schools. They are waiting to see if the nanosecond long blip of energy
announced this week by the propeller-heads at CERN is the right boson. After
all, Professor Hawking has lost his bet so the education department does not wish
also to be labelled a bozo for supplying the wrong information to the pupils in
their tender care. They are awaiting Dr Higgs and The Quantum Mechanics to
confirm that The Standard Model is secure and may be shared with the eager
young minds of the Northern Province.
The rest of us meanwhile can marvel that so many people are needed to make large
hadrons collide. Here in the kingdom, large trucks collide with each other and
just about anything else at a worrying and tragic rate and no one seems to
learn anything.
Durban is jam packed with punters who have travelled far in order to bring
their money for a nice seaside sojourn. The Durban July horse race tomorrow will ensure
that most of that money will remain here after the visitors leave and no one
seems to be complaining. There is however, widespread unhappiness about the
disjointed feel of the resumed Super 15 competition. This break in the
competition is not a successful idea and even the staunchest Sharks fan is
bleak about the Bulls match tonight. Add in the Wimbledon finals, stages of le
Tour and the Silverstone Grand Prix and it is clear that the old couch and remote
is in for a beating this weekend.
James Greener
6th July 2012
