The first page to open on my computer
every day is a wonderful “picture of the day” from NASA. Since Tuesday that
website has been off line because Washington
has decided that it can best save money by sending home all the government
employees who actually do something useful and helpful. How about closing down instead
those sections of government which made the decisions that landed the country
in this mess? Those folk must be among the highest paid on the payroll and on
current form are pretty useless at their jobs. Try a year or so without the
legislators and see if anyone misses them.
We could use that idea here as well. Send
the whole parliamentary circus off on a one year unpaid sabbatical and just
leave someone behind to switch the lights on and off and feed the official cat.
Is there a single piece of legislation and regulation in the pipeline that
would actually make the country work better? Unfortunately, already through the
mill, is an act that allows the state to have a lottery license. Clearly the
politicians have become jealous of all that lovely lolly going to trivial good
causes and charities. Ominous.
The effect on the markets of the US government
shutdown is not yet particularly marked. This must be mostly because no one
believes it will last. If it did it would mean that the largest borrower on
earth would be unable to borrow any more money (except for replacing maturing
loans) and that would surely be very good for interest rates in the US at
least. In this instance good means won't go up.
The American computer company Apple has
$146 bn cash in the bank. That’s enough money to run the entire South African
government for a year and leave a lot left over to pay off some of its debt.
Isn’t it astonishing what private enterprise can do. Predictably this cash pile
has the socialists drooling and whining that life is unfair and they should be
given that money to help the poor. Meanwhile Twitter, another “social media”
site hopes to raise $1bn in a listing. Might that be the pin that meets the
bubble?
In a rather low key announcement Pres Zuma
lowered the age for the state pension to 60.
That's a pretty generous move, given that elsewhere in the world the
trend is to raise the starting age in order to try and reduce the cost of the
benefit. Did he run this idea past the National Treasury? It will cost a fair
bit. Mind you they are saving money by for example not having anyone on the defence
force staff who can tell them how many working aircraft the nation has. Other
economies in the defence force include cutting down on training paratroops. A
board of inquiry has reportedly determined that on their eighth jump,
paratroopers should be trained to such a standard that they should be able to
identify a torn parachute and deploy their reserve ‘chutes successfully. Any
one who thinks it would be good to have those skills even before jump 1 is
obviously a sissy.
The call for tenders to supply something
called Nkandla VIP Sanitation is rather alarming. What are they using now
behind that million rand fence?
Hopefully the All Blacks will be deeply
intimidated by the Ellis Park venue tomorrow. They ought to be carrying deep
institutional memory scars of previous defeats at this ground. Perhaps if I can
keep writing like this right up to kick off tomorrow I will steady my nerves
and convince myself that it is all going to end well. Go bokke.
James Greener
National Teachers Day (I believe)
