There are about three dozen
shares listed in the mining sectors of the JSE. In their most recent report a
third of them declared a loss for the previous 12 months. Not one of the 4
companies who claim to be mining diamonds is making profits and six of the eight
listed coal companies are in the red. These facts would appear not to carry any
warnings for the unions who are now entering the season of wage demands. In a
year’s time then, these statistics are likely to be even worse especially as
the government continues to be rather hostile to any company not owned by good
friends of the president. Equally alarming is the emergence of the civil
servant’s pension fund as a source of funding for some very dodgy business
plans. Now it takes many years of study to acquire the actuarial expertise necessary
to understand the interplay between employers, employees, retirees, investment
returns and inflation but putting pension money into ventures that have scant
possibility of repaying sounds like bad news even to a physicist.
Those who are still fretting that
Britain has made a big mistake in leaving the EU might take a look at the
warnings from some pretty august outfits about the state of many banks inside the
community, especially Italy. It’s the same old story about lending money to
deadbeats because of who they know and not because they are a decent credit
risk. And then there’s the wailing noises from the nations in the bottom right
hand corner of the continent who are asking what will happen to their
applications to join now that the rich Brits are leaving. Fascinating stuff to
watch from here on the warming up southern tip.
Perhaps the most amazing thing
about the clinical way in which Britain switches Prime Ministers is the handover
of the official residence – 10 Downing Street. Suddenly there was David Cameron
and his family on the doorstep waving to the cameras. Amazingly none of the
children was tapping out a status update on a cell phone and Mrs C wasn’t clutching
a supermarket bag stuffed with still warm pyjamas and half a bottle of milk
rescued from the fridge on the way out. Mind you they probably had to leave the
milk behind for Larry the cat who, it turns out, is on the permanent staff at
No 10 and doesn’t shift digs just because of mere political firestorms. So no
sooner had the family shuffled down the street to be taken away into obscurity
than the new key holder pitched up with her startled looking husband in tow. After
the waving and smiling, the big black door mysteriously swung open and the pair
bolted inside. Not even a duffle bag of overnight things in sight. All very
classy.
Meanwhile our man JZ was across
the channel warming a seat at the Elysee Palace and offering advice and wine
tips to the French top man Francois Hollande. For once Hollande might have been
pleased to see the shining pated Number One as the touchy subject of how much
one can pay for a haircut in Paris was unlikely to come up.
The millions of people around the
world who spend a great deal of July watching 200 ridiculously fit men ride
bicycles across some incredibly picturesque bits of France all cheered when
Chris Froome punched a spectator who was behaving badly. Now Chris is a very
nicely brought up lad who went to St John’s in Joburg. He wouldn’t have
retaliated like that unless he was sorely provoked. So everyone was outraged
when it turned out he was fined 200 Swiss Francs for that laudable exercise in crowd
control. Just yesterday unruly spectators caused another incident affecting the
race leader. How about reversing the fines process and awarding a bounty
payment to a rider who manages to whack a deserving trouble maker? That will
keep everyone back from the road and it will add interest for the riders at the
back of the peloton as they could weave about trying to get in range of a flag-shaking
lout dressed only in underpants.
James Greener
15th July 2016
