Our runt has
lost around 10% of its value against the “big” currencies in the past 6 weeks.
Another similar sized drop will take us to the lows reached in September last
year. This is very disappointing news and instead of looking to make
announcements abut relaxing barriers to business and trade, the very unhelpful
plan to nationalise the Reserve Bank is getting all the government’s economic
attention. Marxists are so misguided when they believe that a central bank can
control a currency. Just who is responsible for the rand’s current decline is
unknown but it’s certain that there are more rands being offered than there
dollars (or pounds etc) to buy them.
And in the
Party HQs the drawing up of the electoral “lists” are in full swing. These
reveal each person’s place in the party’s standing order. So far the number of
utter deadbeats, failures and frauds named by the ANC make it clear that this
list must have formed part of the deal that was struck to allow Cyril to become
president. Absolutely no intelligent free-acting politician promising a New
Dawn would have selected so many bad ‘uns.
For those of
us not actually trying to run a university infiltrated with young people who
are so obviously unsuited to become graduates, it seems easy. Simply identify
and immediately ban from ever attending any tertiary learning institution in
this country, anyone who is violent or destroys property. While these folk may
one day become politicians and join the other bottom-feeders sucking on the public
purse, their present behaviour is totally undeserving of support by taxpayers. Oh, and any loans that they have received from
the state so far, must be repaid. Of course, the authorities are hamstrung by
bleeding hearts wittering on about “rights” – things which never existed ---
and a pitifully slow and expensive legal system.
Obviously the
Eurocentric jokiness of April Fool’s Day has no place in the deadly serious
agenda for the board meeting of the New Development Bank to take place in Cape
Town on that day. Remember this is the outfit formed by the BRICS nations to do
all kinds of good stuff in a “Partnership for Sustainable Development” The
press release goes on in this vein of mumbo jumbo for many paragraphs before
hinting at the real issue which is “that there still exists a wide financing
deficit”. Ah. Fancy that. There’s the punch line. Usual thing. More money out
than money in. Pesky capitalists – always droning on about getting a return on
their investment.
Not all of
the cabinet ministers dozed trough the explanation about the Fourth Industrial
Revolution. Quite a few have recently woven the neat phrase into recent
speeches to demonstrate how on top of things they are. But they didn’t study
the handout to the talk that warns that all this clever stuff could see about
half the current jobs simply disappear. Hmm. Best not get too excited about the
future until all the kids can read and count and then develop clever, fast
selling computer games. And accounting apps that catch the crooks.
Not too long
ago a million of anything, especially money, was a great deal. Those of us
slightly more used to big numbers and scientific terminology could glibly talk
about k for thousands, “bar” for a million and even a “yard” for a billion. The
fun was to watch journalists (and presidents) stumble over getting the terminology
right. But now in the age of the Guptas, Joostes and government scale
corruption, anything less than a billion is chump change. Although criminals
seem not yet able to talk of trillions they are already in use in our GDP and
government expenditure records, and of course the three largest shares on the
JSE have market cap measured in trillions.
The death of
Charlie Whiting, the key man at any F1 race just days before the new season begins
in Australia this weekend, is immensely sad. Amongst the egos and the money in
that sport he seemed like a good guy. Because of his obsession with safety
there are more drivers alive than deserve to be. Whether a similar outcome has
happened in rugby because of close monitoring of the tip-tackle is much harder
to say.
James Greener
Friday 15th March 2019
