JUST A FEW TOO MANY RUSSIAN VISAS IN THEIR PASSPORTS

 Uneasiness is appearing in all sorts of markets. The price of money (interest rates) in SA is rising  while share prices in the US  and other big equity markets are sagging – by as much as 10% this year. This is not happening in SA where alarmingly weaker rand is keeping local prices  firm. Especially the price of petrol and other fuels. Interestingly, consumers appear simply to be sucking up these record fuel prices. A betting man would have expected commuters to have taken to the streets by now. Crypto currency prices remain – for this scribe – baffling.

A common topic in the markets commentaries is a shrinking JSE where the number of listed companies has been falling significantly and those who survive are suffering from vanishingly low liquidity. Obviously the collapsing GDP, which was entirely due to the lockdown strategies are mostly to blame. It’s extremely disappointing that the levers of power are still in the hands of those who caused this in the first place. They can be easily identified as the elites who have never been required to forego a single pay day since this nonsense began.  

Ukraine is a very big country  with a surprisingly  high ranking on numerous tables about many diverse commodities. In particular, Ukraine ranks first in the world in the production of sunflowers and sunflower oil, first in Europe in arable land area and also Uranium ores. Their population of spectacularly beautiful women should also not be ignored. But presumably it’s the second last of these which attracts Russian leader Putin’s attention. Reportedly it was platinum which was frequently discussed whenever a Brics meeting brought our previous President Jacob Zuma into the same room as Vladimir. And presumably it is that firm friendship which is preventing South Africa from throwing its hat into the ring on the side of Ukraine in the current unhappy spat that is already claiming lives. Really it is a dispute in which we should have no part to play. Not only is this a political observation but if you have seen the amusing video clip of some of our overweight troopies failing to get aboard the transport, it is also a strategic one. We must among few nations where XXXXX…L is a standard size in the quartermaster’s stores.

The Bosasa leg to the corruption story broke only later on in the Zondo Commission deliberations and yet reportedly fills the whole of volume 3 of the report. Now that Judge Zondo has been overlooked for the Constitutional Court, it seems that Volume 4 is now on the way too.

When it comes to admitting to the naughty stuff, SA is champion. And probably incorrigible and unstoppable. Just scratch the surface of a civil service thief and the flow never stops. What an unutterable mess.

Even though retired I don’t have enough time to follow all the sports that now stream across my smart phone screen. Supersport can deliver almost every soccer and rugby and cricket league you can imagine and then in Women flavour! Motorsport comes in a huge variety of power trains  and bicycles in many shapes and types of wheel. All of which can be seasoned with the politics du jour for omissions and exclusions. Whew. Not to mention tennis and golf and the Boat Race. And Vice-Presidential Surgery. Among the more prominent sponsors of the particularly costly and risk-rich “sports” are the so-called energy drinks. Do they enjoy an exceptional profit margin?  Interesting.

James Greener

Friday 4^th March 2022

 

THE NATIONAL BUDGET. AN EXERCISE IN FAITH, PLENTY HOPE, ZERO CHARITY

 

In the days when the minister got one of his underlings to carry a small potted aloe to his budget speech, there was something different from the previous year to look at and wonder about during the speech. You could wonder if it was the same plant as last year. These days the aloe has gone, and the overwhelming feeling is “same old, same old”. There is so little wiggle room on both the revenue and expenditure sides of the SA government’s budget that it is getting tedious. Little tweaks here and there nothing revolutionary or exciting to try and get this nation going again and crucially decrease the government’s share of the pie.

One welcome aspect of the keeping things as they were is National Treasury’s publication of all the figures just as soon as Minister  Enoch Godongwana. begins his speech. All the usual documents in all the usual layouts are so useful.

Amongst the documents one will find is a useful two-pager focussed mainly on the revenue side and detailing all the changes to the way they have found to make the pips squeaks. The document is almost identical in format from one year to the next and provides a useful reference. It’s called the Tax Pocket Guide and while no longer printed like that it will, with coaxing, fit in a pocket and provide a source with which to bore small children and terrify taxpayers.

As remarked already there is almost no room left for bold and clever displays of policy change and incremental tweaks. Optimism, however, is rampant. Minister Godongwana  thinks he should collect R1.72 trillion in the forthcoming tax year. This is 18% higher than ever collected by Treasury in a comparable period.  He does believe that he will be able to rein in cabinet to spending just R2.09trillion yielding a deficit of a mere R356 billion. This is a heroic call. It is two years since such a small deficit was recorded.

One detail which merits comment is that Home Affairs is one of the smallest spenders in the state at R9.7bn. This suggests that it costs a mere R200 per citizen per year to capture and keep our details and share them with us whenever we need a vault copy or what ever. That’s not bad really.

Higher Education minister Blade Nzimande is determined to be in the limelight. His department will complete planning work on the formation of two new universities for South Africa this year. A university of Science and Technology sounds grand but how a campus on crime detection and fighting fits an academic program, is unclear. Blade is really excited and has all but written the course notes already. He has already declared the subjects to be Data Science, Machine-learning, Artificial intelligence, Blockchain and  Robotics. As well as his pet subject of Hydrogen-powered technologies. Now normally new university departments grow out of the enthusiasm and energy of existing staff members of a related discipline who set off down a new path where funding and their own interests take them This happened 40 years ago when writing programs for computers morphed into a whole discipline named Computer science. Simply painting the word Blockchain on the door doesn’t identify if it’s a real subject worthy of academic effort. It’s the other way round. Intriguingly Enoch’s second campus will be used to improve the quality of general and specialised South African Police Service investigations. A degree in gumshoeing. Well well!

The idea is to give every SA household 10 Gigabytes of free data. The nature of the beast is that depending on the users in the household this is either way more than required for letters to granny or a risible amount for a data miner. A market of unused allocation is bound to start up. One really does form the impression that that the decision makers mostly have no idea what this allocation is or involves but have been told this is a “good thing”.

James Greener

Friday 25^th February 2022

MEV. BALLS SE TUISGEMAAKTE BLATJANG[1]

Apparently, the Cuban government is a little short these days and have been round at Cyril’s place shaking the slotted tin. He has promised them R50million. With local provisional tax payments due at month end, this provides a perfect opportunity to see how popular this idea is with South Africans who are not President Frogboiler. Just ask taxpayers to make their payments directly to Cuba and keep a running total. We might all learn a great deal about socialism and solidarity. An extra dollop of irony accompanies this topic since much discussion is currently taking place in SA about the need for a Basic Income Grant. 

This is also the season when claims are made by young people who believe that the various models of how to provide free post school education are sustainable. This of course can not be true and disappointment and protest are imminent. It is all so sad because this grievous utter waste of human resources will in all likelihood just roll over year after year while talking heads and egregiously overpaid “elites” fail to provide leadership and reality.

The second volume of the Zondo Commission report has been released, and a weighty tome it is. Based on the squawking being posted on the internet, there are two classes of readers who are actually wading through it. The first are those who are mentioned in the report and their responses are mostly along the lines of “See! I told you I wasn’t doing anything wrong”. Umm. Perhaps not! The second group are the more diligent, curious and hopeful. They expect to find the information needed to put people behind bars.  Experience suggests however, that no one, especially President Cyril will do very much. As Tidemarks has long observed, he is a very disappointing national leader, seemingly too timid and compromised himself, to dare offer any goose more than a mild and conditional booing.

Tidemarks has never been to anything as grand as an Expo so my reaction to my nation’s exhibit at something called Expo 2020 Dubai is probably churlish. But pictures that have been published do suggest a display which is not much more than the back wall of a particularly well stocked Spaza Shop. It’s certainly wonderful to see how many grocery items we as a nation manufacture and how colourfully they are packaged. Exciting stuff and for everyone’s sake I do hope huge and ongoing orders have been written. To ensure true authenticity I hope that they arrange for a shoplifter to call at the exhibition stall regularly. The signs warning people not to touch are rather grubby and amateurish though. Maybe my disappointment arises from the fact that we do seem to be attending an event dated 2 years ago.

The BBC website sports pages are hosting fascinating, droll and quite lengthy articles which pretty much covers all one might want to know about the imminent Winter Olympics in Beijing. Two-man luge is an especially bizarre sport. Understandably the BBC pieces are a bit top heavy about the prospects of GB athletes, but particularly interesting snippets are that very little, if any, real snow will be used for the games. Odd that, you’d think there should be plenty of the proper stuff now that climate change is so common.   Secondly, since the world has decided that Grade 8 biology is incapable of distinguishing between boys and girls, sporting codes have given up on deciding how to arrange equitable competition. The development is that more events for mixed teams are on the program. There is no one yet wise enough to separate the genders for single sex events so controversy is still inevitable. The USA team have been advised that it is not a good idea to discuss politics with the hosts. Indeed.  

There is something rather disturbing about watching rugby being played in weather conditions which mimic the surface of the sun. Money of course is the reason, but it is still unpleasant. What is fun however is watching the Bliztbokke rack up the silverware in the Sevens Tournaments. What’s that you say? Fiji and the All Blacks are in quarantine. Well shame.

James Greener

Friday 4^th February 2022

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[1] A  much loved and iconic local chutney. Created by Mrs Balls of Kingwilliamstown.

 

CHIEF IS AN AMERICAN WORD

Actions like banning the sale of booze and tobacco always seemed rather arbitrary and vindictive additions to the already severe act of imposing lockdown. Now that even that method for controlling the spread of a wholly airborne virus-like pathogen has been  exposed as useless, we should still be grateful to our decision makers for not falling prey to the panic and lunacy that took hold of the authorities in so many other English speaking nations. Compared to the endless juggling of regulations, traffic lights mack policies devoid of sense and other nonsense our DOH and its advisors were beacons of hope and intelligence. Or even just exercising benign neglect in the face of a lack of facts.   Have we discovered a language-based mass psychosis from which we on the southern tip are sort of immune? Should we be grateful that it’s difficult to come up with crazy ideas and plans to try and control people in Zula and Venda and even Afrikaans? And despite the heatwave washing across the nation, we are still playing rugby. Whew.

The Canadians are driving trucks. Lots of trucks, in the snow. The Kiwis are all sad because their PM showed her solidarity with her own silly rule and cancelled her wedding. The Aussies are just being aussies but now with batons and tear gas. And the Americans are finding ever older senior statesmen and women to do tasks than younger people really ought to be doing. Hillary for President?! Again? Oh, hell no!

Perhaps the high point in any local economist’s career is to be invited to sit on the bi-monthly Monetary Policy Committee of the South African Reserve Bank. Not only is the standard of biscuits higher than at most other government gatherings but a full 5-page glossy coffee-table ready document is published detailing all the factors and forecasts the committee considered in deciding whether to raise or lower the price of money in the country. Important and significant stuff! Just look at the names carved in the boardroom table! William Henry Clegg, a dynasty of de Kocks, a man named Tito and first lady Gill Marcus. Illustrious company indeed but trailing a very long history of being usually wrong. It is fiendishly difficult to forecast anything with accuracy and in the MPC’s case the decision and statements they make about what they see and think immediately impacts the response of every other talking head. Just as the “craze” on the school playground changes from tops to knives to yo-yos, the indicator of choice varies, this week’s meeting rightly was concerned with the GDP. As we all know too well our economy has been hammered by the lockdown and other steps taken to control the virus. And inflation is slowly climbing above the self- imposed upper limit 6%. Both of these numbers are unsatisfactory. But the problem is that the only tool the committee has, is the  repo rate, and the text book says push rates down to stimulate dormant economies. But raise them to control inflation! Oops. In the end they decided that 25 basis points up might work (it won’t) and if nothing else it will silence somewhat, the old codgers seeking more retirement income.

As usual the Minister of Finance Mr Enoch Godongwana has called on citizens for tips for what should be in his Budget Speech on 23^rd February. Well as always, its simple. Cut government expenditure and reduce taxes. Remove any and all barriers to employment. Get your cabinet out under a tree in Market Square (since you have managed to burn down parliament building) and tell them to come back in a week with a staff list cut in half. Anyone unable to write a 300 word essay that explains exactly why taxpayers need their services will be bulleted.

But peak crazy must surely be the English Premiership rugby club Exeter Chiefs who will drop its indigenous American-themed branding. The 2020 English and European champion club said its new branding would feature the Celtic Iron Age Dumnonii Tribe, which once inhabited Devon and Cornwall. "Times are changing and so are we – now is the time to move forward!" To the Iron Age!!!??  Have they even thought about this claim? Truly Dumnonii.

James Greener

Friday 28^th January 2022

THE ULTIMATE MONOPOLY. DRIVER’S LICENCES

 The entire cabinet must surely share the blame for the incredible ineptitude that decided that the nation needed only one machine to manufacture the laminated credit card sized driving licence. The design itself of the small pink card has attracted criticism since its inception. Some of us remember when due to some omission in the information shown the card, it was not treated as a valid ID for dealings even with state entities such as the Post Office. Usage, familiarity and a realistic risk assessment eventually ironed out these problems. But never once did anyone suggest that operating an entire nation’s key registration through just a single machine was insane. The implication that all citizens had the spare time necessary for first the retesting and then returning to collect the new card was disrespectful and stupid in the extreme. Mind you almost all mandatory regulatory transactions with government, require hours of fruitless waiting. Driver and vehicle licences should be issued immediately in a drive through facility. Like a vaccination centre.

It is really alarming when you hear that Minister Gwede Mantashe has  some kind of casting vote when it comes to making decisions about anything to do with Koeberg Nuclear Power Station. It’s also worrying when Peter Becker, the fellow representing civil society on the board of the National Nuclear Regulator is pictured happily wearing a t-shirt bearing the message #shutdownKoeberg. That’s makes clear his position toward any engineering program for prolonging the vital continuation to the nation’s power supply The ignorant and the uncompromising. What could go wrong?

It's not a new phenomenon. It’s just the latest case of baffling incompetence. How exactly do 160 firearms “go missing” from a police station. That’s a big number and even if they were all small hand guns, comprise a heavy and unwieldy load to be transferred from one place to another. The sort of load that that goes “bump” a lot and gets the station commander wondering just what is going on? So how much cash changed hands or moved through the bank accounts of the crooked cops? And no one knew anything. Now these weapons were being held because they had been recovered from the scene of a crime. And there’s a piece of legislation being trailed which requires all gun owners to hand over their weapons to the government so that ballistic tests can be performed to see if the guns might have been used in a crime. Presumably it would have had to be fired and the bullets recovered for such a test to be carried out. Owners are assured that their weapons will be returned just as soon as the tests are complete. Amazingly, however gun owners are deeply sceptical of this assurance and the current “disappearance” comforts no one. Pictures of the filing system at the national firearm registry suggest this will not be a one-day game. Pity it wasn’t stored in that top floor room in the Parliament building.

Nearly the end of January, and the school leaving exam results have at last been released. Understandably there will be scenes of jubilation and disappointment among the more than a quarter of a million young folk who battled all manner of odds, but particularly the unpredictable interpretations of virus science. Their teachers did a pretty good job too and already this year we have been treated to the usual guilt-inducing photograph of a crowd of youngsters seated at the feet of their docent in the shade of a tree. Unfortunately, the bureaucrats and politicians in charge of this particularly important government portfolio serve their clients particularly ill. It is misleading and cruel to label those pupils who may have achieved sufficient marks to apply for further education at a university, as having attained a Bachelor’s Pass. Sadly, the raw facts indicate that very few school leavers will ever be capped as baccalaureus of anything. The most extreme form of this over-inflation of educational achievement are those high schools who award “doctorates”.  Our post school training is in crisis and unfit for the needs of the nation and the youngsters, This year’s sample of idiocy is the near fanatical adoption of the principals of  POPI (Protection of Personal Information) by removing candidate’s names  from all published results.

African Soccer teams have evolved elaborate dance celebration rituals after a goal is scored. Reportedly the commentators at Afcon have taken to rating these rituals. Bafana Bafana unfortunately practiced their cart before the horse and are not there.

James Greener

Friday 21^st January 2022

OUT OF COMMISSION

The few people who have ploughed their way through the first part of the Zondo report in State Capture are so proud of their efforts that they are telling everyone and so the rest of us needn’t bother. But the fact that not a single steel door has yet slammed on a newly fitted orange jumpsuit tells us what we have all long known. Convicting politicians and their cronies for misusing public funds is nearly impossible. If nothing else, Justice Zondo whimsically separated those who were named in the investigation into three types. The “facilitators”: The “enablers or followers”: and The “resisters”. This seems like a great start. All that’s missing are the Guptas who, we are repeatedly told, will be extradited from Dubai just as soon as someone in that city finds the fax machine to which SAPS sent the extradition request form.  And let’s build a bigger court room. A dozen at a time should clean the place up by Christmas.

Many people have been extraordinarily and spectacularly successful in trading the so-called cryptocurrencies which, despite the enticing images of gleaming golden physical Bitcoins and other mythical tokens, simply don’t exist. In fact, part of their attraction, and some would say value, lies in this fact. Provided one can buy them cheap and sell them expensive (or in the last few months, in the reverse order) the intangibility of this “asset” class seems to concern no one. Limitlessly clever analysts churn out research that gravely refer to the “fundamentals” that support their view that these so-called “proof of work” entries in a base will grow in value. Forever. Now human nature just loves stories of great riches reaped and gory implosions suffered by punters playing in markets that they are too scared and/or ignorant to try themselves.  In fact, their ephemeral status is the very reason why they are attractive to speculators, investors and shysters alike. Last yea,r futures on crypto assets were launched and the overnight disappearance of “trusted and respected players and brokers” is giving the whole shebang a coating of sleaze and familiarity. The growing interest in “crypto” being shown by the tax collectors show that the promoters and users are right over their target.

There is an undeniable change taking place in almost everyone’s position on Covid. Whether callously deliberate or not we were at first all told to be very afraid. And to trust the science. Increasingly the layman has come to recognize that neither has turned out to be useful strategies. The official enthusiasm for trialling untested lockdown strategies and pharmaceuticals were very hard for many people to align with the two instructions. Also alarming has been the kneejerk censorship of all dissenting opinions, a move which has spawned innumerable alternative communication options. The motives of all the players in this horror movie are being questioned, as egregious profiteering comes to light. Almost without exception, private and public funds earmarked to cover and alleviate the medical, social and economic hardships caused by the pandemic have been plundered. Who exactly are the good guys?

This week it was reported that public servants who took sick leave since the outbreak of Covid have cost the fiscus R14bn. What ever this means, every citizen has experienced the delays caused by the state’s enthusiastic adoption of the risible “working from home” program.

Eskom began the year with a cheerful message to electricity users that they were operating a “Chatbot” to which they could easily report outages.” Further “The Chatbot will generate a reference number should you require to do a follow up.” Sadly, there is no information on what geographic location parameter the Chatbot will recognize. This is only the first of other warnings and indications already seen this year that our power supply could be sketchy in 2022.

And yet despite all this, there are two large South African managed teams in the Dakar Rally. Man, are there rocks in Saudi Arabia! And sand. Plenty plenty sand.  Although the victim of virus mania and unable to have a crowd at Newlands the Proteas have done good and once again asked the question why they are not invited to dine with the big three. Mind you some of those teams are dodgy sandpaper wielders, aren’t they?

James Greener

Friday 14^th January 2022