Heads of state recently gathered in New York to sign the UN’s new sustainable development goals (SDGs). The main objective is to eradicate poverty by 2030. Beyoncé, One Direction and Malala are on board. It’s set to be a monumental international celebration. Given all the fanfare, one might think the SDGs are about to offer […]
Business
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Brics in crisis and new middle classes will bear the greatest costs
By Jan Hofmeyr These are trying times for Brazil and South Africa, the southern members of the Brics grouping of emerging nations that also include China, Russia and India. After years of robust growth their economies are in the doldrums, and their governments lack latitude in the options to revive them. It is not only […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Corporate leaders destroyed by their own greed
It’s been a bad run for caring capitalism. An unvarnished display this week was the monstrous rapaciousness unleashed when captains of industry lack any sense of social responsibility or personal morality. First there was business boy wonder Martin Shkreli’s inadvertent self-immolation, metaphorically speaking. Then there was the slow motion crash of Volkswagen, the world’s second […]
Posted inBusiness, Equality, Media, News/Politics
SA’s ‘trade union corset’: A response to William Saunderson-Meyer
By Darcy du Toit I read William Saunderson-Meyer’s blog “Time to ease the trade union corset that confines SA” with a jaundiced eye. I am quoted as “warning”, at the International Society for Labour and Social Security Law congress in Cape Town last week, “that while the basic principles of labour law remain unaltered, the […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Time to ease the trade union corset that confines SA
Despite the excitement generated among the British hard left by the election of Jeremy Corbyn to lead the Labour Party, trade union influence has over the past two decades been on the wane throughout most of the Western world. And as in most of the developing world, it has not fared at all well in […]
Posted inBusiness, Equality, News/Politics
Why the new sustainable development goals won’t make the world a better place
The world’s governments are preparing to finalise the sustainable development goals at the United Nations this month. It is set to be a major international event, and the goals will be ushered in with tremendous fanfare. They are widely regarded as a historic step toward building a better world, and toward eradicating poverty and hunger […]
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How long can the ANC keep winning elections?
The discussion documents that have recently been released by the ANC in preparation for its national general council in October reveal renewed intention to have a serious discussion and reflection on a number of key issues, which if unresolved, can accelerate the demise of the organisation. In reality the fundamental question is about what is […]
Posted inBusiness, General, Media, News/Politics
Scotland 5. Donald Trump 0. What price America?
Author and humourist PG Wodehouse once wrote that “it is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine”. He was absolutely right when it came to American presidential hopeful and property mogul Donald Trump’s attempts to insinuate himself into the Scottish culture with his £750 million (R15.9 billion) golf estate […]
Posted inBusiness, Environment, General, Health, Lifestyle
Give your car a hug
So here we are, little more than a century later, and the car is as welcome in every home as the chamber pot was before inside toilets arrived. It wasn’t always so, though. When the first adventurers took to the roads in steam and electric and clockwork and petrol-engined cars in the 1890s only the […]
Posted inBusiness, Equality, News/Politics
Let’s call a spade a spade, the EFF is marching towards a socialist dictatorship
It was an ordinary February morning in 1989, for most in Berlin, but not for 21-year-old East German Chris Gueffroy. It would be his last day alive. The cold metal force from a border guard’s gun would rip through his jacket and shirt and pierce his heart — pouring deep red warm hope out onto […]
Posted inBusiness
Where should the rand be?
For those who see conspiracy in the steep plunge in the value of the rand against the US dollar, the graph below showing the decline of the Australian dollar can only mean a similar conspiracy against the Australian currency. If you don’t believe in conspiracies — which is not the same as acknowledging that traders […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
The poor economy is not all Zuma’s fault
Some lessons I have learned from reporting on economic crises: * Don’t fixate on any one cause. Economies are complex webs of interrelated phenomena. Interest-rate changes are not the whim of the central bank, ie the Reserve Bank. They depend on a range of other economic actors, including our government and other economies in the […]