Posted inBusinessNews/Politics

Fracking and feminist concerns

We’ve all heard a lot over the past few weeks about the dangers of fracking for our pristine Karoo environment. Shell, the master of disaster when it comes to environmental damage, has requested the rights to explore the Karoo for natural gas. This is not the type of exploration where you shade your eyes with […]

Posted inBusiness

Africa in the aftermath of the recession

Many African scholars and politicians have repeatedly made the point that Africa remains behind other regions or continents as a result of the historical injustices it endured for centuries. Disturbingly, though, the injustices have taken a different form over the years, particularly by the so-called developed world. This is not to say that part of […]

Posted inBusinessNews/Politics

SA needs more entrepreneurs

In South Africa, the phrase “no quick fix” is often associated with the black box phenomena we accept when mulling unemployment — labour market inflexibility, competitiveness and regulatory reform are but a few. Small business development is another such a cure for unemployment for which there is — you guessed it — no quick fix. […]

Posted inBusiness

CPI being abused in price negotiations

By Kevin Phillips South Africans pay a lot of attention to the inflation rate: whether it’s up, down or stable, which direction it’s headed in and what it means for our wage and salary negotiations. But in some cases, the official inflation rate is being abused by large companies to squeeze their suppliers — putting […]

Posted inBusinessNews/Politics

Artists are entrepreneurs

There is great promise for the creative industries now that a platform has been created for the media, practitioners, public and government to discuss the role of the arts in the economy. Obviously, this is a long-overdue development but no one can deny that the national consultative conference on the role of the arts in […]

Posted inBusinessEnvironmentLifestyle

Powering madness

For a while now I’ve been trying to wrap my head around how recent events in Japan and the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are similar in some way; what’s the link between them? I’m not talking about some weird conspiracy theory, like the one linking the Japanese earthquake and subsequent tsunami […]

Posted inBusinessNews/Politics

Why a free news media is essential to economic prosperity

Musician Frank Zappa famously remarked that communism collapsed because people want stuff. That is an oversimplification, clearly, because a closer look at the history of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe shows that each country was different. Moreover, the desire for democracy rather than simply material well-being should also be considered. Yet there is […]