I approach writing that finds news media fallen from grace into the gutter with deep suspicion. There never was a golden age of journalism, and each generation feels its problems to be unique. A new book by UK journalist and documentary-maker Nick Davies about the defects of global news media has some of this, to […]
Reg Rumney
A journalist for more than two decades, Reg Rumney has just returned from Grahamstown to Johannesburg after spending more than seven years at Rhodes University, teaching economics journalism.
He is keenly interested in the role of business in society, and he founded the Mail & Guardian Investing in the Future Awards in 1990 to celebrate excellence in South African corporate social responsibility.
Most recently, as executive director of BusinessMap, he was responsible for producing reports on foreign investment, black economic empowerment and privatisation, and carried out research work in Africa on issues related to the investment climate. He writes on, amon other things, foreign investment and BEE, focusing on equity transactions.
Posted inBusiness
Keep it real
As Louis Gossett Jr advises in the Windhoek ads, “Keep it real”. When it comes to interest rates and alcohol, real is better. So forget about inflation-targeting. Let’s have a new target: a positive real interest rate of say 3%. What this simply means is that if inflation is 14% then the Reserve Bank’s influential […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Big man, big cabinet
Is the enlarged South African cabinet, announced by President Jacob Zuma, too big? Perhaps, but not much more than many countries. If South Africa is suffering from cabinet minister inflation, so is the rest of the world. A glance at the number of cabinet ministers in a range of countries, some in the developed world, […]
Posted inBusiness
How not to report on economic matters
An article that damns South Africa as the riskiest of emerging market economies is a good example of how not to write about economics for a popular journal. The Economist article, titled Domino Theory, published on February 26, used several indicators to compile a ranking according to risk. These seemed mainly to be taken from […]
Posted inBusiness
No sympathy for estate agents
Fin24.com recently ran a story on its website that South Africa’s property industry has already lost 55 000 registered estate agents out of 90 000 as a result of the weaker housing market. As interesting as the story were the comments left on the web page by readers: Stan About time, with their exorbitant commission at 7% […]
Posted inBusiness
How bad is the global economic crisis?
Headlines from the Financial Times, February 21: Markets tumble amid fears over banks Investors flee to gold and government bonds 19 000 Anglo American jobs to go Saab files for bankruptcy protection Eurozone lurches deeper into recession Other headlines Soros sees no bottom for world financial “collapse” — Reuters Roubini says crisis end distant — […]
Posted inBusiness
The Budget with the benefit of hindsight
Looking back at the Budget presented just over a week ago, I find the tax proposals present the most surprising twist. Finance Minister Trevor Manuel announced a R13,6-billion adjustment to personal income tax to account for the effects of inflation and then took back a big chunk of that with increases in the fuel levy […]
Posted inBusiness
The crisis: get a grip
A phrase that seems to be cropping up lately is, “It may not technically be a recession, but it doesn’t matter whether it is or not, it feels like one”. Well, recession for me means an actual contraction in the economy as a whole. We are either in it or not. What worries me is […]
Posted inBusiness, Media
A refreshing take on business success
As an antidote to the pessimism infusing the business news as the global financial crisis plays itself out, I can recommend a gem of a book published last year by the former president of the Coca Cola Company, Donald Keough. The book is The Ten Commandments for Business Failure and two of those commandments are […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
How credible is the cut?
For those prepared to listen, it was a mini-lecture on monetary policy. And more entertaining than lectures on monetary policy tend to be. The occasion was the press conference the Reserve Bank governor gives to explain the reasons for decisions of the committee that decides on interest rate policy. Tito Mboweni was explaining on Thursday, […]
Posted inBusiness
In business as in life, failure is everywhere
One of the worst things we have inherited form our British colonisers is our attitude to business failure. The man who was in my lifetime the doyenne of business journalism was Harold Fridjohn, who decided quite late in life to switch from writing about business to doing it. He became a stockbroker, and after a […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Is the end of the equity cult nigh?
A deep and cold current of fear running through the markets right now is something market commentators will avoid speaking about openly. I’m not referring to the credit crisis and widespread recession. That is worrying enough. I’m talking about the meltdown of stock markets themselves. Markets rise and markets fall, and then rise again. The […]