The only thing one can predict about the financial crisis presently engulfing Wall Street and spreading outwards is that it will make us all rich in retrospective wisdom. Indeed, I forecast that the wisdom of hindsight will be in inverse proportion to the decline in the Dow Jones index. For the moment, few have dared […]
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, News/Politics
Of Aids, economics, fortune-telling and black swans
As a director of BusinessMap, a research organisation, it was my task to brief foreign investors about the political and economic challenges they might face in investing in South Africa. A question they often asked was: “What economic impact will the HIV-Aids virus have?” At first I would answer that it was difficult if not […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics, Tech
More nukes on the way
What lingered in my mind after his speech on the nuclear future for South Africa was not Dr Rob Adams’ confident prediction that we would have another 10 Koebergs in the next 20 years. It was his assertion, in replying to a question from the audience in the Rhodes University lecture theatre on Tuesday, that […]
Posted inBusiness, Media, News/Politics
In memory of Deon Basson, a great forensic business journalist
South Africa lost one of its greatest investigative journalists and a fine thinker when Deon Basson died this week. What endeared him to me, aside from my admiration of his understanding of insurance companies and the determination that made him one of South Africa’s finest investigative business journalists, was a lack of obvious vanity. The […]
Posted inBusiness, Media, News/Politics
The joy of officespeak
Many writers decry office-speak such as “going forward” or “step up to the plate” as “useless” or “irritating”. Let’s celebrate it instead. There are many uses for office-speak, or biz-speak, or buzzwords. “Going forward” has especially come in for criticism as a kind of nervous tick in business speech, a filler phrase without any meaning […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Ten myths about inflation and interest rates
“Someone stop Tito, please,” implores a headline on a News24 column by struggle journalism old-timer Max du Preez. His angry column brims with common myths about the economy, interest rates and inflation. Let’s look at them one by one. Myth No 1: Higher interest rates cause higher inflation, including higher food and fuel prices. “I’ve […]
Posted inBusiness, Media
Yes, business news is boring
“Is it only me, or has economic news stagnated?” asks Arthur Goldstuck, my friend and colleague from the Weekly Mail days. No, Arthur, it’s not a new development. Business news is often boring. It has often been boring. And since it is often supply-driven rather than demand-driven, much of it is likely to continue to […]
Posted inBusiness
Is the rand’s decline overdone?
Is the rand overvalued in dollar terms? This graph, which compares the exchange rate for Australian dollars against the rand-dollar exchange rate, suggests that it is. The South African and Australian economies both depend on the exports of commodities, so it is not surprising that our currency and the Australian dollar have moved in tandem […]
Posted inBusiness
Coega and the Radiohead song
Every time I drive through the upgraded stretch of road around the turn-off to the Coega Industrial Development Zone (IDZ), just before Port Elizabeth, a song floats unbidden into my head. The Coega IDZ is a multibillion-rand industrial development complex covering 11 000ha, centred on a new deepwater port. Nude is the haunting song, from Radiohead’s […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Nationalise Eskom now!
When the government backed off from selling 30% of Eskom some years ago I was relieved. I knew that the wheel would turn, as it always does, and Eskom would change from being loved to being loathed, as it was in the early 1980s. It emerged a stronger organisation from that time of intense animosity. […]
Posted inBusiness
Fronting = BEE?
The Daily Dispatch, a daily newspaper based in East London, has been running articles about allegations of companies “fronting” to get government contracts. By “fronting”, what is generally meant is falsely claiming to be a majority black-owned company, having black economic empowerment ownership in your company, or having black staff occupying top management positions. This […]