The news that Gwede Mantashe will no longer head the government’s Jipsa programme is bad news for the skills revolution. In early 2006 the Deputy President launched, Asgisa – the government’s drive for higher economic growth. The skills shortage was seen as the biggest impediment (or binding constraint) to reaching the target of 6% annual […]
Business
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Beware the alchemists
Last night, I found a neatly printed-out and stapled copy of Beware the Alchemists, by Ludwig von Mises. It is surprisingly accessible. It takes an initially complex topic, encrusted with 100 years of Keynesian pollution and toxic government waste, and turns it into something simple and intuitive. I wish I had learned what I understand of interest rates and monetary policy, and what inflation really is, from this text.
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Food inflation: lessons from India
The current rise in food prices is very, very dangerous. Not because food will be more expensive, but because chances are the government will intervene to prevent this. The unions in South Africa have already called for a food price freeze. This merely serves to show that they didn’t bother paying attention in Economics 101. […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
What should be done to curb rising food prices in South Africa?
This week’s Talkback question on the Mail & Guardian Online: What should be done to curb rising food prices in South Africa?
Posted inBusiness
Bring on the Chinese
A few months ago, at the height of the Christmas shopping season, Oxfam encouraged us Britons to give “the gift of dung” to Africa. That’s right: dung. Apparently poor African farmers like nothing better at Christmas time than to receive a bucket of shit with which they can fertilise their crops. Oxfam called on British […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
I’m proud of our unions today
A few weeks ago, in my editorial on the Skills Portal newsletter, I complained about union calls for an additional public holiday. Leaders of union federations were writing letters to Thabo Mbeki and holding interviews with the media, all for one extra day’s holiday. With all the social challenges we face in our country, was […]
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle
BEE’s ‘married bachelors’ and a moral centre that cannot hold
Since the advent of black economic empowerment — an outward expression of the worship of money — the moral centre of the previously disadvantaged community does not hold. As a result, many families are falling apart. The new trend, it seems, is that many men now love money more than their wives. After all, when […]
Posted inBusiness, Media
The office, it’s a groovy kinda love
I hate closed doors. Secrets happen behind them, people are talked about and decisions are made for others. That, of course, is why you have to have them. But too many of them? Well, they just bring a place down, man. It’s, like, all to do with some kind of hippie philosophy of bad vibes […]
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle, Media
The anti-cactus fountain trap is here. Women rejoice
Most major corporates invest millions of rands on innovation or R&D departments. R&D is that activity in the corporate world in which a bunch of nerdy, humourless and generally clueless sourpuss-scientist types spend their days creating products that will only become useful in the year 3245 AD and/or have no commercial value whatsoever. There’s a […]
Posted inBusiness
Be aggressive, BEE aggressive
Submitted by Marius Redelinghuys As a white male in South Africa, I usually encounter raised eyebrows on both extremes of the racial divide when I articulate my support for BEE and AA, with Afrikaner white people labelling me a traitor and sell-out, and along with black people calling me a gatkruiper or arse-kisser. Regardless, I […]
Posted inBusiness, Media, News/Politics
In defence of colonialism
Prompted by the debate David Bullard tried — but probably failed — to stir (as I argued on my own blog), I wrote a short opinion on colonialism, which I reckon is worth posting separately.
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle
Which airline do you fly? (An informal survey)
I’ve been hearing a lot of trash talk around our nation’s local airlines lately, and while I think most of it is probably well-deserved, I’d like to hear your opinions. So let’s have us an informal poll. I’m going to list the airlines up for discussion, along with what I perceive as their pros and […]