Twenty Third Floor
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Florida is experiencing its very own fun and games with nuclear power station shutdown, blackouts and unhappy Dwarves and Princesses.  Ok, so apparently the Dwarves and Princesses were mostly unaffected.

Without wishing the hardship on  the Floridians, I’m pleased to hear the news in that it shows that systemic risk in electricity grids is a global operational risk and not limited to “our” South Africa. As a nation we seem very ready to blame ourselves. My time in Lebanon opened my eyes to the hassles of an irregular power supply. (Of course the Lebanese in typical fashion manage admirably in the face of these are larger hassles and inconveniences due to their nature.)

Having said that it is a global problem does not change the facts of very poor decisions and lack of foresight on behalf of Eskom management and our government. Mistakes were made. The clarity with which we see the mistakes now must be recognised at least partly as 20/20 hindsight.

Official inflation in Zimbabwe now stands at over 100,000%.  Jokes around Zim’s official stats aside, this isn’t even real hyperinflation by historical standards. Germany, in 1922, in the aftermath of Word War I and the Treaty of Versailles experienced inflation of over 200 billion percent.

Goes to show how short our memories are (as a society, not me specifically) and how far from ordinary economic conditions are possible. This example is only about current remarkable events being unremarkable by past standards. Let’s just wait to see what hte next record-breaking special scenario is.