We’re doing something wrong in South Africa. India’s economy grew at 8.9 percent in the second quarter, an acceleration from the brisk growth rate posted for the previous three months.
Category archives: Emerging Markets
How our unemployment is not like that in the US
The US is in uproar. Their unemployment* rate is at 9.6% after having briefly flirted with 10.1% a year earlier. It’s predicted to stay around this level for years. The bulk of US unemployment is cyclical. Don’t let anyone tell you different (especially not in 1935). Cyclical unemployment arises when a shock (in this case, …
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No country (that matters) is moving to the gold standard
Don’t believe everything you read, everything you feel. Forget all the mad talk about moving to a new gold standard. It isn’t going to happen. It won’t happen even if the president of the World Bank suggests it might. Why not? Because it won’t work. It doesn’t solve our problems and creates innumerable other problems. …
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Nationalisation – two questions not one
Venezuela has just nationalised the local arm of a US bottling company. It shouldn’t be long before this example hits the political spehere in South Africa and enters our own debate on nationalisation. The debate really has (or needs to have) two quite distinct elements: Are nationally owned / publicly managed companies and industries better …
Rare monopolies
China is the overwhelmingly major supplier of rare earth minerals to the rest of the world. (South Africa has a tiny share.) Rare earth minerals (or elements) are critical factors of production of many high technology items such as super-conductors, catalysts, rare earth magnets and batteries of the kind used in hybrids and laptops. With …
Pretty as a picture
I haven’t yet found a WordPress plugin that creates really great word / tag clouds. I created this one from my post Clear, Simple and Wrong using Wordle. I think it sums up the post well.
The Power of Misconceptions
In broad terms, we are all mostly ignorant. Worse than ignorant, we have notions and views, firmly held, that are entirely incorrect. We only complain about what we don’t like Nobody complains to their boss that they are overpaid. Nobody complains that their pension or social security increases were above inflation last year. We don’t …
Outsiders views on SA through the lens of Walmart-Massmart
Always interesting to see analysis of our little world hit the big screen.