In 2014, John Oliphant was fired from the Government Employees’ Pension Fund (GEPF) where he was principal executive officer. Â There were allegations, some details not disputed, that had Mr Oliphant accused of exceeding his powers and not following due process which amounted to, at the maximum, some hundreds of thousands of Rands. That outcome, with…
Aviva in France is still dealing with having written the worst insurance policy in the world. From the sounds of things, they weren’t alone in this foible. It’s also hard to say as an outsider what the right or reasonable resolution to their current problem is, but here is the policy that they wrote. Buy…
Jeffrey Robinson, the author of the well known book “Laundrymen” that I’m now reading, has written an engaging story about The Satoshi Faithful (as he calls them) supporters of Bitcoin and where their Faith is leading them stray. The book is called BitCon: The Naked Truth About Bitcoin and it doesn’t pull punches in deriding the…
The UK Telegraph (and other sources) are highlighting the rising panic about Euro area deflation. For those Austrian / hard money / gold standard / bitcoin / generally poorly informed amongst you, it’s not that deflation is itself a problem, but that it creates scenarios of debt spirals increasing the real value of debt obligations and…
S&P declares Argentina to be in default for the second time in 13 years and the third in 25. Inflation is likely to hit 40% this year and the Peso has already lost a quarter of its value this year, measured against the US Dollar. Messages? This time isn’t different, sovereign debt crises happen all…
South Africa has a pretty rich history of banking failures. This paper, part of a masters, by Sipho Makhubela, provides an interesting over of banking failures since 1994. I haven’t read the entire paper yet, but Section 4 (starting on page 72) outlines the background behind banking failures in South Africa and is fascinating reading…
Credit Suisse has for several years now put out an annual Credit Suisse Global Investment Returns Yearbook 2013 is out now. It’s worth reading in its entirety for the insights. I don’t agree with everything there, and I certainly don’t agree with the widely held view (not among the authors) that the universe of countries included…
The last month hasn’t been pretty for economic performance, credit or retail sales. Everyone from Richemont to Mr Price has taken a beating. Woolies is down about 13% in the last month. And now both Capitec and African Bank are reporting worse default experience (respectively through temporary strike-blips or through a cyclical downwards trend) and…
