There are times when I’m impressed with elements of government and the ANC. It took them far too long, they allowed too much debate and uncertainty, but their ultimate conclusions on nationalisation and how to direct additional mineral wealth back into the fiscus, further develop a beneficiation industry around the mining industry are solid. I…
The Make a Million competition, as I’ve mentioned before, is an awful idea. It doesn’t promote investing or even “normal” trading, but rather massive, speculative risk-taking trading because the prize for performing well is nothing and the prize for performing best is significant. I’m continually disappointed that Moneyweb continues to partner with this distraction. As…
So you can now play at being in control of the EC. This game of monetary policy for the EU is relatively interesting and educational. Critically, and potentially most informatively of all, the game measures success by inflation being within target and low volatility alone. No mention of economic stability or unemployment. Very much like…
I don’t usually write about The Final Frontier, but this article has a great parallel to what I do write about. It’s worth reading the entire article, but the main message is that we cannot use the dream or story or fairy tale of imminent migration into space and other planets as an excuse not…
Listen I know John Paulson made an enormous amount of money betting against the housing markets in 2007. He made some excellent calls and made a tonne of cash. As Nassim Taleb would say though, that doesn’t necessarily mean he has skill or insight. He could just have been lucky. Most people lost money in…
I don’t think many serious investors care that S&P downgraded US debt. Bond yields are down (more on this in my next post), which means prices are up. US stocks are down, but that’s more about concerns about US and global economic prospects than the credit of the US government. Nevertheless, S&P did downgrade. Why?…
The Consumer Protection Act (CPA) protects consumers from abuse by enforcing fair practices, improved disclosure and added minimum warranties etc, It’s a good piece of legislation, even if at times some aspects of it may result in greater costs than benefits. TimesLive has a story about the alleged noncompliance of medical schemes with the CPA.…
Airports Company SA, “ACSA” now has some of the highest fees in the world. Apparently they need to fund the huge “investment expenditure” incurred in upgrading on our airports recently for the World Cup. This begs the questions: What business plans were used in determining investment on our airports? How did actual experience compare to…
