This is my first new post in over two years. There are many reasons for that, and I may get into that in a future post. Â As to why I’m restarting – a conversation with an old friend last night combined with a lunch discussion with an actuarial student a couple of weeks ago has…
Treasury has released a new draft of the “Twin Peaks” or “Financial Sector Regulation Bill“. Plenty to work through here, as with the Retail Distribution Review draft and more, but here is the link if you’re interested in working directly through the papers.
Brief personal note. I’m off to the Milliman Life Consultants Forum in the US this week. Looks like an amazing programme covering ORSAs, Solvency II vs EV reporting and many of their software tools. Great to have such a relevant programme to me and for us in South Africa. I’m writing a blog post on…
Pretty far from a normal topic for this blog, but at least it relates to money. Norway has new banknotes or at least they will be 2017. Standard on one side and abstract, competition winning pixelated art on the other. Feels appropriately Scandinavian to me.
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…
I read Nazir Alli’s opinion piece on BDLive this morning. Unsurprisingly, he talks up tolling as the best way to fund roads. Now, I don’t have as strong a view as some that etolls are Universally Bad. Frankly, I also feel that many people who complain about etolls are still complaining about having to pay. The…
Read the latest (14 March 2014) document from National Treasury on tax free savings vehicles for South Africa. I think it’s a fantastic idea – both from a policy perspective with carefully designed incentives to promote long-term savings and from a personal perspective. I’m definitely going to use one for my own savings. However, one…
Ok, only temporarily and the (almost) half that are banned change from day to day. A temporary increase in pollution levels has sparked the emergency measure. I’m fortunate enough to live close to where I work with the wonderful MyCiti bus available as a genuine alternative to get to work. Imagine a world where I…
