Putting events and indicators into fuller context. There’s been much talk lately about “changing the South African narrative” – helped along no doubt by our Springboks; the President’s remarks at the latest Investment summit and the R700bn investment pledges. But still, it will not be an easy task given the dismal facts and indicators about which Finance Minister Tito Mboweni did not mince his words in his Mid Term Budget Policy statement. The conversation certainly shifted w

The size of government is less important than the way it behaves. The at times cavalier behaviour of the United States under Donald Trump’s “America first” refrain, raises a number of issues that can have a significant impact on the global economy. The more obvious, and one that can affect South Africa’s foreign trade, is the global trade war he has unleashed. Barriers to foreign imports have already triggered the inevitable tit-for-tat response from America’s main trading pa

Our most divisive issue is also the most misunderstood and incoherent. As a young boy, I would often take long, lonely walks in the veld of the Free State Gold Fields: barefoot with hardened soles impervious to sharp pebbles and blades of dry grass; but still intuitively sensitive to the energy and magnetism of the virgin earth; the large promise of nature; flat and wide open spaces; of freedom and the mystery of what lay beyond the horizon. My fantasy would often expand to o