And the stakeholder war that is destroying the economy. From any point of view, it was a sad day to experience the recent power outages because of an Eskom wage dispute, and to witness angry workers trash Nelson Mandela Bay. Clearly not on the same scale, there is still some similarity between those actions and that of using women and children as shields in military conflict, or children as suicide bombers. Whoever the perpetrators are, they will vehemently defend the ends as

To the point of Incapacitating wealth creation itself. It’s a cliché, I know, but one can only imagine the positive change that is possible if South Africa, or any economy for that matter, switches focus from wealth distribution to wealth creation. No matter which way one looks at it, one cannot share what has not been created. Eventually all the intangible vapour that has been created through debt, financialisation and asset appreciation, will have to find some anchor in the

And get a better idea of company health than following the money. “Follow the money”, they say, “and you will get to the essence.” Do that with any company or business and you will confirm a self-evident truth: it comes from the customer. But here’s a more relevant proposition: follow the meaning! Do that and you are most likely going to arrive at the same point – the customer. Imagine, if you will, what an honest response would be if you asked any business leader: “what’s t

A big bird view of an economy and government budgets. Each time the fiscus engages in a major exercise like a medium term budget, or the annual budget itself, I am prompted to mix some metaphors involving turkeys and geese. They present a perfect picture of how the government, perhaps all of us, view the economy. Years ago, if you were called a turkey, it could mean anything from being as dumb as they come, to being rather silly. But that’s probably a generational thing, one