Browsing All posts tagged under »eonomics«

Banks, bonds & rip-offs

May 6, 2018

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If you owe a bank R50 000 and cannot repay on time, you have a problem. But if you owe a bank R1 billion and cannot pay, the bank has a problem. This, in monetary terms, sums up the relationship of rich and relatively poor. A sad example of this fact in practice relates to housing and forced sales.

A Budget by any other name would smell the same

February 23, 2017

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THE more things change, the more they stay the same. This applies not only to the latest South African Budget, but to almost all such economic policy statements as finance ministers continually repeat variations on the same failed remedies, apparently in the hope of different outcomes.

An alternative to more chaos and destruction?

December 17, 2012

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The promises and the policies, the personalities elected, even the potential political punch-ups at Mangaung are basically irrelevant. Only a radical move toward a new political dispensation could stop the social fabric of the country from continuing to fray and tear, causing further moves towards repression.

Marikana — and SA’s frayed social fabric

September 24, 2012

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The mayhem at Marikana cast the spotlight on the platinum sector and on mining in general. But until and unless all the issues raised by the Marikana moment — and which apply to the country as a whole — are comprehensively addressed, the social fabric of South Africa will continue to become dangerously frayed.