OUT TO LUNCH

___STEADY_PAYWALL___

I’m getting pretty used these days to the lefty keyboard warriors of social media labeling me alt-right, a white supremacist and (obviously) a racist whenever I express a view as to how the country could, in my opinion, be run rather better than it is at the moment. I’ve always considered myself a centrist and my core belief is that government should have as little involvement as possible in the economic life of a country other than to make it as easy as possible for capitalism to thrive.

Flawed as it is I have yet to find a system that works for the greater good than capitalism. One only needs to look at Venezuela and Zimbabwe to see the evils of corrupt socialism although the commie apologists still stubbornly insist that US imperialism and the greed for Venezuela’s oil reserves is the reason for that country’s disastrous slide into anarchy and criminality. An independent survey of urban Venezuelans put the blame on the US at 2% while most of the blame fell on Chavez and his successor Maduro.

A couple of weeks ago I was taken to task by one Brett Herron for comments I made on Twitter and labeled “a disgrace”. Mr Herron left the DA last year to join Patricia de Lille’s GOOD party and my impression of him has always been that of a hard working and dedicated politician.

What irked Mr Herron was a comment I put out that any future investors in SA need only be aware of three things. Firstly that there will probably be no electricity, secondly that any property they own may be seized at whim and thirdly that if they have a white skin they will only get slaughtered at a date yet to be determined. I based that last assumption on the bizarre finding by the SAHRC that Julius Malema’s threat to kill white people wasn’t hate speech because he hadn’t actually specified a date and so certain death wasn’t imminent.

My tweet seemed to have resonated with people other than Mr Herron because it received 100 replies, 347 retweets and 663 likes. This doesn’t suggest that all those people agreed with me but it does indicate a fair amount of interest in the topic.

Mr Herron responded on Twitter:

You’re a disgrace. What’s your intent? Scare off investors? Shatter fragile confidence in our country? Whip up ethnic divisions? Destroy our future? I prefer South Africans who bring solutions and hope.

I responded that, although I was very flattered at the power Mr Herron assumed I could wield over the international investing community, I did feel that credit should go where it was due and that the ANC was managing to do all of the above with absolutely no assistance from me.

The reality which has yet to dawn on Mr Herron and his ilk is that South Africa is in a terrible mess and it’s not entirely due to my hugely influential Tweets. For decades it appears that the country has been run by nothing more than a criminal organization posing as a liberation party.

The Zondo commission has revealed beyond any doubt that the majority of our senior ANC politicians have run the country for personal gain rather than for the benefit of the people. What makes it worse is the fact that those who have been stealing millions from us for years are laughing at us and will be back stealing even more after May 8th.

We were reminded last week by Ace Magashule that the only way somebody would be barred from becoming an MP would be if they had been sentenced for a crime which carried a one year prison sentence without the option of a fine. The ANC has that problem neatly sewn up. Nobble the prosecuting authority and nobble the legislature with constant delays and lost dockets and then nobody who should be accused of such a crime will ever find themselves anywhere near a court of law.

So who is really scaring off the investors? Having just experienced a week of stage 4 load shedding I can report that I have encountered many people who are at their wit’s end. People who have been sitting in darkened shops in shopping malls making no sales and wondering if they will still have jobs in a few month’s time.

I visited one shopping mall just as the power went out and found I couldn’t pay for my purchases because the credit card machine was unable to connect to the bank. That’s apparently because the base station batteries which act as back up hadn’t had time to recharge sufficiently between power outages. The ATM’s also weren’t working so customers were just deserting their purchases and leaving to get into the chaotic traffic caused by non functioning robots.

Pick n Pay and Woolworths were illuminated but the book shops were in darkness as were the travel agents, the restaurants, coffee bars and the small specialist shops. No trade was taking place but rent and salaries still need to be paid….for the time being. It can only be matter of time before many small business owners decide to throw in the towel because the stress and cost of staying in business will far outweigh any possible advantages.

In 38 years in South Africa I have never known so many despondent people preparing to emigrate. Many of them are those with young families who have taken note of the racial threats against white people and decided to try and find a safer place to live.

They sell their homes and their businesses, reluctantly make their workers redundant, move their funds offshore and cease to be tax payers or contributors to the economy. “Good riddance” say certain factions of the ANC and EFF without even considering the wider financial ramifications of a dwindling tax base.

Mr Herron is perfectly entitled to his views but I’m not sure that publicly shaming anyone who is openly critical of our corrupt and chaotic government would entice me to vote for the GOOD party.

If you enjoyed this article, and appreciate what Politicsweb does, please consider becoming a supporter here.