OUT TO LUNCH

It came as no surprise that our lefty media commentators expressed shock and horror at the news that Johann Rupert received a COVID vaccine in Switzerland last December. Personally, I can’t see the point of being a billionaire if it doesn’t come with a few perks such as flying your private jet into a country and getting a COVID jab ahead of the hoi-polloi.

In fact, I think it shows enormous bravery on Mr Rupert’s part to get vaccinated so early and set an example to other South Africans who may be having doubts about getting vaccinated. Although getting the vax in Switzerland is undoubtedly a good deal safer than getting whatever the ANC will eventually decide qualifies as a vaccine in South Africa. It’s also worth noting that Mr Rupert pays tax in Switzerland and that he generously donated R1billion to the Solidarity Fund at the beginning of the COVID outbreak.

Needless to say, despite all this, the lefty commentators grumbled about Rupert jumping the queue and went on to say how shocking it was that people who had money could also jump the queue leaving the most vulnerable to wait for ever for a vaccine.

What these lefties don’t seem to understand is that many of us pay a large amount every month to belong to a medical aid scheme. We do this because we know the state system is overloaded so, having already paid for the state system through our taxes, we gallantly remove ourselves from the system (thereby potentially shortening the queues) and pay all over again for a parallel medical system which we hope can deliver the goods.

This, as far as the lefties are concerned, gives us an unfair advantage which is why they are getting so excited about a proposed wealth tax.

A panel of experts has apparently come up with the idea that a net asset value of more than R3.82 million makes you disgustingly wealthy and deserving of a further tax on your already taxed wealth to help pay for the COVID vaccines.

Quite how the tax is to be applied is still being discussed but it seems as though a 3% rate rising to a 7% rate for top earners is favoured at the moment. The architects of this planned robbery claim that the wealthy will still be wealthy after the forced removal of some of their money.

The amount of R3.82 million converted to dollars, pounds or euros couldn’t even buy you a slum dwelling in any of their major cities. But beggar nations can’t be choosers which is why the trigger amount is presumably set at this level.

This is going to be particularly tough on pensioners many of whom have already seen their monthly incomes halve with the cutting of interest rates. So, for example, if you have a house valued at R3 million which you have finally paid off, a couple of eight year old cars which you have also paid off and you worked for forty years to build a retirement fund which would prevent you from having to rely on the state for handouts you are about to be punished for your financial planning.

If you have modest savings built up during your working life to support you during your retirement and an average sized home you could easily find yourself being forced to cough up R200 000 in extra tax.

Obviously the bulk of this punitive tax will fall on the most economically productive members of society which is all part of the ANC’s economic reset and their goal of equality of poverty. Many of those who are economically productive have just experienced a terrible trading year and those in the hospitality industry are dipping into dwindling reserves just to survive.

In other words, what is extracted through an iniquitous wealth tax is unlikely to be recouped for many years to come if at all. Naturally this doesn’t apply to politicians hence their enthusiasm for the idea.

Needless to say, if they hadn’t stolen billions a wealth tax would be unnecessary.

Any bets on whether this will be a one off tax?

***

Many years ago, when we still had something called a functioning postal system, I subscribed to a satirical magazine called Private Eye which arrived every fortnight from the UK. This may go some way in explaining my warped British sense of humour and the gulf of understanding that clearly exists between many of my critics and myself.

Having not grown up among the humourless and puritanical Calvinist traditions of South Africa but in the ‘everything is fair game for mockery’ Britain of the 1960’s my boundaries are rather less clearly defined with the result that I have become a walking time bomb of micro-aggressions.

Britain in the 1960’s was still shaking itself out of its post war torpor. But just as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were exploding onto the music scene so were shows like That Was The Week That Was, Beyond the Fringe and The Frost Report shaking up the world of entertainment by doing the unthinkable…. mocking the establishment. Peter Cook’s brilliant impersonation of Harold MacMillan in Beyond the Fringe was revolutionary at the time because nobody previously had the sheer audacity to impersonate a prime minister on stage.

Much of the material would be banned by the wokists now as being ‘problematic’ but at the time it was hilariously funny and still is to those of us warped enough to enjoy such things. Hidden away in a secret hidey-hole at home I have a DVD of the now banned TV programme ‘Til Death us do Part’ featuring the appallingly racist Alf Garnett. On moonless nights, with the windows ‘blacked out’ with brown paper as though for an air-raid, I invite like-minded individuals round to watch an episode or two of this hilarious comedy series.

Many of the shows I grew up watching have been banned now by the BBC for being racially ‘offensive’. Apparently I am supposed to carry a burden of guilt for the rest of my life because I may have found them funny at the time.

Can you believe that, on a Sunday night, we innocently sat down as a family to watch The Black and White Minstrel Show which ran for twenty years on BBC? The show was a musical variety show and featured white singers blacking their faces and singing songs from the ‘Deep South.’ I am convinced its creator, George Mitchell, is burning in hell as I write this.

Private Eye was also a child of the 60’s and has always been known for its hilarious covers. The cover of issue 124 which appeared in September 1966 after Hendrik Verwoerd’s assassination depicted four jubilant Zulu warriors leaping into the air together with the caption “Verwoerd….A Nation Mourns”.

One of the regular features in Private Eye over the past 50 years has been the ‘In Memoriam’ poem composed by the magazine’s resident in house poet, E J Thribb (age 17½) to celebrate the lives of the recently deceased.

This is his latest offering which he e.mailed to me last week.

So, farewell then
Jackson Mthembu.
They say you were one of the good guys.
Integrity, a hard worker
And always a smile on your face.
Yes. One of the good guys indeed.
In the ANC.
That must have been a bit lonely at times.
Keith’s Mum thinks they should have taken Carl, not you.
He is definitely not one of the good guys.

E J Thribb (age 67½)

****

Lockdown affects people in different ways. Some try and cope with the monotony by doing jigsaws while others spend their precious lockdown moments surfing the internet and looking for new conspiracy theories to believe in.

But Aadila Agjee came up with a brilliantly original idea to liven up her lockdown. She sent a complaint to the Advertising Regulatory Board about a Windhoek lager advert which belittled a slightly weedy man for asking for a lime slice with his beer.

A very butch bearded chap at the bar tells him that Windhoek is 100% pure beer and doesn’t need a lime slice in it. He also makes an offensive sign with his fingers suggesting that the weedy man is somewhat lacking in the trouser department; an obvious homophobic insult.

The weedy man has no choice but to agree or get his face smashed in next time he bumps into the butch bearded chap. This is exactly the sort of thing that perpetuates the patriarchy and toxic masculinity as Ms Agjee pointed out.

The Advertising Regulatory Authority ruled in favour of Ms Agjee who is an admitted attorney (apparently not a terribly busy one) better known for her animal activism according to a Google search.

Now Ms Agjee has empowered weedy beer drinkers like me who enjoy a dash of lime cordial with their nonalcoholic beer I hope she will go on to fight greater battles on behalf of the downtrodden.