OUT TO LUNCH

Who wouldn’t want some economic freedom? This thought went through my mind last Friday as the ANC Youth League led a march to the JSE to present their demands. You have to love this word ‘demands’ because it strongly suggests that the onus is on the recipient of the demand to make sure something happens…and pretty damn soon.

To substitute words like requests, suggestions or submissions would put undue pressure on the ANC Youth League to come up with some input of their own but, since they appear to be devoid of any intelligence when it comes to financial matters, that would be what is known in the woke world as ‘othering’.

My idea of economic freedom almost certainly differs from the ANC Youth League in that I am not asking for free handouts. What I would like from economic freedom is the freedom to not have to pay provisional tax twice a year with a top up a month later after the final assessment. ___STEADY_PAYWALL___

The freedom not to have to file a tax return every year which is a massive chore and the freedom to spend my money how and where I like without some nosy tax official asking questions. Of late I have had to justify any inward payments from offshore accounts just in case I am involved in money laundering.

Considering the antics of some of our leading political figures I find this particularly insulting, particularly since the amounts involved could be stuffed into a small cushion as opposed to an entire sofa.

According to press reports the ANC’s Gauteng convenor Ntsako Mogobe threatened that the ANC Youth League will “intensify their action if their demands are not met”. This all sounds rather sinister and I would advise the JSE to double their stock of fire extinguishers as a precaution. As the well remunerated at tax-payers expense Mr Mogobe said:

“We are going to intensify on everything. Capital and those in the private sector are very arrogant and they forget that we are the consumers of whatever they are delivering. And as they continue to be arrogant we’ll continue to disrupt their status quo and ensure that young people continue to show their anger and frustration towards them.”

Did you ever read a bigger load of rubbish? As one or two commented on Twitter (aka X) this is pure white race-baiting. That bit about capital and those in the private sector being arrogant demonstrates a lamentable inferiority complex and the bit about them forgetting that they are also consumers is laughable.

Firstly, if you feel in any way uncomfortable about buying stuff from these ‘arrogant’ private sector (code words for white owned and managed) companies then feel free to source your goods elsewhere. Secondly, if it’s job creation you’re concerned about why do you think any company would rush to employ someone who wishes to disrupt the status quo and show their anger and frustration towards them?

The march last Friday was from Luthuli House in the Johannesburg CBD to the JSE in Sandton and, as I commented on Twitter, if as much energy could be put into cerebral activity as is put into pure foot slogging then our unemployment levels might be much lower.

The ANC Youth League march was really a copycat demonstration of the COSATU march a week earlier which also swooped on the hapless JSE to demand an urgent solution to the cost-of-living crisis amongst other things. Back in the days when I was in the financial markets the JSE was capably run under the stewardship of Russell Loubser and was the organisation that regulated South Africa’s stock markets and attempted (mostly successfully) to ensure fair play.

I am a bit out of touch with modern trends these days but it seems as though the JSE now has the power to create jobs in the private sector for unqualified people, to reduce the cost of living, to stop retrenchments and to dispense magic money tree seeds to all and sundry.

The sad thing about both of these recent marches is that those who were persuaded to attend, either by COSATU or by the ANC Youth League have been cruelly deceived into believing that things will get better if only they set out for a long walk on a sunny day in Joburg to go and give a strict dressing down to the ‘whiteys’ who are manipulating the entire economy in their own interests.

Manipulating the economy incidentally in a country that has been run by a democratically elected government which represents more than 80% of a particular demographic in this country for over thirty years. If the gullible marchers who were happily dancing and singing freedom songs along the way even considered that point for a few minutes would they not have realised that they were being exploited for devious political reasons?

Our unemployment rates in this country are obscene and the prospect of continued rises in the level of youth unemployment should scare the hell out of us all. But the reasons are very easy to understand. Firstly, our education system fails to prepare anyone for a job. If you can’t even read for meaning and can barely write your name then you aren’t much use in the workplace.

Secondly, the apparent loathing for the capitalist system which is dubbed ‘white monopoly capital’ in this country thanks to Bell Pottinger makes it very difficult for many South Africans to understand that, unless they have a skill or a service to sell, then they will remain unemployable.

It’s all very well to demand jobs and no retrenchments but when that dreadful, white owned company runs out of money or goes out of business because of strike action or sabotage then there’s not much you can do about it.

Thirdly, you would be living in financial LaLa Land if you really believe that financial institutions hand out money without checking whether they have a sporting chance of getting it back. After all, your loan account is my deposit account, and the bank knows I would be very unhappy to lose it. So all this jibber-jabber about how capital isn’t available for black start-ups is nonsense. If the business looks promising, then the loans will be forthcoming.

This is why it’s also pointless to march on the JSE thinking they have a vault full of money just waiting to be handed out to anyone who wants to start a new company (after they’ve first bought a BMW obviously).

What we are experiencing in South Africa currently is nothing new. Back in the 1980’s the UK economy was in similarly poor shape having been decimated by a socialist government, the trade unions and other anti-capitalist organisations who were long on demands and short on ideas.

Thankfully the incoming prime minister Margaret Thatcher sorted the problem out and introduced a period of unprecedented prosperity for anybody who was prepared to put in a decent day’s work. We urgently need a Margaret Thatcher in South Africa.

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Someone suggested I should do a podcast recently. I think they meant it as a compliment because I am perceived as outspoken and edgy. I can’t think of anything worse. If you produce a regular podcast you make a rod for your own back and have to come up with something fresh every day. It’s bad enough being a weekly columnist but every day….no thanks.

But the other problem with coming up with a podcast is that the market is already saturated. Every aspiring chat show host, shock jock and social commentator has now invested in sound equipment and set up a boom microphone in their spare bedroom to broadcast their meandering thoughts to the rest of the world.

Others have graduated to video. Some still quite haven’t got the hang of it with the laptop angled at such a position that you get a fine view of their nostrils. Some haven’t bothered too much about the background so you get a podcast video with a view of the family garage and a wandering dog behind.

But the real problem is that most of these folks haven’t heard about editing. In the good old days of journalism, before all the cost cutting, there were people who would read your copy and chuck it back at you if it didn’t pass muster. If you rambled on, missed the point or got completely off topic there was somebody there to save your skin and prevent your drivel from ever seeing the light of day.

This is something sadly missing with podcasts where the podcaster loses all track of time and drones on for ages with his/her ‘studio guest’, convinced that they are being hugely entertaining. The Daily Friend used to produce a podcast by two of the IRR’s full-time employees called ‘2 Crickets in a Thorn Tree’ which probably holds the local record for verbosity. The podcast entitled ‘What is Journalism’ broadcast last January managed to drag on for 2 hours and 37 minutes.