In South Africa, the phrase “no quick fix” is often associated with the black box phenomena we accept when mulling unemployment — labour market inflexibility, competitiveness and regulatory reform are but a few. Small business development is another such a cure for unemployment for which there is — you guessed it — no quick fix….
As a university student, I often mistook cynicism for being smart. “I abhor enthusiasm”, I would say, puffing a cigarette while ogling the “sheep” around me sent hoop-jumping by the “pseudo-academics” at the “employment shelter” I called my university. Just as I learnt that smoking can seriously dent your health, I also discovered that such…
The governing party’s proposed media appeals tribunal will be a rare discussion point attracting some consensus at its National General Council (NGC) meeting in Durban this week. If it was thought that the tribunal was supported when it first emerged at Polokwane due to the media’s treatment of ANC President Jacob Zuma during his rape…
The Protection of Information Bill (POI) saga is probably more of a farce than a black comedy, but doesn’t it make that late nineties movie Wag the Dog spring to mind? Perhaps not because of similarities between its plot and the POI saga, but definitely as one considers the lame attempts of those championing the…
There are a host of factors affecting investment decisions that governments cannot control. Think of natural resource endowments, proximity to major markets, the climate or even inherited developmental legacies. With our global economy’s sustained dependence on oil and gas, surpluses of these commodities to export may still ensure countries certain advantages in attracting foreign direct…
This entry marks the first of my revived, renamed blog. Yes, future missives of mine will henceforth be fired off under the title, “Chequered Reality”. Because I am a pessimist? No. Because I believe that advocacy on economics is something best rooted in reality, rather than the insular vacuums that the policy wonks love to…
“So much for the Prague Spring”, mumbled the chattering classes a year ago today as they waddled off to cast their ballots and so help end all the post-Polokwane fun Mzansi was having. With this little memory sparking anticipation of reams and reams of one-year reviews of the Zuma government’s performance by every other hack…
It was late. I was tired and trying to find my way out of the city. It must have been Maas op ‘n Maandag (“Maas on a Monday” on RSG) on the radio, because it was Deon Maas (aka Witboy) who interrupted Wits sociologist Andries Bezuidenhout’s remarks on nationalism to try and interpret it for…
Had it not been for the 13-or-so million lives involved, one could almost feel sorry for Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe. It seems the old man has had it with foreign donors only getting off their wallets for NGOs active in his country, rather than having the cash mainlined fresh into Zimbabwe’s porous state coffers. Lest…
A flip through a KwaZulu-Natal newspaper the other day revealed former minister in the presidency Essop Pahad had been defending former president Thabo Mbeki’s legacy in front of a group of Durban students last week. Rather hard-pressed by, among other, a few combative researchers from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) Centre for Civil Society, Pahad…
