Thought Leader

Last week’s post explained how to interpret economic indicators using gross domestic product as an example. This week, we’ll examine consumer confidence measures. Who are the biggest spenders in South Africa? Want to guess government? You’d be wrong. How about business? Wrong again. The correct answer is us. It’s not even close. South African household…

Last week’s post introduced the concept of economic indicators and why you should pay attention to them. This week’s post explains how to actually use them. As a general rule, with most indicators, you must look for four things: movement, magnitude, trends and context. Each of these tells you something interesting, but you only get…

As the bank with “green answers” – according to their marketing campaign – I have a few questions for Nedbank. Nedbank has put a lot of effort into creating the impression of being a ‘green’ bank. They have an entire website devoted to the environment, and a range of account options with a green ‘flavour’….

Last week I told you what this blog is about: economic indicators. This week, we’ll actual dive into what they are and why they matter. But before doing so, I want to take a step back and say a few words about the way South Africa’s economy actually works. There are two things I can…

By Roger Diamond The news is oozing with opinions on the Eurozone crisis, debt defaults, bailouts and why eating baklava is about to be banned. Although there is plenty of merit in getting stuck into the details of easing the pain of recession and finding short term solutions to employment, liquidity and keeping the monetary…

I write a weekly economics preview for the Mail & Guardian Online. Every Monday morning, before South Africa’s markets open, I preview the noteworthy economic events and data releases likely to generate headlines and move markets in the week ahead. The economic events that I cover vary significantly from one week to the next. One…

Sandton City is a madhouse. The reports are disturbing: gaggling crowds of teens everywhere, shops heaving with bodies, zombies wandering from store to store, gift lists clutched in clammy hands. Some of my hollow-eyed acquaintances report that they didn’t even make it beyond the parking lot. Christmas is coming, and apparently South Africans are shopping…

The leading tagline of the Occupy Wall Street movement reads: “Protest for world revolution.” This is an ambitious claim. In most respects it seems to ring quite true: the movement has successfully taken root not only in cities and towns throughout the United States but also in major urban centres around the world. On October…

December is almost upon us and Christmas is less than a month away. Already the malls are heaving with hollow-eyed wrecks ticking off mental lists of people on their Christmas gift lists (some of them fantasising, no doubt, about bombing a place that approximates Dante’s fourth circle of hell). Ernst & Young is predicting a…

Julius Malema has been toppled by vaginas and sexist T-shirts. Who would have thought that the posts that attract the most reads should be about plastic surgery for fannies (over 5 000, a record for me) and T-shirts bearing legends like “You looked better … from behind”. Admittedly, a lot of the comments would indicate that…