Blog – Page 2

Black economic empowerment (BEE), Black-owned businesses, Business incubation, Buying local, Central planning, Company tax, Cooperatives, Developmental state, Economic freedom, ECONOMIC GROWTH/ANTI-GROWTH FACTORS, Enterprise friendly environment, Enterprise regularities, Enterprise research, data and statistics, Entrepreneurial space, Export-led growth, Job creation and unemployment, Lockdown, National Gazelles Programme, Predictive capabilities, Preferential procurement, Small and medium enterprises (SMEs), Small, medium and micro-sized enterprises (SMMEs), Spontaneous order, State Owned Enterprises (SOEs)

Elastoplast for the knocked-out economy

Johannes Wessels
@johannesEOSA1

Just as a heavy punch on the side of a boxer’s head can disrupt his brain’s neurovascular coupling processes causing him to fall like a log, the lockdown blow had disrupted the intricate flow of funds in the economy. BankServAfrica’s figures for Black Friday confirmed consumers are still on the canvas: turnover declined by a whopping 52% and there was a 30% decline in the number of in-store card transactions.

The pockets of the majority of individuals and a substantial share of businesses now resemble those of the state-owned enterprises.

People are hesitant to spend with unemployment dramatically higher than before lockdown, due to the government turning off the income tap for most enterprises for at least 3 months, declaring them non-essential (in the case of the hospitality sector almost 8 months). The government has thus achieved not only the lengthening of the jobless queues but also driving the rest of the population closer to poverty.

It was a cruel knock-out blow by the government

The religion of the developmental saviour

The subconscious neurovascular coupling process ensures oxygen supply in nano-seconds through blood flow to the brain segments most active at that split second. A boxer can recover from a knock-out if there was no rupture of arteries and quick restoration of normal flow of blood in the brain. If not, there can be permanent brain damage, even death.

Our thought processes depend on continuous uninterrupted subconscious processes. Likewise, an economy depends on the continuous uninterrupted flow of funds that is totally unregulated in the sense that no entity controls or directs the trillions of individual transactions by billions of consumers (both individuals and enterprises) buying their daily requirements and selling their products and services, either worldwide, or at a lower scale in different countries.

The Bleak Friday data indicates the government’s lockdown punch caused chronically reduced demand.

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Central planning, Culture and development, Eastern Cape, ECONOMIC GROWTH/ANTI-GROWTH FACTORS, Job creation and unemployment, Lockdown, Township enterprises

The waves societies choose to ignore at their own peril: face masks are the new ‘Heil Hitler!’

Johannes Wessels
@johannesEOSA1

In the last months of the Year of Covid-19, the world experienced a massive resurgent wave. It wasn’t a wave of deaths by coronavirus, but a lockdown tsunami engulfing individual and civil liberties. The excess deaths caused by governments’ decisions to relegate non-Covid health issues to the realm of non-essential treatments, also became more visible for those who had eyes to see…

Another heaving wave – poverty due to the swelling unemployment and enterprise demise that the lockdown measures and the autocratic disruption of economic life brought about – also gained momentum. The impact thereof is certain to dwarf that of the virus itself.

If the worldwide death toll of 1.359 million attributed to Covid-19 is divided by the daily average global death toll of 158 085 (for 2019) and one fills the annual calendar according to deaths by cause, the feared pandemic with its vicious waves is closer to a ripple than a tsunami. EOSA developed a Cause of Death Calendar that shows:

Covid-19 related deaths scarcely exceed a week on the annual calendar, filling a mere 8 days, 14 hours and 30 minutes. (This includes all Covid-related deaths whilst several studies already found that pre-existing co-morbidities, and not Covid-19, accounted for the majority of these deaths. In fact, a UK study of 20 133 inpatients found that Covid-19 was the sole cause of death in less than 1 in 4 deaths Covid-related deaths).

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Buying local, Central planning, Developmental state, Economic freedom, ECONOMIC GROWTH/ANTI-GROWTH FACTORS, ECONOMIC POLICY AND STRATEGY, Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan, Export-led growth, Job creation and unemployment, Large enterprises, Market economy, Medium Term Budget Policy Statement, Northern Cape, Tourism & hospitality services

Ramaphosa’s bold plan (2): weak on detail, strong on flights of fancy

Johannes Wessels
@johannesEOSA1

Two recent key government speeches gave rise to two important questions:

Is the inability of the government to effectively implement its policies & plans (?) worse than its inability to table concrete action plans, underpinned by clear strategies, designs, milestones, budgets and target dates?
Why can even Thabo Mbeki see the president is naked whilst organised big business still praises the beauty of his imaginary clothes?

The president’s tabling of the Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan (ERRP) was lame and lacked detail, whilst the Minister of Finance’s Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) left one with a feeling there is not much grasp within the collective government on how to prevent SA from slipping rapidly, if not tumbling, down the slope.

Instead of rekindling confidence and inspiration, vague and mixed messages fuelled doubt and a disbelief that the government can prevent SA from boarding the proverbial bus to Argentina (debt default). I put the following three arguments to illustrate this assessment:

Will the government stand solidly behind Mboweni’s strategy of freezing public sector wages for three years when they cannot deal with the much easier route to stop financing the effectively bankrupt SAA? Recall also how Pravin Gordhan in 2018 (knowing well that Eskom was not only overstaffed, but the personnel besides overpaid) overruled the Eskom Board and management when they had decided on a zero salary increase as part of addressing the Eskom viability issue.
Can one rely (trust would be too much to ask) on the government’s undertaking to reign in public expenditure? This, when they had failed multiple times to table a comprehensive plan on how to deal with Eskom’s debt and the growing debt burdens of other State-owned Enterprises (SOEs).
How is the “growth through infrastructure roll-out” approach different from numerous previous attempts – since the days of Thabo Mbeki – to strengthen the country’s economic fibre by infrastructure investments announcements, with the emphasis on announcements?

Flipchart notes or a detailed plan?

The Enterprise Observatory of SA reckons four fundamental problems underpin the ERRP and the MTBPS:

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ECONOMIC GROWTH/ANTI-GROWTH FACTORS, Job creation and unemployment, Lockdown

The fight is really against the ‘lockdown virus’ – help PANDA

Businesses in South Africa are launching a fundraising campaign today, to crowd-fund R250 000 by 15 November. This fund aims to make South African-based advocacy group, Pandemic Data and Analytics (PANDA) the world-leading organisation against lockdowns.

The crowd-fund comes at a time when several European countries are reimposing lockdowns and in the same week as South African Minister of Health, Zweli Mkhize, mooted new restrictions locally.

Piet le Roux, co-ordinator of Business for Ending Lockdown, says “Lockdowns are proving to be contagious. Despite deaths due to Covid-19 being at least an order of magnitude below what was initially used to justify lockdowns, several governments around the world are now bringing them back. We need PANDA – as an interdisciplinary advocacy group – to counter this second wave of lockdowns now inflicted upon many countries and the increasing talk of a ‘new normal’. It has become evident that the return to sound health management and economic stability requires international co-ordination and there is no organisation better placed for this than PANDA.”

“With their own money and time, PANDA have become the number one advocacy and research organisation against lockdowns in South Africa. They took it to the next level in recent weeks, when they recruited top experts from Oxford, Harvard, Stanford and around the world. They are now the top team globally.”

“To kickstart their internationalisation, they need R250 000 by November 15. Naturally, this will not come close to going all the way for what needs to be done, but it will give them the foothold they need to turn the tide against lockdowns on an international level and in South Africa. It will cover initial operational, research, logistical and communications expenditure.”

The crowdfund is hosted by Business for Ending Lockdown, a group of prominent business organisations in South Africa. Business for Ending Lockdown’s demands include ending lockdown, lifting the state of disaster, and converting all regulations to voluntary recommendations. Its signatory organisations represent more than 50 000 businesses, with several thousand more having signed up individually. For more on Business for Ending Lockdown, or to donate, visit www.endlockdown.co.za.

More on this:

Anti-business, Black economic empowerment (BEE), Black-owned businesses, Buying local, Central planning, Economic freedom, ECONOMIC GROWTH/ANTI-GROWTH FACTORS, Entrepreneurial space, Job creation and unemployment, Lockdown, Market economy, Marxist-Leninist ideology, Opportunity tax, Preferential procurement, Township enterprises

Ramaphosa’s bold plan (1): Is ‘buying local’ BEE disguised by a face mask?

Johannes Wessels
@johannesEOSA1

If Ramaphosa’s bold plan to restart the economy was a film, the premiere already proved it’s not an ‘out-of-the-box’ blockbuster that will rake in Oscars for economic growth and sustainable job creation. Growth through state-led infrastructure development XXI is a lame sequel fit for an infamous Razzie award.

Like its predecessor – the lengthy National Development Plan – the Economic Reconstruction & Recovery Plan (ERRP) is a sure box office flop.

The ERRP announced by the president after lengthy consultation processes with big business and big labour states “Non-implementation of the ERRP could lead to loss of economic capacity, including collapse of the supply capacity, consumer and business confidence, the labour market and increased vulnerability of the poor. The overall plan aims to mitigate these risks”.

This script suggests its authors live in a make-believe reality: South Africans, whether tax payers or the growing number of unemployed, know consumer and business confidence and employment are not waiting for collapse through the non-implementation of a plan. It has collapsed already and was meticulously crafted by the very same government now purporting to be capable of getting the economy firing on all cylinders again.

There is a hidden sub-text as well: Covid 1 9 was the excuse to gain more arbitrary power and programs to recover from the lockdown devastation are aimed at cementing these arbitrary powers.

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Anti-business, Central planning, Company tax, Corruption, Crime against business, Culture and development, Economic freedom, ECONOMIC GROWTH/ANTI-GROWTH FACTORS, Enterprise friendly environment, Job creation and unemployment, Lockdown, Municipal efficiency, Municipal legislative compliance, Public service delivery, Small and medium enterprises (SMEs), State Capture

Is it right to pay tax when clean and safe hands are missing at the till?

Johannes Wessels (@johannesEOSA1)

SARS commissioner Edward Kieswetter’s biggest headache is not the gaping R300 billion crater in tax income this financial year or the growing Everest of assessed losses for companies that will impact negatively on CIT for years to come. His biggest problem is how to convince taxpayers to sustain a government that under the pretext of “a better life for all” has served up a toxic mix of corruption, wastage, mismanagement and anti-growth policies.

In addition, the very same government has doggedly pursued a lockdown strategy not underpinned by much logic that could yield any outcome other than a severe economic disaster with long term humanitarian effects. These effects include shortened lifespans, poverty related deaths, and deaths from medical conditions the government deemed non-essential. The toll of this inept strategy will in all likelihood dwarf the real Covid 19 death toll.

Lockdown has mowed down millions of jobs and several hundred thousand businesses. Those that survived have been severely crippled: they have a radically reduced income, have run up losses or have achieved less than half their previous taxable income.

One recalls the words of Saint Augustine, bishop of Hippo Regius in North Africa, whose theology and philosophy influenced ancient as well as modern thought: “Without justice, what are kingdoms but great bands of robbers?”