Category: Expropriation without compensation

Anti-business, Central planning, Company tax, Competitiveness, Credit risk ratings, Crime against business, Developmental state, Economic freedom, ECONOMIC GROWTH/ANTI-GROWTH FACTORS, Emigration/Immigration, Enterprise friendly environment, Enterprise profitability, Expropriation without compensation, Investment/Divestment, Job creation and unemployment, Land ownership, Productive knowledge, Property rights, White monopoly capital theory

Ramaphorian air spray no longer conceals the stench of a decaying economy

Johannes Wessels
@johannesEOSA1

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s commitment to revitalise the economy reminds one almost of president Zuma’s commitment to combat corruption: spraying air freshener to divert attention from a rotting carcass.

Read instructions on the can for effective application…

The person who promised in his New Dawn manifesto a growth rate of 3% in 2018 through “an unrelenting focus on economic growth” has delivered after 18 months a growth rate of 1.3% in 2018 and negative growth up to date for 2019. Some people would say low growth is still growth, however economic growth below the population growth rate impoverishes the population.

He presides over an economy in worse shape than when he assumed power: one characterised by:

Continue reading “Ramaphorian air spray no longer conceals the stench of a decaying economy” →
Company tax, Competitiveness, ECONOMIC GROWTH/ANTI-GROWTH FACTORS, Enterprise friendly environment, Enterprise profitability, Expropriation without compensation, Financial services, Large enterprises, Medium sized enterprises, Small and medium enterprises (SMEs)

SA enterprise sector critically ill

Johannes Wessels

@johannesEOSA1

The formal South African Enterprise Sector is critically ill. Were the company tax returns of the 768 000 companies combined and submitted as that of a single entity (say SA Amalgamated (Pty) Ltd) there would not have been any Company Income Tax (CIT) payable to SARS for three consecutive tax years.

SARS data on Company Income Tax (CIT) confirms the private sector is in a dismal state. In the tax years 2014 – 2016 assessed joint losses of all companies surpassed joint taxable income by R445 billion.

SARS data on CIT from 2007 to 2016 on assessed CIT returns bring the following to the fore (see Figure 1 below):

Continue reading “SA enterprise sector critically ill” →
Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (ASGISA), Black economic empowerment (BEE), ECONOMIC GROWTH/ANTI-GROWTH FACTORS, Emigration/Immigration, Expropriation without compensation, Marxist-Leninist ideology, Productive knowledge, Public service delivery, State Owned Enterprises (SOEs)

Ten wasted years: Preferring “Dumbing Down” to “Productive Knowledge”

Johannes Wessels

@johannesEOSA1

TEN WASTED YEARS…  Tito Mboweni’s colloquium “to think outside the box about economic growth” is akin to closing the stable door after the racehorse had not only bolted, but already won a race elsewhere. Scavenging in the ANC dustbin of rejected advice, Mboweni picked Harvard economist Ricardo Hausmann as advisor, knowing well Hausmann’s advice on productive knowledge had been flatly ignored by the ANC Government since 2008.

Hausmann considers productive knowledge as the key factor that separates successful countries from unsuccessful ones. A lack of productive knowledge therefore retards economic growth and development.

From 1990 to 2003 South Africa lost 7% of its professionally qualified people, predominantly high-skilled whites.  After some stability that came during the high growth Mbeki-Manuel years the exodus was re-triggered by the growing ineptitude of an administration that radically transformed departments and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) into little more than facades.

The police service, SAA, Transnet, the NPA and municipalities are some examples where cadre deployment trumped productive knowledge. The result:

  • At township level, the disgruntled resorted to service protests.
  • At professional level, they packed their bags and headed to the emigration counter with highly skilled blacks now outnumbering their white counterparts, bound in solidarity by a deep non-racial gatvolheid in the slide into corruption, lawlessness, dismal public services and the undermining of property rights. 
  • At investor level, South African businessmen have emigrated through FDI:  fixed investment by South Africans abroad exceed fixed investments lured to our shores.
  •  

Make BEE growth compatible

Continue reading “Ten wasted years: Preferring “Dumbing Down” to “Productive Knowledge”” →

Corruption, ECONOMIC GROWTH/ANTI-GROWTH FACTORS, Expropriation without compensation

Pres Ramabosasa: has Duduzane’s father made way for Andile’s father?

Pres Cyril Ramabosasa’s written statement to the Speaker that he was not aware of a R500 000 donation by a company with large contracts with government to finance his acrimonious campaign for the leadership of the ANC, confirms he is a person with not the faintest interest in detail and quite satisfied to accept that it is “twelve o’clock and all’s well…”

It is the third time in a year that he denied any knowledge of wrongdoing at the time of the events and for a very long time afterwards. In baseball, it would have been the dreaded Strike Three and out.

But this is South African politics. And with a parliamentary system where the ANC as majority party has accepted as norm the precedent of a president that answers with a “I don’t know” and thereby dodging the crux of parliamentary questions, it will not be “Strike Three” for Ramabosasa.

The two prominent issues about which Ramaphosa also had denied any knowledge of wrong-doing, deal with:

  • the massive corruption of State Capture, and
  • the dreadful financial situation of Eskom.
Continue reading “Pres Ramabosasa: has Duduzane’s father made way for Andile’s father?” →
Business incubation, Central planning, Competitiveness, Developmental state, Economic freedom, ECONOMIC GROWTH/ANTI-GROWTH FACTORS, Enterprise regularities, Expropriation without compensation, Job creation and unemployment, Land ownership, National Gazelles Programme, Preferential procurement

White Monopoly Capital: astute reverse double somersault or a Janus performance?

Is the presidential acknowledgement of entrepreneurs as heroes and not villains the equivalent of Pope John Paul II’s admission that the church was wrong to condemn Galileo for endorsing a helio-centric view? If so, it is one of the most astute political reverse double summersaults. As deputy-president Mr. Ramaphosa himself sung heartily the “Down with White Monopoly Capital” song in the Zuma choir.

Janus Ramaphosa

Does the comment during the dinner of the Investment Summit really signal the dawn of economic freedom or was it merely a modern manifestation of Janus? Will the future reveal a Ramaphosa butterfly that was an ugly caterpillar under Zuma or is the two-mouths-two-messages the real reality?

The first requirement to assess future options is a proper understanding of the present. Let us explore that by assessing the ANC Government’s (and Ramaphosa’s) views on SMEs:  does it indicate an embrace of private initiative or something else?

Continue reading “White Monopoly Capital: astute reverse double somersault or a Janus performance?” →

Black economic empowerment (BEE), Crime against business, ECONOMIC GROWTH/ANTI-GROWTH FACTORS, Expropriation without compensation, Farm killings / Farm murders, Investment/Divestment, Job creation and unemployment

SheNenegans and zol clouds: Summits almost like old-age home talent concerts

Government has developed a fool proof strategy to divert (most) attention from its frenetic fumbling of the economy that they had successfully put on full-throttle reverse.

The Job Summit’s rehearsed pitches and agreements to create jobs (almost as if jobs can be manufactured like overalls), to minimise retrenchments and to buy local,  reminds one of the annual retirement village talent concert: nothing new, innovative or inspiring. Rather old hat. It solicited respectful applause, but thankfully Nhlanhla Nene (ably assisted by Julius Malema and by the grace of the Guptas) diverted attention from the dreary Summit.

One has to give it to the ANC:  just as the Job Summit was obscured by sheNenegans, the previous big building block – the Emergency Stimulus Package – was enveloped by a court verdict releasing thick aromatic clouds of “Personal stimulus by zol”.  That high successfully obscured the regurgitating of empty promises of yesterday’s infrastructure development plans.

Can Trevor Noah develop such a script? Continue reading “SheNenegans and zol clouds: Summits almost like old-age home talent concerts” →