The vast majority of SA households today are poor, over indebted or both Transformation should be a prominent by-product of SA’s economic growth. Instead, policy makers have prioritised transformation as if it could serve as a growth substitute. As such policies continue to devastate economic prospects, it’s time to prepare for transformation 2.0. It has been…Continue reading It’s time to prepare for transformation 2.0

While dismal education outcomes are infuriating, believing they preclude healthy growth can be more limiting than education failures themselves Robert Mugabe’s death warrants reflecting on how inflaming anti-colonisation sentiments benefits ruling elites while dousing economic vitality. Preserving colonial animosities explains much of SA’s inability to conceive a high growth plan.  The global economy’s dynamism makes…Continue reading Let’s focus on exports — which doesn’t need the highly skilled

Will the future favour Singapore or SA? Whereas maps pinpoint Singapore’s pertinence to Asia’s ascent, trend-focused lenses illuminate SA’s untapped relevance. Our lack of a workable growth plan evidences aloofness toward shifts spanning demographics, technology and China. While Singapore’s prosperity is established, global trends favour SA’s positioning.  While they are declining or plunging elsewhere, in…Continue reading Asia vs Africa

Debt relief isn’t the answer because it doesn’t address the right question, which is about people’s lack of access to adequate purchasing power Issues as diverse as the debt-relief bill, prescribed assets, fixing Eskom and an International Monetary Fund (IMF) restructuring share a common theme: capital destruction. “Fiscal repression”, a term many associate with the…Continue reading In an era of fiscal repression, formal-sector lending is the problem

Fixation on redistribution and transformation has entrenched poverty and unemployment SA’s economy needs urgent restructuring, yet the political preconditions are probably years away. Near-term IMF engagements must set the stage for the fundamental reforms required; SA’s national dialogue must more objectively assess local and global realities. The country’s economic journey is proceeding along a path well-known…Continue reading Policy changes vital to reboot economy as IMF hovers

SA’s money managers are able and motivated to become global leaders in developing an important new range of investment products No country matches SA’s financial sophistication amid pervasive poverty. Disruptions to the funds management industry are unrelenting. Can this country’s unique positioning provoke globally relevant solutions that advance commercial and social interests? If realism informs…Continue reading Not growing a large, stable middle-class has been SA policymakers’ most damaging failing

SA’s core problem is pervasive poverty — inequality is a symptom Might ANC infighting achieve what six elections have failed to produce: an objective economic assessment leading to effective policies? Economic threats coupled with contestation for party control pit realists against those whose ideologies or greed favour unaffordable indulgences. Updating the national dialogue will encourage…Continue reading Transformation may have to take a back seat while we figure out how to get the economy moving

Trading with poor neighbours will not yield the lucrative benefits of selling to wealth clusters around the globe Tucked between the lines of articles about tariffs is a reminder that the global economy has been subtly, yet profoundly, reconfigured. That this is underappreciated is evident from hopes being expressed of having African consumers help fuel…Continue reading Greater rewards for those who trade with the digitally distant rich