AFRICA IS STILL COLONISED

In the beginning; well actually in 1652, the Dutch, under the auspices of the Dutch East India Company [VOC], established what was meant to be a mere refreshment station in Table Bay, Cape Town. This simple move, under the command of Jan Van Riebeeck, set in motion a plethora of consequences for Africa and her people that would have an everlasting and devastating effect that will almost certainly never be shaken off.

What ensued and lasted an effective 342 years to 1994, was a calamity of magnum proportion. During these three and a half centuries, Africa and her people were deeply scarred by epic violations to their dignity, sense of self and humanity. Between colonisation, slavery, systemic racial exclusion and downright thievery, Africa and Africans were left with little more than sheer resilience and determination to survive.

Continental Europe with her warring ways has always been beset by protectionism, competition and nationalism. The 17^th century in particular was a time in which European imperial powers Britain, France, Portugal and the Netherlands competed profusely with and amongst themselves for trading stations across the world. This epoch in history is characterised by accelerated acquisition, through naval warfare, of colonies in Africa, Asia and the West Indies.

This was a period in time dominated by mercantile economics. The mercantilists believed that the only source of wealth for a nation was the amount of Silver and Gold bullion it possessed. Mercantilist were firmly of the view that one nation could only prosper at the expense of another. This totalitarian view emanated from the belief that there was only a given amount of Gold and Silver in the world and as such its possession would give one nation superiority over its rivals.

For this reason, colonies were sort not only as destination markets for industrial goods produced in the colonising nation, but also as potential sources of cheap (exploited) raw materials and mineral resources. One can thus infer that Colonisation was as important for politics as it was for economics, which have never been mutually exclusive. The imperialists struck Gold, pun unintended, when they decided to colonise Africa.

Between 1652 and 1700 the refreshment station in the Cape had evolved to a crop farming settlement for its Dutch inhabitants. Slave labour was brought in from East Africa and Asia to help expand and accelerate the development of this colony. Crop failure, due to the intensity of wheat farming and poor farming techniques necessitated stock farming. This resulted in an 80 year expansion into the interior, under the stewardship of Simon van der Stel. This expansion culminated into a 100 years of frontier wars when the Dutch (Afrikaners) encountered the Xhosa to the Eastern cape in 1770.

Then came the British in 1795 during the Napoleonic Wars when France invaded the Netherlands and Britain militia secured the Cape for strategic reasons. The arrival of the British in South Africa amounted to a three dimensional dichotomy. Firstly, they had to deal with the Afrikaners who considered themselves the overlords of the Land by racial and cultural superiority (racism). Then there were the Khoi and the Blacks who resented and resisted the Afrikaner encroachment and violation of their liberties. Finally, you had the British who thought themselves entitled by right of legal acquisition and conquest. In the end, the British imposed their language, institutions and ideas on all and sundry.

Over the next 100 years Diamonds and Gold would be discovered, Black people would be consigned to live in compounds (hostels), the pass laws would be enacted and the Anglo-Boer wars would decisively lead to a British modelled Union of South African by 1910. During this time the fortunes of the indigenous Blacks and Khoi would only worsen. By 1948 the Afrikaners would officially take over as the Government of South Africa and adopt the policy of Apartheid, which was largely based on Slavery, to condemn black people to permanent labourers with little education and scant prospects of mainstream economic participation.

The results? Unemployment, Poverty and Inequality. Today’s abysmal situation is a direct derivative of systemic race based exclusion of Black People from meaningful economic participation. It is partially because Blacks were forced to work as unpaid peasants in farms that their great grand children remain enslaved in farms today. It is precisely because they were excluded from enterprise and mining opportunities that their great grand children remain illiterate and serve as cheap Mining labour.

Black schools were of inferior quality way before 1994, that they remain so is an entirely different issue. Most South Africans remain unemployed because they have no education, are inappropriately skilled (a structural defect caused by the mineral-energy complex predating 1994), they remain unsheltered because their farms were stolen from them and they sort refuge and employment in urban centres like Johannesburg. They struggle to participate meaningfully in the economy because it remains systematically ‘Anglo-Boer’ and Black people are unequipped, under-skilled, under-educated and functionally displaced from partaking in it.

That English, and to a lesser extent Afrikaans, is the main medium of instruction and the only “real” official language is bizarre in a country whose citizens, by orders of majority, are non-English or Afrikaans speaking. Take note! Neither Brazil, Russia, India nor China (BRIC) are English speaking nations. They communicate in languages spoken by the majority of their people, this is inclusion! African languages are superficially considered as official languages. To add salt to injury, Black people have been indoctrinated with an inferiority complex to make fun of those with poor command of English. Really?

Today, colonisation wears the mask of Foreign Direct Investments but still exudes all the hallmarks of nationalism. Our complicit African Governments are only too excited to hastily sell off our mineral resources at next to nothing and condemn our people to unwarranted hardship and suffering. This in exchange for meaningless remittances in the form of social grants! Africa remains little more than a big fruit and veggie land and a puffed up pick and shovel site. Our countries are constructed as mining to port nations with no substantive industrial development or enabling infrastructure due to dismal Government and governance.

Ironically, not much has changed since the days of political colonisation. Today is scarcely different to the time when Cecil John Rhodes established De Beers as a Diamond mining monopoly based in Kimberly and then went on to establish Gold Fields in the Witwatersrand. All profits in the form of dividends were repatriated back to colonial nations and Africa was merely a market for European manufactures. Nothing has changed.

Conglomerates make runaways fortunes for their international shareholders (nothing wrong with that), pay measly taxes to our Governments, induct a few Black Bourgeoisie as Directors (divisive), beneficiate our resources in western nations (exploitative) and then sell them back to us at profits that outweigh the taxes we charge them (condescending). The consequence is that they have the cushy jobs while Africans remain diggers and riggers! In the long run African countries become permanently dependent on the flow of FDI and remain at the mercy of colonising nations.

Many couldn’t have foretold that China would be the 21^st century colonial power of the world. Colonising not by military conquest but by sheer economic force! This is the new face of colonisation. Many false prophets have suggested, as a remedial measure, the forceful and violent seizure of mines and farms. This would be tantamount to the same sort of economic suicide that stifled the nation during the administration of the Afrikaner Government.

We will not exit this abyss by dissuading investors from making appropriate investment with prospects of competitive returns in Africa.  Solutions to our problems are many, they are complex and they require an integrated approach. A good place to start is by;

a.    Changing the incentives for mineral exploitation such that it becomes cheaper to beneficiate in South Africa and sell to the rest of the world. A super tax on raw minerals is a sensible instrument with which to achieve this.

b.    Incentivising secondary sector (Manufacturing) Entrepreneurship through a cohort of support mechanisms (see the article on Cohesive Entrepreneurial Support).

c.    Aligning the social grant systems to academic performance, progress in schools and even voluntary (no-pay) employment. In the likeness of Progressa in Mexico.

For now, let us not be naïve. Africa is still colonised!

COHESIVE ENTREPRENEURIAL SUPPORT

Until such time as we decide what entrepreneurial support actually means, we cannot reliably tell if we are doing enough, less than enough or even more than enough. Anecdotally, the choir seems to agree that we are doing less than enough. But again, the choir hasn’t provided a comprehensive framework for how we ought to be supporting entrepreneurship in its many quarters and forms.

First we must identify what entrepreneurs need, in general. Not through fancy ‘bosberaads’, but simply though a statistical system administered through channels that reach entrepreneurs directly. Then we must look to see what it is that we are already doing well and embed this deeper in the support structure. Thereafter, identify our shortcomings and decide on corrective measures to take.

Suffice to say, entrepreneurial support cannot merely be an ideological dialogue that ends in the corridors of power. It must, necessarily, become a preferred choice in the developmental agenda, such that society is sold to it as a frontier of economic thought. This requires policy shifts in terms of how we perceive the societal role of entrepreneurs and how we structure state institutions to support this perspective.

Policy without intent and substantive action does nothing more than add layers of administrative and functional bureaucracy to processes. This manifests itself in all sorts of ‘unintended consequences’ that result in the failing of institutions. Look for example at CIPC, nobly intended to make the registration of companies more efficient. Instead, we have ended up with higher business registration costs and annual fees that are misaligned to the goal of entrepreneurial development.

Entrepreneurial support is not a new phenomenon, we can borrow best practice models from countries across the world. Many countries have succeeded in creating enduring entrepreneurial cultures that now serve as the basis for future economic developmental strategies. Some of the policy choices that can fundamentally shift our momentum towards an entrepreneurial economy include the following;

Insolvency Protection

Acknowledgement that small businesses are typically funded through basic household resources such as excess bonds, personal loans, credit cards and overdraft facilities. The buoyancy of small business activity is directly proportional to the level of availability of these resources. Insolvency is a critical constraint to the accessibility of these facilities. This is partly why Insolvency protection was introduced in the United States. They somehow understood that an entrepreneur may fail in business several times before getting it right. In which case, you wouldn’t want their entire credit profile ruined and their ability to raise capital permanently impaired.

For example, an entrepreneur can file for Chapter 7 or Chapter 12 Bankruptcy and still retain a substantial part of their estate, such as their primary residence. Naturally, certain abusive practices are prevented through various statutes that have been enacted to protect creditors i.e. the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005. Overall, this is supportive of a fledgling small business culture, which is exemplified by the 7 million average annual start-ups in the US.

Preferential Procurement

The South African preferential procurement system is widely ineffectual. In part, this problem has been exacerbated by the revision of Preferential Procurement Policy Regulations. The system awards points primarily on the basis of a company’s performance on their Broad Based BEE scorecard, such that the company with the highest level receives the most number of points.

You would think that a small business owned by a co-operative of black women in rural South Africa would be the prime target of public sector procurement. Sadly, if you think so, you may be disappointed. Instead, a listed multinational organisation could achieve a higher BB-BEE score, relative to this co-operative, and as such have a much better score in terms of the preferential procurement guidelines.

This makes a mockery of the preferential procurement framework in South Africa and contributes very little to entrepreneurial development. Instead, the procurement policy should revolve around large “set asides” for targeted businesses. For each contract issued by the public sector, a fixed portion thereof (say 50%) should be allocated to targeted groups (e.g. 100% black owned small businesses).

The Small Business Administration in the US is abound with examples of how the set-aside system has worked very well for them. For example, 30% of all public sector procurement in the US is reserved for small businesses.

Tax Reforms

Our entire business tax regime is not entrepreneur friendly. Why would SARS think it’s a good idea to tax small businesses thirty percent of their profit when that money would best be reinvested in increasing the capacity of the businesses? Unless the profit is being commuted through dividends, SARS should not tax small businesses. Instead it should allow small businesses to accumulate the capital reserves and resources they need to enhance their creditworthiness and capital replacement capability. Capital expansion is what ultimately leads to higher employment levels. Besides, SARS can reserve the right to retrospectively tax profits when dividends are declared at a later stage.

Most taxes on small businesses are irrational at best. How is it a good idea for us to temper with the cash flows of growing businesses that are creating jobs? VAT is proving to be a nightmare for most small businesses, why we still insist on them collecting it is strange to me. Similarly, UIF and Skills Development Levies are inefficient taxes that should not be paid by small businesses with revenues under R10 million.

  

Labour Regulation Exemptions

Small businesses should be exempted from certain labour laws. A binding bargaining council agreement reached by big business and labour often has a disproportionately harsh impact on smaller businesses. How does it make any sense for a small business with little bargaining power to have to pay the same rate as a large, well established multinational organisation?

I would contend that small businesses (

Small businesses would inevitably be the training ground where new entrants to the job market would cut their teeth and gain experience, obviously at a corresponding wage rate. As a small business, cost competitiveness is everything and for as long as you can keep your marginal costs below your marginal income, you have a business with good growth potential. It is for this reason that small businesses would be willing to employ less experienced employees for the reciprocal benefit of paying them a lesser wage rate. Experienced and talented employees would compete for bargained wage levels with employers subject to bargaining council wage agreements.

Business Finance

Funding remains a sore point for most entrepreneurs. There is a definite discord between the preferred debtor as seen by institutions and the funding readiness of businesses as perceived by entrepreneurs. By far the largest number of declines by institutions is not so much that business ideas or entrepreneurs behind businesses are of low calibre but more a phenomenon of funding readiness or appropriateness of small businesses.

Both the risks of adverse selection and moral hazard increase substantially with business loans and this doesn’t bode well for private sector funders. That said, we need to do more to improve our risk tolerance threshold and lower the demands associated with raising capital. Our institutions need to take risks along with entrepreneurs. This can best be done if business funding is coupled with mentorship as we are beginning to see with some institutions.

Bridging finance is possibly by far the worst kind of funding an entrepreneur may require. If you eventually find someone willing to provide you with a bridging facility, the associated costs of finance tend to be dissuasively exorbitant. Clearly, there is a lot more that can be done by public sector funding institutions, particularly because many bridging finance applicants are created through public sector awarded tenders.

Import Replacement, Infant industry protection and Beneficiation

We have to consider both downstream and upstream activities in the exploitation of our mineral resources. In other words, we have to beneficiate our resources. Move up the value chain through expanding secondary sector activities, particularly in manufacturing. If we don’t do that our economy will never become anything more than a glorified pick and shovel operation.

We must quarantine this tendency to rush into low barrier industries and look to the Government for handouts in the form of tenders. The 2 million RDP houses yet to be built by the Department of Human Settlements must ideally be built with South African raw materials, equipment and labour. Similarly, Transnet’s R300bn capital expenditure program must incorporate a much higher than 30% local inputs quota.

Unless you have a sensible import replacement strategy cognisant of skills, productivity, input costs and economies of scale, you cannot compete with cheaper and better imports. China is going to throw things at you cheaper, faster and at an equivalent or higher quality. In other words, the primary sector entrepreneurship that is needed cannot be realised unless we take drastic but cumulative actions to participate meaningfully in the value chain.

BRIEF ANALYSIS

The silent prayers for the SARB to ease interest rates were answered late last month when the repo rate fell from 5.5% to 5%. The excitement, however, was short-lived as higher international crude prices spoiled the broil for consumers, the price of 95 Octane Petrol went up 22 cents per litre the very next week.

On the one hand a drop in interest rates hurts net savers (particularly Pensioners) whose continued livelihood is dependent on higher interest rates. Arguably, lower interest rates will encourage more investment, resumption of expenditure on durable consumer goods and replacement of ageing personal assets (Motorcars). Personally, I think 50 basis points won’t do much to excite or elicit much of a response from many investors or consumers.

More concerning however, is evidence of a general slowdown in the global economy. Europe is still messed up (fundamentally and structurally), worsening as Spain joins the growing list of bailout (handout) seekers. Chinese growth is slowing dramatically having dropped spectacularly from a high of 14% in pre-recession 2007 to about 8% in stagnating 2012. Consumers in the US earned higher incomes (0.5%) in June and yet spent about the same dollars as in May, meaning they may have switched to saving (now at 4.4%).

This has culminated into a narrower trade deficit of R5.7bn from R8.9bn in May. Before you do the dooggie dance in celebration, consider this; the deficit is down not so much because of improved terms of trade, rather, the slowdown is attributable to a reduction in both imports and exports. This means overall trade was lower on a global scale. That we imported less indicates falling levels of domestic demand, but that we exported less suggests tamed international demand. (I predicted this in the May analysis)

On a positive front, however, official unemployment (which doesn’t mean much) eased to 24.9% from 25.2% Stats SA reported. Thanks to resumption of construction expenditure by Government, more people are finding work. Given that South Africa is expected to be one large construction site for at-least 20 years, one would hope that more and more people will find work in construction and related sectors.

My advice to you is to tuck in and button down, reduce your debt as quickly as possible and look for defensive investment opportunities. The global economy is in a tailspin and will remain in the vortex for outside of 18 months, brace!

BRIEF ANALYSIS

So the news that CPI inflation slowed down in June to 5,7% from 6,1% has excited many. The silent prayer that the SARB may drop the repo rate from 5,5% to 5% is deafening. Perhaps a slowdown in inflation is good for preserving the buying power of our money especially for the poor whose livelihoods are disproportionately impaired by runaway inflation.

But hidden in the numbers are deadly telltale signs that the economy may be coming off the boil. For example, leading indicators such as retail sales and business confidence indices point to a lulled macro environment. A slowdown in business confidence and/or activity bodes ill for the economy in general, but job creation in particular.

Buoyancy in economic activity is key to the creation of jobs, if employers believe that output is above supportive levels of demand, it'll trigger a whole new cycle of deleveraging and inventory reductions. This means no investment and thus no new jobs.

The counter argument is that lower inflation will lead to lower interest rates and as such higher investment and more jobs. Unfortunately, the evidence suggests otherwise. For example, the current account deficit widened to 4.9% from 3.6% on a quarter to quarter basis. This suggests higher net cash outflows from portfolio investments and perhaps higher net imports. Both don't augur very well for the country as they suggest both capital flight and a failure in domestic factor markets.

Furthermore, global crude prices have been moderating for a few months now and are currently below US$80 a barrel (an eight month low). This suggests a poor global economic outlook and lower economic activity in significant parts of the world (US, Europe and China). South Africans may be paying 55c/litre less at the pumps, but evidence suggests that there may be fewer of them visiting the pumps.

Sadly, the jobs outlook remains desperately negative. There's no sign that an economic miracle is on the cards in the near term to raise hopes or prospects of higher employment levels.

RACE TO ARMAGEDDON

Climate change, pathological tyranny, wars on terror, epidemiological diseases, abject poverty, financial crises, pervasive corruption, joblessness, oil prices and nuclear warfare are but a mere handful of woes facing mankind in this new world order. Ironically, never has our kind been so technologically advanced and endowed with such an assortment of discoveries, breakthroughs and age old wisdom that we should be the envy of all other species; yet, never have we been so comprehensively bewildered by the sheer magnitude of our problems that we fittingly pity ourselves.

Hilariously we continue to pretend as if we have an impregnable handle on matters, casting policy upon policy and praying ever so profusely that our troubles will give way at any moment now. More alarming however, is that we have sincerely begun to believe our own delusions, isn’t that something? It is abundantly clear that the world is full of problems, profoundly complex and indelibly imbued. Those, within our ranks, who suffer from long-term memory spasm, will best be reminded that it was a mere fortnight ago that Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Gaddafi, Bin Laden, Mubarak and Hussein commanded over millions of hapless followers.

Even with the dismemberment of these ‘flagship’ dictatorships the world doesn’t seem to have urged closer to the Promised Land. Unemployment, in particular, seems to be the chief whip in Pandora’s Box. It has triggered the Arab Spring in Middle Eastern countries and the many Occupy movements in Western financial centres. Many peripheral European states are a mere hiss away from concomitant collapse of fiscal viability, employment and domestic factor markets. In not so distant a future, Africa may become the ‘poster boy’ of civil disobedience when the lulled volcano of societal unrest blows through the lid.

Africa has not created or redistributed nearly enough of its wealth to its people, so much for the richest continent! Africans remain the most indigent of people in the world, our countries remain underdeveloped and our infrastructure leaves much to be desired. Our continent is disproportionately crippled by tameable diseases, famine and lacks clean drinkable water. So ingenious we are that we have inadvertently built the largest tinder box in the world. In no time, a populist will strike the matchstick that will set ablaze the home of all humanity.

Don’t you see? We are moving at an accelerating pace towards Armageddon, but we are too timid to acknowledge it. Already the roads we have traversed so enthusiastically over the preceding few decades have led to this abyss. Indeed, we are at the convergence of socio-political liberation and socioeconomic malaise; no-man’s-land. Greed has won the better part of the last decade, causing almost all of human suffering as our leaders plunder their way through public resources to advance their narrow selfish interests.

So the story continues with the few reigning over the many in the name of politics and economics. How is it that the ‘glorified’ capitalist system has been allowed to reward so few with magnum appropriations of resources and yet condemn so many to utter misery and despicable poverty? Inequality has reached new low points and the disparity between the haves and have-nots has only but widened. Many who have ascended to greater heights suffer from acrophobia and battle to look down, lest the masses pull them back into the void. One of these good days our ineptitude and complicity will reward us with a well baked concoction of civil war, irrepressible crime and class targeted violence.

Brothers and Sisters wake up! The world is burning from beneath your soles.

BRIEF ANALYSIS

Statistics South Africa reported a disappointing GDP growth rate of 2.7% for the first quarter of 2012. With our job intensity of growth hovering around 0.5%, only about 199 500 new jobs can be expected at these growth rates. This is about one-tenth (10%) of the rate of new entrants into the job market.

Assuming that there are no job losses through redundancies, the net effect on employment levels will be 1.8 million more people unemployed by 2013.

With the number of unemployed currently at 6.6 million (correct definition), this will cause unemployment levels to rise to 8.4 million people (38%) – adjusted for higher EAP levels. Hopefully, the impact will be muted by the various public sector expenditure programs, lead by Transnet’s R300bn capital expenditure program.

With the political climate being what it is, there is little hope that the public sector expenditure will be rolled out efficiently and effectively. This will affect service delivery and infrastructure rollout, which will affect businesses. Overall, the current level of growth does not bode well for South Africa’s ambition of creating 5 million jobs in 10 years, as articulated in the National Growth Path.

Also with deepening EU woes, our largest trading bloc, we can expect a slowdown in exports (demand side) and as such, worsening terms of trade. We are headed towards incredibly tumultuous times with a weakening currency, a higher trade deficit, a higher budget deficit and expansive social welfare commitments.

No respite in site, brace yourself!

Unemployment-Entrepreneurship Complex

Abridged Version

Global Unemployment reached 225 million (7% of International Labour Force) in 2011 [ILO] and domestic Unemployment stubbornly basks on its 6.6 million (40%) resistance level. It is little wonder then that most Governments, including our own, fear to be befallen by their well earned ‘Tunisia day’ and are seen scrambling, at dire straits, for solutions, anything really, so long as it is quick and sellable!

Other than a few forgettable murmurings here and there about small businesses and entrepreneurship, no one seems to have figured out, to within a comforting degree of reason, a path towards lower unemployment. The suggestion that small businesses are a dependable solution for our joblessness woes seems to have caught on but failed to capture the imaginations of many, least of all our Politico.

Between the SONA, SOPAs and 2012 Budget, little was said about the role entrepreneurs could play in this process. Whereas there are some pundits, CEOs and politicians that have dabbled with this notion, none have laid down clear concrete steps or a plan of any sort that we can begin to consider. So far we have spoken a good talk but not much has been said.

There is good reason for this; it’s complicated! You cannot plagiarise an economic model unless the socioeconomic variables are exactly alike. In the US, for example, 45 million people are employed in Micro businesses that each employ less than 10 people (there are about 7 million of these businesses) [SBA, 2009]. However, the US economy is more than 50 times our size in real GDP terms, 7 times in population and more than 5 times in real per capita GDP adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity. These are critical factors that influence the nature, scale and dynamism of entrepreneurship.

Consider this for a second; all things being equal, were South Africa to copy the US model on Micro Entrepreneurship, 1.3 million new micro businesses would have to be established to each employ at-least 6 people within the next 5 years. Our economy is simply not built for this. Who would train these entrepreneurs? What would these businesses do? How would they be funded? Where would the institutional capacity to support them come from? These are pertinent questions not to be ignored in policy debates and wish-lists of many a pundit.

The microeconomics are also not supportive to this. Household savings are low, which means there are no surplus funds to fuel the demand side of the domestic economy. This means existing businesses are not keen to employ more people or prompt up the supply side. With inflation already testing the patience of SARB, interest rates are not going down to support higher disposable incomes. Fiscal policy also cannot come to our rescue with lower taxes, otherwise how will we support our expanding social net, national debt and a budget deficit already not palatable for many? So where to look?

If entrepreneurship is to be appointed the preferred solution to joblessness then we must have a meticulous strategy to achieve this. It cannot be left to a hope and prayer or cut to a one dimensional undertaking, it necessarily must be multifaceted. We must consider a sequential plan with several integrated phases that affect demand, skills, capital and enterprise support.

Entrepreneurship is not an end in itself and we cannot, therefore, continue to speak of it as if it were some magic wand that even when left to its own volitions, could miraculously direct itself towards the job intensive activities for which it is required. We must intervene, with the correct incentives, to direct entrepreneurship towards areas through which we could derive the highest value.

Back by Popular Demand

I've been thinking a lot lately about the incredibly tumultuous times through which we are living. Sovereign debts of the Eurozone, Quantitative Easing (QE) in the US, Chiconomics (Economics of China) and of-course the African agenda (absolute power).

So I thought, since I am no longer publishing any articles in the "weeklies" and "monthlies", [this is like quitting a paying job in the middle of a structural unemployment crisis], why not share some of my thoughts through alternative media? I stopped writing for mainstream publications precisely because I no longer have the time, and quite frankly the inclination, to deal with format, syntax, deadlines, etc. (so many formalities... goodness!)

So in the spirit of "I write what I like" I thought, perhaps, I could make a comeback to blogging. I could write something off-the-cuff whenever life threatening economic choices are made all over the world, which has become a daily pheneme... no... phonemo... uhg, phenomenon. This way, I could provide you with "free" independent views of how some of the decisions domestically, 'neighbourly' and internationally will impact on our economy and on your well-being.

The idea is to take what seems to be the mundane everyday decisions by politicians and multinational companies and turn them into knowledge, critical insights and actionable options for you to do with what you wish.

Just for my 'street-cred': It may not be a well documented fact and won't win me a nobel prize in economics, but in 2006 I wrote a series of articles on 'Succeed Magazine: May 2006' urging people to consolidate their debts ahead of what I believed an inevitable financial crisis [predicting the Global Financial Crisis]. My prognostication was of a 2006 crisis, turns out I was a year and some change too early.

Who knows, maybe my next prediction will serve you well.

So fasten your seatbelt and enjoy the ride with me.