FOOL's GOLD

WHY GOLD IS OVERRATED

Much like the merciless hangover that haunts a drunkard after a night of excessive alcohol binging, the world seems to be hung-over from the Gold rush of the 1840s. The major difference being that the latter was actually novice gold mining during an era in which gold-digging had nothing to do with beautiful women clawing into wealthy men to siphon their heavy pockets. The absurd price-tag of Gold today is more a reflection of foolhardy ‘financial markets’ lusting over a hollow yellow metal with a questionable economic and future relevance, at best.

At US$1140/oz (and increasing) I am beginning to think that the Greenhouse Gases causing Global Warming must be having an adverse effect on our rational behaviour. Either that or I am eligible for a tuition refund from years of studying economics and financial markets.

Pardon me if I’ve lost you but, try to make sense of this; Gold is said to be a store of value and thus a hedge for inflation. Pundits say the price of Gold, when adjusted for inflation, has actually been stable over the past gazillion years. So what? There are two major assumptions here; both fundamentally incorrect and based on flawed thinking. The first is that the past equals the future. Whereas I am a great enthusiast and an avid reader of the world’s financial history, I constantly find myself at odds with the idea that history always repeats and that what worked well historically will reign true in the future.

Gold has historically been a reliable asset class during times of economic instability, much like now, that many people automatically assume that Gold is a safe haven for their money. Hasn’t the new world intellectual moved on? During the Great depression of the early 1930s when the world was still on the Gold Standard, the global trade a quarter of what it is today, global debt negligible and where you could literally go to the market and buy bread using Gold, there was good economic sense in keeping Gold as an asset. In today’s context however, where total Gold reserves can only settle 8% of total sovereign debt, how could the value of Gold be different to that of an antique chandelier, a rare bottle of vintage champagne or a set of limited edition Golf clubs?

The second problem I have is that the foundation of the store of value notion is premised on painfully bizarre thinking. An Economist I greatly respect put it to me that, if the world lost trust on fiat money (money with no intrinsic value) somehow the world would be forced back into the Gold standard, where people use Gold as a unit of measure i.e. a loaf of bread equals a half ounce of Gold. Based on this ideology, Gold would once again become a scarce resource and its price would appreciate many times over and a handful of holders would be set for life. Please!

Let me provide you with a little historical and economics context. Real prices work on the basis of demand-supply economics, that’s just how the world is engineered to work. In other words, if there’s demand for something its price will continue to rise until demands recedes, unless the supply of that product increases sufficiently to meet the demand. A simple example is crude oil; there’s a finite amount of oil that can be mined economically and therefore if the demand for oil continues to rise and supply remains suppressed by cartel prescriptions, volatility in oil producing countries or other economic forces, the price of oil will rise, the converse is also true.

So why then does the Gold price continue to rise inexhaustibly? Simple, ever since about 1641 BC, when Spain was the economic powerhouse of the world, the world has engaged in wild orgies of precious metal crusades. Most trade was done using Gold and Silver as units of measure. Why? because Gold and silver were scarce enough to be accepted by large societies as mediums of exchange. In other words peter was willing to take 5 ounces of Gold from Paul in exchange for a Ton of Wool only because he knew that John would accept an ounce of Gold in exchange for a live turkey. This helped them navigate the barter problems! Make sense?

Gold as a medium of exchange was a mere innovation to the barter system that aimed to eliminate the problem of doubled coincidence of wants. Greek! The inherent flaws in the barter system revolved around two key problems; a) if Peter needs wool and is willing to give a basket of apples in exchange, but John who has the wool wants chicken not fruit in exchange for his wool. This presents them with a problem, which prevents them from transacting with each other. This is a double coincidence of wants problem. (b) Barter systems lacked standards of measurement, i.e. how much fruit is fair trade for 3 metres of wool? And how much wool should you give for a turkey? So the valuation system becomes highly subjective if you don’t have a standardised unit of measure.

Enter Gold and Silver. Precious metals have always been in short supply and highly valued for their decorative and cutlery usefulness. The scarcity in the metals creates a limited amount of supply, which in turn ensures that the value of that precious metal becomes stable and fosters effective, predictable and consistent trade. If only an X amount of Gold coins are available in circulation for trade and the supply doesn’t increase, you are not likely to have inflation in that society because the currency (Gold and silver) is in limited supply but circulates freely and consistently within that economy.

Then more globalisation occurred and faster, Gold and Silver with their limited supply were more a hindrance than a catalyst to global trade. So a new innovation was sort and manifested itself in the form of paper money but backed by Gold. So a Government could issue promissory notes (a piece of paper) promising to pay a specified person and/or a successor in title and/or bearer a specific amount on money (in Gold) on a specified date or upon presentation. This worked well until bank-runs happened. Rumours would typically start that a bank has issued more bank notes that it had Gold to honour those notes; so much like in the Saambou, Lehman Brothers, Northern Rock, and many other cases in history, depositors would run to the Bank and demand their money, only in those days, in Gold. Needless to say many banks collapsed.

Enter fiat money, another innovation! Unlike Fiat the car maker, fiat money is anything that the Government calls money, signs into law and circulates as legal tender so that everyone accepts it. Trust me, the R100-00 you have in your pocket is not worth the paper it’s written on. This new money would be backed in part by the faith (fiat) you have in your Government and in part by (Gold). After much protestation and uproar, everyone behaved like a schoolboy and accepted that this would be the new order of the world. At that stage most Gold was deposited in the Bank’s and there was limited Gold in circulation so everyone was forced to use clay coins and paper money, imposing a difficult divorce to a society so in love with what they had known and believed to be real money, Gold.

Fast forward a few decades and Europe is in World War II, infrastructure is dilapidated, currencies plummeting, resources scarce and trade virtually extinct. The Europeans didn’t trust each other’s fiat money anymore, because they weren’t sure how much Gold reserves each country had to back up their fiat money. So they came up with yet another invention third party currency trade, they agreed to trade using the American Dollar. Only one catch, Americans wanted Gold so that they could issue more currency in line with their reserve requirements. So the world’s wealth moved further west, much more quickly and then America became the powerhouse of the world with the most Gold reserves of any country in the world.

Problem? American accelerated from emerging economy to superpower too quickly, in the process creating enemies all over the world. Fatally so in the Cold Wars’ with Russia and Cuba and more so the Vietnamese War and the Genocide they committed in Hiroshima. So with American printing more and more money to fund their Wars’, the world (Europe) grew increasingly sceptical of the American Dollar and its Gold backing and so they began reclaiming their Gold back and giving America what was becoming worthless Dollars. Solution? ‘We regret to tell you that the United States of America will not be accepting any more Dollars in exchange for Gold’! Why? ‘Sorry, we just don’t have enough Gold to pay everyone back’. If America were a bank, this is when it would have collapsed (before the bailout days) on a classic case of a Bank run.

Today, we use virtual money, money has become so abstract that it is now a mere number on a screen and if Government wishes to increase the amounts they have, they just press another zero and boom it’s ten times more. The only thing that stops them is the threat of hyper inflation and currency devaluation in a high money supply economy with little or no GDP growth. That’s the short history of money. If you think about it Gold was just an innovation it had no industrial value whatsoever, just lauded for its decorative use!

That brings us back to the subject at hand, why does Gold continue to rise like a phoenix in a storm? Based on pure economics, there’s absolutely no reason as to why Gold is still relevant as an asset class or investment. The only justification my mind can conjure up is limited to the above history. From a pure economics point of view we know that about 160 000 tonnes of Gold has already been mined and only 50 000 tonnes (disputed estimate) remains underground as reserves. Gold is currently being mined at 2 600 tonnes per annum with 130 000 tonnes having been mined in since the California Gold rush in 1848. So only about 25% of all known Gold remains to be mined and at 2 000 tonnes per year, we are talking about another 25 years of Gold mining. So yes, Gold is a finite and limited resource.

The problem is this; 100 000 tonnes and more of all Gold ever mined is held in the form of Jewellery, collector coins and privately held bullion. Do you see the picture? This means at-least 75% of the price of Gold (Demand-Supply) has been driven by consumerism, luxury goods markets and non-investor related forces. So the actual price of Gold should be around US$50/oz and not the US$1140 at which it currently trades. This might explain why the IMF (international Monetary Fund) is currently offloading its Gold reserves to member countries at US$42/oz, a price fixed in 1971 when President Nixon’s administration permanently severed ties between the value of the US Dollar and Gold Reserves.

Only about 30 000 tonnes are held by Central Banks around the world as a reserve asset. Today that would be worth around US$1 trillion, which pales against the estimated US$26 trillion that western Governments owe in paper debt. Somehow, I doubt that US$1 trillion would suffice for the demands of Global trade. So in a sense all this Gold is absolutely worthless if the Western Currencies collapse. Makes me wonder why China has been on a Gold binge over the last decade. India is the largest importer of Gold in the world, the Indians love their Jewellery and it has nothing to do with investment strategy.

South Africa, which has mined about half the Gold in the world, only has around 125 tonnes of Gold in reserves, which covers about 10% of all reserve assets. It is now reported that South Africa might only have around 3 000 tonnes of Gold reserves underground and not the previous figure of 36 000 tonnes bandied about for many years. If this is true, then world un-mined Gold reserves should be around 14 000 tonnes (7 years worth of mining at current levels).

Gold has got virtually no industrial use and as a result the world can do without gold. In-fact because Gold is such a soft metal it is usually alloyed with other metals, such as copper and ferrochrome, for Gold coin production and Jewellery making. I don’t believe that the new generation of wealth has any allegiance with the past and instead new money is continuingly evolving into a abstract phenomena. In good time I will either be vilified for my dismal view on Gold or I will be vindicated and lauded for my foresight. For now if you are bullish on Gold, you are bullish on Fool’s Gold.

COMING SOON

Fool's Gold: Why Gold is overrated!
ETA: 15 Nov 09
Writer: Tshepo Phakathi

Oily Pockets: The future price of oil (Prepare for hyper inflation)
ETA: 11 Jan 2010
Writer: Tshepo Phakathi

Blood Money: The HIV Conspiracy
ETA: 01 Apr 10
Writer: Tshepo Phakathi

Crime Pays: Why crime will never stop
ETA: 01 May 10
Writer: Tshepo Phakathi

State fat cats are coining it ...with your money

And the winner is ...Transnet: 12 of the parastatal’s executives are in the top 20 earners
Oct 31, 2009 11:30 PM | By Marcia Klein

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Half of the top 10 earners of 2008 are now no longer at their posts. If Transnet's trains are not running on time, it could be because they are filled with gravy.


A new list compiled by Who Owns Whom for the Sunday Times Rich List, on earnings at SA's top parastatals and other selected state organisations, shows that in 2008, Transnet fat cats dominated the list.

Among the top 10 earners, six are from the transport parastatal. It paid no less than 12 of its executives more than R4.8-million each. All 12 appear in the top 20 earners and collectively raked in over R80-million in one year.

This included massive performance bonuses of, in most cases, more than their basic salary.

The highest-paid was former Transnet CEO Maria Ramos, now the chief executive of Absa, who took home R11.2-million, including a R4.85-million salary and a massive R5.79-million performance bonus.

Former Denel boss Shaun Liebenberg, who earned R8.35-million in 2008, including a performance bonus of R4.1-million, was second ranked.

Third was Transnet's former chief operating officer Louis an Niekerk, who earned R8.2-million including a R3.6-million salary and a R4.3-million performance bonus. Since the commissioning of the list, the Transnet 2009 annual report has been published, showing Van Niekerk took a drop in salary, earning R7.2-million in 2009.

He was followed by Chris Wells, Transnet's former financial director and now the acting CEO, who took home R7.8-million, including a salary of R3.35-million and a performance bonus of R4.1-million in 2008. In 2009, his package also dropped by R1-million.

The fifth-highest earner on the list was Eskom's former CEO Thulani Gcabashe, who pocketed R7.76-million, including a R4.2-million "other benefit", which was the settlement of long-term incentive awards and payment for the conclusion of his contract, despite not fulfilling it as he left before the contract ended.

Siyabonga Gama, the head of Transnet Freight Rail, who has been suspended from his post and is the subject of an investigation and disciplinary action, earned R7.5-million, which included a R3.2-million salary and R3.7-million performance bonus. In 2009, when a report on Gama had already come into the possession of the CEO and the board, Gama still earned R6.2-million, including a performance bonus of R2.4-million.

Industrial Development Corporation CEO Geoffrey Qhena and chief financial officer Gert Gouws, who are among the few in the top 10 who are still in their jobs, earned R7.3-million and R6.3-million, respectively, ranking them seventh and ninth. These included performance bonuses of R3.7-million and R2.4-million, respectively.

Transnet's Pradeep Maharaj and Vuyo Kahla, ranked eighth and 10th, earned R6.37-million and R6.2-million, respectively, including performance bonuses.

Numbers 11, 12 and 13 were all Transnet executives (Tau Morwe, Moira Moses and Richard Vallihu), and they were followed by Khaya Ngqula, the former boss of SAA, who earned R5.9-million in 2008.

While the list tracks all earnings last year, it has since emerged, in SAA's 2009 annual report, that Ngqula earned R13.65-million this year. This included a salary of R3.8-million, and a R9.4-million payment to go away. He also earned R756000 retention premium, offset by a R1.3-million repayment of his retention bonus.

Ngqula remains subject of a forensic investigation into his tenure at SAA.

Alan Mukoki, who left the Land Bank amid controversy over making loans outside of his mandate, was paid R4.7-million to go away, brining his earnings for the year to R5.9-million. His basic salary was R811000.

Zweli Myeza, the former head of the Civil Aviation Authority, was paid R5.4-million including a salary of R855000 and R4.4-million to go away.

Sipho Mkhize, the head of the Petroleum Oil & Gas Corporation, earned R4.6-million.

The controversial former head of the SABC, Dali Mpofu, earned R4.5-million including a R2-million performance bonus. His right-hand man, finance head Robin Nicholson, was paid R3.4-million, including a R1.5-million performance bonus; former news head Snuki Zikalala took home R2.3-million, including a performance bonus of R538000.

News that former Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana was paid a R6.8-million "gratuity" on leaving his post, despite taking up another public office at the Human Rights Commission, has thrown light on the increasing largesse of government departments to civil servants.

Pay at state-owned enterprises is increasingly resembling that of the private sector, with huge termination payouts, performance bonuses and retention benefits - all at taxpayers' expense.

The earnings list shows that half of the top 10 earners of 2008 are no longer in their posts, which may sound a warning bell to remuneration committees so eager to pay all sorts of retention bonuses and other payments to keep people.

The research also shows that while SA's 20 top-earning civil servants should be earning between R3.3-million and R4.8-million, had they just earned their salaries. But they did, in fact, earn between R4.6-million and R11.2-million, once all of their bonuses and additional benefits were added.

Many of the numbers do not include additional benefits which are sometimes disclosed, but not as part of salary. For example, Eskom's top directors have housing loans amounting to millions of rands each, while SAA directors take hundreds of free trips.

The list, which is not extensive but shows the earnings of numerous selected state-owned entities, reveals that 182 civil servants earned over R1-million.

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Get-Off My Sack!

By Tshepo Phakathi

A bounty has been placed on the heads of the richest black South Africans, effectively labelling them as sell-outs and imperialist pawns. Interestingly, everyone has conveniently forgotten that these politicians cum businessmen cum imperialists cum black capitalists were once hailed as union leaders, cadres, struggle veterans, etc. As comrades, they were encouraged to go forth and pursue commercial interests to take on the establishment, so to speak! Now that they’ve become heavy-pocketed and sit on the opposite side of the "wage negotiation" table, they have become targets of the revolution that seeks to "nationalise" their hard earned wealth!

I am reminded of a song by Jay Z, Errh - the American rapper not the South African President, where in a prelude of his new album he asserts that he and his estranged business partners had equal opportunity to build dizzying 9 figure balance sheets, but not all took the opportunity. In this record, the rapper loosely says: "...grown men want me to sit them on my lap, but I don't have a beard and Santa Clause ain't black..." Sounds like a fitting statement to make?

So I consulted my dictionary, to find a word that could best describe this situation – ENVY is what I found. Then I referred to my mental archives, to understand the “context” of this debate and recalled that COSATU has Kopano Ke Matla, NUM has Mineworkers Investment Corporation, NUMSA has NUMSA Investment Company. WOW? YEP, some of the best priced assets in this country are owned (at-least in part) by these UNION investment companies. Primedia, FirstRand, Saatchi & Saatchi, ACSA, Doves, Mustek, etc, just to mention a few, so I went back to the selfsame OXFORD dictionary, and this time I came across HYPOCRITE and thought; could it be?

The problem with a democracy and a market driven economic system (capitalism) is that only the very best amongst the participants will thrive, the rest will just, uhh, survive. The reason why industrialised nations such as the US, France, Germany and UK are first world, progressive nations is very simple.

They promote and support free enterprise, which creates jobs, develops new medicines, introduces technology for human advancement and is the main engine that drives economic growth. For the owners of these "free enterprises" comes infinite reward. If we suggest that a few hundred million OR indeed a billion is too much wealth for the "risk taker" and should thus be looted in the name of "nationalisation OR the Freedom Charter", we effectively exorcise the very spirit of free enterprise - excuse the pun!

Wealth begets affluence, which leads to the general improvement of the overall standards of living of a nation. Consider this, in 2008 the US had about 400 Billionaires (in US$ terms) but until the 60s, just 40 years earlier, they had none. Their very first Billionaire was Howard Hughes in 1968, I wonder what would have happened had they nationalised his wealth?!

To have more billionaires, more affluent communities, more jobs, better education, better healthcare facilities, etc, we need to start with 1 or 2 ultra wealthy individuals and then provide the necessary infrastructure and support to have many more.

I don't know what you think, but let me offer you my final thoughts on this subject. I don't blame anyone who is poor, working in a 12 hour gruelling shift digging for Gold and then having to go home to a dilapidated mining residence, for feeling hard done by. Much like many other citizen, I am also concerned about the class inequities that are growing by the day. Matter of fact, I support the idea of a broad based empowerment and structured rationing of state owned assets in favour of those communities to whom those assets belong. What I am merely trying to figure out is how do you achieve socio-economic coherence, employment and growth by dragging down those who have legitimately built up their wealth, using "legal" means at their disposal?

It is foolhardy to suggest that the legitimate wealth built by private citizens of this country through their own prowess and sacrifice, is tantamount to permanent indebtedness to the working class or indeed poor South Africans. At the end of the day, we all have a right - as enshrined in our constitution (a product of the Freedom Charter) - to pursue as much affluence as our minds can comprehend, just as long as such pursuit does not prejudice the many rights of other citizens in this country.

What do you think?

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Put simply, I am hoping to share my thoughts with you and your friends, which could then lead to intellectual discussions (on the BLOG) on how developments on the above subjects can/will affect us and our futures. How will the decisions and actions, beyond our control today, shape the future that we are busy inheriting as we go about our daily business.

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Wages of Inflation

FINANCIAL MAIL

Wages of inflation

By TSHEPO PHAKATHI



The public-sector wage talks and strike threat could be a manifestation of the growing social unrest caused by the disproportionate incentives offered to management and labour.


For though government may argue that a 12% wage hike is unreasonable, the unions are adamant that 6% is paltry and dwarfed by the bonuses, incentives and pay hikes of top management. However, one is tempted to look deeper than the current bargaining process to understand the socioeconomic rationale of both parties and the imminent economic consequences of industrial action.


First, it is important to mention that, depending on the extent and duration of a public-sector wage strike, the socioeconomic consequences could affect both the long-term socioeconomic improvement of many South Africans and the buoyant economic environment.


Economically, protracted strike action could put government's target of 6% economic growth out of reach. Broadly defined, unionised public-sector employees represent 8%-9% of the total SA workforce. This means that industrial action could cost the economy as much as R20bn for each month the strike lasts. Put differently, if the strike action were to last as long as last year's security strike, the economy would lose one-third of its current economic growth of R87bn/year. If one considers the level of cross-pollination between the private and public sectors, it is clear that strike action could poison private-sector productivity and thus cost the economy substantially more.


If all 1m public servants were engulfed in strike action, the economy could be brought to a grinding halt, considering that the departments of health, education, safety & security, and beleaguered home affairs, as well as ports, would be affected. This could cripple private-sector activity as it relies on these government agencies on a regular basis.


Long-term economic growth would be dealt yet another blow if the strike were prolonged: for one, education would be badly affected. The prospects of achieving an educated and skilled workforce could be impaired, if you consider that in Gauteng alone there are 605 000 pupils in state high schools preparing for exams.


Why then do the wage talks in spirit not reflect the broader interests of the economy?

Unions are negotiating to serve what they see as the best interests of their members, who have been hit by higher food and transport costs. Conversely, government is looking after its coffers and the allocated budget for wage increases for the fiscal period spanning the next three-year cycle.


Naturally, government doesn't want to be held to ransom by strike action, and the unions know they have the upper hand, given the shortage of a skilled workers. Government's wage bill could rise by R4bn to about R200bn if it settled at 8%, for example. The net cost to government could be around R3bn if you consider the current income tax and Vat regimes.


Such an increase would change the inflationary outlook, and if it exerted upward pressure on private-sector and parastatal wages, it could well threaten the monetary authority's goal of keeping inflation under 6%. The consequence would be an upward adjustment in interest rates, which could bring a reversal of fortunes for highly indebted wage earners.


Government has a responsibility to keep wage increases within reasonable, sustainable, non inflationary levels; unions have a duty to protect their members from wage erosion.

Perhaps an independent body should mediate over such talks in future and balance the interests of the workers, government and, most importantly, the country.

Phakathi is CE of Phakathi Holdings