So what is problem ?

The BIG question as asked by Leader SA


“South Africa has everything required to be the wealthiest nation in the world – we have gold, platinum, natural minerals; we have Nobel Peace Prize winners and gravitas when it comes to leadership (excluding some examples of the last few years, of course); we have the most progressive constitution in the world; we have brilliant policies; we celebrate enormous cultural diversity and are essentially at cultural peace with each other.
"So what’s the problem?"  


Here is my longer version : 


South Africa is the only country in the world where 90% of the population have to introduce LAWS that govern the economic actions of the other 10%. I am not going to try to be politically correct.  Without knocking anyone these are major obstacles  holding us back:  BEE,  Affirmative action, Laws like the newly proposed  "gag" Law,  "Traditional leaders law" .  Having the most progressive Constitution in the world can be scratched with one stroke of the pen by introducing these types of laws.
The Gag law will hide corruption.  The Tradition leaders law will take away the power of black women -and men that won't stand up against it. 
The country should not be led by Political leaders - It should be led by Economic leaders.  We have none of either of the two.


The Entrepreneurial spirit should be kindled and expanded.  We talk too much and do too little about this. Instead of banks revising their lending criteria to help entrepreneurs they  prefer to go to court to cover up their dismissals. 


 We allow foreigners to take the bread out of our people's mouths - The contract with Sanral, Barclay's shareholding in Absa (55% - what they say goes and jobs are lost) 


In an effort to protect the workers we introduce silly labour laws that cost jobs.   
No coherent job creation project exist.   Again we talk about it and it does not come off the ground. 


Now these are only some of the problems - Leader SA you asked for the problems , Now why don't you ask for solutions ?
Start a discussion on each and every one of the problems identified - I can go on for quite a while longer but I think we need to turn this discussion around into something positive !


We should take note of the comments BUT I think it is time that we DO something about the problems -  There is a saying that one person cannot change the world - In fact it always starts with one person.   Nelson Mandela is living proof of that ! 

Of debt counselors and reckless lending

Recent discussions I had with some learned friends and coincidental news reports urged me to write this article.
As we all know by now Debt counselors are those merry men and women that irks debt collectors and banks alike to the nth degree while in the process masquerading as the saviour on the white horse helping those in dire need of rescue.
To define Reckless lending so that the man in the street (or the one reading my article) is that which banks and other credit providers do to keep debt counselors in business. They all have a model to calculate how near they can come to the fine line of reckless lending.  But again with the help of a Debt counselor friend of mine we did a test on about 100 clients of his and every single one of them could call foul ! " I have been recklessly lent to" The real problem is however far from just reckless lending resulting in countless consumers visiting countless debt counselors to create a sub economy of debt counselors driving around in new Mercs (which by the way has been financed by the same banks that are irked by the debt counselors - probably in a reckless manner)
Now that you all understand the terms here is my view of where the whole problem lies :  Actually it lies with the Mainly with the Lenders and to a small extend the consumers.  The consumers (a vast majority of them anyway) are totally oblivious of how credit works and the Lenders like to keep them there so that they can reckless lend to them and keep the economy going.     Any attempt at educating them will in all probability be met with a smirk and a no ways from the Lenders.  Some however might offer to do such "borrower education" for their new prospective clients in a manner that will show he/she needs the money or item about to be financed.
Anyone agree here is a gap for a regulation or two ?   NO new debt before the lender has undergone a proper borrower education program by an independent qualified business entity with no links to any financier of any sort?   Why do I have to write a test to obtain a firearm but then I can go and throw away my family's future on reckless borrowing offered by reckless lenders with no-one to answer to ?

Victim hood

The quote by Condaleeza  Rice prompted these comments :  

Bitterness and anger makes one believe that you are a victim of something. In most cases you alone knows what that something is.   In South Africa one hears the following quotes ever so often :  We were(are) VICTIMS of .............apartheid, affirmative action .......et all.   So where did this come from ?  Bitterness and Anger about things you can do blue all about. But it is nice to be a VICTIM.   People will empower you because of this. They might even feel sorry for you.  
I pondered a while about the second sentence there :  You will feel aggrieved and the twin brother of aggrievement is entitlement .   How can this be ?  Entitlement means laying claim to something - so when I am aggrieved it is ok to lay claim to ..................?  Is this where the land grabs in Zim is coming from - probably!
So now you think you are owed something and you do not have to work for it.  You are now on a really bad road to nowhere because there are people who will play to this victim hood, aggrievement and entitlement and you still won't have a job.  

Are these the policies the ANC is chasing ?   It was definitely the thinking of one Julius Malema who thought all youth of today sees him as the savior of  the victim hood (s)  But is also becoming the views of a lot of all other Colours in South Africa .

Stop your victim mentality and start doing something for yourself - Youth of this country - Nothing is for free and get with it!

Wallmart, Barclays and all that jazz

We all tend to "like" the idea of money flowing into the country when large corporations invest and sort of take over local businesses.  Do not fool yourself , they are not doing this for the love of the country or its people.  They are doing this for the love of money - The greed thing -

We all hailed Barclays as the saviour of the local human race whilst some militant (and other not so militant) trade unions had their reservations.   So some restrictions was place on what Barclays can do and cannot do.    But there were timelines coupled to these constraints and suddenly the truth hit home this week :  Barclays' intent is to outsource certain services overseas and specifically to India - I am now speaking about amongst others the IT department.   I hereby challenge Absa to publically state their intention with the sudden cutting of staff in their IT department and declare that they have no intention to sacrifice staff in the next 3 years and outsource services to India.

Why of why is Absa's staff still loyal to them - The traumatic experience this week of the IT department staff by getting retrenched and Physically marched out of their offices cannot be described in words

Watch out :  Absa has a will of their own that does not bode well for this country.   They have lost their position as the nr 1 Homeloans bank because of their stupid decision to cut out bond originators.   The are losing major private clients to their competitors.   They feel nothing for a client when they want to nail you because of arrears on your accounts ( Should you EVER get into trouble with them speak to me - I will tell you how to handle the problem)

Client service perspective : Absa

How do you measure your bank ?

It is no secret that I think the service level of South African banks are very low.    In fact I think it stinks .

Would you rate the following as being part of customer service ?

1.      Price

2.      Ease of operations?

3.      Quality of advice received?

4.      Truthfulness and transparency in negotiations?

Of course you would !

So let us have a look at one of them : In this case Absa.

1.      They have just been judged the most expensive bank amongst the top 5 in South Africa .  They have all sorts of excuses.  Whatever, none of it makes sense.

2.      In a recent survey of brokerage divisions Absa was ranked as follows :

(Out of the top 10 )

a)     They were the cheapest. (you pay for what you get ?)

b)     The quality of their service was ranked at nr 10 out of 10

c)      The quality of their advice was ranked at nr 10 out of 10

d)     The quality of their trading platform was ranked 9 out of 10.

3.      A client (full details available on request) made arrangements with the bank about arrears on his account.  The arrangements were confirmed in the presence of the clients’ lawyers during which time the client also changed his domicilium address with the bank.  The client kept to his side of the arrangement but the bank immediately had summons issued at the old address ( this off course so that the client would not know about this)

And  then proceeded to obtain judgement ( again with the client being clueless about this)

I can go on about this bank’s service but for now – you be the judge and decide whether you want to carry on doing  business with them. And of course the question is which one is now really better ?

What South Africans really want

I joined a facebook group called precisely that : What South Africans really want.   When starting off on the journey I thought this might be an interesting group to get involved in.  I am still open to a decision on this.

Some of the normal things that happens on facebook happens here:  Commentators try to highjack your point in stead of making their own point.  Some commentators have no clue what the debate in that point is all about and goes off on a tangent.

One commentator asked me what alternatives I have to (I presume) BEE and Affirmative action. 

Here is my viewpoint :   Black economic empowerment is part of government policy now for some 16-17 years. The fact is it is trying to force White South Africa to stand back and let Black South Africa get the goodies.  This is fine with us.   It is not fine with them when they see that this doing nothing to White South Africa.  They are trying to right past wrongs with another wrong. One of the nicest scapecoats there are is "Apartheid"  

So what is an alternative ?   So called solutions that have been implemented and is not working :  Major money has been spent on buying up farms and giving it to previously disadvantaged individuals without making sure that they know how to farm.   It is expected from White farmers to get involved but no service agreement has been forthcoming.  Training is the name of the game and I will personally get involved and set up a management team of Subject specialists of all sorts and we will have these farms up and running in a year.  Why is this not happening?  The same government that now give tenders to the President's family of Billions of Rands starts heckling with us the moment they have to pay for such a project team.  This is how I see BEE in action and not insisting on Shareholderships and all that nonsens in existing White owned firms.

This is like going to war and the other side asking you to please sharpen their swords for them so they can use it against you. 

I am prepared to wager anyone who is interested that should BEE be dropped in total this country would be so far ahead in 5 years time that the past 17 years would look like it never even existed. 

We are a group of business people with the business acumen and human resources to set up such project teams at a moment's notice. We will just not do it at our expense. You want our expertise, you pay for it.

We are fed up with government looking for scapecoats and people like Desmond Tutu expecting whites to keep on saying sorry.  Ok here it is : Sorry but it is not going to happen.  We will help but as equal partners.

Affirmative action ?

See my post on the 10th of June on this blogspot about the subject.

Dogmatix and other pet hates or loves

What are your likes and dislikes ?   Some people are very outspoken about likes and dislikes and will defend their views vehemently. Others do have views but will quite easily be swayed.  Then there are those that will belief anything as long as it sounds plausable. I content that the latter suffer from a deadly disease called Gullabilation.  It is incurable.

Point I am making :  What do you like and what don't you like : 

To begin with I will give you a few of mine : (O yes of course there are those that you really hate)

What I like : 

I like people that can debate intelligently without getting angry at you because of a difference in viewpoint.

Fanatics about anything cannot do this.  I like to "kuier" with friends and family.  I enjoy a good red wine and a very good 12 year single malt whisky.  (Americans cannot make whisky-It is ONLY made in Scotland)

And off course a rare braaied (South African version of Barbequed) rump steak. My garden. Spring and Summe. Local pubs (don't go their very often but I like it) Scotland.

What I don't like :  Watching sport of any kind on the TV.  Dogmatic preachers (very near to the point that I can say I hate them but not really so bad (yet) ) Perchance on Sunday evening I swithed on the tv and there was this woman preacher with her finger in the air proclaiming hell and damnation if you should dare drink wine!.  I was sure other falsifications were forthcoming so I switched the tv off again. Some people that might also not like Dogmas will keep their mouth shut and let it go.  This is the point I am trying to make:  If you do not like a thing be prepared to say so and to defend your viewpoint.  Do not be a crowd follower or pleaser. More dislikes :  Racism of any kind ( Bee is racist), smartasses, people called Julius, (they remind me of one smartass called Malema).  Winter (it is an awful time) Small cars, slow cars , farmers with hats on in bakkies. American beer.

 If you like something say so !  If it is wine, chocolates, rare meat(sorry Vegans - us other normal people do eat meat)  Because you are (might be) a bit overweight does not mean you do not have to like chocolates anymore! 

Come on readers : Humour me - add to the lists : Likes and Dislikes !?