December 13th, 2012 — Jean Temkin
At this time of the year, I am typically rushing around fulfilling my ‘things-to-do’ list ahead of a family Christmas, but this year my kith and kin will be lucky to get a mouldy orange in their stocking. Nevertheless, with my witchlike reputation, as in most other past years,’ I will dust off my crystal ball and make a prediction or two. First I ask you to bear with my moans.
Politics is not my forte and in my long newspaper career, I have avoided writing on politics like the plague. However, when I see politics creating havoc with the economy, my blood boils. The way I see it is that much of the economic mess we are in can be put at the door of government.
In an attempt to cheer myself up I am pondering a ‘what if’ that would not only pick me up but also put smiles back on the faces of the thinking people of this country. What if at the upcoming ANC Mangaung conference, President Zuma was ousted and replaced by someone who is happy to live with his only wife in an ordinary home. Better still, someone with intelligence, a solid business background with no desire to enrich himself at the expense of others. Most important of all, someone not regarded as a joke by the rest of the world and is not frightening off foreign investors seeking a stable environment in which to lodge their accumulated piles of cash that are desperately seeking a home.
Despite a drastic fall in foreign investment, the one thing I am not at all despondent about is the performance of the share market…
With the stranglehold that the labour laws impose on South African business, the success of our share market is amazing. It must surely be telling us something about the competence of our business leaders and highlights the incompetence of our present government.
Now is the time for a prediction or two. Regular readers know my dire predictions for the rand, which over the past thirty months has been knocked 30% lower in value. As things stand at the moment, I am holding on to my downward counts of R17,68 against the pound R13,92 against the euro and R10,73 against the dollar. However, should my ‘what if’ materialise, I will no longer back them as renewed faith in our country will immediately kick in.
Using the point and figure chart, my prediction for the JSE Overall index is positive, and, if my ‘what if’ comes about, it would be even more so. My positive feeling about the share market comes for the three triple tops that have appeared on the chart. These I have identified with TT.
A triple top formation occurs when a price or index has reached a resistance level and fallen back. It again moves up and tests the resistance, only to fall again. However, on its third attempt, it breaks through showing that resistance has been broken.
*****
Peter December 14, 2012 at 11:47 am #
A reader’s comment I picked up on a story on iol.co.za this morning might be sort of relevant, it reads –
Real Social Economics
Recently, while I was working on the verge which I tend because the council has since 1994, forgotten what “neat and tidy” suburbs look like, my neighbours stopped to chat as they returned home.
During our friendly conversation, I asked their 12 year old daughter what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be the President some-day. Both of her parents – ANC supporters – were standing there, so I asked her, “If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?”
She replied, “I’d give food and houses to all the homeless people.”
Her parents beamed with pride! “What a worthy goal!”
I agreed. “But you don’t have to wait until you’re President to do that!” I told her.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
So I told her, “You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and trim my hedge, and I’ll pay you R150 for the day’s work.
Then you can go over to the spaza store where the homeless guy hangs out and you can give him the R150 to use toward food and a new house.”
She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, “Why doesn’t the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the R150?”
I said, “Welcome to the DA Party.”
Her parents aren’t speaking to me.