Current Affairs – The Shaved Soapbox

Crime and cronyism, why the apathy?

Our country has degenerated from “IF I ever get affected by crime” to “When I get affected by crime, the question is how violent will it be”

A while ago I stared into the barrel of a gun for the second time in my life, and could see the intent of the guy holding it….”fight me and I pull the trigger”

So I decided that he can take what he wants, and whatever is not insured I will have to replace out of my own pocket. I originally insured my bicycle in case I crash in a race, my thoughts never covered the possibility that someone would want it enough to take it from me at the business end of a gun. But luckily it was insured, and I was able to replace at least some of what was taken from me. Continue reading Crime and cronyism, why the apathy?

Unions, good and evil

Vavi recently slammed the government and ANC for the amount of corruption quite clearly visible on all levels.

The current strikes are for increases that are double or more of the current inflation rate. Now, knowing myself that the inflation rate is the biggest farce out, I can see their point, especially seeing that quite a few CEO’s and top management of parastatals are handing themselves increases of more than double what the workers are asking for.

They also want to get rid of labour brokers, and a few other requests.

Why strike

Now here is where my understanding ends. Labour brokers help a lot of the union members to get work, why get rid of them? There are the ones that take advantage of blue-collar workers, but then, there are full-time employers that do exactly the same. Are we going to get rid of employers next? We need to make sure that workers are not getting taken advantage of, which is what the unions are for. But then… Continue reading Unions, good and evil

Taxes

I received this via email, don’t think the percentages are 100% accurate, but probably in the ball-park, and that is scary to say the least:

People should not install the transponders but still use the highways and force the government to issue accounts and summonses to all motorists until such time they drop the prices. The government will be forced to send out millions of accounts every month and they don’t have the man power to do it. This is the best and easiest way to boycott the system. What is the government going to do about motorists from other neighbouring countries that don’t have these transponders? Continue reading Taxes

How about laws we actually need?

In the last 2 weeks things have gone really crazy with the arrest of a journalist for dubious reasons, and the government trying to fast track a law which would enable them to hide the corruption prevalent in their ranks, instead of just fixing the real problem. I have my views on these things, but this is not what the post is about.

We are in our strike season again, a bit later than usual after everyone behaved so nicely during the World Cup, and since yesterday there has been reports all over about violence and intimidation by the strikers. This is totally uncalled for! Continue reading How about laws we actually need?

Selfish strikers

Have the people currently striking at Transnet thought of the impact of their strike on the rest of South Africa. My dad is of the opinion that there could be up to one person losing their job in another industry for every person that is striking at Transnet.

How does he get to this?

Lets look at the fruit exporting business. They are currently in peak season for a number of different fruit, and cannot ship any of their product out of the country. That means that the industry as a whole will not make their profits, and may make a loss if they have to dump all of their produce on local markets. Who suffers? The farmers, and the workers that they now cannot afford to pay anymore. Their estimate is that they will lose R1billion equalling 30,000 jobs.

Economists say that the economy will probably lose R15billion therefore some 450,000 possible jobs will be lost, taking the scenario of the fruit producers. Take 10% of that and it amounts to some 45,000 additional jobs that may be lost. If this is not theft legalised what is it then? Continue reading Selfish strikers

Why are we funding electricity for a large mining house?

According to this article on News 24 and combining that information with this article on Times Live, we can quickly deduce that BHP Billiton is buying electricity at close to a quarter of the current production cost.

The current government/Eskom management will probably come up with some feeble excuse to blame the previous dispensation, but these contracts were signed in 1997, 3 years after the ANC took office. Continue reading Why are we funding electricity for a large mining house?

This is exactly where BEE in its current form fell short

Like I’ve been saying all along, BEE in its current form is not working. And now it has been confirmed by another person

Where our current government went off the tracks was to try and get as many previously disadvantaged people into as many posts as possible, with dire consequences for our country. They neglected to make sure that the people they appointed had the necessary skills to perform before getting rid of the people that had the skills. It bit them, hard. Continue reading This is exactly where BEE in its current form fell short