What we need next, is a debate in the media about the advantages and disadvantages of having our banks in private hands. And the same for having them in the public hand.

In this debate the banks should have the “bewyslas” on them, ie. after their recent track record, they should prove to us (the people) why banks should NOT be nationalised.

I’m sure we’ll find out and agree that banks DO NOT have to be in private hands. Then a people’s campaign could start to get banks nationalised.

Christo

Everything that has happened since their “vergryp teen die mensheid” has just been reactions, responses, efforts to bring the whole system back on an even keel.

There is a real chance that the greedy bankers of the era 1985 – 2008 will one day go down in history as the “terminators of the free world and its free economy”. I hope I’m wrong on this.

If not, Karl Marx will have been right after all: capitalism did carry the seed of its own destruction in it.

Christo

If only the SA government could work up the same excitement for the internet as it has for the SKA project!

Fifteen years after it should have been done, the SA government still hasn’t given the country the infrastructure it needs to compete with the internet economies of Kenia and Nigeria.

Government dreams of educating a few dozen scientists with the SKA project, while a whole nation waits for the internet economy to get off the ground.

Eischhh!

Christo

Because, SA’s banks are the biggest (residential) property owners in SA – against their will. Talking the market down under these conditions, could quickly turn into a disaster for the banks.

Remember, the banks caused the bubble with their greedy, overaggressive extension of loans (credit) for years. Since 2009 they’ve been trying to rectify the situation in an orderly way, or slowly deflate the bubble they built, by being very strict with new-loan extension.

A side-effect: many houses landed on the market when owners could not afford them any longer. When no takers pitched, the banks ended up with them on their books. They want to get rid of them, but that will only happen once inflation has “evened out” the imbalances caused by the banks. At this stage, the banks need Erwin Rode like a hole in the head.

Christo

The wine was showcased with other Platter 5-star wines at the recent Cape Euro tasting in London. Hermanuspietersfontein also had a stand and the reds stood out for their elegance, soft tannins, and good structure.

Maybe I should also just put on record my view that the euro is in for a significant rise. A new, smaller EU consisting of “disciplined members only”, will justify a much stronger euro than the current one.

Whether there will be a huge dip, before the strong climb, I can’t say. I guess the chances are 80:20 stacked against that happening. The chances are better that, once the markets realize the EU is in for a breakup, they will jump to the next conclusion, namely that there will eventually be a new, much stronger EU and euro.

Christo

Ja, en dan kom nog die “decomposable garbage” ook. In n vorige gebou het die eienaar daarop aangedring dat ons ons groente/vrugte-afval in n komposgat in die tuin gooi, wat elke week op n bepaalde manier omgewoel is om die temperatuur binne bepaalde grense te hou.

Hoop die rooinekke is meer “relaxed”.

Christo

Christo