CAN* SOUTH AFRICA*SURVIVE GIVEN THE FOLLOWING?

**Pap_sak** · 05-Sep-12, 09:09 PM

In the UK you could be working a standard job 9 -5 and the family next door could basically be having the same life yet never have worked a day in there lives. This is common in Europe, Oz and NZ. Sure, we have a huge amount but collecting relatively small amounts AND is generally goes to pensioners and for kids. So it doesn't really bother me. The huge salaries of government workers on the other hand...

**Nickolai Naydenov** · 05-Sep-12, 09:51 PM

Originally posted by Pap_sak

In the UK you could be working a standard job 9 -5 and the family next door could basically be having the same life yet never have worked a day in there lives. This is common in Europe, Oz and NZ. Sure, we have a huge amount but collecting relatively small amounts AND is generally goes to pensioners and for kids. So it doesn't really bother me. The huge salaries of government workers on the other hand...

Well 14 million people at R1040pm you can dothe math but it's not a small amount, then considering 8 million tax payers and 50 million population that puts it into perspective so whenyou look at it as a percentage it's nowhere near europe, Aus or New Zeland. Then take into consideration that in europe people would pay
like 25% tax but that imcludes pension, nhi and etc while here you get people paying 40% tax and then still paying or med aid and retirement, you can never compare that Africa and Europe in that way

**Blurock** · 05-Sep-12, 10:44 PM

Correction; 4.7 million tax payers. There may be 8 million submitting returns, but the balance will be below the tax threshold. Of the 4.7 mil there may be a small number who actually pay a substantial amount (those who receive pay slips in the corporate world and can do nothing about it).

**Pap_sak** · 09-Sep-12, 10:26 PM

I think personal income tax roughly accounts for about 25% - vat another 25% and company tax and other duties the other 50% Very roughly. So some pay more than others - that's par for the course - but EVERYONE pays some sort of tax, vat or customs, or duties.

I certain would prefer giving small amounts of cash to pensioners and the destitute than bailing out banks and giving to the professional lazy as the do in many other countries.

**cyppok** · 14-Sep-12, 11:02 AM

Will take a while for the country to get to insolvency point with the ability of the gov't to stop borrowing. Might be a decade or more. At which point you will revisit the wonderful experiences of many other countries that experienced default. Capital Flight is simply done via non-investment into depreciating infrastructure and slow but sure financialization of what can be asset shorn.

I am still wondering what happens. All countries have cohesion of some sort.

Theoretically anything CAN happen. Perhaps language split(s) or something like in Canada with Quebecoi wanting to go their own route.

**Blurock** · 15-Sep-12, 11:45 AM

Yes, it may take 10 or even 20 years to reach insolvency, but when the writing is on the wall, you'd better address it, or else it may come even sooner.

At the moment our current account is at a deficit, which means that we are importing more than we are exporting. We are spending more than we are producing. Some imports have to be made if the equivalent product can not be produced locally. Unfortunately other imports are a direct cause of opportunism at the cost of the local economy and local jobs.

I have seen tenders being awarded to connected BEE candidates who do not source locally, but import cheap, low quality products from China. There is no concern for the destruction of local jobs, or for the low quality of the products supplied. To the extent that more than one minister or official has commented on BEE candidates ripping off the government. The government need to be stricter on their own procurement policy to source locally and to assist emerging entrepreneurs (not tenderpreneurs).

**cyppok** · 16-Sep-12, 02:09 AM

Import / Export is not a big deal as long as the budget is not in deficit.
Think about it this, imports and exports is what private people for the most part consume and produce. If you like more foreign products its OK as long as you privately can afford them out of your savings or income.

Sourcing locally is sometimes stupid. It is often times better to do international bidding and transparent auctions to limit the amount of graft and corruption available to politicians on the ground. If a product made locally wins great, if not better luck next time. You could always enforce quality controls, similar to Russia for toys with China and simply test anything before saying it can be sold or has to go back to the manufacturer and is unacceptable. The point is establishing standards.

South Africa is held up by mining and agriculture to a degree. Agriculture is still alive somewhat but is fearful of capital investment. Mining is very fearful of capital investment. Energy if you count coal/oil/gas simply doesn't make sense from private investment because of constant nationalization fears.

Insolvency can be gotten to sooner if mining sector stops producing for a while say three-six months or so, then you get to insolvency fairly quickly perhaps in 3 to 5 years. Assuming bailouts and funding and exorbitant rates and reserve depletion etc...

**ChrisNG53** · 16-Sep-12, 06:08 PM

This nation cannot and will not survive unless there are some very fundamental changes to its emotional intelligence.

Right now: -
1. it is obsessed with a transformational model that is racist, absurd and immoral (AA and BEE);
2. for being an EXACT reverse image of the apartheid model;
3. inducing the inarticulate notion, eating away like a cancer in the national psyche, that "Black good, White bad, Coloured/Indian/Chines not too good/bad".
4. whilst the real imperatives of the realm are NOT being addressed', i.e, pandemic social injustice;
5. with the other preoccupation of a predatory/rapacious culture, of a new connected elite, feeding itself with growing impetus;
6. aggravating, NOT alleviating, the grotesque disparities inherited from apartheid;
7. complemented by new found naive concepts of "economic freedom" that are mouthed as silly but dangerous slogans, having very little bearing on reality;
8. further complemented by an even more dangerous complete lack of understanding of the imperatives of a constitutional democracy.

In short, the ship of state has been sailing in the wrong direction, towards treacherous waters, for some time now, led and staffed by a crew that are the quitessential examples of the Peter Principle.

It is going to founder on the rocks of incompetence and ignorant arrogance and arrogant ignorance ---- because no one even starts to see, let alone understand that --
IT HAS TO BE ABOUT SOCIAL JUSTICE -- EVERYTHING ELSE IS IRRELEVANT.!!!!!

**MGM** · 16-Sep-12, 06:57 PM

Social justice, that's it. If you work with people in this position everyday like the miners from Marikana, you will find that the average lower and some middle class black workers are tired of the injustice applied to them by the government, who they have put it power. The majority are realising that they have been taken for a ride, like the Nats did in the past with the white minority. So, the wheel turns. How can any so-called executive of a mining company earn on average the same salary as the 100's of guys that is doing the intensive labour, actually producing the product. South Africa's renumeration scales are heavily scewed. Sure, intelligence is needed to produce the product, but the labour plays an EQUAL part. So, I back the Marikana workers on this. There are to many lazy people out there feeding on the illiterate.

**ChrisNG53** · 16-Sep-12, 07:09 PM

Originally posted by MGM

Social justice, that's it. If you work with people in this position everyday like the miners from Marikana, you will find that the average lower and some middle class black workers are tired of the injustice applied to them by the government, who they have put it power. The majority are realising that they have been taken for a ride, like the Nats did in the past with the white minority. So, the wheel turns. How can any so-called executive of a mining company earn on average the same salary as the 100's of guys that is doing the intensive labour, actually producing the product. South Africa's renumeration scales are heavily scewed. Sure, intelligence is needed to produce the product, but the labour plays an EQUAL part. So, I back the Marikana workers on this. There are to many lazy people out there feeding on the illiterate.

Agreed ... but, and it is BIG BUT, ... it is not only the Marikana miners. It is a whole raft of society at a number of levels, who are basically being screwed wholesale and retail!!!!!!

**Blurock** · 16-Sep-12, 08:00 PM

Originally posted by ChrisNG53

Agreed ... but, and it is BIG BUT, ... it is not only the Marikana miners. It is a whole raft of society at a number of levels, who are basically being screwed wholesale and retail!!!!!!

So when will these guys wake up and realise that the ANC's (and other politicians) promises of heaven on earth will never materialise?

**ChrisNG53** · 16-Sep-12, 08:22 PM

Originally posted by Blurock

So when will these guys wake up and realise that the ANC's (and other politicians) promises of heaven on earth will never materialise?

Not for the foreseeable future!!!!

**wynn** · 17-Sep-12, 11:18 AM

It took 40 plus years for the arrogance of Nat's who were too stupid to realize that when a people have nothing to lose they don't mind sacrificing whatever it is that those that do have.
The ANC have reached that point in less than 20 years.

The old 'crab in a bucket syndrome' If I can't have it why should you?

**Blurock** · 18-Sep-12, 07:56 AM

Japan was almost wiped off the face of the earth following the American bombing raids and the nuclear bombing of Hirohima and Nagasaki. In less than 20 years the country was rebuilt and became the leading economy in the world.

In March 2011 Japan was hit by an 8.9 magnitude earthquake which triggered a massive tsunami and the meltdown of some of its nuclear reactors. The whole country worked together to overcome that disaster and manufacturing and trade is back on track in what was described by some as a miracle.

The state of Israel was founded amid attacks from its neighbours and several terrorist groups and became a thriving economy in far less than 20 years.

Germany was rebuilt after the 2nd world war. Their industry in the Ruhr valley and elsewhere was totally decimated, yet in far less than 20 years they became the leading economy in Europe and one of the strongest in the world.

The ANC came to power in South Africa in 1994. They were handed a country which had the strongest economy in Africa. It had the best education, military, transport system and infrastructure in general. Where is it all today? Why have they destroyed everything that worked and replaced it with the chaos we have in government today?

CAN* SOUTH AFRICA*SURVIVE GIVEN THE FOLLOWING?

CAN* SOUTH AFRICA*SURVIVE GIVEN THE FOLLOWING?

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