Race, income and the astronomical potential of Nelson Mandela Bay
South Africa is 20% Wakanda and 80% Flea Bottom. That is the impression I got from the paper, Racial Inequality and Redistribution in Post-Apartheid South
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In helping Ukraine, we protect ourselves
We have just returned from a ten-day visit to Ukraine, with meetings in Lviv, Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro. We met extraordinary innovators at drone factories and visited war-weary but motivated soldiers close to the kill-zone. We heard from NGOs, media
Unlike the UK, the US still has faith in South Africa
I wasn’t expecting any warmth toward South Africa before I arrived at a conference held in my new hometown in Texas, and I couldn’t have left more surprised. There, one of Donald Trump’s favourite economists, Stephen Moore, a former advisor
SA invests 14 cents of every rand it earns – meaningful growth needs twice that
South Africa spent 13.9% of its national income on new buildings, machinery and equipment (gross fixed capital formation as a percentage of GDP) in 2025. In 2008 the figure was 21.6%. The National Development Plan set a target of 30%.
AI agents – the sucking sounds of emptying bank deposit accounts?
I am writing a series of columns looking at the effect the sudden flood of agentic AI capabilities will have on the rest of us. I wrote about the effect of AI agents on the advertising-supported online economy here, but
The privacy dilemma: when protecting the innocent also protects the guilty
We live in an age of exposure. Every transaction, search, and movement leaves a trace. Your phone knows where you’ve been. Your browser remembers what you think. The systems we depend on are quietly building a biography of each of
The battle of ideas cannot be democratised or domesticated
The demand that South Africans who oppose race law, expropriation without compensation, and the toleration of farm attacks “stay at home” and “win by persuasion” and votes treats the battle of ideas as a majoritarian device. That is a category
No room for compromise on the five US demands
South Africa’s relations with the US can only further deteriorate while the Trump administration remains in power. And as long as the ANC is in power in SA, and a Republican administration continues in Washington, the standoff will continue. Even
Embassy upgrades and diplomatic spats: where to, South Africa?
South Africa's diplomatic properties have recently become the subject of a familiar argument: with the country facing persistent economic and fiscal pressures, should it really be spending hundreds of millions of rands upgrading embassies and other overseas properties? The Department