SA doesn’t have any trade reps
Sara Gon and Nicholas Lorimer discuss the lack of South African trade counsellors anywhere in the world. They also chat about the dispute between Joburg
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Municipalities, do your duty
Budget 2025, with the drama surrounding it, is all the rage these days. With the Government of National Unity on the ropes, let’s keep talking about how governments spend your money – or do not. Every quarter, National Treasury (NT)
The game has changed: a new era in SA politics
Hermann Pretorius and Nicholas Lorimer discuss the results of an IRR poll which has the DA, for the first time in South African history, being the largest party in a country-wide poll. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTUT-Or7FIk
How Javier Milei differs from Donald Trump
Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, famously gave Elon Musk a chainsaw. As similar as he appears to Donald Trump, he differs in key respects. Milei is often compared to Trump and to other right-wing populist leaders, like Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro. As
Free speech − that old chestnut. Again
Free speech and its somewhat more expansive cousin, free expression, are slippery beasts (as we know). Laws erected to protect them are not impermeable − imprecise and tortured definitions of exceptions like “hate speech” and “incitement to violence” poke holes
For information only…
Some years ago, I remember paging through a magazine appealing to, shall we say, our less refined impulses. Among the adverts for performance enhancers and pheromone deodorant, a mail-order outfit was selling books with such memorable titles as Stoned at
Dodging the Doge – deliberately missing the Opposition point on VAT hike
Although the number of South African public sector employees is supposedly 1.2 million, this figure is misleading and low. The number of total state employees – including military, police and state-owned enterprises along with national, provincial and local government --
How SA’s economy resembles China’s
The US-China trade war spotlights China’s need for exports to offset structurally weak domestic consumption − neither their economy nor ours prioritises middle-class growth. SA’s per capita GDP is half of China’s, which is just below the global average of