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08 December 2011 05:28

Learn about the past this holiday

And incidentally something about the present and the future.

How’s your history? Sort out, in date order, the following: World War 1, the Battle of Blood River, the end of the Roman empire, the second Anglo Boer War, Columbus’s arrival in America, the death of Julius Caesar, the beginning of the industrial revolution, the death and resurrection of Christ and the Reformation in Europe.

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05 December 2011 17:24

What Sol Kerzner lost

For $175m he parts with assets worth billions.

JOHANNESBURG - To appreciate Sol Kerzner’s loss in transactions with the Canadian property company Brookfield last week, you have to have visited Atlantis in the Bahamas.

In my former life as a PR man, Sol once asked me to come over for a couple of days to discuss a problem.  Having seen the Lost Palace at Sun City, I was expecting something spectacular but nothing could have prepared me for the reality.

The hotel and casino, set off by the azure Caribbean, is a very much enlarged Palace at Sun City. That means it is huge and designed to take the breath away, even if it is showy and bright in a tasteless way, which is how tourists on the visiting cruise liners like it.

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02 November 2011 20:03

Desperate Dutchgirl dazzled in Doha

What does a country do with too much money?

JOHANNESBURG - The brightest item in a shingles tormented week was an over-the-moon phone call from Dutch daughter Soul, who had just returned from five days in Qatar, the richest country on earth.

She took leave from husband and kids in the Hague to visit close South African friends transferred to Doha by Shell. The glittering palace still under construction in the desert exceeded her wildest imagining.

Petro-dollars are swamping the place and the boss, Hamad Ben Khalifa Al Thani, seems unsure what to do with it all.

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19 September 2011 07:54

Don’t soak the rich to help the poor

If the rich all emigrated, incomes would be more equal – but appallingly low.

JOHANNESBURG - Government wants a round-table talk with business on the subject of executive pay.

Clearly it thinks the multi-million rand packages of top executives are excessive in a country, where 25% of the population is unemployed and 40% live in poverty.

The Gini coefficient measures income inequality and by that measure SA, alongside Brazil, is one of the most unequal societies in the world.

Two other havens of extreme wealth, Bermuda and Monte Carlo, are uncomfortable with their inequality. They know that if the rich simply emigrated, wealth and income inequality would reduce – but their countries would be a lot worse off from the loss of wealth creators, employers and taxpayers.  

You want proof? Look at Zimbabwe where, after...

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09 September 2011 07:48

Jobs for Malema mobs

Set private sector free to hire and fire, oh…. and fix education.

JOHANNESBURG - Chances are, dear Moneyweb reader, that you are full of rage and fear at the sayings of Julius Malema and the provocative behaviour of his supporters.

Before you phone an embassy to enquire about a one-way ticket out of here, are you able to empathise?

Can you get into the shoes of people who live in a free black country yet for years have had no job and no prospect of eking out a decent living?

Can you imagine their jealousy at the Range Rovers and Rolexes of people who toyi-toyied shoulder to shoulder with them 20 years ago?

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