Fear and Loathing
Fear and Loathing : Latest Posts
03 February 2010 15:03
Men and very big machines
Build, pillage and then privatise: a short history of mine nationalisation in Africa.
JOHANNESBURG - A good number of enquiries have landed up in my bunker, mainly from offshore, about why the ANC Youth League continues to crank out loose gimcrack talk about nationalising South Africa's mines. This week, the mines minister, Susan Shabangu, said that nationalisation of mines would "not happen in her lifetime".
This generated foul responses from the ANC Youth League, which called her a liar, and the Young Communist League, which likened her remarks to "a declaration of war". These are peaceful times, all right; note that Shabangu ranks as a fairly senior minister within the structures of the ANC, in power in South ...
21 January 2010 00:29
The ANC goes bonkers
The political legend confirms that it will effectively rip billions of rands out of Eskom’s belly.
JOHANNESBURG - In good form as usual, 702 Eyewitness news has it in a radio interview this week that the ANC, South Africa's ruling party, will effectively rip billions of rand out of Eskom, the beleagured state-owned enterprise (SOE), and monopoly electricity generator and distributor. ANC General Secretary Gwede Mantashe confirmed on radio that the ANC would benefit from its 25% stake in Hitachi South Africa, which apparently holds R6bn worth of contracts to supply boilers to long overdue Eskom power stations currently in build mode.
15 January 2010 00:01
A Caribbean, and other, quakes
Haiti’s economics of disaster add another chapter to the doomsday book.
JOHANNESBURG - Yet another earthquake has hit Haiti, the Caribbean nation; estimates of up to 500 000 casualties in Port-au-Prince, the capital, have raised alarm across the world. Offers of assistance of all kinds are kindly pouring in. Haiti, the antithesis of the maxim that "nothing succeeds like success" has once again attracted bad luck, but its mojo has been poisoned for more than two centuries.
Haiti stands alone for a long list of reasons. It was the first independent nation in Latin America, the first post-colonial independent black-led country anywhere, and the only country that has ever made it to independence by mounting a successful slave revolution.
Some 50 000 soldiers sent to Haiti by Napoleon Bonaparte lost their lives trying to recapture it and on Janua...
Fear and Loathing : Recent Posts
Solomon’s mine redux
18 December 2009 00:01
A wild and wooly year in platinum draws rapidly to a crunching close.
"New" Simmers board looks doomed
11 December 2009 16:22
Must go to the vote, Vulisango says, also demanding forensic scrutiny back to 2005.
It’s the (lack of) cash, stupid
08 December 2009 16:23
Listed gold stocks are the unwitting dogs of 2009’s global mining performers.
Poor old De Beers
01 December 2009 17:16
With cash flows from hell, the once mighty diamond miner is on its knees.
Inglorious justice
26 November 2009 15:40
Menzi Simelane, and the outrageous happenings in the liquidations sector.
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