These clowns through their misplaced socialistic views will just drive all upper and middleclass households to go completely off grid !!
Solar is very expensive – once !!!!

I admire Andre de Ruyter and what he is doing against all odds, and the legislative changes the President is introducing to free up electricity supply. However, this move is counter-productive and a betrayal of people who have tried to co-operate by using less power. For years we have heard that we should switch off and reduce consumption, and, as was the case with water, they now complain that the reduced consumption reduces their income.
Sadly, I cannot endorse this mistaken and short sighted approach.
My private belief is that, by the time Eskom is working again, no one will need it any more.
Instead of trying to penalize those who are helping, Eskom should focus on regaining its credibility by supplying electricty reliably and affordably, without excuses.

What you get after 28 years of the ANC is – poorer, across the board.

#VoetsekANC

The current state of our Nation is the perfect opportunity for other political parties to find votes. The worse our economy, the happier the EFF will be. They can’t wait to get their hands on the few taxpayers dwindling contributions whilst they still can! Some call it Radical Economic Transformation…I call it theft!

PS this is an attempt to charge people for the right to receive electricity, which is a right Eskom cannot honour. It is not just solar energy and off-grid supplies that reduce Eskom revenue based on consumption – it is the fact that Eskom has not been supplying the power for us to consume

The idea of a wealth tax is quite popular these days. They propose a wealth tax as the answer to alleviate poverty and address inequality. They tend to forget that, in effect, all taxes target the process of capital accumulation and capital appreciation. When we consider the effects of the Capital Gains Tax, for instance, it becomes clear that it is close to impossible to build real wealth in a socialist society. The government controls the rate of inflation and the rate of CGT. Inflation is the overriding factor that drives capital growth. In reality, very few savers ever realize real capital growth. (I am prepared to support this statement with facts)

This implies that the saver pays taxes on nominal gains, while he actually did not make any real profits. The government is able to generate taxes by using a combination of fiscal and monetary policies. Considering that capital formation forms the basis of economic activity and job creation, it is easy to see how a government can easily tax itself into an unemployment catastrophe.

Would an overhaul of the entire billing system be required if everyone paid their electricity bills on time or is just another case of this being done to reward those people that don’t pay for their electricity usage and penalise those that actually do pay with a higher fixed cost?

The policies of economic transformation and the redistribution of property values lead to increasing demands on those policies as the system forces more and more people into poverty as time passes by.

The system increases inequality because it makes the politically-connected elite wealthy, while it makes the unemployed masses poor. South Africa is a case study in this regard.

The ignorant and naive collectivists see the economy as a constant, stable, and physical entity like a mountain range or the ocean. They never stop to realize that the economy is not a physical entity like a cake, that can be cut up end redistributed.

The economy is not a physical entity. We cannot touch, smell, taste, or hear the economy. We have to use complex calculations by highly-educated individuals to describe the economy. Neither are property rights something physical that can be cut up and redistributed. Property rights are a mentality, belief system, attitude, or life-view depicted by a thin piece of paper called a title deed. The economy and property rights are merely ideas, or the manifestation of thoughts.

The economy only exists in the minds of people. It consists of the daily activities of many individuals who are trying, to the best of their ability, to put food on the table. Concepts like self-reliance, accountability, individualism, optimism, and excitement, combined with a value-adding attitude, knowledge, skills, and determination, are the driving forces behind economic activity. How can any law redistribute these factors of production? People either have it or they don’t. The law cannot empower a poor person by reaching into the head of a successful person to transfer his thoughts to that poor person.

What is economic transformation then? It is a process that plunders the resolve and mindsets of people who add value, to redistribute it among people who have no use for it. This process does not transfer wealth, because wealth is a thought process that cannot be transferred from e person to another. The process only destroys the value-creating mindset and taxes(punishes) the resolve of those who add value to society.

So, when a socialist government destroys the resolve, passion, excitement, and positive opportunism of entrepreneurs with punitive redistributive taxes and BEE requirements, it kills ideas. Ideas are the basis of economic activity. A sustainable economic system rewards people for their value-creating ideas. A collectivist system punishes people who think valuable thoughts. They redistribute the fruits of those value-adding ideas, to reward those whose heads are empty of valuable thoughts.

We should remind ourselves that material inequality is merely a manifestation of mental inequality. Material inequality is the manifestation of inequality in thoughts and belief systems. It is a natural phenomenon in a free society.

Any attempt at social engineering by a central-planning authority will invariably lead to rising poverty because it destroys the thoughts and ideas of people who are able to add value to society.

Just to throw the cat among the pigeons, or the spanner in the works maybe…How are we supposed to build wealth when the owner of the title deed has to service the bond with after-tax money, pay the redistributive rates and taxes on the property, pay insurance on it, pay the security company to protect it, renovate and paint it, pay the minimum wage for those who work there, and then pay CGT when we sell it and Estate Duties when we die? We actually borrowed ourselves into a tax liability.

The point is – we own the title deed of the property, but the government owns the revenue stream from that property. That implies that we are taking on debt to buy ourselves into slavery under a socialist government. Mugabe was stupid enough to confiscate the property outright. The ANC only confiscated the cash flow stream of the property, leaving us with the installments. This is the difference between communism and socialism.

Maybe we should go a step further and ask – if we are going to take on debt to buy assets, in which jurisdiction should we do it, and which asset class provides the best real returns relative to the interest paid?

What was the question again?

To me Marikana marks the start of the current anarchy inn this country.
The police shot armed violent mineworkers that previously killed 10 people and they were thought to be under attack.
While very sad the aftermath has sent a very clear signal tp the law enforcers not to act against “protestors”
It is therefore no wonder that they were missing in action during last years riots and stand idly by while trucks are burnt and looted because they are too scared to act knowing the consequences and condemnation of Marikana !!!

Is it really possible for “average” people to save enough to support themselves in retirement? The financial industry constantly preaches its textbook stuff to us and makes us feel like losers. Even the government pretends to care about our well-being in retirement. If the intentions of these parties are so pure and benevolent, why do they charge fees upon fees and taxes upon taxes?

The 8th wonder of the world is compound growth, according to Einstein. That amazing force acts to compound the management and performance fees for fund managers and the taxes for the government. Is it really possible for investors, the financial industry, and the government to live off the same little puddle of savings?

The following factual hypothesis illustrates the point.
Koos inherits R100 000 from his dad in 1970. He takes the money offshore at R0.71 to the dollar to buy the S&P 500 ETF(which did not exist at the time). The current nominal value of his investment is R143 million. He made a nominal profit of R142 900 000 over the 50-year period. The TER of the ETF plus the management fees of his fund manager consumed the dividend stream. Koos sells his investment and pays R5.7 million in Capital Gains Tax. (for illustrative purposes we calculate CGT over the entire 50 years).

Now, Koos is trying to ascertain the purchasing power of his money by calculating the impact of currency devaluation, fees, and taxes over the lifespan of his investment. Koos is confused by the different inflation statistics and currency movements, so he decides to simply compare the performance of his investment to a stable benchmark like gold. As a matter of fact, South Africa and the US were on the gold standard in 1970. Koos made his initial investment in terms of gold, so he is quite reasonable and accurate when he also calculates the current value in terms of gold.

Koos is shocked and disappointed to learn that the current value of the S&P 500, measured in terms of ounces of gold, is at the exact same level as in 1970 when he made his initial investment. He goes over his calculations again and comes up with the same answer. Koos reconciles himself with the fact that, although he did not make any “real” profits over 50 years, he at least retained the purchasing power of his initial investment. Then it dawns on him that he has been paying management fees to his fund manager and taxes to his government while he did not make any real money.

In fact, Koos paid R5.7 million in Capital Gains Tax to the government on an investment of only R100 000. After taxes, Koos suffered a loss in real (inflation-adjusted) purchasing power. The purchasing power of his investment actually declined after factoring in the CGT on illusionary profits.

The point is – a government uses the combination of currency devaluation and taxes to create for itself a revenue stream from illusionary profits. This destructive wealth tax makes it close to impossible for ordinary citizens to save enough for retirement. We shouldn’t feel bad. The system is against us. It is hard to be a capitalist in a socialist world.

Johan yes but consider this.
Say R5000/kWh up front cost then assume 4000 cycles of use it ends up at R1.25/kWh over life of battery.
Not that expensive if you compare it to current Eksdom pricing per kWh!!!!!

These barbarians humiliated themselves, using archaic, violent, and brutal methods to intimidate and attack property rights and law and order for their own selfish gain.

Honorable people should not associate with them, or feel pity for them because their destructive and selfish attitude will ruin our nation like it ruined their employer at Marikana. What about the rights of pension fund members who are struggling to cope after they have lost the entire value of their shares in Lonmin? What about the dignity of retirees who depend on the value of their pension fund that owned Lonmin shares? Labour unions plunder the property of these exposed and vulnerable members of society. There is nothing honorable about that. It is despicable.

It was they who chose to abandon the sophisticated process of peaceful negotiations and reverted to barbarism, violence, and intimidation. They were free to seek alternative employment somewhere else that could satisfy their demands, but they chose to abuse the system that brought that freedom, to plunder the rights of property owners, and enslave shareholders. These militant labor unions captured the business model of their employers with the assistance of Luthuli House. The pension fund members have nowhere else to go. The law enables union members to exploit and enslave pensioners.

They are enabled and emboldened by stringent labor laws that put them in a special privileged position to extract material benefits from savers and pension funds for their personal gain. They are nothing more than glorified zamma-zammas who extract benefits from the savings of other people.

The Farlam Commission neutered the South African police force and reduced this proud force to nothing more than car guards in uniform. The police are impotent to act against the destructive popular uprisings called service delivery protests. Since the Marikana event, the criminal justice system is on the side of the anarchists and hooligans.

Why would an investor risk his capital only to be confronted by a society that glorifies the Marikana event, and a neutered police force that cannot protect his property against hooligans?

There is too much hysterics about this and it is not actually about Eskom vs solar.

The Energy Regulation Act and the various tariff policies and white papers have ALWAYS guided to tariffs being reflective of cost imposed by the user and non-discriminatory and set Time of Use as the goal.

Being liable to have 25 kVA available when required, putting up and servicing the substations transformers cables and meters to deliver that 25kVA all cost money. Yes I know Eskom has been doing a poor job on the available when require.

We must end up with:
1. Everybody must pay, and
2. must pay a basic fee for availability and reticulation, and
3. the energy tariff must be cost-reflective plus send pricing signals.

It will take time but I venture most larger users are already on meters that support time of use metering. The fastest way to get a factory to program his chillers not to run at 8AM is to charge him 350c/kWh at 8AM but 75c/kWh at 4AM.

I am pro solar and have a lot of it, but believe it is incorrect that we expect to be allowed to put up a lot of solar, be paid the full energy tariff for exports when we do ‘t need it and draw what we want when the sun is down, paying only for what we use and no fixed fee. The national grid is not your free personal battery system. If you want to go that route, pay R5000/kWh for your battery system and see how that math works out for you.

Does the full professor at least employ a gardener and a domestic worker, and does he pay them a decent salary of at least R13 000 per month, or is he the populist shining star of benevolence that forces other people to pay for his opinions?

The full professor chooses to ignore the fact that exposed and vulnerable pensioners, many of whom have to survive on less than R13 000 per month, are the actual employers of those mineworkers. The managers of the mine are not the owners, the shareholders are. The shares belong to pension funds, with retirees and pensioners as members.

Who most deserves to be treated decently and fairly, dear full professor, the employers, who are pensioners, and who have zero options at this stage, or the workers who are free to seek alternative employment opportunities? Who created the employment opportunity in the first place?

In a country with an unemployment rate of 60%, a job at the minimum wage is an enormous privilege, dear full professor.

Furthermore, an academic institution that expells an ignorant and stupid young man for being ignorant and stupid does not set any example in pragmatism, mental maturity, and forgiveness. Such an institution displays the vindictiveness of little academic men and exposes their lack of tenderness and understanding.