Very sad news indeed.
I almost always liked his views, articles. Not one to desperately fit in.
Condolences to his family and friends.

Tragic news !!
Rip and condolences to all !!!

What a sad day – Mike had an amazing mind and was always a really good human being. I am truly saddened by his passing and SA has lost a clear voice of reason and will be poorer for it. RIP my Old Friend

It does not add up. The economist suggests that taxpayers should first employ a politician and a government official who in turn, will employ unemployed people to serve the consumer. Why can’t the consumer, the actual taxpayer who has to pay for the entire scheme, not employ these people directly?

What kind of stupid socialist solution is this when the taxpayer has to pay R500/hour in additional taxes to indirectly employ vagrants at R25/hour. This is a value-destroying solution that turns the purchasing power of taxpayers into a glorified social grant.

These unfortunate people are unemployed because the consumer doesn’t want to, or cannot afford to buy their labor at the minimum wage. Now, the government, by the threat of force, has to coerce the consumer to employ those people indirectly via SARS.

If these unemployed individuals had the ability to add value at the legally enforced barrier to entry(minimum wage) they would have been employed already. It is government interference in the market economy that destroys jobs. Big government equals large unemployment. We have an overburden of bankrupt SOEs and municipalities with monopoly powers, that crowd out the private sector that could provide an efficient, value-adding service.

The entire public sector wage bill is a glorified social grant and vote-buying exercise for privileged union members and Tripartite members. They are the new wealthy elite who live in opulence while their brothers in the streets are starving. Their Marie-Antoinette moment is at hand.

The wonderful world our President lives in.

His Government actively exclude people and firms based on the colour of their skin from doing business with it. Called BEE.

27 years and it still remains the only country in the world where the majority have to be protected from the vast minority — Mainly due to their incompetence 1!!!

Viva ANC — Amandla !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Caper1 : do you mean to tell us that this Brian Dames is the same Brian Dames that used to be the CEO of Eskom, or that this African Rainbow is the one that belongs to Patrice Motsepe, brother of our first lady and brother in law of former energy minister Jeff Radebe?

Can’t be that the world is that small

Excessive only due to the BEE and other ancilliary “approval” fees payed to connected cadre!!!

As a businessman and free market thinker I rarely fing emotional support within myself for people that feel the need to use the power of the collective to enforce their agenda, Strangly this strike makes me happy, but not because I believe in the strikers right to increase their already sky high average salay.

SARS as the enforcer collecting money for a corrupt and criminal government.

So the longer these guys strike the less in wages we have to pay to them and the less money to end up in corrupt politicians pockets.

Please strike as long as you want guys.

Very sad news indeed. RIP.

Thanks to the ANCs employment patronage scheme and allowing 10m illegal immigrants in, we are in the current state of mess we are in.

So no new govt employment scheme will help.

Get rid of 10m illegal immigrants and let the private sector deliver growth, without the constraints of BEEs.

And in the next election they all vote for ZANU PF again.

In the biography of PK v d Bijl by Hannes Wessels (you would enjoy this book Cathy) he descibes the scene at the celebrations in Harare when Mugabe took over from the much maligned white regime.

Samora Machel was there and took the occasion to tell the honourable Mugabe: “You have won the breadbasket of Africa. Do whatever you want ….. but don’t get rid of your whites”.

And the rest is history. And I see the same playbook is on the table in South Africa. On Sundays in church I see only grey heads like my own. A couple of kids …. the middle generation is gone. They are overseas. And they are not coming back I don’t think.

As Yogi Berra said: it’s de ja vu all over again.

We may have some of the best engineers in the world. Our construction companies are world-class. The quality of entrepreneurs in the private sector is on par with the international standard. The design flaw is elsewhere.

There is a critical design flaw at the heart of the South African political-economic system. In the South African “mixed economy”, where the government occupies 50% of the national economy, the construction industry relies on government contracts for cash flow. A contract and a title deed have no meaning under a socialist government. Like the constitution and the rule of law, they are merely a pretense to subdue and capture taxpayers.

The government is not an active participant in the economy. The government is absent when it comes to creating value. The government is a squatter or parasite that occupies economic spaces, not to add value, but to extract value. The process that appoints government employees in a developmental state focuses on social issues like employment equity and redistribution, which enables cadre deployment and vote-buying. The system acts against excellence and motivates inferiority. The system selects for mediocrity and criminality because intelligent, efficient, and honest people pose a serious threat to stupid people in leadership positions. The drive for unity, accountability, and service delivery is nothing more than a smokescreen to hide incompetence and plunder.

We have whole departments and entire SOEs overflowing with incompetent people who consume national resources. The public sector wage bill is just another glorified social grant that turns taxpayer money into a sewage problem. Like in the case of SAA and Eskom, the government competes with the private sector while it has the power to tax its competition to salvage its own failures.

The lack of intellectual capacity and competence at SOEs is merely a reflection of the situation in Luthuli House, that in turn, is a manifestation of the mindset of the ANC supporter. Bridges, highways, and wastewater systems are sophisticated and expensive structures. ANC supporters cannot get their heads around these concepts.

Ask an expert:

For the councils that cater for wheeling, what is their rate per kWh including connection size fees? They will still charge you for that MW connection to them, in addition to charging you for transporting your own electrons.

When you add the fee Eskom Transmission charges (assuming your chosen wheeling supplier is not also on yet another council) for getting the power to your council, to the fee the supplier charges, to the fee your council charges for wheeling, what is the total of your reticulation fees plus the two wheeling plus the supply?

Then lastly, when your council shreds your substation at 2pm, will they allow your privately purchased electrons safe passage through to your business loads?

In my case the answer is that I would have to be mathematically challenged to wheel power rather than generate my own and No : I get shred with the rest of the substation and revert to diesel gennies.

Total incompetence is an ANC specialty and specifically looked for in their cadre deployment and contractor selection.

Create chaos and loot while everyone is distracted !!!!!!!!!!

This shows that SA has sticky state capture problems and corruption.

Time to rid ourselves of the ANC and BEE altogether.