Saturday, December 28, 2013

144 women raped daily in SA

JOHANNESBURG - The Medical Research Council has found South Africa still has one of the highest incidents of rape in the world.
The past year has seen some of the most gruesome rapes which included children who were barely a year old and elderly people above the age of 70.
The most recent crime statistics show 144 women are raped every day in the country and that amounts to about six every hour.
In the most recent case in the North West, a youth allegedly raped his 10-year-old neighbour on Christmas Day.
The 19-year-old appeared in the Itsoseng Magistrates Court on Friday, where he was denied bail.
The little girl had to undergo several medical procedures following her ordeal.

In the Limpopo province, police have arrested more than 120 alleged rapists this month alone.

Kwa-Zulu Natal’s Durban Beachfront 1930 – 2013

1930′s
Beach1930
1950′s
Beach1950
1960′s-1970′s

Beach1960.70bBeach1960.70cBeach1960.70dBeach1960.70e2009
Beach2009Beach2009bBeach2009d
2011
People celebrate New Years Day on the beach in DurbanPeople celebrate New Years Day on a beach in Durban
2013 – New Years Day
BeachNY2013

Utopia in South Africa

Let us pretend that we can achieve "utopia" in South Africa for a minute, that we can see "the light" and solve all our problems. I suppose the first thing required would be to define what that Utopia actually is.

I suggest it would be

1) Everyone has a job which pays the equivalent of R30 000 per month in current money
2) Government takes no more than 15% of that salary in taxes
3) Everyone has the opportunity to own a sized house supplied with reasonably priced electricity, water and general services such as garbage removal, post etc
4) Everyone has access to good schools which their children can attend which ensure a solid platform for later success
5) Everyone can trust that when dealing with law enforcement, everything will be done to bring about justice

I am sure you as readers can fill in other aspects. So I wonder if government has a list like this ? The answer is that they don't. The list they have is based around redistribution of existing wealth, colour demographics and socialist reform.

You might say that this Utopia isn't possible but the sad reality is that it is. A country like Australia has half the number of people and SIX times the GDP of South Africa. Think about what South Africa would look like if we increased our GDP by six fold ?

What is it that Australia has that South Africa doesn't ? We have better mineral resources, better location with respect to being able to trade with the whole of Africa and Europe. We even have better weather, plenty of fertile ground. In fact the ONLY thing Australia has is a large working middle class.

So how does one go about creating a large working middle class ?

1) You educate your people. Follow the Australian model - if you don't have the best teachers - get them into SA on skilled visas to teach. Pay them a premium to be here, but educate the population - there is NO BETTER investment of taxpayers money than this.
2) Follow the same principle with respect to the police force. Put highly skilled, competent people in charge at all levels. If you can't find them locally, get them into the country with the lure of above average incomes.
3) Cut government spending. Stop all the departments which do not move you closer to Utopia. Tourism department ? Get rid of it - private business will do it better and more efficiently. There are LOTS of examples. The job of government is to implement utopia - anything which government has to "outsource" should stop.
4) Do everything you can to create a JOB - this means reducing union power, cutting taxes, eliminating minimum wages etc. Anglo platinum intends on retrenching 14 000 people. The secret is that when everyone is working, the cost of labour goes UP. This means salaries rise the higher the employment level in SA is. CREATE JOBS by eliminating the things that retard job creation (seems stupid, but that is all there is to it). The better we educate our people the HIGHER their salaries become, AND the more jobs we create the more money we have to go around supporting those less fortunate - like (Zimbabwe!)
5) Sad to say it, but we can't afford all the grants we provide at this time. This does not mean eliminate them all, but we need to stop the ones that go to people who could otherwise be working. How to do this ? If you are unemployed I will pay you the "grant" - you need to arrive at work on Monday morning and start building infrastructure - we can build new rail infrastructure at the very least all around SA - that's how they used to do it in the "old days"

So why doesn't government do this ? The simple answer is that South Africa believes that Socialism is the best way to run a country. China which is the "model" everyone follows however has a GDP per capita of $9 100 - even lower than South Africa at $13 300, and yet is viewed as the "model".

I challenge all my socialist friends out there to demonstrate how the Socialist model can ever put us in the position where our GDP per capita is on of the 10 best in the world.

And no, comments like "apartheid must be redressed" or "renaming roads is important to ensure cultural uniformity" won't cut it.

The Greatest Scam - South Africa

Well, you are probably expecting this article to be about Nkandla, or maybe E-tolls, or maybe it is about that sign language interpreter, but in fact there is a bigger trick going on beneath our noses.

So lets start with some basics. Our politicians make promises every election - such as free education, free medical aid etc. Of course, there is no such thing as a free lunch and although we "provide" those services they are really paid for through taxes. Simple enough so far.

We have a R1 trillion annual budget but only generate R750 billion in taxes. So where does the extra cash come from ? Well our government sells  "bonds" - a promise to pay someone back with interest at some future date.

In essence the government borrows money from the future to pay for things now - much like we borrow to buy a house. This would be ok if the money raised by those bonds went into assets such as power stations and roads or we were creating new jobs with it.... But let me not become sidetracked too early.

In 2013 South Africa has raised R250 billion in bonds increasing our total debt to R1.2 trillion. The budget plans to borrow an additional R497 billion over the next three years which will increase our debt to R1.7 trillion. How are we going to pay this back ?

Government actually has no intention of paying this back... They can't - they spend more than they earn ... All we plan to do is pay back the interest. And so what happens ? The bonds and loans become due and guess what.... we issue MORE bonds to pay for the old bonds.
Our net debt in 2007/08 was R483 billion... we have TRIPLED it under the current regime to R1.2 trillion and will increase it again to R1.7 trillion over the next three years... think about that.... Borrow R497 billion to pay back R300 billion in interest, and we still have to pay back the principal of R1.7 trillion ! In other words our borrowing has reached the point where the loans are being paid off by more loans.

So what does it all mean ? It means that we are paying taxes to pay interest. And as the interest rises, we pay more and more of our tax money to paying interest. Or put another way, the proportion of our taxes which goes to paying interest is growing all the time. Future generations will have to pay even MORE tax to cover the interest costs.

What it also means is that large amounts of money - interest leaves the country - and does so forever at MUCH greater levels than say e-tolls achieves. And like that family that pays one credit card off with the other, the debt becomes huge. This is how you land up being a Cyprus

Frankly this interest machine is sheer genius with respect to shifting wealth from the many poor and middle class people of SA to the wealth elite of the world who own the banks who earn the interest. Biggest SCAM ever.

So to all my ANC, DA, EFF, AGANG, the Booi's and Mashilo's and the other political aspirants - what ARE you going to be doing about this ? Your answer SHOULD be what we as a country are talking about and debating .... and SHOULD ultimately be what your vote in 2014 is about.

PS. The government plan is to .... print more money ... and simply devalue everything you earn. To those defenders of the poor, the unions, the politicians and ordinary citizens ... this is why the poor can never earn enough, the reason why petrol is through the roof, and the reason why e-tolls as a new tax form are being implemented.