Tag: economics

According to the Facts and Figures 2023 report, just 37% of Africa’s population uses the internet, representing a digital divide for hundreds of millions of people. Only a tiny fraction of the continent’s people have access to a high-speed broadband connection at their homes.

If you pay attention to what is happening, you can learn some basic principles of economics. This makes sense, when you realise that economics...

“Supporting an unemployed person with a public works job far outweighs its cost” according to ex-deputy director-general of National Treasury, Andrew Donaldson. Experts with a deep understanding of economics, our country and its policy history, from Andrew Donaldson to Kate Philip, the lead on the Presidential Employment Stimulus, are calling for an expansion of socially and economically productive public works programmes.

Election season is coming up soon in South Africa, and those with governmental power have started promising jobs to the millions who are unemployed. Yet anyone who has an inkling of economic knowledge would know that the politicians are writing cheques with their mouths, and that they will be unable to cash their actions.

One of my privileges in life was to come to know and be friends with Dr. Nathaniel Branden (1930-2014), considered by many to be the father of the self-esteem movement.

Because of its illiberal and authoritarian policies the choice of Qatar for the World Cup created a lot of controversy. A repressive dictatorship itself, Qatari police had their hands full going after people from countries who actually believed they had a right to freedom of speech. 

During a long conversation with a friend while driving from shutting up a house in Italy for the winter and heading back to Germany, he asked what I thought about the economics of Christmas. One thing I always try to do is think of things people much smarter than I have said. To do that, I have to figure out the best way of approaching the topic.

Tafadzwa Zimunhu Taruvinga, a young Zimbabwean, enrolls to study economics at Rhodes University in South Africa. As a foreign student, the fees are exorbitant, exacerbated by the fact that currency has become increasingly problematic in the ailing economy back home.

Competition is not something that can be artificially created. Competition is an inherent facet of human – or living – nature, and thrives most when it is left alone. The notion that government can introduce swaths of laws, regulations, and red tape, like the new Competition Amendment Bill, and not have a deleterious effect on competition and economic growth is naïve.