Cosatu calls for overhaul of SA economy

Mwaahahahahhahaha!! Is this some kind of joke? Ok, so let me get this right. Cosatu wants the rand at 10 to the dollar, low interest rates, labour settlements of 15% and sustained real economic growth? I really feel like saying something really nasty about their intellectual capacity, but I guess that would be seen as racist imperialism. I constantly remind myself of the following quote: "Those who know how, will always work for those who know why".

For a change I find myself agreeing with Cosatu. America and China are ejoying the fruits of their undervalued currencies at the moment to the detriment of countries like ours.

Maybe we should cut the crap - who really dominates the economy? Is it the pension houses with their shareholders being the 5 million odd working people the majority of whom are black, who are also allowed to elect their trustees to manage their funds on their behalf and these funds within the pension houses managed in turn by black middle managers. Or is it the CEOs who are largely white but responsible to the shareholders who are the pension funds who represent the majority - these same CEOs who have to perform otherwise they would be booted just like Jacob Maroga who was booted for non performance.

In this country you are not considered loyal on the basis of your South Africaness, you are only considered loyal based on the colour of your skin (black) and your affiliation to a specific party, the ANC (I can't call them political since they have not grown up as yet). Democracy African style!

This issue of an undervalued rand must be looked at from different perspective. The only benefit is that it will bring price competitiveness premised from the export led economy. But price is not the only factor when looking at export markets. Also we must remember that as a country we import a lot from other countries, even the same manufacturing sector imports some of it inputs from other countries. The gains from the weaker rand might be offset by the fact that we import a lot. This will also affect the foreign reserves. Also it is debatable whether the growing manufacturing sector would be able to absorb the highly surplus unskilled labour that we have. Over the years it has been proven that the manufacturing sector requires higher level skills as it has become more capital intensive. At this stage it looks like the benefits we can gain from a weaker rand will by far be outstripped by the costs in other sectors of the economy.

R10 to the USD to high, R8 would probably work. At R10 the fuel price will jump which will make everything else go up. The Unions will "demand " higher wages and Cosatu will want R15 to the USD. Productivity will stay at its normal low rate! Someone show them a bit of logic and maths and someone else start a union for the unemployed!

To get productivity up in the short term, which is what i think COSATU wants, playing around with economics is not the way to go. You want employment you should start getting more people to agree to work less hours for less pay, so that there are more oppertunities for other people to at least be a little bit active in a specific field. You also need to get the people to feel inclusive in decisions, which means business has to be open about profits and losses, there are lots of test-cases in the past where different countries have done the same. Playing around with entrenched economic policies ALWAYS work negative in the long run, this is because you are actually taking your eye away from the ball, the ball is keeping people active in the employment market.

Short term positives, for long term negatives.

What an idea, cruel. Weakening the Rand means the South Africans must forget to travel to Europe or US, or buying our favorite cars, computers or other electronics. All those things are payable in Dollars!!! There is no ordinary South African considering to travel or to buy because they cannot afford. On top, a weak and free floating Rand may lead to Zim Conditions, to an extremely high inflation rate. Has COSATU lost its mind?

peter lauer: cars are so ridiculously overpriced that there needs to be another adjustment solely for that. in addition, the rand is seriously overvalued considering the conditions under which most south africans live. [the cfa franc needs to undergo another devaluation somewhat soon as well, for many of the same reasons.]

louise doidge: yeah, at 8 or 9 to the dollar, i would actually be staying in this country. [i'm leaving early next year.] 7.25 is just not worth it, especially with the south africa's membership in the wto.

[the wto is the reason that there has been such food inflation: imported food must be priced similarly to locally produced food. this is why the food retailers are still making such a killing; they offer just enough imported food to be able to have to make locally produced food subject to ridiculous inflation.]

COSATU says a lot of sense in a lot of their pronouncements.It is a pity that some sections of the society, in their disdain for working class representatives, prefer to ignore the working class economics, which are sure to get us out of the poverty and economic morass..........

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for,that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
~~~~ Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931

Gobbledygook! huh!

It is amusing to read some of the posts. COSATU is emulating a strategy used by many countries to spur development. Does it not bother anyone that Manuel/Erwin/Mbeki FAILED to get an industrial policy together. The big idea was liberalise and deregulate - in a largely cartelised economy. Then we get the free traders criticising COSATU - I guess evidence and reality don't count for much. And 15 years into democracy, land redistgribution is about 3percent, BEE ownership of the JSE is at an all time low, the corporates are milking it, union reps are as bad as the govt reps on the Public Investment Commission (prefering speculative rather than productive investments) and the party apparatchiks are so stupid they cannot even bother to hide the tracks of their corruption relying on the party to clean up their adult-sized diaper crap! So when sensible COSATU comes with a policy that has historical precedent (which free trade does not - it is utopian and don't say Lehman) it is ridiculed. The ONLY alliance partner that has consistently addressed national issues in a balanced distributive way is COSATU. But with Snuki in charge, they did not even get a hearing. And Manuel, well his is a plonker - the best finance minister presiding over the primitivisation of our value added sector into a commodity exporter who can't even manage the 60bn reciprocity of the arms deal but wants to run the country. he did not even do basic math to warn about the 50% increase in the arms deal. And Erwin, that prat, presided over the hedging/derivative bailout of the idiots running SAA (who lost billions on fuel speculation) went on to promote liberalisation of derivatives of the WTO. Come on, only an engineering publication really gives good analysis of SA (aside from Labour publications) and the rest are just servants to big capital earning their keep. As the London School of Economics put it to the Queen, their theories were just wishful thinking and hubris. And Moeletsi Mbeki's outfit givest he likes of LSEs Razeen Sally pride of place in articulating wishful thinking and hubris as if it is intellectually sound. Hahaha. What a nation of jokers (and yes that includes me!)....