I flew in on Xmas day 1984, struggled to get into London (the airline charted a bus) checked into my accommodation only to be told I hadn't booked a meal 24 hours ahead of time, wandered around all day not finding one restaurant open, and had my first meal on the 26th... I remember that Xmas well...

until the main instruments of patronage (Black Economic Empowerment and Preferential Procurement) are removed...

The key reason has already been identified by the above quoted authors "these investment projects were increasingly coopted for patronage spending and self-enrichment". There is very little in the budget or any other ANC pronouncement that things will be different this time...

of exposure to the infrastructure market in South Africa leads me to conclude (based on my many studies of actual delivery) that this promised R1 Trillion will be wasted yet again. However my main point is to wonder why this ANC govt persists with these grand promises. The key reason has already

"What happened to the cycle? Reflection on a perennial negative output gap', Theo Janse van Rensburg, David Fowkes and Erik Visser, SARB Occasional Bulletin of Economic Notes July 2019. I am sure there are many economists better qualified to comment on ICOR and its future impact, but almost 40 years

"It is becoming clearer that these investment projects were increasingly coopted for patronage spending and self-enrichment, a misallocation of capital that has curtailed the efficiency of investment and therefore the country’s longer-term growth potential".

SA economy was under extreme duress from economic sanctions and the rise of anti-Apartheid resistance, but the rise in the past decade raises serious concerns about the productivity of future infrastructure investment and to quote one paper I used to write this thread,

of capital (amount of Rand/Dollars) to produce one unit of output (normally GDP). SA's ICOR has varied between about 4 and 6 for the past 100 years but in the past decade it has risen to 14. In other words, R14 (or ($14) would add R1 (or$1) to the GDP output. There have been other periods when the

in past budgets (almost since 1994), this focus on infrastructure is yet another waste of public resources which will primarily enrich ANC cadres at the expense of the ordinary public. The key to this argument is ICOR or incremental capital output ratio. A simple definition of ICOR is the increment

some of the seminal public sector policy documents in 1990s and 2000s. Our minister's speech noted: 'infrastructure is a key pillar of our growth strategy...Public infrastructure spending over the next three years will amount to more than R1 trillion.' I intend to argue that like many promises

we cn only hope the 'wheels come off' and someone speaks up...

thanks for the info - it will be great is someone digs into this story - it would be good to know when those margin calls may trigger...

again it would be useful if someone who understands financial matters can explain the impact of this decline on the Tesla stock price on the loan conditions that Musk undertook to finance his adventures with Twitter...surely he must be taking some strain?