2008 has certainly started with a bang! The future was rosy on 31 December 2007, but suddenly everyone is buying candles and researching property in Perth!
A combination of recession in the USA, global equity market negativity, high interest rates, the National Credit Act and power outages have combined to create the perfect storm.
But dont panic!
This is not the first time theres been doom and gloom. Every few years the same thing happens. We experience massive economic growth, everyone is optimistic and buying Nescafe Gold, and holiday homes, and Mercs. The positivity gets ahead of itself and the economy overheats, and then panic sets in because the economy seems to be collapsing when in actual fact its simply making an adjustment back to a reasonable level.
It happened in 1989, when SA defaulted on its international loans and the stock market and Rand crashed, it happened in 1994 when the ANC took power and everyone thought war would break out, it happened in 1998 when interest rates hit 25% and you couldnt give away your house, and it happened in 2001 when a fairly unstable guy by the name of Osama arranged for 2 Boeings to fly into the tallest buildings in New York!
On each of those occasions everyone thought it was the end of the world and that there was no light in sight. And on each occasion, believe it or not, the world did not actually end, it recovered and in fact things continued to get better.
I think 2008 will be a tough year, but I also see it as a great opportunity to seize the day whilst everyone else is whinging and get a front-seat on the inevitable boom that well experience in 2009, 2010 and beyond.
Make sure you make a mental note of everything that is happening now, because it will happen again and again, and if you dont recognize the symptoms youll be suckered into the same negativity, and forget to look for the opportunities.
Its easy to be negative. Subconsciously, you WANT to be negative! Whenever you open the papers they tell you about the goriest hi-jacking and the most corrupt politicians. Why dont they dedicate more pages to the fact that Joburg is the worlds biggest man-made forest, or to the corruption-free achievements of the vast majority of public officials? Because bad news sells. Good news is boring.
SA still has the best weather in world! Were lucky enough to possess a huge chunk of the worlds resources, i.e.: gold, platinum, coal, iron. The growth in India and China will continue to accelerate (India and China sign 10mil new mobile customers every month), and so will their demand for our resources. The government has already embarked on massive infrastructure projects (some of them a tad late, i.e.: electricity), and this will pump money into the economy.
We are all lucky enough to be a part of the birth of a massive and all-encompassing industry. The Internet has and will continue to change the world. The enormity of its impact is up there with the wheel, electricity, TV, telephones, and possibly mans greatest ever invention, coffee. Not only does it open up an entirely untapped world of commerce, but it is also the ultimate disseminator of information and news. Apartheid would not have lasted 40 years if the Internet had existed! And youre part of it!
Im looking forward to another year of ASA complaints, IR issues, Plug & Wireless parties, BTS roll-outs, billing runs, irate customers, happy customers, orange bubbles, faulty elevators, etc, etc. The nice stuff makes me feel good, and the challenges remind me why we can beat the competition. Most importantly Im looking forward to having fun and making memories.
So ignore the doomsayers, install a timer on your geyser, and buy Ricoffee for a couple of months.
Cheers,
Alan Knott-Craig
MD iBurst
Poached from here.
17 comments:
He is Alan not Craig
You can't tell that the women site is satirical ? You read stuff like that and actually take it seriously ? Are you sick in the head ?
"Attention. Will passengers please rearrange the deck chairs around the shuffleboard court. Cheese and wine will be served in the main dining room shortly. Don't panic."
And the band played on...
A sinking ship ? Show we 2 things that have gotten worse in south africa since 1992 ....I bet you can't....
Rooster - check out the "Then and Now" shots of the Grand Hotel Beira on the SAS blog. That is photographic evidence of what happens when whites get kicked out and zots take over. Everything turns to shit. Fact!!
You want examples - look at any street in a major urban centre in the country and you'll see the similar degradation in an already advanced state. Been to the Carlton Centre lately? Try the 2 main roads in central Durban! Look at the university residences. In every case they are the normal filth and squallor that seem to follow you coon around.
Now I'll hold my breath and wait for you to blame it on whites/apartheid/colonialism/the west. I'm sure it won't take long.
Wanker.
Anon - 15:12 - the Grand Beira saga is an example of what happens when you have a lot of poor people with nowhere else to go. I have not been to Mozambique myself, but when one looks at its history of Portuguese colonialism and civil war after Frelimo came to power it is not surprising it has lots of impoverished people. As for Carlton Center last time I was there in 2007 it was thriving with up-scale shops, full of people. The majority of the people are probably a different color than you, but that does not mean that Carlton Center is a bad or dangerous place. Perhaps it was ten years ago, but not last year from what I saw.
There - what did I tell you!!
BTW - the civil war was black vs black wasn't it? Whatever spin you'd like to put on it - the blacks fucked the place up like they do with most infrastructure.
G-man: The Carlton Hotel was the # 1 and most prestigious hotel in Johannesburg. It featured the ultra-exclusive Three Ships restaurant, probably the best in the country at the time.
Today the Carlton Hotel is a boarded-up, bricked up shell of its former self. The Carlton Centre is still going, but in what used to be a top-rated shopping mall & office complex, today features mostly small little mom & pop type shops selling second hand junk.
You might have been there last year, but you should have seen it ten years ago. The decay in that perspective is shocking and saddening.
Not so!! You can blindside things with your emotive language all you like. I remember Hillbrow in the mid to late 80's was the place to be - the nightlife was great, the atmosphere was superb and it multicultural. Since the zots got hold of it it has declined to the biggest slum in Joburg - infested with filthy whores, drug dealers, pimps and other zot lowlifes.
Who caused the fuck-up in Zimbabwe? Mocambique? Kenya? Angola? Nigeria? Darfur? Somalia? Ethiopia? No afrikaaners there pal. You need to look for the common denominator.
Rooster you wanted 2 things that have gotten worse in south africa since 1992? Well, since you are in Korea and your head is stuck up your ass... this is what has been worse in SA:
Eskom, AIDS, Crime, Child/baby-rapes, petrol price, food prices, government incompetence, drug-resistant-TB, to name just a few, oh and your blog stinks so much it has made the country fall apart he he
Actually I'm in South Africa you muppet. You clearly aren't as all the things you mentioned are either myths or incidental and not in the slightest related to the goverment.
Baby rape is one of the more laughable ridiculous myths about the new South Africa....it's so freakishly isolated and the suff of lunatics , but only here ammongst the insanely neurotic has it been seen as a widesread phenomenon practiced by black people....how ridiculous and stupid.
Where in SA? Underneath a rock? Try taking your head out of your arse. It'll make it easier for you to see what's going on. For the love of God, man, I can see and I have two buttons for eyes!
Ribbit Ribbit
Kermit
@ Nony mous 13 August 2008 03:20:
How do you know? Are you a concerned neighbour or one of his wives? Or one of the 10 halfbreed kids?
FYI the Rooster is Korean he he he
To summarise, here are the things Rooster considers "myths or incidental, and not in the slightest related to the goverment:"
Eskom - clearly not a myth and clearly related to government. Countrywide blackouts are incidental? Tell that to business owners and hospitals.
AIDS - a myth? Thabo might agree but tell that to the millions of people dying of "flu." Clearly related to government and clearly not incidental, unless you consider plagues a minor niggle.
Crime - clearly not incidental, unrelated to government or a myth.
Child / baby-rapes - fall under crime. Goddamn sickening. Denial of the issue as a "myth" won't unrape any innocents, nor cure their AIDS.
Petrol and food prices - clearly important as hell and factual. Related to government but, I grant you, not under the exclusive control of government. Nonetheless, if the ANC were halfway competent they could have kept prices more under control.
Government incompetence - no myth, very important, nuf sed.
Drug-resistant T.B. - a result of the failure to address AIDS. Do we really want this horror to go down as SA's most notable contribution to the world?
Rooster's blog - this may well be incidental. ;) Seriously, Mr. Rooster, enough apologising for the ANC. If you want to save your country, you need to face the issues head-on, like a man. Hiding under the blankets like a baby is not going to solve anything.
Time to read Deputy Minister Johnny De Lange's report to parliment, you cretinous melanin-ophile.
He list more than two things that have become worse...
I think we should discuss De Lange's report here. Let us not replace one set of distortions, specifically the depiction by SAS and similar forums of SA as only negative, with another set of distortions by pretending that everything is rosy in South Africa. We need to look at why the deputy minister of justice has said that South Africa is not winning the war against crime.
Post a Comment