Our decline into recession was abrupt. We fell deep, perked up late and now surge belatedly in places as we play catch up off sometimes very low bases. Still makes growth performance feel good where it shows. Though expectations about World Cup foreign...
The budget speech laid out a thoughtful approach to the reality we find ourselves in following the global financial crisis of 2008 and the deep recession of 2009 which also left its mark on South Africa. Having maintained his spending growth while his...
Having made the point in an earlier article (On the verge of another nervous breakdown) that the psychological behaviour of crowds can easily lead to uncontrolled generalized panics, there is also the consideration that markets in specific instances can...
With the CPI inflation rate close to the upper part of the 3%-6% target range, the SARB interest rate decision today boiled down to a trade off between the coming Eskom electricity tariff increase (and its uncertain second-round effects which could be...
There remains considerable uncertainty as to where interest rates will be heading next. Even so, the cycle has its own inner logic, aside of any policy fine-tuning driven by the state of the economy, inflation performance and political considerations...
There are really only two known Big Themes for 2010, standing at cross-purposes to each other. Firstly, there is cyclical resumption of growth after the many rude interruptions of 2008-2009. Secondly, there is the local policy debate, really an ideological...
After five massive global surprises in 2008-2009 (see my earlier Comment entitled "The Fifth Surprise", November 2009), there is apparently yet more to come, given the remarkable dynamics of the times. The ‘new' event gradually coming...
SARB Governor Marcus today announced no change to interest rates, following a two day meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee. Though there was a tremendous change in presentation style, there was none in policy substance. The Governor presented her...
In this special report Cees looks forward at both the global and local economic situation "After a great fall (2008), success in arresting the fall and stabilizing the economy on a low level of capacity utilization (2009), growth prospects tend to...
Electricity output has continued a steady, if gradual, recovery since March 2009, by now nearly matching the September 2008 level (output rising by 8.8% by August 2009). Unfortunately, this probably also implies that our electricity constraint is coming...
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