September 2009 - Posts
Late last year our financial markets made an early bet, namely that the global commodity inflation surge had been broken, recession loomed and inflation would fall deep. Also, probably more controversially, that the Rand would not keep plunging and would...
South Africa has a long history of being impacted by the outside world. Such influences were often mostly a mixed blessing, having positive and negative sides. Examples of global intrusions include the arrival of the Dutch in the 1650s, the British from...
During August our gross foreign reserves jumped by $2bn to $38bn even as the Rand firmed through 7.70:$. Yet the reserve gain wasn’t due to SARB forex accumulation. Instead, the reserve gain was all bookkeeping, mainly getting SDR 1.4bn from the...
This recession is deep and long because it is really four serial recessionary shocks creating a major extended economic contraction. Indeed, we got lucky as there could have been a fifth shock, further deepening the recession experience. But happily it...