2008 :

• Global Markets – 1st quarter 2008 : Electricity – now a rare commodity in SA?
  “Load shedding” and “blackouts” are words now used with frustration on a daily basis in South Africa. Nobody is immune to these frustrations and none can escape them. Most of us have a “load shedding” table handy at all times, having learnt how to make sense of them in a hurry. It would help enormously, of course, if the “load shedding” was implemented according to the table. [ More... ]
  
  
• Global Markets – 2nd quarter 2008 : Food prices in crisis
  Did you read the article titled “World Food Riots Spread” that was published in the Business Times in April? We found it enlightening and rather disturbing. The article confirms that global leaders have been raising serious concerns about the food crisis for some time…
  “while there is no crisis facing people in the rich countries like Britain, Japan, and the United States, millions of people in the developing world (and this includes South Africa) have to spend up to 80% of their total family incomes on food. The World Bank estimates that 33 countries around the world face unrest because of food and fuel price rises.” [ More... ]
  
  
• Global Markets – 3rd quarter 2008 : The widening income disparity in South Africa is a cause for concern
  The Business Day recently published an article, based on research that had been done by the Bureau for Market Research at Unisa, which reported that “income disparities in SA have widened in the past two years, boosted by more rapid growth in high-income earners…” [ More... ]
  
  
• Global Markets – 4th quarter 2008 : The credit crisis – how it all began
  When the rumblings of the sub prime credit crisis first emerged in August last year, nobody envisaged the extent to which this would unfold and later become the catalyst for a crisis within financial markets and banking systems around the world. A recent article by Kevin Lings [Economist at Stanlib], based on research by Paul Krugman [2008 Nobel Prize winner for economics] and the Institute of International Finance, explains in five steps how the crisis has unfolded. [ More... ]