The ZAR Exchange Rate Thread

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Johnatan56 said:
Was going to comment that you should use a 0 based graph because it looks terrible, and then I saw it actually does start at 0...

EDIT: This was before Covid: https://tradingeconomics.com/south-africa/government-debt-to-gdp
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Covid is probably going to be at least a 10% contraction, so we'll probably hit upper 80s. Then the Covid loans themselves need to be added, so wouldn't be shocked if we hit 90%.
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90% of GDP o_O
There is no reasonable way they will ever be able to pay these loans back. So the question should be, what happens when they don't?
 
krycor said:
The problem is a bit more than just a single party though.. if you naive enough to think it’s just magically gonna change with with party change you’re about as naive as the Americans who currently believe there is no big corruption happening. Right..


Reality is SA needs a bit of a shake up bottom up. Yes.. we need to decide what kind of country we want to live in.. do we want to be a country with a lot of taxes with high inequality or with more economic equality. Thus far SA has chosen the capitalist route which has yield the expected results.. of cause the ANC chose this way knowing full well that it creates a privileged class, business leaders happily agreed to it has it kept a lot of the past the same for them, and the poor continued on.
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You're joking right? Take your trolling somewhere else if you don't understand what capitalism is.
Personally I don’t see this as a “solution” regardless of who is elected to rule.. it’s all the same. What we need is that people are able to take care of themselves if they work.. if this need isn’t fulfilled don’t expect things to ever change.

PS. This isn’t exactly a new thing either. It was the “American Dream” of the 60s? which was quite successful. If you look at countries that have done well on QoL across the population they all social democracies for a reason.. ie they enable people to make this decision themselves. SA, US and a few others are birth lotteries.
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The American Dream is that every man has an equal opportunity to achieve their highest aspirations/goals, that means that they're rewarded for the work they do. South Africa definitely does not follow that mantra, socialism is in opposition to the American Dream as it means that even those who do not try still get something. The best thing is a mixture of the two, which is what most countries implement, there is no true capitalist country in the world.

South Africa is too far on the socialist side as there are too many freeloaders, and hampering those who try to achieve something just means things get worse as they'll get disillusioned and give up, adding to the ones that freeload.
 
Brenden_E said:
90% of GDP o_O
There is no reasonable way they will ever be able to pay these loans back. So the question should be, what happens when they don't?
Click to expand...
Brenden_E said:
90% of GDP o_O
There is no reasonable way they will ever be able to pay these loans back. So the question should be, what happens when they don't?
Click to expand...
You lose access to pretty much all forms of external financing, think Greece but on steroids as SA doesn't have a Eurozone to bail it out.
SA would peak unemployment levels, money for infrastructure would be gone pretty much everywhere as you wouldn't be able to finance it over multiple years, government wouldn't be able to pay most employees, and you'd end up with pretty much everyone who can bailing out as you can't start a business at all as you don't have access to financing, and there would be no market for most goods, so most large companies would close down as well.

Meanwhile government would probs restructure debt, so would be extreme levels of taxation on everything, further hampering any recovery, in order to be able to get back to being able to qualify for loans.

We're already seeing everything heading in that direction now for SA, just think of everything in the extreme.


And no, don't take USA or Japan as examples, the debt situation in both those countries is completely different to SA. Both of those have most debt owed to itself or its own citizens, they could reduce their debt very quickly if they wanted to, but currently the economy grows faster by not doing so.
 
krycor said:
The problem is a bit more than just a single party though.. if you naive enough to think it’s just magically gonna change with with party change you’re about as naive as the Americans who currently believe there is no big corruption happening. Right..


Reality is SA needs a bit of a shake up bottom up. Yes.. we need to decide what kind of country we want to live in.. do we want to be a country with a lot of taxes with high inequality or with more economic equality. Thus far SA has chosen the capitalist route which has yield the expected results.. of cause the ANC chose this way knowing full well that it creates a privileged class, business leaders happily agreed to it has it kept a lot of the past the same for them, and the poor continued on.

Personally I don’t see this as a “solution” regardless of who is elected to rule.. it’s all the same. What we need is that people are able to take care of themselves if they work.. if this need isn’t fulfilled don’t expect things to ever change.

PS. This isn’t exactly a new thing either. It was the “American Dream” of the 60s? which was quite successful. If you look at countries that have done well on QoL across the population they all social democracies for a reason.. ie they enable people to make this decision themselves. SA, US and a few others are birth lotteries.
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Socialism is slowly destroying America. Ask anybody from the slums, there's now a handout culture where people (primarily young black ones) fail to achieve and this is getting handed down from generation to generation. You need some socialism alongside capitalism but once socialism takes hold it's a downward path. The American dream isn't all it's said to be.
 
Swa said:
Socialism is slowly destroying America. Ask anybody from the slums, there's now a handout culture where people (primarily young black ones) fail to achieve and this is getting handed down from generation to generation. You need some socialism alongside capitalism but once socialism takes hold it's a downward path. The American dream isn't all it's said to be.
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what about the uk? a friend of mine hasn't worked in 14 years. she's very happy now during covid as she's getting paid more than the normal amount.
 
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Speedster said:
Socialism != welfare
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and she has a good life style. i wouldn't mine not working and getting paid. i'm unemployed now and living off savings. maybe i should propose to her and move there? :ROFL: as a 42 year old white male, the prospects of finding another job are pretty bleak.
 
Brenden_E said:
90% of GDP o_O
There is no reasonable way they will ever be able to pay these loans back. So the question should be, what happens when they don't?
Click to expand...

Already happening, look at the proposed fuel increase that is clearly just a hidden tax so the government can add funds to fiscus (personal bank accounts). This fuel increase have no basis in reality, makes no sense that it would suddenly go up like this.
 
John Tempus said:
Already happening, look at the proposed fuel increase that is clearly just a hidden tax so the government can add funds to fiscus (personal bank accounts). This fuel increase have no basis in reality, makes no sense that it would suddenly go up like this.
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I don't pretend to get the deep markets game. Haven't done much buying and selling , but I have some experience living through 2 countries hyper inflation , so finding your comments amusing.

There was a interview with Trevor Manuel a month or two ago. As he mentioned, most of the SA debt is internal, so when the Government defaults on that, everyone will lose their retirement savings(sic).

The one South American country I lived through that , people lost everything,(even foreign currencies accounts) , the government carried on borrowing from IMF , and 20 years late , they keep defaulting, and middle class is deed.

The other EU country , did the same with pensions and bank accounts, but never went to over borrow from IMF and so on. Just left people with very low pensions, and general low standards of living.

SA will follow the South American/ Zimbabwean way. But until all the 'trillions' from people savings are gone, we wont be printing cash and defaulting.
 
"D" said:
@ FlushSA, out with your secrets: Care to share? Why would anyone buy into the new Zim Dollar ... at all?
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He's saying he buys US dollars as insurance against SA turning into Zim 2.0 i.e. the Rand going down the drain. Not buying Zollars.
 
John Tempus said:
Already happening, look at the proposed fuel increase that is clearly just a hidden tax so the government can add funds to fiscus (personal bank accounts). This fuel increase have no basis in reality, makes no sense that it would suddenly go up like this.
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Dude! Taxes on fuel went up in April and won't go up again until next April. The increase in June fuel prices was due to higher international product prices. You can look it up on the CEF website but SA sets petrol prices relative to Singapore and Mediterranean prices and diesel relative to Arabian Gulf and Mediterranean prices.
 
cr@zydude said:
Dude! Taxes on fuel went up in April and won't go up again until next April. The increase in June fuel prices was due to higher international product prices. You can look it up on the CEF website but SA sets petrol prices relative to Singapore and Mediterranean prices and diesel relative to Arabian Gulf and Mediterranean prices.
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I don't think he understands that fuel tax is X cents per litre, so the actual fuel price per litre is irrelevant.

Oh well.
 
Anyone need USD cash?

I have $1 100 I need to change but would prefer to sell it here than going to a forex branch.
 
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