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Economics
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Spain Reveals €100 Billion Cash Exodus
01 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
If you thought things were tight in Greece, they certainly don’t look too much better in Spain. In the first three months of this year, nearly €100 billion in capital has left the country. Put differently: about 10% of the country’s GDP.
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Government Considering Special Appropriations Bill To Bail Sanral Out
31 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
As Bloomberg pointed out the other day, South Africa’s credit rating may come under pressure as growth in Africa’s biggest economy slows and the government faces the prospect of bailing out the state-owned road agency. That prospect became more of a reality today when deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe said government is looking into a special appropriations bill to give Sanral a cash injection to allow it to service its R20 billion debt.
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Julius Malema Buys City Press, Writes Excellent Column
28 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 7 Comments
It’s not often Juju gets good press. In fact, we couldn’t really remember the last time it happened. But, we’re going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he wrote this all himself now that he is well into his BA degree in communications through Unisa. Yesterday, Malema touched on some very important notions in a column for the City Press; notions that Nelson Mandela raised as critical 18 years ago.
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Germany Eclipses Solar Power World Record
28 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
This will surprise you. On Friday and Saturday, German solar power plants produced a record 22 gigawatts of energy – the equivalent output of 20 nuclear plants running at full capacity. The country is already a world-leader in solar power, and hopes to be free of nuclear energy by 2022. After the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year, Germany decided to abandon nuclear power, and immediately closed eight plants.
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EU Cookie Privacy Law Will Heavily Impact Digital
24 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
On Saturday, the EU Cookie Directive goes into effect. It’s a European Union law governing the opting in and out of website cookies. The law was ratified in the name of privacy, but, the impact on the digital industry will be immense and, possibly, damaging.
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Finance Minister Fights E-Toll Ruling In Concourt
23 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
Finance Minster, Pravin Gordhan, has warned that South Africa would face a dark economic future if the interdict temporarily halting the e-toll project wasn’t set aside urgently. We’d have to brace ourselves for negative international credit ratings. And essential services to schools, hospitals and roads would also be adversely affected, he said.
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Europe Is Working On Emergency Plans For Greek Euro Exit
18 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
European officials have secretly been working on a plan for the worst-case scenario that at this point, seems possible: a Greek exit from the Euro. German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said earlier this week that she didn’t want Greece to leave. But with fresh Greek elections set for mid-June, elections that have already been dubbed as a major showdown between Greece and the rest of Europe, anything could happen.
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Clifton Trawler: Make Or Break
16 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 6 Comments
Tomorrow, SA Maritime Safety Authorities will make another attempt to remove the stranded Eihatsu Maru from Clifton’s First beach. Last night, 2oceansVibe spoke to one of the men in charge, Samsa’s chief operations officer, Sobantu Tilayi. Many questions still remain about the reasons why the captain grounded the vessel, but Tilayi said the operation has now reached a critical stage.
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FNB’s GeoPayments Will Be How You’ll Pay For Stuff Now On
14 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Look at this technology. Just look at it. What prevents you from making EFT payments for absolutely everything in your life? It’s the clunkiness of the process. You log on, you enter a ream of details, you wait for confirmation code, you pay… And the recipient waits two days for their money. Whereas a cash […]
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Facebook To Start Rolling Out Paid Features
14 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 2 Comments
Facebook lately been experimenting with a small group of users by offering them the opportunity to promote their own status messages by paying for them. If the “Highlight” feature is more widely adopted, people will soon be able to pay to make sure their cutesy status updates are at the top of everyone’s news feed.
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JPMorgan Drops $2 Billion In Enormous Hedging “Error”
11 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Well, this is terribly embarrassing: JPMorgan, the largest bank in the US, literally wiped seven per cent off their stock in a few hours with this blunder. The investment bank has blamed “sloppiness and bad judgment” for the enormous error.
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More Than 30 000 Positions Stand Vacant In The Local Government Sector
11 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
We know; we also thought it was some kind of elaborate joke, or that we’d been mistaken for seeing an extra zero. We hadn’t. And nor is it a joke. The South African Municipal Workers Union is demanding that all vacant positions in the Local Government Sector be filled as a matter of urgency. Which makes sense, because that would benefit a lot of people.
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SONY Reports Record Annual Loss of $5,7 Billion
10 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
SONY Corporation has declared an annual loss of 457 billion yen ($5,7 billion) in 2011, its fourth straight year of hemorrhaging money, and the worst in its 66-year corporate history. In spite of which, the company – which appointed a new president, Kazuo Hirai last month – is predicting return to profit by the end of 2012.
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IDC To Divest R15 Billion Over Next Five Years
09 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
South Africa’s Industrial Development Corporation, and state-owned lender, has a plan to sell about 15 billion Rand’s worth of investments it currently holds over the next five years. The initiative is part of its divestment plan, Chief Financial Officer, Gert Gouws said in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, today.
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47 Ethiopian Men Rescued From Limpopo Human-Trafficking Syndicate
07 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
47 Ethiopian men were rescued on the weekend from being sold into slavery by a human-trafficking syndicate in Limpopo. Snatched for ransom, those whose families can’t pay, have their relatives unwillingly sold into slavery in SA. The United Nations now estimates that there are more than 27 million slaves in the world.
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Amanda Palmer Is Crowdsourcing Her New Album [VIDEO]
07 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
You guys have heard of Kickstarter – that site that lets people pitch their projects for funding to the internet at large, and which has led to new apps, art projects, and a Robocop statue in Detroit. All of which stopped mattering when Amanda Palmer raised $500 000 in four days on the platform – with 24 days of funding remaining.
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Facebook Filed Its IPO Yesterday
04 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Mark Zuckerberg officially filed its IPO with Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday afternoon, announcing its intention to sell 337 million shares at between $28 and $35 a pop – in the biggest Internet stock offering since Google went public in 2004. They’ll be going roadshow for the next two weeks to let big investors see what they’re buying.
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Times Are Tough: Even One Cent Savings Are Celebrated At Pick n Pay
04 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 3 Comments
Well at least we know where we are doing our shopping this weekend.
Thanks Richard.
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Who’s On Top Of The Forbes Wealthiest Fifteen Fictional Characters List?
26 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
Forbes is well known for cataloguing the world’s powerful, rich and famous every year, but they also produce a list of fictions wealthiest characters, drawn from TV, film and literature. Who’s on top this year? A hint, he’s no friend to a thatched roof. Full list of this fictional fortune foolery, after the jump!
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Shocking Jozi Metro Cop Bribe Stats
25 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
We all knew that they were going to be bad, but to be told that one in four of Jozi’s drivers were asked for a bribe in 2010 is quite something. 154 440 motorists were asked to pay a bribe, but only 184 cases of corruption were reported.
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Forbes Reports 12 Out Of Africa’s 20 Most Powerful Business People Are South African
24 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Forbes.com released a list of Africa’s 20 most powerful business people yesterday (they do like a list over there at Forbes) and it wasn’t too hard to pick up a trend on the list of the continent’s commercial high flyers – no less than 12 of them are South African. Are we awesome, or what? We’ve got the full list, including our Mzansi business powerhouses, after the jump!
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Eastern Cape Education Head Resigns Amid Turmoil
24 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
The Eastern Cape education crisis deepened yesterday as it was announced that Modidima Mannya had resigned as Eastern Cape education department head. Eastern Cape Premier, Noxolo Kiviet, made the announcement and said the agreement was “in the best interest” of education in the province.
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Facebook Targets May 17th For IPO Launch
19 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 2 Comments
Signs suggest that Facebook is looking to have its initial public offering launch on on May 17th, assuming that the Securities & Exchange commission rubber-stamps all of the social network’s paperwork – including documents concerning Facebook’s recent billion-dollar acquisition of Instagram. Facebook is set to be initially valued at around $100 billion.
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Khulubuse Zuma’s Assets Go Under The Hammer On Monday
19 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
But the miners he left jobless at Aurora mines will not get a cent from him. The embarrassment for the Zuma and Mandela family names continues as Zondwa Mandela’s assets are expected to be attached next. Mandela has been charged with fraud, too.
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It’s Probably Not A Bad Idea To Buy Capitec Shares
18 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 3 Comments
Capitec shares rose to close at a new high of R214,76 yesterday. The bank also recently announced a dividend of 300c per share, showing why it isn’t surprising that analysts have happily placed “buy” recommendations on the stock.
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Cosatu Vows “Mother Of All Protests”
18 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 4 Comments
“People power has brought down governments in North Africa; it can surely stop this assault on our living standards.” Cosatu has shown it doesn’t mess around when it comes to voicing its opinion. But will the “mother of all protests” against e-tolls actually make any difference?
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Booze Ad Ban Raises Spectre Of Job Losses
17 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 3 Comments
Further concerns over the potentially large number of jobs that could be lost as a result of government’s proposed booze advertising ban, have been aired. Government is still mulling over its draft bill – which has been labelled draconian – but either way, the health department is determined to clamp down on the industry.
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Jimmy Manyi Wants To Control All Government Advertising
16 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
It’s about monitoring and enforcing adherence to the “government brand”, Manyi says. The advertising of all government departments would likely be centralised in his office very soon. The predictable news emerged while Manyi was speaking at a community media indaba on Saturday.
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SA Students Love Brands, Booze & Food: Study
10 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
A recent study by South African student magazine, Student Village and the Department of Marketing and Retail Management at UNISA has shed some light on the consumer habits of South Africa’s 850 000 university, technikon- and college-going students. The skinny on South Africa’s student spending, after the jump!
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Unemployment Rates In Eurozone Continue To Climb – Spain’s Figures Hit The Roof
02 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
If you’re looking for a job, don’t even think seeking your fortune in Europe. Unemployment rates across the Eurozone – the countries which use the euro – continue to climb and in February were at their highest level since the introduction of the single currency in 1999. Spain has been worst hit, with the unemployment rate amongst its under-25 population rising to an alarming 50.5% in February.
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