Siphesihle

If It Is To Be It Is Up To You|From Umgababa to the world 🌎

[Ankur @AnkurMessi_]

Different badge, different narrative. https://t.co/GSQxkvnEA2

[Peak Football @ukporo1]

This is the coach that said the World Cup is rigged.

Him against Iran.

When it favors you, there’s no rig but once it’s against you, then it’s rig.

Typical Ronaldo delusional fans mentality. 😂😂😂

[Bros Iwi @TooSiQ]

CAF 2024 Semi-Final: Nigeria Vs South Africa

This was hailed as the correct way to use VAR. Fast forward to 2026, same situation, and people are writing think pieces...

[Rendani (MBA - Wits) @Rendani666]

In Cape Town’s Foreshore, Vuyo Mthembu managed procurement for a fast-growing FMCG distributor, earning R68,500 a month and known internally as the guy who never missed a control. He drove a white Polo GTI, rarely took leave, and had built a reputation for pushing back on suppliers who tried to cut corners.

A Case Study.

[SizweLo @SizweLo]

In 1976, the South Korean car company Hyundai produced 10 000 cars.
That year, Ford produced 1.9 million and General Motors produced 4.8 million.
If South Korea had free trade in cars back then, Hyundai would’ve vanished overnight.

So, until 1988, the South Korean government applied heavy taxes on foreign cars and banned the import of all foreign-made cars while heavily subsidising the domestic car industry. This is known as “infant industry protection”.

This was because the South Korean government understood that allowing imports would’ve crushed the newborn domestic industry before it could achieve economies of scale and technological competence.

The ultimate objective of the protection was a temporary measure to create a learning period during which Korean companies could improve their quality and eventually become globally competitive. By the 1990s and 2000s, Hyundai and Kia were ready to compete on the world stage without these protections.

This model, as implemented successfully in Korea, is brilliant because it allows “latecomer” nations to break into industries with high barriers to entry and can lead to long-term economic growth and technological advancement as it reduces dependence on foreign goods and builds “national champions”.

However, mainstream economics preaches that nations must stick to their “comparative advantage”, that is, they should specialise in what they’re naturally best at producing. This implies that developing countries should stick to raw materials or low-skill labour-intensive activities such as textiles and agriculture because that’s their “comparative advantage.”

South Korea deliberately rejected this notion. It didn’t have a natural advantage in building cars in the 1970s. In fact, it had a massive comparative disadvantage. But instead of accepting its place in the global hierarchy, their government actively created a new comparative advantage in complex, high-value industries, such as automobiles, electronics, and shipbuilding.

In 1976, South Korea was objectively inefficient at making cars. Economists peddling “comparative advantage” theories would’ve advised them to import cars from the US and Japan and stick to exporting vegetables and pieces of cloth.

But the thing is, South Korea realised that a country’s capabilities can actually change over time through investment and technological acquisition. So, they bet on creating a new comparative advantage, while mainstream economics’ comparative advantage theory simply assumes that technology is a given and fixed.

In short, South Korea’s experience says that comparative advantage is a constructed outcome that can be strategically built, not just accepted as a given.

For developing nations, this is a powerful message that their economic destiny isn’t pre-ordained by their current resources, but can be shaped by intelligent, long-term industrial policy.

Now, South Africa’s supposed comparative advantage is mining platinum group metals alongside a bit of agriculture.

South Africa’s comparative advantage in PGMs and agriculture is based on a simple, static fact that it has an abundance of these natural resources. Following mainstream economic theory, Mzansi should just specialise in these areas because it can produce them more efficiently than other goods.

However, this creates several long-term problems, including the “resource curse” or “Dutch disease”, where countries with an abundance of natural resources tend to have lower economic growth and poorer development compared to countries with fewer resources.

For South Africa, mining platinum group minerals is about extracting raw materials and exporting them. The highest value in the PGM chain, like designing catalytic converters, manufacturing jewellery, or developing industrial applications, is captured by other, more technologically advanced countries. South Africa captures only a fraction of the total value.

This is where the South Korean model becomes directly relevant and challenging for South Africa.

South Korea had no obvious comparative advantage in cars or semiconductors in the 1960s. It consciously built one. The question for South Africa is: Should it accept its fate as a miner and farmer, or should it try to build new comparative advantages?

Well, unlike South Korea’s era of industrialisation, where the state forced banks to lend to manufacturing and technology upgrading, South Africa’s economy is overly financialised, with most lending going to consumer debt, speculative financial assets, short-term portfolio flows, etc.

Very little financing goes into fixed investment or industrial expansion.

A handful of major banks and investment houses set the tone for capital allocation, and their interests are aligned with asset management, offshore investment and most crucially, mining finance, not industrialisation.

The reason for this is that it is far easier and more profitable to make money from debt and financial instruments than from nurturing long-term industrial ventures with long payback periods.

This means South Africa’s lending institutions have no incentive to fund local industrialisation when they can chase high-return global assets.

This is the root difference. In South Korea in the 1960s – 1980s, banks were state-owned or tightly controlled, credit allocation was centrally planned, speculation was harshly punished and capital flight was illegal.
In simple terms, finance existed to serve industry.

In South Africa, on the other hand, finance is liberalised and deregulated, which gives it power to dictate economic policy and not the other way around.

The country’s industrial policy gets lip service while finance enjoys complete autonomy. Capital flight is legal and rampant, and the economy is oriented around shareholder returns, not national development.
Basically, industry is forced to serve finance.

This is far worse than poor governance and corruption because even if South Africa had zero corruption, streamlined regulation, and a professional bureaucracy, it still could not industrialise without redirecting finance.

This is because industrialisation requires patient, directed capital, long-term investment horizons, state coordination and protection from speculative finance. South Africa’s financial sector structure categorically prevents this.

In conclusion, South Africa’s industrial stagnation is structurally enforced by its financial architecture. In other words, South Africa is not deindustrialising because it is incompetent. It is deindustrialising because its financial sector profits from deindustrialisation.

[Siphesihle @Sphe_Baraka]

Why are we friends with people we can't trust?

[Siyamthanda @mthanda15]

@Solphendukaa The trust you have is the one that hits the most after finding out and realising🤷🏽‍♂️😅

[Siphesihle @Sphe_Baraka]

@Solphendukaa My friend's wife has my number, I have hers. That doesn't make us friends, we don't chat. My number has come in handy during emergencies, same as hers.

[Siphesihle @Sphe_Baraka]

@_AfricanSoil 🙏🏼

[Siphesihle @Sphe_Baraka]

@KodyNordquist @redbull @ShoziCebo

[Siphesihle @Sphe_Baraka]

@MaKhushwayo_ Damn!! she made a carbon copy of herself

[Siphesihle @Sphe_Baraka]

@CashNSport How was Cape Town City FNB sponsorship allowed when Nedbank sponsors the league?

[Siphesihle @Sphe_Baraka]

@LuNkala Congratulations Lu👏🏾👏🏾

[Siphesihle @Sphe_Baraka]

@Andile_Gumbii Loya baba wang'xaka.

[Siphesihle @Sphe_Baraka]

This reminds me of lobaba oyinceku owacela ngmenzele ianniversary invite. Wangbonga ngama blueticks 🤦🏾‍♂️

[Siphesihle @Sphe_Baraka]

@Imani_FaithN 😅😅

[Siphesihle @Sphe_Baraka]

@Imani_FaithN At 3am Faith😅

[Siphesihle @Sphe_Baraka]

@ayxnda_ Told you to visit your cousins eMgababa

[Siphesihle @Sphe_Baraka]

Thumbeza usimele siwuZulu

[inkosi yasegoli😎 sithengisa izimoto @uMapendani]

Hlophe ngeke asalungiseka😂😂😂😂😂😂