1st Edition

Peace and tranquility

[1st Edition @StutaBafwethu]

This moment right here was it.

Thank you #Msaki

#DeltaLoveExperience

[1st Edition @StutaBafwethu]

@JayNaija Was it ok for parades to be booked ? Why did he dive like that

[MC @CrewsMat10]

This exact same situation happened in the USA’s opening game at this World Cup.

Yet somehow, it’s only became an issue when it happened in an Argentina game.

https://t.co/MoSr4sqpHW

[1st Edition @StutaBafwethu]

There you go making the same mistake again 😃

[Jason Brough 🙁 @SadClubCommish]

The Dutch got screwed and Canada got a gift

[1st Edition @StutaBafwethu]

@paddypower Look at you now, where you at

[1st Edition @StutaBafwethu]

@8bdrssss What is going on?

[S🕊️🇸🇪 @8bdrssss]

2026 World Cup prediction 🇦🇷

Group Stage
🇦🇷 3-0 🇩🇿
🇦🇷 2-0 🇦🇹
🇦🇷 4-0 🇯🇴

Round of 32
🇦🇷 2-0 🇺🇾

Round of 16
🇦🇷 3-0 🇮🇷

Quarterfinal
🇦🇷 2-1 🇵🇹

Semifinal
🇦🇷 2-1 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Final
🇦🇷 2-1 🇪🇸

🏆 Player of the Tournament: Lionel Messi
🥇 Top Scorer: Lionel Messi
🎯 Top Assister: Lionel Messi

[AKA @akaworldwide]

PROTECT SOUTH AFRICA AT ALL COSTS.

[1st Edition @StutaBafwethu]

@DurbanCity_FC @orlandopirates Anginithandi shame naze nawupetula umoya wami

[1st Edition @StutaBafwethu]

@malomejay He said a lot without disturbing the facts. Absolute nothingness

[Nomandla Bobo @nomandlabobo]

UJ actually offers a free course in Microsoft Excel for the workplace.

https://t.co/BYBvuDTHqK

[1st Edition @StutaBafwethu]

Nah, kuse Mzansi and that's enough for us

[Kirya Ug 🇺🇬 @kirya_ug]

South Africans 🇿🇦 think their country is America.

[1st Edition @StutaBafwethu]

@ireallyhasit @NowInSA @Benzo_Ndlovu @ChrisExcel102 You already know 🤣

[1st Edition @StutaBafwethu]

@chrishartZA Kuthiwa not you sanakwabo

[1st Edition @StutaBafwethu]

@akreana_ #keadrive

[1st Edition @StutaBafwethu]

@LuyoloMphithi Madam said say something neh..don't worry we know what we saw

[1st Edition @StutaBafwethu]

@elonmusk Azithi mzala la kuwe...get over it

[1st Edition @StutaBafwethu]

@elonmusk Lol, you need South Africa more than South Africa needs your starlink..even Namibia has denied you

[1st Edition @StutaBafwethu]

@RealTshemedi2 Neh fok 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[1st Edition @StutaBafwethu]

History of economic thought

[Sizwe SikaMusi @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.