Too on point not to share, “Aussie reply to Trump rant about NATO not being there for us.
Mate. You run a country with 600,000 homeless people sleeping on the street tonight. A country where 40% of adults can't cover a $400 emergency without borrowing money. A country where insulin costs more than a car payment and people are rationing it to survive. A country where medical debt is the number 1 cause of bankruptcy. A country where women are dying in hospital car parks because doctors are too scared of abortion laws to treat a miscarriage.
You lock up more of your own citizens than any nation on earth. More than China. More than Russia. More than North Korea. The land of the free has 2 million people in cages, and a quarter of them haven't even been convicted of anything. They're just too poor to make bail.
Your life expectancy is going backwards. You're the only developed nation where that's happening. Your infant mortality rate is worse than Cuba's. Your kids do active shooter drills between maths and English while you sell the gunmaker's stock to your mates.
Your minimum wage hasn't moved in 15 years. You've got teachers working 2 jobs and veterans sleeping under bridges and you just spent a trillion dollars flattening a country that didn't attack you.
And you’ve got a convicted felon, adjudicating raping, paedophile protecting, porn star shagging insurrectionist running the biggest dumpster fire war campaign since the Taliban thanked you very much for losing again.
And you're calling Greenland poorly run?
Greenland has universal healthcare. Free education. One of the lowest incarceration rates in the world. Nobody goes bankrupt there because they got sick. Nobody dies in a waiting room because their insurance said no.
"NATO wasn't there when we needed them." When exactly was that, champ? September 11? Because NATO invoked Article 5 for the first and only time in history FOR YOU. Soldiers from dozens of countries deployed, fought, bled, and died in Afghanistan FOR YOU. Australia wasn't even in NATO and we still showed up. For 20 years.
And you pulled out at 2am without telling anyone and left them to deal with the mess.
So maybe before you start calling other countries poorly run, have a look at your own backyard, you spray-tanned aluminium siding salesman. The only thing poorly run in this picture is your fucking mouth. Credit (borrowed from) Jim Scroggins - original author 📷 unknown”
In April 1994, the democratic South African government inherited an economy that was characterised by:
~ high debt
~ double-digit inflation
~ a currency crisis
~ weak investor confidence
1. Debt-to-GDP
• 1994 Debt-to-GDP was 48.8%
48.8%
• If SOE debt was added, total public sector debt was at 69%
• By 2008, this was reduced to 20%
2. Debt
• 1994 = R107 billion (and rising due to compound interest).
• R1 out of every R5 was payable just for interest!
• On 15 August 2001, the democratic government made rhe last payment toward settling the Apartheid debt.
• The irony? - this debt had been incurred by the illegitimate state to uphold Apartheid, oppression, corruption, & atrocities.
3. Surplus!
• Crazy to think that for the 2006/7 finyear, we had a Budget Surplus!
4. Inflation
• Between 1980 & 1994, inflation, on average, was 14.3% per year.
• Peaked at 20.7% in 1986!!
• 1994-2002 = 7.0%
• 2003-2025 = 5.7%
• Lowest recorded: January 2004 = 0.2%
• Late 2025 = 3.5%
5. Currency Crisis
• April 1994:
- SARB reserves at all time low,
- could only cover short-term liabilities,
- no net reserves to defend the currency, or
- pay for imports.
• Dual Rand system: Commercial Rand & Financial Rand
• FinRand traded at massive discounts (up to 40%!)
• Capital flight
• Between January 1993 and April 1994 = Rand depreciated by 20%
Funnily enough, the Apartheid state bankrupted the country, while only taking care of a minority!
NOTE:
Current economic situation is bad. But I'll post about that tomorrow, including the turnaround plan.
The point about this post is that Apartheid left us spiraling in debt, with zero to little infrastructure or services in townships, virtually no reserves, high inflation, unchecked corruption, and no proper planning.
So, before u rubbish our democracy, take note. Thanks 😊🙏
My PhD thesis was on fuel production, I did some of that PhD at a Shell-funded lab, I've sat in Shell boardrooms with their upper SA execs, some of my best friends are engineers at Shell. I know a good bit about their business and I have never read so much bunk in a single day.🧵
Don't miss the inaugural Smart Cities, Towns, and Villages conference hosted by Black Circle Group supported by the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs. Check out our website https://t.co/JTYld411qO to register. Sponsor and Exhibition packages available
@EylonALevy@EylonALevy Dont you ever get tired of spewing such vile hatred and general garbage.... just wondering... I worried that you might not be able to sleep peacefully at nite. The stuff coming out of your mouth bro .. you need to have it checked
@BarackObama@DemRedistrict@BarackObama just wondering what is your position on the Gaza genocide. Do you think South Africa was correct to approach the ICJ?
@ChiefRabbiSA@ChiefRabbiSA, Sir can we agree that you may represent Netanyahu and his bloodthirsty thugs but you do not represent the majority of Jewish people. I dare say the majority of Jewish people want to live peacefully with their Palestinian neighbours.
@ChiefRabbiSA@ChiefRabbiSA just for clarity, am I being antisemitic if I ask for a little bit of empathy and ubuntu from you and your Israeli regime. Please note I am not involving the Jewish people in this because I know that many of them say not in their name.