WORLDVIEW: Time to get fearful on Rand while the First World desk jockeys are greedy

When SA's finance minister Pravin Gordhan was fired those in the know forecast the Rand would tank. Logic suggested it simply had to as Gordhan was the last hope for sane economic policy and the final bulwark between the Treasury and full-scale plundering by the Guptas and their political associates. The Rand duly lost 10% in those dramatic two weeks.

Any rational analysis suggested much worse was in prospect. Critically, S&P and Fitch are on the cusp of dropping SA's all-important domestic debt rating to junk which will spark a forced selloff of something between R150bn and R250bn in foreign-owned SA bonds. On top of that, the news flow has been at the bottom end of expectations.

Three of Treasury's Big Four – Fuzile, Brown, Donaldson – have left the building, opening the way for the Zuptoids to have another run at a bankruptcy-creating nuclear deal. That wicked quest is sure to be assisted by corrupt former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe getting his old job back, the unintended consequence of an activist politician's desire to do the right thing.

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