Hi Alec
I admire how you always look for the positives in our economy. I do wish more journalists and investors did the same.
Prior to 94, the outlook looked just as bad in SA and the following decade was great for the economy. Prior to 2000, things looked worse possibly and again the same happened. Look at the companies like Old Mutual, Netcare and Pick n’ Pay which decided to look for opportunities in the developed world as SA looked so gloomy. Compare these to their competitors – Sanlam, Coronation, Life Healthcare and Shoprite – all of whom chose to invest in SA and their performance in the subsequent decade tells a story.
It can be argued that we had great tailwinds of the commodity supercycle, an emerging middle class and a credit boom from that starting point which could not be predicted and that this time around we have some structural issues which we cannot ignore, but economics is pretty difficult to predict.
The truth is that sentiment has a big role to play and the glass is always half full.
| Kind RegardsMahomed Ibrahim |
