WORLDVIEW: Gradually, then suddenly. South Africa’s Brazil moment fast approaching

In the four presentations during my visit to SA this month, I referenced one of Ernest Hemingway's most famous quotes. It comes from his book The Sun Also Rises where one character asks another how he went bankrupt. "Two ways," came the answer, "Gradually – then suddenly."

Transformative events tend to happen that way. Long before the meltdown of 2008, Warren Buffett fretted publicly about the danger of what he called Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction. There was also ample advance warning before the bursting of the dot.com bubble in 2000. The Zimbabwean economic disaster, too, was decades in the making. As was the ending of Apartheid.

From the way I'm reading it, the Zuptoid plundering of South Africa's national resources is also rapidly approaching its "suddenly" point. Evidence is everywhere from Eskom to SAA, the SABC to the latest Gupta midnight flit. It was pushed a little closer yesterday by a highly creative attack from crowdfunded activist group OUTA.

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