SA political leadership’s dyscalculia – doesn’t wash, sadly, with S&P and Fitch

One of the better books I've read lately is the 2008 biography of Peter Roget, creator of the famous Thesaurus which carries his name. For a century and a half the English speaking world has referenced Roget's copious word lists as a way to improve communication. It's still a must-have for every wordsmith.

But even Roget. an eccentric polymath, couldn't cover everything. One of the words not there, but with particular relevance in South Africa today, is "dyscalculia". I discovered it yesterday when searching online to describe someone unable to understand numbers, one who finds arithmetic incomprehensible.

Because we have quite a few countrymen with the affliction occupying very senior positions. Perhaps that's why the nation is drifting towards a financial crunch? We'll get an update on the progress in that direction when ratings agencies S&P and Fitch deliver their latest verdicts. Pity they don't make allowances for dyscalculian leadership.

From Biznews community member Gavin

The only area in which those people in high positions you refer to, defy that theory
is in the area of gaining money deceitfully and deviously. Nothing wrong with their arithmetic there.