THICK END OF THE WEDGE
PETER BRUCE: Put the state’s assets under the hammer
SA is not in a "technical recession" as the news bulletins insist. Cape Town is not, as I write, in the middle of a "technical storm". We are in a recession, plain and simple. The economy is shrinking, jobs are vanishing, spending slowing, confidence withering and the government is manifestly in no condition to do anything about it. Moody’s, the only ratings agency not yet to have marked our sovereign (rand) or foreign currency debt as junk, delivers its latest rating on Friday. It may not be pleasant. The slower the economy runs, the less money the government has to pay its debts and to meet its social and fiscal obligations. President Jacob Zuma has doubled our debt, unemployment overall approaches 40% and there is no sign of the jobs and the growth he has glibly promised since taking office in 2009. The Treasury put out a statement on Wednesday after Statistics SA confirmed that GDP had shrunk for the second quarter in a row. "The current state of the economy," the statement said...
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