Dark is the Night

There is no moon out tonight; where we are that is not unusual because we are almost center between the previous full moon and the one coming up in about two weeks from now.  It’s chilly as I sit out here at just after midnight; winter is setting in right on time this year.

 Of course we have dark moonless nights in summer too thanks to a Government Monopoly owned and managed Electricity Supply Commission that makes them do as they like but it provides me the opportunity to go outside on a summer night when the electricity is down; it is beautiful to walk out on the lawn in nature’s clothes and look up at our unpolluted skies; it is divine.  Because it is my own lawn I can do on it what I like.  I do that often and not a soul will know that I am out there on the lawn in the rear of my little habitat.

 But that is not the kind of dark that I have in mind for this Post.

 Having grown up with a good brain that was further enhanced by technical and academic studies took me into a career of forty years in statistics, marketing and technical, and I reckon that I know something about finance.  Money has never been of any greater importance to me than what I need to survive.  I travelled extensively before I retired and now live modestly with just enough to survive.  That I do with my own wits, knowledge and expertise on the Stock Exchange.

 I don’t use investment banks or advisers; they are parasites and idiots.  And they lie to you; that I won’t do to myself and I don’t like them doing it to me.  Suffices, the “experts are lying cheats” using your money to enrich themselves; they won’t have my money as well.

 But doing what I do I have to look at what they do and tell We the Peepolls [read that as Sheepolls Voters} and with World Markets in turmoil, clearly so in the immediate past few months, I just don’t see the economic recovery that politicians are trying to convince the Voter is actually happening.

 Yes, I do clearly observe flood waves of spending; in our Country the Sheepolls elected Government simply cannot understand the difference between consumerism and natural supply and demand.  Hence we are trying to consume and spend ourselves out of a recession.

 It ain’t gonna work, guys!

 Gold has been shaky and wobbling; it took a nosedive yesterday.

 Dark is the night.

Golden Secrets in the Green Hills of Africa

Not fresh off the Press; yes, recent from that too, but in this case fresh off the pen of the ambulating giant in Wit, Observation, knowledge and a razor sharp Mind, my friend and buddy the Nimrod of NOLA now in Upper State New York.

 The Internet ink was still drying on:

 http://ikejakson.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/green-hills-of-africa/

 Hardly, I should say on the drying; fresh of this Great Mind of the Nimrod comes:

 http://qz.com/83396/1-billion-of-gold-has-been-shipped-from-new-york-to-south-africa-this-year/

 As recent as 1997 America had only one operating gold mine; overt one I should add, in Deadwood South Dakota.  I visited there and tarried a while to lose my money to Kevin Costner’s Casino.  Australia was then digging all over for the yellow stuff; rumors had it that the Russians had found some up their way, but South Africa still produced the largest slice of pure Gold in  ll the World.

 How have things changed in such a short time?

 Today South Africa has taken over as the biggest consumer per capita in the entire World but ranking forth in Gold Production.

 It is rumored that Russia has more reserves of the useless stuff than the others combined but they are not even bothering to take it out of the ground at this stage.  Heck, they have more oil and natural gas deposits than they can ever consume but they are just leaving it in the ground for a while.

 The questions for the ensuing weeks in South Africa will be:

 Who bought and who sold this ‘hem stack of gold in the Article?  Who paid for the bounty?  Which is the hand with the fresh grease on?

 The Green Hills of Africa are patiently waiting for answers.

Green Hills of Africa

No, this is not Hemingway 1939; it’s Africa 2013.

 And it will be short.  The statistics are my own but accurate enough for the purpose.  It’s for American readers; they will find it close enough to their own statistics.

 This presentation won’t include any Internet links or other references; not because they are not available.  They are known though but the green people of Africa don’t want them published.

 In 1973 the top rate of Income tax was 72% of earnings above R 28 000 per annum.  In what was at that stage common knowledge, and regularly published only but  exactly, 78 taxpayers were in the tax category above the astronomical income of R 250 000 per annum.  At that stage South Africa was on a fixed exchange rate of 1.32 USA dollars for one Rand SA currency.  The fact that has since changed to hover around 8 SA Rands for 1 USA dollar is not relevant to the discussion.

 The fortunate 78 were all entrepreneurs.  A top salary for a senior position in Finance, Banking and other large corporations was just touching on R 12 000 per annum; salaried workers that we can call 825 workers working from 8 am to 5 pm] weren’t near that; a high middle management salary was maybe R 7 000 per annum; the first step on the corporate ladder paid about R 4 000 and that was good income when a medium sized car would set you back under R 2 000 and a good house in an average medium to middle class market suburb came at R 10 000.  The Town Clerk was running Municipal Government; a good one in a large town took home maybe R 6 000 per annum.  Town Mayors were honorary positions drawing small stipends and had to obtain City Council permission to entertain a good supplier.

 Things changed after Nixon took America off the Gold Standard in 1973; inflation hit the country when international economic embargos started to have effect.  But no 825 salaried worker earned anything near R 24 000 when South Africa went off the fixed exchange rate with America in June of 1981.

 The floating rand/dollar and other exchange rates took a heavy toll.  Bank interest rates shot up to over 20% in the early 1980’s but it must be noted that American interest rates also peaked above 10% during the same time.  By the time 1989 was drawing to a close senior executive salaries had just passed the R 120 000 per annum high mark.

 The same 78 entrepreneurs were still paying top tax though at smaller marginal rates than in 1973

 Early 1990 something happened.  Executive 825 salaries overtook the entrepreneur, passed him, and then increased the numbers.  Government salaries doubled, trebled and kept on going.  Municipal Government salaries to Mayors and Municipal managers started at R 50 000 per month and soon reached one million per annum, and continued to rise.

 At the end of 1990 it was reported that 1 000 salaried workers were drawing more than 2 million a year; at the end of 1999 the News Media had fallen behind in reporting but an estimated 5 000 ordinary 825 employees had by then crowded the 78 entrepreneurs of 1973 out of the space on the green millionaires list.

 By 2003 the first 5 000 had gone to even greener pastures at 10, then rapidly 20 million smackers per annum; from further down the green list the next group estimated at maybe 10 000 previously poor and disadvantaged new rich had taken up the lowly 2 to 6 million per annum group of a lighter green left behind by the exalted bright green pioneers.  Right below them a new group emerged; once again it is an estimate; at anywhere around 40 000 of them biding their time in the ½ to 1 and one ½ million a year; pale green would seem to describe such a lowly color.

 As 2013 dawned Internet spooks got wise on the greens and we now have teams of them targeting the green colonies with cellular phone sim card withdrawals on fat bank accounts; it is becoming a test of clashing wills and our Government has just acted by ramming a Government Secrecy Bill through Parliament to prevent any publication of green salaries; all names or details are now State Secrets in order to stop the Sim Card Fraud epidemic.

 If you add all the figures up you will find that the greens [pale to light to bright green] add up to 10% of 1% [in other words, 0.01%] of the total population of the country; there is thus plenty space left before we overdo it at a round 1% of the other hues of color in the Rainbow.

 You guys don’t believe me?

 Well, I don’t blame you but I said that I won’t bore you with links and such trivial things.  You have the wonder of Internet, don’t you?  Just Google any combination of ‘Elmarie Weideman, Media24, Fin24 ABSA Bank, Sim Card Fraud in South Africa, Ex-Absa employee complaint that the bank doesn’t react’,   You want to LYOAO, just Google ‘ABSA Bank mitigates for Elmarie Weideman Sim Card Fraud Fin24 report’ and you will crawl on all fours laughing.  Have a Jack Daniel when you can’t breath from laughing [the Black Jack one please note; the green one is much too young, only for Kentucky folks, you know].

 Ike Jakson, Tennessee Squire, class of June 1986.

Billions of Road Markers on Life’s Journey

Yes, we have about seven [or is it nine?] billion people alive on earth on this day; that makes for the same number of road markers/milestones because each one on Life’s Journey is unique.

 Some will say, with which I agree, that human life starts at conception but I don’t want to dwell on that today except to say that the Journey of Life begins at birth.  What happens during the previous nine months will certainly have an effect on how each individual is going to cope with his World but the subject is a long one and one needs to start somewhere.  Shall we say that individual life of the human being separate from his mammal source starts out on his journey at birth?

 In the very beginning he survives by instinct; if the need for food and shelter is provided his own life will in due course become his own unique journey.

 http://ikejakson.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/life-is-a-journey/

 Having food and shelter taken care of by others, one’s own unique journey will kick off almost from day one.  Of course, life’s actions in the first few days or weeks will largely be in the form of reaction to the treatment that a new human being gets when opening those little eyes for the first time; a smiling baby or a little human prone to crying or cringing will soon show and will be brought to bear as he grows and develops in later life.

 For the purposes of this writing I am therefore, also going to assume that the treatment, food, shelter and degree of love shown to him will be what it should be though all are not as fortunate as others.  You surely don’t want to read nine billion pages today; so let us assume that they are all healthy, well fed and sheltered on the day they start out.

 How many do we count for last week Sunday?  What about the day before, or the same date a year ago?  How about the same day forty years ago?

 The forty years old today have only one thing in common besides being exactly the same age.  That little thing is called by only one word that you spell U.N.I.Q.U.E and please note that it is not similar to anything else.  Being unique has no synonyms for the human being.

 Let me jump a little ahead and have a look at our sample of mankind [humanity] that entered life as babies on this day forty years ago. How many do we have we; you decide but I am sure you will agree that it would be a fair sample in statistics or scientific studies?

 You will also find that our sample will be roughly half male and the other half female because these things simply happen, or are made to happen that way; the reason or the way it happens to be so cannot be of any influence in any sample you may wish to consider.

 Hence this morning rose, say, one hundred thousand males in full manhood and the same number of females in full grown womanhood, all having only one thing in common; that they are all beginning the first day of 41 on this day.

 Many [most I would daresay], will have passed their memories and/or experiences of their own babyhood and childhood days on to their offspring by now, many with joy and many with regret but at the age of forty joy or regret for things past will not change anything for the future.

 The die is cast before you get to the walk between forty and fifty.  If you wanted to climb mountains you would have done so by now; some would have fallen off the cliffs in trying; some would have succeeded to the high summits and others would have come down off the slopes by choice and taken the even straight roads over the landscape of Life’s Journey; those who fell and did not get up to try again are most likely to remain by the roadside.  The die has been cast; most will arrive at fifty having walked in style or strife on the most splendid stretch of road life has on offer.  You are where you will be or was meant to be at forty; the following ten years will produce the harvest; from there on the chosen road can hardly be changed for some other more hopeful or easier route.

 Who casts the die or how is it done?

 That’s really very simple.  Life at forty and thereafter is shaped by emotions and perceptions formed and shaped since the day one is born; early differences in reaction will appear; reactions may turn into one’s own actions; they will in turn cause reactions of a kind in others of the same age; the country where you are born [whether you moved elsewhere?] will have an effect; faith and own free will may clash or find harmony.  However, either way will be determined by your own set of emotions and perceptions about life.  That is the only truth; there is no other.

 Is this the summary of Life’s Journey?  Yes, mankind [each one on his/her own] will be where they want to be.  Sorry, with apologies but no crawling on bended knee, young people under forty, you can’t talk about life because you have a computer and the Internet whereas those of my generation did not have it; come to think of it, neither did we have telephones or paved/tarred roads, but we managed.

 If I could have my life over ….?  Come off it, little ones, this old guy doesn’t want it.  It has been a good life with all the ups and downs.  We handled shortages and complications our way; you go right ahead and handle your times.  Just remember, we are way past forty but you still have to get there.

 Is this to be continued?  Of course, smart ass.  You will know that too one day: at least I hope you will, but you have to get there first.  You have to find a way to live with one percent of the people living it up with two and one half million smackers a year while the guy working the orchards or sweeping the road gets by at one thousand per month without killing you.  We didn’t have that in our day either, so perhaps I am the one to shut up.

 How can you live with a conscience if this appears in the local press?

 http://www.fin24.com/Economy/SAs-posh-living-the-green-life-20130428

 Is this leading us to the old African cliché that “for the lion to feed, something has to die?”

 Don’t cry for the Beloved Country; cry for thee and the children yet to be born to thee.

The Price of Freedom

The old cliché that” there is no free lunch” remains a wisdom known to few.

 Nothing in the World is free; it only depends on the price tag, and it is so with Freedom too.

 Unfortunately Africa has not yet woken up to the fact that we all pay for Freedom with our individual Liberty, the most precious possession there exists.

 Liberty does imply Freedom; yes, I don’t deny that but the day that Liberty becomes the currency that we use to pay for Freedom that Freedom isn’t worth a bean.  Liberty more than anything implies unrestricted Freedom of the mind; when Freedom costs you the ability to let your mind soar free you are in bondage worse than slavery.  There is no escape route from the bondage of voluntary submission to this weird Freedom of modern times.

 Despair awaits those born under this illusion of Freedom and though some sort of realization is dawning in the minds of the over forties of today the generation born since 1990 don’t seem to realize that the mortgage on the property has to be paid for; it may be too late for them to ever be free I guess.

 Liberty of the mind is too precious to risk for anything.  I am a Free Man only because I have never mortgaged my Mind and I never shall.

Ikepedia on Flat Earth Day Sunday, April 21, 2013

Flat Earth Day is celebrated when certain elements of nature combine to provide the conditions for a special event in the southern hemisphere on April 21^st; it doesn’t occur every year but when it does, it’s always on the same date.  This year 2013 of Our Lord is one of them.

Readers will note that the date is exactly one month after the Southern Equinox on March 21^st.

It is much like Ground Hog Day that is celebrated in Punxsutawney PA US of A.

It goes back to the days when man and beast lived close to nature in harmony with each other and God of All Life; when children respected their parents; when the father was a man and your momma a lady.  The Earth was flat; the sun moved and actually rose in the morning to set at night.  Events of Mankind were orderly and sublime.  Man believed that God made the Earth and everything in or on it.

In fact, I still believe that the processes of Nature are ongoing.  Oil, gas, weather, nature and Mankind’s existence are renewed every single day.  It is the way it was made to be.

Usually Flat Earth Day happens when Easter Weekend, like the year of 2013, comes around before the end of March.  In other years April may still produce scorchers with daytime temperatures as high as 110 degrees in the shade and nights between late 80’s lower 90’s.

This year the heat broke middle March; suddenly we had dew one fine morning; we knew summer had ended early and the sun was almost literally running North by the day to where the Northern Hemisphere awaits an early blistering fireball from the skies.

Our nights have turned cool to mildly fresh; this morning is divine; our days will be low to middle 70’s for a few weeks before winter settles and we will hear the singing of children and angels when we make time to listen for it.

The earth is a good place when we allow it to be flat once in a while and we take the time to reflect on the beneficence of our Creator.

I bow to Him this fine morning.

Dedicated to my friend, Jamie at:

http://jamiemacnab.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/seeing-ourselves-in-the-past/

Ponzi Schemes continued with Part Two, on FSB approved Operators in South Africa

This Article in Fin24 shocked and saddened me because I never expected the name of the Old Mutual connected to Ponzi operations.

 http://www.fin24.com/Companies/Financial-Services/Old-Mutual-CEO-paid-R33m-in-2012-20130405

 That is where I was first and well trained as a youngster straight from school in 1956, where I found my niche in statistics and acquired the knowledge that would stand me in good stead through a career of more than forty years in marketing Statistics; the name of the old Mutual somehow represent the High road in morality to me, so unlike many of the others, certainly those that took the road of corruption at the first opportunity.  I hope the Old Spirit of the Old Mutual and the shareholders will step in to fire the wayward culprit and get him out of there fast.  What we have here is blatant theft of money that should go to the policyholders and Pension Funds doing business with Old Mutual.

 Let some of the others take note!

 The FSB is a useless organization founded from the Old Government’s Registrar of Pension Funds and Financial Institutions.  It is not the watchdog for protection of the public investor as is claimed to be the case.  It so-called “privatized’ the joint to become the source of all that has gone awry in South African Finance.  They protect the thieves; they encourage evil by rewarding them and have no role to play in the protection of the private investor, the so-called man in the street.

 Readers must read up and get to the bottom of the Saambou, TMA, Fedsure and the Alexander Forbes Pension Fund millions.  It all happened in the closing years of my time in the Industry but I saw it happening right under the noses of the FSB as I have indicated, fully expecting them to do nothing about it.  For those of my Readers that do not believe what you read here, I suggest that you get an investigative journalist to delve for the stolen millions from the Pensioners Medical Aid Fund of a large Cape based Life Assurance Company; it should be all open knowledge but the thieving company, the FSB, and the Court agreed to keep it under wraps, so-called to avoid a public scandal that may be to the further detriment of the pensioners involved; but good to be able to report that about two years ago the Cape Supreme Court found the Ponzi Company guilty and ordered them to sit down with the complainant[s] acting for the Medical Aid to calculate the “Quantum” to submit to the Court for a final Order.

 Please note that I am not  stepping in to save the Defencex Boss if he is guilty of an offense but I find it rather ironically amusing to see how fast The FSB, the Ponzi Banks and all the Big Thieves jumped on a little guy to expose the alleged offenses,  close his bank accounts and force him into court while the Saambou Directors and Senior Management  are still walking around free after thirteen years.  Do any of you know how much money of pensioners was lost in that debacle?

 I am really sad about the Old Mutual; they should set an example and get that CEO to resign with immediate effect.  South Africa is rapidly on course for a showdown between the “NuRich 825 salaried billionaires and the guys serving the tea” and this sort of thing will in due course force the day of reckoning to happen rather much sooner than later.

 We will rue the day if we allow more of the same.

 It is a blot on our Entire Society to allow such obscene behavior in the first place; to cover it up is a disgrace.

 To be continued….

 IkeJ

Space colonies, Obama’s concern for Mandela, Mandela’s concerns about Mandela versus Reality

Taking things too seriously has been my Achilles heel for life and I almost repeated the same old mistake when I came across this:

 http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Obama-deeply-concerned-for-Mandela-20130328

 It frustrated me so much I almost decided to get serious but I remembered this Blog about a fellow writing on Colonizing Space.  I don’t know whether the guy is serious or whether he is just a prank; he writes some good stuff; some of his ideas sound weird but some make a lot of sense {I can’t make up my mind] and I suddenly remembered his recent Post on Marital Reform legislation for his Space Colonies.

 “That’s the answer, jou pampoen,” a voice said to me, as if someone was standing right next to me.

 “Jou Pampoen” is Dutch for “You Pumpkin” and the affectionate way in Dutch for saying to a friend: “Here, fetch another six-pack while you are up take and let us laugh a little, oh yeah, and don’t take that stuff so seriously, jou Pampoen.”  That’s like between friends who take their friendship seriously.

 If this guy, I reckoned it out, can get his space colony going I shall ask him to put Mandela and Obama on the inauguration flight, one way ticket.

 America can collect enough money from the 57 States voters to erect a statue for Obama and put it next to the monstrosity of Mandela’s on Trafalgar Square in that little island country from where your great great … great forbearers departed to colonize America way back when.

 Let the pigeons show their concern for Obama as they are showing concerning Mandela.  Come on, the two will really make a lovely couple for all future generations of pigeons.

 This is not a political Post; my vows to avoid politics remain firmly in place.  Politics are for the birds and we should show tangible concern for pigeons.

 To show our concern for the human race we should dispatch half of all politicians, bankers, lawyers and other parasite species to the space colonies as soon as this fellow can get it going to see them colonies off to a good start.

 And Yeah, censorbugbear, my fellow countryman at WordPress, come in and tell me how to get a comment into your Posts; maybe it is my system but your subscription system keep on blocking me.  Please help me to get in:

 http://www.censorbugbear.org/africa/south-africa/tussle-for-telkom-top-job

 I am also after the scoundrels at Telkom SA; let us join forces.

Ikepedia on The languages that we Speak part 2

I told you in OldSpeak, NewSpeak,…etc. Part 1 that it would be part of a lengthy series.

 To even start to find an acceptable or a sufficiently comprehensive definition of speaking one has to go into the source[s] and origin[s] of speech.

 The shortest route may serve us well in this case because I want to get back to Orwell 1984 and his NewSpeak as soon as possible.

 The first consideration is the natural one; that the ability to speak and the source of the languages that we speak are in the environment where a little baby [or a little animal] first opens his/her eyes to life and becomes aware of sound, only provided that the hearing is normal.

 Animal lovers, students of animal life and habits [well supported by science] will tell us that animal speech develops much faster than human speech does because in many instances their lifespan is very short and they have to learn fast in order to survive.  Let us step off animal speech but believe me, it is a wide field; humans should at the very least be aware of the fact that it does indeed exist.

 Let us now go back to human speech and stay with it for the purposes of this series.

 You can Google or spend as much time as you have or wish to devote in Wikipedia to trace the existence and origins of the thousands of languages and dialects spoken in the World today.  For Ikepedia suffices to state that starting out with the smallest environment of a normal home the young new arrival will in the course of time be Italian, Spanish, Russian, Chinese …….in normal homogenous nations.  In America alone, once having lost the status of homogenous speech, anything becomes possible.  Unfortunately America is not the first or only one in this awkward situation but that is a distinctly separate topic for another day.

 It therefore, follows naturally that there must have been sufficient distance between groups or societies to develop separate languages.  Surely no one can argue that.

 One important point comes up immediately; human beings think in the language that they speak.  Language thus becomes the symbol of all thought and activity within the boundaries of that group, and achievement, development and the inner fiber of that society is founded in the language that they speak.

 Don’t mess with your language.  Next time when we continue it will be back to Orwell.

 [to be continued in Part 3]

 IkeJ

Government Ponzi Schemes

In South Africa a Ponzi Scheme is an Investment Scheme or Trust [often fraudulent] that runs on a pyramid style offering to pay very high interest on investments and the Top guy [s] siphon off great sums of money into private back pockets whilst paying the high interest rates from the cash flow generated by new investments.

 It works much like Democracy in America.  A career in Politics pays better than drug trafficking or crime combined.

 In South Africa we have gone one step further though I believe that then Americans are learning real fast and are catching up on us.  There was a time in Capitalism that the entrepreneur was the highest earner, obviously as a natural award for risking his own money and bonding his personal assets, but in our New Democracy Government salaries are now way ahead of entrepreneurial income levels.  Parliament first set the example but they were soon overtaken by 8 to 5 Municipal Managers [“Executives”] now “earning” the big bucks, driving the luxury cars and living the high life in the Mansions built for Kings.  Screw the “low-down” working poor and the unemployed, has become the slogan; “let them bake their own cake and eat it”, whilst reducing the smaller entrepreneur to the poor working class and taxing him to pay for the extravagances of the New Rich.

 It works like a Ponzi scheme; the only difference is that their one is legal.  Is it not ironic that it seems to surprise them when a private individual starts a small scheme of his own?  Out comes the law: freeze the bank account of the intruder; strip him of his assets; fast act, get him out of the way in no time at all.  They don’t suffer competition easily; after all they are in the Big League and intend to retain the leadership role.

 Read some more about one of my favorites; well I was a favorite of them too until I withdrew my investment support:

 http://www.censorbugbear.org/africa/south-africa/tussle-for-telkom-top-job

 [To be continued]