Charlene Smith: There is more to life than buying a new car, getting a bigger house, if you intend remaining here, if you want to still be in business by this time next year, then you are simply going to have to work harder, with more imagination and greater empathy for those around you and that applies as much for South Africans as it does for Americans, Europeans … the world is in trouble, it requires something extra from the ordinary to get us out of it.
SHOOT: Great article, but economic growth can never be the answer to all our problems in a world facing chronic pollution levels and energy depletion. We have to work harder, yes, and more imaginatively, yes, but we also have to address another problem. Us. How we consume, how much we consume and mosty crucial - how many of us there are right now.
Cosatu is right, big bonuses and ridiculously expensive cars as part of executive packages have to go — it’s happening elsewhere in the world, why not in this land of profound inequity?
You have to be really stupid or terminally ignorant not to see how fast and how badly this economy is sliding and to realise that we will not be out of this mess early next year, as some economists now say, we will be lucky to start lifting our head above water by 2013.
Take a look at this graph for South Africa’s GDP:
So your tax rate is going through the ceiling and your investments are collapsing through the floor. It doesn’t take huge leaps of awareness to understand that this economy has to grow; it simply has to, if this country is to have any chance of remaining a strong investment locale for foreign and domestic investors.
Public service projects as a way of seconding employees rather than laying off staff is gaining ground. |
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