Thomas Johnson - The Blog

The invisible unemployed Severe, entrenched unemployment is arguably the most significant social and economic problem in South Africa. Its consequences include poverty and inequality.  But articles like this one and this and supporters of the minimum wage (MW) concentrate on its purported benefits on already employed people. Once again, the unemployed are ignored and forgotten. Supporters claim it spurs real and sustainable economic growth without saying how exactly.  As example, they point to developing countries, like Brazil, where it was implemented but omit to say those economies are different to and far more efficient and productive than ours where MWs might painlessly be absorbed, utilised and create "spill over [economic] effects".  In fact, Brazil with its current economic problems is not an economic poster child.  The minimum wage-linked social, pension and unemployment benefits rose dramatically, increasing national debt, which was 60% GDP in 201...

Recently I wrote (about the mattress industry) consumer scams are designed to mislead or part you from your money, and many are permitted under marketing hyperbole.   I looked into the labelling of the breakfast cereal oats. Tiger Consumer Brands’ Jungle Oats (various variants) and Pioneer Foods’ Bokomo Oats Instant state “100% Wholegrain Pure Oats” prominently, but in smaller print on the back of the package under ingredients says it’s actually made from “oat flakes, gluten (allergen)”, i.e., wheat, barley or rye.   A popular “health food” brand sold in supermarkets, pharmacies and health shops says “oats is naturally free from wheat” but the ingredients states: “oats, gluten”.   Other brands including Woolworths, Pick ‘n Pay, Checkers and Spar house brands also have “oats” containing gluten, but at least they don’t claim its “100% pure wholegrain oats”. This is significant to me because as a non-coeliac gluten sensitivity sufferer I’m trying to find an a...

Helen Zille is one of my three least favourite people because I find her a supercilious know-all and disingenuous, and she moved the DA to the right. I am loathe to take her side but the anger and criticism she’s receiving about her colonialism comments   especially from people like media personality Eusebius McKaiser and DA leader Mmusi Maimane are hypocritical. McKaiser was educated at the University of Oxford, and in his book A Bantu in My Bathroom boasted about his time there. Maimane was educated at an apartheid/colonial-era school, Wits and Bangor University, Wales.   These institutions are products of colonialism, Oxford being the nursery of Cecil John Rhodes, which the university’s Famous Oxonians website lists as “ colonial pioneer, founder of the Rhodes Scholarships”. Missionary schools played a significant role educating particularly blacks but their founders – European missionaries who arrived with colonialists – had an ambiguous “moral sel...

Consumer scams are designed to confuse and get you to part with your money.   But some are perpetrated by companies under the rubric “marketing”, or just mediocre service.   Often consumers, through ignorance and trust in the retailer/manufacturer, are none the wiser.   My hobby horse is the mattress industry.   A Strand-based manufacturer’s website states its Cover Concept range is the “most luxurious mattress in the world”.   That’s a lie: that honour goes to Sweden’s H ä stens Vividus costing £ 120 000, and which lasts 25 years.   Each Vividus bed takes 320 hours to make.   (They also make more “reasonably” priced mattresses and beds from about R70 000.) No-one, especially people in the trade, can claim “luxury”, “bespoke” or “high quality” when exemplars of the real deal exist, particularly when consumers can google it.   But this is symptomatic of the mattress industry – scams and misinformation most consumers are not aware of when...

South Africa's media reports like this frequently runs tendentious articles like this one "Raising sin and sugar taxes seen as good for SA's health" (February 1) or this , quotes reports favouring such taxes. But regarding sugar taxes, these studies and media reports often fail to mention the meta-analysis that says all the evidence is not yet in and the the time span of study is too short, e.g., Mexico's case of only about four years.  Medical and economic effects - good and bad - take long-term study, not a couple of years. SA's established media has been biased in its reporting about this tax, giving proponents favourable coverage and not rigorously interrogating the counter argument.  I wonder why because its the poor that will feel the tax most - the well-off can afford it. Sugary foods and drinks are price inelastic, meaning higher prices do not deter consumers. Alcohol and cigarettes are the same. SA has stiff duties on them but consumptio...

Former South Peninsula High School principal Brian Isaacs’ demand model C and private schools must go may be motivated by a politically correct, egalitarian idealism, but it does not have the interests of education and country’s future at heart.  Like similar grand gestures, it’s big on ideology and short on practicalities. First, eliminating private education for those who want it eliminates freedom of association and to make economic decisions that’s a cornerstone of democracy.  These ideologues are hypocrites because democracy is not a buffet from which they can pick elements they like and discard the rest.  And they have that luxury they would not have under a restricted political system.  Did Fidel Castro give Cuban citizens choice? The relatively few quality government (model C and other) and private schools are literally South Africa’s last line of defence against the nadir of educational mediocrity.  This is no exaggeration. SA ranked second last...

After 5pm on Sunday December 18, 2016 a stranger drew our attention to two kittens up a tree along a busy road.  She had been walking along and heard their cries.  She returned with food and tried to get them to come down. (Thank you, kind lady.) They were three to four weeks old.  I got both down and took them home.  We fed and watered them - a tortoiseshell and ginger.  Almost immediately they explored their environment, doing what kittens do, the ginger more nervous than the other, bringing smiles to our faces. Matthew Michael Jackson* (left), Eve This part of the road is separated from houses.  Kittens this age would not leave their mother, and it's too far for them to accidentally have walked off - it just doesn't happen.  We concluded they had been dumped there over the past few days. To the person who did this, it was cowardly and cruel.  First, why did you not spay the  mother cat?  Second, there are ...