According to Credit Suisse, there were about 5.2 million people that became first time millionaires last year. The source of their wealth was largely due to favourable real estate pricing and a booming stock market. I know, right? This time last year, the financial markets were soaring and investors were in dreamland. This is how long a year is: that dream has turned into something of a nightmare. This year is all about doom and gloom and we have Europe to thank for that. In 2008, it was North America that we blamed for our woes as a society due to the spectacular crash of their housing market; in 2020 we gave Asia the stank eye because a Chinese region was the epicentre of the devastating health crisis; this year it is Europe that is hogging the spot light being a region that is inexplicably at war with itself.
2021: Bitcoin at record high ✅
Interest at record lows ✅
Stock market at record high ✅
2022: Russia:
Notwithstanding the depressing global economic conditions, a Chinese man became a millionaire this week after he won the lottery collecting a sum equivalent to E500 million. He collected his winnings in a Pikachu-esque costume. As part of the cheque handover event, he was interviewed. Having E500 million to your name makes you instantly interesting. Eventually the question on his choice of wardrobe came up. You would think that he was wearing a costume so that the opps can’t immediately identify him lest they attempt to relieve him of his newly found fortunes but you would be wrong. He was hiding from his own family. He said that he did not tell his wife and child about his winning ticket because if they knew that daddy was balling like that they would become lazy and complacent.
I have heard about the Chinese work ethic before but oh my days! Really? You won’t let your favourite people in the world live soft because you want to make sure they still have their eyes fixated on the prize. To what end? If I am made aware that I don’t have to work for money anymore then I get the opportunity to pursue my genuine intellectual curiosity. That probably makes for a more purposeful and fulfilling existence. No? Isn’t that what you would want for yourself? For your own wife? For your child? I know. I know. 1. I am yet to wed; 2. The closest thing to a child that I have is a plant… and it died, so I don’t even have that; and, 3 I am exactly E1 million off from having E1 million so my merits to comment on this topic are tenuous at best. I get it. I’m with you. Who am I to talk? But come on!
PS: To the friends that have come to me to speak about the lottery that I greeted with a negative long-winded lecture as summarised in video format below. I am sorry. I know you went ahead and bought yourself many tickets and you have been waiting for this apology to appraise me of your winnings. I suddenly get the urge to mention that sharing is caring.
Lizzy Rhymes with Dizzy
Elizabeth Truss was appointed the UK premier last month or just about. She took over from a certain Boris Johnson who divided opinion throughout his tenure in office. Boris had survived multiple attempts to oust him but his Amapiano balcony sessions during Covid were where the Angles drew the line (see what I did there?). At the height of covid, the eccentric Boris hosted many a party at number 10 Downing Street. The people of Britain could not find a way to accept that strict lockdown restrictions applied to all except the Prime Minister. He had to go!
Boris was not a controversial figure over just one offence. His appointment of Chris Pincher, whom, at the time of appointment, had already attracted a plethora of allegations for inappropriate conduct, was the actual last straw for many. Boris himself is said to have joked, “Pincher by name, pincher by conduct.” You can use your imagination as to what shade his “inappropriate conduct” took on. There was a wave of resignations in the Cabinet culminating in the “them’s the grapes” speech on July 7th.
Okay then. Over to you Elizabeth. We’re certain that you can’t do any worse than… aaaand she’s gone! That was barely a week wasn’t it? What happened? I’ve watched Tik Toks that have lasted longer than that. The unanimous opinion is that her fall came due to Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s budget proposing tax reforms that Liz would soon after go back on. It was amateur hour. Liz proposed tax cuts during a time where the global economy, let alone UK's own, was experiencing historically high levels of inflation fuelled by supply bottlenecks and conflict in Europe. This also being proposed when USD strength was threatening the pound. The timing couldn’t have been worse. These plans sent shockwaves through the global investing fraternity and rattled Parliament. While BOE was clamping down on inflation, Truss wanted to perpetuate it. The pound fell to it’s lowest level ever against the USD. The IMF even issued a public rebuke of Truss’ government asking them to reconsider tax cuts in the prevailing environment.
It was not clear how Truss planned to fund these tax cuts other than through borrowing which would have to be repaid by an economic boom that is unlikely to be realised anytime soon. Although Truss did a U-Turn on all her proposals, these brazen attempts to save the wealthy a few billion pounds every year will yet affect the poorest British citizens who could see their mortgages rise by more than a thousand pounds per annum according to The Guardian. She may no longer be Premier but Great Britain will pay a handsome “moron premium” before it completely shakes off Trussonomics.
More News
Mexico was hit by an earthquake on the day “19 September” for the third time in history. The last such earthquake was 2017. Casualties were estimated at 360. In 1985, the 19 September earthquake killed 5000. Mexico is a seismically active region that sits on 3 of the Earth’s largest tectonic plates. When these plates move or collide, hello earthquake. Certain cities in Mexico are built on soft sand that acts an amplifier for tremors. There is no particular reason why these should occur on 19 September. Let’s say it’s just a coincidence for now.
I know I’ve been listening to too much Ricky Gervais because I am developing a soft spot for animals. I read an article about 230 beached pilot whales in Australia and my heart was sore for while.
What I am Reading
I am reading a book by TJ Strydom called Koos Bekker’s Billions. I am struggling to finish this book. It is so underwhelming and there’s a heap of irony here because my excitement when I picked this book up couldn’t be contained. I started reading as soon as it was handed to me, ignoring the very guests that I was entertaining who had been so kind as to acquire the book on my behalf. I was too excited. After turning it open, that excitement was erased gradually from page-to-page and replaced with indifference. It was not written very well and the level of detail that I was after did not make it into Strydom’s pages. What did a business have to do to be successful in the Apartheid era? Such questions were not answered. Maybe it is unfair to judge a book by what it is not; let’s perhaps discuss what it is. It is biographical but I did not feel that I gathered more than what is already in the media about Mr. Bekker.
Mr. Bekker’s exposure to HBO in the US inspired the launch of M-Net in South Africa. M-Net was one of the first 2 Pay-TV networks outside the US. Koos and his team could show movies 18 months after release unlike the SABC (their only competition at the time) that had to wait 8 years. M-Net was positioned as an unbiased alternative to the SABC that functioned mostly to sanitise the image of a racist government. Mr. M-Net was also involved in the early stages of MTN’s establishment, a brand that grew to become the most valuable on this continent. With a reputation as a talisman and wealth creator, he joined Naspers at the helm and made the greatest investment of all time in Tencent. Honestly, I can’t be bothered to say any more. I cannot really recommend this book in good conscience but I have a physical copy that I am ready to let go if you wish to judge for yourself.
If anything else happened this week, I missed it. Till next Sunday 👋🏾.
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