IOL reports that there is a hippo moving along the coast in KwaZulu-Natal! Apparently the lone hippo took to the ocean and has been making its way along the coast with stops at beaches and estuaries along the way. Imagine how strange it must be to be sitting on the beach and then seeing a hippo pop up!

I know that there are hippos that live in the Mangrove swamps and oceans in Tanzania (that’s actually where the hippo in the picture is), but I still find it weird to think of one moving along towards Durban’s beaches. I hope that doesn’t happen because then the Parks Board will have to shoot it - hippos are very dangerous.

If Bob is really good at making hammers and Alice is a nail making genius, they can get further by sticking to their specialties and trading - better and cheaper hammers and nails for all.

Lesson 1: Specialization is good

Now Frank comes along and he’s also pretty good at making hammers. Not such good news for Bob, but the competition between them leads to a decrease in the price of hammers - good for the rest of town.

Lesson 2: Competition is good for society
Lesson 3: The current winners don’t want competition. Competition means they must work to stay in the same place

So Bob wants to prevent Frank from coming to town and forcing him to work harder. He convinces the rest of the townsfolk that Frank is bad for them - he is going to steal their jobs and housing. Bob’s nasty plan works and Frank can’t get work in town.

What are the results? The town loses (hammers are more expensive) and only Bob wins (he doesn’t have to work hard).

Lesson 4: Blocking immigrants is bad for the economy - it only protects the lazy

A frustrated Frank goes to another town and sets up a shop there. He is hard working and business is good so he hires an assistant (more jobs) and has a house built (more housing). Frank has stimulated growth in the new town.

Lesson 5: Welcoming skilled immigrants is good for the economy

Frank’s hammers are so good that people from other towns start coming over to buy his hammers. They don’t go to Bob’s town anymore, so Alice also sells fewer nails and soon they are both out of work. Everyone in town now has to travel to the next town for hammers and nails.

Lesson 6: In the long term blocking immigrants hurts everyone - even the lazy

South Africa has huge backlogs on required roads maintenance. However, the currently allocated money is nowhere near meeting the needs. That means that we are falling further and further behind and unless something really drastic is done our roads will be as bad as our electricity.

Infrastructure is a tricky thing for politicians. It costs a lot to build and maintain infrastructure, but it’s normally one of those things that you don’t notice till it’s gone. Stupid politicians often don’t bother with infrastructure which won’t be noticed for years when they can use the money to win votes now.

That, to the dismay of many, has been happening in South Africa for a while. In 1994 the ANC took over and they did a great job as a transitional government - South Africa got through that little part of history wonderfully. But anyone who reads this blog will know that I think the ANC are rubbish at governing a running country.

One of the things that the ANC are worst at is maintaining our national infrastructure. So we are already in deep trouble with electricity, our rail networks are nowhere near what they should be, and our roads are falling apart.

Jeff Radebe (Transport Minister) has just released information (after being hounded by the DA) on just how bad things are with our roads - see the graph above. Basically he said that we are miles behind on road maintenance and that at current rates we will never catch up. In other words unless something drastic is done South Africa’s road network will completely collapse!

One of South Africa’s biggest problems is that the ANC can do anything without worrying about the results of the next election. They are a terrible government largely because they don’t have to worry. I wish that there was a possibility of them losing an election.

Jeremy Clarkson is a funny guy. He is one of the presenters on a surprisingly cool car show called Top Gear – check it out, it’s really entertaining.

Anyway, he is an outspoken fellow and his blogs and books are also often entertaining. He recently wrote an article about how dependent modern society is on electricity. He got the idea while he was over here in South Africa and got some first hand experience…

From the article:

“Thirty years ago in South Africa, there was white power. Then there was black power. And now there is no power.

No really. There isn’t. The electricity-generating company over there has just announced that the power stations are not capable of meeting demand and that there will be outages for two, three or six hours a day for at least the next seven years.

So far as I can see, no one is asking why this has happened. Everyone suspects it’s because the power company, since it took over the reins from De Boer Pik Racist, has been operating a policy of only employing black people. So the whites, the ones who know how to run a power station, have left the job of generating electricity to a bunch of guys who don’t know how to.

No one’s actually saying that of course. It’s a political potato so hot that you’re going to get your fingers burned if you even whisper such a thing. And anyway, working out why the country’s run out of juice is nowhere near as important as working out what the bloody hell you can do about it.”

Later on in the article:

And if you want a generator, you’d better have nice tits and loose morals because frankly, that’s the only way you’re going to get one.

The Economist has some interesting articles on ANC leadership election happening this weekend (here is the best one, but also here, and here). Basically they are saying that it is a pity that the ANC are choosing “between two deeply flawed candidates, neither of whom should be running the ANC or the country after next year”.

The article has scathing criticism of both candidates:

• “Mr Zuma should have been ruled out on several counts. His dreadful views on sex were revealed during his trial for rape last year. He was acquitted, but claimed that he could tell by the way a woman sat whether she wanted to have sex with him and that his Zulu culture demanded he should oblige her; also that he could avoid contracting HIV by taking a shower. He may soon be charged again with corruption.”
• “Mr Mbeki is standing just to stop Mr Zuma. But Mr Mbeki has shown by his own autocratic ways and weird views on AIDS—which he seems to think is not caused by HIV—that he too should no longer be leading the ANC”.

The real problem in South Africa is something that the articles do mention: there is no competition for the ANC.

“14 years of unbroken power have given way to corruption, factionalism, paranoia and arrogance” within the ANC. Although the ANC has “on the whole done a good job” since 1994, it is now no longer the party that should be leading the country. The ANC should spend a term in opposition so that it can “purge or renew itself”.

The problem is that the masses are an unthinking lot who blindly vote along historical lines despite the current problems in the ANC. If only they would see past race and think rationally they would know that there is a better, if imperfect, alternative - just look to Cape Town!

“South Africa deserves a lot better.”