Juju the poor trustafarian and the US debt crisis

Its like 4am on Friday morning, I should be sleeping but all of a sardine I am inspired to write, perhaps it’s the company I kept or the vulgarity of the opulence of some of the residences I traverse on my way home this morning. Yes it’s a beautiful world we live in, a grossly unfair and unjust one, but it’s what makes this existence so interesting not so. I truly hope that you have all been well and challenged in being the best you, you can be in the last few weeks when I have been absent. Yoh, so early and yet such English spewing forth ☺ Shoo what a week ey, Amy Winehouse’s passing, a lovely talent gone too soon, but I guess her job here was done and her maker was calling her home. Then there is that crazed dude in Norway, I mean really what goes on in some peoples minds ey? Such a damn shame so many young lives lost once again as a result of one mad man’s interpretation of religion and what they perceive to be right. Damn shame ey. One thing that has been grating me a lot is all this talk of the US defaulting on its 14.3 trillion dollar debt. The saddest thing is I feel nothing for them and to be quite frank I am quite bored with the whole dialogue about whether or not they will increase their debt ceiling or whatever. Someone tell me what the consequences of a default would be? A downgrade in credit ratings? Resulting in an increased cost of borrowing? You tell me how different that is from the rest of the world, particularly this lovely continent of ours? What did you expect when you let the bankers run amok and then decide to hire them into senior government position and continue borrowing? What did you think would happen when you borrowed to fund an unnecessary and never ending war in the Middle East? I don’t know enough about this ‘financial armagedeon’ that will beset the world come 2nd August and the mighty USA defaults on its debt obligations, but to be honest if I had to speak to a street vendor on the streets of Accra or a budding entrepreneur in Diepkloof, with not much to his name, looking for a loan to finance his bright idea, if I had to speak to either of them and ask them about their thoughts on this big deal, they my dear friends would be like welcome to my world byaaatch!!!!! ☺ Default don’t default, I am sure on the 3rd the sun will rise and set again… Ooh then there is this breaking story of how a man who earns R20 000 a month can afford to drive a pimped out car, allegedly sport a R250k watch and knock down a perfectly sound R3,6mil house so he can build a R16m military barak meets the One and Only. There is a fat expose about how he has a trust fund set up where business people looking for a little bit of influence make a donation for a good cause. Dear friends, as wrong as it may seem, there are a few things I need asking. A lot of us are in business or work for big business right, or even in just general life. How often have we entertained certain people in a special manner hoping that they would influence a decision in our favour? Yes that’s right all the time. A rugby game here, a VIP treatment to theatre shows, a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue because its your birthday….my good people, that’s all in the name of generating good favour when certain tenders or jobs are up for grabs. It is what it is fair enough the difference between those situations and Juju’s is that its public money, but at the end of the day. Lets be honest, how many of us have set up trusts so we can dodge Mr taxman as best as we legally can? The saddest thing about all this noise about rules being broken, is that the self same people who made the rules to suit themselves are the ones crying foul because Juju is adopting those rules… I have been helluva fortunate to be residing in the tranquil suburb of Bishops Court in the Western Cape for the last few weeks, and my friends, there hasn’t been a day when I haven’t been gob smacked by the vastness of the enclosed areas around some of these houses. Insane I tell you. My comparison on many days, is how many informal settlements can you fit onto one of these plots, note I said settements, not houses, because that’s how big these places are. That got me thinking. A good few years ago, these beautiful lands at the base of Table Mountain (not just here also those lucrative ocean facing lands on the Atlantic Seaboard) had some thriving communities living on here till one day someone, in their infinite wisdom decided to pull up with a truck and a gun and tell all these communities to vamoose to outlying areas. And that was that. No compensation, no alternatives provided, just see you later! Yet there is talk of expropriation of lands with no compensation and we all lift up our hands and wave them wildly chanting no no no as if reciting Amy Winehouses response to a suggestion of attending rehab. There is a complexity in solving the issue that is South Africa, make no bones about it. Our checkered past has been built on forcible removals at no compensation because it served the purposes of a few. Time has past and we have realized that these ‘ill gotten’ gains and the ramifications on the vast majority of the population was unjust, yet we are hesitant to entertain corrective measures. There has been years of talk of compensation for certain lands in dispute but very little agreement seems to have been reached on a number of these lands. What is next? I pray not a Zim style expropriation because that my dear friends does no one any good. So my suggestion is before we point fingers and wax lyrical in racial and unconstructive ways, best we start engaging each other with the sole aim of finding an amicable solution, speak to each other not at or past each other. Because these rules were created many years ago and we best all learn to play with them or find new rules that will work for us all… Birthdays 8th DJ 11th Rudi, Santie, Mark 12th Yao 14th Natasha 15th Garth, Yashika 21st Belinda 22nd Mish 26th Gina 27th Mike, Tabi, Courts 28th Folks 38th Wedding anniversary 29th Sheya and Reids 30th ETO, Lesley Sleep summons I, trust you all will have a great weeks end! Till we next ‘e-speak’, lots of light and laughter man, because its damn good for the soul Maximum respect Y