Saturday, December 28, 2013

Utopia in South Africa

Let us pretend that we can achieve "utopia" in South Africa for a minute, that we can see "the light" and solve all our problems. I suppose the first thing required would be to define what that Utopia actually is.

I suggest it would be

1) Everyone has a job which pays the equivalent of R30 000 per month in current money
2) Government takes no more than 15% of that salary in taxes
3) Everyone has the opportunity to own a sized house supplied with reasonably priced electricity, water and general services such as garbage removal, post etc
4) Everyone has access to good schools which their children can attend which ensure a solid platform for later success
5) Everyone can trust that when dealing with law enforcement, everything will be done to bring about justice

I am sure you as readers can fill in other aspects. So I wonder if government has a list like this ? The answer is that they don't. The list they have is based around redistribution of existing wealth, colour demographics and socialist reform.

You might say that this Utopia isn't possible but the sad reality is that it is. A country like Australia has half the number of people and SIX times the GDP of South Africa. Think about what South Africa would look like if we increased our GDP by six fold ?

What is it that Australia has that South Africa doesn't ? We have better mineral resources, better location with respect to being able to trade with the whole of Africa and Europe. We even have better weather, plenty of fertile ground. In fact the ONLY thing Australia has is a large working middle class.

So how does one go about creating a large working middle class ?

1) You educate your people. Follow the Australian model - if you don't have the best teachers - get them into SA on skilled visas to teach. Pay them a premium to be here, but educate the population - there is NO BETTER investment of taxpayers money than this.
2) Follow the same principle with respect to the police force. Put highly skilled, competent people in charge at all levels. If you can't find them locally, get them into the country with the lure of above average incomes.
3) Cut government spending. Stop all the departments which do not move you closer to Utopia. Tourism department ? Get rid of it - private business will do it better and more efficiently. There are LOTS of examples. The job of government is to implement utopia - anything which government has to "outsource" should stop.
4) Do everything you can to create a JOB - this means reducing union power, cutting taxes, eliminating minimum wages etc. Anglo platinum intends on retrenching 14 000 people. The secret is that when everyone is working, the cost of labour goes UP. This means salaries rise the higher the employment level in SA is. CREATE JOBS by eliminating the things that retard job creation (seems stupid, but that is all there is to it). The better we educate our people the HIGHER their salaries become, AND the more jobs we create the more money we have to go around supporting those less fortunate - like (Zimbabwe!)
5) Sad to say it, but we can't afford all the grants we provide at this time. This does not mean eliminate them all, but we need to stop the ones that go to people who could otherwise be working. How to do this ? If you are unemployed I will pay you the "grant" - you need to arrive at work on Monday morning and start building infrastructure - we can build new rail infrastructure at the very least all around SA - that's how they used to do it in the "old days"

So why doesn't government do this ? The simple answer is that South Africa believes that Socialism is the best way to run a country. China which is the "model" everyone follows however has a GDP per capita of $9 100 - even lower than South Africa at $13 300, and yet is viewed as the "model".

I challenge all my socialist friends out there to demonstrate how the Socialist model can ever put us in the position where our GDP per capita is on of the 10 best in the world.

And no, comments like "apartheid must be redressed" or "renaming roads is important to ensure cultural uniformity" won't cut it.

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