The top two percent of South African income earners pay R126 billion or 81% of all Personal Income Tax in the country, according to my favorite Tweeter, @MichaelJordaan, the CEO of FNB. Middle- and high-income groups in South Africa have, for the past 10 years, paid more than 40% of their gross income towards taxes and so-called “invisible taxes”. The trend is unlikely to change soon, according to a study by Unisa’s research team on personal finance, as reported by Fin24, writes Heinrich Kruger.

“It looks as if Greece will live to die another day,” commentators of Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) noted last week as the Euro Zone was edging towards another bail out deal to save the deeply indebted country from a chaotic default come March this year. But, in the words of an African proverb, Greece might be “only the ears of the hippopotamus”, judging by the debt to gross domestic product (GDP) ratios of some other countries – including some of Greece’s Euro-partners.

The future of Southern Africa depends on its transportation systems. With news of new mineral discoveries reported regularly and with a number of multi-million dollar mining projects going operational in several Southern African states there is much expectation in the air. The expectations are, however, tempered by the current state of the state of regions region’s transportation systems

The evolution of geopolitics is cyclical. Powers rise, fall and shift. Changes occur in every generation in an unending ballet. However, the period between 1989 and 1991 was unique in that a long cycle of human history, spanning hundreds of years, ended and with it a shorter cycle also came to a close. The world is still reverberating from the events of that period, writes George Friedman in an article for Strafor.

The frequency of disaster-scale weather shocks, combined with long-term economic forecasts of climate change impacts and fossil fuel costs, are globally having a political and economic impact. Leading the way, many developing country's governments —­ including South Africa's — are changing their approach to infrastructure and industrial planning. According to a just-released report by the World Economic Forum (WEF), they choose to design more sustainable, resilient pathways to economic growth.

“The (equity) market is due for a period of consolidation.  While this could materialise as a mere pause before a resumption of the bullish rally, odds still point to some form of a short-term correction before any significant move higher. Therefore, if your portfolio has moved to an overweight equity position due to the strong rise in prices, this may be a good time to trim back risk to neutral and bank some of your profits,” says Paul Stewart, managing director of the Plexus Group.

While it took Western powers only a few months to “sort out” a dictator in Libya, it would seem impossible for all the military fleets in the world to come to grips with a group of common criminals euphemistically called pirates. In the mean-time, two South Africans, who have been languishing way in captivity in Somalia have been reduced in to the vulgarity of plain profit-and-loss commodities.

In recent times, Africa has attracted much foreign interest. The Chinese have rediscovered the continent, building super highways and other infrastructure in exchange for much needed mineral resources. The French and the British were  bombing Libya to secure its vast oil resources, while the Americans were shopping around for a place to build a military base for their Africa Command. Greenpeace (GP) activists, in the meantime have been trying to drive plundering fishing fleets from Europe and Asia out of African waters.

The South African leg of the Super Rugby season started with a plethora of handling errors at Loftus Versfeld, a superb tactical display at the same ground, a magnificent duel off the kicking tee at Coca-Cola Park resulting in Elton Jantjes slotting nine penalties to set a Vodacom Super Rugby record, and a convincing performance by the new young forwards of the DHL Stormers at Newlands.

It was arguably one of the most satisfying weeks in recent memory for South African cricket as the Proteas performed a miracle and robbed New Zealand of victory in the decisive T20 International in Auckland before romping to a comfortable 6-wicket win in the first of three One-Day Internationals against the Kiwi’s in Wellington. But the match that had commentators in New Zealand and South Africa talking for several days, was that T20 International in Auckland.

Last week minister Pravin Gordhan delivered his annual state budget to Parliament and with it went a surprise for this columnist – for once we are dealing with a word that did not originate in the first instance from Latin. In fact it comes from a word that the Romans took on loan for somewhere else, before it came along the now familiar route via old French.

With the co-operation of the The LR Management Group, we can now bring you the leadership training tool 50 Lessons, which is a powerful force in the world of corporate learning. 50 Lessons is the worlds premier multimedia business resource, offering more than 1 000 personal and authentic video lessons from internationally respected business leaders. It can assist you to increase the utilisation and return on investment of your learning programmes immediately!