Hands up if you drive your car to queue up and fill your tank on the night before a petrol price increase? Congratulations, you're a hedge-fund trader. Depending on the circumstances, you could also be called a profiteer, hoarder, speculator or a capitalist.
What you are doing is to price future risk into your current financial situation. You have been told that future prices will be higher; best then to stock up now and gain, at the very least, a short-term benefit.
Imagine, though, that the situation was different and that – while you may know that the petrol price will change – you have no idea whether it will go up or down or by how much. That becomes real speculation with some people buying, some refusing to purchase and everyone finding out only after the price changes.
That is where people's confidence about the future, and analysis of recent trends, comes into play.
For 28 years, the Zimbabwean ruling party, Zanu PF, has campaigned using the same old slogan, "We liberated this country."
Thank you very much for your efforts, now liberate us by stepping aside. We have been sovereign for 28 years, but we are still in the bush fighting a war; only this time against our own liberators.
Zanu PF has lacked a serious challenger to the presidency for over a quarter of a century. The only promise of a real challenge, in Morgan Tsvangirayi and the MDC, was just another fizzled attempt to ruffle Mugabe's feathers. Lacking a credible leader, the challenge of the MDC was short lived. Tsvangirayi can gather the sheep but he's not going to lead them to the meadows.
The country needs a leader who can do more than just threaten violence, call for election boycotts and urge a hungry population to stay away from their jobs.
There are few moments at which business executives may safely weep and earn nothing but respect and admiration. One of these is at the opening of a new manufacturing plant.
At a cost of R 1.2 billion, and taking two years to build, the new PG Glass float line plant in Springs is their second line, and only the third in the whole continent of Africa. Chairman Ronnie Lubner, speaking at the official launch, was – momentarily – overcome by the magnitude of what his family-owned business has achieved.
CEO Stewart Jennings, equally passionate, demanded of Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka – a guest at the proceedings - that she look to government policy regarding economic policy support to encourage further such large-scale investments. Manufacturing, at 16.3% of GDP, has a significantly larger impact on employment and economic growth than mining, at 6.5%. "So," asked Jennings, "why is it that the financial press only concentrates on mining?"
It is rare that major businesses dare to stick their necks out and object to government policy. Mostly they're too busy keeping their heads down to avoid all the shrapnel sent their way.
"The rich are getting richer and the poor poorer as the filthy rich continue unabated with their greed to be winners who take all," says Bonkosi Mncwabe, the NUM 's Regional Coordinator in Kwa-Zulu Natal. Or even: "The conduct of these construction companies is reflective of the unprincipled conduct of business in seeking to always turn people's victories into enriching themselves," Malesela Maleka, SACP Spokesperson. And: "The lives of human beings are very much more important than exports and profit, and therefore COSATU will not stop exposing capitalists who put profit first before the lives of the poor working class," Solly Phetoe, COSATU NW Provincial Secretary.
Political and social leaders give the impression that businesses are evil geniuses able to make profits, no matter what. Further, the oppressed masses of the world have to band together in fragile, easily destroyed political groupings to fend off the depredations of despotic, all-powerful, capitalists.
A quick glance around the planet reveals the opposite.
"What is a coin compared to the value of the hand that holds it?" to misquote Terry Pratchett in his latest book, Making Money.
Money, and the relative value of money, has always been of critical interest to investors. Most of the time maintaining the value of any investment has left people feeling as if they were running across an icy lake in their bedroom slippers ... during an earthquake.
It is one thing to buy stocks or property in the hopes of making a fortune; but what happens when you want something that will keep its value, no matter what?
For hundreds of years this third-party value was assumed to be gold. So much so that, in 1945 at Bretton Woods, the war-time allies agreed on an international gold standard to stabilise the world's economy.
It was complex. Gold was fixed at $35 / ounce and all other currencies were pegged to that price via the US dollar. The US became the reserve currency of the world.
aloft: the whythawk blog 
