Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.
Answer: If you invested R100,000 in Bitcoin a year ago, it would be worth more than R500,000. Go to any social gathering and you’ll hear people, behind their masks, talking about someone who has made a fortune with Bitcoin. This can create a Fear of Missing Out (FOMO).
The question for me as a financial adviser is whether I should be including Bitcoin as part of my financial recommendations.
I have attended innumerable webinars, listened to podcasts and read many articles on Bitcoin, blockchain and cryptocurrencies and still cannot speak with any real authority on the subject. With that health warning, I will, however, share my thoughts on what you should consider when making a decision.
Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.
I think legacy is a very egocentric concept. I often hear entrepreneurs saying in their pitches, “I want to leave a legacy.” What does that mean exactly?
Does it mean they want to amass a fortune and hand it down to generations to come in their families? Does it mean having a hospital cancer wing named after them so their name is uttered by thousands of people who never knew them? What do they mean? To be clear, I have no issue at all with the concept of creating generational wealth, but then just call it generational wealth, not legacy.
Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.
“The problem is the batteries are stupid,” a close friend told me 12 years ago about his then unusual decision to live off the grid, powered by solar. He would later write up his experience for Daily Maverick in what became the most quoted article on going solar for nearly a decade with what must go down as one of the greatest intros:
“The salesman at the solar power shop told me: ‘You have no idea how stupid batteries are.’ That comment made me wonder about his intelligence, so it took me some time to realise the canny wisdom of this apparently dim statement,” wrote Tim Cohen, who never intended to be a solar pioneer but moved to a Karoo farm where Eskom was “not economically viable”.
Nobody would dispute that Ford knows how to build motor vehicles.
Ford Motor Company of Southern Africa is closing in on a century of doing so, having started assembling the Ford Model T in a converted woolshed in Gqeberha, Port Elizabeth then in 1923.
We contribute more than 1% of South Africa’s GDP by exporting two-thirds of our local production of nearly 170,000 vehicles to more than 100 global markets. Ford invested R11-billion in South Africa between 2009 and 2018 to bolster that output.
Naturally, we’re proud of that. But business, like life, is never static. In February 2021 we announced an investment of $1.05-billion in our South African manufacturing operations – the biggest investment in Ford’s 97-year history in South Africa.
Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.
“Do pink noses like you ever see people like me cruising around the world on a yacht?” The question was asked with warmth by the Department of Transport official of the Ocean Cruising Club official. To be able to ask – and answer – such a racially charged question, without offence, reflects the degree of understanding reached between these two parties. So much so that a new organisation – the Ocean Sailing Association of Southern Africa (Osasa) – has been established with the government’s blessing. It will act as the liaison body working with the government on behalf of the offshore and coastal cruising communities.