Another chance to close on Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 May has just passed. Tiger continues to plummet on the world ratings and at the time of writing the blog, the former number one in the world is now 36th. Critics are actually beginning to write him off, saying that he will never be who he once was, and while I don’t agree, I do think he has limited time. Retief Goosen and Ernie Els, both 42, have faded from the scene in the past year, overtaken by youngsters and with Tiger being 36, he probably does not have too many years to go, although one certainly cannot rule out him winning a final major, for example, at the age of 45.

For me, and I have been a long time supporter of Tiger Woods, the first sign will be when he world rating stops dropping, and actually climbs up a notch or two – whether that is from 40th to 35th or whatever it is when the slide stops. He still shows signs of brilliance on a regular basis, it is just that when a hole goes badly for him these days, he just does not seem to be able to rescue himself like he used to in the past – he makes far more bogeys and double bogeys now than he ever has previously and while he keeps swearing that his latest swing is the greatest, most experts seem to think that that is where the problem lies. He has changed his wife, coach and recently caddy, and now he needs a lot more stability, including with his golf swing. 

It is relieving to see that the ANC is taking disciplinary action against Julius Malema, because he must be one of the most divisive personalities in South Africa in politics in years. This is no Ghandi, proclaiming the interest of the poor, while living like them – we are talking about a man whose architect fees alone appear to be in excess of R1 million, and who is building himself a luxury house while proclaiming to be a man of the people and for the people.

He has nothing in common with the poor starving people in South Africa, he is seriously wealthy man partying the night away in nightclubs and living it up. There is not a week that goes by without more allegations and serious reports coming back and his approach of attacking everything by basically making out that it is either white people, or capitalism, really does not help. He has always said that he does not have to answer to the media and called on the Hawks and SARS to investigate him, and one truly hopes that all of these bodies that he has always suggested should investigate him, rather than the media making allegations, do now investigate him and see whether everything is as squeaky clean as he makes it out to be, and which the reports in various media would suggest is not the case.

I think a lot of people’s gut reaction to the NHI health system that has been proposed is that it is just going to be an extra tax, that the service is going to be useless, and it is a bad idea. I don’t think that that is necessarily the case at all, and almost all the most successful societies provide their people with a good health system as well as good education. If we can aspire towards those goals and deliver them, it will be very good for our country as a whole. Far too many people, whether they have formal jobs or not, don’t bother with medical aids and to ensure that everybody gets at least competent and decent health care is a wonderful goal – achieving it of course is something different and one must just hope that it is organised superbly.

I love some of the books by Thomas Friedman, and his columns for the New York Times are also always worth reading. One of my favourites recently was his column headlined “A theory of everything”, which dealt with the effects of the Information Technology revolution and politics and people – from riots, rebellion to empowering minority extreme groups, such as the Tea Party in America. You can click here to read the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/opinion/sunday/Friedman-a-theory-of-everyting-sort-of.html?ref=opinion

Toll roads are making the news again with news that taxi’s and public transport users will be exempted from paying toll fees. I am not sure that everyone is going to find that fair, but we subsidise lower income earners in so many ways, that that is really just another subsidy of the same people, and it is probably warranted. I do think however if the aim is to try and minimise the use of the roads at certain times, that there should be far bigger discounts proposed for people who use the highways, for example, after 8 at night and before 6 in the morning.

That might encourage big companies to transport far more by the road system at night, alleviating some of the pressure during the day. I would give them for example 70% off the toll fees if they use them outside of day time hours, from 8 to 6 as I have suggested, and that may also have a huge impact, because it is invariably a truck travelling slowly in one lane while another truck tries to pass it that proves to be the biggest hold-up in the traffic and those types of vehicles really should be using the roads after hours. If companies are given big enough discounts to use the roads after hours, it will off-set the overtime and extra staff costs that they may have during working hours.
 

I must say that it always surprises me in a practice where one’s case is invariably going to Court, that a significant percentage of clients have a very ambivalent attitude in going to Court. In other words, they see the Court date and the day when the case will be settled, but they really don’t seem to think, despite what you tell them to the contrary, that they actually have to be at Court on that day or that if they are not at Court, there could be some terribly serious and expensive consequences for them.

The same is true of the Criminal Courts, where you repeatedly hear from people that they are not happy that criminals get away with “murder” in South Africa and that the justice system is simply falling apart, but when those same people are witnesses in cases, they don’t turn up again and again until the case is dismissed and the accused walks free without a trial having taken place. It becomes one more statistic in the long list of failures to achieve a conviction, but the reality is that if there is any failure, it is by the members of public, who demand that the system must be improved, but just cannot take the time to do their civil duty and attend at Court when told to do so as a witness. My honest belief is that if the Magistrates and Judges were a little bit harsher and gave a few more of these people a spin of time in jail, the message would very quickly get out that when you are called to Court you attend!
 

It becomes very difficult to keep up with the latest currency fluctuations. The Pound, for example, this year has traded from R10,20 to the Pound, which was basically on New Year’s day, to just over R12,00 on 8 August, so one is talking about fluctuations of 20% in only a 6 month period, and this during a time when you considered the Rand is relative stable!

World economies are all over the place at the moment – sharply up one day, sharply down the next day – and it is sometimes surprising that the Rand is affected so much, because unlike other countries who have a debt that is equal to a 100% of their GDP, if not more, ours is sitting at only 38%, so we are relatively financially better off than the vast majority of so-called economic super powers. Lastly, for any of you struggling to find that Pound sign (£) on your keyboard, you do so by pressing alt and at the same time pressing the numbers 0163 which will give you a £ sign.
 

Court findings last month, held by various video games associations, whose members include Electronic Arts, Sony and Microsoft, indicated that their costs involved in winning a case against a California law which tried to ban violence video games, was $1,1 million. In other words, that is a realistic guide as to what it costs to bring a successful appeal in the US Supreme Court. It certainly illustrates, if nothing else, that legal fees in South Africa are substantially cheaper – and of course, this result that the video games companies wanted, was essentially extremely cheap to them in an industry where sales are $25 billion a year.

I wrote recently of the British press, and how they would not stand for some of the nonsense that newspapers in South Africa do, from politicians or business figures. I thought of an extract of an article which I enjoyed in The Daily Telegraph, when they were writing about Rupert Murdoch appearing before a Parliamentary committee, perfectly illustrates the no holds barred approach, “In fact, our first glimpse of the legendary media mogul was a huge anti-climax. Good grief, could than really be him? He was shockingly old, I mean Galapagos tortoise old. Despite the shark pinstripe suit and fashionably strobing, chunky tie, the octogenarian Murdoch looked less like a master of the universe than one of those Ukrainian pensioners who is dragged from obscurity to testify about a suspected past as a war criminal.”

That kind of journalism really hits home hard, and it can be done in a tremendously amusing way, as this extract illustrates, “Never mind the facts, in the opening ten minutes Murdoch Senior seemed to be scarcely in possession of his faculties. In the interminable and embarrassing silence as between question and answer, we wondered whether our star witness, with his head lolling forward, had actually nodded off.”
 

I attended the final day of The Open at Royal St Georges. What probably made the biggest impact on me was that overseas supporters really do follow their players around the course cheering them on and actually following all the action.

By comparison, the Nedbank Challenge at Sun City sees the vast majority of supporters walking about three holes before returning back to the main hospitality areas – you would never have a crowd of 3 000 or 4 000 people following, for example Phil Mickelson. It was played under some pretty tough weather, although they always seem to make it look worse on TV than it really is. Certainly it was superbly organized and hosted with high speed trains from London (although they stopped repeatedly along the way) to Sandwich.
 

The whole debate about nationalisation is one of futility, in my mind, but with negative consequences only. I think it is futile, because I do not believe any government, with a country like Zimbabwe next door, and the experience and wisdom of what has happened around the world, is going to consider nationalisation. The negative consequences of course are the very fact that they are mentioning that they are prepared to consider this, and consider the policy which seems to be an effort to appease Julius Malema.

At the end of the day however, it simply creates uncertainty for external investors and means that overseas investors, when faced with a choice between South Africa and another country, will go to the country which is not considering nationalisation or any other extreme government intervention into the economic system. Nationalisation does not work, state entities without any competition don’t work, and nationalisation of assets such as mines, or any businesses, simply leads to disaster. What does however have to change is land reform, which is taking place far too slowly in South Africa and while nationalisation is not the answer, the parties do need to start speaking to each other a lot quicker than the 17 years of very little progress so far.
 

A new ball has been designed in America, called the Polara ball, which has what it calls self-correcting technology and it ensure that it goes straight, after you have hit it. Naturally, it’s illegal, and you can’t use it in tournament play, but it was still interesting enough for me to try and give it a go and see how it worked.

Essentially, unless you point a green arrow on the ball in the direction of the target, it will behave like any normal ball, and if you miss it, it will slice or hook all over the place. If you point the arrow at the target though, and then try and hit it, as hard as you can, off-line or skew, it will correct its course, and end up flying straight. In other words, the world’s worst golfer could overnight become the world’s straightest hitter of the ball. It really does live up to its advertising, but what they don’t advertise is that in removing quite a few of the dimples that allow the ball to fly through the air, the ball really doesn’t go anywhere near as far as a normal golf ball and it has an extremely awkward flight through the air. I found it extremely off-putting, and I think only a very poor golfer is actually going to enjoy using them, and even then it will be obvious to everybody that he or she is using such a ball, not only because of the distinctive markings on the ball, but the strange way it flies in the air.
 

Having sold two properties and seen the transfers already go through, I can only express my frustration at the incompetence of the Johannesburg Municipality.

Firstly, before a transfer can go through, they give you a figure that you have to pay, which is a most unfair situation, because they just thumb-suck a figure and you are forced to pay whatever it is otherwise your transfer will not go through. Later, you cannot get your money back and for example, with respect to the one property which transfer took place in September/October 2010, they continue to run down my deposit, charging me the new owner’s electricity, etc. It is unbelievable that this could be possible 9 months later, and that they cannot by now have charged him, reversed the fees and given me a credit on what was a R60 000,00 deposit that they made me pay.
On another property they insisted that I pay for an application that the owner before me had brought to subdivide the property, but which they had forgotten to charge him for! Again, I guess it gets down to no competition and a legal system that totally favours the Municipality and allows them to dictate how much, and then take their time in getting around to refunding one – but after 9 months I am beginning to wonder if taking their time is just that, or if indeed I will never, ever be paid.
 

Skype has recently launched a Premium product where for €6 a month, you can use group video calling, screen sharing where you can show presentations, photos and more by sharing your computer screen with everyone that you are chatting to on a video call and tossing in a HD web camera discount.
I am quite sure that the group video is going to be the way to go in the future for business meetings and conference calls, and that is probably why Facebook has announced a joint effort in this regard with Skype as well. Luckily, not everyone on the call needs to have Skype Premium to see the group video – it is fine as long as one person has it. They also have Skype group video for businesses now, and I am sure we are going to see more businesses conducting business that way.

I am looking forward to the US PGA, the final major, which starts this Thursday. Tiger Woods’ former caddy, Steve Williams, is now working for Adam Scott, and he looks in fantastic form as does the other Australian, Jason Day.

I am obviously hoping for a strong showing by some of our South African stars, and hopefully we can get another fantastic result. It is the final major of the year, and Tiger Woods’ last chance to win a major this year, but his recent form, and having just returned from an injury after three months of not playing, would make it extremely unlikely that he would be able to win. Still, he is fantastic for the game of golf and one can only but hope that he will be right up there at the end of the day – he certainly does not lack when it comes to mental willpower to win and he will not get an attack of nerves on the final 9 holes if he is in any contention, as happens with so many players.
 

Everybody is raving about the 10Gb promotion by 8-ta at the moment which allows you to get 10Gb for just R199,00 per month. I think it is a great deal, and those using it say that the service works wonderfully.

The only concern would be that if you exceed that 10Gb, according to their website, they then charge you 30c per Mb – or R300,00 per gig. In other words, the first 10Gb cost R199,00, but thereafter each additional Gb is R300,00, so if you are using 15 or 20Gb a month, the 8-ta package is not in fact a good package for you at all – it suits somebody who uses up to 10Gb a month, but nothing more than that.
 

The Grace Hotel in Rosebank is going close its doors at the end of August 2011. Apparently, the operators say that the five-star hotel industry in Johannesburg is under pressure and that the hotel has had very low room rates and has had to take part in a rate war for rooms which has resulted in the business being no longer profitable. Personally if I was to visit Johannesburg from abroad I would be staying in Sandton or one of the casino complexes so its no surprise that a luxury hotel in Rosebank has not succeeded.

Staff of the Road Accident Fund, and attorneys, were quite surprised to hear that the CEO of the Road Accident Fund, Jacob Modise, would not be having his contract renewed. What was even more surprising is that his contract only falls for renewal at the end of the year, and the Road Accident Fund announced on Thursday 29 July 2011 that they were not renewing it right there and then, and that he would not be in at work again!

Obviously, behind the scenes there has been, at the very least, some considerable disagreement, but no rumours so far as to what may or may not have transpired. Mr Modise was an eloquent and well-spoken man who achieved a lot simply by lambasting attorneys at every opportunity and blaming them for whatever ills befell the Road Accident Fund. Quite frankly, I believe that during his time as the CEO of the Road Accident Fund, legal costs increased largely because the Road Accident Fund started “outsourcing” all their work, as it were, to their attorneys with the result that many cases that could have been settled quite easily by the Road Accident Fund without them having to pay their attorneys or additional fees to other attorneys, were not settled without going to Court and considerable extra expenses being incurred.
It is very easy to say, after the fact that a matter was settled for R10 000,00 and that the attorneys ended up walking away with R70 000,00, and at the end of the day if the Road Accident Fund simply came up with an offer of that R10 000,00, shortly after the case was lodged, there would be almost no legal costs at all, and that is precisely how things used to be done, and I think one of the biggest mistakes that the Road Accident Fund made in recent years has been its approach of litigating to the door of Court, almost every case that was lodged with it.
 

I am sure you who are reading this have a sense of déjà vu, “have I not heard Michael write about this before” – yes, at the same time last year! I must say, I dread this time of the year when I see all the veldfires, although one would have thought most of them should have been done earlier, and the sky starts turning a little bit more grey. It is only a matter of time before my staff and I all start coughing, and one begins that two or three month long wait for the first two or three sets of rain that finally clears everything up. I will not complain, because we have some of the best weather in the world for the other 10 months of the year and some of the winter weekends we’ve had recently have been beautifully warm as well.

Apple recently released its latest quarterly financial results, and whereas the makers of BlackBerry, namely RIM, have seen their share price go down 50% this year, Apple’s share price continues to surge and currently sitting at $395,00. I am not a share advisor, but I cannot see this share not touching $500,00 at least, in the next 12 months and the only threat to Apple’s dominance at the moment is when another company comes up with products that can compete with the iPhone and the iPad.

The reality is that at the moment there are none, and while some of the other companies compete on price, effectively tossing in free e-mails, etc, in order to sell their phones, the iPhone and the iPad both have room to grow, are both selling out all the stock that they have and really have not moved into the developing nations as much as they could have and undoubtedly will. The real test is going to be whether or not Samsung for example, will bring out an android product Smart phone that is more intuitive and has more features than the iPhone. The other thing to consider is that Apple hooks people in via iTunes and with their applications and a lot of people are not going to want to change from an iPhone at a later stage, unless the competing company has as many, if not at least the same, applications. Apple not only has the best product at the moment, but they are getting everybody used to certain applications, most of which are not made by the developers for other phones and as long as that continues, people will feel the need to upgrade their iPhone to the latest iPhone, as opposed to a competing product. It all spells very good news for Apple for at least the next two years.
 

I think people would fall over backwards if they knew the rates that people overseas pay, in competitive markets, for cellular contracts and data. For example, in the UK, it is quite common to pay £35 a month and in return you get unlimited data for the entire month, unlimited SMS’s or what they call texts, and a 1 000 minutes of calls, if not more! That is essentially R385,00 and for R385,00 in South Africa you will probably get a 600Mb of data with your iPhone and pay another R1 600,00 for the 1 000 minutes, not to mention having to take a SMS package and then still paying for those. In short, what costs about R385,00 in the UK will cost you in excess of R2 000,00 in South Africa on a phone that dominates in the UK, and is similarly popular in South Africa, namely the iPhone.

Research In Motion, otherwise known as RIM, who make the BlackBerry phone, announced that they were cutting 2 000 jobs – or 10% or all its employees due to their loss of market share to Apple’s iPhone. It sounds like there are terrible problems for BlackBerry ahead and I just cannot see how they are not going to sustain even more losses in the time ahead, because their product really does not compete at all with the iPhone, apart from on price when it comes to free e-mails, etc.

The Gauteng government has announced that the Gautrain will begin running from Rosebank to Hatfield in Pretoria from 2 August 2011. The final journey from Rosebank to Park Station in the Johannesburg City Centre will be opened at a later date and there is no given date for that as yet.
It is of course fantastic news that you can now, from Rosebank, catch the Gautrain the whole way to Pretoria and hopefully that will also alleviate some of the traffic on the highway. There is no doubt that Rosebank is an area, from a property perspective, will continue to do well in the years ahead.

Julius Malema can be thankful that he lives in South Africa. Our media is positively tame compared to the media of most other countries, particularly with reference to the wealthier economies such as England. If he was living in England, there is no doubt that every newspaper would be running a news scoop, and they would not just be alleging that he is building a R14 million house but a reporter would have investigated the plans approved by the Municipality, somebody would have been questioning the big banks as to who was financing it, the architect would be getting interviewed, the builder would be getting interviewed, builders on the site would be getting interviewed, SARS officials would be getting interviewed all day long and the media would be running articles about the houses of other politicians and how he compares. It is quite clear that his salary is R25 000,00 a month and on R25 000,00 a month he manages to spend more than anyone else – which quite clearly means that he is extremely good with his investments and when he says ‘salary”, he is probably excluding other earnings on the basis that they are not salaries – but fees for being a director, or dividends, or profits from companies or commission, etc, etc. It is amazing that our media accepts such blithe answers and does not really start hitting on the facts – and that is, if you are earning R25 000,00 a month, the very most the bank is generally going to finance you for is an R800 000,00 apartment or small house somewhere, and you simply have no chance of buying a piece of land in Sandton, let alone building a house on it!