The Road Accident Fund annual report for 2012 is available on the Road Accident Fund’s website. Some of the interesting information include the fact that 225 905 individual payments were made during the 2012 year, with an average Rand value of R54 808,00. That is the average highest value in its history, but the claims are considerably down from 336 511 individual payments made in 2009, so there is already evidence of less claims in terms of the new system. During 2012 the Road Accident Fund received R17,1 billion in revenue from the fuel levies and investment income.

Their own statistics indicate that as of 31 March 2012 22% less cases were lodged than compared with 31 March 2011 and where the figures become very interesting is when they break those down into personal claims, which is what most attorneys do, and supplier claims where it is now obvious that the vast majority of claims they are receiving are in fact supplier claims. Of the 172 000 new cases that they say were lodged in the year ending 31 March 2012, a 120 000 were supplier claims and only 52 000 were personal claims – that compared to, for example 2009, when for the 2008/2008 year 166 000 personal claims were lodged. In other words, the number of claims that have been lodged with the Road Accident Fund is already down more than two-thirds. One could very quickly surmise that if the Road Accident Fund could only deal cost-effectively with the supplier claims, not only would the deficit probably cease to exist, but by now the Road Accident Found would start running at its highly profit.

Every year the Road Accident Fund releases its financial report, and alleges to be more in deficit than the previous year. The latest deficit is contained in its 2012 annual report which can be obtained on its website at www.raf.co.za. Essentially, as of 31 March 2011, the Road Accident Fund has a provision for outstanding claims at R26 billion, they have increased it, despite legislation that eliminated probably 80% of claims by another R16 billion to R42 billion as of 31 March 2012.

During those two years the cash on hand at the Road Accident Fund increased from R1,1 billion on 31 March 2011 to R4,2 billion on 31 March 2012. In other words, the Road Accident Fund’s cash situation, just at the end of March, improved 400%, but the deficit is based on this huge increase and provision for outstanding claims. One wonders how, with so many attorneys retrenching staff, and those that remain in this line of work, doing so much less work than they did before, the provision for outstanding claims can increase with R16 billion in one year alone?

The FedEx Cup PGA Finals takes place this week and a lot of money is at stake for the top 30 players.  For the winner at the end of the week it is $10 million.  Admittedly, that is in 10 payments of $1 million a year, but it is still an awful lot of money.  Second gets $3 million and even fifth walks away with $1 million.  The field has 30 players in it and tenth spot is worth $500 000,00 right down to last place, which is thirtieth, who gets $175 000,00.  There is a lot of money to be available to be won in golf and all the big names will be competing for it this weekend -  Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson.  Its the biggest pot of gold in golf and it will be fantastic to watch who gets to grab it.

The new iPhone 5 is going to be released in America on 21 September and shortly thereafter in 22 other countries. Normally when they refer to 22 other countries, South Africa is one of those countries and in recent years, the latest iPhones have been released in South Africa quite quickly. This one is a game changer, because it not only has a bigger screen, far faster speed and a slimmer design, but to the irritation of many, it has a new port for charging and syncing.

Those people, who like me, have updated their collection of iPhones over the years, have always taken great relish in having a few spare power cables for that occasion when you lose one of them and now all of those cables are going to be obsolete, without an adaptor, because to make the phone slimmer they have reduced the size of the cable. The iPhone 5 is expected to be such a hit and the economists have said that it will actually increase the American GDP, given that so many people are going to run out and buy it. It is expected to be the biggest selling device or gadget in history, and given Apple’s superiority, and one cannot pretend that they have anything other than a superior product and dominance in the market, I fully expect that to be true.

I was happy to see the publishers of the topless pictures of Kate given a hiding in French Courts yesterday.  It’s about time the Royal Family brought a case based on their privacy and this will set a trend which will make publishers far more wary in future – and will ultimately filter down into the lives of all.

People are entitled to their privacy and to not have pictures taken either illicitly or by someone they trust published without their permission.  A high profile case like this will set that clear in the minds of most people and stop some of the types of abuses that people come across.

Many years ago I represented a beautiful young lady whose soon to be ex-husband decided to put naked pictures of her, which she had taken for Hustler magazine, on the door of her gym and it caused her terrible distress.  We got them back, but the anxiety she had until then was too terrible.  It’s quite disgusting that some people resort to such tactics when relationships go sour, or to make money, and the Courts will protect people when this happens.  In a day and age of every phone having a camera if not HD video, this is increasingly common of course, especially amongst the youth and a high profile case like this will let those people know that there is something they can do, and people who invade the privacy of others can end up paying very stiff fines.

I follow American politics keenly, and always have, and generally hold out hopes for the Democratic candidate. The latest surveys are showing that Barack Obama’s chances of being re-elected have in fact grown, and those of Mitt Romney are down. The betting sites, particularly following polls, for example that showed on CNBC, that Barack Obama’s lead has now grown to 7%, have also turned in favour of Obama. Whereas on sites like Intrade, at once stage he was trading at a 58% chance of being re-elected, that has increased recently to 65,4%.

Intrade works on the basis that you essentially buy shares to get a payout of $10 each, in various political races or events happening and the market is set by people who are essentially betting with and against you. When the election results is known when that event happens, the market is closed out and for each “share” that you purchased in the winning scenario, you will be paid out $10. So, at the moment, with Obama trading at 65,4%, you pay $6,54 per share whereas you could have had them at $5,80 a week or so ago. I enjoy these sites, because usually when people are forced to put their money down, and not just express a position as to who they would like to win or who they think would win, you get a much more realistic answer and as a result these sites actually predict events far better and more often than tipsters or the so-called experts. It is the wisdom of crowds, and it works pretty well.

I know that more and more people have caught on to Apple products, and they are growing in popularity in South Africa, but I had no idea as to exactly how popular the iPad in particular had become in South Africa. I recently read a transcript of a business show, broadcast on SAFM, and which can be read at www.moneyweb.co.za.

The interview was with the Chief Executive of the FirstRand Bank and basically he advised that via FNB they have become the biggest reseller of iPads in South Africa. FNB is alone selling between 35 000 to 40 000 iPads a month in South Africa! In other words, just one company, in this case rather unusually a Bank, is selling 35 000 iPads! It obviously means many years of booming profits for Apple whose iPad apparently counts for 89% of all tablet traffic, meaning that the other tablets are not really competing terribly well with it.

I enjoyed a recent report on CNBC Africa about office politics in companies in America saying that the majority of employees would leave a company if a suitable job was available due to office politics. When the number is that high, one has to think that perhaps the problem really is that people struggle to get on, when working closely together for any lengthy period of time because after all, a marriage is also work and more than two-thirds of them also end in divorce!

In my own experience, and this is a generalisation, the more petty aspects of office politics generally arise with one’s younger staff, and one’s older, more experienced staff who have worked at other companies previously generally have less time for office politics, don’t really get involved and don’t have as many issues with it. It may be because they realise that the environment they find themselves in is to a large extent, although not always, of their making or within their control, and there is no particular reason to get terribly worked up about it, or indeed to make it difficult or unpleasant. It probably helps to have a healthy balance of staff in a company across a wide ambit of ages and for people to take a mature attitude to the working environment, because you are after all there to work and not to have problems that often relate not so much to the work but social issues.

I had the luck to eventually attend a Chelsea game at their home stadium, Stamford Bridge. Most people think that Chelsea is named after the suburb in which the stadium is situated, but they don’t realise that actually Chelsea Football Stadium is in the suburb of Fulham, so Fulham, which has another side in the Premier League, namely Fulham, actually has two soccer stadiums in the same suburb in London.
The stadium has a wonderful atmosphere, with the stands, as is typical at most football grounds, being much closer to the touchlines than you would find at big multi-purpose stadiums. One of the problems with a multi-purpose stadium is once you toss in the athletics track and everything else, you already put the fans much further away than they should be, and so in a purpose built stadium, just for one sport, you will always have an advantage in that regard. Chelsea beat Reading 4-2 in the game I watched to go top of the table.

It has been a long time coming, but Augusta National, which hosts the Masters each year, has finally seen the light and allowed female members. For 80 years they have not had any female members, being an all-male Club and they invited the former US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice and another lady, Darla Moore, to join as members. The previous chairman, who refused to allow women to join the Club, even losing television sponsors for two years, and was famous for having said that the Golf Club might one day have women members, “… but not at the point of a bayonet.” Augusta National opened in December 1932 and took until 1990 before it got its first black member. In golf, it is considered one of the ultimate honours to get a chance to play the course and the only way you can is if you get invited by one of the only 300 members.

I had the privilege of attending Lord’s on the day that South Africa beat England in the third test to win the series 2-0 and of course then become the number one test team in the world. A picture snapped with my cell phone appears alongside this article, although it has been doctored up a little bit in an iPhone application called Snapseed. Lord’s is known as the home of cricket, it has been hosting cricket games since 1787 and it is right in the centre of London, very close to the St John’s Wood tube and well served by buses.

London of course is adept at handling large crowds and the public transport system is superb in allowing large numbers of people to flow into the venue and out of the venue fairly quickly. One of the interesting regulations, when it comes to Lord’s, is that it is the only international cricket venue in the world where the spectators can bring their own alcohol into the grounds, although you cannot take more than two bottles of beer, for example. Apparently, in the olden days, the field was prepared for a cricket game by allowing sheep to come in and graze on the grass, but eventually they obtained grass mowing machines and moved them to a modern era. When it is not hosting international games, it is the home ground of the Middlesex County Club.

Northern Ireland forms part of the United Kingdom and still has the same currency. When one starts getting into the politics of the United Kingdom, which is typically England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, it all becomes very complicated. For example, they competed in the Olympics as all four nations combined under the name of Great Britain but they never took part in the Olympic men’s soccer because they thought that if they did, they would be forced to do so in the World Cup as well. In the World Cup they compete as four separate countries, but to increase their chances of medals and putting together good teams, when it comes to the Olympics, they combined as one country and so they just don’t want to have any confusion about whether or not there is a soccer team called “Great Britain” and as a result, even though they were hosting the Olympics, there was no Great Britain team nor teams from any of those countries taking part in the men’s under 23 football. The situation with Northern Ireland becomes even more complicated where athletes living in Northern Ireland can choose to take part in either the Great Britain Olympic team or if they want as a member of the Irish team, Ireland being a member of the European Union.

It is no surprise then that when it comes to currency they use the same currency except that they call it an Irish Pound and most people in smaller shops don’t want to accept it once you are back in England, even though it is a legal tender. The countries could not be any more different with Northern Ireland having far inferior weather generally than England does and on the same day that it can be 30° and hot in London, it is 17° in Belfast and raining. Belfast looks like a fairly sizeable city, but my journey travelling around Northern Ireland really revealed narrow, winding roads, up and down hills, past houses and long gardens, possibly farms which all seem to have sheep and cows. I would imagine, if you were trying to get away from it all, hiding in the countryside in Northern Ireland would be a pretty good way to live a very quiet and desolate life and while it is all very green and very beautiful, the non-stop rain and plenty of grey skies, is not exactly the kind of weather that I relate to.

Australia has just approved the world’s first uniform packaging for cigarette packs. It has already been speculated that New Zealand and the UK will follow that next and hopefully our Minister of Health also picks that up, and adds one more arm to the anti-smoking legislation.

The laws were challenged by cigarette manufacturers in Australia and they have now lost that battle in Court also. Essentially, the Australian law allows cigarettes to be sold in packaging with the same font for all brands on a dark brown background. There are not allowed to be any company logos for the brands and health warnings cover 90% of the back of the package and 70% of the front. Australian government experts justify the rules reminding people that cigarettes are the only legal consumer product that kills and used exactly as intended by the manufacturer. In many respects, it is quite amazing that cigarette smoking is still legal and cigarettes can be bought easily, and there can be little doubt, whether that takes 20 or 50 years, that will not always be the case as ultimately one group of people cannot pay taxes for another group of people to puff their way to health care.

There are a number of big launches coming soon, with Amazon having advised the press of a special meeting on 7 September where Jeff Bezos is expected to make a major announcement – one would guess something to do with Kindle or perhaps an iPad type competitor, although one would hope that they would stick to their knitting and focus on a reading device.

It is also not very long away from the launch of whatever Apple’s new products are, with some people speculating that there will be two separate press conferences, possibly with the first one as soon as 12 September and obviously what one is expecting the latest release of the operating software iOS 6 as well as the next iPhone. It is quite possible as well, according to rumours, that a mini iPad, which would be wonderful for portable watching of TV, etc, may be released at the same time. In any event, for fans of Amazon and Apple, and I am a big fan of both companies, there is a lot to look forward to in September and hopefully launches of whatever the products are, in South Africa shortly thereafter. For example, when it comes to Amazon, while the Kindle has been released in South Africa, the Kindle Fire has never been released in South Africa or indeed in the UK as yet, despite the fact that it has been out for almost a year.

Royal County Down is the number one rated golf course in the United Kingdom, and it is situated inside a small town of about 7,000 people in Northern Ireland, called Newcastle. In terms of its world rating some people rate it at number 3, others at number 5 and others at number 7 – so as there are with different opinions in everything in life, there are with golf courses – some magazines rating it as superior to Augusta and some rate Augusta superior to it. A more traditional American course like Augusta, or park-type courses like we largely have in Johannesburg certainly suits my game better than a beautiful links course like Royal County Down.

It is however a superb course and I had the privilege of playing it in Northern Ireland, but unfortunately did so in howling winds. Most South Africans would say those are normal winds and that is how one normally plays, but when I played the day before, I was the only person on the course and I was told in no uncertain terms that whatever unpleasant conditions the Irish may play golf in, when it gets that windy and that rainy, they cancel their competitions and go inside! I am going to remember that for myself and for friends who always remind me that, “… if we were in Scotland or Ireland right now, we would be playing in these conditions …”. No, they don’t play in those conditions and in fact it was only me, the mad South African, who was playing in those conditions the day before. Links golf refers to the types of golf courses that are typically running alongside the sea, combined with all sorts of up and down mounds, long grass and usually wind is in play. I got to see some wonderful scenery, some magnificent and totally different types of golf holes design to what we would experience in South Africa and also to get my worse score in 20 games! It is certainly beautiful and if I go there again, I will make sure to book it for two days in a row and to get the hell out of Newcastle immediately thereafter because there is not very much to do!

Facebook listed on the Stock Exchange on 17 May 2012 at $38 per share. I wrote before the listing how little faith I had in this company, because it really does not have a commercially viable model – or it does, but not at the valuations it was given. It is interesting to see now that the 90 day period which many of the original investors were tied into is up and how many of them are selling their shares. It is particularly interesting, bearing in mind of course that Facebook’s share price is down, and of course it varies all the time, by approximately 50%. In other words, if the original investors believed the share was worth more than its current price, they would do what all the long-term investors do and that is to sit back patiently and wait for the true value of this company to be recognised, if indeed it has a better value, and sell their shares at that time.

Instead, and these are people who don’t need the money, they have obviously decided that Facebook at the half the price they were trying to sell it to the public is in fact a good deal and are quite happy to sell the same shares that the public was asked to buy at $38 per share at the current price of $19. Facebook’s first major investor, Peter Thiel, has already sold 20 million shares worth over $400 million at the current price. Of course, he is not actually losing because he only invested $500 000 in Facebook in 2004 and he has already sold his shares on to the public for a total of $1000 million in the meantime (he sold $640 million worth of shares on the first day of trading).

Mark Zuckerberg can only begin to sell his shares in November and of course that is one thing to be worth billions in shares, but reality is another thing altogether. If he were to try and sell his shares, there will not be enough buyers for them and the market would drop out the bottom and so to actually get some of the money in cash, he is going to be forced to sell little bit by little bit. It is a wonderful game for the wealthy to make money and it really does not actually create wealth – you just make a big fuss about your amazing product, how it is going to make huge money one day and then you get people to buy shares, which you have given yourself for free or to your friends at a very low price, and in Peter Thiel’s case, a 2 000 times lower price than the public is paying now. It is not wonder that so many people are terribly disillusioned with Facebook, but in all honesty they really should have looked at the business model and the ridiculous valuations that Facebook and its corporate sponsors were talking about.