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"We come in peace – Shoot to Kill
Shoot to Kill
Its life Jim – But not as we know it
Not as we know it, Captain." - Startrek
I have said for some time now that the
next step in the unfolding world economic drama will be protectionism
and tariffs. Expect leaders and finance ministers all over the world
to talk a peaceful Riccardian game but act out a partisan policy in
domestic interest.
It gets personal. Yesterday the British
Immigration authorities introduced Visa applications for South
Africans traveling to the UK. At first it appears as a political
move, but a closer look shows it to be clearly an economic play.
Under pressure the British will look after themselves first. South
Africans have not responded, but you can be sure that in farmhouses all over the veld we have begun
hooving the horses and polishing our rifles.
Expect reprisals and more assaults to follow. Remember that England shot first. Is
this unstoppable? Why is there a pressure to introduce protectionism?
In a Depression, the critical factor in
short supply is demand. There are millions unemployed needing work to
produce, but very few customers. As a fiscal or monetary authority
trying to stimulate employment, the last thing you need is the rare
bit of demand you do have, chasing after goods and services produced
in other countries. Forget all that you read in economics text books
about the benefits of the flow of trade, when it comes to keeping Mrs
Smith employed stamping passports at the department of Homew Affairs,
Mr Smith will do everything to get that short run objective.
So how does this effect the visa
business? South Africans and The British have always enjoyed a free
exchange of visitors without Visa requirement. It is a simple matter
to get on a plane to London or Johannesburg. It is an under lying
component of why Britain is one of our main trading partners, and why
London is our first call for business. Can you understand why we take offense that the UK treats us like a group of marauding drug trafficers and not as a welcome band of long standing customers.
So why the sudden Visa move? Lets do
the numbers. There are 420 000 South African visitors to the UK per
year. South Africans are the fifth largest group of visitors to the
UK. The civil service logic goes something like this: we are unhappy
with immigration policy; we also notice that trips to the UK are down
all round; work is a bit thin at the home office and we may have to
lay off some of the idle workers; Mrs Smith in fact sleeps at her
desk in the afternoons, the public always like a bit of foreigner
bashing and in these times we will get local support; I know – let
us impose a Visa restriction on South Africans and charge them 70
Pounds per application. It improves the quality of speech and accents on the
street of London and instantly a new industry of 420 000 X 70 = 30
Million Pounds is created!
Does this sound far fetched? Certainly
there is no added immigration pressure lately. There have always been
illegal abuse of these rights, but frankly over the last 6 months the
flow of immigrants is away from the UK not towards it . Yes you got
it – things are worse in the UK than in South Africa! If this was a
genuine immigration concern, all that would have been needed was for
the UK authorities to tell their South African counterparts to
tighten up on passport validation and we could have created a R500
Million rand business doing just that here in South Africa. Mrs Smith
would have had to go back to Bedford and unemployment queues. Instead
what we do is keep a desk open in London and have a queue of idle
South Africans at the British consulate. I guess the logic is that an
African Job is not worth the same as British Job. This has been the
basis of our trade for 300 years.
If this sound like colonial whinning,
let us put this into perspective. 30 Million Pounds is a business
bigger than the entire SME accounting business in South Africa. Yes
that is Sage, Pastel, Quickbooks, TurboCASH the whole
industry weights up to less than visa applications. So with the same
logic let us introduce a move banning British Accounting packages in
South Africa because “We don't trust them to add up our Vat
properly." It will certainly help the sales of TurboCASH and
save South Africa 30 Million Pounds per year.
Can you see where this protectionist
logic leads us?
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