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Cape Town - Commentators have weighed in on the SA nuclear deal this week, in which Russia is rumoured to be leading the race for the contract.
The announcement that Starbucks will soon be serving coffee to South Africans also stimulated mixed opinion in the comments section.
Fin24 commentator Berghaan Botha argued that Starbucks clients don't go to Starbucks for the coffee, but rather the idea or experience, as with, for example McDonalds.
While user Raymond Duxbury predicted that the quality of SA coffee is set to go downhill as the player enters the market with its 'over-priced' offering.
Below is the weekly dose of top ten Fin24 user comments - selected for their wit, value-add to the topic at hand and contribution to healthy debate in a country so much in need of constructive dialogue.
Top ten user comments on:
Russian firm dismisses SA nuclear build fears:
1. Ndabeni Diego - South Africans are naïve when it comes to the international trading system. How many of the government to government deals done around the world do we think are corruption free.
Bribes are mostly offered by suppliers who promise to incentivise countries should their bids be accepted. When we engaged for the first time in the arms deals, it was the European suppliers and not Russians or Chinese who offered bribes to naïve South African politicians.
Western companies have perfected the system of paying bribes to governments, be it in their own continent, Asia, the Middle East or Africa, and yet some would have us believe that it is South Africans and Russians who are the masters of corruption.
The UK government for example has canned an inquiry into the 30 billion pound arms deal to the Saudi, because it embarrasses their corrupt companies. The French and the German governments didn't even touch their companies implicated in our arms deal, because this this is par for the course in those countries, especially considering the volumes of deals they do every year and the amount of bribes they pay to their own politicians.
I wish South Africans would stop being so naïve and down right stupid, especially when it comes to international trade. We are new comers to the game and don't make the rules.
SA Post Office owes suppliers nearly R245m:
2. Isaac Newtonian - Perhaps government can now finally accept that private businesses that are in competition with one another, do by far better than government owned businesses can ever hope to do. South Africa is wasting time by not going 100% private. Governments can build large scale infrastructure projects - but businesses can do business activities far better. Business activities includes many fields governments are not good at - product research, marketing, sales, customer relations, finance, accounting etc. Our government is wasting our time trying to run and control everything.
3. TheOldCynical - Ever heard about the law of deminishing returns? The more tax you take the less people save and spend. The less they save and spend the less the economy grows. It may even shrink. The less the economy grows the less tax you get. Need more money. Fire half the government.
Starbucks is finally coming to South Africa:
4. Berghaan Botha - Starbucks clients will admit that you don't go to Starbucks for the coffee, but rather the idea/experience. Think McDonalds. Also, think Walmart, who got the whole idea of what the African market is like completely off, and haven't made as much of an impact as some would have liked /feared.
5. Donovan Dunn - they not franchising either, so all internally owned and operated. So much for growing entrepreneurs and new business owners. They will still make a stink load of money. Look at Burger King, expensive and overrated but still killing it at the tills
6. Raymond Duxbury - Now the quality of coffee can go downhill in SA just like the rest of the world who have to suffer this rankly, over-priced, tepid, drain water they call coffee. Make me laugh. SA already has the best coffee shops in the world and doesn't need to import another US junk brand. Trust me on this, I live in the US and the only thing I miss about SA is the wonderful food.
Maimane: Water shedding could be in the pipeline:
5. Brent Simons - Maimane is trying to establish himself as a national hero. Like his predecessor he is good at exposing issues but extremely weak at offering solutions. So now that you have scared the people what do you suggest we do to save our water Mr Maimane?
Russian firm dismisses SA nuclear build fears:
6. Sierajodean Frazenburg - How does this Russian know so much of the processes the South African government is undertaking to ensure the process is fair? How does he know that the Russian-South African intergovernmental agreement was more comprehensive than that of France, USA and China? According to him South Africa is going all out to ensure the process is fair. If he knows so much, than I think the procurement process is already compromised. He knows too much.
Eurozone clinches deal with Greece after all-night haggle:
7. Moggie Mogs - The EU should have booted Greece out the front door when they first started this 'no money' business. Now the EU has thrown so much money at Greece, that it's becoming too expensive to kick them out. They were even booted out of the Latin Monetary Union (in Europe) back in 1908...wait for it...for dishonesty and fiddling their accounts! What's changed in more than a century? Boot them out - it will do more to boost confidence in the Euro/Euro Zone than keeping them hanging on your purse strings forever.
SA prisoners on Facebook 'are a security risk':
8. Truthseeker - Jamming devices should be put into ALL prisons in SA, as there are far too many corrupt prison officials smuggling in cell phones. Prisoners are in prison to pay back their debt to society, not to get benefits such as social media etc. They can watch the news on prison TV's, like it's done around the world.
Leaning on pizzas to make Starbucks an SA reality:
9. Solarflair - I think it is great , it will bring more investment and will great desperately needed jobs, It will also create competition in the industry which will up the standard country wide, I think you negative people should wake up on the right side of the bed, and smell the coffee.
10. Dawie Vos - USA flies to Pluto and SA cant even maintain a post office here on earth.
Disclaimer: All letters and comments published in MyFin24 have been independently written by members of the Fin24 community. The views are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent those of Fin24.
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