Oh, switch off our MINDS, not our MINES?

There are two features of South Africa’s power crisis that are even more annoying than the consequences of the crisis itself; more annoying still than that the guilty and incompetent people who caused it are lying about it, and are still drawing their millions in performance bonuses.

One is the positive-thinking rubbish many people have been writing. The other are the insults and nonsense we’re being fed by government.

The Pollyanna brigade is everywhere, and perhaps its most annoying members are the CEOs who put on motivational-speaker hats to whip optimism into their staff. (For an example, see the e-mail at the end of this post, below the fold.)

They should know better. Yes, I know we’re going to have to buck up and do something. Yes, I know there are opportunities in every crisis. Yes, I know people are resourceful and energetic and innovative. (Though this is why they should have been responsible for their own service delivery in the first place, in stead of relying on government and being banned from competing in the provision of those services.)

That we’re going to have to buck up and make plans is a given. But we should never have been forced to waste our resources on this. We have better things to invest effort in, like increasing employment, reducing poverty, fighting AIDS and building long-term prosperity. And — as I pointed out in earlier posts about firing the guilty and fixing the economic policy that caused this — we had better make sure we’re never forced to waste our energy on unnecessary costs caused by incompetent government in future.

Positive thinking isn’t going to fix the unavoidable spike we can now expect in unemployment. It won’t make the inevitable resurgence in price inflation any easier for people to bear. It won’t repay the necessary unbudgeted expenses you and I and every business will have to incur. It won’t fix the economic growth we can now forget about. It won’t repair the shattered investment confidence. It won’t replace the lost jobs.

Yes, we’re going to have to survive all of that, and I’m sure we will.

But that doesn’t mean we should just sit around like beaten curs and grin and say thank you master after we’ve been violated, at our own expense, by the central planners in government. Stockholm syndrome (or beaten-wife syndrome) makes me angry. We should get angry, and kick the abusers out.

But what makes me angrier still is the constant barrage of undiluted bull manure Eskom and the government are shovelling down our throats.

Switch off your geysers, they say (and the CEO quoted below repeats this advice). They, of all people, should know that the energy needed by an insulated geyser is dependent on hot water consumption, not the duration of the heating cycles, unless you bath less than, say, twice a week. Or maybe they don’t know that.

At best, if geysers are switched off at the right times, they can aid in distributing loads from peak times to off-peak times, but since our “peak” time (last time I checked) stretches from 7am to 11pm, randomly switching off geysers isn’t going to make much difference. Much, much more energy can be saved by turning down the thermostat a little. Why are we being given such patently wrong-headed advice? So we can all feel that we’re Doing Something? That we’re Working Together For One Common Goal? Is this just demagoguery? I think so.

They tell us that China and Brazil have had similar power crises. Firstly, so what? Is that supposed to make us feel better? Does that mean our government has done a good job? In China, severe winter storms caused a very temporary crisis. I’m no meteorologist, but I’d swear I didn’t notice any destructive blizzards this summer. In Brazil, a severe drought caused shortages in 2001, because the country is heavily reliant on hydro power. Where is our act of God? Simple. We haven’t had one. Our government officials are wholly and entirely to blame. God had nothing to do with it, and I’d wager he resents the imputation.

They must think we’re stupid. Oh, yes, here we go. Our esteemed minister in charge of energy affairs: “Go to sleep earlier so that you can grow and be cleverer.”. Of all the insulting, patronising and idiotic things I’ve ever heard, this trumps the lot. Let’s leave aside the medical advice. This minister can’t even handle her own portfolio, and if she is just conveying what the health minister said, well, the exact opposite would be indicated. The simple fact is that using less power at the only time we actually have enough power available will make virtually no difference. Unless there’s something about the effect of price controls on coal supplies we haven’t been told about. Which is, of course, entirely possible.

South Africans, your leaders refuse to fire the guilty parties. Instead, they pay them performance bonuses with your money. They refuse to change the central-planning policies that made it possible for a handful of incompetent idiots to ruin our economy in the first place.

Now that they’ve abused your trust and burned your future, they’re insulting your intelligence. They’re telling you they really do love you. They’re telling you to grin and bear it. They’re asking you, what would you be without them? They’re telling you they wish you would just listen, for your own good. This is a classic pattern of abuse. So what are you going to do about it?

Update: Added the paragraph about China and Brazil. I knew there was some dumb excuse from government I’d forgotten to add.

Postscript: Here’s an example of one e-mail that is doing the rounds, reportedly written by Alan Knott-Craig Jr, the CEO of wireless data provider iBurst, not to be confused with Alan Knott-Craig Snr, the CEO of mobile operator Vodacom, which owns a stake in iBurst.

From: Alan Knott-Craig
Sent: 28 January 2008 07:32
To: All Users
Subject: What a start to 2008…

Hi guys,

2008 has certainly started with a bang! The future was rosy on 31 December 2007, but suddenly everyone is buying candles and researching property in Perth!

A combination of recession in the USA, global equity market negativity, high interest rates, the National Credit Act and power outages have combined to create the perfect storm.

But don’t panic!

This is not the first time there’s been doom and gloom. Every few years the same thing happens. We experience massive economic growth, everyone is optimistic and buying Nescafe Gold, and holiday homes, and Merc’s. The positivity gets ahead of itself and the economy overheats, and then panic sets in because the economy seems to be collapsing when in actual fact it’s simply making an adjustment back to a reasonable level.

It happened in 1989, when SA defaulted on its international loans and the stock market and Rand crashed, it happened in 1994 when the ANC took power and everyone thought war would break out, it happened in 1998 when interest rates hit 25% and you couldn’t give away your house, and it happened in 2001 when a fairly unstable guy by the name of Osama arranged for 2 Boeings to fly into the tallest buildings in New York!

On each of those occasions everyone thought it was the end of the world and that there was no light in sight. And on each occasion, believe it or not, the world did not actually end, it recovered and in fact things continued to get better.

I think 2008 will be a tough year, but I also see it as a great opportunity to seize the day whilst everyone else is whinging and get a front-seat on the inevitable boom that we’ll experience in 2009, 2010 and beyond.

Make sure you make a mental note of everything that is happening now, because it will happen again and again, and if you don’t recognize the symptoms you’ll be suckered into the same negativity, and forget to look for the opportunities.

It’s easy to be negative. Subconsciously, you WANT to be negative! Whenever you open the papers they tell you about the goriest hi-jacking and the most corrupt politicians. Why don’t they dedicate more pages to the fact that Joburg is the world’s biggest man-made forest, or to the corruption-free achievements of the vast majority of public officials? Because bad news sells. Good news is boring.

SA still has the best weather in world! We’re lucky enough to possess a huge chunk of the world’s resources, i.e.: gold, platinum, coal, iron. The growth in India and China will continue to accelerate (India and China sign 10mil new mobile customers every month), and so will their demand for our resources. The government has already embarked on massive infrastructure projects (some of them a tad late, i.e.: electricity), and this will pump money into the economy.

We are all lucky enough to be a part of the birth of a massive and all-encompassing industry. The Internet has and will continue to change the world. The enormity of its impact is up there with the wheel, electricity, TV, telephones, and possibly man’s greatest ever invention, coffee. Not only does it open up an entirely untapped world of commerce, but it is also the ultimate disseminator of information and news. Apartheid would not have lasted 40 years if the Internet had existed! And you’re part of it!

I’m looking forward to another year of ASA complaints, IR issues, Plug & Wireless parties, BTS roll-outs, billing runs, irate customers, happy customers, orange bubbles, faulty elevators, etc, etc. The nice stuff makes me feel good, and the challenges remind me why we can beat the competition. Most importantly I’m looking forward to having fun and making memories.

So ignore the doomsayers, install a timer on your geyser, and buy Ricoffee for a couple of months.

Cheers,
Alan

Right… okay. I suspect an accidental overdose of Prozac.

Other than ignoring the doomsayers, and installing a timer on your geyser instead of using that money to buy real coffee, he’s right, though. Our weather really is splendid! Except when it rains and the coal gets wet. Or when it’s cold and people switch on heaters. Or when it’s warm and people switch on fans. Or at night, when people switch on lights. Or during the day, when people go driving on roads without traffic lights. Other than that, our weather is just great.

Aren’t we all so happy? I feel a group-hug for abused citizens coming on. There. That’s better. *pat* *pat*