Software Architect. Conservative with a good sprinkling of free marketeer. Don’t follow me because I don’t even know where I’m going
Johannesburg, South Africa
Joined January 2012
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Mike Balmer retweeted
Many of the things that make a country rich are invisible.
You can’t see or touch property rights, the rule of law or the ease of doing business. That makes them easy to overlook.
People talk about natural resources, but pay much less attention to whether ordinary people can start and run businesses without facing senseless rules and regulations.
People are much more willing to invest when their property is protected and the same rules apply to everyone, including politicians.
If you’re afraid an official could take your land or shut down your business, you’re going to think twice before risking your savings.
A country can have plenty of natural resources and still make it hard for its people to prosper.
Mike Balmer retweeted
Since wealth is the only thing that can cure poverty, you might think that the left would be as obsessed with the creation of wealth as they are with the redistribution of wealth. But you would be wrong
— Thomas Sowell
Mike Balmer retweeted
“Mao and Stalin and Hitler didn’t come to power promoting tyranny. They came to power promising equality.”
— Rand Paul
1/2 The hard numbers behind the poll 📊👇
🇫🇷 France: Debt has hit ~118% of GDP with deficits stuck above 5%. A deadlocked parliament can't pass cuts, and bond spreads are widening.
🇮🇹 Italy: Debt sits at a massive 140% of GDP. Paired with a 1.2 fertility rate & zero productivity growth, the demographic math is brutal.
2/2
🇬🇧 UK: Debt is ~100% of GDP while 10-yr gilt yields have surged past 5.2%—making debt service a fiscal black hole alongside crumbling public services.
🇨🇦 Canada: Household debt sits near 100% of GDP (highest in the G7). Rapid population growth + a massive housing bubble = tanking GDP per capita.
I miss the golden age of advertising before all the betting ads came along...
🤖 Made with AI
Inland 95 just hit R30.25. 🛢️
R6.35 of every L is the fuel levy + RAF. The rest is USD oil, priced in a Rand that has been sliding since the 2000s.
So what does the pump price look like if the currency wasnt wrecked and those levies werent bolted on?
It is not subtle. 📉
Mike Balmer retweeted
Second-order consequences.
High taxes repel wealth and investment and lead to a poor country with poor people.
Lower taxes attract wealth and investment and leads to a wealthy country with less poverty and more opportunity.
There is no perfect system out there. We have to make trade offs. We can have more equity at a lower standard of living for all. We can have more affluence but higher inequality.
We don’t know of a way to have widespread affluence and rising living standards without inequality.
“The thing is, serial killers won’t stop until they are caught.” - Piet Byleveld
DEVELOPING: Head of Crime Intelligence General Dumisani Khumalo has also arrived for the meeting after 7 bodies of women were found. Minister and police top brass have arrived for a meeting
@SABCNews
Mike Balmer retweeted
The UAE can print you a new passport in 8 minutes because they never treat a renewal as an investigation. Your biometrics already sit in the federal database behind your Emirates ID, so the state matches your fingerprints, prints the booklet, and hands it over.
A passport there is just a physical receipt for a database record.
The counters run 24 hours a day in every airport in the country. No appointment. The man in the video found out the day before his flight that his passport lacked the validity his destination required, and the fix took less time than clearing security.
Now run the American version. A US renewal takes 4 to 6 weeks of processing, plus up to 2 weeks of mail each way. Door to door you're looking at 8 to 10 weeks. Pay the $60 expedite fee and you still wait 2 to 3 weeks, because your old passport has to be physically mailed across the country and a new one mailed back.
The UAE also attacked the problem upstream. In August 2025 they widened the renewal window to a full year before expiry, specifically so citizens stop discovering the issue at the gate. Then they put instant counters in the airports for the ones who discover it anyway.
America takes 10 weeks to mail you a passport. Dubai prints one in the departure hall in 8 minutes, at 3am, no appointment.
