Category: Financial
Be wise, and if you aren’t sure you can be, ask Peter
I want to tell you about a goat.
Many years ago there was a policeman whose prized possession was Billy – a goat. The policeman was the only one allocated to the township of Tarkastad. He was very proud of his goat. One day Billy disappeared…
Whilst you wait for the airports to open, do you know your ETNs from your ETFs?
It seems as if Crazy Covid mutated and have given fraudsters super grabbing powers in South Africa. We have seen families profiting off political connections. We have heard horror stories of irregular PPE tenders and irregular spending such as many, many millions of Rands wasted on flooring for a make-shift hospital that seems to consist of novel see-through material as no one has seen it…Let us do a cold reality splash quickly. Then take a deep breath and look at four more realistic options for safeguarding your investments through international exposure.
A scam by any other name will still smell as rotten
Wouldn’t it be nice if, out of the blue, someone from your bank’s home loan division contacts you, and offers you a 50% discount on your home loan? All you have to do is settle the loan by the next day? They will bully you but in a nice way. They will use lots of jargon.
Yesterday, today, tomorrow – times have changed for the living and the dead!
The sand in the hourglass might have run out for you, but it is not the end. Funerals are complex things that never seem to go quite as anticipated. Mostly, it seems, this is so because we assume everything had been taken care of somewhere along the line and we do not (want to?) take a closer look. Many funeral policies claim that you will receive a payout within 24 to 48 hours. What you may not realise is that it does not mean from the minute your Dear One departed.
Consumer complaints: what to do when you had your fingers burnt
Have you ever felt so angry about bad service or a defective product that you would make a spitting cobra look like a gentle house pet? Have you ever felt trapped because you do not have the wherewithal to hire a flame-throwing lawyer that will burn (verbal and legal) holes in your enemy’s lame excuses and empty promises?
Car Insurance – cheaper isn’t always better
Each insurer will present their products in such a way that it highlights the advantages of their products. However, there are always trade-offs and these are not always made explicit. It is a balancing act. In order to provide you with certain benefits, others have to be cut, limited or made available as expensive add-ons. It is a matter of which sacrifices are more acceptable to you.
Credit – the ultimate Russian roulette?
For some people entering into debt is a bit like playing Russian roulette. The bullet may or may not fire, it may or may not end the game. Whereas it may be exciting to live on the edge, it may have devastating consequences.
Bad business ideas
How do you tell if a business idea is a bad one? Google does not want to tell you which business ideas during the time of COVID-19 are bad ideas. I tried to ask. It turned up 224 000 000 results in 0.32 seconds.
It is the year 2030…
A Whale-bus as a means to cross the Atlantic! Certainly some of the future predictions made by the French commercial artist Jean-Marc Côté and his team at the 1900s World’s Fair ‘Exposition Universelle’ were strange, indeed! The same can be said for the predictions made by many futurists throughout the ages.