This was officially the never ending day. Dean Hirst decided to play a practical joke on us and packed 4 company visits into the day, leaving the hotel at 7:30 am. Ugh. We started out at the Rand Merchant Bank, where we met with Rudolph Gous, South Africa’s most prominent economist. I found his discussion to be very informative, filling us in on South Africa’s state of affairs in comparison to that of the U.S. One key point that I found interesting was that South Africa previously imposed exchange restrictions on banks, which inevidably acted as a protective shield with the recent global financial crash. I was interested to hear about South Africa’s policies and views on the U.S. Not surprisingly, they did not seem too impressed with us at this time, yet they were still . Since our consumption funds their economy, our recessionary decline is greatly impacting South Africa, regardless of the previous restrictions. However, I learned that their stimulus packages are invested in infrastructure, providing jobs and bringing the country up to speed with mature nations.
After the bank, we visited the Wits Business School and met with a gentleman from the rating agency that rates companies on the BBBEE (Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment). This is a social reform that South Africa recently enacted to overcome the racial inequalities that currently exist. Basically, the reform is an attempt to keep African companies, as well as multi-national firms doing business in South Africa, socially responsible. The BBBEE rates companies on factors such as black ownership in the company, education for blacks, etc. I think the BBBEE is a good idea, however, there are some flaws within the system, such as corruption and system manipulation. Overall, the topic is extremely important in African society, but I felt like the talk was a bit “mind-numbing” and I found myself pinching my legs to stay awake.
We then headed to South African Football Association and met with the President. He talked about the upcoming World Cup, held in South Africa and all of the preparations and expectations surrounding the monumentous event. The speaker cracked me up because he kept talking about U.S. customs and how strict our officials and police are and how “chicken” Americans, Canadians, and Australians are when it comes to authority. I found it humorous because the countries he mentioned are countries that have relatively low corruption rates, compared to that of South Africa. But he was nice and we had a nice chat.
Our last stop of the day was to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. By that time, I was pretty exhausted and didn’t retain much of the information. But it was cool to visit and I got a nice pic in front of the ticker.
We headed to the group dinner back in Nelson Mandela Square. Of course, it was a ton of fun with lots of wine and jokes. I need to start bringing my flip video camera to start capturing the ridiculousness. Some of us went out to continue the party. (Yes, me.) After many glasses of Pinotage, a bunch of us took the party to Westgate’s room. I didn’t end my night until 4am, where I was downstairs at the computers, sending half-baked emails to loved ones. One of the hotel workers was of Zulu decent and I made friends with him while I was emailing. We ended up teaching each other words in our respective language and played about 25 games of tic-tac-toe. We really couldn’t communicate too well, except for “I win” and big smiles. It was pretty hilarious, but I was the only one there to laugh about it. Went to bed just in time to get in 2 hours of sleep before another marathon day.
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