When nobody is being straightforward, it is a challenge to appreciate where we are, never mind where we are going. Of course, in politics anyone is rarely clear about their intentions. Be it personal, business or state.

Our South African condition at present, however, offers a few peculiarities not usually encountered. Most of us tend to operate according to certain broadly understood rules of engagement. Such as for a government that includes doing everything in its power to promote the common good, pursue the national interest. When such collectives are replaced with narrow personal aims (me, myself & I), something has deeply changed in the country at large.

Though we remain for now in the Zuma era, the shape of the succession has been long looming. The choices involved appear to be anything but straightforward, mainly because one effort is focused on protecting some parties, preventing them from going to jail; or it is intended to protect and prolong the patronage culture fostered during the Zuma era, favouring certain elements, ensuring the legacy and tradition will live on.

And one gains the impression this isn't only focused on the post-Zuma era. For now the self-enrichment appears to be still in full flow in the present era. And thus yet greater access is sought to state resources in the present.

This in contrast to those who want to end this political embarrassment, want a return to modernity and an abandoning of traditionalism and patronage.

A battlefield of sorts has come into being on which massed forces appear to give daily battle, but with an enormous amount of stealth in their actions, making it difficult to make out who they are, what is to be achieved, where it is all leading.

As Ramaphosa has colorfully described it, our government is at war with itself. Besides then also apparently being at war with large slices of the electorate….

The main focus appears to be having control over the state purse, traditionally the fief of Treasury. Instead of every Minister and public servant doing Zuma’s bidding, it hasn't been that way. There are rearguard actions taken in defense of the realm, even as a plundering multitude seems to be looking for carte blanche.

It is a strange landscape, in which fiscally responsible forces are being attacked, by insinuation and innuendo, through endless legal maneuvers. And where the counter move is the stiff upper lip, and legal counter action.

In the process, markets and rating agencies must at times be starting to doubt our collective sanity, given the apparent daily willingness to sacrifice soundness to uncertainty, accept increased risk premiums for behaviour unbecoming and this without so much as a blush. Not quite the rules of the financial game as we knew it. But then the personal stakes involved are high, and no price too high if paid by others, especially opposition voters?

Yet it still leaves the biggest question unanswered. Who is winning this? Where is this tide going? Who will come out on top, at what cost? When….

On a daily basis, we are entertained blow by blow as to the next idiocy that has played out. We are being invited to be credulous to the extreme. And other than that keep our fingers crossed. But that isn't much of a strategy. Where is this really going?

Seeing the impossibility of untangling the many strands, the many more lies, the false feinting, the hidden agendas, the endless stealth involved, you could do worse than forget about the whole scenery and just keep the Rand in focus (or one of your favourite long bond yields).

These are global market prices. An awful lot of watching eyes are reflected in them, absorbing, weighing, discounting, deciding, rejecting, evaluating, assessing. Real and false information, moment by moment. If our risks are escalating, the Rand risk premium will rise and the Rand weaken. On the other hand, if in our body politic there are deep stirrings resisting forces of evil, and they are at all succeeding, do expect this too to register somewhere on many eye fleeces.

The surprise of the post-election period shouldn't have been that there has been another attempt on our fiscal decency, as there was nine months ago. It always felt as if this was incomplete business. That the other shoe still needed to drop fully. The real surprise so far is perhaps that it has been only muted? After all from 13.30:$ to 14.70:$ and back to 13.94:$ is no sweat, after which some Fed-driven weakness back above 14:$ last week, especially when considering much talk of risk potential towards 18-20:$ “later on” in the year and into next.

Yes, we all know what risk disaster looks like, presumably, but why hasn't it arrived yet? On its way then, but why wait discounting it if it is so certain? Or is it yet far from certain what outcomes we will have by yearend, and what next year will bring, given the reigning chaos, and active resistance?

And so we wait, so far at the non-challenging station of 14.40:$ (and still easing or again Fed-captive?). There are still a few surprises ahead, but don't expect to fully understand them. Do know, that the Rand market will be quick in pricing them. So far, so good, surprisingly so.

In Memoriam: Remembering the victims of the 9/11 atrocities 15 years ago today

Cees Bruggemans                                                                          

Bruggemans & Associates Consulting Economists 

Website www.bruggemans.co.za

Email  economics@bruggemans.co.za

Twitter  @ceesbruggemans

LinkedLn