Gold breaks $5,000 as global turmoil sparks investor rush and Big win for consumers as Icasa extends data bundle lifespans

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
And now The Money Show with Stephen Credits on seven
oh two, let's walk little.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
The Money Show with Stephen Curtis is brought to you
by ABS of Corporates, an investment banking, a Pan African
bank that's invested in your story because your story matters.
Good evening, eight minutes after six I'm Stephen Curtis. What
the most extraordinary day it's been on the markets? It's
not just that gold went through five thousand dollars announced.
You'd been expecting that. Frankly, as the Money Show, we'd

(00:28):
been planning for that. But for the JC obviously did
a record high. I mean, one does follow the other.
But what I didn't expect was on the same day
for the rans that the gold is earning us to
suddenly be stronger too, suddenly going past sixteen round to
the dollar last time I checked, just hovering just below that.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
It's been much of the day above that.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
But you know how it is, you test these levels
as a currency, and once you break through, you might
actually find yourself there for quite some time. Well, let's
hope cross fingers and all of that so much to
kind of unpack with it. We're going to have a
special focus on the gold price and what it does
for us from six point thirty tonight. We did think
it will be quite an important thing to do for

(01:10):
a couple of reasons. We will find out just where
we are and how we got here. Also, of course
the issue around what it means for you and how
you would also get in on the action. I mean,
if you're a shareholder of one of the companies, that
would really help. And then at the same time we
will also be looking at the situation around what it

(01:33):
means for actual individual companies Pan African Resources. We will
speak to them. They had an update out today and
of course their timing in a way could not really
have been any better at all, but just the extraordinary
sort of nature of how things are and how we
got here. And the other thing that is kind of
shocking around the gold price is that no one saw

(01:54):
it moving so quickly. We all saw it over the
last year, but if you go back in time, it
was only three years ago when passed three thousand dollars
hadn't happened before. Less even when past four thousand dollars
in October last year, just didn't you know, it really
has just moved to levels that we haven't seen. And
I should mention that Platinum is stronger too, and I
think that's very important. The other big story and we'll

(02:16):
focus on this. We'll speak to Ikarsa, one of the
councilors there, Catherine Mushi then just a moment, their chairperson
of this process, which is about making mobile data cheaper
for you. It's about rolling over bundles, you know, controversial,
in frustrating and difficult. This has been for so long
that she's the chair of the committee on and the
end user subscriber charter at Ekas who will get a

(02:38):
view from Imandla dot mobi as well, alessol ramolairfor a
very important to hear from her on that, and I
think that's going to be interesting. I'd like to hear
from you two on seven two seven oh two one
seven oh two. How much are you spending on mobile
data at the moment? Do you do it on subscription
and just ah, never mind, you don't ever look at it? Well,
are you sort of going megabyte by megabi?

Speaker 4 (03:00):
Now?

Speaker 2 (03:00):
I know people who are literally just sort of saving
the megabytes to make a WhatsApp call or managing your
bundles very carefully so that you don't waste any money.
I think that's going to be one of the things.
And I know plenty of people who also will go
from Wi Fi zone to Wi Fi zone, and you
can tell because you'll send them a WhatsApp and you'll
see as they pass into a Wi Fi zone where

(03:21):
it goes into two ticks, you know, where it starts
a double tick. And then you'll see when they've stopped,
when they blue tickets and reply to you, and then
you send them another WhatsApp and it's a single tick.
You know they've moved on and they're basically waiting to
get to the next zone. So we'll talk a little
bit about that. I think that's going to be quite important.
I was waiting for this moment to come. And it
makes entire sense if AI is going to claim, or

(03:43):
its owners are going to claim, if an artificial intelligence
model to actually be intelligent and to have insight, which
is surely the one thing humans have that no one
else does, nothing else does, or nothing that we know
of does. But then if using AI helps you to
have an idea or an insight, can the person who
created the AI actually claim money for it? Open AI

(04:05):
says they can if you use chat GPT. It's a
fascinating discussion because it also leads to a conversation of
where does an idea begin and where does it end?
What is an idea? And this is something that patent
boards have been dealing with for years and years and years.
In fact, one day I'd just love to speak to
a patent lawyer about their life and what they've learned,

(04:25):
the things that they've seen. I think there's a lot
there that's very very interesting. Good to hear from you.
Double one, double a three oh seven oh two O
two one four four six O five six seven, And
of course how much the RCU use a month?

Speaker 3 (04:36):
And what do you use with it?

Speaker 4 (04:37):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (04:38):
What do you do with it? Oh seven two seven
oh two one seven oh two. Lots to come on
The Money Show. Don't forget that big focus on gold
at five thousand and about twenty minutes from now, it's
twelve minutes after six.

Speaker 5 (04:49):
The Lney Show with Stephen Krudis live on ninety two
point seven and one O six FM.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
Streaming on the Prime Media Plus.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
NAP and TSTV Channel eight fives.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Well, finally, after literally years of campaigning, the Communications Regulator
IKARSA gazetting regulations that will see your mobile data bundles
being rolled over at least once if you don't use
all the data before they expire. Catherine Mushi is a
counselor at KASA and chair of the committee on the
End User Subscriber Charter councilor good evening and thanks for

(05:22):
your time. So bundles will now be rolled over at
least once on the same terms as they were first bought.
How big a change do you think this is for
the industry and for people who use the data.

Speaker 6 (05:36):
Thank you for having me and for the opportunity to
speak to these regulations. First, let me start by saying
these rules were actually first introduced in twenty eighteen, So
what we are actually doing in those twenty twenty five
is to tighten the rules because you know, we've been

(05:57):
observing how the twenty eighteen we was having an impact,
and we then came back again after consultation to revise
and amend some of the regulations to tend them up.
To your question, what we are thinking is that the
regulations are now empowering the users, the consumers to rather

(06:20):
understand more about what they are purchasing, what the rules
are and giving them the opportunity also to lock in
that value. You speak a lot about how much you
spend on data and all of that, although these regulations
don't speak to how much you pay for the data
or how we interpret its contribution to the cost. To

(06:41):
communicate is that now there is no longer data that
is being lost when it expires. We're giving now the
consumers the opportunity to roll it over at least once,
which and also whilst you're doing that, empowering also the
operators to plan better for their network and that you know,

(07:02):
the rollover is not infinite. So the other thing is
that we also are pushing hard for consumers to be
aware of their usage. That you know, the complaint about
data disappearing also goes away, especially when we're entering into
the smartphones era where apps are probably running in the

(07:24):
background and the users are not away. Were then putting
the responsibility both on the operator to manage the usage,
say by putting in those rules that we are now
introducing tightening up actually and also for the consumers to
take responsibility on their usage. And in that way we're

(07:44):
saying then at least they lock in the value that
they've paid for.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
I don't know if you were able to do a
study on this, but do you have any protection on
how much data was being lost that now should be
used by consumers when these changes come.

Speaker 7 (07:59):
In unfortunate or not.

Speaker 6 (08:02):
We have not done the study. What we go on
is obviously on self reporting and on complaints, but we
have not done a robust study because this is now
some commercially sensitive information on one end intrusive. As you know,

(08:22):
we are regulating an industry that is quite also litigious,
so we have not done that robust study. But we
have taken upon ourselves to listen to the consumers and
also look at the practices we do as the operators
to submit compliance reports on a six monthly basis sometimes

(08:45):
called telebasis. There is a terrif report that we then
analyze just to see the trends, whether data is going up,
But we have not done the lost value.

Speaker 8 (08:55):
In essence, you.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
Also say that, for example, Stephen doesn't use his start,
he consented to Catherine so long as she is on
the same network. I know that some self networks. I
think I allowed you to do that before, but I
presume this is going to make it easier and in
a way mandatory.

Speaker 6 (09:14):
Yes, So that's why I was saying these are not
completely new. But the twitch here is that when in
the past and a user had to opt in and
you know, make any election, in this instance we're saying
that should then be automatic, and it should be free
of charge, and with especially the transfer, it should be unlimited,

(09:38):
because in the past there was a practice to say
you can only transfer so much so many times. So
we've taken that away to obviously they're all over. We're
also protecting that they roll over. Thirty days is not
now sixty ninety days. But the trans say is as
long as you've got that unused bundle, you can transfer.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
The promotions that are for short periods. You can buy
a certain amount of data for a day, two days,
a week, anything less than a week is not being affected.
Why did you do that? Is it to protect the
fact that cell phone companies will actually offer you quite
a lot of data that you could use but say
a weekend over two days, and you wouldn't want to
stop that.

Speaker 6 (10:20):
Precisely, we didn't want to take that value away as
we saw that those were the most bought bundles, and
we thought let us rather protect that and have the
consumers have that option to buy you know, five rands
and so. But on the promotion also is because you
are giving way more value within a certain TEMs and conditions.

(10:45):
And the promotions are also only for a limited period
just to introduce a service and the promotion ends and
the service stem is tested and put in the market.
But the value in those promotional boundles is way higher.
We thought, you know, you know, the cost efficiency ratio,
would make sense to then say those would not.

Speaker 8 (11:07):
Be part of these rules.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
This is only coming in next year. We have to
wait eleven months. Why is it such a long time?

Speaker 6 (11:16):
And as striking the balance, you know, we've got a
dual mandate protect consumers but also promote competition, encourage investment
and innovation. We also listened to our licensees who said
this is going to take a lot of our capital
planning to redesign the network to accommodate the rules. We
are hoping it's not going to be twelve months because

(11:39):
these rules are not completely new, but we also had to,
you know, try and be reasonable. But we are hoping.
Usually when you introduce a new regulations, you do give
it time for it to kick in. But we're hoping
it's going to be shorter.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
Catherine, thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
Indeed, counselor Catherine, She is a counselor at EKAS at
the Communications Regulator, chair of the Committee on the End
User Subscriber Chart. Twenty minutes after six listening to that,
Plesa Romolafo is a campaigner at the group Amandla dot Moby.
They've been campaigning for cheaper communications costs for some time. Palsa,
Good evening. It's a tweaking of the rules. Do you

(12:20):
think it's going to make a meaningful difference to the
lives of so many of us who rely on mobile data.

Speaker 9 (12:26):
Good evening, Stephen, to you and your listeners at home,
Thank you so much for having me. I mean, this
is great news and a huge win for consumer rights,
especially low income consumers because they are the ones that
by prepaid data bundles instead of being on a contract.
And I think this is ultimately what the Data mus
For campaign has been asking a cuta tobut since twenty sixteen,

(12:49):
and not just to cussa obviously, but the competition permission.
And I think, yeah, this is amazing news. We are happy.
This is a step in the right direction. We've had
many Amanda Dot Movie members speaking to us about choosing
between buying data and buying bread. And this shows you
how much other new data has become right now. I

(13:09):
mean children use it for school homeworks, but unemployed use
it to look for jobs. And so you would hope
that mobile network operators would see the bigger picture and
stop with their creed.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
Do we need to go further? I mean, have we
sort of are we kind of in the right place,
or do you believe there's still more room freak aster
to you know, try and drive communications costs down a
little bit more.

Speaker 9 (13:35):
I mean, when you look at where we are right now,
I would say that KASA is on the steps to
the right direction, but more still needs to be done.
People are complaining about the price of data. I mean
it's still a bit expensive, and yeah, I think KASA
can do more. Even though during these regulations we saw

(13:58):
that voter com in ed undermine the process and even
said is reaching beyond its powers, which is not true
because this is a Cassas mandate and we believe that
they have the powers to do more.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
I mean, on that point, a Nikasa just said, cell
phone firms are just there's a long history of this, Pilessa,
as you know better.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
Than I do.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
Are you worried there will be a court case in
response to this? I mean, bluntly, this is going to
cost cell phone companies money, and even if they get
a call just for a couple of months, that will
make more money in that couple of months.

Speaker 9 (14:34):
Obviously, mobile network operators are not happy with this because
we know that they are going to lose profits and
they've been ripping us off for years.

Speaker 7 (14:44):
So this is very progressive. We do know.

Speaker 9 (14:48):
We do expect, actually rather that they will try to
challenge this, and we have to keep an eye on
them and ensure that they don't try to use loopholes.
I mean we just mentioned the court. We have to
keep an eye on them that they don't do that
and actually passed down the cost onto consumers, because that
would be unfair.

Speaker 2 (15:09):
One of the things that one of the things I
think many people battle with Pelissa, I sometimes do is
I'm not sure which bundle I'm using. When you know
you will buy a bundle, then you'll buy another one
and you have two running at the same time.

Speaker 3 (15:22):
For whatever reason.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
Is there a I don't know if it's possible, But
do you think there's space for cell phone companies to
simplify the way these bundles work, particularly if you end
up with more than one at the same time.

Speaker 7 (15:35):
Yes, there should be.

Speaker 9 (15:36):
I mean they have the infrastructure and they should be
innovative in how they make they use their journey easy
for as consumers. So I think they should be thinking
proactively instead of waiting so as to support it onto them.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
We've had one or two messages on WhatsApp PLESA. I
don't know if off the top of your head you
can help. France is saying that a transfer of a
time is not allowed on a contract, only on prebaid.
Is that true? It would seem to me that might
be true. Do you know, off the top of your head.

Speaker 9 (16:09):
Off the top of my head, I wouldn't know because
I am a prepaid user.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
Okay, No, I understand.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
We are seeing a situation where over the last few years,
the price of communication, probably from around twenty twenty, has
started to really come down, and I remember what it
was before. Do you think we're getting to a point
where we're quite close to where to where other countries
are are our costs still relatively speaking, still higher are

(16:38):
we now coming into line with other countries when it
comes to data costs?

Speaker 9 (16:42):
I mean, in twenty nineteen, the Competition Commission forced mobile
they took operators to drop prices but between thirty to
fifty percent, and I think that was just a client
break cake ruling and a step in the right direction.
Although I feel like more needs to then we are
still a set behind on data pricing. It's still quite expensive.

(17:07):
So yeah, that would be my response. We need data
prices to drop significantly so that's people are priced out.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
The lesser ROMOLEVL thanks so much, campaigner at amandla Dotmrby.
I mean, one of the things that's so interesting about
this process is it affects everyone. I look at what
I pay on my cell phone bill, and for various reasons,
it's far lower than it used to be. Partly because
there's just so much free data where I work, and
if you work in a place with Wi Fi, I

(17:37):
think that really does change the game. The other thing
is just that, yes, the costs have come down, and
then of course how we make phone calls nowadays we
don't actually use cell phones for what they're called. We
often are making calls on WhatsApp, or through some other
means without even really knowing it. And in fact, that
movement of making calls from sort of old fashioned calls WhatsApp,

(18:00):
it's happened without anyone really thinking about it, and it's
happened very very quickly. I think for many people in
South Africa it was spared up by load shedding, because
sometimes someone would still be in a Wi fi area
with load shedding, but they wouldn't be able to actually
get proper cell phone reception. I remember those days are
very clearly. So much has changed into a large extent

(18:21):
improved since then. Twenty six minutes after six no money
show market Siera and Barter's an investment analyst at the
old mutual investment groups here, what a day, Good evening.
I suppose we have to start with gold at five thousand.
It's happened so quickly.

Speaker 10 (18:38):
Good evening, Stephen most certainly. I mean gold at five
thousand dollars an ounce would have founded absurd not too
long ago, and yet here we are actually having a
serious conversation about it. I think with the kind of
moves that we've seen in such a short space of time,
and you're constantly forced to reevaluate your assumptions as an investor,

(18:59):
and I guess the key question is always has something
structure changed or is this just the cyclical overshoot.

Speaker 7 (19:07):
So if I go back to.

Speaker 10 (19:08):
The end of last year, I mean just looking into
twenty twenty six, I think there was definitely a strong
case for gold to remain quite elevated at least where
it was, And crucially, many of the drivers that supported
gold last year are still intact today. But I think
really at the heart of what's driving the price movements
in the last year is really the debasement trade site.

(19:31):
So if you think about devesement in general, right, it's
the idea that when governments run persistent deficits, when debt
levels keep rising, when central banks are perceived to be
under political pressure and I'm no longer independent, then the
real value of our see it currency tin steward over time,
and so in those instances, that's when gold becomes the

(19:54):
hedge against that. And that's exactly what we've seen. And
I guess the difference now is that it's not really
limited to emerging markets, but rather it's a particular it's
really driven by the US.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
I was going to say, I mean, this is all rarely.
I mean, if Trump hadn't won the election, we probably
wouldn't be having this conversation.

Speaker 3 (20:13):
Frankly, well, yeah.

Speaker 10 (20:16):
To a certain extent. I think the question around debasement
or dollary debasement had had been or rather the questions
around that had been increasing. But it's I could just
maybe it turned back to about.

Speaker 7 (20:28):
Four years ago.

Speaker 10 (20:29):
So really the major driver behind gold has been central
bank buying, and in twenty twenty two we saw major
step change, so we saw central banks buying that buying
increasing buying gold. And really this was a result of
the Russia Ukraine crises, right because Russia and foreign reserves
were frozen. But we've seen this trend continue because of

(20:53):
the geopolitical tension, because of questions around fiscal stability, and
quite frankly, the as we've seen the moves today.

Speaker 3 (21:02):
No sure cash bill.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
They had an update today their previously existing store revenue
declined and their news stores kind of did.

Speaker 10 (21:10):
Okay, yeah, sure, I mean on the surface, the numbers
don't look to alarting, right, so group revenue was up
one percent in the second quarter, But when you actually
dig into the details, I think it's the quality of
the growth that matters, and that's where things start to
become a little bit more nuanced. So the key issue,
as you alluded to earlier, was existing stores, right, so
same store sales or stores that have been open for

(21:33):
more than a year. Sales from those stores were actually
down about two percent in the quarter, and that's important
because that tells us that the core consumer is still
under pressure and growth has not necessarily been driven by
people spending more in the same stores, but growth was
driven by news stores or acquisitions, which is is not great.
So you want to see same store cells continue to

(21:57):
arise because that's a lot more sustainable.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Indeed, Sierra and Barta, thanks very much. Indeed, investment analyst
at the old Mutual Investment Group. And quite a lot
going on in the sort of home improvement space, which
of course is driving cash build you are the Money
Show just gone six thirty.

Speaker 11 (22:12):
Stephen on seven two seven two one seven oh two.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
Well, so much going on in joe Burg at the moment,
and lots of campaigning here, there and everywhere by the
Democratic Alliance. Not so much on notice from the ANC,
although I imagine that it'll come and the other parties
will get involved. Today I think Herman will get involved soon.
I think Herman micharbad a ceremony today to join forces
with two other political formations. But I was struck by

(22:40):
his story I saw on moneyweb, and I'm almost a
little concerned about mentioning it to you because you're probably
driving home. I hope you are or nearly home at
this time of the day. Which is that it turns
out that none of the speeding cameras that are contracted
to the Joeburg Metropolitan Police Department are working. Now, would
you like to know? Three some people around me I

(23:01):
have noticed to her laughing, would you like to know
the reason?

Speaker 3 (23:04):
Would it be?

Speaker 2 (23:05):
Do you think because someone has vandalized and that would
be a logical choice, But.

Speaker 3 (23:08):
No, that's not the reason. Do you think it.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
Could be because there was a problem and termites ate
the fire that No, Tolly Keller, Yes.

Speaker 12 (23:20):
There's only one operator in the country and they've gone
to leave.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
No, that's not the reason, although very good. Put up
your hand if you think it was because someone somewhere
have forgot to roll over the contract.

Speaker 3 (23:36):
Yes, my hand is up. But I know the answer.
I mean, seriously, seriously.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
I come on, and how long is it gonna now
if you're the company, and if you think about it,
you've got a network of these things around joe Burg,
and you know what's going to happen.

Speaker 3 (23:50):
You can just sit and wait.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
You'll lose a little bit of revenue, but I'm sure
you can just sit and wait. And now they're dealing
with handwritten fines and these will be fine in a
fine book, you know, the old fashioned thing. And I'm
trying to remember the last time I actually got one
of those, and the last couple of times. I'm slightly
ashamed to say this, but once or twice I have

(24:11):
been stopped by someone who says, we are you breaking
the speed limit? And I was like, I'm very sorry,
there might be a hinter cool drink. I say no
because I'm quite adamant about that. And then they say
I could give you a fine, but just don't do
it again, and like that's it. And I realized that
maybe I'm treated better police by police officers because I'm

(24:32):
a certain age, a certain.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
Way exce understand all of those things. But it is bizarre.
I'm trying to remember when was the last time you
got a hand written fine? Can anyone remember to LL
have you ever had one once once in eight yeares.

Speaker 12 (24:47):
I hate to say this, but anytime I get stopped
by a female officer, I know I'm going to get
a FIGHTE Wow. That is the truth, Steven, It's the truth.
When it's a man, I just smile. I'm like, I'm
you sorry, and then they never give me a fed.

Speaker 3 (25:03):
You know, I was pretty.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
Disturbed by the story before. Now I am sorry. Now
I'm even more disturbed. Gosh, we should have a full
length inquiry. I don't know if toller Keller has got
enough air left for a bullet. And It's twenty one
minutes to seven.

Speaker 5 (25:18):
The Loney Show with Stephen Kruders Live on ninety two
point seven and one six FM, streaming on the Prime
Media Plus.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
NAP and DStv channel eight five six.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
Eighteen minutes to seven, the eighteen minutes to seven the
time now on The Money Show and Gold going past
the most astonishing milestone today, speeding past five thousand dollars
an ounce this morning at one point five thousand dollars
one hundred and ten an ounce. Now going past five
one hundred dollars so quickly this afternoon we start your

(25:50):
coverage of this this Evening with Peter Armitach, the CEO
of Anchor Capital, Peter good Evening. Gold went past two
thousand dollars an ounce just in twenty twenty, passed three
thousand dollars an ounce in May last year, then passed
four thousand dollars an ounce in October, just a few
months later, five thousand dollars. The acceleration in the price

(26:12):
has been just astonishing.

Speaker 4 (26:14):
Yeah, I think this is not getting into proper bubble territory.
You know, in financial markets, you see this happen to
some asset classes from time to time. We're just literally
goes parabolic and people are just buying in a frenzy
in the expectation that the price we could hire to
put it in context an inflation adjusted terms, the highest
price for gold as of six months ago as about

(26:37):
three thousand, eight hundred, so it's about fifty or sixty
percent higher than it's ever been. There are some fundamental
differences now into the central bank buying and the like,
but it's you know, to be able to use it
in jewelry is just you know, it's and a lot
of it's other uses just it's what's the child's down?

Speaker 2 (26:59):
Are you expecting that the bubble will burst at some point,
and I mean impossible question as to when that might happen,
especially as long as central banks are still buying.

Speaker 4 (27:09):
Yeah, look, I think a lot of it. There's a
double whare me for gold. One is Trump's behavior and
the effect that it's having on us confidence and the dollar.
So the weaker the dollar gets, the more people are
rushing into gold because there's no other really attractive currency
over the Swiss frank And then on the other side,
you've got very strong fundamentals in terms of you know,

(27:31):
not much supply growth and demand around the world as
emerging markets come back getting a lot stronger. So it's
getting squeezed from both sides. But gold historically has been
as volatile as stock markets, and every time there's been
a spark like this, it comes back. But it's you know,
another thing I've learnche is never to call the top
of a ball.

Speaker 8 (27:51):
Market can sink to often.

Speaker 4 (27:52):
Go much higher than you than you ever imagined, which
in fact it has already.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
Peter, There's another way to look at this, and everyone
will keep making the same point. That has gone faster,
more quickly and reached higher levels of value than anyone
ever expected. I remember towards the end of last year
people saying five thousand dollars by the end of twenty
twenty six. I thought, cheesh, that's a bit optimistic, And
suddenly we're not even were sort of in the third

(28:18):
fourth week of January. And I understand that largely it's
driven by fear to an extent, that people are worried
that governments can't pay their debt, that the value of
money fiat currency will be reduced.

Speaker 3 (28:33):
But if gold is.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
Becoming more valuable more quickly than anyone expected, is that
also a sign that people are more scared now because
things are so much worse at this point than anyone
expected them to be.

Speaker 11 (28:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (28:48):
I think it all comes back to the dollar. Yeah,
that's the source of liquidity in the world. That's some
people trade in about eighty percent of global traders in dollars,
and you know, it's point of reference. There was always
the place of safety. If things got bad in the world,
the US government bonds and the US dollar strengthens. Now
we sit in a bizarre situation where it's the US

(29:10):
government that's pousing the angst.

Speaker 13 (29:14):
And and you know, so people.

Speaker 4 (29:15):
Want to they want to get out of dollars, but
the euro is not particularly attractive, the paths not particularly attractive,
the end's not particularly attractive. So you kind of left
to the Swiss Frank, which has flown off the charts,
and gold. But the Swiss Frank is so small, it's
less than one percent of the total number of dollars
in issue. So gold is kind of weirdly operating as

(29:38):
a currency as well now, so it's filling that that's
safe haven. So people wanted a safe haven. You know,
it was often US government bonds, but because of the
because of people's concerns about the long term balance sheet
in the US, that hasn't been a place of refuge.
In fact, in Japan with what where they're balance sheets,

(29:59):
it's you know, there ones have been tanking that's spiked
as much as gold, but spark in a negative way.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
I accept what you say that you think we're in
bubble territory, and accept your reasons for it. But if
the geopolitics stays the same, if the dollar keeps going
in the same direction, if Trump keeps doing what Trump
wants to do, I mean, doesn't that support the case
for gold to stay here or even much higher for
some time to come.

Speaker 4 (30:24):
Absolutely, that could well be the case. Don't get me wrong.
I'm not saying it can't go high and it can't
go in for longer. But you must remember the things
that you mentioned aren't forever factors. You know, Trump could
be out of a sective power in six months time,
you could be out of presidency. Pull he will be
in two and a half your time. Simply, you know,
judge an age. You know, the world is cyclical and

(30:48):
conditions change. The conditions right now, as I said that,
the number of factors all conspiring to push the gold
pross up, but those factors are not forever factors. So
I mean, if you want to ride the do you
want to ride the rider coaster? It could well be
more to go. But you know, ultimately, ultimately things revert

(31:10):
to the mean and revert to fundamentals. Although you do
get the sense that there's an element of the arguments
to be using that have fundamentally change, like the Central.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
Bank buying.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
Peter Omitis, thank you so much, Really appreciate the time
CEO of bankor Capital twelve minutes to seven on the
Money Show. Well, one of the companies that's benefiting from
the much higher goal prices. Pan African Resources they confirm
today they intend to pay out their first ever interim dividend.
They've increased their production for over fifty percent in six
months to the end of December. The CEO oft Pan

(31:42):
African is Lewitscrubus Good evening, Kelly. A high gold price
having a nice big impact on you.

Speaker 8 (31:50):
Yeah, very much so and so long made of old
Bis continued, but we certainly not banking on these sort
of biss and that's why we we take the were
in forced and we reinvesting in the business. We're growing
the business. As you've said, we sort of have managed
to increase production by fifty percent in the last six

(32:10):
months versus H one of twenty five and now yes,
it's a first in terms of an incandividence to rewarding
our shoelders with a cash return.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
You say you've been able to increase production, I mean
one of the reasons gold is where it is is
because of a lack of supply. Are you able to
increase that production even further?

Speaker 8 (32:29):
Almost definitely required to increased production again in H two
and being a smaller producer, I mean we can do
what the majors can't. The majors can't increase the production
by fifty percent. You know, it's very difficult to find
the large calvial bard it's two hundred, two hundred and
fifty thousand ounces of production. But for us, if we
grow our production by fifty or a hundred thousand ounces
a year, that's incredibly meaningful.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
You say you're planning to pay back all of your
debt by the end of February. I mean, was that
something you'd ever considered, say two years ago, with gold
at maybe three thousand dollars an ounce, Is that something
you could even conceive of doing that by the end
of February twenty twenty six.

Speaker 8 (33:06):
Well, we always be quite conservative when we do our planning,
and we wouldn't generally embark on a new project if
we couldn't see a return of our capital in three
or four years. So that's really the way we model.
I mean, we took out or took on quite a
lot of date, the most actually ever on our beatting
shery to build our MTR operation out at Machali, which
had been an incredible success. Initially we'd expected to play

(33:29):
it back at sea to four years, but that project
now will play itself back in under two years, which
is incredible.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
At some point.

Speaker 2 (33:38):
I mean, if gold, if this gold price is not
a bubble, there's going to be more gold production. Won't
just be you, It'll be other people as well. We
already see people trying to make money out of reclaiming
gold from tailings and things like that. Do you have
any idea of whether there'll be a lot more gold
production coming on stream in the industry over the next

(33:59):
cup of years that surely would have an impact on
the price.

Speaker 8 (34:03):
Well, then there's a very few large scale projects that
are that are coming on stream globally. That's affect I
mean to go and do exploration and the development. I
mean extently see days the ten fifteen year sort of timeframe.
So it's unlikely you're going to see a lot of
additional production coming on stream. I mean what is to though,

(34:23):
is gold is unlike other commodities which are consumed. I mean,
most of the goal that's be minded setting in safe
so and it's clear that people aren't letting go of
the product at this point. Is as Peter said that
previousd and central banks are buying, they're viewing it at
the edge against the dollar, and that feels to me
like it's a fundamental shift now with all the central

(34:45):
banks will also so massively exposed to gold to nobody's
interesting to have that price go down massively.

Speaker 2 (34:51):
Coviz, thanks very much, indeed, the CEO at Pan Africa,
and let's continue the conversation about the gold price now.
So in Bilbopela isn't in investment research and this to
definite be wealth and investments in Bile. Good evening, and
thanks for your time. I mean, I would like to
think that many South Africans have been able to make
some money from golden gold investments during this time. Are

(35:12):
there ways to take advantage of what's happening to the
gold price?

Speaker 7 (35:17):
Evening, Stephen, thank you for having me on the A. Yeah,
I mean, we've seen such incredible sort of such an
incredible raty and the gold price, and we've seen quite
strong demand coming through not just from institutions but also
from you know, retail investors who are you know, sort
of seeking out sort of gold based ets as one

(35:42):
way to gain exposure. But you know there's also the
krug Grand sort of physical exposure to gold as well.
So they have been you know, sort of multiple ways
for investors to gain access to this searge and the
gold price that we've seen.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
I would think for a lot of people, perhaps the
simplest way, if you're already invested on the JC is
just to buy as many gold shares as you can.

Speaker 7 (36:07):
Hum and we've seen that sort of strategy pay of
quite well. I mean, the gold price has been a
boon for gold miners that we've seen outperformed the markets,
not just the gold miners but also PGNs in general.
But yeah, it's definitely been on the back of the
strong gold price more than it has been an operational
sort of story for those miners. And yeah, it has

(36:30):
really been a capital gain story more than anything.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
Is it too late to get in on the action,
do you think? I mean, there'll be endless debates about
whether gold is a bubble, whether it's got a longer
way to go. I mean, I don't know if you
make recommendations, but i'd imagine plenty of people listening tonight
will be considering if they're not already getting into gold shares.

Speaker 13 (36:51):
Yeah, I mean, so, I mean.

Speaker 7 (36:53):
We have to talk about how gold got to these
levels in the first place. You know, and it has
been a number of magnificant factors. I mean, gold has
historically been used in portfolio allocation as a hedge against inflation.
So in a high inflation rate environment, when inflation sort
of eats away at the value of assets, sort of
reducing the buying power of currency, gold helps to you know,

(37:16):
protect and maintain value in that situation. But also there's
the elements of you know, the weaker US dollar that
makes gold more attractive, especially to international holders like ourselves.
So that drives up demand and it in turn pushes
up gold prices. And so there's that sort of knitting
or that offsetting effect that creates that protective hedge. But

(37:39):
there's also been a sort of fiscal concerns around heavy
government spending that is being sort of driving safe haven
demand and driving central bank activity. So central banks we're
seeing are stucking up on gold, sort of diversifying away
from the dollar. That's been also quite a supportive sort
of up tailwind for gold price. But there's also been

(38:01):
you know, the elements of a low interest rates environment
that's also been supportive. I also already mentioned the sort
of bulk buying by retail traders are seeking out demand
for gold based ets, and so there's there's definitely an
element of the fundamentals that are driving the gold price,

(38:22):
but there's also very much an element of speculation and
quote unquote formo that's playing out in the market as well,
because you know, these are record levels that you know,
gold price just hasn't touched before, and so there is
an element of traders not wanting to miss out on
the rally, which is quite I mean yeah, but wouldn't

(38:45):
make a recommendation per se, but it is, you know,
something that you need to be very cautious about at
you know, such stretched levels, because you do see the
price is quite stretch. But again, those fundamentals are very
much still in place. So even from a technical perspective,
we still see that, you know, there might be sort
of a near term consolidation or a pullback in the

(39:07):
gold price, but the fendom so there might be a
pullback from the current lavel that we're seeing right now,
but the sort of bullish story underlying story because of
the fundamentals, is very much still intact.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
And Krueger rands, I mean you can still buy them,
I think probably the only legal way to actually hold
gold apart from jewelry, their value must have increased dramatically,
and I'd imagine there'll be quite a big market in
that definitely.

Speaker 7 (39:32):
I mean with the I mean krugerrands as much as
their coins of physical coins, they don't behave like currency, right,
they actually follow the same rules as gold. And so
with the higher gold price that we've seen, and also
with Krueger and specifically being a very low premium sort

(39:53):
of asset tritunity, they trade very close to the spot
price of gold. You've investors who are holding for sort
of seen an immediate sort of sharp valuation uplift in
rand's terms. So I mean that's the first and most
direct implication would be that significant jump in the rand value,
which is far above past cyclical peaks that we've seen,

(40:14):
you know, driven by yes, the I've already mentioned the
sort of higher US dollar price, but also there's the
impact of the exchange rates at player as well. But
I think also there's just you know, the elements of
gold not being viewed as an inflation hedge or a
sort of tactical risk of asset anymore. It's becoming increasingly

(40:35):
viewed as a sort of core store of wealth, and
so sort of holding physical gold and holding krugar rands
has those benefits of exposing sort of investors to the
yellow metal in that fair.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
Susan Bill and Bopela, thanks so much. Really appreciate the
time and investment research onunders to definitely wealth and investments.
I don't think, I mean my own view. I don't
know enough to say whether gold's in a bubble or not,
or to agree with Peter Armitage or to disagree with them.
But I will say I don't think the gold story
is finished.

Speaker 14 (41:09):
The Money Show with Stephen Quetis is brought to you
by abs A cib A Pan African Bank invested in
your story and the potential it can unlock because your
story matters APPS as a raster fsp.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
Well in a moment, when does AI get to claim
credit for your idea if you used AI to have
the insight. Also, we'll find out a bit more about
the book Dang Xipong and the Transformation of China really
an extraordinary story of something that completely changed the world.
Don't forget, of course as well. I'll shape our my

(41:44):
money person tonight. No sept Market or Vandenbrach, the founder
of Chocolate Tribe, the video agency, I should call it
the film production agency that to come. It's just gone
seven o'clock.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
And now The Money Show with Stephen on seven o two.
Let's walk little.

Speaker 3 (42:03):
The Money Show with Stephen.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
Crisis is brought to you by ABS of Corporate and
Investment Banking, a Pan African bank that's invested in your
story because your story matters. Six minutes after seven plenty
to come. We will speak in a moment too young
Famila and the editor at my broad band. It's a
fascinating concept that really gets to the question of how
do you have an idea and what are you doing

(42:26):
when you have it? And I mean the sort of
theory that I've come to accept most of the time
is to think very hard about something and then go
away and do something else. And it's why you've got
it in your head, but you're actually doing something else.
I'll be on my mountain bike, or I'll be in
the shower or something. And plenty of people who say,
and I've heard that phrase so many times, the solution

(42:46):
came in the shower. And it can be whatever it
is trying to get, you know, the light bulb and
the kid's toy to work or trying to actually solve
I don't know world peace or something, but you know,
literally from the banal to the really quite important, where.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
Does an idea come from?

Speaker 2 (43:02):
Well open, AI suggest that in fact, if you're using
chatchipt in some ways to maybe enhance a vaccine or something,
they should get some of the credit.

Speaker 3 (43:10):
Hmmm. I don't know about that actually.

Speaker 2 (43:13):
I mean if you use a tool and the tool
helps you with an insight, I mean I've never heard
of someone then saying well, the tool must get some
of the credit. Where does it sort of end?

Speaker 3 (43:24):
I mean, what if you use Google? Things like that.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
Very interesting actual conversation. We'll talk about that in just
a moment. The history of China. Things upon in the
transformation of China, the beginning of a process has had
a big impact on inflation in South Africa, the industrialization,
the liberalization, the economic freedom of China. Will speak to
in fact, Matthew Parks from Kasatu, he's been reading that

(43:48):
that'll be your book business book tonight, and then How
I Make My money nor Sport Maketto. Fan de brach To,
the founder of Chocolate Tribe. Born inswidow studied law at adverts.
Thence iodied law again at the LSE, got a master's
and found herself running a film studio. It's a really
interesting story. We have extraordinary people with really extraordinary stories

(44:10):
in South Africa. So I'm looking forward to that good
to year from you tonight, oh double one double A
three oh seven O two two one four four, six
oh five sixty seven and voice notes on seven two,
seven oh two one seven o two.

Speaker 11 (44:21):
What's app Stephen on seven two seven oh two one
seven oh two.

Speaker 2 (44:26):
So some questions on the WhatsApp line about how it
is that we're going to use the new regulations and
the casters new regulations around cell phone data. Monique saying,
how's the role over going to work? We're not giving choices.
I'm on prepaid, I'll buy data for seven days. I
have to buy a combo data that has an amount
for a day and amount at night. I lose the
night data as I don't spend my nights on the internet.

(44:48):
Whatever I lose, What do I lose if I don't
use my data within the seven days? Well, I think Monique,
everything past seven days, there'll be a real change. But
the seven day promos aren't going to change. Them afraid
to say in terms of night data, I actually don't
know the stage. This is one of those changes that
will take a little while for there to be some clarity,

(45:08):
But I think it will come, I promise, saying Stephen.
I remember my first real smartphone. It was a Samsung
S six Edge in twenty seventeen. My contract was six
hundred ninety nine Rand for one thousand minutes and one
gig of data. That used to last me a whole month.
It would roll over for another month still with around
four hundred meters four hundred megabytes. I used to be

(45:29):
on YouTube for the whole day, playing music directly from there.
Now I use pre paid. I use a Capitec five
gig data for two hundred and twenty five Rand. I
only use it when I'm at the house. When I'm
outside of the house, I use it for Instagram and maps.
But the five gig only lasts less than a week.
Quite critical of that, Yeah, I promise. I mean I
find it fascinating. You do have to check what's running

(45:50):
in the background. That is true, and that is something
that the Castle counselor made that point. You do need
to understand what your phone is doing. And almost all
of them, and particularly the androids that I know, They
do have a sort of you know where your Data's
gone function. You to go into settings to data and
go from there and I'll tell you where the data
has gone. I do find it really interesting we do

(46:12):
more and more those seem to be moving into an
era where data is both cheaper and simpler to use.
In a long mad last your stories, please oh seven
two seven o two one seven o two.

Speaker 11 (46:23):
The Money Show with Stephens on seven O two seven
o two.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
Well suggestions over the weekend of an idea that I
suppose was inevitable that open AI, the firm that owns Chatchipt,
they want to try and get more income by taking
a percentage of the ideas or insights or products that
I've created by people who are using chat Gipt and
Famuniency editor at my broadband dot dot today and Good Evening.
I'm going to get into the philosophy of an idea

(46:49):
in a moment, but first AI obviously needs the money.

Speaker 3 (46:53):
They're spending a fortune at the moment.

Speaker 13 (46:56):
Good Evening, absolutely, and you can see that the crunch
is on, because just the other week there was they'd
revealed that they're going to start putting ads in chat CPT,
so all of a sudden, we're looking at, you know,
a multi pronged approach to to revenue generate revenue generation.
I think ADS is far more short term. But they're

(47:18):
also kind of looking at going, how can we generate,
you know, a higher percentage or take a higher percentage,
or generate more income from a particular user who has
made a lot of money off of our product, and
and scale that way. And I think that indicates that's
a good indication of just the immense cost that has

(47:41):
gone into building these systems and the fact that they
are not even close to to recovering their their costs.
This is this is an this is an industry, and
a solution look really desperately looking for a business model.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
So what will they be asking customers for. I mean,
some of it that's sort of pretty I suppose easy
to understand. They say, for example, if someone uses their
models to perfect a vaccine, we should take the percentage
that I get. But a vaccine is something that would
require a lot of modeling. A lot of ideas are
sort of insights that come in a kind of a flash,

(48:18):
and I don't know how you would even start to
work out where the human insight began and where the
machine came in.

Speaker 13 (48:25):
Yeah, this is an interesting one and a can of
worm because the fact is that these large language models
are trained on human output. So if it wasn't for
the humans who came before, it wouldn't be nearly as
good at doing what it's doing now. And so this
becomes a very circular argument because you also have humans

(48:48):
lining up saying no, but CHATCHI put needs to pay
us for the stuff that we've produced that now allow
it to produce stuff that other people use. So yeah,
it's a bizarre it's a bizarre turn of events, and
I have no idea how anybody is going to prove
anything to actually make this reality. The only way I

(49:11):
see this moving forward is very much the same way
as as copyright law and other IP law, which is
that it's essentially enforced to litigation.

Speaker 4 (49:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
Well, I mean, you know, there's an old phrase that
I see far only because I stand on the shoulders
of giants, in other words, because of the people who've
done the work before me.

Speaker 3 (49:28):
And you could argue that.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
All chat GPD, all that chat GPD is doing is
helping you stand on the shoulders. It's not creating the shoulders.
It's not producing the work that went before you. It's
just helping you access it.

Speaker 13 (49:41):
Yes, and and the you know, they might come an
inflection point. You know, they're all talking about super intelligence
and other things that are going to come down the
line and and and make these things just so much
better than they are right now, and better than any
human could ever hope to be. Uh, we'll see where

(50:02):
when and if that happens. But but it's it's exactly that.
And you know, it's not unprecedented for a tool to
charge a percentage of revenue as a way to to
to finance a freemium model, But the exact terms of

(50:23):
how that works, like it's it's very clear cut. It's
based on unit sales revenue generated something like that, something
that's very easy to measure. And you've used their product
in your in yours that that you otherwise would not
have been able to develop. It's very easy to measure,
whereas with this it's it's extremely fuzzy. And and and

(50:45):
you know, going you know, if somebody used chat reipt,
you know, for you know, they were lonely and they
decided to have a conversation with chat cipt at night
and they also happened to be a cancer researcher, and
then following morning to have a breakthrough to that number
you get to cut.

Speaker 3 (51:01):
It's a.

Speaker 13 (51:03):
It's a can of words.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
The other thing that I think this might go down
an even more difficult rabbit hole that's hard to believe,
is whether or not chat chept is actually intelligent, because
one of the marks of intelligence is not just sort
of learning. Any machine can do that. It's actually about
whether you can have a fresh insight. To put it
another way, to listen to a chat chept version of

(51:28):
this radio program, I hope would be a lot less
interesting than having a human do it. And isn't that
now going to get complicated because there will be some
fight where someone says, there's no way that chatchept have
this insight because actually not intelligent. The human is intelligent,
and therefore I win in chat gpt losers.

Speaker 13 (51:46):
Yeah, and certainly you're you're going to open yourself up
to some and we're already seeing this in intellectual property law.
It gets in the United States in particular, but it's
in South Africa as well, where you know you're going
to have someone lining up going So if chattypet puts

(52:07):
up a tend and says no. But the only reason
this person was able to deliver this breakthrough, whatever it
might be quantum mechanics, whatever has earned somebody a billion dollars,
is because of our product, and therefore we deserve revenue
share on that. And then somebody else is going to
go no. But the only reason chat chipet was able

(52:28):
to deliver that insight is because of my work. A
chatchipet owes me money. It's a it's an infinite line
that only ends in depth, and even then you might
have stakes of people coming for their cut. I just
don't see how it could practically work.

Speaker 4 (52:48):
You know.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
I find the whole thing around aim interesting. For the
last two or three years, everyone's told me often on
this program. You know it's going to change the world.
This is what's going to happen next year. You'll be
lucky if you have a job. And yet so much
of my daily life is exactly the same. To be blunt,
and I may just you know, reveal that my middle
name is Luddite.

Speaker 3 (53:08):
Heah.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
The only thing that's changed is my search answers on
my phone and on my tablet device.

Speaker 3 (53:18):
Because they are actually more useful.

Speaker 2 (53:20):
But other than that, I am not convinced that artificial
intelligence has changed my life at all.

Speaker 13 (53:27):
Right, And this is where the height and the promise
of what a technology offers under the reality are often
very different. And I remember, to me, it's reminiscent of
the Internet, right, So those of us who were on
the Internet in the early days and were really experiencing

(53:47):
it and really excited about it would also be quite
hyped up about the possibilities of what the Internet would offer.
And I remember everyone from the BBC through to traditional
newspapers being extremely skeptical about this new fangled Internet thing
and how much is it really going to change our lives?
And the thing is kind of both were right, right.

(54:10):
There's no doubt that the Internet for revolutionized commerce and
revolutionized communication in ways that actually people couldn't fully imagine
at the time, right. But it's also true that it
didn't do it at nearly the speed that people were predicting,

(54:31):
or nearly the same way that people were predicting. Otherwise
pets dot com and broadcast dot com would still be
a thing. And so I see AI playing out in
very much the same way here. There's parts of it
that are going to just kind of smash smash down walls,
open doors in ways that we can't have imagined. It's

(54:52):
going to revolutionize things far more quickly than people have
predicted in certain aspects, and in other aspects it's it's
going to be much slower. But the trick is predicted
which one and if you can do that, you can
be a billionaire. But yeah, that's that's what that's what
my exercise.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
Might just be easier to buy gold the unfamilied And
thanks very much, indeed, editor at my broadband dot to day.
Such an interesting conversation. If you have any insights, please
into whether it's intelligent or not A seven two seven
two one.

Speaker 3 (55:22):
Seven o two my show business books twenty.

Speaker 2 (55:25):
One minutes after seven today. Well, if you want to
think of a process that has absolutely changed the way
in which you live and happened really far away but
in your living memory, you would probably pick and have
to include certainly among them, China and the way in
which China has changed in the last thirty or forty years,
and it all started with the leader Ding Zipong. Well,

(55:48):
there's a book called ding Zipong and the Transformation of
China by Ezra Vogel. And it is the choice of
Matthew Parks, who is the parliamentary coordinator for Kasar too. Matthew,
good evening. I don't say this often to people from
to Welcome to the money.

Speaker 15 (56:01):
Show, good evening, and you should say much more often,
how that's even think too long related compliments. So that's
the first aggreevative. Rich must call us much more often.

Speaker 2 (56:13):
I thought you'd use the gap welcome. Dange is a
fascinating person. I mean literally, you can see how the
price of bicycles in South Africa has gone down over
the last thirty years because of the things he did.

Speaker 3 (56:25):
What drew you to the book? Was it just the
historical significance?

Speaker 15 (56:29):
Well, I've been I've one of my many faults that
I have a bit of an addiction to political books,
biographies and some of the useful ways to get an
insight into other countries who will experienced similar challenges to us,
and how do they manage them or how do they
mismanage them. So lots of you saw lessons that it's
a bit of a light way to learn about other
people's histories. But you know, the interesting book. The interesting

(56:52):
thing about this book and it has very long books,
but it's on the pages, so it's not like a
light read. But it's written a very lightweight, very incredibly detailed,
incredibly researched, not biased for, biased against, just kind of
giving an objective view. And you know Dang went. You know,
when he took over in China, I mean, China was
a basket case. They had starvation set in the nineteen

(57:13):
seventies famine, you know, winter cares and to be fair
to the Chinese and Maw you know, then he hedited
a dysfunction of a former empire which had gone through
a central humidation of colonialism along the coast of Sadis Shanghai,
et cetera by the Europeans Japanese occupation during World War two,
et cetera. But really, you know, I think he is
down the road after people robber was found it it

(57:35):
was a basket case still and he had starvation, purages
of leadership, chaos, et cetera, and dying himself struggled. He
was banished to some village and too exile. His son,
I think, was thrown out of his part in Bulcany
and paralyzed. But he came back, obviously with sted all
those purges, and he basically took China and the Communist

(57:55):
Party by the scuff of the neck and modernized them.
So you've gone from the seventh a country of famine
to today's leading global eclogic power, the superhouse of the world,
you know, And there's so many interesting lessons in it
that to show you how you can change it.

Speaker 4 (58:10):
You know.

Speaker 15 (58:11):
At one stage he sent his party officials to go
to France, to Japan, to England at such a Germany
to learn some technology of one industrialized economies. Some might
complaint they stalled, but I learned from it. Now China
is a cutting edge, as you say, of technology.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
Yeah, if I may, I'm sorry to introject. So, I mean,
one of the things that I was interested in, and
I know very little about that period, is he had
to take over from Mao.

Speaker 3 (58:37):
Mao had had.

Speaker 2 (58:39):
Led the cultural revolution and millions of people in China
carried his little Red book of Mao sayings, for example,
so it made it kind of in his own image,
and he now had to take over that and that
must have been a very difficult thing to do. I mean,
I was trying to think of the closest thing I
could think of to year. I mean, you could say
Ramapaus are taking over the A and C after the

(58:59):
been sort of you know, zoomerized, but that doesn't even
come close.

Speaker 3 (59:04):
How would you do that. I mean, you could say
christ chiev after taking over from Stalin too.

Speaker 15 (59:09):
But it was and the fact that he personally had suffered.
Even Chijingping himself had been banished because of his father
when he was a teenager, sent to go live in
the villages, et cetera. But I showed you how China
kind of managed those things anyone who took over. Initially
before it took over, there a gang of four Malsitung's
widow and three other kind of hardliners. When Dang managed

(59:29):
to kind of Metisi manusfactions and asked them and then
released such kind of film in the path of re law,
it wasn't easy because people were afraid. People had been used,
you know for thirty years. This is the way we
do things, and if you don't like it, well those
banishment are waiting for you at best, you know, if
you're lucky. And he managed to there was a lot
of fear. I mean it. There was an interesting section

(59:50):
where he phoned Jimmy Carter, who was the US childudent
in the seventies, and said to Carter, you would like
to send some Chinese students US University to learn from
the US it's And Carter said, sure, how many spaces
do you want?

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
A thousand?

Speaker 15 (01:00:03):
And Dank said now one ten thousand.

Speaker 3 (01:00:05):
Sure, and the party.

Speaker 15 (01:00:07):
Commerce in China, you know a panicky Well, all these
students come back and Dank said, don't worry. If half
of them come back, that's half we didn't have yesterday.
The other half will eventually come back. And it also
featured to how he reached out to the Chinese die sport,
which is obviously very significant, you know beat in Malaysia
or Singapore, the US, and how he got them to
kind of reinvest in their home villages, helped to develop

(01:00:29):
their villages, something which I think which we've raised with
the President on past that we should be tapping into
the South African diesporta beat it in Dubai or London,
Australia wherever to come, plow back, come home for holidays.
That's what India done successfully. So the lots of useful lessons.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
And I mean things for our economy. Now, I mean
the great lesson of den was was a liberalization, just
a reminder of who you work for, Matthew, because you're
not always a favor of, you know, making things easier
at all business when.

Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
It came salaries in labor laws.

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
But what do you think, what do you think we
would learn from Deng what would be one of the
lessons for our economy?

Speaker 15 (01:01:07):
And well, here's a famous quote that says, don't word
if the cat is black or white, as long as
it catches the mice. But even within that, so he
didn't abandon socialism. He he modernized it, He made it,
he formed it to address that its failures and how
to implement it. He learned from the best of capitalism,
but avoided the worst. But it didn't abandon principle that

(01:01:28):
I think his principles was he must left out of poverty.
They must have a better life. They're not living for
fancast logans. They want to see their lives improving. They
want to see jobs, education for their kids, healthcare at
decent house, you know, decent pension and so forth.

Speaker 11 (01:01:43):
You know.

Speaker 15 (01:01:43):
The United Nations or sites China and Vietnam as a
similar path, almost being the kind of which have lifted
the most of out of poverty in a very short
space of time. You know, they really have improved people's
life in a material way, but in a sustainable way too,
because China's economy is five is growing. If they get
five percent growth in a year, that's a horror for

(01:02:04):
them that they used to seven eight percent. And also
I think he taught the party, which I think in
South Africa, you know there there's alliance we could learn
a lot from to be afraid of society. So not
to be complaisant, to arrogant because you're on power, but
to be scared of losing support of society. When you
mess up on minister Steel, you should act quickly, you know,

(01:02:25):
send them to prison or remove them whatever story is
as as oppose to us where we have endless discussions
and commissions and we'll think about it, and they don't
do much. So I think that nimbleness has really st China. Well,
he did also make a change to put in place
you know, you should have two terms in office and
then you should leave. Well that actually came just after

(01:02:47):
he left, and I think that's kind of come back
with hiding thing. I think that is one mistake that
they should be considered. But you know, so many friends
they've learned anyone the Civic Union went through. It's you know,
perstual going gladsnost. The Chinese don't from the mistakes of
the Soviets that yes it was sick the economy, but
don't lose the state and don't a little bit liter

(01:03:07):
tour the country or that's what the law.

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
Matthew from Matthew, thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
Matthew Parks, the Parliamentary Cost Coordinator for KASATU. The book
is called ding Zipong and the Transformation of China. It's
by Ezra Vogel. I should have said Isra Vogel is
the author of ding Zia Pung and the Transformation of China.
Your business book this.

Speaker 11 (01:03:25):
Week How Money Show How I Make my money?

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
Twenty three minutes now to eight the time. And one
of the things that South Africa is blessed with is
people who've lived the most extraordinary lives. And they start
in one place and they move in another direction, and
then they do something completely different to move in another direction.
And I think that description suits Nozeport marketo Vanden Bracht.
She is the founder of Chocolate Tribe, and she joins

(01:03:50):
me on the radio now Nopp Good evening. It's a
fascinating story. You have to till and thank you so
much for agreeing to share it with us tonight on
how I Make My Money.

Speaker 7 (01:04:00):
Pleasure. Good evening to you and to your listeners, and
thank you so much for having me. Sure, yeah, yeah,
I thank you so much that you also find it,
you know, a wonderful story, because as you know, I
started off as an attorney in practice and actually a
high end law firm, and in twenty fourteen I decided

(01:04:24):
to take a shot left and go into the creative industry.

Speaker 3 (01:04:30):
So yeah, I mean you started.

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
If I've understood your history correctly, you actually grew up
mostly in Soweto, which which part of Soweto was that
in Deep Clue.

Speaker 7 (01:04:39):
Fin Zone five And yeah, a very vibrant childhood. And
I mean I grew up in the seventies eighties and
the hive of you know, a lot of fun, tension
and strives in our country. And yeah, when I was
ten years old, we left the country actually, and so

(01:05:02):
when I was eighteen, we came back and I went
to this so For me, there's a very you know,
strong bond with Soweto and Johannesburg in particular, I remember
Joe Bick as you know the City of Gold. Even
with all the sort of like tensions that were happening,
I always kind of view it as if, you know,

(01:05:22):
absolute amazing place, if its potential is fully realized in
different ways.

Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
So yeah, no, sure, I mean there's something about the vibe.
I think that Cape Town frankly, and we're broadcast in
Cape Town as well tonight, of course, So I say
this as loudly.

Speaker 3 (01:05:38):
As I can that Cape to off it just doesn't
seem to have You.

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
Didn't just stop with an LB. I mean you are
passionate enough about law to do a master's. I mean
that's that's a lot of passion, a.

Speaker 7 (01:05:49):
Lot of passion. I mean I often tell people the
story that for me there was a natural connection between
law and film or creativity. I mean one of my
colleagues once said, you know, lawyers are failed actors, you know,
So I did. I actually went to Birthburg College, University

(01:06:10):
of London to do a master's in law, and while
I was there there was actually an elective called Laws
Moving Image and it was really about how, you know,
film can move people, and you know, can change laws
and can change people's minds and hearts. So I think
it was that moment when the penny drops, that there's

(01:06:31):
a possibility to kind of you know, milanj or collect
all my my my, you know, aspirations and passions. And
I was also married to, or still a marriage to
a you know, an artist, so there was always this
deep love and kind of like fascination with the artistic world.

(01:06:52):
And so for me it was an easy I don't
want to call it a transition because I feel like
I still live in both worlds. I'm still my com
and his lawyer, and I, you know, do all the
you know, contractual work and at the same time, you know,
feast on all the wonder and joy of being in
a very you know, vibrant creative space.

Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
So what you do now is tructor tribe. And I
was trying to think of the best way to explain it.
But you do you make sort of parts of movies.
Would that be the right way to describe it?

Speaker 7 (01:07:24):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
The I don't know, do we still use the phrase
c GI or is that a little twentieth century if
you sort of put together some of the really complicated
technical parts.

Speaker 15 (01:07:37):
True.

Speaker 7 (01:07:37):
True, I mean like that's that's a great, you know explanation.
I mean, we create assets to the service of the story.
The thing with us in the VFX and even in
the animation space, we really want to create mesmerizing worlds
and characters that push the story forward and just the

(01:07:58):
mess you know, audin into that. I mean, if you
imagine the Avatars, the Lord of the Rings, and I
mean even regular stories. The point is how can we
capture your mind and heart as we tell the story.
So the effects is really the art and science of,

(01:08:19):
you know, capturing the audience in a fantastical way in
a way that you know, imagination can travel as far
and as wide as possible.

Speaker 2 (01:08:29):
So yeah, I mean it is amazing how big that is.
Over the holiday season, for various reasons, I found myself
rewatching the Shrek series and enjoying them as much as
someone on the wrong side of fifty as my children were.
And look, we were all watching them again, we've all
seen them before. But there's something about animation. There's a

(01:08:51):
K Pop Demon Hunters at the moment, which is really
just caught the imaginations and I'm afraid to say the
playlists of so many people. It's really quite a powerful medium.

Speaker 7 (01:09:03):
Absolutely absolutely, and I think for me why it's so powerful,
particularly at this time of our lives in South Africa
and in Africa, is the fact that, you know, for
the first time, it feels that our stories really really matter,
and the global stage is ready to hear them and

(01:09:25):
is open to, you know, getting to know us through
that you know method of storytelling, and I mean what
it's done. As much as you might think you're on
the wrong side of fifty, I think all of us
are children, you know, and we should always embrace that
sense of wonder and that sense of no curiosity. So

(01:09:48):
I definitely think we are at a beautiful time in
terms of creativity, where there's an openness. It's no longer
seen as you know, like creativity was often seen like
this little sort of two secret. You couldn't really openly
come out and say you're an artist or a creative.
People just thought you were crazy and you didn't want
to actually take on a proper job and do what

(01:10:10):
everybody else was you know, doing, which is being you know,
a grown up in a sense. So I think we
are at a golden age of creativity. And what I
would like to actually see, especially from an African and
a sal Aftan perspective, is us telling those mesmerizing stories,
those stories that humanize us, but that also allows us

(01:10:31):
to fly and just explore our imagination beyond stories of
struggle and stories of you know, colonization. Those stories matter absolutely,
and they're important for us to tell them, but I
think what's also important is for us to be able

(01:10:51):
to open up our aperture for a fantastical method of storytelling.

Speaker 2 (01:10:59):
Yeah, a way, what happened in the past matters, but
our dreams matter too, and I don't know if we spend.

Speaker 7 (01:11:08):
It is and that's it, and that's really what for me,
animation and VFX is about. It's about you exploring those
recesses that have been closed off because a lot of
us grew up in places where you know, it's bread
and butter issues and that kind of you know, is
reflected on the kind of stories that we tell. And

(01:11:31):
I reiterate those stories do matter, but there should also
be a widening of our perspective and ability to explore
and go to you know, spaces. You always tell people
that the thing about animation and VFX. Is it allows
you to get into an intergalactical space, you know, spaces

(01:11:51):
that we never knew existed, and now we can create
those worlds. Now we can dream and we can actually
see them in reality. And that's really important for any
human imagination to be able to have that level of freedom.

Speaker 3 (01:12:05):
And so yeah, yeah, that just the transition.

Speaker 2 (01:12:10):
So you're a lawyer, you've got a master's in law
and your husband, your partners working in the visual space,
in the creative space. Did it happen quickly? Was it
was there one conversation. Did it happen over six months?
Was it a period of a decade that made you

(01:12:30):
actually change direction in this way and want to work
with him?

Speaker 7 (01:12:35):
If I'm being one hundred percent, I never really thought
of working with Rob. I always thought, you know, quite
like his sort of Dutch background, very you know, formulaic,
and so for me, I'm like, oh, yeah, you know,
this is a little bit and at the same time

(01:12:55):
very creative. And so it was a series of converse
fation and I think there was also a constellation of
stars in terms of where we were in our life
as a couple. We had just returned to South Africa,
and we'd had our third child and we were trying
to think how do we go beyond, you know, in

(01:13:17):
terms of our dreams and aspiration, and he was transitioning
in the company that he was at and I was
going through I guess some level of you know, crisis
in terms of I wanted to be more than just
a lawyer. I absolutely love being a lawyer and what
it's done for me, and I'm very appreciative of all

(01:13:38):
the people along the way. However, I wanted something bigger,
and so we set for you know, months and months.
I can openly say there were nights and days where
we ate tinted fish and you know, because we were
building this thing together. So it was a series of conversations.
It was a lot of sweat and you know, discomfort

(01:14:02):
because we were not sure whether we were crazy or
you know, going to you know, do something that was amazing.
So I'm very grateful that it has, twelve years later,
materialized into this wonderful community of artists, and you know,
it's also changed how you know, African VFX and animation

(01:14:26):
is seen. So yeah, I'm incredibly proud to be a
couple working together and having created an amazing thing such
as a chocolate tribe. We see it as our fourth child.

Speaker 2 (01:14:39):
So yeah, I've got so many questions about how the
industry has changed in those twelve years. We're going to
come to that in a second. Nocipo makto Vandenbracht is
telling you about her career on How I Make My
Money on The Money Show eleven minutes state.

Speaker 14 (01:14:54):
The Money Show with Stephen Curtis is brought to you
by abs A civ A PanAm. Get back invested in
story matters.

Speaker 3 (01:15:06):
How does the rest fsp.

Speaker 11 (01:15:09):
How many show?

Speaker 1 (01:15:10):
How I Make My Money?

Speaker 2 (01:15:12):
Nine minutes to eight on The Money Show Speaking to
Funden Brachi, founder of Chocolate Tribe No Sipul. You've been
running the studio for twelve years and the technology behind
what you do has changed immensely in that time. What's
it been like to sort of keep up because the
image that you can create, the imagination that you can

(01:15:36):
give life to, has changed dramatically, and you really do
have to be on a par with everyone else in
the industry.

Speaker 7 (01:15:44):
Absolutely. I mean, I think right now the sort of
biggest and most topical change is in relation to AI
and real time rendering. I mean we have to sort
of like, is it back to the fact that you know,
the streaming revolution that happened from like twenty.

Speaker 13 (01:16:08):
Twelve to.

Speaker 7 (01:16:11):
Now has kind of you know catapulted you know, the
sort of like tastes of audience to from TV to
feature film and how we are able to create you know,
a lot more high end VFX because when it was
still TV, you know that there wasn't much of a

(01:16:33):
demand for high end VFX, and so the technique and
the you know, the sort of like requirements were of
a lower quality. But now because even episodics on the
likes of Netflix have to be of higher quality, that
meant that there's a lot of investment in terms of

(01:16:56):
you know, the technical requirements, but also software and hardware.
And then the most sort of the greatest movement now
is in relation to AI and how do we render
images in real time and forto realistically so that when

(01:17:18):
you look at it, you know, you cannot tell which
is real and which is you know, created by AI
or even by you know, a human hand. So I
think that's where we are, and as you know, this
has kind of like created a fiority of conversations from
ethical conversations to you know, employment and you know security

(01:17:44):
and all of that. So there's been a leap. I
think the film industry is one of those industries that
are often undermined in terms of innovation, and people don't
understand that there's such a great movement within a short
space of time that now even the likes of you know,
James Cameron, when they are filming something, they can actually

(01:18:06):
see the VFX live on their cameras. Whereas before you
would then film something, hand over the plates to the
post production team and they'd have to do what they
need to do from the VFX and editing. But now
there's like real time rendering where you see what's happening
almost you know, close to what the audience will be

(01:18:27):
seeing on screen.

Speaker 2 (01:18:28):
This is a strange question, but I mean we're probably
quite close to Niro where anyone with a big Apple
laptop can create a very very high quality animation movie
and sort of send it to Netflix.

Speaker 3 (01:18:39):
And that's fine, but it kind of kills the industry.

Speaker 2 (01:18:43):
I mean, it's it might be slightly different, I suppose,
but musicians will tell you that they make far less
money now because the Spotify model doesn't work for them
as much.

Speaker 3 (01:18:52):
As it did.

Speaker 2 (01:18:53):
And I mean, does that worry you? I mean, for
a start, there's going to be a lot more high
quality content than there's ever been. In kind of stick
out from that, it's going to be harder.

Speaker 7 (01:19:03):
Sure. I think the thing is that the industry has
been shifting for the past twenty years. Certainly, those who've
been in the industry for a lot longer, you know,
speak of the glory days of their sex where you know,
there was a lot more budget and a lot more
kind of like investment in terms of craftsmanship, and I

(01:19:24):
think now there is We are definitely, you know, concerned
in the sense that how do we embrace change without
necessarily almost copying out Because one of the biggest issues
that are really critical for us as chocolate tribe is
to empower and upscale the next generation. And how do

(01:19:47):
you upscale you know, a generation when that skill is
shifting itself, you know. So I think there is you know,
a I want to say and unease with the fast
pacedness of AI. But I think we are taking it
in our stride as a company and we are learning

(01:20:11):
how do you you know, manage this kind of change
and at the speed that it's happening. But for me,
I still think, Stephen, nothing is going to beat the
sort of like human heart and soul that is poured
into a piece of art. I often also tell people
that when you and I make art, we are making

(01:20:31):
it for each other. It's a human conversation. So when
I'm looking at a Picasso, you know, there was something
that Picaso was saying in his art, and he's talking
to me, and you you know, he's not talking to
an inanimate object or an algorithm or a data set.
He's talking to another human. So I think for me,

(01:20:52):
as much as you know AI being a tool and
all the other different innovations, they are there to help
us expedite processes. But the human hand and the human
heart must be steeped in our art and in our experience.

Speaker 2 (01:21:09):
And no seople, if you come across someone you know
towards the end of high school seventeen eighteen nineteen, would
you suggest to them that they do the safe thing
and do law? Would you suggest they give animation a try?
I mean, should they try and do both?

Speaker 7 (01:21:27):
I would honestly say that in this then age is
really important to be multi faceted. I think we live
in a world where having you know, a band of
skills is really important, and so while if they're really
passionate about law, I would say go ahead and do it,

(01:21:50):
but at the same time, you know, learn rust of
other skills. Especially when you're younger, I think you're more agile,
you're more open, and all of that. But I think
as you get older, you kind of taper into you know,
a specific field or specific aspect. And even with you know,
I often also talk about not just young people, I

(01:22:12):
also talk about second time career, you know, people who
may not have realized their dreams because they went into
a traditional career that their parents or society wanted them
to go into. I often say, you know, it's also
the moment for you to explore different, you know, careers,

(01:22:33):
because we are in that age where you can, you know,
you can look at more than just being sort of
like a one trick pony. If so, I would definitely
say go ahead, do a law, but also be as
open as possible to especially from a technological fight to innovation,

(01:22:54):
and explore that as as widely as possible.

Speaker 2 (01:22:58):
No people A really enjoyed talking what a story. Thank
you so much, really appreciated. No MARKETO. Vandenbercht is the
founder of Chocolate Tribe. Well, yeah, the story is starting
out as a lawyer, now running still using the law,
of course, but running the creative agency. They do all
the special effects and things like that, the technical bits
for some of the top movies coming out at the moment.

(01:23:20):
Really is an amazing story. And as I say, as
so many people in South Africa who've done so many
different things.

Speaker 14 (01:23:27):
The Money Show with Stephen Kuetas is brought to you
by abs A cib a Pan African bank invested in
story matters. That does the raster FSP well.

Speaker 2 (01:23:41):
In the US markets do seem to be recovering a
lot coming up this week. There the Dow jones zero
point four to eight percent, the naztak up point seven
to the s and P five hundred up point six
one at the moment, and of course, still so much
attention on that gold price and so many people interested
in it. Five thousand and ninety nine dollars eighty five

(01:24:01):
cents an ounce at the mom just below that fivey
one hundred dollars announced level. As I say, six months ago,
you could never have predicted that I'd be starting with
the phrase five when we got to the actual goal price.
Is amazing how things changed.

Speaker 3 (01:24:17):
More, of course, on The Money Show tomorrow. Good evening,
it's eight o'clock

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