I.am.not.making.this.up💥 Why do (some) dumb ideas never die? www.timcohen.co.za/i-am-not-mak...

I.am.not.making.this.up💥Righteous capital: buying your way into the kingdom of compliance The Department of Trade and Industry is reportedly considering a voluntary way of “shortcutting” black economic empowerment regulations, which would allow unlisted companies to bypass some aspects of ...

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I.am.not.making.this.up💥 Enshittification, reloaded * Here is a big question: what is artificial intelligence going to do to website income, and how will that change the internet?  The problem with big, global, tough questions like this is that the qual...

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I.am.not.making.this.up: 💥 If only there were a global forum … oh wait There is no question that the world is in a period of global geopolitical flux. If only there were a global forum where you could hear the world's leaders address these pressing challenges and propose...

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I.am.not.making.this.up💥The Prince and the perils of candour: Ramaphosa’s painful confession We got treated to some wonderful evidence this past week about the abstruse dangers of political honesty.  When President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed thousands of ANC councillors and mayors from across...

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I.am.not.making.this.up💥Reset, not romance: Inside the GNU’s awkward peace During a press presentation on Friday, MTN CEO Ralph Mupita made a brief comment, almost in passing, about the various kinds of questions he gets on his international roadshows. He’s currently on one ...

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I.am.not.making.this.up 💥Smoke and Mirrors: The glamour, the grift, and the smoky lies we tell ourselves When I smoked, I was always somehow convinced that the act of smoking made me seem more attractive. When people asked why I smoked, I would respond, “Isn’t it obvious? I just looked so much suaver, br...

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PODCAST 📣 Listen Up! Is South Africa disintegrating, and would a kiss cam help? The news of the past week has been worrying, from the crisis in the police, to more news about the construction mafia, to South Africa getting bad press internationally. In this podcast, Mark Barnes ...

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You can’t handle the truth — but the bond market can Why is the truth so difficult? American journalist and social-political activist Gloria Steinem once said, “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.” And that captures the heart o...

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I.am.not.making.this.up: 💥 BEE or Bust? SA’s Empowerment Dilemma in the Starlink Spotlight If the Starlink debate has done anything, it has rekindled South Africa’s long-running, anguished and contested debate about Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and affirmative action.  Confronted with ...

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I.am.not.making.this.up. 💥 Fact checking the fact checkers: truthiness in the age of verified outrage Following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s theatrical meeting with Donald Trump on Wednesday last week, there has been an absolute outpouring of “fact-checking”. It's been a tidal wave: interviews, opinion...

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I.am.not.making.this.up 💥 Bling, books, and base politics: The strange symmetry of Trump and Ramaphosa In the end, they both came away with a book. The much-heralded confrontation between SA President Cyril Ramaphosa and US President Donald Trump, which one US diplomat anticipated would be an “unmitiga...

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After the Bell: Casting off — my last Bell at Daily Maverick My most enduring, most heartfelt thanks goes to the readers of this column who have been fabulously thoughtful, reactive, instructive and supportive of some views which at times have strayed, I’m prou...

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I.am.not.making.this.up💥: What Milei got right, Trump got wrong, and Ramaphosa can't afford to miss There are few things more fun than seeing economists having a fat go at each other and getting proved wrong by history. Perhaps that’s an overstatement; the spectacle of economists arguing is perhaps ...

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I.Am.Not.Making.This.Up💥: Fingers of cheese and fingers of blame - the transatlantic tiff nobody ordered One of my favourite comic writers, Dave Barry, recently wrote an article on his substack entitled Summer Vacation Travel Tips. It has the subtitle, “I honestly don't have any.”  In his comic way, Bar...

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I.Am.Not.Making.This.Up💥: From Pepfar to perdition: sorry Elon, but you are in fact harmful Some time ago, I was granted a one-on-one interview with Bill Gates, the renowned entrepreneur, healthcare buff, and global philanthropist, as everybody knows. To say this was a rare honour would be a...

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I.am.not.making.this.up 💥 Don't Poke the Bear: Ebrahim Rasool and the art of diplomatic self-sabotage One likes to be open-minded and free-thinking, but for reasons of diplomacy and decorum (especially if it’s your job), there are things you just don’t say, especially on a recorded zoominar.  If you ...

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I.am.not.making.this.up💥: South Africans are ghosting the news - but why now? Something odd is happening with the readership of South African news websites; it's dropping like a stone. Why? Is that globally unusual? Will it come back? Who, or what, is responsible? I think most...

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I.am.not.making.this.up💥: The ghost of Neville Chamberlain smiles on Washington Foreign policy is often so carefully hedged and circumspect and subsumed by niceties, that it's hard to follow. But then suddenly, there is a moment which penetrates like an icy knife into the very he...

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I.am.not.making.this.up💥: VAT’s all, folks! The hot mic that exposed Treasury’s tax turmoil Thank goodness for the occasional hot mic. What politicians say all over the world is now so scripted, and controlled, and preordained, that it's a pleasure when a politician, or banker, or anyone in ...

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I.am.not.making.this.up💥: Chainsaws, weirdos, and the shrinking state - why maverick leaders are winning Or... why is reducing the size of government becoming a vote-winner? If there was an iconic image of elections worldwide in 2023/24, it was the Argentinian president-to-be Javier Milei snarling at th...

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ICYMI: 🔔 The harsh mathematics of land reform in SA President Donald Trump’s executive order on Friday offering to resettle Afrikaner “refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination” invites the question: Is there a violin small enoug...

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I.am.not.making.this.up💥: Sun Tzu vs the two-headed Hydra, or How does SA outmanoeuvre Trump and Musk? What should South Africa do in the face of the sudden emergence of the two-headed Musk/Trump hydra from the depths of the underworld?  Well, I think it's worth asking the expert in this field, Sun Tz...

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I.am.not.making.this.up💥Behind the Blackout: The paranoia fuelling SA’s latest load-shedding crisis Just when South Africans thought load-shedding was a thing of the past, it has returned. It's like the Creature from the Black Lagoon or any other horror movie villains - they always return because we...

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I.am.not.making.this.up💥: A compendium of commentary on DeepSeek Like a huge number of people on the planet, I have been delighted to tear myself away from the craziness that is President Donald Trump’s first fortnight in office to read extensively about DeepSeek. ...

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The most interesting (and conflictual) panel at Davos 2025: Kganyago vs Armstrong on crypto The broad ethic of the World Economic Forum’s meeting every year at Davos in Switzerland is about being constructive. The forum prides itself in being a problem-solving institution, which can make it ...

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I.am.not.making.this.up💥: Trust bust 2025 - grievance is the new black Trust is important. Everybody knows that. Writer and academic Stephen Covey, the author of the best-selling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, wrote perhaps the last word on trust: “Trust i...

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I.am.not.making.this.up💥: Five years of Brexit: neither boom nor doom, just a slow swoon? There is a widespread but terrible journalistic habit of ending analyses with “Only time will tell”. It's the ultimate cop-out; if something is too hard to decide, just say it's too soon to do so.  Th...

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I.am.not.making.this.up💥: Trump card or Trump trap? Should we fear the second coming of the Donald - or welcome it? It's four days until the US presidential inauguration day on Sunday, Janaury 20, 2025. How, one asks oneself at a moment like this, could one alienate the maximum number of people in the minimum amoun...

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I.am.not.making.this.up💥: The elephant in South Africa’s foreign policy room What is it about foreign policy and elephants? It's perhaps not the most common analogy cited when discussing foreign policy - maybe chess is the most frequently used as in, “Diplomacy is the art of k...

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