The taxi strike is over without the City of Cape Town having sacrificed the rule of law. On the other hand, Zuma once again received a “get out of jail card for free”. Moving on swiftly to more news snippets from near and far; the average monthly rent in Manhattan is $5 588 (R105 278). This is a new high and you probably feel grateful for living in Cape Town at the moment! I recently met a lady who works in London. She is 28 years old, works in social media content creation and earns R1 400 000 per year. She says she cannot afford to live in London, so she rents a two-bedroom furnished apartment in Cape Town for R13 500 a month and has a remote-working agreement with her company. She has to go back to London four times a year and the company pays for two of those trips. The recent taxi strike will certainly impact tourism: if headlines are screaming news such as “British doctor shot and killed in Cape Town amid violent taxi strike protest”, you cannot expect prospective tourists not to notice. Living in Cape Town may be cheap; but there are other prices to pay.
Looking on the brighter side of life: our days are becoming longer, with more sunshine and warmer weather. This brings the promise of an abundance of wild flowers on the West Coast and a generally lighter mood all around. The inflation rate in the USA is dropping and it looks as if the strong economy and sustained employment rate will save us from a deep US recession. Unfortunately, the rand is back to the mid-eighteens and our resources companies are still not delivering.
To end off with more news from the brighter side: it is Rugby World Cup time. South Africa will once again have high hopes of winning it – again – and even though we do not have a good kicker, we might just do it!
