Spreadsheet Ranger

The process of making much-needed changes to legislation in the diamond sector has stalled, and this is being blamed for the woes of the local cutting and polishing industry Four years after a previous mineral resources minister, Susan Shabangu, admitted that the Diamonds Amendment Act "had not yielded sufficient results" and promised it would be reviewed, nothing has happened. A state-owned entity, the State Diamond Trader (SDT) was established in terms of the act in 2005. Its purpose is to buy up to 10% of run-of-mine diamonds mined in SA each year and sell them to black cutters and polishers to promote local beneficiation and empowerment. The diamond industry regards it as a costly and irrelevant bureaucracy imposed on producers and beneficiators, and the SDT is looking at ways to improve its effectiveness. The regulatory torpor in the diamond sector mirrors the lack of urgency in concluding the Mineral & Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) amendments, first proposed in 2013. There is a separate office, the SA Diamond & Precious Metals Regulator, which facilitates the buying, selling, import and export of diamonds through the Diamond Exchange & Export Centre. It also aims to increase access to diamonds for local beneficiation and promote participation of historically disadvantaged South Africans in the industry. Before the SDT was established, De Beers subsidiary Diamdel RSA supplied aggregated cuttable rough diamonds to 106 cutting and polishing businesses outside its sightholder network. It closed in 2007. Ernest Blom, chairman of the Diamond Dealers Club of SA, says the number of cutters and polishers in SA has dropped to about 200-250 today, most of whom are black, from about 4,500 15 years ago. SDT CEO Futhi Zikalala Mvelase says the numbers need to be interrogated. She is sceptical about the figure of 4,500. She says it was inevitable for SA’s cutting and polishing industry to have evolved over the past 15 years, just as it has in other countries. In Belgium, for example, the number of cutters and polishers has fallen from about 25,000 to 1,000. In SA there are more one-or two-person businesses than there were before, and the SDT wants to help them to grow into larger entities, she says. The SDT’s most recent annual report shows that of 47 companies to which it sold diamonds in 2015/2016, three were "growth and transformation" companies, 20 were small black-owned entities and 19, who accounted for 76% of sales by value, were larger beneficiating companies. Zikalala Mvelase says those larger companies had empowerment of 20%-30%, but were not wholly black owned. Last year the SDT bought 3% of locally produced diamonds, well below the 10% envisaged in the legislation. It made a loss of R3.1m for the year, more than double the previous year’s. Zikalala Mvelase says there was a severe downturn in the global diamond industry for the first three quarters of the 2015/2016 financial year, which affected the SDT’s customers and its income. Small cutters and polishers in SA, like those in other countries, found it hard to get funding, and offtake was weak. John Bristow of the Global Diamond Network believes the SDT serves no function in its current form, since it is not managing to grow the number of historically disadvantaged cutters and polishers — in fact, the industry has largely been destroyed in the past few years. Another problem is the red tape associated with the functions of the SDT. Bristow says there is a desperate need for a comprehensive review of all legislation relevant to the junior and small diamond sector, including all related facets, such as the SDT. "Unless this happens soon, and practical enabling policy is implemented, this industry, along with the broader junior mining sector, will end up on the scrapheap." Blom says there have been no discussions with the local diamond industry about amending the legislation. The model for the SDT is wrong, which is why it has not succeeded in growing the downstream industry, he says. It can only buy run-of-mine production, which includes a proportion of smaller and lower-quality stones that the local industry cannot beneficiate. Zikalala Mvelase says the department of mineral resources is aware that legislative amendments are needed, specifically on the issue of buying run-of-mine production at fair market value. But the department has to complete the MPRDA amendments first. Blom says abolishing the SDT would not necessarily help the industry, since there are other contributing factors, such as SA’s inability to compete. Asked about merging the SDT with the regulator’s office, Zikalala Mvelase says it is one of the questions that has been raised in the discussions on how to improve mechanisms for growing the downstream industry. Source: businesslive.co.za

The introduction last year of bond notes, which the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe claims have a par value to the US dollar, has helped the bank regain core monetary policy functions such as printing currency and influencing the direction of interest rates. When the country dropped the Zimbabwean dollar in favour of multiple currencies to end hyperinflation in 2009, then governor Gideon Gono’s role shrank. At the time, that came as a relief because of Gono’s tendency to print money at a furious pace. Economists say the newfound monetary power of John Mangudya — who replaced Gono in 2014 — is nothing to worry about should he exercise restraint; but others are sceptical. So far, Mangudya appears to be managing the amount of bond notes in circulation well. The central bank claims bond notes are backed by a US$200m Afreximbank facility, which limits its ability to print beyond that. However, inflation is another matter. The country’s inflation rate broke into positive territory for the first time in two years in February this year. Gono’s major failure was his inability to keep inflation in check and to defend the value of the Zimbabwe dollar against major currencies a decade ago. Mangudya has avoided the pitfalls of running the printing press excessively. But he may be tempted. A severe cash shortage is piling pressure on the central bank to ease the crunch. It’s a temptation Mangudya has resisted to date, but that hasn’t been enough to stop inflation from increasing, which it has done since February. Economist Prosper Chitambara says: "We have seen inflationary pressures rising and this is largely because of the introduction of bond notes. If the bank doesn’t increase the amount of bond notes in circulation, inflation should be held in check." Inflation rose to 0.75% in May, up from 0.5% in April and 0.2% in March, a worrying development for investors. The International Monetary Fund expects inflation at the end of the year to be at 5%, a figure Chitambara casts doubt on. "I think inflation will exceed 1% this year," Chitambara says. That doesn’t sound like much, but it is enough to send shivers down the spines of Zimbabweans, for whom hyperinflation — which wiped out people’s savings — is still a fresh memory, though the country has been more familiar with deflation in recent years. Mangudya may be playing it safe. But with 2018 elections in the offing, there are fears that President Robert Mugabe, who is known for pursuing questionable economic policies close to election time and for making populist policy announcements, may lean on him. Mangudya could be forced to throw caution to the wind and run the printing press beyond the $200m backed by the Afreximbank facility. Chitambara concedes there is pressure on Mangudya to print money. "But also I think the economy is going to grow. That might mitigate pressure on printing bond notes," he says. "If there is an increase in money supply, it must be accompanied by productive growth. What definitely is not sustainable is growing money supply without increased production." Instead of bond notes, banks are overburdened with bond coins that cannot be used to buy foreign currency, which has traditionally become a store of value for Zimbabweans in tumultuous economic times. Economists say Mangudya is being smart in that regard. Though he might be sticking to the rules in terms of how much money he introduces into circulation, he is also printing money indirectly. He has issued treasury bills and sold them to banks, which are happy to take up the paper because of a credit crisis in the market. The central bank, through its Zimbabwe Asset Management Corp — a special-purpose vehicle for debt takeover — has taken over more than $800m in nonperforming loans from banks, leaving them in a fix. "There is a consensus in the market and it is not a secret that the [bank] balances are not backed by actual cash any more," MMC Capital founder Itai Chirume says. All electronic balances are discounted against cash in the market. A premium rate ranging from 12% to 20% is paid by people seeking cash. Against such a background there is a lot of fictitious money in circulation. The central bank has just honoured payments for maturities on treasury bills. With more maturities and limited investment choices in the market, the equity market has benefited. But how long will Mangudya’s game succeed? Many fear inflation could rise faster next year as more electronic money is created to finance government expenditure. This year alone, $600m worth of treasury bills have been issued to finance government operations. Source: businesslive.co.za

The leaked e-mails seem to reveal a criminal enterprise that we all know exists. What I do not understand is the fact that there is no criminal investigation into this. So why are they still free to roam?

This guy! Nice nickname!

27846.68 SC Done. Now we sit back and hope this takes off.

https://obelisk.tech/preorder/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/siacoin/comments/6k3gnj/obelisk_presale_is_live/

Anyone have any info on Rolfes? Should I hold on?

Sweet stuff!!!

The ANC in Gauteng says the concept of white monopoly capital does not exist in the party’s vocabulary and believes the term is being used as a distraction to deflect from incidents of state capture. This weekend the province held its policy conference where it made proposals on strategy and tactics, organisational renewal and economic transformation, which would be presented at the National Policy Conference this week. On the topic of economic transformation the Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) cautioned against the use of policies that bordered on populism. “The conference has made it clear that there is nothing called ‘white monopoly capital in our vocabulary,” said provincial chairperson Paul Mashatile. “The use of some of these concepts and terminology smacks of populism that creates confusion within our ranks”. The province said the ANC had always taken a firm stand against monopolies, regardless of the race of those running them and that the framing of monopoly capital around whiteness was a distraction also aimed at framing the leadership contest around something. Last week, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa also criticised the use of the term saying it was an invention of highly paid public relations companies to protect their clients who had been accused of state capture. While Ramaphosa did not mention any names, he is understood to have been alluding to the Guptas who hired the services of international PR company Bell Pottinger to sanitise their image when allegations of state capture started surfacing against them. Gauteng is only expected to release a comprehensive list of its proposals later this week. Part of the document will include the province’s definition of Radical Economic Transformation and how it believes the concept should be pursued. Deputy provincial chairperson David Makhura said Gauteng did not agree with calls for a Constitutional amendment to allow expropriation without compensation. “We will not come in from the point of view of those who think the Constitution must be amended or who think without compensation. We believe in the fact that a lot of the failures that we can be critical of ourselves [over] are failures of implementation,” Makhura said. With the gathering focusing on policy matters, Gauteng leaders said there were no discussions on the names of prospective leadership candidates or on calls for President Jacob Zuma to step down. At the opening session of the conference on Friday, the plenary hall at the St Georges Hotel was filled with the sound of delegates singing songs in support of deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa and others singing pro-Zuma songs. Provincial leaders said this show of split support for the two leaders was not to be interpreted as a sign of divisions within the province. Makhura said Gauteng ANC members agreed unanimously on the policy positions taken and that, ultimately, it was policy alignment that would decide the province’s choice of leaders. “What we always measure, what is likely to be the positions on leadership are the positions on substantive issues,” Makhura said. “From this policy conference, there is no dissenting voice on substantive issues”. Source: https://mg.co.za/article/2017-06-26-gauteng-anc-rejects-the-use-of-white-monopoly-capital-as-a-concept

How good are you with some more advance stuff? I want a easy to understand tutorial on how to use https://github.com/nicehash/nheqminer, because their documentation is written like horse bum. Edit: Seems that project is abandoned, instead I would like to run https://github.com/nicehash/excavator

Copy paste using "Paste as plain text" Otherwise it brings the font in from the website and looks fugly.

Hello, I am in the market for a new TV, currently my TV is a 42" LED. I am looking for something in the 65" plus range and came accross this Hisense 70" TV (M7000 | 70M7000UWG) Is this a good TV? I have a dedicated sound system so I am not too phased about sound quality, image quality is my only concern.

I do not see Civic in Jaxx, how do I activate it?

My gosh. I did not realise Vinny Lingham is behind this! I want to rather partake in this!

I am still on the Ledger train, I will just wait a little longer before we order. Definitely want one.

Did not know Jaxx supports it.

That sucks, I was thinking of getting some as well today. What wallet do you use for them?

Just heard back from Ledger. Hello , We just got your message, thanks for writing in! For the past weeks, the growth of the cryptocurrency space has been incredible and demand for Ledger's product went through the roof. This resulted into a massive order queue (there is currently a 6 weeks lead time on all our products) and in a very large number of customer support tickets (ranging from where is my order to questions about functionalities of our products, but also coin support requests, issues on transactions, devices etc). Normal questions and normal tickets but at a x10 scale minimum. This sudden growth came a little bit surprise, and while we were already in the course of scaling our operations, it clearly wasn't enough. As of today we have several hundreds of unresponded tickets with an already 48h waiting time. We are of course doing what we can, but we are severely failing at delivering a first class support regarding responses time. Three new customer support agents are arriving in the coming days and it's going to help a lot. We are recruiting as fast as possible but it takes an incomprehensible amount of time. We thank you for your patience and understanding while we are scaling our operations. Ledger's first goal has always been to deliver maximum customer satisfaction, and while we are clearly behind at the moment, these difficulties are only a by-product of our extraordinary growth, and not at all a lack of will.

Office

Make sure it is a https link.

My thinking was if we are 10 people, then I will PM us all with the BTC address and then each one send a proof of payment to the group. since none of us is here to make a buck, we simply just want a cheaper way to get the Ledger, I want to mail them and ask if they have bulk pricing for us.

Yes we are, but realistically this will be either by the weekend or Monday there is a few others who said they will comment here by Friday. On that note assume we go Ledger S, I will mail them and ask if we can pay in bitcoin then we all pay to BTC address A and then from that address we pay Ledger. (That way all is transparent.)

Ledger Nano S is 58.00 Euro excluding their TAX and excluding shipping. Trezor is 89 Euro excluding their TAX and excluding shipping. Not sure what shipping is all I know is I want to split it with others.

With crypto picking up quite a bit, I am thinking of doing a bulk buy with some other forum members. I personally want to get the Ledger Nano S for a start or the Trezor The Ledger Nano S can store the following coins: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, Ripple, DodgeCoin, Zcash, Dash etc. Ledger Nano S - https://www.ledgerwallet.com/products/ledger-nano-s Trezor - https://trezor.io/ @BitcoinZAR are you able to bring these in or should we look at UPS/DHL shipping. So far: @Purply @Spreadsheet Ranger (Plus 2 other IRL people.) @Tyrone @Wazar

Yea @Androux123 has one.