Category: Economics
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Counterfeit Food – The Horse in the Cow
DNA sampling of 27 commercially available meat products had horse DNA in them. One product had a third of horse meat in it.
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Jobs of the Future : Humanity Required
Artificial intelligence, robots and software simply do our jobs better than us. I’ve experienced this first hand. At first technology automated the agriculture, then it automated manufacturing and now it’s automating white collar work.
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Central Bank Digital Currencies will Pump Privacy Coins
The world as we know it is in flux. This is very true of the financial system. It’s inertia has led it to point where it has to has change or collapse.
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Top Five Must Read Books about Veganism
I am constantly amazed by the incredible perspectives the vegan philosophy encompasses, and perhaps the best way to get this insight is to read books about the subject.
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Vegans should own Bitcoin
Vegan and Bitcoin are two words that you’ll never find in the same sentence. Even though these ideas seem quiet disparate I reckon there’s quite a bit of overlap.
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Workers still being killed in Meatpacking plants
Still to this date we’re seeing numerous cases and COVID-19 deaths in the food system, but it’s horrendously bad in the meatpacking sector. Its so bad that it leads the pack by orders of magnitude.
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Central Bank Digital Currencies will Fail
There’s been a lot of talk around central bank digital currencies lately. That’s not surprising given that the world is experiencing massive financial turbulence. In fact world powers are looking for any way out of their current financial woes.
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Artificial Intelligence CEOs Needed
By now I think we’ve all felt the impact of automation and artificial intelligence in our lives. In its’ simplest form we’ve dealt with something like Siri, an AI that can answer questions for us, and at its’ most complex we’ve seen an AI beat the most talented GO player in the world.
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Bitcoin vs the Rand Currency
During the late 90’s I remember that I could buy a pack of cigarettes for about R4 ($0.25). These days if you want to buy a pack of cigarettes you’ll pay’ll around R50 ($3.12).
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Why CryptoCurrency Adoption is Slow in South Africa
I believe in the transformative power of cryptocurrency. I think that it can fundamentally change our society for the better.
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Support Workers and the #BoycottMeat Movement
News reports around the world highlight that we are failing to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control. In fact, things are getting worse.
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Anarchism – The Best Form of Democracy?
I see the term Anarchism popping up more and more lately. But what does Anarchism mean? What’s it all about?
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Is your Retirement Policy Safe?
This week I decided to check in on my retirement policy and see how it’s doing. After all with the stock markets being so volatile our policies could fluctuate drastically.
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The Green King – A Book about Greatness
There are many novels that have an incredible story, compelling characters and big ideas. But there are few that do it so well.
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I Need One Bitcoin to get to Mars
This is the week that SpaceX will be taking two astronauts to the International Space Station. It is a pity that launch was cancelled on Wednesday due to bad weather, but it’s looking really good that on Saturday 30th of May, astronauts Robert L. Behnken and Douglas G. Hurley will reach the International Space Station.
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“I’m out of a Job” – The First Time I saw a CMS
The first time you utter the words “I’m out of a Job”, there is a panic and horror that overcomes you.
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The BDS Movement and Veganism
As I continue my Vegan journey, I learn more about the nuances of it. I learn about deeper definitions of the term, I learn about the philosophy a behind it and I in particular I learn about how it’s connected to other ideas.
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Is a University Degree Useful?
I completed my degree in 2007. It was a BCom Informatics specializing in Economics. I choose this degree because it had a good balance on Information Technology and Business Subjects. This seemed like it would be very useful for the future.
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Is your Money Vegan?
You eat vegan food, you wear vegan clothing, your household is vegan, but have you considered if your money is vegan??
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Your Taxes down the Drain – Dairy Farmers Dump Milk
We all remember seeing those terrible photos of dairy farmers dumping milk down the drain. The first thing that many people said is “why don’t the dairy farmers just give the milk away”. We couldn’t understand why during crisis farmers would let food go to waste. As it turns out there’s a number of reasons. […]
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Protect Our Workers
A good few weeks ago we started getting reports that workers in slaughterhouses and meat plants were getting rapidly sick with COVID-19. Many operations all across the United States by companies like Tyson, Smithfield, JBS and Cargill began experiencing massive upticks in the amount of workers that were getting sick.
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Be the Cause, not the Effect
I was chatting to a friend recently, and he is always talking about things he is doing to improve himself. Sometimes what he mentions sounds totally weird, but many times what he mentions is totally Brilliant.
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Tokensets – Automating Trading
I am a holdr, but the one thing you learn real quick with holding your stash is that you don’t get interest from it. The value of your crypto really depends on whether the price of it goes up or down.
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No Meat May starts Today
It is the absolute perfect time to start trying out a Plant Based Whole Foods lifestyle. It has never been easier. No Meat May, just as the name says is all about people refraining from eating any animal based products for the month of May.
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Starlink – Internet for the World
Starlink has been in the news more and more lately. For those that don’t know, Starlink is the latest venture by SpaceX. It’s goal is to bring high speed broadband internet to the farthest reaches of the world. That is something that is sorely needed in the world.
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The Absolute Easiest way to get a Masternode
As much as I am knowledgeable about the cryptocurreny space there is still a lot I don’t know about it. There’s also a lot that I am aware of but never got around to working on. One such thing happens to be masternodes. Now that COVID-19 has freed up some time, I’m looking more into this.
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Saving Money versus Making Money, Which is Better?
It’s always easy to find tons of information about how to make money, and it’s always easy to find tons of information on how to save money. But rarely do we find information that discusses the subtle relationship between these two. And the distinction is indeed quite important.
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Have your Cake and Eat it
A big challenge in growing wealth, is that the assets you acquire only have single purpose utility. You can use it for one thing and one thing only.
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How to Convert ETH to 1UP with Uniswap
I think Uniswap might be a the best Dapp I’ve seen to date. Mainly because you can easily swap an ERC20 token with any other ERC20 Token. I’m going to show you how to swap ETH for 1UP.
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Earn Crypto-Currency and Donate it to Vegan Causes
Luckily there does seem to be something you can do to aid your Veganism whilst we’ve have all this downtime : Earn Crypto-Currency and Give it Away to Vegan Causes and Businesses.
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My Bitcoin dropped 40 percent in value because of meat!
The past few weeks have been rough. The COVID-19 virus has been spreading surprisingly quickly, financial markets are in turmoil, stocks have tumbled, governments are taking drastic action and crypto currencies took a beating. We’re getting whacked from all sides.
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How to maintain your Optimism
There are so many things happening in the world right now that are scary and downright frightening. The uncertainty weighs heavily all around us. In times like these its more important than ever to be able to have a positive outlook. It becomes so critical to be able to control your mindset and focus on the best possible outcomes. However that is easier said than done. Hence I wanted to talk about how to maintain a positive outlook.
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Why I like BAT, and why you should too
Browsers are broken! Furthermore, the way we consume content is broken. If you go on to Facebook, and you browse around, then many nefarious things are happening to you. You are being tracked, your data is stored, and it is sold to advertisers who in turn use that information to sell you stuff that you don’t want.
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Elon Musks’ Grand Plan
Elon Musk has interests in a myriad of stunning ventures. Everything from electric vehicles to artificial intelligence. With this vast array of successful businesses, you’ve got to ask yourself; what’s it all for? where’s it headed? and are these ventures all interconnected? Everything from electric vehicles to artificial intelligence. With this vast array of successful businesses, you’ve got to ask yourself; what’s it all for? where’s it headed? and are these ventures all interconnected?
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Will Epidemics drive an increase in Veganism?
The very last reported case of Listeriosis in South Africa happened not too far from my farm. Even though that happened in 2018, it’s something that is still fresh in my mind. If you don’t know, Listeriosis is a mild to deadly bacterial infection you can acquire when consuming meat and milk. Over two hundred people died from eating Listeriosis contaminated meat here in South Africa. Many of those were kids.
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If Corporations Invest in Art, Shouldn’t You?
I have worked in a number of corporations throughout my career, and I found it quite odd that many of them had these remarkable art galleries. It really took me by surprise, but nevertheless being an artist myself I was extremely happy to explore them. I never really enjoyed working in corporations so the opportunity to spend my lunch hours surrounded by art was fun. Perhaps I was distracted by the art but I never really asked myself why a bank or a telecommunications company would want art; until now.
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Why the World will be Vegan-ish
There are a lot of arguments for going Vegan. Off the top of my head I can think of five; climate change, animal welfare, enhanced health, addressing income inequality and spirituality. But there is another reason that doesn’t get touted enough. I believe that this reason hands down dictates that the world will be Vegan-ish. There is no doubt that this reason will in actuality be the driving force that turns the world Vegan-ish. The reason is quite an unexpected one : Economies of Scale!
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Have you Perfected a Skill?
There is a strong relationship between perfecting a skill and freedom. Many people don’t see it, but it’s there, and it’s important. In fact it’s so important that if we fail to master a skill or even just come close to it, then we will fail to unlock some of our biggest opportunities. This is something that I learnt very early on.
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The BDS Movement and South Africa
Freedom day, the 27th of April 1994 is a significant date in South African history. This is the year that South Africa become a free democratic nation. After enduring three decades of the Apartheid regime people were free to live their lives, and all were allowed to vote in free and fair elections. The struggle heroes of the time were applauded for having played an important role in bringing about change to the country.
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Always Keep Going
I learned a long time ago, that life is not a bed of roses. Many times it seems as though everything is against you. But all those bad thoughts, you’ve got to put out of your mind, and just keep going. And if you keep at it, sooner or later things are going to come your way. Sooner or later you will get want you want. Sooner or later you’re going to break down that door of hardship and get to the other side to success.
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Radical Declutter : Streamline your Life
Modern day consumerism has had the unfortunate effect of straddling all of us with unnecessary stuff. We now have masses of stuff that we don’t need, that’s outdated, out of vogue and just plain useless. And this is a pity and bane because it actually consumes not only our time, effort and money, but also our thoughts.
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The Opportunities of Open Source
Open Source mainly refers to software. It’s this idea that code for software is freely available and open for modification. Hence the name Open Source. Ergo, it also means that the software itself is freely available too. Yet Open Source software still hasn’t reached mass adoption; and I honestly wonder Why.
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The Simplest Way to go Vegan
You’ve watched “The Game Changers” or “Cowspiracy”, or you’ve just read the latest IPCC report on Climate Change or maybe you’ve even been intrigued by some Vegan friends. And now you want to give this Vegan thing a go. But where do you start, and how do you start in a meaningful way so that you know you’ll see results?
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Greening the Planet
Seven years ago I was very fortunate to partake in a local version of a broader global initiative called the FoodisFree project. I joined a meetup group that was trying launch one of these community gardens in the area. It was so cool to engage with a diverse set of like minded people who wanted to produce something of value.
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BIC Art Master Competition : Africa 2019
At the beginning of this month I was really pleased to see a post about an art competition in my Instagram feed. The competition was by BIC to produce some artwork about Africa. This really piqued my interest on so many levels. Competitions are cool because they give you the opportunity to push yourself a little harder and inevitably you always end up with artwork that is better than usual.
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Leveraging the Gig Economy : AirBNB
AirBNB has indeed been a massive boon to me. It has allowed to me increase my income, and it has taught me a lot about running a business, being a great host, and even how to maximize the use of my property assets. In this day in age, where costs are running rampant and traditional rentals aren’t as profitable, it’s good to know that services like AirBNB provide better value.
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Getting Started with Bitcoin for Beginners in South Africa
It’s a very odd thing, but even after a decade of it’s existence, when Bitcoin comes up during a discussion I still get a lot of people asking me how they can acquire it. I always wonder if this is a uniquely South African thing, or that I take it for granted that everyone knows about Bitcoin. This article gives a very simple primer of how to acquire some.
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Maslow’s Hierarchy Redefined
I often look upon this pyramid of Maslow, and consider the vast potential it contains. Right now, as it stands, it is a model of human needs, but I think it better serves us to highlight what we should aim for. We should strive for the pinnacle of pyramid “Self Actualization”, rather than struggle at its base.
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One of the Best Speeches Ever :”A Time for Choosing”
This is perhaps the best speech I’ve ever heard, and even today its resonates as powerful. Whatever you may think of Ronald Reagan, you have to admit, he was great speaker.
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The Sun Exchange, Retirement and Investing for a Solar Future
The Sun Exchange will launching a new solar panel investment for a retirement home in Cape Town. This is a great idea because as a younger generation, we need to look after the older generation, as this demographic is going to have a massive impact on our nations very soon. More than we could possibly realize.
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The Culture Trap and How to Escape it
Its quite astonishing to realize that modern day culture has supplanted many valuable aspects of older cultures. This has been so effective, that GenXers and Millennials find these valuable aspects of the older cultures to be outlandish. This is the culture trap, and we need to escape it.
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The 15 Hour Work Week
The economist Joseph Keynes posited a hundred years that we would all only need to work fifteen hours per week by the year 2030. I believe we can get there, however through a different mechanism than he thought of.
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How Veganism solves Social Inequality
Using Maslows Hierarchy of needs as a starting point, we see how we can use Veganism to reduce food costs which is one of the major household costs. Reducing these food costs, its the biggest step towards financial stability and then social equality.
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Acquiring my Tesla stock for ‘Free’
Technology is opening up possibilities and breaking through boundaries across the board, all to the benefit of us citizens of the world. What’s even better is that all these technologies are starting to work together quite seamlessly.
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Bitcoin : leveling the play field between novice and expert
Cryptocurrencies in particular are still so new, that many people from professional investors to novices have the same knowledge; they’re now on the same level playing field. It’s a great equalizer and that means for once the quest for wealth is really about survival of the fittest.
Jae Subramoney 