Well, following on from the drama of my last newsletter and travels, I rolled safely into my province on Wednesday this week, new tyre and all, after spending a couple of nights halfway in a tiny village in one of those 100-and-something year old hotels. Many of these very old establishments have stories and mysteries and ghosts. This one was no different. It is known for a donkey who just walks into the pub some evenings. Which it did the one night. Very sweet and gently it was. Just stands there, wanting a pat. Didn\u2019t order anything though\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A last point around my flat tyre and Roadside Assistance: I have subsequently learnt this week, that I would not have qualified for Roadside Assistance from my short term insurer, even if I had called in the first place. This because my motorbike is only insured for Third Party, not comprehensively. So maybe it\u2019s back to the AA for me so that the assistance is on me, not the vehicle\u2019s level of insurance. Just a thought in case there\u2019s something in it for one of you reading this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You might have heard this week about an American Bank that collapsed, being sold in the end for USD1. Much of its business was lending to start-ups and Venture Capital businesses, which carries a fair degree of risk. Some of these enterprises didn\u2019t work so well and then together with the bank\u2019s credit rating being reduced, they could not honour client withdrawals. i.e. they didn\u2019t have enough money to pay everyone out who wanted their deposits back after people got scared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now I have mentioned on more than one occasion that our money can be safer in a good unit trust fund, or share portfolio, than in a bank. Why, because you own something good, you are not lending your money out. Remember our deposits in a bank go out the other side and are lent to people to buy stuff they can\u2019t really afford, or who don\u2019t want to use their own money. If someone cannot keep paying their house off, the bank can take it away and sell it, getting their money back. Same with your car. But they don\u2019t want to take someone\u2019s business back. They don\u2019t want to have to try sell a business, because they know they might never get their money back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before you worry too much, South Africa\u2019s major banks are very safe and well run, managing their lending well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well, following on from the drama of my last newsletter and travels, I rolled safely into my province on Wednesday this week, new tyre and all, after spending a couple of nights halfway in a tiny village in one of those 100-and-something year old hotels. Many of these very old establishments have stories and mysteries … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weekly-thoughts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinmurray.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinmurray.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinmurray.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinmurray.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinmurray.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kevinmurray.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152,"href":"https:\/\/kevinmurray.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151\/revisions\/152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinmurray.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinmurray.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinmurray.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}