South Africa and India are in the BRICS club .Both countries held elections in May last year. India swept away the old order and elected the business friendly Nahendra Modi, South Africa decided to go for more of the same very left of centre and generally hostile to business regarding policy. No reform agenda here. I thought I might draw your attention to the currency pair of these two countries INR per 1ZAR . It appears that since the election the ZAR has deteriorated more sharply than previously. I realise that like Brazil, South Africa is heavily dependant on commodity exports but they believe in big government here and big trade unions ,some of which seem hell bent on destroying the Gold mining industry at the present time. All of the parastatals are in dire straights, where the CEO's at Eskom and South African airways to mention two are changed every three months or so. A quote from Thomas Jefferson seems appropriate in this context: "My reading of history teaches me that most bad government comes out of too much government"

David Fuller's view

Thanks for your appraisal and the splendid quote from Thomas Jefferson.  It is certainly true, from South Africa to the EU.  Re BRICS: Jim O’Neill quips that his acronym could now be reduced to just ‘I’ in terms of governance and performance.  My guess is that he still backs China, as well, although command capitalism and command markets can be unnerving.