South Africa Unexpectedly Slides Into Recession For The First Time Since 2009

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South Africa has long teetered on the edges of the 1st and 3rd worlds.

Indeed the globe for the past two decades has watched the largest economy in Africa with a mixture of hope and (as one says) trepidation. The hope has been that South Africa, rich and with favorable geographic factors going for it, could survive and even thrive in the post apartheid era. The hope was that it could overcome the fate Zimbabwe, neighbor to the north (also once relatively rich) has found. Right now however, with property rights very much in doubt (such rights form the foundation of a civil society) given the recent land seizures by the government, with Cape Town, one of the world’s great metropolises literally running out of water, with crime rampant, and what appears to be an (even more) ascendant crony class, things don’t look good for the country.

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