Two economies, two paths

South Africa is pulling back from a fiscal cliff with credit rating upgrades. The US under President Donald Trump is becoming a banana republic marked by incompetence and corruption.

Godongwana's budget statement

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana presents his Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement on Wednesday, twenty-first October. It sets the fiscal framework and policies for the next three years.

Precious metals boost revenues

A rally in gold and platinum group metals prices has boosted Treasury revenues. Revenues reached thirty-nine percent of budget in the first five months of the fiscal year versus thirty-seven percent last year.

Mining taxes surge

Income taxes paid by South Africa's mining industry soared one hundred twenty-three percent to fifty-three billion rand in the twelve months to the end of June.

First upgrades in two decades

South Africa has received its first credit rating upgrades in two decades. S&P Global Ratings lifted its rating in November last year and maintained a positive outlook for future upgrades.

Fitch and Moody's follow

Fitch upgraded South Africa in June this year. Moody's altered its outlook to positive from stable. All three major ratings agencies now rate South Africa two notches below investment grade.

Why upgrades matter

Credit upgrades lower borrowing costs and make more funds available for government services. They signal growing international confidence in South Africa's ability to keep debt at sustainable levels.

The debt stabilisation goal

Godongwana must make a convincing case that South Africa can stabilise its debt at eighty percent of gross domestic product within the next two years and bring it down from that peak.

Growth remains elusive

South Africa's economy contracted zero point two percent in the second quarter of this year. The International Monetary Fund revised its growth forecast for this year down to one point zero percent.

US debt spirals out of control

When Trump began his second term last year, US national debt was thirty-six point two trillion dollars. In August this year, it surged past forty trillion dollars. That's nearly four trillion dollars in nineteen months.

America's debt-to-GDP ratio doubles

America's debt-to-GDP ratio now approaches one hundred twenty-five percent, about double its average for the past seventy-five years. At current growth rates of two point three percent, it cannot grow its way out.

Bond yields tell the story

South Africa's ten-year government bond yield fell about twenty basis points to eight point nine percent.US ten-year Treasury notes rose one hundred twenty basis points to five point two two percent over the same period.

“Trustworthy borrowers with solid finances and honest leadership pay less. Distrusted borrowers with disordered finances and corrupt leaders pay more.”

Trump's wealth and conflicts

During Trump's first year of his second term, he amassed more than two billion dollars in new wealth.

“During the first year of President Donald Trump's second term, he amassed more than $2 billion in new wealth.”

The Boeing and Qatar deals

Trump bought Boeing stock in February before announcing China's purchase of two hundred planes from the company. Qatar gifted him a four hundred million dollar plane after he brokered a luxury golf course deal there.

South Africa's green shoots

South Africa remains plagued by criminality and corruption, but green shoots are emerging. The prospect of further ratings upgrades and growing investor confidence in the country's economy is taking shape.

The bond market's reckoning

The US is on a completely different trajectory from South Africa. Even the issuer of the world's reserve currency may soon learn that the bond market takes no prisoners and offers no pardons.