Beware the Ides of a Ramanomics March

Last Wednesday was the 74th day of the year. Yes, the infamous Ides of March, more commonly associated with Julius Caesar’s friends and colleagues abruptly expediting his passage to the next dimension. The day was observed as a religious holiday with a cleansing element to it. An often-overlooked aspect of the significance of the day within Roman culture is that it was traditionally debt payment deadline day. Caesar paid his debts to his Senate colleagues in blood currency. Extremely Russian mafia. I’ve often wondered about the date on which Shylock from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice went to collect his pound of flesh from Antonio, the anti-Semite. I like to believe it was an Ides of March-inspired move.

I was raised by parents who couldn’t have been more different in their approach to debt. My father, EB Ngcobo, had a pathological aversion to debt. Staying on an English literature theme, he was an adherent of the Silas Marner approach to money, that is, money is meant to be worked hard for, used sparingly and put away for a rainy day. If this is not the epitome of financial responsibility, I don’t know what is. The only problem is that when the rainy day did come — and rainy days came like clockwork — he would question the gravity of the rain on the day. And so, even when our sofas were becoming a safety hazard, my father didn’t waver. Not even when my maternal grandparents damn near suffocated inside the canyons in the cushions.

My mother lives by a different creed. A far more Antonio approach. Before the week was over there was a delivery of brand new sofas from Morkels or Geen & Richards.

In 2023, I do not know how many people can afford to be financially responsible where debt is concerned. If the events of the past week are anything to go by, it’s a global phenomenon. At the time of writing, Oprah had lost a whopping $590m (about R10.7bn) in the US’s latest banking catastrophe. I can’t imagine the cojones required to be the bank executive who makes that call to break the news. Oprah doesn’t suffer fools gladly. I can see how quickly that call morphed into a Teams session with President Joe Biden, Pope Francis, former president Barack Obama and TV personality Gayle King.

Hell, $590m is a lot of money. Our president could pay about 30-million recipients their monthly R350 stipends to start thriving ice-cream enterprises and put Nestlé out of business. But $590m could also buy more than 40,000 Ankole cattle, depending on whose farm the auction is held. And our president has proved to be torn between citizens and cattle.

These are the realities of the New Dawn or, as I like to call it, Ramanomics. I have never been more inundated with requests for personal loans. No, I’m not referring to significant amounts. Five grand here, a grand there and sometimes just R200 for petrol on the eve of payday. Sometimes I get these small loan requests from the unlikeliest sources; academics, corporate executives, medics ... And if you think I haven’t texted anyone in the past two years to help me with cash flow issues, you would be wrong. Bang for buck has shrivelled to the size of a gnat’s kidneys. Just the other day I saw a cabbage on special for R39.95. That’s R40 for some convoluted flatulenceinducing leaves.

Everyone says that lending to or borrowing money from family, friends, colleagues and other close acquaintances is a terrible idea. I call that Duh News. By the time your friend comes to you seeking a thousand bucks (s)he has been rejected by the Absa banking app, Cash Converters, the local loan shark and their mother on Sassa payment day. Giving them money is a terrible idea from inception.

David Josephson lent his buddy Colin Blacher R2.5m in 2015 on the proviso he payed it back with interest. When the buddy only paid back R2.1m in instalments, the Western Cape High Court ruled that actually, he didn’t owe his friend R3.8m, including interest.

Apparently, it had been Josephson’s duty to perform his own due diligence regarding his friend’s credit score. I can’t think of anything more capitalist than this. In simple terms, lend money only to people with the means to pay it back. In other words, if two people are trying to borrow money from you, give it to the guy who needs it less desperately. That’s a neat summary of our banking system, I think.

I’m willing to put my head on the block here and proclaim that in this Ramanomics era, more people reading this have a personal loan situation not registered with Fica. Someone is giving someone the runaround about “that R500 from the other day” and acute amnesia has set in. (“When did I borrow five hundred bucks from you?”) As a rule, borrowers suffer from chronic forgetfulness while the lenders seem to eat their Omega-3s religiously.

About 20 years ago I bummed

R20 off a colleague to buy lunch from the canteen. His debt collection skills were impeccable because each time I got up from my cubicle around 1pm he’d get up to inquire if I was going to the canteen. Within two days, exhausted by the payback rigmarole, I had no option but to pay him back. I have no way of confirming whether the date on that fateful day was March 15.

But $590m could also buy more than 40,000 Ankole cattle, depending on whose farm the auction is held. And our president has proved to be torn between the citizens and cattle