You're listening to Strictly Business Podcast with Lindsay Williams.
The JSC has closed its doors for another day, so it's time for the five o'clock
shadow.
And as always on a Thursday, I speak to Viv Govender from Ransuisse in
Johannesburg,
and to David Shapiro from Sasson Securities, sometimes in Johannesburg, but
a moment in New York,
and very soon to be in Boston.
Viv, I've got to start with you because something happened this morning which
ignited markets,
and that was a China stimulus.
package, which we knew was going to happen.
We didn't know the extent of it.
But can it last, Viv?
Because it's done a few good things.
It's taken people by surprise.
Yeah, look, I would always say that this is basically like giving somebody
adrenaline when they have a broken leg.
It's going to help ease the pain and make everything better in the short term.
But, you know, it's not going to really solve the real problem.
And I've talked about this, I think, a number of times on this show.
The problem with China is that they have...
Look, in the U.S., you can have Biden, you can have Trump, you can have, you know,
Joe Schmoe off the street running the U.S.
economy.
The U.S.
government, it really doesn't matter.
The underlying entrepreneurs of the U.S.
are not scared of whoever is in charge.
You know what I mean?
Elon Musk will make fun of Joe Biden because they'll make fun of Trump when
basically he's in power.
It doesn't really matter.
But in China, it's different.
When you offend Xi Jinping, you basically disappear for three months.
and come back and give up your company and go teach English, I think, in Japan, like
Jack Ma did.
You don't get a chance to basically get the disapproval of the premier without
having some consequences.
And the problem is in China is that the person running the country at the moment
seems to have gained a lot of political power,
but he doesn't seem to have the competence to run the rest of the economy.
And I think that is the real underlying issue in China.
For those that don't know, he's changed the way the Chinese government has worked.
for the last several decades.
It used to be you take two terms.
The first term you are basically in charge.
The second time you have almost a deputy that's going to be the next leader.
And then when you retire after two terms, he has one term as in charge, and then
there's a deputy that will be the follow-on leader.
He has stopped doing that.
So this is his third term.
He's totally removed all kind of opposition to him.
And in fact, he's basically gone out and made sure that they're all gone.
And so basically he's in charge and he's doesn't seem to know how to operate this
economy.
It's more control, less startups.
The startup numbers in China are absolutely shocking.
So yes, all these things in terms of stimulus, good for the market in the short
term, long term, the Chinese economy in very big trouble.
Okay, and David, I'll bring you in on this one before we get to America and politics,
because I've spoken to a couple of people over the last couple of days, and one
person, and I'm going to mention his name, Magnus Haystack, who's been,
he's a slightly controversial figure, but I like him.
And I like the way he talks because I understand him.
There are several people in my podcasting life.
There's Viv Govender, there's David Shapiro, there's Wayne McCurry, and
there's Magnus Haystack.
And there are a few others.
But they talk sense and I can understand them.
And if they were salesmen, and I'm including you two here, I would say, okay,
where do I sign?
Who do I make the check out to?
Because you make so much sense.
And he has suddenly gone from 12 years of being underweight, SA Equities, to saying
maybe.
We should be looking to shift a little bit.
Yeah, I interviewed him today, and he's controversial because he speaks his mind.
But David, if there is a stimulus in China, and if they have run down their
stockpiles of commodities,
and if the economy does do better and they need to replenish those stockpiles, then
it's so good for South Africa.
And look at the rand, for goodness sake.
So tell me.
Well, you don't have to buy South Africa.
You can buy commodities.
You can buy global commodities.
Gencor, sorry, I mean Glencore doesn't operate in South Africa.
BHP doesn't operate in South Africa.
Anglo is very little.
So, I mean, you don't have to buy South Africa.
But if they're cheap, David, then...
No, no, no.
I'm with you.
I'm saying you don't have to...
that's not South Africa.
You're buying commodities.
You reckon there's going to be a turnaround in the commodity markets.
There are hundreds of commodity companies around the world.
So...
We get this distorted view of our market, you know, that this is the place to be.
First of all, you've got to then make a decision on platinum, and you've got to
make a decision on iron ore.
Yes, Kumba's very cheap, but I mean, if he says, look, I'm going to nibble at some of
the commodity markets,
I can buy that.
You know, I can buy that he might be taking a position in Billiton, but that's
a global position.
That's not buying SA Inc.
That's not...
buying our economy, which is still, I think,
under enormous pressure because structurally it's been knocked for 30
years.
You know, there's so much work that has to be done.
So I think you've got to differentiate the two.
You know, if he's going to buy it, does he want to buy British American tobacco?
You know, does he think that that's going to benefit?
Or a booze company, you know, ABN,
so I think just be careful about getting too optimistic on,
I'm not knocking South Africa, I'm saying, but it's a certain area that could benefit
if China does decide to.
to pull all the leaders.
Just to clarify, he wasn't saying go out and buy South Africa.
He said that maybe he's starting to look at it, and he didn't mention particular
stops.
He did say mid-camps but didn't go through them.
He just said that he and his company are looking at it.
So don't think that I'm saying that Magnus Haystack has gone out with Brenthurst
Wealth and his clients to do it.
He's not doing that.
Viv, do you agree with what David said?
To some extent, I mean, in the short term, I think there's, forget how far back we've
lagged versus everyone else in the world.
We're like amazed that we are able to produce electricity every day at the
moment.
You know what I mean?
Low-chip city.
Every single country in the world that has a semi-functional government is able to do
this, right?
I honestly do believe it doesn't take a lot to really make South Africa a lot more
attractive than Israel.
I don't think it can solve the long-term problems of unemployment and so on.
But I think a significant, you know, really… a big boost up in terms of things
like, you know, the local economy, employment, et cetera,
not to the point at which we're going to be like some 10% like we should be, is
doable if we just get things in order.
But, you know, just today, speaking of this year,
I don't know if you guys saw yet another issue we had with the GIDU,
yet another mayor has been kicked out by the ANC, you know,
Alliance DA Mayor, and Swade has been kicked out.
I think the H-Colors, the Shabas guys,
and the vulnerability in this country because of the GNU,
which is pretty much what's been holding up the economy or the market right now,
what's been holding a lot of optimism, even Iran, I think, is benefiting from it.
That is such a vulnerable thing.
So, yes, I think we could solve problems, but the risk in South Africa remains too
high for the moment, I think.
We punch way above our weight.
You know what I mean?
We go to the UN and Cyril gets on top there as though he's a leader of the whole
of Africa.
You know, Lindsay, Africa is 48 to 50.
I can't remember.
I keep losing count how many nations there are in sub-Saharan Africa.
You know, not one of them is a true democracy.
That is a huge problem, David, I have to say.
You understand what I'm saying?
I know exactly what you're saying.
Africa in one, say, oh.
Africa is a wonderful, no, it's made up of 50 different nations.
Every one of those countries has got its own culture.
It's got its own rules.
It's got its own backhand rules.
It's got its own cops.
It's got it.
You know, and in many cases, yes,
certainly the areas are filled with commodities which are worth mining.
But when you go into mine there, you better go with your own army.
Otherwise, you're not going to come out alive.
So you have to actually get your own militia.
to uh to survive so you know i can never understand this if you go to america you
know from san diego all
the way up to new hampshire it's one country no no no you know now you're
talking nonsense david i'm sorry the nonsense
is too you can go to one state and have an abortion because you've been raped by your
troglodyte uncle or something and
you can go to another one and you won't be allowed to do that so america let's let's
face it is as
fragmented you not quite as badly as Africa is.
But it's not perfect.
We'll come to that in a moment.
But anyway, I'm making a case for South Africa now.
PPI came out at 2.8% today.
CPI is below the midpoint of 4.5%.
Load shedding hasn't been a factor in life across the country for six months.
David, you've had localized load shedding because of… You've got to believe it.
Exactly.
The government of national unity may not be perfect, but it's a step in the right
direction.
Commodity prices starting to do well because of the weak dollar interest rates
coming down and the China story.
So there are a few things that you wouldn't have been able to say a year ago.
And when you talk about America being one country, David, it's not one country.
We can see that.
How can a country that is one country vote?
40% of the population that can vote, or 45%, whatever it is,
can vote for someone who is as loathsome as Donald Trump.
David, I invite your comment now.
No, we're going to talk about that in a sec.
Yes, we will.
Really.
i mean it's wonderful to watch i love it what i am saying is that in san diego you
can use a dollar and in uh
uh new hampshire you use a dollar you know it's one currency it's one economy it's
very true they're different
cultures but i'm saying in africa every
every country is uh is is different you know with its own set of regulations rules
whatever it is yes you've got state
law and you've got uh federal law in the united states but It's homogeneous,
almost like South America is the same thing.
If you look other than Brazil, Brazil is Portuguese.
I think all the other nations are Spanish-speaking.
So there is kind of a commonality amongst them.
But in Africa, it's all over the place.
But it's so difficult to coordinate it.
I must say that I find the same way about India, even though it's one massive
continent.
It also seems to be very fragmented in attitudes and difficult to kind of get a
grip on it.
But that's my worry about, and I'm thrilled that we're starting to see a
turnaround in South Africa,
that things are looking better.
But, you know, 30 years of neglect is not going to correct itself in a short time.
It needs effort.
And I think Viv brought up a very important point with the mayor of Twani or
Pretoria.
nobody wants to rule for the common good.
We all want to rule for power.
You know, there seems to be, that's all they're interested in.
You know, it's all about power, power, power.
And until you can get some kind of government that's going to say, look, we
need to,
and I want to get on to a point now, which I think is quite important.
You need to get this country going.
I, when I walk around here in America and I look at the opportunities and I look.
You know, Lindsay, we need, we don't need commodities.
You need to have the factors of production or the productive resources to grow your
country and to keep in
touch with what's happening.
Yeah, but Viv, let's bring Viv in here now,
because you've spoken before about the tax implications of commodities going up and
therefore the
price of commodity companies on the JSE going up and then paying more taxes.
So that's part of the whole thing.
And Viv, David was not disparaging about Africa, but realistic about Africa.
And I came in with the, well, look at America, how fragmented that is.
And I can almost hear you listening intently.
If you could hear someone listen, you would have been shouting at us.
What do you make of it all?
Well, I think this is something actually I did follow more in my academic career.
But you have to understand that most of the colonial countries are not actually
countries.
Even India is not a country.
uh in in the normal sense so for instance france is full of french people germany's
full of german people india you say brackets is full of indian
people but they're very different people like north indians speak a language that
is more similar to english than it is to south indian languages that's how
different it is you know what i mean yes uh it's
it's there's a there's divides india and they were never one country until uh they
were colonized by the british it's
like saying europe is one country because they're all european but in reality the
germans the french were never fighting,
were never basically one country ever.
The thing with the US as well is that this is a danger in the US.
The US was one country when it was a white Christian country.
The identity that identified the US was a white Christian identity.
Now that we get into a minority, what's called a majority US,
meaning that there's going to be no single group that's going to be the majority in
that country.
What you're going to have to deal with is the fact that there's never been a single
large democracy that has not been,
you know, majority of a single ethnicity.
It is a very, very weird thing.
And obviously, we like to live in a world where things are going to be, you know,
hunky-dory and so going forward.
I'm telling you right now, you go forward, like, you know, a couple, you know,
decades into the future,
you're going to have this fragmentation in the US unless they can find some other
identity to fuse them together.
It's going to be, you know, not very good.
And the example I would put forward is India.
The method that Modi in India is trying to fuse to get an identity in India is he's
using religion.
Yes.
So he's trying to fuse a Hindu identity in India.
And you can see the downside of that.
Just before you go on, is there religious or faith apartheid in India at the moment,
the way that he seems to be portrayed,
and certainly in the Western media, as very anti-Muslim?
Please be honest here, Viv.
He is anti-Muslim.
I mean, you don't preside over the murder of, I think, 2,000 plus Muslims when you
are running a province,
unless you basically are not brief.
You know, there's issues.
You know what I mean?
2,000 people murdered under your watch.
That is a lot of people.
OK, and he was banned from traveling for many years until he became prime minister.
So that is that.
But the thing is that the only way for him, the only reason that he's really
taking power in India.
against the Congress, which used to be the guys that were, you know, we basically
went and freed you from the British and therefore we run the country.
The way he was able to fuse all these different regional parties was by saying,
no, you're not just this Gujarati,
you're not from Maharashtra, you're not from UP, you're Hindu.
And that is how he forged this Hindi-Hindu identity, okay?
And that is how he's doing things there.
And it makes me worry about South Africa as well because you think about the ANC
for all its...
its negativity is a South African party.
But what are we seeing rising right now?
Regional tribal parties.
You see what I mean?
And that is the danger that happens when you have, you know,
no single cultural identity across the entire country.
And the danger that we are seeing in the US as well is that that's why we're having
the rise of people like Jerry Vance and so on.
It's because you're getting kind of like a...
a mixed an attempted power already a route to power that goes through ethnicity which
is the worst thing to do
it's a very dangerous thing it's been tried many times in the past and always
ends a tragedy and we are seeing it happen in the us right now and we are
seeing like even in south africa i think danger of like thing that the mk is not
jacob zuma
is that you are trying to get a party based on
ethnicity or building a party based on ethnicity uh which is you know a terrible
thing in a country like David,
gosh, lots to think about there.
Great analysis, by the way, Viv.
David, let's talk about the fascination that both you and I have about the US
election process.
We're coming down to the last few dozen days of this thing.
It's quite incredible.
And I saw Kamala Harris talking, I think it was last night.
She doesn't come across as very well versed when it comes to the economy.
She doesn't look convincing to me.
And that worries me.
When it comes to the economy, Trump's ahead.
There's no doubt about it.
And, you know, I mean, some of his policies are still repugnant.
I mean, you know,
just imposing taxes on or tariffs and the cost of that on the economy is enormous
because at the end of
the day, the consumer pays.
If you put up charges, you're not going to change and suddenly go all America.
So there's a lot of criticism about it, but he's far more in touch with it.
And it's.
I must tell you, 80% of today's news is around the election, whether it's ABC,
CBS, Fox,
wherever you go, all with different views.
She's ahead.
She's ahead in many areas, particularly where it comes to women,
where she's probably 50-36.
And so there are gaps emerging.
But I think her weakness, and I think a lot of people recognize it, is on the
point that you made, is on the economy.
She's not.
She was a prosecutor.
She was a lawyer.
I don't think she's got a feel for the economy.
And it's something where if she does come into power,
she's going to have to obviously appoint some pretty powerful people around her to
help explain and to
educate her.
But that is her soft underbelly, is the economy.
And I don't think Trump's taking full advantage of it.
No.
I think he is, but he can't help himself, you see.
I think Viv will agree with us here.
And Viv, he can't.
If you gave, if you, Viv, wrote a speech for Trump and said, right,
we're going to focus on tariffs and you can explain why sometimes they're good,
sometimes they're bad.
John Deere is making farming equipment in Mexico and we're going to put a 200%
tariff on it.
You would go through it methodically with him and say, you can't really do that, Mr.
Trump.
It sounds good.
to some farmer from Iowa or something, or from somewhere in the Midwest, but you
can't do that.
He would look at that speech, and after five minutes, he would throw it away and
say, they're eating animals in Ohio.
They're eating dogs and cats in Springfield.
So what is your assessment of what's going on?
I think the Harris debate momentum has slowly been eroded in the last two, three
weeks.
I think that's pretty clear.
I think Trump knows that as well.
and that is why he's not doing the second debate because he knows it didn't help him
at all it doesn't make sense for him to do another debate and
here's the thing as well i mean I think right now, look at the polls.
Trump is probably better in these polls, even though he's trading by Harris by a
lot,
than he was in 2020 or 2016 by pollsters, if you think about it.
If you look at what his odds were back then, you know, back in 2020, 2016, and so
on,
you would find that he's actually now, at this point in time, doing better than he
was back then.
Okay, the question arises is that have they adjusted polls well enough in the
last let us say,
since the last cycle,
to predictively compensate for what has been significant undercounting of
his popularity.
So in terms of the polling, I don't know.
I don't know.
If the polls have adjusted, then you are seeing, you know,
Harris probably has a slightly better chance, not a 75-25 chance, but probably
like a 50-60%.
the 55 60 chance to
45 40 if they haven't then i would say he's actually ahead because the last time
the
polls were ridiculous i mean the cnn poll was i think eight percent under counting
his support you know and those and you
look back in uh 2016 they had a 99 chance some posters that uh
you know hillary was going to win and uh like you know less than one percent chance
that he was going to win it was really under counting
his support And so that's the one thing.
The second thing to understand is that, you know, when it comes to the U.S.,
historically, if you look at just how they behave,
and I saw somebody talk about this recently, and I thought it was very
interesting, I went back and looked at it, and it's true, that the U.S.
president can do pretty much just one thing in his entire term.
There's like one shot to do one thing in his entire term before good luck just
shuts down any kind of initiative.
Britain did one thing, Obama did one thing, Bush did one thing, you know, Biden
has done one thing, Trump has done one thing.
The real power of the politicians like Bush and the president, sorry, is actually
in foreign policy.
That's the one area the president can do stuff.
You know what I mean?
And I think that is the real thing to be concerned about going forward,
is that what does Trump do as a politician in the current global environment?
That, you know, people might say he's not going to be a blizzard against Russia.
True.
But he might be more against China, which is a far bigger threat.
He might not be.
He was wishy-washy on, you know, Israel,
but there's other stuff he wants to do in South America that does seem to be a bit
more aggressive than,
you know, something in the past.
Some stuff he wants to do on NATO.
And those are things that he can really make a difference on, especially because
of the fact that J.D. Vance, who's very different from Mike Pence,
people make jokes about him and stuff.
That guy's history is he was in the military.
was in, I think, one of the Ivy League schools.
He came from being dirt poor in the US.
So he's obviously got some talent.
And he's going to have a huge impact, I think, on foreign policy.
I think that's going to be the big impact of the Trump thing.
So that's my little kind of Trump thing there.
But yeah, this election.
The people don't want Trump.
You know, the people don't want Trump.
And you can pick that up here.
In New York.
He's got his followers.
Well.
Yeah, it's a good point, David.
We've always said that.
Yeah.
You're not in America, David.
You're in New York and Boston.
That is a point.
But there's still, it does represent probably the eastern states and the
western states, you know.
They still have a very powerful voice.
And even in other areas, you know, the undecided voter, I don't think they want
Trump.
You know, they're tired of it.
And I always say that.
They just have to adjust to that.
Mm.
But.
You know, the point that even Taylor Swift, you know, in a little tweet, she
just said, you know,
we're tired of this chaos.
And I think to an extent, if I could sum it up, I think people in America are tired
of the kind of chaos.
You know, they want stability in their lives, not someone who's as divisive as
Trump, you know,
who gets up there and makes this hate speech.
America's been torn apart by hate.
You know, there's.
Wherever you go, you know, there's this hatred,
and you've got to get some conciliatory force in this country to try and steady it
down.
The interesting comment that I saw, sorry to interrupt you, David, but it's very
important because you mentioned the word hate,
is that he campaigns on hate and fear.
Kamala Harris campaigns on hope and optimism for the future.
So you've got hate versus love, essentially.
I mean, it's a hippie thing for me to say, but it is essentially that.
And as soon as people sit down and realise that that is it, I mean, you never see
Trump smile,
but you see Kamala Harris smiling and laughing and everything.
But Trump is just like, fight, fight, fight.
And he's got this aggressive, screwed up face.
And it's...
I...
I find it quite offensive and it's not upsetting, but it certainly makes me gnash
my teeth a bit.
Well, you've summed it up very nicely.
It's exactly like that.
And I think the majority of people, you do get those, what do you call them, not
disenfranchised,
there's a word that I want to use, disaffected part of the population, you
know,
that feel that life has just left them by and they feel anger in there.
and their souls and they want to vent it and they vent it because they find some
hope in trump you know for whatever it is and
i think you've got to get around that you know you there's there's so many issues
you know the strange thing is that i know
that october the 7th is coming up and
i don't know what's planned there but i haven't seen any any protests of it it is
u.n time now believe me
you can't believe the traffic and you cannot believe you know what's happening
uh in the city I mean,
there's a huge number of dignitaries here and so on.
But I haven't seen any trouble.
I've seen no protests, no posters, nothing.
It's just, you know, you go into Central Park and it's really nirvana.
It's clean.
It's quiet.
People just getting on their lives.
And I think that represents what they really want.
Just get on with your life, you know.
They don't want trouble at universities.
They don't want these outpourings of hatred against one group.
So I get a feeling just being around here that no one's really walking around with
mega caps or anything
like that.
They're not wanting to change things.
Yeah, I saw a lovely hat the other day, make prison great again, and it was
orange.
I'm going to give you a couple of prices now.
I'm not going to go through all of them because our conversation is far too
fascinating to do that.
But today, process up 7.5% on the JSC, Richemont up 6.7%, luxury goods company.
David, they must have done well in Europe as well.
NASPERS up 6.2%, Anglo-American Platinum at 5.5%, Anglos up 5.3%, all linked to
China. Downside, SASL down 7.4%.
Maybe that's an ex-DIV story, I don't know.
Telcom down 2.3%, RANET down 2.1%, Redefine down nearly 2%,
Pick and Pay down 1.5%, and RAN doing so well at 17.18%. Viv,
we've got to move now to a chat.
I mean, if I make a list of people I don't like, Zuckerberg, he's on the list.
And he's launched these new glasses last night, Viv.
I mean, OK, they're prototypes.
They're AI glasses.
And he wants the world not to have a cell phone, mobile phone stuck to their ear.
He wants you to have a pair of glasses on your nose in the future.
What do you make of this?
Is it another metaverse, underwhelming announcement?
So you're not buying the Zuckerberg law?
No, if you don't see.
That is something that's happened, by the way, in the last couple of years.
Have you seen that?
Zuckerberg is now very popular.
Oh, really?
He's going to be cool.
In fact, the shirt he wore yesterday pretty much said, all Zuck or nothing.
That big baggy thing he was wearing with his new curly hair.
The shirt he was wearing at that presentation, I think it was a German or
something, said all Zuck or nothing.
Okay?
Anyway, so he does believe that the new form factor is going to be your glasses.
The reason being is that...
He thinks AI is going to be such a universal part of your life that you don't
want to ever be without it,
which means that you don't want to be even as disconnected as we are to our cell
phones.
Can you imagine that?
The amount of screen time we have with our cell phones is not enough for Zuckerberg's
mind.
We have to have it all the time on.
And here's the scary part, right?
He is doing a business model right now that is actually very, very powerful.
What he's done is he firstly has gone out and he's destroyed.
The business models of places like OpenAI and Gemini, whatever they're talking
about,
because what he's done is he's given away the treasury for free.
OpenAI is building an LLM.
Zuckerberg is building an LLM.
OpenAI charges you $20 a month.
Zuckerberg gives it to you for nothing, right?
If you're slightly worse than somebody else, but your stuff is free, you're
probably going to win, okay?
Number one.
Number two, he is pivoting on an incredible stage.
So like Gemini has all these problems you know about.
You know, the African-American kind of Nazis and that kind of stuff.
When you ask for a picture of a Nazi, they give you like a variety of different races
and so on.
It's because there's so much bureaucracy inside Google. What Zuckerberg has done,
because he still runs the company,
has these super voting shares.
That means whatever he says at Meta goes.
In fact, he basically caused the glasses to be built in one week.
When he said, I like these new LLMs, only these glasses, they was done in one week.
And he's pivoting towards the stuff in an incredible way.
But here's the thing.
He seems to have a team that can build the stuff.
I don't know what it is with AI, but everybody has a team that can build the
stuff.
OpenAI has one, Gemini has one, Elon Musk has one, and Zuckerberg has one.
And his latest version of Alarma can see stuff, can hear stuff.
So it has multi-modality.
You put that in a pair of glasses, And you can imagine just walking around the city
where you have a basically the
virtual assistant that can in the new in the prototype version which is obviously
not released to the public yet
could show you like you know these people's names in front of you can
translate any language immediately to English in front of you.
It is a superpower if it can work it's amazing.
You've got a pair of glasses on your nose and what happens if there's a dog or a cat
walking in front of you and you want to tickle the dog or the girl.
It just, it's not real.
David, you're, you know, you and I are probably less enlightened when it comes to
actually wearing the tech.
You're very good at investing in tech, but you're not going to wear it, are you?
You're not going to have glasses on your nose all day, are you, when you're running
in Central Park or in Corlett Drive in Johannesburg?
Please tell me you won't.
I beg you.
Sunglasses, I mean, to protect my eyes, but I don't know, the possibilities are
enormous.
I've got to get a simpler life I really have,
I've got to stop talking to you too my brain's frying already you know I must
bring you back to reality
yesterday I went to a show called Stereophonic and where, in New York?
in New York yeah, Broadway's packed I must tell you,
Broadway's come back and not only is it packed it's expensive but it's so come
back in a big way,
which is also giving an indication of how the economy is going and how people are
returning to life.
But Viv, I don't know if you were ever a Fleetwood Mac fan.
Oh, yeah, huge fan.
Rumors.
Rumors, yeah.
And this is a play.
They've changed the names, I think, obviously for obvious reasons.
But it's about the production of rumors in the studio.
The conflict.
conflicts of the couple.
You know, there was Lindsay Buckingham, Stevie Nicks.
So they've all got different...
Oh, they were having affairs and one was breaking up, wasn't it?
Yeah.
It was a huge thing in the 70s, of course.
It's an absolutely magnificent production.
The beauty is that the actors actually play the instruments and they produce the
incredible...
It's not a musical by far, you know, not by far.
Only a few songs, but they reproduce songs which sound very similar to the rumor
songs.
on stage, in the production, in a studio.
But it's incredible.
And it just takes you back to that age of the 70s where things were a lot more
simple.
Was that you bringing us back down to earth or rather bringing me back down to
earth, David?
Yes.
Yeah, okay.
There were no cell phones.
The telephone rang and they never had the fancy production units or the digital
units that they have
here.
For fans of old rock and roll, this is just a wonderful production.
It is a hit.
It's winning a lot of Tonys and that.
But in a credit to the actors and the talent of these people.
Especially the young people know who it is.
Because I was listening to somebody's talk recently, and they do not know, one of the
youngsters in the office, they do not know who Clint Eastwood was.
Yeah, yeah.
There's no one in the world that doesn't know who Clint Eastwood is.
I mean, the outlaw Josie Wells, come on now.
What has Clint Eastwood done since the year 2000?
Well, he's 87 years old, Viv.
I mean, what do you do when you're in your 80s? The last film he did, I think, was
any good,
was the film where he lived next door to the Korean family.
It was called Gran Torino, I think, wasn't it?
Yeah.
The one where he was the drug mule as well.
Yeah.
That was another one.
He's fantastic.
Everyone knows who Clint Eastwood is.
Youngsters don't.
They don't know the Second World War.
They have no idea.
They don't have the Rolling Stones.
No.
They know absolutely nothing.
I was just talking to some youngsters in the office today, and I said, did you know
Fleetwood Mac?
No idea.
Anyway, I must tell you, the good news, though,
is in the concert on the park across the road from where I stay is Dojo Cat on
Saturday.
Is what?
Malone.
South African.
Post Malone.
I think a dad South African.
A dad South African.
He was in that South African thing with Whoopi Goldberg.
Yeah.
So there's a big concert here in the park.
It's an annual concert.
for global citizens in there but uh so i'm i'm still looking at tickets they're
um 500 120 you just stand around and watch screens and
everything but um have fun thanks for bringing us down to earth that was analog
david shapiro from assassin
securities in new york and and Zuckerberg fan Viv Govender from Rann,
Swiss in Johannesburg fascinating chat gentlemen thank you very much that was the
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