Spies to lead Bulls
16 Nov 2011
Pierre Spies has been awarded the Bulls captaincy while Wynand Olivier has been named as his deputy.
The Bulls have lost a number of senior players to overseas contracts and retirement. Danie Rossouw, Bakkies Botha, Gary Botha and Gurthro Steenkamp will continue their careers abroad, while Victor Matfield will hang up his boots after the Barbarians vs Wallabies clash at the end of the month.
Spies was up against Chiliboy Ralepelle for the Bulls captaincy, and the Bulls management felt the Bok No 8 was the right man to succeed Matfield. This despite Ralepelle’s record at age group level (he captained the Baby Boks to a World Championship title in 2005) and the fact that he’s already led the senior Bok team, albeit in two tour matches.
‘It was not such a big surprise though, as I had it in the back of my mind that I could be asked to lead the team when Victor retired,’ Spies said. ‘I was privileged in my career at the Bulls and the Springboks to play with great captains and I could certainly learn a lot from them.
‘I believe a captain should lead from the front and I hope that will be something that I can do successfully. There are huge challenges ahead, but we are all looking forward to that. This group is younger than in previous years, but we have the same goals as those squads and that is to win the competition.’
Meanwhile, Spies’s vice-captain will be sidelined for the next two months. Olivier has undergone a shoulder operation and will only be available to the Bulls in early February.
‘I like that responsibility. Anyone who wants to write off the Bulls because we lost players, do so at their own peril. I think we have a squad that can with the competition again. There are new faces, so there will be a challenge to make sure all share the same vision, but I see no problems in that. We have a great management team and coaching staff and they will get everyone to pull in the same direction.’
419 Comments
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16 Nov 2011, 22:24 pm
@Gunther(gunther)-285: Agh please the Greeks have balanced about 6 budgets in the last 60 years.
The Greek government created an entitlement mentality, they gave government workers a 14th cheque for Pete’s sake
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/05/20/not-just-their-big-fat-greek-funeral/
16 Nov 2011, 22:34 pm
@Robzim(Robzim)-300: @rangerman(rangerman)-297:
If you’ve not yet seen it see if you can check out a documentary called “The End of the Line”. It’s atrocious to see what humans will do in the name of greed.
What we need to do in SA is protect our own waters better because as is always the case, some greedy sods fish out their own waters and then come and poach in better managed waters where locals have made sacrifices to ensure some level of sustainability.
16 Nov 2011, 22:36 pm
@carol(carol)-299: ja, it is sickening really.
@Robzim(Robzim)-300: i find the rock lobster stocks here are managing quite well.
different species and harder to target i reckon (no nets/traps and big surf).
someone told me the other day that you can sell west coast kreef even o a non commercial licence??
is this true?
obviously selling here is taboo.
16 Nov 2011, 22:37 pm
@victoriabok(victoriabok)-301:
Please man
We rock that vibe here.
Despite the fact that the lazy parasites do fuckall to earn the previous 13.
16 Nov 2011, 22:44 pm
@Yetirat(Yetirat)-302:
Yip, that documentary tells it all.Problem is that some european and eastern nations who have fished out their own waters are offering african countries “development help” in exchange for access to their fishing stocks and then send out the supertrawlers – its a sad story- at the end of the day “money talks” and the seas will become empty and nobody seems to be able to do anything about it.
16 Nov 2011, 22:45 pm
Now the Sharks need to announce a proper captain… Lambie.
With Alberts as vice.
Or vice versa.
16 Nov 2011, 22:47 pm
@Robzim(Robzim)-305:
Indeed.
Remember old east germany fished out the juicy prawns in return for dredging the harbour at LM.
16 Nov 2011, 22:49 pm
Rat’s, out of my depth here, I don’t have any interesting ‘fish’ stories!!
16 Nov 2011, 22:54 pm
@Robzim(Robzim)-305: people are trying Rob.
my mate leaves for aus on monday for his third tour with the sea shepherds.
apparently, mitsubishi (the guys making the vehicles) are also trawling the oceans for bluefin as fast as they can catch them but thy arent selling.
nope, they are freezing them to make a huge payday when the bluefin go extinct.
?????????????????????????????
makes me sick to hear stories like that. really, people should not be eating canned tuna.
i reckon canned tilapia will be on the shelves of the stores that serve the poorer demographic within 10 years.
16 Nov 2011, 22:55 pm
@rangerman(rangerman)-303:
Yes you are right. In the western cape we have commercials, subsistence and recreationals.Commercials and subsistence can legally sell- recreationals are not supposed to .
The problem is a lack of compliance that leads to “everybody selling”.
If you go to a place like Paternoster for example you will find people (recreational and subsistence or “no license”) approaching you openly in the streets selling lobster at “bargain prices” – and obviously they find lots of buyers – its a sad story of government not doing their job at the cost of the resource.
16 Nov 2011, 22:55 pm
@Treehugger(Treehugger)-291: We are being irresponsible in how we use the earth’s natural resources, and we are inefficient and messy, however global warming is quite natural…the oceans were warmer 90 years ago, there is more ice in the polar caps then there was in recent history, etc.. humans have much less control over this then we would love to think.
The whole “Inconvenient truth” movie was total BS; it was based on fact, but then blown totally out of proportion. A British court ordered any teacher showing this in their classroom to included a document outlining all the misrepresentations of the movie. When asked why they did it that way, the makers said “they were trying to prove a point”….eish
16 Nov 2011, 22:57 pm
i nearly bought a farm and started that venture myself.
the fish are fighting back though. mercury is a part of declining fertility rates of humans worldwide.
we will either balance (some say its too late but thats not how nature works) or we will crash.
i am betting on a bit of both.
16 Nov 2011, 23:01 pm
All this nature, now on BBC 1 we have Sir David Attenborough narrating the Frozen Planet.
I will have to endure an hour of killer whales eating seals, polar bears eating seals and seals eating any fish that remain!!
Happy Days !
16 Nov 2011, 23:02 pm
Anyone know where I can get some good Bue In Tuna for some Sushi, I am hungry and we must eat those guppies
16 Nov 2011, 23:04 pm
@carol(carol)-313: Whales have Sushi, Penguins have Sushi and now we get blamed for the guppy murder
16 Nov 2011, 23:04 pm
@Robzim(Robzim)-310: ja look i know some students sell their catches here but the parkies hand out the big stick if they catch people.
sadly i think enforcement cannot be by polce or govt alone, it must be societal.
@Sasori(Sasori)-311: sure, a lot of facts blown out of proportion or timelines omitted. global warming and cooling is cyclical and natural just as you suggest.
but the rate of extinctions is something far more tangible to focus on imo.
the rate of global warming is also seemingly occuring a a faster rate than would be expected from a natural cycle though admittedly there are so many vectors its still impossible to prove it is due to human factors.
16 Nov 2011, 23:04 pm
@JL1(JL1)-314:
Sushi is not manly food…you need a casserole!
16 Nov 2011, 23:05 pm
That Frozen PLanet is a bladdy good show, better go watch.
16 Nov 2011, 23:06 pm
@carol(carol)-313: awesome show, loved that episode.
@JL1(JL1)-314: best hurry, the price is set for an incremental increase and then it will simply be unavailable.
16 Nov 2011, 23:06 pm
@carol(carol)-313:
lol, but if the seals do not eat the big hakes then the big hakes eat the small hakes and it farks up the whole hake stock and the ecosystem.So maybe the seal lovers have a point. Its not only those big sad eyes
16 Nov 2011, 23:06 pm
anyways, i am off.
a good night all.
16 Nov 2011, 23:07 pm
@rangerman(rangerman)-316: Ja, extinctions and loss of biodiversity is what’s going to screw us in the end. No one realises how much we need full, healthy ecosystems to survive.
16 Nov 2011, 23:07 pm
@cab(cab)-318:
Oh my goodness, now the Belugas, JL1 will be feeling very peckish.
He is the sort of bloke who will be fairly familiar with caviar!!
16 Nov 2011, 23:08 pm
exponential increase rather.
late, i am off.
tjorts.
16 Nov 2011, 23:08 pm
@rangerman(rangerman)-321:
Night Rangerman (Scubaman)!
16 Nov 2011, 23:10 pm
@carol(carol)-317: I hate casseroles, love steak, sushi, veg
16 Nov 2011, 23:11 pm
@carol(carol)-323: I do fancy my Belugha with some Crystal Champagne
16 Nov 2011, 23:12 pm
@Robzim(Robzim)-320:
Those eyes….
Fark, the baby guillemots are being eaten by the artic foxes!
I am a nervous wreck!
16 Nov 2011, 23:13 pm
@carol(carol)-323: And I do have to say, I thought that you are also in the Belugha class of taste, if I dare say so myself
16 Nov 2011, 23:13 pm
@carol(carol)-325:
He does snorkel, fark.
16 Nov 2011, 23:14 pm
So Martin Johnson failed, good bye you are the weakest link
16 Nov 2011, 23:15 pm
@JL1(JL1)-326:
Are you serious, that is 90% of my winter menu. I casserole everything, wonder what Seagull Casserole would taste like?
I may skip the caviar and stick with the fizz!
16 Nov 2011, 23:16 pm
the pseudo economists here are as bad as the pseudo conservationists who are in turn as confused as the pseudo conscientious objectionist or the pseudo altruist you all going belly up whether you think you know whats cutting or you don’t.
Almost as misinformed as the poor misinformed Bulls who picked a rode as a captain
16 Nov 2011, 23:16 pm
youknowho 250
Sorry for the long post but you might appreciate it.
Shifting debt from people who cannot support it to those who can – the population at large, both now and in future – seems to make a great deal of sense if the alternative is an economic collapse that leads to a loss of output and investment now and so of income in the long term.
Before leaping to that conclusion, however, let us approach the issue of de-leveraging – or debt reduction – analytically. Between 1994 and 2007 (ie circa a decade just before the credit crunch), total US non-financial private debt rose from 118 per cent of gross domestic product to 173 per cent, the highest level in US history. Over the same period, US financial sector debt rose from 54 per cent of GDP to 115 per cent. A great deal of this leveraging up of the economy (matched elsewhere, notably in the UK) was based on false premises: borrowers and lenders thought that the assets against which they had borrowed would be worth more than turned out to be the case.
How, then, can people reduce their indebtedness or restore their net worth, after an unforeseen fall in asset prices? There are three mechanisms: sale; bankruptcy; and frugality. Let us considereach of these, in turn. But remember that, at the global level, debt cancels out: net debt is zero. So, in paying down debt, one is also reducing credit by an equal amount.
People with assets that they no longer wish to hold and debts they no longer wish to bear, can sell the former to repay the latter. If this is to cancel debt, then the ultimate purchaser needs to be a creditor. Sale makes this a voluntary transaction.
This path to de-leveraging is going to be part of the story. But when the predominant asset is housing, as it is now, the willingness of creditors to purchase will be limited. By and large, people who wish to buy houses are young and have limited liquid assets. Most creditors already own houses. In theory, houses could be sold to cash-rich foreigners. But that, too, is going to be a limited avenue for economy-wide deleveraging in most countries. (InSpain, however, sale to cash-rich foreigners seems a more plausible solution, since much of the past construction was designed for their use.)
The second approach is mass bankruptcy. In this case, creditors are forced to write down their loans to the value of the asset. That is clearly an important part of any de-leveraging. But since highly leveraged financial intermediaries stand between the ultimate creditors (households) and the ultimate debtors (other households), mass bankruptcy is going to wipe out the capital of intermediaries. That is likely to trigger panic, as losses cascade acrossthe financial system.
Organising such a bankruptcy procedure, to allow for a mass adjustment of claims, is indeed one of the necessary conditions for managing a financial crisis efficiently. But it is going to bepolitically and technically complicated. In the end, however, a substantial part of the debt and the corresponding credit should be eliminated in this way. The big policy decision is how far the state wishes to socialise the losses of creditors. The answerwill certainly include some socialisation, since governments insure deposits in financial institutions.
The third approach is repayment. Under any imaginable resolution of the debt overhang, some people are going to seek to pay down their loans. Indeed, a great many are going to try to do so: thosewho dislike the idea of bankruptcy, including the stigma; and those whose assets are worth not much less than their loans. To these groups of higher savers should be added those who are simply poorer than they thought they would be and so decide to save more.
While the highly indebted and the newly “asset-poor” have good reason to spend less than before the crisis, creditor households have no reason to spend more. Indeed, the collapse in interestrates in a slump lowers their incomes and so is quite likely to make them want to cut back on their spending, too. The aggregate effect of these changes in behaviour is, of course, a rise in the desired household rate and so the desired financial surplus ofthe household sector.
It is a matter of simple logic, that, since the financial balances of the household, corporate, government and foreign sectors must sum to zero, a rise in the surplus of the household sectormust be offset by an offsetting move in other sectors.
When one has eliminated everything else, it turns out that the only sector both able and likely to offset a large move of the household sector towards financial surplus in a post-crisis slump is the government. Indeed, that is exactly what has happened.
My conclusion, then, is as follows: the only way that the private sector can de-leverage, when large economies are in a post-crisis recession,is for the government to leverage. The economy, as a whole, cannot de-leverage in any other way, other than via accelerated mass bankruptcy, which would certainly deepen the recession, if not create a depression. If the government tried to eliminate its deficitover night, it would have to drive the private sector back towards balance (or achieved a massive shift in the external balance very swiftly). In the context of excessive debt, that is only going to happen if private sector incomes are so squeezed that paying down their debt is no longer feasible. But in this situation, mass bankruptcy and a slump again becomes a likely outcome.
16 Nov 2011, 23:16 pm
@Robzim(Robzim)-330: Every womens dream man, one that can breath through his ears or hold his breath for 38 minutes
16 Nov 2011, 23:16 pm
@Robzim(Robzim)-330:
Is snorkel inferior to scuba?
Perhaps I should have bid goodnight to ‘Snorkelman’!
16 Nov 2011, 23:17 pm
@carol(carol)-328: Isn’t it odd how our allegiance is determined by the point of view of the doccie. If it’s narrated from the side of the foxes – i.e. we follow them as a family – it breaks your heart to think of them missing out and the little ones going hungry.
16 Nov 2011, 23:17 pm
@ashampoopaloo(joel1yahoo)-333:
Skop, I could casserole some tasty vegetables for you!!
16 Nov 2011, 23:18 pm
Mallet has ruled himself out of the England role – says he is “returning to SA with his family”…. (Sky Sports News) Intriguing…!!!!
16 Nov 2011, 23:19 pm
@carol(carol)-332: We call casserole stew, or potjiekos, same thing,but no, not my favourite
16 Nov 2011, 23:19 pm
@Heavens Game(Heavens Game)-339: I had a feeling he is not the right man for the England job. Good move on his part.
16 Nov 2011, 23:20 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-337:
You have hit the nail on the head, also you have to remember that the cute ‘little one’ always dies!
16 Nov 2011, 23:21 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-337: I say shoot all cats, Lions, Cheetahs, gaan mall
16 Nov 2011, 23:22 pm
@Heavens Game(Heavens Game)-339:
Smokescreen!
16 Nov 2011, 23:22 pm
@JL1(JL1)-335:
Lol x 3
@carol(carol)-336:
its not inferior, just another discipline
Ranger shoots fish, its not allowed to shoot fish using scuba- so i am only protecting him in case the authorities are looking in
“Snorkelman’ would be fine
Dont try to be clever here
16 Nov 2011, 23:22 pm
@ashampoopaloo(joel1yahoo)-333: Ah, good old skoppie. Quick to point out all the shortcomings of the pseudos. But not so quick to offer anything substantial himself.
You never do, hey. You just waffle some tra-la-la jiggery pokery new age nonsense and hope that we think you’re deep and spiritual. Well, we don’t.
16 Nov 2011, 23:23 pm
@JL1(JL1)-343: Nice try. The cats will be the last to survive this place.
16 Nov 2011, 23:23 pm
@ashampoopaloo(joel1yahoo)-333: Skoppie, my place Saturday, we are doing Crown Roast and some chippolatas and some good veg, some Chateneuf du Pape to wash it down and some Sticky Toffee Pudding for dessert
16 Nov 2011, 23:24 pm
casserole, serole
whatever we eat we eat.
16 Nov 2011, 23:27 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-346: Flower power, safety Bru, stuck in the LSD era and all
@>^..^< katman(katman)-347: Can’t stand those impersonal creatures.You call a cat, he dismisses you, you mind your own business, the cat comes rubbing up against your leg, hold on…..where is my Doberman
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