Weight of greed feels ever heavier

Even morning coffee looks in danger of being priced into luxury status

Goodman wanted R10 for his “funny money” leaflet. I was having none of it; I’d already bought the one he was offering. I knew how much it cost him, I made allowances for his time and wear and tear and told him I’d give him no more than R5. We haggled for more seconds than I care to admit before I realised I’d probably reached the end of my tether. I gave him R5 and walked on.

Goodman’s crowd-funding enterprise has owned the major intersection between me and my main source of morning coffee for many years.

His is a familiar face. Less familiar are all the faces that have arrived at almost every other intersection during the past 12 months or so. In an economy that has an appallingly high unemployment rate and seems incapable of generating jobs, Goodman and his new colleagues represent Homo economicus.

They have, at some level, rationally assessed the opportunities available to them and realised that people like me are their best chance. It is a truly grim thought for them, and for me.

I’m torn between sympathy, guilt and anger and the growing realisation the marginal returns on each of these desperate “opportunities” must be diminishing rapidly.

Their target market is being squeezed on all sides and feeling overwhelmed by the increasing demands on an unchanged or diminishing income. Even morning coffee looks in danger of being priced into luxury status.

A few weeks earlier I had stayed in a small rural town in France where despite incessant cold, wet weather and a rail and bus strike, things seemed remarkably relaxed.

It took a while to work out what it was. There were a few beggars scattered around the town but not many, so I was sheltered from my prissy sense of middle-class guilt.

But, more significantly, there was little sign of ostentatious wealth. On any one day I might have seen two SUVS but never a Porsche, Ferrari or Maserati. It wasn’t a particularly rich or poor part of France, just a rather ordinary, unwealthy rural town.

I was relaxed because I was not being squeezed between groups of people whose sense of entitlement is overwhelming. I have huge sympathy for Goodman, who believes he is entitled to money from me because I have it.

But I am increasingly angered by all the people in the Ferraris, Maseratis and powerful SUVS who drive past Goodman every day. They have located their sweet spot in the economy — an upmarket version of Goodman’s intersection — and believe they’re entitled to extract more from it than they contribute.

The corporate bankers, the lawyers, the executives, all reward themselves on the basis of a system that looks increasingly broken and corrupt.

And then there are the many politicians and senior public servants who believe they are entitled to whatever they can get their hands on.

They are all taking more out of the system than they contribute. Someone has to make good on the shortage. Someone has to get squeezed.

It turns out that it’s me and the millions like me who make up Goodman’s target market.

I am increasingly angered by the people in Ferraris, Maseratis and SUVS who pass Goodman every day