Saving economy, not jobs, the goal

The PIC trying to bail out Edgars with R1.2bn is not a good idea and they may eventually lose a substantial amount of this money.

Why should public sector workers bailout private sector workers? Edgars should long ago have changed their business model to adapt to a changing external environment. They didn't.

A good analogy is the human body. Every cell in the human body has a life cycle different from the life cycle of the body itself.

For example, the skin is replaced every four weeks, the liver every few years and the skeleton every 10 years.

There is no need to save these cells since this is how the body undergoes renewal.

New cells will grow in the place of dying cells.

Similarly, new jobs and new companies will appear in a healthy, growing economy in the place of job losses, bankrupt companies and obsolete technologies.

Shedding jobs and companies is a natural part of economic renewal and a healthy, competitive and productive economy. Don't save the jobs, rather save the economy.

Rather have programmes to transition people from old jobs to new jobs such as upskilling, reskilling and extending unemployment insurance.

Here the government has to play a central role.

This is cheaper than keeping products, jobs and companies alive which cannot compete with new products, technologies and business models.

Trying to keep the horse and cart business going in the face of the introduction of the motor car 100 years ago, to save jobs, makes no sense.