A tale of wealth:
Rüschlikon is a municipality in the district of Horgen in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland; located on the west shore of Lake Zürich. This peaceful town with a zero crime rate has a population (according to statistics released on 31st of December, 2019), of 6,092. Foreign nationals accounted for 22,5% of the population of Ruschlikon in 2017.
As of 2017, the gender distribution of the population was 47.9% male and 52.1% female. Over the last ten years, the population has grown at a rate of 10.4%. Most of the people (as of 2000) speaks German (85.1%), with English being the second most common language (3.9%) and Italian third (2.3%).
Rüschlikon has an unemployment rate of just 2.28%. As of 2005, there were 27 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 5 businesses involved in this sector. 378 people are employed in the secondary sector, and there are 37 businesses in this sector. 1781 people are employed in the tertiary sector, with 207 businesses in this sector. As of 2007, 75% of the working population were employed full-time, and 25% were employed part-time. Rüschlikon is perhaps famous for being home to the IBM Zurich Research Lab, part of IBM Research, which has brought to Rüschlikon the Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Heinrich Rohrer and Gerd Binnig in 1986 and Karl Alexander Müller and Johannes Georg Bednorz in 1987. But, even more, famous because the Swiss Re Centre for Global Dialogue, is based in Rüschlikon. The centre is built in the grounds of the Villa Bodmer, which was owned by the famous Swiss industrialist Karl Martin Leonhard Bodmer.
Until Ivan Glasenberg moved to the sleepy village and his company, global commodities giant, Glencore PLC was listed on the London Stock Exchange in May 2011 also a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index, netting him a cool $9 billion overnight. This move put the council of this village of just over 5300 people in line to receive taxes of 380 million SF or approximately $398 million straight, no arguments, and it was duly paid!
It is common cause that the now deceased Marc Rich and his prodigy Ivan Glasenberg who made billions dealing with so-called, “rogue regimes like the old Nationalist Apartheid government and Iran, even after the 1979 Iran hostage crisis.
It was the Mandela/Mbeki ANC government, under pressure from the Washington Consensus and the South African white capital class, sans the euphemistically titled negotiated settlement that allowed the largest all white-owned, JSE listed companies in a frenzied rush, to join the FTSE in the nineties without any provision for the repatriation of taxes including taxes on dividends declared.
The above move makes the beautiful, whites-only unemployment and the crime-free town of Rüschlikon richer than the overcrowded, crime and unemployment-ridden township of Alexandria, just outside of Sandton, home to the JSE, impoverished by R6.4 billion. YES, please read that figure again and extrapolate it by the number of companies listed. So now you know why it is ignorant to believe the ANC politicians, constantly carping about FDI, foreign direct investment.
Herewith a shortlist of South Africa’s largest home-grown players that have flown the proverbial coop for colder climes, having made billions off the backs of black peoples labour and white middle-class ignorance as follows:
Naspers PLC
Barloworld Ltd
SABMiller- would later merge with Anheuser Busch InBev in 2016 to become the largest brewer in the world).
Mondi Group
Investec PLC
Standard Bank Group (the biggest lender of assets in Africa)
Old Mutual Ltd
Sanlam Ltd
Liberty Life PLC
NOTE: The LSE said 54 South African companies appeared in the “Companies to Inspire Africa” list, spreading through various sectors including industrials, financials, consumer and healthcare. IOL 3rd April 2017.NOTE: II this list does not include large multinationals like De Beers who are listed on Wall Street, the DAC, the CAC, the Hang Seng or the Australian Stock Exchange.
