Hi friends, in the last class we understood what are the considerations to be given while selecting a chemical or a pesticide to be included in pest management. Fine, to continue that discussion on chemical control in IPM, one of the next important aspect is the insecticide resistance development and its management. Why the insects develop resistance? So that is one of the important question to be answered. In simple I have indicated here, the insecticide resistance is the development of an ability to tolerate doses of an insecticide, which would prove lethal to the majority of the individuals of the normal population of the same species or in general, when you repeatedly apply a particular pesticide, then automatically the same species will develop some short of tolerance to overcome this particular dosage and cause economic damage, which can be very clearly explained with this slide photograph. You see here both the susceptible ones and the resistant ones, the susceptible ones and the resistant ones in this agro ecosystem. When you spray a particular insecticide to this ecosystem, the susceptible one keeps on eliminating only the resistant ones, which remain. So when this population goes on increasing in the given ecosystem, even after spraying, you notice in the decrease in the population, thereby the economic damage also increases. When you see the economic damage, even after spraying, then you feel the insect has developed resistance. So this is a simple concept. If you trace the history of the insecticide resistance in insects, it goes as back as in 1914 itself. People thought, many of the people thought with the discovery of Miracle powder DDT, everybody thought that the problem of pest is solved once forever. They also thought they have won the war against insects, but that statement did not remain for a long time. You know the scientist got the first jolt during 1946 itself, when housefly showed resistance to this Miracle powder DDT itself. So leave aside that, even as back is in 1914 before the synthesis of the synthetic insecticides or before understanding the insecticidal property of DDT in 1939, Melander in 1914 guessed that Sanjos coal, Sanjos scale insect has developed resistance to lime sulphur. He wrote an article, in fact, can insects become resistant to sprays, which at that time nobody gave an importance. But later on during 1941, the Colorado potato beetle developed resistance and then one of the medical pest that is particulars during 1944 showing resistance to DDT. Then after 1946 particularly, series of insects showing resistance to various groups of insecticides started pouring in from different parts of the globe. The first resistance report internationally, we see in case of as I said lime sulphur on Sanjos scale and within the country, the first national report of resistance came from Singhara beetle particularly on DDT and BHC from Delhi, which was reported by Pradhan et al. And then I have here a list of resistant insects abroad. So starting with Sanjos coal, tobacco, but worm showing resistance to pyrethroids. Then DBM diamond back moth showing resistance to chlorentryprinol from China. Then lady beetle showing resistance to lambda silo-trin from Brazil. Again diamond back moth from China. So like that the number of insects went on increasing, showing resistance. Similarly in India, the resistant report was started from as I said earlier, Singhara beetle from again as to DDT from Delhi area. Then in case of paddy ecosystem, rice leaf folder showing resistance to two OP compounds, chlorophyry fuzz and quinol fuzz. And then cotton bowl worm, helicover parmigera showing resistance to both OP compounds. And then spotted bowl worm showing resistance to carbamide again in the cotton ecosystem. So like that the list went on increasing day after day. The ARAC insecticide resistance action committee, they have compiled the 14 top countries where the number of cases of insecticide resistance have been reported. If you see this particular graph, USA dominates with the 2400 species of insects reported having resistance to various groups of insecticides followed by Pakistan. And we are fifth in the ranking having around 450 species showing resistance to insecticides. Then in terms of groups of insects also they have categorized diptera recorded maximum number of species having shown the resistance to insecticide followed by lepidoptera and homoptera. You need to understand why the resistance develops in insects. That is the reasons for developing resistance. I have listed some of the important reasons here. First and the foremost is continued and frequent use of pesticide. That is overexposing a particular pesticide molecule for a pest. So applying the principle of selection pressure, the insects started developing resistance. Then use of application rates below or above than the recommended ones. Particularly the lower recommendation has its own impact on resistance development, simultaneously higher dosage also has a major selection pressure for a particular insecticide. Then whenever they spray poor coverage of the particular pesticide in that treated area, thereby there will be always possibility of the survival of the insect species wherever the treatment or wherever the spray is not covered. Then frequent treatment for insects having large population and have got shorter life cycle. One of the classic example is cotton white fly. White fly can complete its life cycle in 14 days and more number of generations can take place. To manage white fly people started applying repeatedly almost once in three days they started applying which resulted in higher selection pressure and leading to higher level of the insecticide resistance. Then failure to incorporate non-pesticidal control practices in a given ecosystem whenever you see the insecticide resistance people forget the other methods of pest control. They only think of insecticides which is another major problem why the continuous development of insecticide resistance took place. Then simultaneous treatment of larval and adult stages with single or related compounds. Say in a given ecosystem for example in red gram if you go on applying the OP compounds belonging say for example monocrotophos, chlorophyryphos, quinolphos they all belong to OP compounds and their mode of action is also same. So if you repeatedly alternate the insecticides belonging to the same group in this case OP compounds naturally the selection pressure for the particular compound increases thereby the resistance development is much faster. Similarly the insect is also a living organism you know genetic mutation and inheritance takes place because of the continuous exposure there is a genetic imbalance in the insect. A physiological adaptations take place various mechanisms particularly biochemical mechanisms that the insects has developed to detoxify the toxic compounds of these insecticides. That's how these are all the major reasons why the insect develops resistance. Then more important in the chemical component of pest management how to overcome this resistance which has been developed various simple strategies have been recommended. First and foremost is use of judicious and recommended dose of insecticides. Then most important is you know as I already said insecticides have different mode of action different target site of action different cross resistance considering all that knowledge we have to use insecticides having different target sites different mode of action. Then as I said insecticides belong to different chemistry alternate use of chemicals which have different mode of actions will certainly slow down the process of selection of a resistance to a particular compound. Then use of cultural practices which are the basic tactics in pest management which can be incorporated and then we can reduce the selection pressure for a particular insecticide. Then one should understand the life cycle of the insect when exactly the egg stage is there when exactly the larval stage is there the early stages are more vulnerable for pesticide application. Looking to this you need to target your application coinciding with the early stage of the insect. Use of insecticide mixture is one of the immediate answer for our farmers. You know when one product is not working certainly combination with another product for example the synthetic pyrethroid in combination with the organophosphorous has a synergistic effect on the mortality of a helicoverpine cotton ecosystem. So insecticide mixtures also is one of the answer in IRM strategy. Then we need to use some of the synergies in the form of simple oils, sesame oil and then sunflower oil are some specific pure piperinole butoxide. This is one of the important detox because all these oils and PBO they detoxify the enzymes which are responsible for resistance. So such oils and the piperinole butoxide you know addition can overcome one of the important problem of insecticide resistance management. And lastly we need to conserve the beneficial fauna for example in a given ecosystem like paddy spiders play a major role considering the spider fauna if there is one spider per plant that can do over almost 15 to 20 BPH adults in a given day. So when this is there why to go for pesticide application? If you avoid pesticide application itself the insects which have developed the fauna the BPH which has developed a resistance to some of the insecticides will be taken care by these predators. This is how the resistance can be managed in case of insects. Thank you.


So I realized that job title and salary actually means nothing and this is when I became the head of design making six figures salary. If your job makes you feel miserable and depressed, no amount of money can compensate for that. I think you need to find your own path, work on your passion, live for what you truly value. Now this is a story all about how


o things in that respect are going in the right direction. They're very very busy If the lct keeps freezing rates on the fairways you could see people not going over the Plaster, well, that's good because they just raised the price again like plastics The other thing that helps site apparently south burlington or the south burlington airport Um Is that our cost is a lot lower than than our competitors why I'm not quite sure but they are Um, and I've kept to a price of the the drilling and the compression and I really think that I mean my hat's off to gene. He is letting me know every time they change something I I let people know So I think that communication is um very much improved And I think the community or the neighborhood is appreciative of that they stopped that Compressing drilling or whatever that it's not really drilling, but it's I'm kind of packing to break it up When it was really hot and he's working trying very hard to get the fAA to Agree to some Changes in the scheduling for all the work so it doesn't adversely impact the residents So I think he is making some good Progress there and I I I'm very appreciative and I think he's really Got the message wants to work and is working really hard Um moody's upgraded them to a ba2 A couple reason which is very good news for them I mean it still isn't where they want to be but it's it went up from the bottom and a couple of reasons um is that the all the airlines have signed Five-year agreements, which is a really positive thing for airports And um, so that's positive. They have a cat the cash balance has improved and they also um The number of days of cash on hand has gone up It's again not where they wanted to be but like South Burlington. They're working on it and that's a tough thing So those are the three factors. They believe were really the substantial reasons Um, the garage is going to have a new system in by the end of august It will allow you to pay inside before you go to the car Yeah, so so it's supposed to be more efficient and effective and I think there's some kind of Program also about, you know, where it's open to park and stuff like that So they're very excited about that and the hotel will start next spring instead of $5 million budget And they're still working Oh, I don't know I think I don't I think they were going in and I don't think it's sign sealed. It's had one hearing They've had a hearing You're going to see Gina and Fry I have a I I have another commission meeting Wednesday and then I'm going on my tour friday Can I ask you to ask him something? Sure So when I was in Seattle, I saw a tv program where they were they were touting new airport technologies And one of them was a ground-based either radar or lidar debris detection system And I don't know how new this thing is and whether it's applicable to this airport, but Lidar it's either a radar radar or lidar Debris, you know runway taxiway debris detection system, right? So it's grant it's very close to the surface and it can detect my new particles that are not my new, you know But particles on the runway that shouldn't be there that could damage jet engines And I'm sure that the national guard if they don't already have it They might want to think about asking the FAA for funding for it because it really, you know Reduces the risk of damage to this was in Seattle. Yeah, I think they have it If they don't have it at SeaTac, they have a they have a system at like maybe at the Boeing test strip or something Okay Okay, great. Thank you Um, okay, I will entertain a motion to convene as the South Burlington liquor control commission Second all in favor Okay, we have One And the Vermont pool and bar which is outside of the double tree, right? So it's It's separate, but it's Isn't there the the well, isn't it the same Yes Oh, okay, I'm sorry, I gotta Okay, so We don't need to hear from you unless you have new information I have no other information other than to ensure that the liquor control commission that council acting as such Understands that this is a prospective application In contemplation of a potential sale of the property. This is not a new it's not a replacement It's just I'm sorry. It's not a new license It would be a replacement because I would imagine the current license holder at that location would then Uh, let it lapse or revoke it in some measure I have no problems with the double tree. I'm completely supportive of it I did have a comment on the other one. I just I haven't seen these conditionals before so this one email saying that these four conditions have to be met I I understand we don't necessarily inspect this. We just would hold them accountable So I will support it, but I would love us to get to a place where we did some follow-up inspections on these types of things But Ed is Ed is a new inspector for us Since terry has moved into the slot as uh Interim chief Ed Spooner one of our senior firefighters has moved into the role of inspecting And uh, this is just kind of a different format that Ed's using but the um, the conditions would follow with the permit Without without the additional clarity those conditions are on the permit Because it says it's to be just for two to three times a year. They have planned dates already in july and august I mean There is I don't know what the acoustic dynamics are between that location and the huge arborvite Barrier that acts, you know, that separates the the back of san rimo to the neighborhood That's to the east, right? But you know that that could be a potential noisemaker for people that was whose home is back up to that I don't know, it's pretty far away right now. You know Just a consideration that's all so well if it's a problem, we'll hear about it and then we can Pardon me, it's just one year It's only till 9 p.m. So it's not like that shouldn't be a problem But I think about I spent time at the back stage and they Have an outdoor deck at the back of the building and there are homes, you know to the I don't know what direction it is probably the east again, right and Our south and I don't think there's a problem there. So and people aren't rowdy. They're just outside playing cornhole Okay, beer I'll move to approve the two liquor licenses presented before us Second Second yeah all in favor All right, okay Great. Is there any other business? You need to come out. Oh, I'm sorry. We need to have motion to come out of uh liquor control to come out of the liquor control board Second all in favor All right, I just want to note that with the double tree The fact that it kept saying the doing business as double tree by hilton burlington vermont over and over again It's in south burlington It's in south burlington But you know, is there you wonder about the state, you know, do they know right is their legal counsel Can you check and see if the rooms and meals tax is um Collected and sent to the state actually gets into the the one percent gets into vermont south Burlington's coffer versus burlington Yeah, I know they have told us I don't know Will you tell the future owner then that would be a good thing to check on To make sure you could better change the name Just saying there you go Double tree of south burlington sounds good. That's right There is So is there any other business do you believe we are just about on time No other business Motion to adjourn all in favor Hi Thank you. That used to be called It should be called double tree near city center In south burlington, yes Just kidding. So our next meeting is the


Hi everyone, Joe for jaspyscasebrakes.com coming at you with 2020 Panini Impeccable Football 3 box random team break number two Some excellent stuff in impeccable football as everybody knows and thanks everyone for getting in and congrats again to the winners of spots here No matter how you got it. I appreciate it. All the teams are in let's roll it. Let's randomize it snake eyes two times one and two easy Luke down to Sean snake eyes one and two easy Colts down to Niners Two teams looking for quarterbacks, maybe All right, Luke with the Colts Jason with the Texans Alan with the Dolphins Jeremy got my Raiders Patrick with the Bears Adam with the Saints Matt with the Lions Brett with the Eagles Ramon with the Patriots Mike Weiss Jets Eddie with the Packers Patrick with the Broncos Steve Burch with the Cowboys Narc with the Bengals Jeremy with the Steelers Narc with the Washington football team Jeremy has the Pittsburgh Steelers Patrick with the Titans Jay with the Ravens and the Jaguars Stephen K with the Vikings Bradley with the Chiefs Josh with the Chargers Chad with the Giants Mike with the Browns Jay with the Buccaneers Alex with the Cardinals Alan with the Panthers Nick with the Falcons Patrick with the Rams John with the Seahawks Mike with the Bills Buffalo and Sean Maddock with the San Francisco 49ers Let's get all this on one screen. Let's sort by column B and Remember there's the fresh case right there fresh three boxes. I'm gonna pause the video when we come back We're gonna see if there's any trades Then we'll have the break stick around All right, welcome back folks a little bit of trade chatter But in the end no deals were done here in three box random team to 2020 Panini impeccable football I don't think we have any more. I didn't see any more in the back unless these cases are hiding So this is the last one for now Appreciate everybody getting into these the last couple of nights or so See what we got inside here would love to see a gold piece Pop out of here. Those are pretty rare, but gold piece would be nice cards there Replenish our blank card stock Chipping team uses those a lot. I like to use blank cards to To slow play the Hicks a little bit. All right Troy Palamalu eight out of 50 Pittsburgh Jeremy got Deandre Hopkins in his cardinals here to 75 Alex got a blockchain card here and let's show off the Ross black lock rookie autograph 43 out of 99 Jason Styles and the Houston Texans The blockchain card is drew lock canvas creation silver that digital card redemption going to Patrick Garcia and Denver and a free top loader. That's right Oliver lock chain We've got Rod Martin six out of ten old Raider Beating the Eagles back in the day 27 to 10. I'll be honest with you. I Remember this one Jeremy Port has my Raiders. There you go, Jeremy We've got for Detroit Quintez Cephas 27 out of 49. Isn't that some sort of baseball pitch? Ephis Ephis pitch this is Quintez Cephas for Matt Lieber and the Detroit Lions We got just kidding Dobbins third Yeah, 92 out of 99 just kidding Dobbins going to Jay and the Ravens redemption is Clyde Edwards you layer sign your cards Clyde. I guess you've been busy Chiefs Bradley with KC actually the extra week off might help Quite Edwards you layer Get healthy could could be an X factor in the Super Bowl Then we've got Cole Comet Three color patch a piece of his helmet. It looks like 27 out of 35 for da bears Patrick Garcia on here Lakers Down 95 to 87 on the pistons four and a half minutes left in the fourth quarter This is on a 7-0 run the brawn you got to make that Tres you got to get the follow-up there What's happening here, I guess the second out of a back-to-back I guess This is just mailing that three right there. It's ridiculous Wayne Ellington back to the football. We've got Stefan digs 33 out of 50 Mike Leone with the Buffalo Bills Can you dig a Berry Sanders nice 45 out of 75 Is it time to dust off your Wayne Ellington still? Recall that There's Matt in the Lions We got George Kittle autograph that case that we're gonna do at the very end 16 out of 75 George Kittle auto for the Niners Sean Maddock with San Fran Cisco The San Francisco treat Jordan Brooks for the Hawks of the Seas 71 out of 99 Goes to John M Seattle Jordan babbling Brooks Next up we got Michael Vic autograph Nice two-color patch and autograph 30 out of 35. See they're surprises like these for a lot of teams Nick K with the Falcons Nice one for the dirty birds We've got Andre Johnson nice three-color patch and autograph to 25 Hawks of all the seas like it like plural Hawks of the Seas There's Andre Johnson That's a Tehan that goes to Jason Styles with the Texans nice redemption elegance rookie helmet and name play be R Brandon Braden Brandon Brandon Iac San Francisco Sean Maddock nice Final box coming up and then the case hit That's the piece of metal usually it's silver. Could there be gold in there? Yarr There be gold in them treasure chests. I got a joke for you guys. What's a what's a what's a pirate's favorite? Panini football product What's a pirate's favorite Panini football product? It's not national treasures What X are football? Yeah That be a joke. All right Mark Ingram to 50 Mark Ingram going to the Ravens J goings Joe Namath Six out of 50 no ink on this though. Maybe that's a sign of things to come Joe Namath going to Matt. I got Stefan digs. Can you dig it to 75? Bills Mike Against Detroit there is Anita Williams For the Cardinals that's gonna be for Alex Alex V you got CJ Henderson 34 out of 99 rookie autographs for Jay and the Jags little cat team mojo Three more to go. We have a bird. It's Isaiah Simmons Rookie autographs for the Cardinals Alex two more to go and then the case hit we've got for my Raiders Josh Jacobs nice 50 out of 75 Goes to Jeremy Port got randomized my legers with a spot that he won in a filler break last one here is Chase Young Wow Tried to trade couldn't trade mojo. Narc wanted to trade The Washington football team. That's a five out of ten Chase Young You know maybe a helmet sticker right there The old name right there some might be the last time you're ever gonna see that kind of lettering Right because they're gonna get in the redskins It's the last year.  That was a three box Break of 2020 panini impeccable football random team break number two. We don't have any more in the store at the moment But I love this stuff. We'll try to we'll try to dig up some more. I'm Joe. I'll see you next time for the next break Bye. Bye


Welcome, everyone, to this afternoon's fireside chat. My name is Simona Schottel, and I am a research associate at UNewider, where I have been mainly working on issues related to informal work and structural transformation, and lately on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on workers' livelihoods. It is my great pleasure to introduce to Harun Borat, who is a professor of economics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, and one of the leading labor scholars in the field of development economics. Welcome, Harun. Great to have you with us. Great. Thanks, Harun. We will be chatting about the impact of COVID-19 in South Africa, the effects on labor markets, the effects on the economy, and the economic measures the national government has taken to confront these. I'm very happy about this opportunity and have probably way more questions than we will be able to address within the next 20 minutes or so, but I know that many of you in the audience may also be curious about specific issues, so I encourage you to drop your questions in the Q&A function, and I will, depending on how it goes, easily take them along as we are discussing or otherwise leave some time towards the end to address your questions. Maybe for those of you who are not that familiar with the South African case and maybe missed Harun's or Tim's earlier presentations today. So South Africa is one of the countries that have been most heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the country has one of the largest caseloads worldwide and are just emerging from the third wave that's peaked in July 2021, with yet higher infection rates during the first and second wave. This being said, the country's policy response has been one of the earliest instructors in global comparison. A national lockdown came into effect in late March 2020, including strict stay at home orders that were strictly enforced, including an involvement by the South African Defence Force. The strict lockdown lasted for two months, but restrictions remained relatively rigid by international comparison up to late September 2020. So before I was starting to go into how the pandemic and those restrictions impacted the economy in South Africa and labor markets, Harun, what I would like to start with is how have you personally experienced these first months of the pandemic hitting South Africa? And what was the moment you realized the magnitude and the severity of the pandemic shock and the need to conduct research to form policymaking with regard to that matter? Yeah, Simone, so that's a multi-layered question. I mean, I think like many of us personally, we all sitting in front of our screens and now just look back and wonder what happened in the last year. So there's all that sort of work arrangements that have changed and all sorts of things in that context. I think when I think in the early months, if you like, of the Wuhan incident sort of from January and February, I don't think any of us realize the extent of the pandemic until it probably hit Italy. And I recall sort of this quick succession of events that went from the personal to the institutional to then the national level. And you saw that very, very quickly with the president and instituted the national lockdown. And suddenly we were trying to figure out in a daily basis what this meant. But I do think that governments, I mean, responded surprisingly quickly. I mean, if you think of the average developing country government and the tools that have available to themselves to actually deal with the crisis of magnitude. I mean, I know we may have questions looking back. Hindsight is perfect, but I think the response has been very, very proactive, not perfect. Imperfect and proactive is probably the best I can describe it. Right. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And as you said, it was quite like, I think for all of us in around January, February, when we actually realized that this was going to be big kind of and despite this, I think you brought out the first working paper already in May 2020 with a number of DPRU colleagues where you already gave some first early assessment and also some roadmap for the post lockdown period, so to say. And I wondered, like, how much you were able to use those results to maybe also inform policymaking, whether you were involved in any direct discussions with government and also from what you just said now was over, like, perfect, what would we know now, at least, whether there would have been any other advice for you would have had to face how to react differently? Yeah, I mean, there was, you know, that working paper. And I think a lot of us were, you know, when we got sucked into sort of COVID or pandemic economics started trying to think through what may be important elements of policy strategies, but also analytical each heads for thinking about the pandemic. So if you look at that early working paper and perhaps colleagues on this and listening in could come in as well, at least in our in our little way, we try to sort of break it up into three components. One was the fiscal response. So the stimulus package that was required of government, what are the types of things they needed to do? And we can talk about later, but that's evolved, right? In terms of how we originally thought of it and how we think about it now. The second was was the obvious sort of descriptive statistics from our vantage points, like you, Simone, the labor market, poverty and inequality, of course, the other factors, but that was very clear that you needed to keep an eye on what the consequences were for thinking about both the employment wage effects and so on. The third was sort of linked to what extent has economic activity changed? And so what we tried to do in that working paper was I think inspired by the work from home paper done by the World Bank. So globally, how many people could actually work from home? And it turns out that we were able to think through using South African data, what we call the physical interaction in there. So using, you know, the state of well, using the US Department of Labor coding and actually bringing that into the QLFS to say, well, there's a code in that questionnaire, which is about how physically fighting each of them from somebody in the workplace. Do you have regular physical interaction with somebody at your workplace? We added a component. Do you travel to work back and forth in public transport? That allowed us to create from this only coding database a physical interaction index. So we should have had three elements going like the public sector response, what is the labor market? And let's call it the wealthy effects. And then the third was some attempt to think creatively about the COVID labor market, right? Where suddenly physical interaction at the workplace was an important component of how sensitive the job was to infection, frankly. And we then use those three to answer your question to try and engage with policy effects, both on the fiscal side in terms of looking at employment effects and where we're there for policy responses may need to go to. And then, thirdly, if you were thinking about lockdowns and that was perhaps the early attempt, although frankly, I don't think it worked because it's really hard to operationalize. If you think about lockdowns, maybe you could link lockdowns to a physical interaction index score. Right, yeah, things this makes a lot of sense. And I think already in this early work, you spotted a few really core topics like the impact it would most likely have on vulnerable workers and workers in informal employment. And I think this came also out in your later work, like the one that you just released this year and that Tim presented earlier today. Was there any other surprises to you? Like when you now had this more richness of data on the pandemic, so in actual ways of QLFS, was it that came as a surprise to you in that sense? Yeah, so I think the one thing is the, so I think initially given none of us probably have ever lived through a serious pandemic, right? Perhaps three Ebola at one context, but I mean, this is like no other. The extent to which you may have expected scarring or destruction in the labor market, as big as it was, was probably not as big as the pandemic's sort of global impact would have suggested initially, right? If that makes sense. So I mean, if I just, I gave the numbers earlier today, but essentially we recorded a net job loss of 1.4 million, but a decrease of 8% in quarters one through four of 2020. Now, if you think that the Great Recession saw about 800,000 or 900,000 jobs lost, right? I would have actually a priori expected more from the pandemic, more job losses. So that was a little bit surprising. I guess what hasn't been surprising is the fact that the vulnerable have seen greater job losses. So whether you're in the informal sector and domestic work, that has not been surprising. Of course, because we don't think about pandemic labor markets, right? The thing that we didn't expect or think about at all was, which I mentioned earlier today as well, was the collapse in hours of work. So suddenly, right to the idea that it first sent workers home and the hours switched to zero and they may have stayed employed, they may have seen the income shot, right? So I think those were some surprising elements, certainly from the data we've seen there. Right, I guess one important element also in buffering the shots was the kind of government relief measures that we already briefly touched on that the South African government implemented relatively quickly, which included both the top of already existing grants, but also the introduction of a new COVID grant that you quickly mentioned, I think, also earlier today already. And this was actually designed to reach individuals who hadn't been covered otherwise, like vulnerable workers who hadn't been covered by any of the other existing schema. And something interesting that I read in some of your research was that this grant actually also reached households in the top results of the income distribution. So it's quite different from the normal poverty elevation measures that we're normally thinking about. And in principle, it could be a quite big point of critique regarding the government response in a high inequality context as a South African one. But I think if I understood what you have in your work correctly, you try to take on a bit more of a nuanced perspective saying that this COVID relief measures are not just poverty elevation measures, but actually try to compensate workers that were most affected. And something I think I found quite striking in your earlier presentation today was that you have this kind of polarized effect of job losses at the bottom of the distribution and then income losses more towards the top of the distribution. And I wondered how you see this, how you see the government program with regard to, in some cases, also providing elevation to workers more at the top. And maybe another related question, and you and also my earlier work, we worked on the emerging middle class in South Africa. And I wanted what actually happened to those guys in the middle and whether we should be concerned with some hollowing out or whether it was that those workers tend to be in this more stable, formal type of employment that were actually relatively secure even in the pandemic context. Yeah. So I mean, those are great questions. So let's, I mean, so the first, at least, so if you think of the earlier point is we, but the three areas of that original working, I think areas one and two, the school measures and looking at the labor market. So one of the things at least, I've probably tried to front load and battle lots of people about because it was our instinctive response to go as South Africans to the social grants, right? And say, well, you have to top up the social grants. Tech, agreed. The difficulty was this was a pandemic that affected those in the labor market, right? And so there was a real danger that if you, and so eventually I just settled on a network, right? If you were an informal sector mechanic in an urban township in South Africa, right? Clearly you were gonna be negatively affected by the pandemic, right? So you'd be forced to close down because of lockdown, right? But if you were not on grants, so if you didn't have access to a child support grant or an old age pension, that topping up of the grants would not reach you, right? And so there was a big danger that given that this was a negative labor market shock that those individuals in the labor market who were affected negatively by the shock but didn't have access to grants, right? Because this was a child support grant. It was all the age pensions, right? That's what they were for. You would not, government would not reach you. And so enter then the idea of the COVID sexual relief of distressed grant. And if you read it carefully, it's very much about the criteria that you have to be unemployed or in the informal sector and not on any other grants, right? So it's very much a sort of gap-based support. So that was the reason. If you look at the results, you're exactly right, that you end up reaching, so it's less progressive than the CSG or old age pension and so on, more the CSG, right? It's a new grant firstly. So remember, government's trying to figure it where on this, but still fairly strongly progressive. And the mistake that's offered is that because your high inequality society reach, it talks about your middle, missing middle story, right? Because you're a very high inequality society, when you reach into the seventh death aisle, these are still vulnerable hustle, right? By definition. So effectively, we're quite happy if you look at the absolute numbers, right? It's 4,000-rand per capita. If you look at the seventh death aisle, as long as you reach up to there, you actually find in terms of no leakages. I think you're right. Eighth, ninth, and 10th is the way in which the machinery of the state is to, if the grant is extended as it has been out so much, you have to ensure that you cut out access to those of the eight, obviously to the 10th. But I think I'm hopeful that we built in a support mechanism designed for labor market vulnerability, right? The tradition in South Africa in terms of sort of, let's call it the welfare, vulnerability support has been purely on the basis of age or child support, which is great, but nothing to deal with the labor market shock, right? And I think we now have elements of that in the COVID grant. Right. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense, and it's a great way of looking at it and providing future perspectives. We actually have a question on the chat, and maybe I can just administer it to you, which concerns a bit the data quality in QLFS. Specifically, it is about the movement from face-to-face interviews to telephone interviews from 2019 to 2020. And the question is whether or how that's agencies are dealing with this in South Africa, or maybe she also knows something globally or how it has impacted data collection and data quality, I assume. Yes, I mean, we, in fact, a lot of the researchers at the DPR, you're looking into that, I mean nationally as well, around the switch. And I think I speak under correction, but the switch was going to happen anyway for Statistics South Africa. And so I think, you know, COVID hastened that switch anyway. There's enough of a pre-calibration on the Song Statistics South Africa site to make sure that we don't have any bias in the results. I think that's the kind of follow-up work as more and more of this data comes up into making sure that the kinds of numbers you're seeing, right, are still representative of a trend that makes sense. You are messed up completely because of the shock, right? I mean, so we're in uncharted territory, but you've, at one level, you've almost got a double shock. You've got the move to telephonic based surveys and then you've got the pandemic as well. And I'm fairly comfortable from the numbers and the trends I've seen, at least in terms of proportions, right? That thing seems to be out of whack, if you might, I can feel like it's good to stay in East Africa. Right, and I assume maybe for QLFS as it's a cross-sectional data, it might be less of a concern than when trying to collect panel data, given that you've seen much higher attrition rates with phone interviews in many surveys. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, we don't have a coverage issue in South Africa. So, you know, access to a telephone is close to 100% cell phone coverage, right? It's over 100%. So, at least you don't have that concern. And to be interesting to see at a stratification level, so you're looking at rural areas or smaller towns, if that's the case, and I think that's what they've got to start figuring out as that's the case. Right. Maybe the last issue I wanted to touch upon, like we have talked about the government response measures and relief measures and different grant programs and economic stimulus, and I mean, it has been a massive stimulus package in terms of money that went into it, kind of a thing. It was kind of close to 50 billion rounds or something like that. And considering South Africa already had a relatively high debt-to-GDP ratio before the pandemic, and I think with the pandemic and the decline in GDP, it rose to just below 80% or something like this. And we know strains at higher debt can pose on a country's long-run growth trajectories. And I just wondered whether you wanted to give some more medium to longer-term outlook on how to approach this, what key policies may be needed to kind of recover from this economic damage. And yeah, where you see the main agencies there. Yeah, so I mean, so I think what we started out again, I presented these numbers earlier today. I mean, we started out at a pre-pandemic deficit to GDP ratio, which for South Africa was already very high, the sort of 7% deficit to GDP ratio, 6.8. That was the highest we've ever seen and that was almost a, well, it wasn't almost, it was a consequence of the state capture years, right? A massive overspending by government departments and certain enterprises and so on. But then with the pandemic and these huge injections from government as they were required, you see the spike. I think we were looking at, you know, 15, 16, 17% deficit to GDP ratio, it was unbelievably high. We then got the revenue from the commodity super cycle, particularly platinum prices that have gone through the roof and that's now been a massive kick into the revenue side. And so deficits are now, I think at the moment, we're looking at a 9.3% deficit to GDP ratio, which suddenly seems actually like Lirvana compared to where we were. The difficulty now is that you've still got damage to the economy, as you know, right? Recovery's type, employment recovery is even worse. And so does government go the route of expansion and fiscal policy in a really tight environment where 20% of expenditure by the fiscal cases on the interest burden. And that's a very dangerous place to be, right? So effectively the interest burden is what drives fiscal policy thinking and the danger that comes with sort of further welfare enhancements that effectively may see us shuffle parts of the expenditure items for say a basic income grant paid for by cuts in education and health costs, right? It's something that's a real, real concern, right? Especially if you need to be thinking of fiscal policy as that instrument for investment expenditure rather than pure consumption expenditure. I think it's that kind of dynamic that's going to be debated and coming with always quite the secrecy in South Africa. But my sense is that the switch at a micro level needs to move in terms of fiscal policy move from hassles now towards firms and incentivizing firms from the full size spectrum, right? From informal survivalist firms right through to registered firms. I like to make the point that it should range from ensuring that micro enterprises and townships have storage facilities, right? Through to EPZs for large formal registered firms. And that scale of sports, sort of good supply side economics is probably what's going to lead us to more sustainable growth, I think. Right, great. Thanks so much. I think we're out of time. So let us close on this note and this I think very important call for policies targeting this segment of firms. And yeah, I think there will be a lot of scope for more research in the future to come. And yeah, remains to be a topic that will stick with that for quite some time. Thank you so much for your time and for the very interesting discussion. And thanks to the audience for listening.


My name is Sam Vaknir. I'm the author of Malignancy of Love, Narcissism Revisited. Collectives, especially bureaucracies. Example, for-profit universities, health maintenance organizations, the army, the government, municipalities, the church. Well, bureaucracies tend to behave passive-aggressively. They tend to frustrate their own constituencies. This misconduct is often aimed at releasing tensions and stress that the individuals comprising these organizations accumulate in their daily contact with members of the public. Additionally, as Franz Kafka astutely observed, such misbehavior fosters dependence in the clients of these establishments. It cements a relationship of superior, in other words, the obstructionist group versus inferior, the demanding and deserving individual who is reduced to begging and supplicating. Passive-aggressiveness has a lot in common with pathological narcissism, the destructive envy, the recurrent attempts to buttress grandiose fantasies of omnipotence of initiates, the lack of impulse control, the deficient ability to empathize, and, of course, the sense of entitlement, often incommensurate with real-life achievements. No wonder, therefore, that negativistic, narcissistic and borderline organizations share similar traits and identical psychological defenses with a narcissist. Most notably, denial, mainly of the existence of problems and complaints. Projection, blaming the group's failures and dysfunction on its clients rather than on its management or on its workers. In such a state of mind, it is easy to confuse means, making money, hiring staff, constructing or renting facilities and so on, with ends, providing loans, educating students, assisting the poor, fighting wars. Means become the ends, and ends become the means to further means. Consequently, the original goals of the organization are now considered to be nothing more than obstacles on the way to realizing new aims. Borrower's students, the poor, are mere nuisance to be summarily dispensed with as the board of directors considers the erection of yet another edifice of its tower and the disbursement of yet another annual bonus to its members. As Parkinson noted, the collective perpetuates its existence, regardless of whether it has any role left and how well it functions. As the constituencies of these collectives, most forcefully its clients, protest and exert pressure in an attempt to restore these institutions to their erstwhile state. Well, as this happens, the protests, the pressure, the complaints, the collectives develop a paranoid state of mind. A siege mentality replete with the secretary denusions and aggressive behavior. Yes, collectives can be aggressive, and they can be paranoid. This anxiety is an introjection of guilt. Deep inside these organizations know that they have strayed from the right path. They anticipate attacks and revokes, and they are rendered defensive and suspicious by the inevitable, imminent impending onslaught. Still, deep down bureaucracies epitomize the predominant culture of failure. Failure is a product. The intended outcome. The end result of a complex, deliberate and arduous manufacturing process. Like the majority of people, bureaucrats are emotionally invested, not in success, but in failure. They thrive on failure, on calamity, on emergency. The worst the disaster and inattitude is, the more resources are allocated to voracious and ever-expanding bureaucracies. Do you remember what happened to the US government after the 9-11 terrorist attacks? Do you remember how it grew, exploded exponentially? Do you recall how many more resources it appropriated from the economy? So 9-11 was good for the US government. Paradoxically, the measure of success of these institutions is in how many failures they have had to endure or have fostered, not how many successes. These massive organs tend to attract and nurture functionaries and clients whose mentality and personality are suited to embedded fatalism. In a globalized, competitive world, the majority are doomed to failure and recurrent deprivation. Those rendered losers by the vagaries and exigencies of modernity find refuge in Leviathan, opposing metastatically sprawling nanny organizations and corporations who shield them from the agonizing truth of their own inadequacy and from the sheering winds of entrepreneurship and cutthroat struggle. The tiny minority of mavericks swim against this inexorable tide. These people innovate, refrain, invent and lead. Theirs is an existence of constant strife, as the multitudes and their weaponized bureaucracies seek to put these people down, to extinguish the barely flickering flame and to appropriate the scant resources consumed by these forward lips. In time, ironically, truly successful entrepreneurs themselves become invested in failure and form their own vast establishment and part, defensive and dedicated, rather than open and universal networks. Progress materializes despite of and in contradistinction too the hard-like human spirit, not because of it.