The most pressing problem facing the country in the eyes of ordinary South Africans is unemployment. It is not racism, despite what many politicians would have you believe, according to Anthea Jeffery of the Institute of Race Relations.

President Zuma's state of the nation address was aimed at becalming a troubled country, but it may not be enough to avoid the inevitable ratings downgrade and electoral thumping the ruling party is likely to receive later this year. 

Morgan Stanley is the latest US bank to fess up to its role in the grand heist of 2008 when it fleeced investors and dumped subprime mortgages onto unsuspecting investors. It will cough up $3,2bn we learned this week. Bank of America agreed to pay $16,6bn in 2014.

An examination of matric results by the Institute of Race Relations shows whites scoring higher marks than other race groups. This suggests not nearly enough has been done to deliver quality education to black South Africans, according to the Institute. 

Julius Malema has fashioned himself on the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, seemingly oblivious of the fact that one in 10 Venezeulans plan to leave the country of their birth - such is the economic misery visited on them by the Chavez revolution. David Pilling of the Financial Times took Malema to lunch and ended up paying for seven of his comrades.

ANC veteran Denis Goldberg, friend of Nelson Mandela and a Rivonia trialist who spent 22 years behind bars for his political beliefs, says the ruling party is in for a nasty shock in the upcoming local elections. He also wonders how millionaire Julius Malema can speak for the poor.

The government is intent on micro-managing the financial serices sector with layer upon layer of regulation. Now it is the turn of insurers. New regulation will be dumped on the sector despite evidence that customers are on the whole rather satisfied, writes independent consultant Gerrit Sandrock.

Employees should ralise that they can be dismissed for offensive or racist social media remarks. Nothing posted in this digital age is considered private or irrelevant, according to Werksmans Attorneys. 

The judiciary has genuflected to Parliament's ongoing assault on property rights. As LLB student Martin van Staden points out, no society prospers where property rights are under attack. The result is inevitable: South Africans will continue securing their property rights in more hospitable climates abroad.

The witless Penny Sparrow has ignited a racial furore over her offensive remarks about blacks on SA's breaches, and rightly so. But most whites do not think like her. Yet SA does have a race problem, and its source is a government intent on using racial engineering to benefit a few.

As Acts Online has previosuly reported, SA is in the Stone Age when it comes to home repossessions. The good news is that the courts are considering changing its rules to prevent houses being sold at auction without reserve prices.   

Oxfam recently put out a report about the supposedly alarming growth of poverty and inequality. Oxfam is an anti-poverty, socialist carry-over from a by-gone era. It thrives on poverty and finds it everywhere, even when the actual evidence suggests otherwise.

The ANC is trying to put lipstick on the e-tolls pig, even going to the extent of insulting the estimated 90% of Gauteng motorists who have decided not to pay their e-tolls. This is a mistake the government may come to regret, particularly as local government elections are around the corner.

President Zuma is in Davos with two senior economics ministers, Rob Davies and Ebrahim Patel. A greater deterrent to investment is hard to imagine, which is why no-one is taking Zuma seriously anymore.

Mail & Guardian reports that axed finance minister Nhlanhla Nene had refused to buckle to pressure from SAA chairwoman Dudu Myeni and Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir - wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes - to open a new air route between SA and Khartoum.

Health minister Aaron Motsoaledi's call for a ban on smoking in all public places is an assault on freedom and civil liberties. Whether you are a smoker or not, this attack on tobacco (which is not illegal) affects you and your liberties.

The SA Democratic Union (SADTU) gets a free pass for selling teaching posts for R30,000 a pop in a country innured to such outrages. It is a symptom of the decay that has infested the extractive sectors that feed off the labours of others, writes Cilliers Brink of the Institute of Race Relations.

It is not too late for opposition parties to bring an application before the Constitutional Court challenging the suitability of Jacob Zuma to hold the office of president, says Paul Hoffman of Accountability Now. Zuma has demonstrated irrationality in transfering his finance minister and is fatally compromised as president.

Nkosana Makate has waged a 16 year battle to get what he argues is his rightful reward for inventing the Please Call Me service while an employee at Vodacom, which has a different view of how the servuce came about. Now the case is about to be decided by the Constitutional Court.

John Kane-Berman of the Institute of Race Relations offers some advice on how to get SA back on the rails again. First of all we need to figure out who runs the country: is it cabinet, President Zuma, the ratings agencies or the financial markets? Right now, it looks like no-one is in charge. 

Temba A. Nolutshungu of the Free Market Foundation argues that affirmative action is one of the biggest frauds perpetrated against South Africans in the post-apartheid era. In this article, he looks at how affirmative action has retarded the progress of the supposed beneficiaries in the US, Malaysia and elsewhere.

Everywhere news is screaming to us that things are bad and getting worse - from education standards to health, business and politics. While not everything is rosy, Free Market Foundation's executive dirtector Leon Louw points out some facts that suggest things are not as bad as they might seem.

The dagga trial gets underway in March this year, and it should be a trip! On the one side is the Dagga Party of SA, led by Jeremy Acton, and on the other the state. The Dagga Party argues that SA is out of touch with the latest research findings and the trend towards decriminalisation of the world's favourite plant.

If you want to stop being victimised by financial terrorists, stop using their currencies, says Charles Hugh-Smith. History is not on the side of the financial aristoracy who, like their Roman forbearers, are destined for wipe-out within the next 10 years. 

Dr Michael Burry is the inspiration behind the blockbuster movie The Big Short. If he could predict the market crash of 2008, why couldn't the government and the Federal Reserve? When he asked these questions publically in 2010, he was investigated by the tax authorities and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.