The regular members of the coffee drinking group were speculating about the direction that the shares on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange would move over the coming year.

As may be guessed, there were those who were very optimistic and those who were very pessimistic. What was more interesting was the fact that each side could trot out a number of facts and figures to support their viewpoint. There were even quotations that had been made by some prominent economists and financial advisors that also seemed to carry weight on either side of the discussion.

However, as usual, it was the pipe smoker who asked whether there were any knowledgeable analysts that took a “do nothing” stance and thus felt that it was better to ‘just hold on’ and not be positive or negative? He was immediately confronted by irate members who felt that just ‘sitting on the fence’ was the approach of someone who had not done any homework and could even be considered to be a coward!

The pipe smoker reacted with a strong shrug of the shoulders and stated that each person was free to express his view as he saw fit. He added that each one also obviously had to defend the position from which he was making his statement, but then asked whether those viewpoints would still be valid if they had been asked by the minister of finance to give advice for the compilation of his next annual budget?

This question immediately upset a number of members of the group as they felt that such an eventuality could never arise and the question was not worthy of further discussion. The position of those that opted to take a neutral stance, the socalled ‘sitting on the fence position’, then became the centre of the further debate.

However, it was once again the pipe smoker that steered the discussion into a different direction by asking whether the same three options could be applied at local government level and more particularly with regards to future developments and expectations..

This time there was a more positive tone in the opinions that were put forward. While there was a general acceptance for the ‘buy’ option meaning ‘go forward and progress’, as opposed to the ‘sell’ option, meaning ‘cut back and return to the old days and ways’, It was the ‘hold’ option that was not very clear as to its exact meaning and implication. The pipe smoker explained that in his view it meant that things that had been useful in the past were now being allowed to decay because no maintenance attention was paid, usually based on arguments (maybe spurious?) that the past does not warrant attention now.

At this point the pipe smoker felt that his next question certainly needed to be discussed. This was: If, due to a change in policy thinking it was decided that certain projects or even assets do not form part or even play a role in the new thinking, would the best approach be to just walk away from them and allow them to stagnate and decay to the point of being classified as needing to be demolished? He added that if that had been the direction of the thought process originally then that question should have been asked and answered, as the alternate spending instead of maintaining the asset would have to be debated and the expected benefits put on the table.