By Cees Bruggemans, Chief Economist FNB

The forces arraigned against the Rand are rather formidable and no collapsed corporate deals seem to matter too much. The Rand is rising and will rise.

Pushing the Rand higher are the major central banks at the global centre (New York, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Zurich, London), keeping interest rates near zero and encouraging outward liquidity leakage towards faster growing and still outperforming yield destinations in the global periphery.

Pulling the Rand higher are a smattering of central banks located in the global periphery as they start increasing their rates, led by the Bank of Israel two weeks ago, but last week followed by the Reserve Bank of Australia, with others expected to follow serially in coming months.

With their growth reviving, small output gaps, house prices and employment rising and industrial activity recovering, these central banks are uncomfortable with their too low interest rates imposed during

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Globes had the story this morning about the takeaways from the Israeli Treasury meeting to bail out the pension system.

There are a few salient details, according to Globes:

the plan has received support from the Finance Minister, Roni Bar-On, and Bank of Israel Governor, Stanley Fischer the deal appears to be a compromise between Histadrut chairman Ofer Eini’s broader plan and the narrower plan put forth by the Finance Ministry The safety net will cover people over the age of 57. People will be covered either when they reach mandatory retirement age, or three years after the plan comes into effect, whichever is later. The safety net will have a means test of NIS 1.5 million in cumulative pension savings. Anyone applying for coverage will report all his or her pension savings. Anyone with more than NIS 1.5 million in cumulative pension savings will not be covered. Based on the plan’s actuarial assumptions, NIS ...

As my partner, Aaron Katsman, wrote about yesterday, IOI is spending two days at the President of Israel Shimon Peres’s Facing Tomorrow conference.

Before I write about how U.S. President George W. Bush addressed the delegation of businessmen/women, philanthropists, state leaders and ex-state leaders, I wanted to say that you can get a feel at these type of feel-good, semi-self congratulatory events regarding who’s hot and who’s not. While casino mogul and Forbes Top 10 holder Sheldon Adelson (LVS) walked the floor as did luminaries like Henry Kissinger, Elie Wiesel, and Bank of Israel’s Stanley Fischer, when Google (GOOG) founder Sergey Brin entered the cocktail room, the whole room hushed as bigwigs jostled to get close to him. Interesting. He’ll be participating on a panel tomorrow entitled “The Revolution of the Internet and the

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