Business Day reports that business confidence in South Africa is at a six-year low. I am actually surprised that things in South Africa are not worse given the calamitous tone of forecasts in the United States. Perhaps this is just the beginning, and South Africa faces a grim long-range economic picture. Or possibly South Africa's economy is independently strong enough that it is not wholly reliant upon that of the US. It is also conceivable that the fact that South Africa has a seemingly permanent underclass so that the gaps between the haves and have nots that are finally taking their toll on the US economy are already incorporated into South Africa's outlook. Whatever the reasons, bad economic tidings do not dominate South Africa's news cycle in the early days of 2009 to anywhere near the degree that they do in the United States.