: – … while some schools celebrate “ a 100 % pass in matric ”, their graduates run around pretoria east, beating up homeless and anonymous black citizens. young people, who should be in school, run rampant through our society killing and maiming at random. … b. pityana ( 2007 ) “ increasing the business viability & employment growth in the country – a higher education perspective ” ; keynote address, skills development summit, sandton, johannesburg. ibid. growing numbers of school - age children begin to overpopulate the prison system …. and yet it must be stressed, as prof jansen does, that it is not true that all young people suffer from these pathologies. we would point to the enormous drive towards aspiration and achievement of today ’ s graduands, in counterpoise. viewed from an historical perspective, it is interesting to recall the views of john maynard keynes – one of the towering economists of the twentieth century – regarding “ the triple evils of modern society ”. the first evil, in keynes ’ view – which has resonance in south africa today – is the “ vast enrichment of individuals out of proportion to any services rendered ”. he saw the second and third evils as being “ the disappointment of expectations and difficulty of laying plans ahead ” ; and third “ unemployment ”. re - stated in the elegant prose of mervyn king, “ fat cats, short - termism, and the jobless society ”, this in the united kingdom, in 1923! 4 we at cranefield earn, honestly, that which is attributed to us ; acknowledge the existence of and manage the short and the long - term ; and attempt to make our modest contribution to the improvement of the conditions of our modern society through thorough training. not here mediocrity : rather, the pursuit of excellence. 3. to o the graduands for today ’ s graduands, this ceremony is the culmination of systematic application to structured learning. each one of you, no doubt, has had high moments and has suffered, at least occasionally, despair : – moments of absolute clarity and commitment to what you are doing interspersed, perhaps, with moments of confusion. each of you has a story of personal achievement to tell : and tell it you must. your achievement is commendable. you graduate from a credible institution and your qualification is recognised here at home and internationally. south africa has many things for which it could be grateful : today,

, be short - sighted of the reserve bank to overlook inflation and consider only shortterm economic growth in its decision making. instead, what we try to do is balance the need for stable economic growth and low levels of inflation. we are cognizant that the current interest rate hiking cycle will have a short - term detrimental impact on the economy. however, the cycle thus far has been gradual and shallow by historical standards. this measured approach to monetary policy tightening reflects the difficult balancing act that we currently face. the reserve bank operates within a flexible inflation - targeting framework, which allows us a degree of discretion in responding to inflation target breaches. if we expect a breach to be temporary or to be caused by an external shock, we may opt to look through such an event. an external shock could be a once - off food price increase or a depreciation of the exchange rate. in the case of such a shock, we may look past the first - round impact and act only if we see evidence of second - round effects ( that this, if the shock feeds through more broadly into inflation ). for example, in both 2012 and 2013 inflation briefly breached the 6 per cent level. the breaches were temporary, so we were able to look through them and leave interest rates on hold at that time. the inflation outlook has unfortunately deteriorated since then, which has called for higher interest rates. last month, the mpc opted to lift the repurchase rate, or repo rate, by 50 basis points. this was due to a revised inflation forecast, which sees headline inflation remaining above the 3 – 6 per cent target range throughout the forecast period. our inflation forecast was revised higher in january due to the multiple supply - side shocks that i referred to earlier. while we are able to tolerate a single external shock for a limited period of time, we cannot tolerate multiple simultaneous shocks that are likely to keep inflation elevated for two years. shocks of this nature raise the risk that inflation expectations for the coming years will recalibrate to a significantly higher level. bis central bankers ’ speeches our monetary policy response going forward will depend largely on how surveyed and implied inflation expectations play out over the course of this year. we use the bureau for economic research survey of inflation expectations among trade unions, financial analysts, and business people as a guide. but a crucial indicator of implied inflation expectations is the level of actual wage settlements in the economy. wage settlements that are above inflation and productivity growth threaten to undermine