Hello and welcome to the intelligence on Economist Radio.

I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

Investing has always been about using information to gain an edge.

But in the information age, more and more decisions are handed to the machines.

In America, funds run by computers account for two-thirds of stock trades.

That comes with risks.

And centuries ago, the naughtiest words were religious slurs.

More recently, the sweariest insults had to do with body parts or bodily functions.

These days, those seem fairly tame,

and political polarization is opening a new dictionary of discurtesy.

But first...

Since taking office in 2018, South Africa's president Cyril Ramaphosa has faced a difficult

task, cleaning up the mess made by his own party, the African National Congress, or ANC.

The ANC is Nelson Mandela's Liberation Movement-turned party, which has been in power since the end of apartheid.

The country is in dire straits following the nine-year presidency of Mr. Remapose's predecessor,

Jacob Zuma.

Under Jacob Zuma's presidency, corruption was unrestrained.

Robert Guest is our foreign editor. Crooks took over many of the most important posts in government

and in the state-owned industries and used their power to loot it and to rob the public blind.

The predictable result of this was that public services got dramatically worse.

Capital fled the country, business stagnated, and people's livelihoods got worse.

...