August 22,
2019 Edition.
-----
I think it is
fair to say that for the first time in quite a while President Trump is on the
back foot as the world economy unravels under the impact of his misguided trade
policies. He is now realising he may actually loose the next election unless he
makes some major changes in the way he is treating the rest of the world.
Interesting times indeed! And just bye-the-bye just what the hell is that nuclear missile that Russia recently crashed? Bloody terrifying stuff! And to top it all off, what on earth is the Greenland malarkey?
With Brexit Boris
has gone very quiet. One wonders what he is up to. Rumors of progress with Berlin recently.
In Australia
ScoMo has really annoyed our Pacific Island neighbours regarding our approach
to climate change. Elsewhere we are seeing a lot of back-benchers raising all
sorts of issues to cause all sorts of internal Government trouble just because
they feel bored it would seem – e.g. nuclear power etc. Right now he is kicking of a new engagement in the Middle East and sidling up to Vietnam - I wonder how all that will go.
-----
Major Issues.
-----
Volatility to persist as trade tensions escalate
By David Scutt
August 11, 2019 —
4.45pm
Trade
headlines and central bank speculation look set to dominate again this week,
pointing the likelihood of continued volatility across
financial markets.
Throw
in a busy corporate earnings season and economic data calendar at home and
abroad and it promises to be another tricky period for local investors.
Following
a further escalation in trade tensions between the United States and China last
week, including the US
declaring China to be currency manipulator after
Beijing allowed its currency to weaken to an 11-year low against the greenback,
few expect any positive trade news to help lift investor spirits.
-----
Birmingham warns MPs over speaking out on 'sensitive' China issues
By Rob Harris
August 11, 2019 —
10.55am
Federal
Trade Minister Simon Birmingham has warned government MPs over speaking out
about "sensitive" foreign policy issues in another major rebuke of
Liberal backbencher Andrew Hastie's controversial comments over China.
The
Morrison government has gone into diplomatic overdrive following Mr Hastie's controversial intervention,
where he likened the world's approach to containing China to the failure to
stop the rise of Nazi Germany.
The
US-China trade-war has escalated, casting a shadow on the global growth
outlook. (This video was produced in commercial partnership between SMH, The
Age and IG Markets)
Senator
Birmingham echoed the public sentiments of Prime Minister Scott Morrison on
Sunday, saying Australia must engage directly with its major trading partner in
"a thoughtful manner" and urged his colleagues to question whether
public comments were helpful.
-----
Get used to being in the Trump-Xi firing line
Aug 11, 2019 —
5.00pm
The
Australian government may keep calling for “cool heads” and professing its
faith in a liberal
rules-based international order. But global politics looks more like the rapid unravelling of
post-World War II security and economic stabilisers – nowhere more evident than
in the Asia-Pacific.
Global stock
markets will be nervously hoping the turmoil and major price falls at the
beginning of last week are not about to be repeated via the inflammatory
channel of Trump tweets inviting retaliation by China. But the imminent
September 1 deadline for the imposition of new tariffs by the US on an
additional $US300 billion worth of Chinese exports ensure there can be no
return to calm or confidence.
The
optimistic assessment is that this is merely another example of messy
disruption in the steady march of globalisation that can still be managed, if
with more difficulty. That view is proving increasingly difficult to sustain.
-----
'Book of death' bid to keep default life insurance
Aug 12, 2019 — 12.00am
Big
foreign life insurers are making a last-ditch bid to protect almost $3 billion
in premiums that could be lost if the Morrison government passes new laws to
stop millions of younger and low-income Australians being automatically
insured, often unknowingly, through their superannuation.
Japanese-owned
TAL Life, Hong Kong’s AIA Group, American giant MetLife and German reinsurer
Munich RE are pressing the government, Labor and crossbench senators to water
down or abandon legislation intended to stop default life insurance fees
eroding superannuation account balances.
Parliament
is set to vote on the legislation next month so superannuation members aged under 25 and those with super balances below $6000 would no
longer automatically be defaulted into life insurance
and would instead need to consciously opt in.
-----
In defence of Andrew Hastie
It reflects poorly on the national debate that most Hastie critics
have ignored the legitimate issues he raises about China's authoritarian lurch.
Rory Medcalf
Aug 12, 2019 — 12.00am
West
Australian Liberal MP Andrew Hastie has attracted a storm of criticism for
crudely comparing the People’s Republic of China to Nazi Germany.
I
would join the chorus of concern if he had said this. The difficulty is, he
didn’t.
The
outrage has
naturally come from the Chinese embassy and Communist Party-controlled
media, but also from some prominent voices in Australian politics and business.
It
is a poor reflection on the national debate – and our pre-emptive fears of
displeasing China – that most critics seem to have reached their conclusions
from news headlines and from the echo chamber of each other, rather than what
Hastie actually said.
-----
Special forces gain $3b equipment boost
By Rob Harris
August 12, 2019 —
12.01am
Australia's
elite special forces will gain new cutting-edge body armour, weapons, and
parachuting and climbing systems as part of a $3 billion investment from the
federal government.
Prime
Minister Scott Morrison will announce on Monday the approval the first stage of
Project GREYFIN, which will provide the first $500 million of the
multibillion-dollar spend over two decades.
Australia’s special forces will benefit from a $3 billion
investment in equipment under the Coalition government.
Mr
Morrison said the funding would ensure special forces, which include the
commando and SAS regiments, can better respond to threats, including terrorism.
-----
Over 65s flooding the job market - and finding they're not so employable
By Shane Wright
August 10, 2019 —
11.45pm
Older
Australians struggling to make ends meet or looking to boost their quality of
life are flooding the national jobs market in record numbers but many are
finding their skills and experience unwanted by prospective employers.
Special
research into the changing nature of the jobs market reveals people over the
age of 65 are the single fastest growing age group securing work, up by 11 per
cent over the past 12 months alone.
At
the same time, the general workforce has lifted by 3 per cent.
There
are now a record 610,000 people 65 or older holding down part or full time
work.
But
despite the large increase, many older Australians are finding it very
difficult to get work with a 39 per cent jump in the number of unemployed over
65s looking to tie down a full time job.
-----
Negative interest rates? Getting paid to borrow money isn't so bad
By Karl W. Smith
August 12, 2019 —
10.01am
A
Danish bank is now offering mortgage bonds with a negative interest rate. So if
you're willing to buy a house on borrowed money, Danish banks will pay you for
your trouble.
Reaction
to this state of affairs - which, after all, is beneficial to borrowers, which
almost all of us are at some point - has been fierce.
Negative
interest rates have been called idiotic, unnatural and a tax on virtue - and
that's by economists. For most other people, including many in finance and
investment, they're just bewildering.
But
zero is just a number, and a drop in rates from 5 per cent to 2 per cent is not
so different from a drop of 2 per cent to -1 per cent. In reality, this is all
just old-fashioned supply and demand at work.
-----
China debate is one we have to have, but let's do it sensibly
Tony Walker
Columnist and
award-winning foreign correspondent
August 11, 2019 —
11.38pm
The
Chinese have a phrase that is among the most used in their official language.
That phrase, in Mandarin, is "bu fangbian". It means, literally,
not convenient or, simply, inconvenient.
Liberal
backbencher Andrew Hastie’s contribution
to the debate about how to manage relations with China, in which he compared
that country with Nazi Germany, is definitely bu fangbian, as far as Scott
Morrison is concerned.
The
timing of Hastie’s intervention in the China debate for a Prime Minister
preparing for a visit to Washington in which managing China’s continued rise –
and resisting American anti-China pressure – will dominate discussion is, well,
inconvenient.
-----
No escaping China’s dark truth
Large sections of the left, the rent-seeking centre and
capitalists on the right come together to argue for tolerance when it comes to
China. Because they don’t mind it’s non-democratic structures, and positively
love the rent seeking and monetary opportunities China offers.
Leaving only democrats, therefore, to raise the spectre that China
just might be an authoritarian threat to the world order. That is, a structure
which preserves freedoms in states such as ours.
The rise of China has lifted millions out of poverty. Bravo to
that. But it is a pathway to prosperity built on quashing democratic values,
principles of due process and the rule of law, alongside a most totalitarian
stifling of dissent.
And now we see the expansionist tendencies of China as well, not
to mention its preparedness to up the ante on how it attacks anyone who raises
concerns about its rising power.
-----
People must be able to choose their super fund
Too many Australians are still banned from choosing their own
super fund.
This is thanks to Labor, which as the 2019 election showed, has
allowed the unions to pollute its policy platform.
With union representation collapsing to 10 per cent, this flaw in one
of the two big parties is undermining the policy choices Australians can select
at elections. From the retiree tax to Soviet-style pattern bargaining
proposals, the Labor platform was wrong for Australia and rejected by the
people.
One of the worst policies the unions have foisted on Labor is a
rort which allows big unions and big business to steal workers’ rights to
choose their own super fund.
-----
Brace yourself for a global downturn and stock market crash
Central bankers can’t create real growth; they can only move
money around. At some point, the markets and the real economy must converge.
Aug 12, 2019 — 9.23am
It’s
the calm before the storm. Last week’s market volatility was
ostensibly triggered by the US-China trade conflict turning into a full-blown
currency war. But at heart, it’s about the inability of the Federal Reserve to convince us that its July rate cut
was merely “insurance” to protect against a future downturn.
As
any number of indicators now show — from weak purchasing managers' indices in
the US, Spain, Italy, France and Germany, to rising corporate bankruptcies and
a spike in US lay-offs — the global downturn has already begun.
Asset
prices will undoubtedly begin to reflect this, and possibly quite soon. China
may have temporarily calmed markets by stabilising the renminbi. But we are in
for what Ulf Lindahl, chief executive of AG Bisset Associates currency
research, calls “a summer of fear.” He expects the mean-reversion in the Dow
that started in January 2018 to turn into a bear market that lasts a decade.
-----
Monday, 12 August 2019 11:31
Warning of record $532 million in losses to scams this year
Australians
are expected to suffer record losses to scammers exceeding $532 million by the
end of this year, surpassing half a billion dollars for the first time,
according to the latest Scamwatch report from the Australian Competition and
Consumer Commission (ACCC).
The
latest warnings from the ACCC coincide with this year’s National Scams
Awareness Week from 12 to 16 August, with the theme is “too smart to be
scammed?”
And
with today’s launch of the Scam Awareness Week, the ACCC - along with over 100
campaign partners from government and industry - is urging consumers to test
their scams knowledge and refresh their scam protection and detection skills.
-----
Winners from the search for yield
Commercial property managers and fixed interest fundies are two of
the big winners from the search for yield triggered by the RBA's rate cuts.
Aug 13, 2019 — 12.00am
The
search for yield is proving a boon for several lucky sectors of the economy,
but two that really stand out are real estate investment trusts and fixed
income fund managers.
As
the Reserve Bank of Australia ratchets down the official cash rate
towards zero, investors are showing a willingness to pay a premium for
predictable and relatively secure cash flows.
Investors
are also willing to pay handsome management fees to fixed interest fund
managers who are delivering better returns than those available in a bank
through investments in a range of debt and income securities.
-----
US long-bond yield nears all-time low
Katherine
Greifeld and Vivien Lou Chen
Aug 13, 2019 — 7.30am
New
York | The rate on 30-year Treasury bonds approached an all-time low
and a closely monitored section of the US yield curve hurtled closer to
inversion as investors sought shelter amid a fraught geopolitical backdrop.
The
yield on the long bond tumbled as much as 14 basis points to 2.12 per cent,
closing in on its record-low of 2.0882 per cent from July 2016.
The
rate on 10-year notes dropped as much as 12 basis points to 1.63 per cent and
the securities at one point yielded just 5 basis points more than two-year
notes. That's the flattest that part of the curve has been since 2007.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/us-politics-is-not-about-the-quiet-voters-20190812-p52gbd
US politics is not about the quiet voters
Aug 12, 2019 — 7.00pm
I
am on my way to lunch with two old old friends in Washington DC. One votes
Republican, one Democrat.
“Of
course, we can’t talk about politics. It’s too sensitive,” cautions one of them
beforehand. As the 2020 presidential campaigns starts to get serious for the
Democratic Party, it only becomes more obvious how polarised US society has
become. The centre has simply vanished from much of political debate, or what
used to be called civil society. Donald Trump certainly did not create this
cultural shift but his presidency has greatly exacerbated its momentum.
Americans
don’t do “quiet” in the way that Scott Morrison likes to describe those
Australians who don’t think much about politics day to day but trusted him
enough to vote for him. US citizens tend to express plenty of opinions on just
about everything, although usually relatively politely in face-to-face
conversation. My friends are the equivalent of those who used to be called
“soccer moms” – suburban, comfortably middle class, interested but not too
passionate in their politics.
-----
Barometer of fear: Bonds are signalling something awful might lie ahead
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business
columnist
August 13, 2019 —
12.00am
If
bonds markets are the best barometer of economic conditions then they are
signalling something quite awful might lie ahead.
Last
week, after Donald
Trump labelled China a currency manipulator and added
the spectre of a currency war to the trade war between the world’s two biggest
economies, the global stock of bonds with negative yields reached record
levels.
US
President Donald Trump said he would impose an additional 10 per cent tariff on
$300 billion worth of Chinese imports starting September 1.
In
early October last year, just before the US Federal Reserve Board signalled
further increases in US interest rates and triggered meltdowns in global equity
markets, there were $US5.7 trillion ($8.4 trillion) of bonds with negative
yields in global markets.
-----
Useful Idiots and Trumpist Billionaires
There are times when dangerous political movements derive
important support from people who will be among their biggest victims.
Paul Krugman
Aug 13, 2019 — 4.19pm
Whoever
came up with the phrase "useful idiots"— it's often credited to
Lenin, but there's no evidence he ever said it — was on to something.
There
are times when dangerous political movements derive important support from
people who will, if these movements achieve and hold power, be among their
biggest victims.
Certainly
I found myself thinking of the phrase when I read about the Trump fundraiser
held at the Hamptons home of Stephen Ross, chairman of
a company that holds controlling stakes in Equinox and SoulCycle.
Most
reporting on the Ross event has focused on the possible adverse effects on his
business empire: The young, educated, urban fitness fanatics who go to his gyms
don't like the idea that their money is supporting Donald Trump. But the
foolishness of Ross' Trump support goes well beyond the potential damage to his
bottom line.
-----
ASX200 face 'Enron risk' with non-audit work
Aug 14, 2019 — 12.05am
About
a quarter of all ASX200 companies spend more than 40 per cent of their fees
with their auditor on non-audit work, creating concern about the independence
of the financial inspection work.
The
2018 financial reports of the 200 largest listed companies revealed Crown
Resorts, Qantas, Whitehaven Coal and Webjet were among more than 50 companies
where the auditor was almost as likely to be doing non-audit work as they were
to be carrying out their statutory auditing role.
There
are meant to be strict rules around the type of non-audit work an external
auditor can carry out for a client. This year the corporate regulator warned
that auditors were being "compromised" by also providing lucrative
consulting work to their clients.
-----
China hawks trapped by the wrong lessons from history
Emotive references to Nazis hinder rather than help our
understanding of Australia's rapidly changing strategic situation.
James Curran
Updated Aug 14, 2019 — 6.13am, first published at 12.00am
The
recent intervention by Liberal backbencher Andrew Hastie on Australian China
policy again highlights some of the fundamental problems in coming to terms
with this country’s strategic challenge. Old myths are being recycled to explain
new and complex circumstances.
Little
is gained by semantic fidgeting on whether or not Hastie’s reference to
Germany’s military advance across the French border in World War II was a
conscious attempt to equate modern Chinese military aggression with those of
Nazi Germany. Hastie
did not mention the Nazis, but he didn’t need to. His intent was clear,
unmissable.
In
essence, Hastie revived the so-called "Munich" lesson of appeasement.
This has been the dominant myth giving shape to the west’s approach to
international affairs since 1945: if democracies show weakness in the face of
totalitarian aggression, so the myth runs, it only feeds the aggressor’s
appetite. Used to justify military interventions in both the Cold War and
post-Cold War eras, Yale’s Paul Kennedy labelled it the "most abused word
in history", adding that "nothing so alarms a prime minister or
president in the western world than to be accused" of appeasement. Far
better, he mused, to be charged with "stealing from a nunnery".
-----
Retail sales drop to levels not seen since the 1991 recession
By Shane Wright
August 13, 2019 —
6.45pm
The
"retail recession" is getting deeper and is now worse than anything
faced by the sector during the global financial crisis, a key survey of the
nation's businesses has revealed as the Reserve Bank grows confident its
interest rate cuts are flowing through to borrowers.
Ahead
of key wage and job figures this week, the closely-watched NAB business survey
showed trading conditions and confidence remaining weak with a concerning drop
in employment plans by the nation's firms.
The
toughest sector remains retail where profits, trading conditions and employment
intentions weakened through July despite the impact of the government's
personal income tax cuts and the reduction in official interest rates.
-----
Migration under review amid growing congestion concerns
By Shane Wright and Eryk Bagshaw
August 14, 2019 —
12.00am
The
Morrison government will launch a powerful inquiry into Australia's migration
program, opening the door to further cuts in immigrant numbers and moves to
push more migrants into the regions to take pressure off congested areas in
Sydney and Melbourne.
The
comprehensive review, to be led by Parliament's joint migration committee,
which usually examines the nation's detention centres and visa laws, will take
in population and infrastructure pressures. It comes a day after Infrastructure
Australia warned the cost of lost productivity due to congestion would double
to $38.8 billion by 2031 if the government did not act.
Members
of the Coalition backbench last year called for a review of the migrant intake,
which has given Australia one of the fastest-growing populations in the
developed world.
The
population is expected to grow almost 24 per cent to 31.4 million by 2034,
according to Infrastructure Australia, and most new residents are expected to
live in Sydney or Melbourne.
-----
Media executives decry 'state of secrecy'
The heads of Australia's major media organisations are appearing
before a parliamentary inquiry into press freedom and national security in
Sydney.
Daniel McCulloch
Australian
Associated Press August 13, 20199:21am
Media chiefs have raised concerns about a "creeping secrecy
that shrouds Canberra" as they demand changes to laws criminalising
journalism.
A
dozen senior executives from Australia's major media organisations are
appearing before federal parliament's powerful intelligence and security
committee in Sydney on Tuesday.
They
are demanding changes to national security laws that inhibit journalism.
-----
Wages growth better than expected but still sluggish
·
Dow Jones
Australian wages growth was better than expected in the second
quarter as a result of a strong lift in pay for public servants.
However, the annual pace of wages growth remains weak and
economists expect the RBA will cut rates further in the months ahead as it
attempts to boost GDP growth and mop up spare capacity in the job market.
Wages rose a seasonally adjusted 0.6 per cent compared to the
first quarter and rose by 2.3 per cent from a year earlier, the Australian
Bureau of Statistics said.
Drivers included health care and social services.
-----
Oaktree Capital’s Howard Marks: time to play investment defence
Oaktree Capital’s Howard Marks has warned that it is time to take
a defensive approach to investing, opting for bonds over stocks, investing in
the US rather than emerging markets and choosing larger, more stable companies
to invest in over smaller growth stocks.
“The easy money has been made,” Marks, co-chairman of the $200
billion Oaktree Capital group, said in an interview with The Australian
from Los Angeles.
“One shouldn’t expect big gains without risk going forward.
“Asset prices are full and
many people are engaging in risky behaviour to wrest good returns from a
low-return world.
“Returns are no longer proportionate to the risk and may be sub
par given the risk. If you take those things — risks, low returns, high asset
behaviour and risky behaviour all around us — it tells me we should be more
defensive than usual.”
-----
The new nuclear option: small, safe and cheap
Can an emerging generation of small-scale reactors overcome
Australians' resistance to nuclear power?
The
Rolls-Royce small nuclear power plant that it says could be in operation by
2030. It would have about half the output of the giant Loy Lang B in
Victoria. Rolls-Royce
Aug 15, 2019 — 12.00am
The
next generation of nuclear reactors – the ones that could finally overcome
Australia's resistance to power by fission – are so small they will abide by
road regulations.
Rolls-Royce
is designing a reactor that will be 4.5m wide to fit under the 4.95m British
road height limit. They would be built in a factory and transported to
customers by truck or barge.
In
the industry they are known as small modular reactors, or SMRs. They may be the
most exciting development in the field since August 3, 1958, when the
nuclear-powered USS
Nautilus became the first sea vessel to reach the North Pole.
As
the developed world tries to work out how to power their economies without
contributing to global warming – some 75 per cent of Australian electricity
came from coal in 2017 – nuclear power is making a comeback among experts after
the backlash triggered by Fukushima Daiichi accident in Japan eight years ago.
-----
Howard Marks warns of 'dark view' on trade war
Aug 15, 2019 — 12.00am
Legendary
investor Howard Marks has warned that a fully fledged trade war will be a
"bad thing" and has urged investors to be more defensive amid fears
risky behaviour has led to excesses in private equity and debt.
The
co-chairman of US-based fund manager Oaktree Capital cautioned that the
reversal of globalisation at a time of simmering trade tensions between the US
and China, coupled with growing political populism, could sap global growth
over coming years.
"You
could take a dark view of the world if there is a trade war," Mr Marks
said, speaking before his appearance at the Sohn Hearts & Minds conference
in November.
-----
RBA's Debelle challenges US recession signal
Aug 15, 2019 — 12.46pm
Reserve
Bank deputy governor Guy Debelle has downplayed the ability of the US bond
market to predict an imminent American recession after the further inversion of
the Treasury yield curve sent offshore and local sharemarkets tumbling.
Analysts
and investors have been keenly aware that the market's most reliable predictor
of US recession first began flashing on March 23, when the 10-year US bond rate
fell below the three-month rate for the first time since 2007 - ahead of the
GFC, or Great Recession, as it's also known.
This
inversion of the US 10-year to 3-month yield curve has correctly predicted each
of the past six American recessions, going back to the early 1970s.
-----
Culture wars a Coalition dead end with voters
Focussing on the economy, keeping out of the news and steering
clear of culture wars issues are all essential for the Coalition.
Aug 15, 2019 — 6.00pm
When
the full ministry gathered for its first meeting after the election, each
member was handed a three-page document prepared by the Prime Minister's
office.
It
contained tables detailing the average audience for every pay television,
free-to-air television, and radio station in the country.
It
was part of Scott Morrison's edict that ministers should stick to their
portfolios and limit their media appearances to when they had something to
announce, or when something needed a response.
-----
Morrison stands alone in Pacific fight over coal
Aug 16, 2019 — 11.05am
While
Scott Morrison has angered Pacific leaders over his intransigence in
support of coal, China may not be able to exploit the tensions to build
regional influence because of its own reliance on fossil fuels, a top strategic
policy expert says.
Mr
Morrison was forced to defend Australia's record on climate change during acrimonious
talks with Pacific leaders where he blocked efforts to
reach a consensus on calling for an immediate ban on new coal mines and
coal-fired power generation at the Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu.
The
language in the declaration issued by leaders has been watered down to ask
Paris climate pact signatories to simply "reflect" on United Nations
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' recent call for an immediate ban on new
coal use.
-----
Worried RBA governor flouts convention to push for higher wages
Ross Gittins
Economics Editor
August 17, 2019 —
12.00am
The
most important piece of local economic news this week was no news: the wage
price index remained stuck at an annual growth rate of 2.3 per cent for yet
another quarter. I’ve said it before but I’ll keep saying it until it’s sunk
into the skull of every last politician: we won’t get back to healthy growth in
the economy until we get back to healthy growth in wages.
That’s
because economies are circular: all of us standing in a circle, buying and
selling to everyone else. What’s the main thing people in the circle sell?
Their labour. What do they do with the wages they earn? Buy stuff from the rest
of the economy.
Business
people (and Coalition politicians) are very conscious of the truth that wages
are a cost
to business. They’ve thus long had the attitude that wages should be kept as
low as possible.
But
equally, wages are income to wage-earners, and by far the biggest source
of income for the nation’s nine million households. So the less wages grow, the
less growth there is in the income households use to buy the goods and services
produced by the nation’s businesses. Not good.
-----
Why we must waltz with America and China at the same time
Tom Switzer
Columnist,
broadcaster and executive director of the Centre for Independent Studies
August 17, 2019 —
12.00am
Australia,
the great American columnist Charles Krauthammer once noted, is an “island of
tranquillity in a roiling region”. We understand that peace and prosperity, he
said, do not come with the air we breathe, but are maintained by power – once
the power of the British Empire, now the power of the United States. Anything
that disturbs the regional status quo is not in our national interest.
However,
the cold hard reality is that as China’s power grows, its definition of national
interest increases. As a result, it will seek a sphere of influence on which
its future prosperity and stability depends.
Nothing
odd about that; it’s what all rising great powers do. Think of the US in the
19th century when it pushed the European powers out of the western hemisphere.
-----
Negotiate the financial adviser’s fee to protect your wealth
I often compare financial planners to doctors.
They are both professionals who help you stay healthy: one
physically, the other financially. But there is one significant difference
between them: the people who look after your financial health are much more
expensive than those who look after your medical health, but they spend a lot
less time training and preparing.
A visit to my doctor costs me $90 and takes about 15-20 minutes,
depending on what’s wrong with me and whether he feels like a chat, and I get
back $36.60 of that from Medicare, on the spot.
Even if I need, or decide to have, a full check-up, I’m only up
for a few hundred dollars for the pathology tests, and I get most of that back
from Medicare. But with a financial “doctor”, there’s no option but to start
with a full check-up, which can cost up to $5000, and there’s definitely no
financial Medicare to give you a refund.
-----
Super is delivering, so why do retirees feel financially insecure?
By Jeremy Cooper
August 18, 2019 —
12.00am
Australians
are starting to retire with meaningful superannuation balances.
New
data from the Australian Taxation Office show that the average Australian about
to retire has more than $300,000 in super.
With
most people retiring as a couple, this means the typical household will be
starting retirement today with more than $400,000 in super. This is the good
news.
But,
as super balances grow, they correspondingly reduce entitlement to the age
pension under the means tests.
Largely
due to these increasing super balances, the majority of today’s retirees do not
get the full age pension, and the majority of recently age eligible Australians
(66-year-olds) do not get any age pension at all. This is the not-so-good news.
-----
The bond market and recession: Is this time different?
Aug 16, 2019 — 10.53pm
The
terrifying signal sent by the inversion of the US yield curve cannot be
ignored, but neither is it fully understood, even though its strike rate in
predicting recessions could be about to extend to eight from eight.
There
was no recovery in the sharemarket on Friday after
Thursday's epic 2.85 per cent sell-off - Australian equities' worst day
in 18 months. The root cause lies in the movement of the US 10-year Treasury
yield, which fell below the level of the US 2-year Treasury yield, triggering
an event known as inversion.
Seven
out of seven times it has been right.
The
equity market was confident enough to sell and ask questions later. But it has
become apparent that even the bond market doesn't agree what the yield curve's
true message is and whether it is even relevant in 2019.
-----
Do bonds offer safety for investors?
After one of the greatest bond rallies of all time, it's hard to
make the case today for buying more – unless a recession is around the corner.
Aug 16, 2019 — 4.30pm
Boring
bonds are interesting again. As usual, bondholders' impressive gains come
hand-in-hand with a spike in
volatility for financial markets and uncertainty among investors.
Climbing
fears of a recession in the world's largest economy have sparked a rush to assets
considered safe havens during trouble.
But
as
10-year Aussie bond prices hit record highs, for the new
investor, what price is too much to pay for peace of mind? To answer this
question, one needs to look at how far bonds have climbed, how far they might
fall, and whether you believe worse times are to come.
-----
Royal Commissions And The Like.
-----
Treasurer to outline schedule for legislating new rules flowing from bank inquiry
Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will unveil his timetable next
week for legislation flowing from the royal commission into financial services.
Mr Frydenberg is due to address the Victorian Chamber of Commerce
in Melbourne on Monday where he will detail the government’s plans.
Earlier this week he addressed mortgage brokers at conferences in
Sydney and Hobart where he was applauded for his decision to delay any changes to trailing commissions pending a review.
The commission had recommended radical changes to the way
mortgage brokers are paid, suggesting home buyers rather than the referring
banks pay the fees and pushing for a ban on trailing commissions.
-----
Advice gap to leave millions stranded
Aug 17, 2019 — 12.00am
Tough
new regulations are set to leave the industry and millions of Australians unwilling or unable to pay for financial
advice.
More
than 10 per cent of Australia’s licensed financial advisers left the industry
over the six months to June 30 as costs rise, standards are hiked and revenues
dwindle.
Their
departures have left left a hole in the market as the industry funnels
resources into low-cost robo-advice and prohibitively expensive
"high-touch" services.
Financial
Planning Association CEO Dante De Gori said more stringent education standards
under FASEA could see adviser numbers fall by up to 40 per cent by 2024.
-----
National Budget Issues.
-----
Chilly economic winds are blowing – and budget fairytales are cold comfort
Even
Peter Costello knew you don’t chase a surplus when the economy is slowing and
revenue falling
Sun 11 Aug 2019 08.00 AEST
Last modified on Sun 11 Aug 2019 12.03 AEST
Two fairytales about economic
management continue to hold far too great a sway over our public debate and the
government’s economic policy. The first is the myth of household budget
comparison and the second is what I call the grasshopper fable of government
budgets.
The
belief that the government should run its budget like a household really needs
to die a quick death. We hear it all the time – and it underlies the whole
“surplus is better than deficit” line that is practically considered a
statement of scientific fact by too many otherwise sensible people in politics
and the media (and by extension the voting public).
Your
household’s expenditure needs are nothing like a government’s and your
budgetary limitation completely opposite.
Households
don’t get the opportunity to print money should they be a bit short when it
comes to pay the bills. They also don’t get to borrow money at interest rates
lower than inflation.
-----
Inside the other credit crunch
Lenders, car dealers and borrowers will be hoping the corporate
watchdog can clarify responsible lending rules and ease the other credit
squeeze.
Aug 12, 2019 — 12.00am
Tom
Caesar couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.
The
chief executive and co-founder of Positive Lending Solutions was working on a
car loan application for a mother when the lender he was dealing with
questioned a $120 item in her list of recent expenses.
Could
Caesar ask why the prospective borrower had spent money at a radiology
chain?
Caesar
says he was taken aback at how potentially intrusive the query was. What if the
borrower had a personal and private health issue? What if she’d had a personal
tragedy, such as a miscarriage?
But
he had little choice. In a post-royal commission world, where the banks are
struggling to come to grips with what “responsible” lending really means, every
dollar of income and every expense can be tested and prodded.
-----
We're edging towards admitting we're caught in 'secular stagnation'
Ross Gittins
Economics Editor
August 12, 2019 —
12.05am
At
least since 2012, Treasury, the Reserve Bank and successive governments have
assured us a return to the old normal of strong economic growth, high wages and
low unemployment wasn’t far off. But last week big cracks emerged in governor
Philip Lowe’s optimistic facade.
In
all the years since then, our estimated time of arrival at the promised land
has been repeatedly pushed out a year or so. On the face of it, that’s what the
Reserve did yet again in its quarterly statement on monetary policy.
Forecast
growth in real gross domestic product over the year to December was cut again,
to 2.5 per cent (down from a predicted 3.25 per cent last November), but not to
worry. By June next year it will have bounced back to trend growth of 2.75 per
cent. Happy days.
-----
Households feel pinch on jobs and wage concerns
By Shane Wright
August 11, 2019 —
11.59pm
Stagnant
wages and growing concerns about the state of the jobs market is now weighing
on the financial comfort of Australians with a new survey revealing hundreds of
thousands of households barely holding their finances together.
Ahead
of key wage and employment figures, the ME Bank six-monthly survey of financial
comfort suggests the long period of slow income growth is leaving many people
struggling to cover day-to-day bills.
Despite
the federal government's tax cuts and falls in official interest rates, the
survey found a drop in financial comfort for most Australians since February.
Comfort
among working Australians dropped the sharpest with full and part-time workers
all registering sizeable declines.
-----
How to avoid RBA fears of 'secular stagnation'
RBA governor Phil Lowe is worried there is too much saving and not
enough investment, with the result being very low interest rates. But there's a
way to avoid it.
Aug 12, 2019 — 12.56pm
Can
the Australian economy avoid being infected by so-called "secular
stagnation" and falling into the global trap of near-zero interest rates?
After
avoiding being sucked into extreme monetary policy for most of the past decade
following the global financial crisis, Reserve Bank of Australia governor
Philip Lowe conceded in parliamentary testimony on Friday that Australia may no
longer be able to repel the negative international forces.
He
acknowledged the "possibility" of the RBA following other central banks
cutting rates to around zero and deploying unconventional tools
such as buying government bonds to drive down long-term borrowing costs.
-----
Interest rate cuts working for investor confidence
Aug 13, 2019 — 9.26am
Official
interest rate cuts are having the right effect on the economy by giving
investors the confidence that monetary policy is working and will steer the
economy through shocks, according to Reserve Bank of Australia's assistant
governor Christopher Kent.
Dr
Kent said in a speech Tuesday morning to the Finance and Treasury Association
that the transmission of monetary policy - which so far has included 50 basis points worth of cash rate cuts in Australia
- was working as "usual" with data sets showing reductions in housing
loan costs were clearly being passed on.
"The
transmission of monetary policy in Australia to financial conditions is working
in the usual way," Dr Kent said.
He
said the change in the stance of policy had contributed to a decline in the
cost of funding in corporate bond markets as well as having supported equity
prices, lowered the value of the Australian dollar and lowered the cost of
funding for banks, businesses and home loan borrowers.
-----
'Self-fulfilling' downturn ahead, but Australia insulated: RBA
Aug 15, 2019 — 9.08am
Reserve
Bank of Australia deputy governor Guy Debelle has warned of a
"self-fulfilling downturn" globally because of the uncertainty over
the US and China trade and technology war, but expects Australia will be
insulated due to Chinese fiscal stimulus.
After
the Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 3.1 per cent in New York overnight and a key part of the US bond
yield curve inverted - two-year Treasury securities traded above the 10-year note
yield for the first time in 12 years - Dr Debelle said businesses around the
world were now deciding to "wait rather than invest" and that would
have serious implications for economies.
"Businesses
are waiting to see how the uncertainty resolves rather than
invest. It is too risky to commit to a multi-year project or buy a large piece of plant if the economics of the decision can get completely undermined by a policy decision," Dr Debelle said in a speech to the annual Risk Australia Conference in Sydney on Thursday.
invest. It is too risky to commit to a multi-year project or buy a large piece of plant if the economics of the decision can get completely undermined by a policy decision," Dr Debelle said in a speech to the annual Risk Australia Conference in Sydney on Thursday.
-----
Better days for households but climate and trade war a risk, Reserve Bank predicts
By Shane Wright
August 15, 2019 —
9.05am
Stabilising
house prices and a boost from the Morrison government's tax cuts are likely to
help strengthen families' bottom lines and the overall economy, the Reserve
Bank believes amid concerns about the long term impact of the US-China trade
war.
Bank
deputy governor Guy Debelle, in a speech on the major risks facing the domestic
economy delivered in Sydney on Thursday morning, said while household
consumption had been muted over the past 12 months there were some positive
signs ahead.
He
said the drop-off in house prices looked to have come to an end in a
development that should encourage a lift in household spending.
The
government's tax take had sharply increased in recent years but with the recent
tax cut for low and middle income earners now working through the economy there
should also be a little more money for families.
"Housing
market conditions may even start to support consumption growth again in the
period ahead," he said.
-----
Australian jobs market defies slowdown
·
Dow Jones
Australia’s labour market continues to defy signs of a slowdown in
the economy, with more than 41,000 jobs created in July.
Still, the unemployment rate was unchanged at a seasonally
adjusted 5.2 per cent in July as more people looked for work. Economists had
expected an unemployment rate of 5.2 per cent.
The number of people employed rose by 41,100, compared with an
expected 14,000 rise, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said.
The number of people in full-time work rose by 34,500, while those
in part-time work rose by 6700.
-----
Treasurer vows to take 'necessary actions' for economy as US recession fears spook markets
By Shane Wright and Eryk Bagshaw
August 15, 2019 —
11.45pm
Treasurer
Josh Frydenberg has vowed the government will take "the necessary
actions" to protect the Australian economy amid fresh signs of a global
slowdown and fears the United States could be on the cusp of a recession.
In
an intervention designed to calm nerves after $60
billion was wiped from the value of Australia's top-200 listed companies
in a day, Mr Frydenberg said the nation was well placed to absorb any impending
global shock but he was "certainly not complacent".
Wall
Street's main indexes slid Wednesday as a closely watched US bond market
indicator pointed to a renewed risk of recession following poor economic data
from Germany and China.
-----
Health Issues.
-----
Coalition moves to reset confidence in NDIS
Aug 12, 2019 — 9.33am
The
Morrison government has moved to reset
community confidence in the National Disability Insurance Scheme,
launching a review of its rules and announcing plans for a new service
guarantee.
NDIS
Minister Stuart Robert said on Monday former
Finance Department Secretary David Tune would review the scheme's rules
and governing legislation, with a focus on how to streamline processes for
participants.
The
scheme — dogged by complaints about bureaucracy, funding shortfalls and service
delays since it was established in 2013 — was established to boost care and
quality of life for the about 4.3 million Australians who have a disability.
-----
Abandon public-private model at Northern Beaches Hospital, doctors urge state government
By Kate Aubusson
August 12, 2019 —
5.00am
Doctors
have called on the NSW government to abandon public-private partnerships
(PPPs), blaming the controversial model for fundamental flaws, cost-cutting and
secrecy at the Northern Beaches Hospital.
In
a clear rebuke of the government’s PPP aspirations, the doctors' union
Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation (ASMOF) accused Healthscope of
acting as if it were running a purely private hospital by failing to integrate
with the public health system.
The
union urged the NSW government to exercise greater oversight at the $600
million facility in its submission to the parliamentary inquiry investigating
the hospital's operations.
-----
PM moves to cut NDIS red tape, waiting times with new review
Scott Morrison has moved to cut red tape and waiting times
plaguing the National Disability Insurance Scheme with a new review of the
landmark social program’s rules.
NDIS Minister Stuart Robert has appointed former Finance
Department boss Davir Tune to take out the review which will look to streamline
NDIS services for Australia’s most vulnerable people, and will report back in
October.
Mr Robert today said the Tune Review was an extension of the Prime
Minister’s election promise to set new standards for how long disabled Australians
would have to wait to get their plans.
“‘The life-changing NDIS
will be supporting up to 500,000 Australians over the next five years and the
Morrison Government wants the NDIS to be the best it can be,” he said today.
-----
How will hospitals cope with climate change's impact on our health?
By Marianne Cannon
August 11, 2019 —
9.53pm
Blue
skies, rolling surf, red earth, blazing sun. These are the images people bring
to mind when they think of Australia. But it is the latter, the endless days of
hot sunshine that are harming us, both young and old, in increasing numbers.
During
heatwaves many older people become dehydrated and end up in the hospital. Some
of them die. It’s a fate all too familiar to emergency physicians in Queensland,
and across Australia and something I have witnessed all too often.
In
the US, emergency physicians call the syndrome “BRASH”, describing low blood
pressure, kidney failure, altered sodium, and high potassium in the blood. Any
one of these things can be lethal. The deadly combination could show up as an
inability for an older person to get out of bed, dizziness, possible collapse
or an altered mental state.
-----
Discount chemists the new Uber: Former ACCC chief backs pharmacy deregulation
By Dana McCauley
August 15, 2019 —
12.00am
Former
ACCC chief Graeme Samuel has slammed governments for bowing to the Pharmacy Guild's
"political blackmail" at the expense of consumers, calling for
deregulation to open the sector to competition and deliver cheaper medicines.
Professor
Samuel, now an academic at Monash University, backed demands from discount
chain Chemist Warehouse and convenience stores for Health Minister Greg Hunt to
loosen the rules that protect small local pharmacies.
He
said Australians were paying far too much for their PBS medicines due to the
"anti-competitive regulations" in the sector, maintained over decades
of "unashamed" lobbying of all levels of government by the powerful
Guild.
"Pharmacists
have been protected for so long, they're the most powerful union in
Australia," he said.
-----
'A single, simple, unified system': Greg Hunt unveils plan to fix mental health
By Dana McCauley
August 14, 2019 —
4.56pm
Health
Minister Greg Hunt has promised to fix Australia's ailing mental health system,
foreshadowing a much-needed boost to services in next year's federal budget.
Mr
Hunt said the government's pilot of eight adult mental health centres was just
the beginning of its plan to tackle what experts call the the "missing
middle" between preventative mental health initiatives and acute services
in emergency rooms and psychiatric wards.
The
minister acknowledged that there was a "significant" gap in services
for adults with mild-to-moderate disorders such as anxiety and depression
"which will inevitably involve, progressively, more funding over the
current decade".
Expanding
the eight centres into a wider network would be the "principal
vehicle" for tackling unmet need, he told the National Press Club in
Canberra on Wednesday.
-----
Australia's long term national health plan
14
Aug 2019
Description
This
Australian government plan, developed hand in hand with consumers and the
health sector, aims to make Australia's health system better at preventing
disease and promoting health, more focused on patients’ multidisciplinary
needs, more affordable, and more accessible to all Australians, wherever they
live and whoever they are.
The
health system will remain a mix of public and private funding and service
provision. This encourages choice and innovation, while protecting access.
There
are four key pillars to this reform plan:
- guaranteeing Medicare and improving access to medicines through the Pharmaceutical Benefts Scheme (PBS)
- supporting our public and private hospitals, including improvements to private health insurance
- prioritising mental health and preventive health
- investing in health and medical research.
-----
Pharmacists call for Medicare rebates for medical consultations at the chemist
By Dana McCauley
August 15, 2019 —
11.45pm
Pharmacists
are pushing the Morrison government for changes to the Medicare system to allow
Australians to claim rebates for vaccinations and medical consultations at
their local chemist.
Pharmacy
Guild vice president Anthony Tassone, who runs a pharmacy in Melbourne, said
pharmacists should be allowed to give travel vaccinations, prescribe the
contraceptive pill and treat complaints like erectile dysfunction and urinary
tract infections.
The
Australian Medical Association is fiercely opposed to what it sees as an
intrusion on its members' domain, saying if pharmacists want to be doctors they
should "go to medical school" and describing the guild's campaign as
"irresponsible and dangerous".
But
Mr Tassone said pharmacists were "not trying to be doctors" and only
wanted to practice to within the full scope of their training "for the
benefit of the Australian public", pointing to New Zealand and Canada where
pharmacists are free to offer some GP-like services.
-----
Catching Zs varies by time zone
Time zones change and so do sleeping habits, according to research
from Flinders University and the University of Helsinki.
Publishing their findings in the journal Sleep Medicine,
the researchers identified variations in sleep duration that shift dramatically
throughout adolescence and stabilise near 30 years of age around the world.
“Sleep duration ranged from 7:53 hours at age 16 to 7:29 hours at
age 30,” Flinders professor Michael Gradisar says.
“There were also clear
differences between females and males throughout adolescence and young
adulthood, with girls having longer sleep and earlier timed sleep.”
----
Push on to double the amount of medication patients can pick up
By Dana McCauley
August 17, 2019 —
8.00pm
Australians
could pick up two months' worth of commonly prescribed medicines in a single
trip to the chemist - and pay less for them - under a plan being considered by
the federal government.
Pensioners
and healthcare card holders would get two packets of Pharmaceutical Benefits
Scheme medicine for the price of one.
Health
Minister Greg Hunt is negotiating a new agreement with the powerful Pharmacy
Guild, and has put the previously shelved proposal back on the table.
But
the powerful Guild remains opposed to the move, which would deliver cheaper
medicines to millions of Australians, because it would halve the dispensing fee
- most commonly $7.39 - that pharmacists charge for every packet of PBS
medicine they sell.
-----
International Issues.
-----
Radioactive materials involved in deadly blast, Russia confirms
By Andrew E. Kramer
August 11, 2019 —
10.32am
Moscow:
A mystery explosion at a Russian weapons testing range involved radioactive
materials, authorities admitted on Saturday, as the blast's death toll rose and
signs of a creeping radiation emergency, or at the least fear of one, grew
harder to mask.
In
a statement released at 1am on Saturday, local time, Russia's nuclear energy
company, Rosatom, said five employees had died, in addition to the two military
personnel previously confirmed dead, as a result of a test on Thursday morning
involving "isotopic sources of fuel on a liquid propulsion unit".
"A
bright memory of our comrades will forever live in our hearts," the
statement said.
-----
'So what's going to happen with Brexit?'
The AFR's London correspondent Hans van Leeuwen tries to answer
the question that everyone is asking.
Aug 12, 2019 — 12.00am
London
| These days, almost every conversation I have with a stranger goes the same
way. As soon as I tell them I’m a journalist, their immediate response is: “Oh,
so what’s going to happen with Brexit?”
That’s
the billion-pound question – almost literally, given the revelation on Friday that the British economy
contracted 0.2 per cent in the second quarter, and warnings that it could shrink further still if there’s a disruptive
no-deal Brexit on October 31.
The
betting markets reckon there’s a 42 per cent chance Britain will quit the
European Union without a deal to smooth Brexit’s jagged edges.
-----
Jim Rickards backs gold as Fed cuts, recession risks loom
“We have a currency war,
there’s trade war action, there’s central bank action and of course we see
what’s going on in the market. They’re all connected.”
To Jim Rickards, this convergence has been coming like a
slow-motion train wreck.
The US investment adviser, central bank expert and best-selling
author has rusted-on followers who hang off his every word and he is heading to
Australia next month.
“Start with the currency
war.” This has to be Rickards’ favourite subject. “Nobody wins, tit-for-tat
devaluations and after a while it morphs into a trade war. We have been in this
state of trade war since January 2018 and unfortunately the last episode of
this, in the 1930s, went from currency war to a trade war to a shooting war,
World War II in fact. Now we have seen the currency wars going on, we’re in the
trade war, let’s hope this one doesn’t go any further, but there is certainly
some danger of that.”
-----
Brexit is a futile tragedy that will be reversed in a few years
By AC Grayling
August 12, 2019 —
12.22pm
Brexit
represents the catastrophic failure caused by Britain's "unwritten
constitution" and a radically unbalanced and unequal federal arrangement
(the "union" of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). While
the government and Parliament restrained themselves within the conventions, an
appearance of normality was sustained.
But
when factions on the far wings, right and left, of the main political parties
saw an opportunity to seize the agenda on the UK's relations with the rest of
Europe, they did – especially on the right. This was the Brexit referendum
offered by then prime minister David Cameron to quieten – as he thought – the
far right wing of his Conservative Party.
It’s
essential to note two things:
Despite all the noise and dust, there
is no majority for Brexit in the UK. In the referendum the Brexit vote was 37
per cent of the total electorate – 26 per cent of the population – which, by
the way the figures for votes cast on the day fell out, gave a 51.89 per cent
“win” for Brexit. (Note that had this been the proportion of the total
electorate it would still not be enough to trigger vast constitutional change
in most civilised states in the world. There are scarcely any where a simple
majority, let alone a small one, would permit this: for such a change, a
supermajority would be required, of 60 per cent or 66 per cent either of votes
cast or the entire electorate.
-----
Donald Trump dilutes China tariff threat
Aug 14, 2019 — 5.05am
Washington
| Donald Trump just blinked.
And
in doing so, the President has effectively admitted that not only is his negotiating
position against China weaker than it first appears but that tariffs do
indeed hurt US consumers - contrary to his repeated insistence that only
foreigners pay.
In
a move that buoyed financial markets, badly shattered over recent days, Mr
Trump said the need to ease the fallout on the Christmas shopping season was
the real reason for Tuesday's (Wednesday AEST) stunning move to delay the
impost of a 10 per cent tariff on a range of consumer products.
"We're
doing this for the Christmas season, just in case some of the tariffs would
have an impact on US consumers," Mr Trump said.
"We've
collected almost $US60 billion ($88 billion) from China - compliments of China.
But just in case they might have an impact on people, what we've done is
delayed it."
-----
China should be more like us, says David Petraeus
Former CIA director and US general David Petraeus has called out
China for failing to liberalise and become “more like us”, advising Australia
to be awake to Beijing’s “very concerning” conduct amid intensifying
pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
General Petraeus — who led Australians in the Iraq and Afghanistan
conflicts before becoming Barack Obama’s spy chief — said managing China’s
growing strategic influence was the “central issue of our day”, noting it was a
“unique challenge” for the ANZUS alliance given the strong trade relationship
Beijing shared with both the US and Australia.
The decorated former military commander told The Australian
Beijing had “challenged the assumptions” held by the West that it would
liberalise after participating in multilateral institutions such as the World
Trade Organisation, which it joined in 2001.
“China has evolved in
recent years and, in particular, has challenged the assumptions we held for
quite some time … that if we welcome China into the WTO, helped it establish a
network of trade and relationships, it would become healthier,” General Petraeus
told The Australian yesterday.
-----
Australian businesses make contingency plans as Hong Kong situation grows worse
Australian businesses in Hong Kong are now making contingency
plans if the situation in the city gets worse as protests have blocked its
international airport for the second day.
“The closure of the airport was highly disruptive, not only to
business, but also for many families who were returning home for the resumption
of the new school year,” the chief executive of the Australian Chamber of
Commerce in Hong Kong, Jacinta Reddan told The Australian.
“The international business community and Australian businesses in
Hong Kong have certainly been impacted.
“We’ve all been inundated
with messages and calls from family and friends from around the world alarmed
at the images they have seen on the news.
-----
Hong Kong’s future hangs by a thread
Jamil
Anderlini
Aug 14, 2019 — 10.22am
A
long hot summer, escalating violent street protests,
meddling from mainland China and rumours of imminent invasion from the north.
The events in Hong Kong today mimic to an extraordinary degree the riots that
exploded on the streets of the then-British colony in 1967, at the height of
the Cultural Revolution.
The
fact that Beijing finds itself the colonial master and main target of unrest
this time is a clear indictment of its approach to governing the territory. But
it also reveals the fatal flaw in the arrangement that saw Britain hand back
the jewel of its long-vanished empire in 1997.
To
many in Hong Kong, the agreement reached in 1984 between British prime minister
Margaret Thatcher and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping seemed to guarantee their
way of life would not change after 1997.
The
“one country, two systems” formula promised no communist takeover, protection
of basic freedoms and a largely symbolic, low-key transfer of sovereignty, for
at least 50 years. Deng himself hinted that mainland China might eventually
adopt a liberal capitalist system that would allow Hong Kong, and hopefully
Taiwan, to blend seamlessly into the motherland.
-----
https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/why-trump-can-t-be-trusted-on-trade-truce-20190814-p52gu1
Why Trump can't be trusted on trade truce
Trump’s erratic style – and the depth of the divide with China
-means there can be no guarantee this too is other than another temporary
truce. But the market is celebrating.
Aug 14, 2019 — 2.45pm
Donald
Trump certainly isn’t going to concede a retreat. But the initial enthusiastic
market reaction in the US reflects renewed optimism that he really does want to
back off a full-scale trade war with China after all.
This
follows increasing complaints by US companies about the impact on the economy
and sharemarket, compounded by the dampening effect on consumer spending as
American shoppers contemplate back to school purchases and the approach of the
Christmas gift-buying season.
-----
Trump might have finally twigged his trade wars are hurting voters
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business
columnist
August 14, 2019 —
3.30pm
"Through
massive devaluation of their currency and pumping vast sums of money into their
system, the tens of billions of dollars that the US is receiving is a gift from
China. Prices not up, no inflation. Farmers getting more than China would be spending.
Fake News won’t report."
That
was Trump tweeting on Tuesday.
Also
on Tuesday, his administration announced it would delay, until December 15,
imposing tariffs on nearly $US160 billion ($235 billion) of the remaining $US300
billion of China’s exports to the US that it had planned to impose
from September 1. Tariffs of 10 per cent will still be levied on about $110
billion of imports, while some products that were to be on the tariff list have
now been excluded.
-----
A contrarian investor's guide to the trade war
There are scenarios where a US-China trade deal happens sooner
than the market believes, which could lead to a "violent" reaction in
a very one-sided market.
Aug 14, 2019 — 3.38pm
As
10-year
bond yields in Australia fell below 1 per cent for the first time
last week, my colleague wondered
whether we were witnessing the end of interest rates.
Well,
looking to Europe and it seems we are already there. In Germany rates on the
entire bond curve out to 30 years has turned negative.
This
reflects a dire mood around the world, not least in
Germany where falling industrial production has economists worried a more
serious downturn is about to take hold.
More
than a third of global fund managers surveyed by Bank of America-Merrill Lynch
this week said they expected a global recession in the coming 12 months. That
one-in-three chance chimes with what the US bond yield is signalling, and
echoes the consensus among financial sector economists.
-----
What is an 'inverted yield curve' and why does it matter?
By Jonnelle Marte
August 15, 2019 —
9.50am
Stock
markets tanked Wednesday (US time) after
the bond market sounded a loud warning that the US economy might be headed
toward a recession.
Investors
are spooked by a scenario known as the "inverted yield curve," which
occurs when the interest rates on short-term bonds are higher than the interest
rates paid by long-term bonds. What it means is that people are so worried
about the near-term future that they are piling into safer long-term
investments.
In
a healthy economy, bondholders typically demand to be paid more - or receive a
higher "yield" - on longer-term bonds than they do for short-term
bonds. That's because longer term bonds require people to lock their money up
for a greater period of time - and investors want to be compensated for that
risk. In contrast, bonds that require investors to make shorter time commitments,
say for three months, don't require as much sacrifice and usually pay less.
-----
Markets signal Trump's trade wars could lead to US recession
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business
columnist
August 15, 2019 —
11.54am
Perhaps
the only surprise
about the carnage in global financial markets overnight
is that it hadn’t happened earlier.
It
has been evident for quite some time that the Trump trade wars were doing
increasing damage to the more trade-exposed economies – China and Germany in
particular – and it was foreseeable that the flow-on effects would eventually
rebound on the US itself.
Now
that it is happening, Trump
is blaming the US Federal Reserve Board for not cutting rates further and
faster to offset the harm his own policies have wreaked.
-----
The 'doom loop' that could bring on a global recession
By David Scutt
August 15, 2019 —
1.05pm
A
signal from the bond market that almost always heralds a US recession is
flashing red, sparking a fresh
wave of volatility across financial markets on Wednesday
(US time) as concerns about a global downturn escalated.
The
supposed catalyst for the carnage was an innocuous one, at least for those not
actively involved in financial markets.
Following
the release of weak Chinese and German data, the yield on benchmark 10-year US
treasuries fell below that for 2-year treasury notes, inverting this part of
the US yield curve for the first time since 2007.
As
many investors remember well, that was just before the global financial crisis
struck in 2008,
the deepest economic downturn the world has seen since the Great Depression.
-----
Forget the yield curve. The 30-year Treasury is even scarier.
By Brian Chappatta
August 15, 2019 —
4.56pm
The
$US16 trillion ($24 trillion) US Treasuries market is sending an ominous sign
about the future of interest rates, inflation and economic growth, both in
America and across the world.
While
it's true that the spread between two-year and 10-year US Treasury yields
turned negative on Wednesday for the first time since 2007 - yet another
indicator of a potential recession over the next 12 to 18 months - that's not
what should be standing out to investors.
After
all, the curve from three months to 10 years - the Federal Reserve's preferred
measure - has been inverted at just about every point since late May, and some
parts of the curve inverted as early as December. So it's not as if this latest
one came out of nowhere. Short- and long-term yields have always been on a
collision course.
-----
John F Kerry warns Australia on Trump's trade war
Aug 16, 2019 — 12.00am
Former
United States secretary of state John F. Kerry warns that President Donald
Trump's trade war with China will get worse before
it gets better and has urged Australia to steer a middle course between the
superpowers.
The
former Democratic nominee for president and secretary of state under Barack
Obama also rejected Mike Pompeo's ultimatum between China's "pile of soybeans" or security from the US,
arguing Australia can achieve both.
But
he did nothing to play down concerns that escalating trade tensions between
China and the US could lead to a global recession.
"Of
course it is continuing to escalate. I think it's pretty obvious the latest
round of tariffs just created another tit for tat, the market responded
accordingly, a lot of people think it will get worse before it gets
better," Mr Kerry told The Australian Financial Review.
-----
What happens when the world cannot rely on the US?
Gideon
Rachman
Aug 16, 2019 — 12.01am
The
watchword of the American security establishment since the cold war has been
“credibility”. The idea is that if America is to maintain its status as a
superpower and a world policeman, then its international commitments must be
clear and believable. Anything less, it is argued, would leave America’s
friends and foes confused. And confusion could lead to miscalculation, raising
the risk of conflict.
That
prediction may now be coming true, as a number of regional conflicts flare up
around the world – against a background of an incoherent and unpredictable US
foreign policy led by Donald Trump, the president who tweets compulsively,
insults allies, praises dictators and discards close advisers like
used tissues.
Take
Iran: for a while, the Trump administration seemed to be pursuing a clear, if
risky, policy. It withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear accords, and seemed
willing to risk military confrontation. But in June, Mr Trump abruptly
cancelled an air strike on Iran that was intended to punish Tehran for shooting down an American drone. That has
left a legacy of uncertainty and may have encouraged the Iranians to take
further risks, by seizing three oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz in recent
weeks.
-----
West needs to unite to fight China and Russia from subverting democracy
Aug 15, 2019 — 5.49pm
Australia
and like-minded western allies need to band together in a coordinated effort to
counter Chinese and Russian "political warfare operations" to ward
off threats to freedom and national sovereignty, according
to respected former analyst Ross Babbage.
Warning
liberal democracies have allowed their political warfare tools to decline since
the end of the Cold War, Dr Babbage's report urges leaders to be much vocal in
calling out Beijing and Moscow for corruption, human rights abuses and foreign
interference.
The
report, prepared by the US Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments,
said the US and its allies were facing an "unprecedented
challenge" from two authoritarian states working to undermine the core
interests of the West.
-----
'Trade will be his undoing': Anthony Scaramucci says Trump is pushing US into recession
By Matthew Knott
August 16, 2019 —
11.03am
New
York: Donald Trump will fold and settle for a weak trade deal with China
to avoid pushing the country into a recession in a re-election year, according
to the US President's former communications chief Anthony Scaramucci.
Scaramucci,
an investment banker who has spectacularly fallen out with the President in
recent days, said American business leaders had finally lost patience with
Trump's unpredictable tariff hikes and reversals.
US
sharemarkets plummeted
on Wednesday, local time, when bond markets showed an "inverted yield
curve", a development that has traditionally foreshadowed a recession.
The markets stabilised on Thursday thanks to strong retail trading figures
but remain well down since July.
"The
President's trade policies will be his undoing," Scaramucci said in an
interview with The
Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in New York. "He has been trying to
strangle and drown China but he forgot he was also holding his own head
underwater.
-----
Russia's mysterious 'new' nuclear weapon a 'flying Chernobyl'
By Gregg Herken
August 16, 2019 —
7.04am
Washington:
Last week, Vladimir Putin's government cryptically announced that there
had been an explosion at a missile test centre in remote northern Russia
that involved the release of radioactive materials. Initially, two people were
said to have been killed; the death toll was subsequently raised to seven. A
nearby village was ordered evacuated, then the villagers were told to stay put.
US
analysts think the accident involved the prototype of a nuclear-powered cruise
missile that the Russians call Burevestnik, or Petrel, but is known in the West
by its NATO designation, Skyfall. Putin has called it "a fundamentally new
type of weapon" - an "invincible missile" with virtually
unlimited range, easily able to evade US defences.
When
Skyfall was first announced, early last year, some Western military analysts
started hyperventilating. "That's a technological breakthrough and a gigantic
achievement," claimed one. "These weapons are definitely new,
absolutely new."
-----
Trump frets over a possible downturn
Philip
Rucker, Damian Paletta and Josh Dawsey
Aug 16, 2019 — 12.07pm
Bridgewater,
New Jersey | Mounting signs of global economic distress this week
have alarmed President Donald Trump, who is worried that a downturn could imperil
his re-election, even as administration officials acknowledge that they have
not planned for a possible recession.
Mr
Trump is banking on a strong economy to win a second term in 2020, and in
recent weeks has impulsively lashed out at the Federal Reserve, pressured
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to label China a "currency
manipulator", and unexpectedly delayed tariffs on Chinese imports out of
fear they could depress holiday retail sales.
Yet
despite gyrations in the US sharemarket and economic slowdowns in other
countries, officials in the White House, at the Treasury Department and
throughout the administration are planning no new steps to attempt to stave off a recession.
Rather,
Mr Trump's economic advisers have been delivering the President upbeat
assessments in which they argue the domestic economy is stronger than many
forecasters are making it out to be.
-----
Dark clouds loom for Trump: It's the trade war, stupid
Aug 17, 2019
— 12.00am
Washington
| Did the global economy just crack? And with it Donald Trump's re-election
chances?
As
the mayhem
on Wall Street and around the world mounted this week, there came a palpable
sense of tectonic shift.
Trump,
until now seemingly immune to any meaningful negative political consequence from
his unique brand of kinetic disruption, suddenly looks vulnerable.
For
the first time the President's primary argument for why he not only deserves
but would most likely win a second term – a strong economy – is in doubt.
A
sick
global economy is not something the US can ignore or withstand unscathed.
Particularly if Trump himself turns out to be the trigger for crisis.
While
the US economy is robust on the surface there's plenty to worry about.
-----
Hong Kong: A city on the brink
Beijing appears set for a war of attrition, a war in which all of
the tools of China’s state power are being brought to bear.
Antony
Dapiran
Aug 16, 2019 — 7.05pm
Hong
Kong is braced for its 11th consecutive weekend of protests after enduring the
city's most violent week since the Cultural Revolution-era riots of the 1960s.
Protesters
surround a man carrying a T-shirt bearing the words "I love police"
during a demonstration at the Airport in Hong Kong on Tuesday. AP
Last
Sunday, police deployed large amounts of tear gas
across several of Hong Kong’s densely populated neighbourhoods, controversially
firing the gas inside subway stations.
Police
also shot pepper pellets into a crowd at point-blank range, and beat protesters
with batons as they tried to flee down an escalator.
-----
I
look forward to comments on all this!
-----
David.
No comments:
Post a Comment