July 30, 2020 Edition.
-----
Trump has pivoted to a focus on the virus and
law and order in the hope of not loosing the election which is early November.
He does not have long to turn around a poll gap behind Biden of roughly 10%.
In the UK Boris has admitted that he did not
do all that well with the initial response to COVID-19 and that the Government
really needs to do a lot better from now to save lives.
Last week has been all about how much the
virus is costing (near $300 Billion so far) and whether the virus can be
controlled in Victoria. It will be important for us all how this plays out.
-----
Major Issues.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/now-for-the-even-grimmer-news-it-s-a-hell-of-a-time-to-be-governing-20200719-p55dgf.html
Now for the even grimmer news:
it's a hell of a time to be governing
Columnist and former adviser to Labor prime ministers Kevin Rudd
and Julia Gillard.
July 20, 2020 — 12.00am
In April, Treasurer Josh
Frydenberg announced he would be releasing an economic statement in June. In
June, he put out a press release informing the nation he would be releasing the
statement in July, because there was a review of JobKeeper under way, and
because the economy was re-opening faster than expected. In other words, for
brightly optimistic reasons. The nation felt hopeful.
Two weeks ago, I drove to
Bundanoon. I switched off my phone, ignored news. Three days later, looking at
front pages I’d missed, listening to radio, checking into group chats, it was
clear the national mood had fast become grim. Now it is grimmer still.
There have been concrete changes
for Victorians, devastating for those already struggling financially or emotionally.
But what has changed even beyond Victoria is the visceral recognition that what
felt like a brief phase of our lives – even when we nodded wisely at each other
and said the opposite – won’t be brief at all. This is the environment into
which Frydenberg will, at last, deliver his statement.
Even the past fortnight has hurt,
economically. Borders are shutting again; so is Victoria. In NSW, the
government is adamant the state won’t lock down, but lots of people aren’t
convinced, which is having divergent effects. As individuals, we are realising
that the earliest phase of this pandemic, when many of us were sharing
experiences, has passed: at some point our lives separated.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/wealth/what-saved-superannuation-from-the-sharemarket-downturn/news-story/eac6856e348db5eec256decc5e41b907
What
saved superannuation from the sharemarket downturn?
James
Kirby
·
5:56PM July 21, 2020
For
millions of Australians shocked by the torrent of grim financial news this
year, the relatively strong performance of local super funds, which mostly
finished unchanged in the 12 months to June 30, has been a mystery.
If
the sharemarket fell more than 7 per cent across the year, how did funds finish
with an average dip of just 0.5 per cent? The answer is revealed in new
research that looks at the strategic retreat of Australian super funds from the
local share market in the decade since the GFC.
Following
the losses of the GFC era when share prices fell 50 per cent from top to bottom
from November 2007 to March 2009, the majority of Australia’s biggest super
funds moved steadily out of the ASX and into international share markets.
But
the most dramatic move was an industry wide step away from traditional fixed
income such as bonds into “alternatives” coupled with a shift from listed
property and infrastructure to unlisted versions of the same assets.
-----
https://apo.org.au/node/307002
Moral terrorism
21
Jul 2020
Simon Heffer
Publisher
Centre
for Independent Studies
Resources
Moral
terrorism
Description
We find ourselves living in an age
when a small but highly vocal, and zealous, minority are availing themselves of
the power of social media, and of sections of the printed press, to seek to
force their opinions and attitudes on everyone else. In normal circumstances,
this would simply be tedious: if, say, the public were being pressured to watch
a particular television channel, or buy a certain brand of coffee. In our
society we are conditioned to such things; but we are less conditioned to being
told we should not, for whatever reason, watch a certain channel, or should
boycott a certain brand of coffee. Mature and advanced societies — liberal
societies — take an attitude of ‘live and let live’ in such matters.
It is one thing to be an advocate
for your own interests; quite another to seek to attack, undermine and destroy
someone else’s. Yet that is what the so-called ‘cancel culture’ seeks to
achieve, and it is why the present circumstances of discourse are far from
normal. In the pretence of wishing to shield vulnerable people from words that
might wound or cause offence, they seek to render others terrified to utter the
words at all.
Publication
Details
Copyright: Centre for Independent Studies 2020
License type:
All Rights Reserved
Issue:
CIS Occasional Paper 174
Post date:
22 Jul 2020
-----
https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/arts-and-culture/does-cancel-culture-actually-exist-20200722-p55eai
Does cancel culture actually exist?
For
the better part of the last decade, we have given a label to something that has
existed for the length of human history.
Sarah Manavis
Jul
25, 2020 – 12.00am
It’s a story that goes like this:
there is a monster under the bed. It lurks in the shadows; sometimes it hides
in the closet. You know it exists because you fear it – you wait for it. How
could you be afraid of something that isn’t there?
It’s easy to attribute fears
around “cancel culture” to paranoia. Cancel culture might be defined as a mob mentality,
a series of mass movements seeking to end the careers of public figures whose
thoughts or opinions deviate from a new set of left-wing norms. The concept
derives from internet language: “you're cancelled” was a catchphrase created by
teens who rescinded their support for problematic celebrities. Its opponents
would say that “cancel culture” is a generational craving to nitpick famous
people over minute infractions, and ruin their lives if they don't adhere to
political correctness.
This discussion particularly
intensified after a group of prominent artists, writers, and journalists signed
an open letter in the US monthly Harper’s Magazine. With signatories including Noam
Chomsky, Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie, this letter was a defence of “open
debate” – something these public figures fear is becoming increasingly
unavailable.
“The free exchange of information
and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more
constricted ... it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe
retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought,” it
reads.
-----
https://www.theage.com.au/culture/books/mary-trump-and-the-many-problems-with-uncle-donald-20200724-p55f8c.html
Mary Trump and the many problems
with uncle Donald
By Zoe Daniel
July 24, 2020 — 5.59pm
MEMOIR
Too
Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man
Mary
L. Trump
Simon
& Schuster, $32.99
It's like an episode of Big Brother.
This window into Trump family life is deeply cringeworthy, yet strangely
compelling. You can't help but watch, albeit while half covering your eyes. It
fits the narrative of the Trump presidency perfectly, in which the White House
has been like the set of a reality TV show.
The rest of the Trump family
unsuccessfully sued to prevent the book, by his niece Mary, from being
published. That's unsurprising, given that it tells a tale of fear, greed,
narcissism and a degree of psychological abuse that, by Mary Trump's
estimation, ran deep in the Trump clan and formed the man who is now the
President of the United States.
"He's a clown," his
older sister Maryanne tells Mary during the 2016 campaign. "This will
never happen."
As the author points out, this is
the first real family insight into the creation of Donald Trump, and it makes
for eye-watering reading.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/australia-joins-us-in-declaring-beijings-south-china-sea-claims-illegal/news-story/11b18a4bf4e63764a871771ba033b458
Australia joins US in declaring
Beijing’s South China Sea claims illegal
Ben
Packham
·
July 25, 2020
Australia
has dramatically raised the stakes in its worsening relationship with China,
swinging in behind the United States to formally declare Beijing’s disputed
territorial claims in the South China Sea to be illegal.
In
a declaration
filed at the United Nations
in New York, Australia said it rejected China’s claims to disputed islands and
features in the South China Sea as inconsistent with the UN Convention on the
Law of the Sea and therefore “invalid”.
The
move comes just days ahead of high-level AUSMIN talks between Australia and the
US in Washington, and follows the United States’ abandonment of its position of
neutrality on Beijing’s South China Seas claims.
Australia
has previously urged all claimants to disputed South China Sea islands and
maritime features to resolve their claims in accordance with international law.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/australias-us-ties-a-union-of-strength-and-shared-values/news-story/61eba905e82bef94173c1e43904a964e
Australia’s
US ties a union of strength and shared values
MARISE
PAYNE and LINDA REYNOLDS
·
9:00PM July 24, 2020
Australia
has many friends, old and new. In the strategically uncertain 21st century, we
look to widen and deepen our friendships across the Indo-Pacific. However,
there is no relationship that better spans the full spectrum of values,
history, practical benefit, evolving interests, economic exchange and natural
affiliation as our alliance with the US.
Our
region is the most dynamic in the world. Australia and the US share a steadfast
determination to keep the Indo-Pacific secure, open, prosperous, inclusive and
rules-based. We make our own decisions, and if these often chime between our
capitals it is because we are drawing on the same reservoir of deeply felt
values: democracy, freedom, human rights, respect for sovereignty of nations
large and small, an aversion to coercion and a desire to see security and
prosperity spread justly around the globe.
We
will discuss the co-operation that flows from this common purpose when we meet
in Washington on Tuesday with our counterparts, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
and Secretary of Defence Mark Esper, for the 2020 AUSMIN consultations. Never
has it been more important that we, as allies, find every possible way to
advance shared interests.
-----
Climate Policy
-----
https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/banks-need-to-heed-climate-message-20200720-p55dlv
Banks need to heed climate message
Climate
change threatens financial stability. Burning coal helps trigger climate
change. Banks have a responsibility to listen to protesters’ chants.
The Lex Column
Jul
20, 2020 – 10.40am
"Fossil banks, no
thanks!" chant protesters. Financial institutions that lend to coal users
are under pressure from climate campaigners.
Their anger will have been stoked
by the recent research from lobby group Europe Beyond Coal identifying nearly €8 billion ($13 billion) of loans
to coal-burning power companies since 2018.
It is not just campaigners. Nearly
a quarter of shareholders supported climate change resolutions at annual
meetings this year.
Critics focus on banks’ bottom
lines, as well as the wider impact on society. Billionaire hedge fund manager
Christopher Hohn compares the risks of lending to coal with those of subprime
mortgages ahead of the financial crisis.
-----
Coronavirus And Impacts.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/supress-the-virus-not-the-debate-20200719-p55dej
Suppress the virus not the debate
Australia’s
strategy in response to COVID-19 is not a matter of semantics. It is the most
consequential public policy choice of a generation.
Grant Wilson Contributor
Jul
19, 2020 – 12.56pm
For the small minority of us who
advocated early for elimination rather than suppression of COVID-19, the
vociferous debate this past week has been welcome, but also well overdue.
In early May we highlighted a report from the Group of Eight, a
collective of Australia’s leading research-intensive universities, that drew a
sharp distinction between the two available strategies: controlled adaption
(the preferred description for suppression) and elimination.
A week later we advocated for a "COVID-proof fence", where Western Australia, South
Australia and the Northern Territory, having achieved elimination, would pursue
accelerated reopening both internally and between each other, providing the
east with an incentive to catch up.
This suggestion was taken up by
the ABC Darwin a few days later, in a Facebook post that went viral to the tune
of 56,000 comments. To our chagrin, most of this was parody. Instead of a
substantive debate, Australia succumbed to its traditional battle lines.
-----
https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/education/uk-makes-research-funding-commitment-to-universities-20200715-p55cgc
UK makes research funding
commitment to universities
It's
part of an election promise to boost spending on science and innovation.
Robert Bolton Education editor
Jul
20, 2020 – 12.01am
Britain has put universities at
the top of its list of stakeholders in a major upgrade of investment in
research.
Business, Energy and Industrial
Strategy Secretary Alok Sharma released a Research and Development Roadmap this month which says his
government would increase public funding in R&D to £22 billion ($39.6
billion) a year, and said it stood by an election promise to raise total
R&D spending to 2.4 per cent of GDP by 2027.
Adopting a model that has boosted
research effort in US universities, Mr Sharma said, "We will free up
researchers to pursue ideas which can go on to have unpredictable benefits
without starting with a specific goal in mind.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/not-immune-universities-prepare-for-more-job-losses-20200716-p55csp.html
'Not immune': Universities prepare
for more job losses
July 20, 2020 — 12.05am
Thousands of university staff
across Australia are bracing for further job losses in the coming months as the
sector grapples with the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.
National Tertiary Education Union
general secretary Matt McGowan said about 70 per cent of the research being
done in Australia was completed by university staff on fixed-term contracts
whose positions were increasingly vulnerable.
The University of NSW last week
announced it would cut 493 jobs and combine three faculties in response to a
$370 million budget shortfall because of COVID-19.
"The country relies on
research for medical advances through to music and the arts," Mr McGowan
said. "But the research funding does not cover the cost of the activity.
It gets cross-subsidised by international student money and that means ... all
the fixed-term contracts are at risk."
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/the-economy-can-t-fully-recover-until-the-virus-is-gone-20200719-p55dd8.html
The economy can’t fully recover
until the virus is gone
July 20, 2020 — 12.00am
It’s time we stopped debating
suppression versus elimination of the coronavirus and got serious: let’s make
it a party-political issue. Liberal voters should defend suppression and
denigrate elimination, while Labor voters do the opposite. Or vice versa.
This wouldn’t get us anywhere, of
course, just as the politicisation of climate change has long crippled our
efforts to make real progress. But it would gratify those who follow politics
like others follow sport, and it would be a fillip for a media more interested
in controversy than solutions.
But above all, it would relieve
the rest of us of the mental effort of judging the merits of suppression versus
elimination. To decide what our opinion was, all we’d need to do is remember
which party we vote for.
We sub-contract the job of
thinking through important policy issues to our ever-trustworthy political
representatives, who can always be relied on to put our interests ahead of
their own. And then we wonder why we’re making so little progress in solving
the nation’s problems.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/economics/rebuilding-a-truly-dynamic-economy-absolutely-essential-to-the-recovery/news-story/ef5235d04c2c625cc240530a33bc6322
Rebuilding
a truly dynamic economy absolutely essential to the recovery
Pradeep
Philip and Kristian Kolding
·
12:00AM July 20, 2020
While
much attention is, rightly, being paid to the health efforts to suppress the
pandemic and the future of JobKeeper and JobSeeker, less attention has been
paid to the dynamism of the economy and the importance of innovation and
competition as the effects of COVID-19 have structurally battered the economy.
We
can think of the response to the pandemic in terms of the phases of response,
recover, and thrive.
The
reality is that these phases are intertwined and deal with the short term as
well as longer-term impacts on the economy, and cyclical versus structural
elements of the economy.
The
tragic reality of the pandemic is clear for all to see: around one million
Australians have lost their jobs or dropped out of the labour market, while
small and medium-sized businesses, with their higher fixed costs, smaller cash
reserves and barriers to lending, are barely keeping their heads above water.
-----
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/seven-questions-scott-morrison-must-answer-on-this-crisis-20200720-p55dpr
Seven questions Scott Morrison
must answer on this crisis
The
PM has been forced to drop all the old Liberal rhetoric about 'debt and
deficit' and become a social democrat instead.
Kevin Rudd Former Australian
prime minister
Jul
20, 2020 – 3.44pm
On the eve of the government’s
much-delayed financial statement, it’s time for some basic questions about
Australia’s response.
The uncomfortable truth is that we
are still in the economic equivalent of “the phoney war” between September 1939
and June 1940, when the full impact of that particular global crisis had yet to
be felt. Our real problem is not now but the fourth quarter of this year, and
next year, by when temporary measures will have washed through, while globally
the real economy will still be wrecked. But there’s no sign yet of a long-term
Australian economic strategy, centred on infrastructure, to rebuild business
confidence to start investing and re-employing people.
So while Scott Morrison may look
pleased with himself (who wouldn’t after months of largely uncritical media, a
Parliament that barely meets and a budget already two months late) it’s time
for some intellectual honesty in what passes for our public policy debate. So
here are seven questions for Scotty to answer.
First, the big one. It’s well past
time to come fully clean on the two dreaded words of Australian politics: debt
and deficit. How on earth can Morrison’s Liberal Party, and its coalition
partner, the Murdoch party, justify their decade-long political assault on
public expenditure and investment when responding to an existential financial
and economic crisis?
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/europe/britain-announces-breakthroughs-in-vaccine-and-drug-treatment-20200721-p55duk
Britain announces breakthroughs in
vaccine and drug treatment
Hans van Leeuwen Europe
correspondent
Jul
21, 2020 – 4.40am
London | Britain has taken a big step
forward in the global race to defeat COVID-19, announcing breakthroughs in the
search for both a vaccine and a more effective treatment.
The partnership between
AstraZeneca and Oxford University has confirmed that its initial trials
have demonstrated its candidate vaccine is potentially both safe and also able
to trigger immune responses.
Meanwhile, listed
Southampton-based drug discovery company Synairgen reported promising results from
a trial of 101 hospitalised COVID-19 patients given SNG001, an inhaled
formulation of interferon beta.
If substantiated, Syngairgen's
treatment could dramatically cut hospitalisation and fatality rates, curbing
the threat of the coronavirus pandemic.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/look-were-pretty-safe-from-covid19-lets-not-kill-our-economy/news-story/175cf8ac22854008b7651b606b77f839
Never have we spent so much, for
so long, on safety
Lockdowns
have wrecked millions of businesses and young people face chronic unemployment
and lost opportunities for years.
By Adam Creighton
July
21, 2020
The
“pursuit of safety stands against every great and noble enterprise”, Roman historian
Tacitus once remarked. He, and indeed every generation since, would be shocked
by the response to this new coronavirus.
As
British historian David Starkey observed in late May: “What is peculiar about
COVID-19 is that it’s not a very serious disease … (yet) we’ve committed
economic suicide … the damage it has done is self-inflicted.”
Never has the world spent — and restricted
peacetime freedoms — so much, for so long, in the name of safety. Six months in
and more than 600,000 have died, but this remains a fraction of the millions of
deaths the flu pandemics caused in the late 1950s and 60s in a smaller world.
And governments and media didn’t terrify people and induce the biggest
recession in a century.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, whose state is in the middle of a three-month lockdown costing at least $1bn a week, told a
transfixed nation on Sunday three people in their 90s had died from COVID-19.
Millions would need to wear face masks indefinitely.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/coronavirus-face-masks-reduce-deadly-power-of-virus-us-research/news-story/f0b41a9b08171d68891eee6ac287ccd1
Coronavirus: Face masks ‘reduce
deadly power of virus’: US research
·
By Kat Lay and Kaya Burgess
·
The Times
·
July 21, 2020
Masks
do help to protect the wearer, as well as people they meet, according to
research by infectious disease experts.
A
report from a team at the University of California, San Francisco, says that masks can reduce the amount of virus
that gets into someone’s system, meaning they do not get as badly sick.
In
England, face
coverings
are mandatory on public transport and will become so in shops and supermarkets
from July 24. The requirement appears to have strong public support, with only
19 per cent of Britons opposing compulsory wearing of masks in shops, according
to a survey last week by the research company ORB International.
The
paper is due to be published in the Journal of Internal Medicine but was made
available in advance by the researchers. Monica Gandhi, one of the study’s
co-authors, who is associate division chief of the infectious diseases program
at San Francisco General Hospital, said: “You will get in a lower dose of virus
if you wear a mask and are exposed to COVID-19 and are very likely to have mild
or no symptoms.”
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/path-ahead-is-expected-to-be-bumpy-rba-governor-warns-unemployment-to-rise-20200721-p55dwz.html
'Path ahead is expected to be
bumpy': RBA governor warns unemployment to rise
July 21, 2020 — 1.00pm
Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe
has warned the unemployment rate will climb further this year as the
coronavirus pandemic continues amid government cuts to the amount available
under its $86 billion wage subsidy program.
Incomes were also expected to
remain lower until there were scientific breakthroughs or improvements managing
the virus, Dr Lowe said in an annual address to The Anika Foundation at lunch
on Tuesday.
In April and May, about 870,000
people lost employment and another 760,000 had no hours of work although they
had a job, while others had their hours cut, he said. Total hours worked fell
10 per cent in a matter of weeks and the unemployment rate increased to 7.4
per cent.
"As staggering as this fall
is, it is smaller than we earlier feared," Dr Lowe said.
"Fortunately, we have now turned the corner", he said, with hours
worked increasing 4 per cent in June and the number of employed people up
210,000.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/property/coronavirus-pandemic-crushes-values-of-shopping-malls/news-story/730a0a468cee1e4575bf4fada7cda26c
Coronavirus pandemic crushes
values of shopping malls
Ben
Wilmot
·
11:47PM July 24, 2020
The
pain in the retail sector has been put on stark display with Chadstone co-owner
Vicinity Centres slashing the value of its entire portfolio by nearly $2bn as
the coronavirus pandemic discourages shoppers from visiting shopping centres.
The
company, whose portfolio is heavily weighted towards Victoria and Melbourne,
has been harder hit than rival Scentre, which owns the Australian Westfield
empire, and it could be hurt more if Victorian lockdowns drag on.
The
pandemic is looming over the mall sector and further heavy writedowns are
expected during the December half if foot traffic remain subdued.
Superannuation funds are heavily exposed to the downturn, given they have
stakes in many of the country’s largest shopping centres directly or via
specialist funds, which have also been hit by a string of writedowns over the
past year.
“This
remains a highly uncertain and evolving environment, as demonstrated by current
circumstances in Victoria. Any reductions in discretionary retail spending and
lower retail activity may continue to have an adverse impact on the valuation
of Vicinity’s assets,” Vicinity chief executive Grant Kelley said.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/cabinet-divided-over-lockdown-with-some-prepared-to-accept-up-to-250-virus-cases-a-day-20200725-p55fee.html
Cabinet divided over lockdown with
some prepared to accept up to 250 virus cases a day
July 26, 2020 — 12.00am
Premier Gladys Berejiklian's
cabinet is divided over how to handle the state's low but persistent numbers of
coronavirus cases, with some ministers demanding tighter restrictions and
others arguing they could sustain as many as 250 new cases a day before
lockdowns are required.
Senior ministers have had informal
discussions about the maximum number of daily cases they could accept before
the state would have to lock down again. One cabinet member, who spoke on
condition of anonymity, nominated the figure of 250 cases a day and said
colleagues agreed.
However, ministers accept they
would be bound by the advice of risk-averse Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant,
who would almost certainly recommend lockdowns at a much lower number.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/lives-versus-livelihoods-the-impossible-calculus-of-a-lockdown-2-0-20200724-p55f5s.html
Lives versus livelihoods: the
impossible calculus of a Lockdown 2.0
July 25, 2020 — 12.02am
The threat of coronavirus has hung
over the Australian psyche for exactly half-a-year now.
Saturday marks exactly six months
since health authorities confirmed Australia's first diagnosed case of
COVID-19, a Chinese man in his 50s who tested positive to the then little-known
virus after flying from Guandong to Melbourne.
What followed has been six months
of escalating, stop-start attempts by authorities to contain the virus' spread,
while limiting the economic fallout.
As the federal Treasurer Josh
Frydenberg confirmed the biggest hit to the Australian economy and budget since
the Great Depression, this week also marked a new and dangerous phase in the
health battle, with Australia recording its first day of new-confirmed cases
above 500.
At week's end, the nation had just
shy of 4200 confirmed active cases of COVID-19. Nearly 8700 have recovered. But
the national death toll has climbed to 139 people, after Victoria recorded its
highest daily death toll on Friday with seven deaths.
Victoria remains the epicentre of
infections, but as numbers slowly rise in NSW, increasingly anxious NSW
ministers are considering a range of options, from mandatory masks to targeted
sector shutdowns.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/economics/debt-and-deficit-doomsayers-face-a-new-reality-only-jobs-will-matter/news-story/438068e5af7f9c82cd316bd2ca0258db
Debt
and deficit doomsayers face a new reality: only jobs will matter
Alan
Kohler
·
7:12PM July 24, 2020
The
government’s Economic and Fiscal Update on Thursday was a terrifying document.
For
a start Treasury is saying we’re in a depression instead of a recession (two
consecutive years of negative GDP, which is a common definition of depression,
as opposed to a recession’s two consecutive quarters), which is pretty alarming
in itself.
But
unless things change in the full budget in October, it looks like at least two
million people will have their incomes cut by between $225 and $550 a week
between September and March and the unemployment rate will be 15 per cent next
year.
Add
this to the fact that about 800,000 bank mortgage deferrals are due to run out
about half way through that period, and it’s not hard to feel a bit gloomy
about the prospects for the Australian economy, the housing market and the
solvency of the banks, not to mention the happiness and sanity of more than 10
per cent of the population and their families, as they slide into poverty.
-----
Royal Commissions And The Like.
-----
There are no entries in this section.
-----
National Budget Issues.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/financial-services/plans-needed-to-avert-insolvency-tidal-wave/news-story/a10c5058d51441bb5aed7bcf8c2c8fd7
Plans needed to avert insolvency
tidal wave
David Ross
·
4:31PM July 17, 2020
Australia’s
peak body for insolvency practitioners has warned of growing risks in
government COVID-19 support schemes that are allowing potentially non-viable
businesses to continue to trade.
Insolvency
numbers across the country are sitting around 40 per cent below long-term
averages, after collapsing in April as measures including the JobKeeper wage
subsidy scheme and director liability relief for insolvent trading were
introduced.
But
the Australian Restructuring Insolvency and Turnaround Association says
allowing so many businesses to trade that otherwise might have been wound up
risks debt contagion and could overwhelm the resources of the country’s
insolvency practitioners.
“When
businesses continue to trade and rack up greater debts there is a flow-on to
other businesses,” ARITA chief executive John Winter told The Australian.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/economic-growth-is-the-best-way-out-of-the-crisis-20200721-p55e2e
Economic growth is the best way
out of the crisis
The
RBA Governor says until the pandemic passes it makes sense to provide fiscal
support but there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Philip Lowe
Jul
21, 2020 – 4.18pm
I would now like to address one
idea for the use of the central bank’s balance sheet that I sometimes hear –
that is, we should use it to create money to finance the government.
A variant on this idea is that the
central bank should just deposit money in every bank account in the country –
this is sometimes known as "helicopter money" because, before we had
an electronic payments system the idea was that banknotes could simply be
dropped by helicopter.
For some, this idea is seen as a
way of avoiding financing constraints – it is seen as holding out the offer of
a free lunch of sorts. The central bank, unlike any other institution, is able
to create money and the resource cost of creating that money is negligible. So
the argument goes, if the government needs money to stimulate the economy, the
central bank should simply create it in the public interest.
The reality, though, is there is no free lunch. The tab always has to be paid and it is
paid out of taxes and government revenues in one form or another. I would
like to explain why.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/economics/rbas-philip-lowe-blasts-calls-for-mmt-backs-big-borrowing/news-story/96764d92bbd4958a23b396e36ba4cfe3
Debt and deficits ‘manageable’,
says RBA governor Philip Lowe
Adam
Creighton
·
9:35PM July 21, 2020
Reserve
Bank governor Philip Lowe has endorsed record public debt and deficits during
the coronavirus pandemic as an “entirely manageable and affordable” to limit
the severity of “costly economic scars” caused by high unemployment.
In
a major speech in Sydney on Tuesday that aksi took a swipe at calls for “money
printing” the RBA governor said the government could borrow “on very favourable
terms” and public debt was “much lower that in many other countries and was
likely to remain so”.
“For
a country that has got used to low budget deficits and low levels of public
debt, this is quite a change but it is a change that is entirely manageable and
affordable and it’s the right thing to do in the national interest,” he said.
The
comments came soon after the Prime Minister announced an extension of emergency
social security measures JobKeeper and JobSeeker into 2021, at reduced rates,
which UBS on Tuesday estimated could cost almost $20bn.
Dr
Lowe blasted calls for the central bank to “print money” to pay for government
spending, stressing it risked an inflation blowout and was “clearly not
relevant to the situation we face in Australia”.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/growing-our-way-out-of-debt-is-a-very-big-bet-20200722-p55e9s
Growing our way out of debt is a
very big bet
The
RBA governor says it's OK to rack up debt paying for the virus. But there may
be no reliable way back out.
Stephen Anthony Contributor
Jul
22, 2020 – 5.35pm
Reserve Bank of Australia governor
Philip Lowe outlined on Tuesday his vision for the activist use of the central
bank balance sheet to facilitate economic smoothing in a zero interest rate
world:
“Using the public balance sheet in
this way inevitably requires government borrowing against future income. It is
through this borrowing that we can smooth out the hit to our current income.
For a country that has got used to low budget deficits and low levels of public
debt, this is quite a change. But it is a change that is entirely manageable
and affordable and it’s the right thing to do in the national interest.”
That language augurs the shift
away from the twin anchors of Australian macro policy for the past 30 years –
balanced budgets over the cycle, where discretionary monetary policy was the
main tool of discretionary policy. The goal here was always to ensure policy
neutrality over the cycle by promoting consistency in private sector
decision-making.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/frydenberg-unveils-biggest-deficit-since-world-war-ii-20200722-p55ejf.html
Frydenberg unveils biggest deficit
since World War II
July 23, 2020 — 11.00am
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has
revealed the budget will be in the red by $85.8 billion in 2019-20 and $184.5
billion in 2020-21, marking the biggest deficit since World War II due to
drastic spending to mitigate the damage from the coronavirus pandemic.
At a special budget update on
Thursday, the first since December, Mr Frydenberg said the unemployment rate
was expected to reach 9.25 per cent in the December quarter, while GDP would
contract by 0.25 per cent in 2019-20 and shrink 2.5 per cent in 2020-21.
The economic downturn has cost the
budget $32.4 billion in 2019-20 and $72.2 billion in 2020-21. Tax receipts are
down $31.7 billion in 2019-20 and $63.9 billion in 2020-21.
The coronavirus pandemic has
dashed the Morrison government's plans to be "back in the black" and
produce the first surplus since 2007-08. In December, the government had
expected
to reach a $5 billion surplus in 2019-20 and a $6.1 billion surplus this
financial year.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/make-no-mistake-this-weaning-process-will-be-painful-20200722-p55eew.html
Make no mistake. This
weaning process will be painful
Economics writer
July 22, 2020 — 11.53pm
Never let it be said designing
unprecedented wage subsidy schemes in the middle of a rapidly evolving pandemic
is an easy thing.
When exhausted Treasury officials
finalised the details of the government's JobKeeper 1.0 scheme, announced on
March 30 off the back of two other massive stimulus packages, they erred firmly
on the side of simplicity and generosity.
Amid reports of Northern Italian
doctors switching off ventilators for elderly COVID-19 patients to keep younger
patients alive, Treasury assumed Australia, too, was headed for an eight-week
"hard lockdown" in which all non-essential activity, like retail,
construction and mining, would be cancelled.
Treasury thought more than 6
million Australians would need the $1500 per fortnight JobKeeper payment, but
only 3.5 million did. Because, of course, as it turns out, that severe lockdown
didn't happen.
-----
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/harsh-reality-jobless-rate-to-hit-9-25pc-20200723-p55emq
'Harsh reality': Jobless rate to
hit 9.25pc
Phillip Coorey Political editor
Jul
23, 2020 – 11.42am
The extent of the havoc inflicted
on the economy by the coronavirus pandemic has been laid bare in an economic
update that shows the budget deficit for last year blowing out to $85.8 billion
and forecast to hit at least $184.5 billion this year.
The July Economic and Fiscal
Outlook (JEFU) released on Thursday morning by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg
forecasts the unemployment rate, currently at 7.4 per cent, to hit 9.25 per
cent before Christmas.
Calling the update "the real
cost of protecting lives and livelihoods from the coronavirus", Mr
Frydenberg said the real unemployment rate and the effective rate, now 11.3 per
cent, would soon merge as restrictions were eased and assistance pared back.
"Beyond 2020, Labour market
conditions will strengthen but it will take some time for the unemployment rate
to decline,'' the statement said.
It forecast a unemployment rate of
8.75 per cent for this financial year.
-----
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/budget-has-done-all-it-can-in-a-crisis-20200723-p55en6
Forecasts unveil hardest hit part
of the economy
The
emergency spending will help us recover better on the other side. But it isn't
enough to get almost a million jobs back again.
Chris Richardson Contributor
Jul
23, 2020 – 1.16pm
The economic statement had already been delayed once, so they couldn’t delay it again.
But this was the worst possible
week in which to have to update the Australian public on the economy and the budget,
because what happens to them depends on what happens with the fight against the
virus.
And Australia’s fight against the
virus still hangs in the balance.
Melbourne, Melbourne, Melbourne
... Pretty much all of the big questions as to what happens next – for our
health, our finances, and for the federal budget – will depend on what happens next in Melbourne.
-----
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/morrison-looks-to-tread-the-path-of-least-resistance-20200722-p55ea9
Morrison looks to tread the path
of least resistance
The
huge numbers in the updated forecasts are the government's way of preparing
voters for the policy measures to come in the October budget.
Phillip Coorey Political editor
Jul
23, 2020 – 8.00pm
Typically when a government
releases a budget, mini-budget, budget update or economic statement, there is
as much focus on the measures contained within as the numbers.
Not this time.
The government announced in
advance the measures reconciled in Thursday's statement – the extension of JobSeeker, JobKeeper and the cheap loan scheme for
small and medium-sized enterprises – so the focus on Thursday would be on the numbers.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/national/no-government-has-been-mugged-by-reality-quite-like-this-20200723-p55euj.html
No government has been mugged by
reality quite like this
Chief political correspondent
July 23, 2020 — 11.10pm
A surprising silence fell over
some Liberal offices this week when the Morrison government said it would spend another $20 billion on income support for workers and
the unemployed.
The phones were quiet. Some of
Scott Morrison's backbenchers were struck by the lack of thunder about the
latest boost to a massive stimulus.
"I haven't had a single phone
call or email about it," says one Liberal MP in suburban Melbourne. A
Liberal in Sydney says the same thing. A check of other party room members
suggests the muted response was fairly widespread. It was as if the community
gave a quick nod and moved on.
Australians had more than the
budget to worry about when the country had 388 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday
and 502 on Wednesday, showing the second wave of the pandemic has surged higher
than the first.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/unemployment-to-soar-as-economy-suffers-deep-recession-20200723-p55etz.html
Unemployment to soar as economy
suffers deep recession
July 23, 2020 — 7.45pm
An extra 240,000 Australians are
likely to end up on the nation's jobless queues by Christmas, with the Morrison
government expecting the coronavirus recession to shrink the economy for two
consecutive years.
The economic and fiscal report
released by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on Thursday, the first formal update on the government's budget
forecasts since its mid-year report in December, forecasts the jobless rate to
reach 9.25 per cent in the December quarter.
Australia's deficit estimated at
$85.8 billion for 2019-20 will rise to $184.5 billion in 2020-21, the Treasury
revealed.
The unemployment rate hit 7.4 per cent
in June
and would have been well above 11 per cent but for the official statistics
excluding more than 230,000 people on JobKeeper who are not working any hours
and another 300,000 who have left the jobs market altogether.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/no-longer-a-disaster-but-a-debt-and-deficit-off-planet-mountain-20200723-p55es9.html
No longer a disaster but a debt
and deficit off-planet mountain
July 23, 2020 — 2.50pm
Debt and deficit disasters are so
2014.
When Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey
attacked Labor for its profligacy and failure to maintain control over its
budget, the nation's gross debt was about $310 billion. The first Coalition
budget since John Howard and Peter Costello warned that, without measures to bring
spending under control, the budget would be "in deficit for at least the
next decade".
Fast forward six years. Prince
Philip has been knighted but there has still been no surplus, debt is on its
way toward $1 trillion and the economy is in its first recession in 30 years.
Unemployment is tipped to reach
9.25 per cent
by Christmas. Excluding those on JobKeeper and who have left the jobs market altogether,
that's an additional 240,000 people looking for work on top of the 992,000
currently without employment.
The numbers unveiled by Josh
Frydenberg and Mathias Cormann
are butt-clenchingly large: a deficit this financial year of at least $184.5
billion that will probably nudge $200 billion by the time of the October budget
and its extra spending measures; gross debt that will go through the
government's recently increased limit of $850 billion some time in 2021-22 with
no idea how it will be paid down.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/complacent-government-delivers-early-shock-therapy-to-prepare-public-for-cuts-20200723-p55ew1.html
Complacent government delivers
early shock therapy to prepare public for cuts
Economics Editor
July 23, 2020 — 5.11pm
Sorry, but this is the economic
statement of a government that’s complacent about controlling the coronavirus
and about getting a million unemployed people back to work. It sees its job as
largely done. Now it’s time to quickly wind back its spending on supporting the
economy and call for the bill.
You can tell Prime Minister Scott
Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg decided this before the extent of the
setbacks in Victoria and NSW became fully apparent. They have assumed that
after the six-week lockdown in Melbourne, everything will be fine again.
That’s quite an assumption,
especially because those two states account for more than half the national
economy.
A less complacent assumption would
have been that, in the many months likely to pass before a vaccine is widely
available, several further major setbacks could occur and delay the return to
confidence by consumers and businesses that normal economic times had resumed
and it was time to get on with spending and investing.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/wealth/covid-impact-seen-as-massive-on-broader-markets-after-economic-update/news-story/6c2b606a4a596193947daedc3b33f567
COVID
impact on property seen as large after economic update casts shadow
James
Kirby
·
7:17PM July 23, 2020
Spiralling
unemployment and falling immigration outlined in the Treasurer’s economic
update are likely to cast the greatest shadow over residential property in the
months ahead.
If
anything, industry predictions that house prices might fall 10 per cent further
in the major cities are most likely optimistic.
As
the continued extensions of support programs mask the reality of strained
household finances, the update added yet another support extension with the
deadline for the early superannuation release scheme moved out from September
to December.
However,
the sliding level of key support payments such as JobKeeper will now cut
straight into the ability of borrowers to repay mortgages. Treasury expects unemployment
to peak at 9.25 per cent
by December.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/leadership/failure-to-lead-us-from-the-fiscal-gloom/news-story/b24163aa68bf4c151fd3c7c5129914a8
Failure
to lead us from the fiscal gloom
John
Durie
·
7:52PM July 23, 2020
Business
was underwhelmed by Thursday’s economic statement not because of the national
debt, but because Treasurer Josh Frydenberg failed to provide any suggested
pathway out of the fiscal gloom.
The
onus will now be on October’s budget to deliver evidence of a plan via policy
reform to achieve the necessary switch from emergency funding via
JobKeeper/Seeker to long-term stimulus.
That
is the tricky test ahead of the Treasurer, unless of course his budget is
pre-empted as Thursday’s statement was by the early release of the JobKeeper
extensions.
Just
why that split was made was confusing because clearly the two announcements
made more sense together but put that one down to marketing and who claims
credit.
The
quicker the country can get from emergency support to actual budget stimulus
the better everyone will be because the latter is all about growing the economy
and the former just trying to keep the place together.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/how-the-government-can-shrink-the-850b-debt-bill-20200724-p55f2o
How the government can shrink the
$850b debt bill
If the economic growth
rate exceeds the borrowing rate, the debt-to-GDP ratio will fall over time,
even if the dollar value of debt does not decline.
John
Kehoe Senior
writer
Jul 24, 2020 – 5.17pm
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg was
asked this week if he would increase taxes or cut spending to repay the record $850 billion of gross debt forecast for next year that will
ultimately approach $1 trillion.
But here's the economic secret.
The government may never actually repay the debt, which will hit 45 per cent of
GDP next year – still less than half the average of advanced economies.
What really matters to bond
investors and credit rating agencies is not the dollar value of debt, but the
debt as a share of the size of the economy.
If the economy grows strongly, the debt-to-GDP ratio naturally
falls over time and the borrowing is sustainable.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/hesitant-and-dithering-the-void-at-the-heart-of-the-government-endangers-the-nation-s-future-20200723-p55exc.html
Hesitant and dithering: The void
at the heart of the government endangers the nation's future
Political and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald
July 25, 2020 — 12.01am
Let the clinical notes show that
Dr J. Frydenberg and Dr M. Cormann attended the patient, Mr Oz Economy, on
Thursday, July 23. The doctors told the patient the results of diagnostic
tests. He had suffered a massive cardiac arrest, was on life support and would
remain confined to the ICU. They informed him that his hospital bill was large
and growing. Dr Frydenberg described it as "eye watering".
The patient said that he was aware
of these facts and wanted to know his prognosis. Dr Frydenberg said the patient
would continue to lose function until Christmas. He was expected to improve in
the new year. The outlook was "highly uncertain". Any recovery would
feel like climbing a mountain.
The patient asked for a treatment
plan. Dr Frydenberg said he would provide one in October. Dr Cormann said the
main thing was that the patient was in better condition than other patients in
the ICU. After the patient conference, Mr Economy asked the nursing staff for
more oxygen and antidepressants and asked whether he might still be alive in
October.
The Morrison government's economic
response to the pandemic so far has been solid. Credit where it's due. The
federal government and the Reserve Bank mobilised serious quantities of
national resources to protect the country from the worst global economic
shutdown since the Great Depression almost a century ago.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/josh-frydenberg-planning-for-light-at-end-of-tunnel/news-story/8aae10d4d3c172321a9f35aeb1b28602
Josh
Frydenberg is planning for light at the end of the tunnel
Paul
Kelly
·
12:00AM July 25, 2020
As
Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg faces a once-in-a-hundred-year dilemma — he is
hostage to a pandemic. His problem is Australia’s problem — the government
wants to push the economy towards recovery but the nation, due to Victoria, has
just recorded its worst-ever COVID-19 infection rate.
This
week’s policies and unprecedented debt and deficit forecasts announced by
Frydenberg are actually optimistic but their validity depends upon Australia
continuing to perform better, to quote Frydenberg, “than almost any other
nation in the world”.
The
public is apprehensive, alarmed but resilient. This is understandable. The
coronavirus is an assault on medical, psychological and economic confidence.
“People want hope, people need hope,” Frydenberg tells Inquirer. “The economic
recovery is a confidence game, it’s so important we maintain the public’s
confidence.”
That
is a daunting challenge with Australia facing a more arduous era of high
unemployment, generational long debt and deficits, damaged industries and
shrinking opportunities for many people. The headline unemployment rate is
forecast to rise to 9.25 per cent before Christmas but this rests on optimistic
assumptions: that the Victorian lockdown works, the Victorian border reopens as
planned, that COVID-19 is contained across the nation and that recovery is
ignited.
-----
Health Issues.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/national/huge-concern-heart-attack-patients-risk-lives-by-delaying-hospital-treatment-20200720-p55dn6.html
'Huge concern:' Heart attack
patients risk lives by delaying hospital treatment
July 20, 2020 — 11.45pm
Some Victorians with heart attack
symptoms waited more than 12 hours before seeking potentially life saving
hospital treatment during the first COVID-19 lockdown in a dangerous trend
doctors fear could cost lives during the current surge in infections.
New research from the University
of Melbourne and Austin Health, published in the European Heart Journal, found Victorian patients with
severe chest pain were waiting four times longer on average to seek medical
treatment amid fears of overburdening the health system or catching the virus
in hospital.
As part of the study, researchers
examined the behaviour of more than 120 patients who had suffered heart attacks
before presenting at the Austin Hospital over a four-week period when the
state's first lockdown came into effect in March.
They then compared this data to
the same period over the past seven years, finding patients with heart attacks
were staying at home six or more hours longer before presenting to hospital.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/companies/health-insurance-on-slide-as-bupa-reveals-postpandemic-claims-surge/news-story/b7d87c5a6ddce11938defd5d0f9e9220
Health insurance on slide as Bupa
reveals post-pandemic claims surge
David
Ross
·
July 24, 2020
The
number of Australians taking out private health insurance has fallen to its
lowest levels since 2006, with the sector feeling the squeeze from a cutback in
non-essential spending as the economic slows.
Data
released on Thursday by the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority showed
private health hospital coverage of adults declined from 44.7 per cent in 2018
to 44 per cent last year.
Coverage
declined across almost all age groups, except the over 70s, whose coverage
lifted by as much as 8 per cent.
The
latest figures are on top of already low rates of coverage for people younger
than 30 years old.
The
greying of private health policyholders is a concern, according to Canstar
financial expert Steve Mickenbecker, who warns the shifting of policies towards
the elderly is driving the exit of younger people.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/viking-age-smallpox-complicates-story-of-viral-evolution-20200724-p55f8e.html
Viking-age smallpox complicates
story of viral evolution
By James
Gorman
July 24, 2020 — 5.46pm
New York: The evolution of the deadliest
virus in human history — smallpox — is only partly understood. Like the novel
coronavirus and many other disease-causing viruses, smallpox seems to have
originated in animals, probably rodents, and spilled over to humans, probably
thousands of years ago. In the 20th century alone it killed hundreds of
millions of people.
Until now, the earliest confirmed
case of smallpox had been found in the mummified remains of a Lithuanian child
from the 17th century. On Thursday, US time, an international team of
researchers pushed that date back 1000 years, reporting in the journal Science
that they had recovered smallpox DNA from the remains of people in northern
Europe in the Viking Age.
The virus they found is now
extinct and has not been found in other, more recent skeletal remains. It is
not an ancestor of the modern smallpox virus but an evolutionary dead end. It
has more genes than the modern virus, and scientists have observed that among
the many pox viruses in nature, fewer genes tend to mean a more deadly virus.
Putting those facts together caused one prominent smallpox specialist to
suggest that the modern virus might have become more deadly as it evolved. Most
viruses become less deadly over time.
Pox viruses are not closely
related to coronaviruses, and the research has no direct application to the
current spread of the novel coronavirus. But in the midst of a pandemic, even
the thought of some viruses evolving to be more deadly is decidedly
uncomfortable.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/national/inside-our-microscopic-war-machine-and-the-million-dollar-question-20200723-p55eo1.html
Inside our microscopic war machine
and the million-dollar question
July 25, 2020 — 11.30pm
A study that indicates antibody
levels drop rapidly after exposure to COVID-19 is not a major hurdle to making
a vaccine, experts say.
But that does not mean making a
long-lasting vaccine is easy. While futuristic vaccines lead the race, it may
be an ancient technology that provides the best staying power.
“Immunity to COVID-19 could be
lost in months,” fretted one newspaper, after a study by King's College London found
antibodies to the virus drop rapidly after a patient recovers. “This threatens
a vaccine,” warned another outlet.
But many immunologists are not
concerned by those results. Looking just at antibody levels does not tell the full
story, they say.
-----
International Issues.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/trump-admits-he-may-not-accept-election-result-20200720-p55dk8
Trump admits he may not accept
election result
Harriet Alexander
Updated
Jul 20, 2020 – 9.49am, first published at 9.12am
New York | Donald Trump may not accept the
results of the forthcoming presidential election, he has said, setting the
stage for an epic showdown in November.
In a wild and contentious
interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News, broadcast on Sunday (AEST), the
President said he was "not a good loser" and was fully prepared to
challenge the results, if he lost to Joe Biden,
his Democratic rival.
He claimed postal voting, which
Democrats pushed as a response to the pandemic, "is going to rig the
election".
Asked if this meant that he would
not accept the election results, Mr Trump said: "No. I have to see."
His rival is currently 15 points ahead,
according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll released yesterday.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/asia/australia-s-regional-defence-strategy-is-short-on-indonesia-20200719-p55dd0
Australia's regional defence
strategy is short on Indonesia
Canberra's
Defence Strategic Update does a poor job of specifying the shared regional
interests that may or may not rally the support of regional countries such as
Indonesia.
Evan Laksmana
Updated
Jul 20, 2020 – 11.46am, first published at 11.34am
Australia launched its 2020 Defence Strategic Update this month to bring defence policy
up to speed with the deteriorating strategic environment in the Indo-Pacific,
marked by the rapid military modernisation in the region, sharpening US–China
strategic competition, and the rise of "grey-zone" forms of
assertiveness and coercion to achieve strategic goals without provoking
conflict.
The strategic update commits
Australia to shaping its strategic environment, deterring actions against its
interests and responding with force if necessary. It reorients defence planning to Australia’s immediate region,
from the north-eastern Indian Ocean through south-east Asia to the south-west
Pacific.
Australia's boost to defence
capabilities and the realignment of strategic focus in the face of adverse
strategic trends is a perfectly reasonable step. But the focus on south-east
Asia immediately raises the question of where Indonesia fits in.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/strangest-and-most-grotesquely-untrue-statement-of-donald-trumps-life/news-story/c272cb4cd01481cf33e0fac732d61180
Strangest
and most grotesquely untrue statement of Donald Trump’s life
Greg
Sheridan
·
11:09PM July 20, 2020
Donald
Trump chose, 100 days before the election, to make surely the strangest and
most grotesquely untrue statement of his life, when the US President told Fox
TV’s Chris Wallace that the US has the lowest COVID-19 mortality rate in the
world.
There
have been a little over 600,000 COVID-19 deaths worldwide and nearly a quarter
of them were Americans. How can that possibly be the world’s lowest COVID-19
death rate?
It
can’t.
Trump
has stepped up his attacks on Joe Biden.
He
paints Biden as bordering on semi-senile, soft on China and a willing dupe of
the Democratic Party’s activist left wing. Although Trump expresses them
roughly, these are profitable lines of attack as there is a smidgen of truth in
each.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/afters-long-absence-trump-re-engages-with-virus-crisis-20200721-p55dvc
After long absence, Trump
re-engages with virus crisis
Jacob Greber United States
correspondent
Jul
21, 2020 – 9.06am
Washington | Donald Trump, after months of
effectively ignoring the raging US pandemic, is preparing to re-engage with the
crisis by resuming regular coronavirus taskforce press briefings.
Shaken by damning internal and
public polls, Mr Trump said on Monday (Tuesday AEST) that he would "get
involved and we'll start doing briefings . . . . probably tomorrow".
Mr Trump pledged to resume briefings
after a near three-month hiatus on the same day that he posted a photograph of
himself on Twitter wearing a face mask.
"We are United in our effort
to defeat the Invisible China Virus, and many people say that it is Patriotic
to wear a face mask when you can’t socially distance," he wrote alongside
the picture. "There is nobody more Patriotic than me, your favourite
President."
The return to briefings comes as
America continues to produce the world's worst pandemic numbers, exposing the
country's systemic healthcare shortcomings and leaving the President vulnerable
to accusations that he has lost control of the crisis less than four months
from the November 3 election.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/national/the-world-is-heading-for-a-population-crisis-but-not-the-one-it-was-expecting-20200720-p55dl1.html
The world is heading for a
population crisis but not the one it was expecting
Political and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald
July 21, 2020 — 12.01am
We've been told many times over
the decades: the ever-growing population of the earth will end in a shattering
overpopulation crisis of food shortages, environmental collapse and resource
wars.
Will COVID-19 change the picture?
The pandemic has killed 600,000 people globally and is still likely in an early
phase. The number of worldwide infections is accelerating.
The pandemic "will have some
impact" on the planet's future population, says Peter McDonald, professor of
demography at Melbourne University. "But it's not the deaths, it's the births that will make the
difference." How so? The number of deaths so far is equivalent to 1 per
cent of the 60 million that would have been expected to die of all causes in
the normal course of events.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/return-to-the-70s-the-us-economy-might-be-doomed-to-repeat-history-20200721-p55duu.html
Return to the 70s: The US economy
might be doomed to repeat history
By Conor Sen
July 21, 2020 — 8.04am
A Joe Biden presidential
administration, which is becoming more probable as his lead in the polls grows,
probably will try to avoid the mistakes that held back the economic recovery
after the 2007-09 Great Recession. His fiscal agenda is getting bolder. The
Federal Reserve is also pledging to keep monetary policy loose until inflation
actually emerges.
But potential supply bottlenecks
loom if the US breaks out of the slow-growth trap that has plagued the economy
during the past decade. That suggests the economy will need reforms that
increase supply in housing, the labour market, and in healthcare and childcare.
We got an unwelcome preview of how
this can play out in coastal urban housing markets - at least before the
coronavirus pandemic. Jobs and incomes for knowledge workers surged in cities
such as San Francisco and New York, but the increase in employment outstripped
the housing supply in those metro areas. Even with an increase in high-end
residential construction, soaring rents often outpaced rising wages. An
economy-wide version of this could unfold in the next few years if the US
achieves more robust growth.
Consider the impact on the housing
market of an economic agenda that sought to return and keep the labour market
close to full employment, particularly outside the coastal knowledge hubs. This
probably would reduce housing affordability in inland and smaller metro areas.
Although it's true that it's easier to build housing in smaller, lower density
metro areas than on the coasts, zoning codes and community opposition are still
obstacles to housing construction almost everywhere. And with fewer workers in
the homebuilding industry than before the financial crisis, construction would
be plagued by rising costs and delays. Any plan that seeks to increase economic
growth, in part through more demand for labour, also needs a plan that ensures
growth in the supply of housing to keep up.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/why-trump-s-law-and-order-push-might-backfire-20200722-p55e8c
Why Trump's law and order push might
backfire
Violent
riots in progressive cities are giving Donald Trump all the ammunition he
needs. But his use of federal troops means he may end up owning problems he
didn't create.
Jacob Greber United States
correspondent
Updated
Jul 22, 2020 – 9.50am, first published at 9.40am
Washington | Throughout America’s long hot
summer two crises have dominated people’s thoughts: the twin fevers of an
out-of-control pandemic and bouts of civic unrest left over from late-May's
protests over the killing of George Floyd.
With the pandemic showing few
signs of abating any time soon, the administration is eager to focus on what
it's doing about street protests.
And this gives President Donald
Trump the battle he desires and needs to buoy his flagging election prospects.
But deploying federal troops to fix
entrenched problems
that he didn’t create across some of America’s most progressive cities is also
a risky political strategy.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/europe/when-will-things-get-back-to-normal-never-says-davos-founder-20200714-p55br2
When will things get back to
normal? Never, says Davos founder
Klaus
Schwab's quick-fire book 'The Great Reset' tries to imagine how we will live
with COVID-19. It's equal parts forecast, manifesto and warning.
Hans van Leeuwen Europe
correspondent
Jul
22, 2020 – 6.09am
As the COVID-19 pandemic's second wave
breaks upon us, all thoughts of an easy ride out are dissipating. We are
paddling into a fog of uncertainty, and we need a navigator.
Step forward Klaus Schwab. He is
the octogenarian German engineer and economist who parlayed his dull-sounding
1971 management manual into a think tank, the World Economic Forum, that in
turn became Davos – the star-studded gathering of the global political and
corporate elite each January, which almost unfailingly nails the politico-economic
zeitgeist
of the year ahead.
Except this year, of course, it
didn't. The general tone on the Swiss slopes was cautiously optimistic; nobody saw fit to mention, or had even really heard about, a
recently identified virus that was filling hospitals in distant Wuhan.
Schwab hopes to make amends for
that rare and understandable failing of his signature gathering with a new
book, co-authored with French analyst Thierry Malleret and published last week,
called The
Great Reset.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/in-a-flip-flop-trump-says-people-should-wear-a-mask-when-needed-20200722-p55e8i.html
In a flip flop, Trump says people
should wear a mask when needed
By Alexandra
Alper
July 22, 2020 — 7.37am
Washington: US President Donald Trump, in a
shift in rhetoric on facial coverings, encouraged Americans on Tuesday to wear
a mask if they cannot maintain social distance from people around them in an
effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
In his first briefing focused on
the pandemic in months, Trump told reporters at the White House that the virus
will probably get worse before it gets better.
When asked about wearing a mask
more frequently, US President Donald Trump said during his coronavirus briefing
that he had 'no problem with the masks.'
Trump has been reluctant to wear a
mask himself in public.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/coronavirus-indonesian-president-jokowi-accused-of-sacrificing-health-for-economys-sake/news-story/d2ed4860ad06e87eee70539182893bc0
Coronavirus: Indonesian President
Jokowi accused of sacrificing health for economy’s sake
·
By Chandni Vasandani
·
6:38PM July 21, 2020
Indonesia’s
President Joko Widodo has replaced the country’s COVID-19 task force with a
body that some say puts economic recovery ahead of public health.
This
comes as the number of infections in Indonesia surpassed China, with 88,214
confirmed cases and 4239 deaths as of Monday. The country has recorded more
than 1000 infections every day for the past three weeks.
In
a decree issued on Monday, Mr Jokowi appointed senior economic minister
Airlangga Hartarto and state-owned enterprises minister Erick Thohir to
co-ordinate efforts related to the national economy and the spread of the
virus. “The team will plan and implement programs so that COVID-19 and economic
recoveries can be done simultaneously under the same institution with maximum
co-ordination,” Mr Hartarto said.
The
previous task force, managed by Indonesia’s Disaster Management Agency,
admitted to some blunders, including pushing for a “new normal” which led to
confusion among the public.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/is-the-rebound-in-america-s-economy-already-over-20200722-p55ect
Is the rebound in America’s
economy already over?
A
rise in coronavirus cases in the most populous US states is halting consumer
and business activity.
James Politi
Jul
22, 2020 – 12.19pm
Washington | It was the missing cars that
first alerted Maryann Ferenc: the economic rebound that she and many others had
been hoping to see at Florida’s Pass-a-Grille Beach was already in danger of
vanishing.
“July 4 and you could find a
parking spot all day long, you could find several parking spots all day long,”
says Ms Ferenc, who owns a number of restaurants in the Tampa area as well as a
boutique hotel along that stretch of the Gulf coast.
“That was the first indicator, and
you could just notice the difference, through the entire weekend and then the
following week, you saw that drop.”
In the run-up to Independence Day,
which the tourism sector had been counting on for a huge boost, the number of
new coronavirus cases in Florida had been rising at an alarming
rate,
exceeding 10,000 a day for the first time. Since then, the situation has
deteriorated, with the state recording a record 15,299 infections on July 12.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/can-australia-really-shape-the-region-as-pm-would-like-20200722-p55e9u
Can Australia really 'shape the
region' as PM would like?
This
country can take a more proactive role in Asia. But that will require more
resources than we are putting in at the moment.
Anthony Milner Contributor
Jul
22, 2020 – 2.42pm
In this month's Defence Strategic
Update, Scott Morrison highlighted the need to “shape Australia’s strategic
environment”. This is ambitious – and has its own resource implications.
It requires, as the update puts
it, “improving our awareness of what’s happening in the region” – no
straight-forward matter. Recent regional commentary, including experts who
commented in a recent Council for Security Co-operation-Asialink survey, remind
us how much must be factored in as Australia negotiates the struggle between
the US and China. It also warns of the need for an adequate knowledge base.
Australia is not alone in being
anxious about China’s power. A senior Singapore commentator confirms that many
Asian governments “continue to harbour suspicions about China”. There is a view
in south-east Asia and elsewhere that China is coming out of the COVID-19
crisis “strengthened” – showing leadership, for instance, in the provision of medical
supplies.
There is a consistent perception
of the “steady decline” of US influence in Asia. The “appearance of
incompetence in managing the pandemic” is a factor in the judgment (made by a
senior Philippines observer) that the “post-Second World War order built around
US hegemony … is ending”.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/can-china-and-the-us-agree-again-20200722-p55e9r
Can China and the US agree again?
Trade-dependent
China risks being the loser in a global contest with the US. But can they reach
a relationship where rivalry and co-operation co-exist?
Mohamed El-Erian Contributor
Jul
22, 2020 – 1.10pm
Not a day seems to pass without
further evidence of the mounting economic tensions between China and the United
States, the world’s two largest economies.
This growing antagonism will have
a bigger immediate impact on China than on the US, as bilateral decoupling
fuels a broader ongoing process of deglobalisation. And the negative spillover
effects for a subset of other countries – which I call the dual-option
economies – could be particularly significant.
Even from a purely economic
perspective, it is hard to envisage any durable abatement of Sino-American
tensions in the near future. And that is before factoring in national security
issues, let alone those relating to technology and human rights.
The economic and financial
implications of COVID-19 are uniting three segments of the US economy in decoupling from China. This dynamic is unlikely to
abate anytime soon and will be mutually reinforcing, meaning that one plus one
plus one adds up to more than three.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/the-deceptive-radicalism-of-joe-biden-20200723-p55enc
The deceptive radicalism of Joe
Biden
The
more he is seen as a do-nothing grandpa, the more licence Mr Biden has to
advance ideas that would have done for another candidate. Americans, if he
wins, should not count on a quiet life.
Janan Ganesh Contributor
Jul
23, 2020 – 9.42am
The Soviet Union used to alternate
between bald leaders and ones with formidable hair. The US, which is seldom
ruled by the smooth of pate, swings around a different axis. It seems to crave
a breather after each high-drama president.
The Richard Nixon years gave on to
some water-treading under Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Ronald Reagan led to
George HW Bush and the prelapsarian tranquillity of the 1990s.
After the younger Bush and his
still-simmering wars came Barack “No Drama” Obama. It follows that Donald
Trump, the author of so much tumult, should prefigure a restful four years
under Joe Biden.
Moderate Republicans are counting
on it. Not to impugn their principles, but they might be slower to say “Never
Trump” if the alternative was as leftwing as Bernie Sanders or his Senate
colleague Elizabeth Warren.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/india-s-pivot-to-australia-20200723-p55eo4
India’s pivot to Australia
With
discussions underway for Canberra to join the Malabar naval exercises, New
Delhi hopes to add a new backer in its fight against China.
Harsh V. Pant and Premesha Saha
Jul
24, 2020 – 12.00am
Will Australia join the Malabar
exercises? For weeks, Indian media has reported with near certitude that New
Delhi will be inviting Canberra to join its high-level naval exercises, which usually involve the navies
of India, Japan and the United States.
While strategic dialogue and
informal cooperation has long existed between the four countries, known as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, the exercises would mark the
first time Australia would be part of this official joint military engagement.
For India, the decision to extend
the invitation – a move it had so far held back on despite interest from
Australia – marks a major step. Not only does New Delhi hope to strengthen its
relations with its partners in the Indo-Pacific, but it intends to send a
strong message to Beijing as border tensions mount: India’s military
partnerships are growing stronger than ever, and Chinese intransigence will
make them even more potent.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/we-ll-figure-it-out-trump-scraps-big-republican-convention-20200724-p55f16
'We'll figure it out': Trump
scraps big Republican convention
Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou and Gregory Korte
Jul
24, 2020 – 9.00am
President Donald Trump relented
Thursday (Friday AEST) to worries about the coronavirus and cancelled his
Florida nominating convention, the biggest event of his re-election campaign,
as the host state posted record deaths from the pandemic.
"I told my team it's time to
cancel the Jacksonville, Florida component of the GOP convention," Trump
said Thursday at the White House. "We didn't want to take any
chances."
Trump had insisted for months that
he would still hold his four-day extravaganza despite worries the gathering
would become a super-spreader event. The party decided June 11 to move the
convention from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Jacksonville, Florida, after
Governor Roy Cooper refused to waive social-distancing and other measures to
prevent contagion.
But just as preparations for the
Florida event got underway, Florida was hit with a surge of infections and now is one of the country's
hardest-hit areas, with a total so far of 389,868 confirmed cases of the virus
– about 1.8 per cent of the state's population – and the number growing by an
average of more than 10,000 cases a day. The state posted a record 173 deaths
on Thursday.
-----
I
look forward to comments on all this!
-----
David.
