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In the US we are all wondering just where we are and what comes next – hopefully it will be clear by the weekend.
The UK has gone back into lockdown starting today their time until the end of the month. Its going to be too little, too last I suspect. I get the feeling the PM is doomed and that this will play out over the next month or so…
In OZ we are still leading a charmed life. I really hope it can last and the economic repair can happen. There are a lot of people hurting out there and I fear a miserable Christmas.
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Major Issues.
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Religious discrimination bill will create an unholy mess
By Alastair Lawrie
October 26, 2020 — 12.30am
One Nation’s Anti-Discrimination Amendment (Religious Freedoms and Equality) Bill 2020 gets one thing right — the lack of protection for religious belief is a genuine gap in NSW anti-discrimination law.
But when it comes to the detail, the bill not only goes the wrong way about introducing these much-needed protections, it represents a serious threat to the rights of all people in NSW.
The problem arises because of the prioritisation of religious beliefs over the rights of others, with privileges provided to schools, charities and even some commercial businesses to discriminate against others, including people of minority faiths or those of no faith.
To see what this will mean in practice, we can look to one of the many examples provided in the explanatory notes which One Nation State Leader Mark Latham has urged us to read to obtain a “full understanding of what the bill is trying to achieve”.
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When the public side with the powerful over press freedom, we all lose
By Osman Faruqi
October 26, 2020 — 5.00am
Late last Thursday, on the eve of the AFL grand final public holiday, Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services issued a statement likely to have a significant impact on how journalists report on the government’s handling of the state’s second wave of coronavirus.
DHHS announced that a public servant had been referred to the police for leaking a draft of a government document detailing the road map out of restrictions.
In September, the Herald Sun reported the draft, dismissed by premier Daniel Andrews at the time as having “no status”, even though it proved to be remarkably accurate.
In normal times, a decision by a government department to refer one of its own employees to the police for leaking to the media would spark a larger conversation about freedom of the press. But the timing of the news meant the story didn’t attract enormous attention.
When I tweeted about it I was surprised at the number of people who expressed support for the referral to police. Perhaps naively, I thought that the kind of people who follow me (they tend to be more left-leaning and generally supportive of the role journalism plays in society) would understand the consequences of a police investigation into a leak to journalists.
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Gatekeepers should have picked up Australia Post, ASIC sooner
A government corporation and a regulator are in trouble because systems of oversight did not work.
Helen Bird Contributor
Oct 27, 2020 – 12.00am
The best way to understand governance issues in any organisation is to follow the money. Two very different government organisations are in the spotlight this week for paying their staff questionable remuneration entitlements. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission for paying a $118,000 tax advice bill for its chairman and a $70,000 rental bill for its deputy chairman. Australia Post, for gifting Cartier watches worth a total of $19,950 to four executives.
Both organisations are the subject of government inquiries. ASIC chairman James Shipton has stood aside; his deputy, Daniel Crennan, QC, has resigned with immediate effect. Australia Post's CEO Christine Holgate has been forced to stand aside pending an inquiry into her organisation.
What both organisations have in common is their accountability to government. Both are subject to the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (PGPA) . Additionally, the governance of Australia Post must align with Commonwealth government oversight rules.
The PGPA imposes private company director-like obligations on officials who work for accountable authorities.
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Kevin Rudd's royal commission push hits a nerve
Aaron Patrick Senior correspondent
Oct 27, 2020 – 9.35am
In Kevin Rudd's long and storied history of enemy making, he has never made a direct assault quite like this.
The former prime minister is petitioning the federal Parliament for a royal commission into the political influence of the Murdoch media empire, an organisation without a reputation for treating opponents gently.
Kevin07 has clearly hit a nerve. With a little bit of a publicity from the Nine papers and the ABC, the petition is closing in on 400,000 digital signatures, which dwarfs most of the hundreds of other random and self-interested pleas seeking parliamentary intervention.
Malcolm Turnbull, who encouraged the left-wing Guardian to open in Australia, has crossed the partisan aisle to sign. Turnbull said Murdoch had operated a monopoly in print since 1987, and praised Rudd for the idea.
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Audit office funding slashed, renewing calls for integrity commission
By Katina Curtis
October 26, 2020 — 9.58pm
The Commonwealth's default integrity watchdog has lost nearly a fifth of its funding since the Coalition came to power.
As the Law Council of Australia joins calls for a Commonwealth integrity commission to be established as soon as possible, a Parliamentary Library analysis of the Australian National Audit Office's budget since 2012-13 shows its total resourcing fell from $77.8 million to $63.6 million in 2012-13 dollars, a cut of more than 18 per cent in real terms.
Auditor-General Grant Hehir has said that budget constraints have already hindered the audit office's work and will continue to do so in the future unless it receives more funding.
The analysis, commissioned by Labor MP Julian Hill, also shows the office's annual resourcing has steadily trended down over that time while its expenses rose sharply in 2018-19.
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Early release of superannuation 'opened up a frontier' for financial abuse
By Shane Wright and Katina Curtis
October 27, 2020 — 11.21am
The Tax Office has promised to review the early release of superannuation after revealing it did not have systems in place to prevent the scheme from being exploited by domestic abuse perpetrators.
Under questioning from the Labor Party, ATO commissioner Chris Jordan said it was "intolerable" if there were cases of financial abuse through the $34.4 billion in super released early as part of the Morrison government's stimulus package to protect the nation from the coronavirus recession.
People have been able to withdraw up to $10,000 in two separate transactions from their super. As of October 18, more than 4.5 million people have dipped into their retirement savings.
Last year, in public consultation about early access to super, several consumer organisations warned there was a risk that women could be pressured by their partners to take money out of their superannuation.
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Why the price of cheap money will always be too high
The pandemic crisis will expose the problems created by the easy money answers to the financial crisis of a decade ago.
Warren Hogan Columnist
Oct 29, 2020 – 12.00am
Next Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of Australia is expected to reduce the cash rate to another record low. Monetary policy in most advanced economies is suffering from overreach and has been for much of the past decade.
Many of the problems economies face cannot be solved by easy money. They are structural, so can only be remediated through adjustments to economic arrangements, such as taxation, competition, industry and trade policy.
Over the past two decades there has been a loss of perspective about what monetary policy can and cannot achieve. It is a tool to impact on demand in the economy in the short term. It cannot impact on demand over the long run nor can it influence the supply side of the economy – at least, not in a positive manner.
One of the most worrying features of the world economy has been persistently weak productivity growth in many advanced economies. This apparent secular stagnation is characterised by a loss of economic dynamism, weak real wage growth and low consumer price inflation. Yet asset prices and debt levels are surging higher.
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Gravitational waves, epigenetics win top Australian science prize
By Liam Mannix
October 28, 2020 — 7.00pm
When Professor Susan Scott was a physics student, the general thinking among scientists was discovering gravitational waves was next to impossible.
She disagreed.
Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity imagines space and time as a combined entity that can be stretched and shaped like a sheet of elastic.
One consequence of that idea: if you drop something sufficiently heavy on the middle of the sheet, small ripples will spread to the edges. The fabric of reality will literally ripple – a gravitational wave.
“Einstein himself really thought there wasn’t a hope in hell of anyone detecting gravitational waves, given how small their amplitude was,” Professor Scott said.
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There is a fairer and open way to appoint the best High Court judges
Establishing in Australia a UK-style independent judicial appointment commission would avoid the political circus around the US Supreme Court while creating a transparent, competitive and merit-based process.
Kim Rubenstein Contributor
Oct 29, 2020 – 1.44pm
Judicial appointments to each of the highest courts in the United States of America and Australia made for a momentous week both for court watchers and anyone understanding the singular reach of these supreme courts.
In America, the appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett happened in a rush when she was confirmed by the majority-held Republican Senate ahead of Tuesday’s Presidential elections. The judicial conservative replaces her mirror opposite Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and will begin hearing cases when the court next sits in November.
In Australia, the process appeared more orderly. Justice Simon Steward replaces High Court Justice Geoffrey Nettle on his retirement on November 30, and Justice Jacqueline Gleeson begins her term when Justice Virginia Bell retires on February 28.
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Rise and fall: How the inflation dragon has been slayed
Ross Gittins
Economics Editor
October 30, 2020 — 12.00am
Treasury Secretary Dr Steven Kennedy observed this week that there’s been “a fundamental shift in the macro-economic underpinnings of the global and domestic economies, the cause of which is still not fully understood”. He’s right. And he’s the first of our top econocrats to say it. But he didn’t elaborate.
This week we got further evidence of that fundamental shift. The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ consumer price index for the September quarter showed an annual “headline” inflation rate of 0.7 per cent and an “underlying” (that is, more reliable) rate of 1.2 per cent.
This is exceptionally low and is clearly affected by the coronacession, as you’d expect. But there’s more going on than just a recession. Since 1993, our inflation target has been for annual inflation to average 2 to 3 per cent. For the six years before the virus, however, it averaged 1.6 per cent. And most other rich countries have also been undershooting their targets.
So, part of the “fundamental shift” in the factors underpinning the global economy is that inflation has gone away as a significant problem. But why? As Kennedy says, these things are “still not fully understood”. Some economists are advancing explanatory theories, which the other economists are debating.
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PM shows a Trumpian disregard for transparency
Government outrage at the behaviour of big institutions seems to be driven by whose side they are perceived to be on.
Laura Tingle Columnist
Oct 30, 2020 – 4.50pm
Pause for a moment and let’s take ourselves back to November 2017, when the then Turnbull government was dragged kicking and screaming to set up a banking royal commission.
The then treasurer, Scott Morrison, had been one of the most ardent resisters of a royal commission, describing it as “a stunt”, “hot air” and “nothing more than crass populism seeking to undermine confidence in the banking and financial system, which is key to jobs and growth in this country".
Even when the government finally announced the royal commission, he described it as a “regrettable but necessary action”.
"Politics is doing damage to our banking and financial system, and we are taking control as a government to protect the strength of our banking system through a properly constituted inquiry on these terms of reference, rather than the alternatives present in other commission of inquiry proposals,” Morrison said at the time.
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Trump and China force Australia to secure its defence closer to home
Peter Hartcher
Political and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age
October 30, 2020 — 7.16pm
When Australia entrusted its national survival to the United States decades ago, it wasn't counting on Donald Trump. Whoever wins the US presidential election next week, the US alliance remains Australia's strategic Plan A. But the election of the self-described "very stable genius" four years ago has pointed up the danger inherent in betting the nation's existence on any one country.
At the same time, Xi Jinping's China presents Australia with the stark reality that it confronts a big, hostile power that respects no country's sovereignty but its own.
Together, these facts have pushed Australia to start work on a Plan B. What's the plan? To bring together as many other countries as possible to "balance" against China's power.
Or, as ANU professor emeritus Hugh White put it, "we no longer repose our trust in America alone, and if America fails us then we will look not to ourselves but to our Asian neighbours".
The Defence Minister, Linda Reynolds, prefers to call Australia's new strategy "an enhanced Plan A". Australia has nourished relationships with a wide range of Asia Pacific countries for decades, she points out, so that's not new. But "we are strengthening them in new ways".
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Labor claims victory to win third term in Queensland
By Cameron Atfield
October 31, 2020 — 11.38pm
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has won her third state election for Labor in a stunning endorsement of her tough border policy after an election campaign dominated by the state’s response to the COVID crisis.
But it was not all good news for the Labor Party, with the Greens claiming a significant scalp in the shape of former deputy premier and treasurer Jackie Trad, who lost her South Brisbane seat to Amy MacMahon.
A beaming Premier took to the stage at the Inala Blue Fin Fishing Club in Brisbane's west at 10.17pm to claim victory, which gives Labor Queensland its first four-year fixed term in power.
"It has not been an easy year for many, many people," she said.
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American dream or nightmare?: An investor's field guide for next week's US election
By Alex Druce
October 31, 2020 — 12.12am
Investors have already endured one of the most dramatic years on record, but the defining moment for markets in 2020 could still be to come: polling day in next week’s US Presidential election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
Nerves are already on edge with coronavirus case numbers rising, yet with record numbers of mail-in votes, and the size and timing of the next US stimulus package still unknown, it seems the only certainty is that the impact of the result will be felt far beyond America’s shores.
Having mostly recovered from the depths of the coronavirus-induced rout in March, the path forward for share prices both in Australia and abroad will be sculpted not only by who wins the Oval Office on November 3 but the colour of the Senate.
Investors appear to have already priced in a Biden win, with many also anticipating a blue wave sweep of the upper house and the added certainty that would bring. But as four years ago showed, all scenarios are still on the table. A Trump victory is still very much possible, so too is the nightmare scenario for investors of a drawn out, contested result.
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Coronavirus And Impacts.
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UN head calls COVID the 'greatest crisis of our age' as Spain enters state of emergency
By Belén Carreño
October 26, 2020 — 6.53am
Madrid: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has announced a new state of emergency in an effort to curb soaring coronavirus infections as the head of the United Nations declared that “the COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest crisis of our age”.
France also registered a record 52,010 new confirmed coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, following a record 45,422 on Saturday, the health ministry said on Sunday, as the coronavirus continues to spread throughout Europe.
Spain will impose measures including nighttime curfews and limits on the number of people allowed to meet in a bid to contain a surging second wave of coronavirus infections.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened an online session of the World Health Summit with a call for worldwide solidarity in the global crisis and demanded that developed countries support health systems in countries that are short of resources.
The coronavirus pandemic is the overarching theme of the summit, which originally had been scheduled for Berlin. Several of the leaders and experts who spoke at the opening stressed the need to cooperate across borders.
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White House says it won't 'control the pandemic' as more senior staffers test positive
By Farrah Tomazin
October 26, 2020 — 10.29am
The White House has conceded it is “not going to control the pandemic” as it faces another staff outbreak nine days from the US election.
Three weeks after President Donald Trump and members of his inner circle contracted coronavirus, five staffers working for Vice-President Mike Pence – including his chief of staff – have also been diagnosed with COVID-19.
Pence and his wife Karen say they have tested negative, and the Vice-President will keep campaigning across the US for the final stretch of the race rather than self isolate.
But as cases continue to soar in most states, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows revealed today that the Trump administration was not aiming to control the virus, and instead was focusing its efforts on the development of a vaccine to stop the spread.
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Morrison credits the people of Victoria – not Daniel Andrews
Phillip Coorey Political editor
Oct 26, 2020 – 6.34pm
Senior Labor figures say the business community has all but given up on the Andrews government and has been liaising increasingly with federal MPs in a bid to communicate.
As Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced the lifting of months of severe stage four restrictions on Monday, federal Labor figures said business leaders had been contacting them throughout the lockdown, complaining of being virtually ignored.
As recently as last week, at the same time Mr Andrews said he had not bothered to read a letter from seven of the nation's most senior CEOs urging him to reopen his state in a COVID-safe manner, Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas cancelled a scheduled meeting with the Business Council of Australia, the first such hearing he had granted since August.
Sources inside both federal Labor and the corporate community said the virtually non-existent relationship between the business sector and state Labor that existed before the crisis was now a poisonous one.
After a visceral reaction from the business community to his Sunday decision to pause the lifting of restrictions, Mr Andrews on Monday said cafes, pubs and retail would reopen on Wednesday and the rest of the economy would start to open on November 8.
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Fears of a second COVID wave and another lockdown on NSW voters' minds
By Alexandra Smith
October 26, 2020 — 6.03pm
Fears of a second wave of COVID-19 in NSW and being forced back into lockdown are top of mind for three out of five voters in the state, with most also worried about a drawn-out recession.
An exclusive Ipsos poll for The Sydney Morning Herald and Nine News reveals 63 per cent of voters are concerned that NSW could follow Victoria and be hit with a high number of COVID-19 cases.
NSW had one new locally acquired case and three cases in hotel quarantine on Monday while Victoria recorded its first day in four months of no new cases, allowing it to ease restrictions.
NSW Health confirmed the locally acquired case in Sydney is a household contact of a positive test linked with the Oran Park cluster, which has been connected with 23 coronavirus cases.
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https://www.afr.com/world/europe/europe-s-second-wave-brushes-past-lockdown-lite-20201028-p5697d
Europe's second wave brushes past 'lockdown lite'
Hans van Leeuwen Europe correspondent
Oct 28, 2020 – 4.35am
London | Europe's second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has swept past the light-touch restrictions put in place in most parts of the Continent, sparking warnings that tougher, economy-sapping measures could follow.
The seemingly unstoppable resurgence comes as a new study from Imperial College in London suggests that COVID antibodies may last only a few months in the human system, throwing into doubt the prospect of herd immunity and workable vaccines.
Germany, which fended off the first wave and has so far put in place only limited restrictions this time, could hit 20,000 new cases a day by the week's end, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier warned late on Tuesday (AEDT).
"We are dealing with exponential growth," he said, ahead of a COAG-style meeting between Chancellor Angela Merkel and the 16 state premiers on Wednesday to discuss further lockdown measures such as a period of business closures.
In France, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said the French people would have to "prepare for difficult decisions", on a day when the country clocked 33,417 new cases and reached almost 50 per cent capacity in its intensive care wards.
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Severe COVID-19 infection appears to give better protection: study
Jill Margo Health editor
Oct 27, 2020 – 11.34am
People who experience severe COVID-19 disease may have a small advantage over those who had it mildly, according to new research.
A study in the journal Nature Microbiology says they may be protected against reinfection for longer periods than those with milder symptoms.
Antibody responses to the virus can be detected in most infected people 10 to 15 days after the onset of COVID-19 symptoms.
However, it is not known how long antibody responses will be maintained or whether they will provide protection from reinfection.
By using sequential blood samples collected up to 94 days after the first symptoms appeared, the authors found the immune response to the virus waned in the three months following infection and was dependent on the severity of the disease.
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Cashed-up Australians squirrel away $100 billion
By Shane Wright
October 30, 2020 — 10.10pm
Cashed-up Australians have squirrelled away $100 billion in their bank accounts since the start of the coronavirus recession as they remain fearful the pandemic will weigh on the economy and their own finances well into the future.
Data from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority on Friday showed another surge in bank deposits held by households with the nation's lenders, jumping by $16.5 billion through September.
The authority noted the increase was likely due to JobKeeper payments and tax refunds flowing into accounts in the month. Deposits have also been boosted by increased government payments, mortgage repayment deferrals and the withdrawal of $34.5 billion from superannuation accounts.
Since the start of the pandemic in February, $100 billion has been put away by households waiting for a change in the economy.
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Climate Change
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No articles in this section.
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Royal Commissions And The Like.
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Bushfire Royal Commission recommends national emergency powers
· NCA NewsWire
The federal government should have the power to declare a state of national emergency, according to a final report handed down by the royal commission into last summer’s catastrophic bushfires.
The proposed change is among 80 recommendations made public on Friday after the report was tabled in parliament.
The Black Summer blazes torched 10 million hectares, destroyed more than 3,000 homes and killed 33 people.
The thick smoke that blanketed parts of Australia for weeks on end contributed to hundreds more deaths, the inquiry found.
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Closing the gap: $35bn funding short on checks
The nation's chief economic adviser has called for a complete overhaul of billions of dollars in federal spending on indigenous support each year, in a major report that warns the government has little evidence that current programs are effective.
In an excoriating verdict on the nation’s indigenous programs, the Productivity Commission has found that, despite massive spending to address disadvantage, the government’s evidence of what works — and why — is “thin’’.
It says many programs are developed without adequate consultation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and efforts to find out if they have been effective are “ad hoc’’ or afterthoughts.
The report, to be released on Friday, comes after a decade of failures under the old Closing the Gap agreement.
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More disasters inevitable: prepare now
Climate change was a key factor behind the Black Summer fires and the nation must bolster its disaster-response mechanisms as extreme weather becomes more frequent and severe, the bushfire royal commission has concluded.
And there are no “authoritative agreed set of climate change scenarios for the nation”, the commission’s final report warned.
And while Australia has a “naturally variable climate”, the inquiry led by former Chief of Air Force Mark Binskin said “weather has already become more frequent and intense because of climate change; further global warming over the next 20 to 30 years is inevitable”.
The Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements was commissioned by the Morrison government in February in the wake of fires that killed 33 people and caused billions of dollars in damage.
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National Budget Issues.
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Millions face a pay cut when 'lamington' offset ends, despite tax cuts
By Shane Wright
October 28, 2020 — 5.00am
Millions of low and middle income Australians face being $1080 a year worse off unless the Morrison government revisits its just-completed overhaul of the personal tax system.
The end of the low and middle income tax offset for the 2021-22 financial year means people earning between $48,000 and $90,000 will suffer a $20 a week hit to their take-home income with up to 10 million taxpayers suffering.
Exclusive modelling for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald by the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre reveals the pressure both the government and Labor will face to promise more tax relief to voters ahead of the next election.
As part of its response to the coronavirus recession, the government announced in the budget it would bring forward tax cuts previously planned to start in mid-2022, which will benefit people earning more than $90,000. Those tax cuts are due to start flowing into people's paypackets within weeks.
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Recession likely over, says RBA, but recovery looks rocky
By Shane Wright
October 27, 2020 — 6.30pm
The Australian economy has emerged from its first recession in 30 years, the Reserve Bank believes but is warning the recovery will be marred by growing business failures and cash-strapped households struggling to pay off their mortgages.
Deputy governor Guy Debelle on Tuesday told a Senate estimates hearing that it appeared the Australian economy grew through the September quarter.
The economy contracted through the first six months of the year with the June quarter posting the largest three month slowdown since the end of World War Two. It was the first time since 1990-91 that the economy had contracted for two consecutive quarters.
But Dr Debelle said the economy probably expanded over the previous three months even taking into account the shutdown of Victoria through all of the period.
"At the moment our best guess is it looks like the economy probably recorded positive growth rather than negative," he said.
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Privatisation crusade has long been core business for tribal Libs
Ross Gittins
Economics Editor
October 28, 2020 — 12.00am
Critics of this year’s strange budget, which claims to be “all about jobs” but is really about helping some people and not helping others, accuse Scott Morrison and his faithful Treasurer of being “ideological”. That’s not a sensible criticism.
To accuse someone you disagree with of being “ideological” is dishonest and hypocritical. It misuses the word, turning it into a meaningless term of abuse. It implies that you’re being ideological, but I’m not.
To be ideological is to hold to a system of beliefs about how the world works and how it should work. So every adult who hasn’t wasted too much of their life watching reality television rather than thinking has an ideology — some better thought through than others.
When I accuse you of being “ideological”, what I’m really saying is that your ideology differs from my ideology and I think yours is wrong.
But I object to the term also because it’s an attempt to intellectualise and dignify a motivation far less noble: our deeply evolutionary instinct to form ourselves into tribes. My side, your side. Us and them. Good guys versus bad guys.
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Australia ends brief flirtation with deflation
Consumer prices lifted by 1.6 per cent over the three months to September, as the end of free childcare and a bounce in petrol prices ended Australia’s brief flirtation with deflation.
Annual inflation came in at 0.7 per cent, seasonally adjusted figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed, after falling by 0.3 per cent over the year to June – which was only the third time consumer price growth has been negative going back to 1949.
Over the June quarter, a 95 per cent fall in childcare costs, falling rents and plunging petrol prices through the three months drove the steepest fall in the consumer price basket on record at 1.9 per cent.
The Morrison government brought an end to its temporary childcare support on July 13, and this comprised 0.9 percentage points of the 1.6 per cent lift in CPI in the September quarter, the ABS said.
Massive spending on products to set up home offices and the like as more Australians worked out of the office drove an incredible 12 per cent jump in prices for furnishings, household equipment and services, the data showed.
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Don't put up the end of recession balloons just yet
By Shane Wright
October 28, 2020 — 3.38pm
The economy may again be growing but it's way too early to hold a "I survived the COVID recession" party.
Reserve Bank deputy governor Guy Debelle this week grabbed plenty of attention when he remarked that it appeared the economy had grown through the September quarter.
The Reserve Bank of Australia has indicated the economy will grow in September, possibly ending the recession.
After the 0.3 per cent contraction of GDP in the March quarter, and the record-breaking 7 per cent contraction in the June quarter, a return to growth is a positive development.
For those who live or die on the definition of a recession as two quarters of negative growth, it appeared the RBA's number two was readying the drinks for his own end-of-recession celebration.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/rba-s-recession-fight-not-over-yet-20201029-p569jx
RBA's recession fight not over yet
John Kehoe Senior writer
Oct 29, 2020 – 4.06pm
The recession might have technically ended by one crude measure, but for the Reserve Bank of Australia its recession-fighting toolkit is about to shift into uncharted territory.
When RBA deputy governor Guy Debelle told a Senate committee on Tuesday that "it looks like the September quarter for the country probably recorded positive growth rather than slightly negative", the recession was declared over by some commentators.
But dig deeper into the numbers and you will soon realise the economy is still in a deep rut, even if it is beginning to recover from the ravages of COVID-19 and lockdowns.
Economic output shrank a massive 7 per cent in the June quarter. Mathematically, it's not difficult to recover to a positive growth number from that low ebb and limp out of a technical recession.
Even if the national economy managed to eke out slightly positive growth in the three months to September 30 during the second Victoria lockdown, economic output is still likely to be more than 6 per cent below its pre-COVID-19 levels.
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Home borrowing jumps most in two years, RBA data shows
Home lending in September grew at its fastest monthly pace in over two years, as falling rates and a resilient housing market helped keep credit flowing despite the COVID-19 recession’s heavy toll on jobs and livelihoods.
The total stock of housing loans lifted by 0.4 per cent last month, from 0.3 per cent in August, bringing the annual pace to 3.3 per cent from 3.2 per cent, new figures from the Reserve Bank of Australia showed.
While Australians are happy to snap up the cheapest loans in history to buy a home in which to live, businesses remain far less confident as the economy charts an uncertain path out of the deepest downturn since the 1930s.
The stock of outstanding business credit dropped by a further 0.3 per cent in September, the fifth consecutive month of declines, slowing the annual growth rate to 2 per cent from 2.9 per cent in August.
Owner-occupiers once again accounted for the bulk of increased home borrowing, recording gains of 0.5 per cent in September and by 5.4 per cent versus the same period a year earlier, according to the seasonally adjusted data.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/economists-investors-fear-rbas-cheap-money-wave-20201029-p569m3
RBA's rate cut to 'hurt recovery', savers
Matthew Cranston and Jonathan Shapiro
Updated Oct 31, 2020 – 12.16am, first published at Oct 30, 2020 – 6.04pm
Former Reserve Bank board member Warwick McKibbin has warned that rate cuts and quantitative easing by the RBA this Melbourne Cup day would undermine the economic recovery and further squeeze savers.
The RBA is expected to cut the cash rate from 0.25 per cent to 0.10 percent on Tuesday and announce as much as $163 billion in new bond purchases designed to reduce borrowing rates and stimulate the economy.
The big four banks' average conditional savings rate on deposits is now just 0.66 per cent according to RateCity, lower than the latest inflation reading of 0.7 per cent, indicating negative real interest rates or a situation where depositors are now virtually paying the bank to hold their money.
This month alone 50 banks have cut their savings rates.
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Taking stock of meaningless valuations as zero rates inflate assets
This week’s CPI report for the September quarter must have been very dispiriting for the honest toilers at the Reserve Bank.
They have been cutting interest rates since November 2011 and this year embarked on one of the world’s biggest quantitative easing programs, yet underlying inflation is stuck at 1.2 per cent, half what they want. Next week rates will be cut again, along with making their quantitative easing the world’s largest — a final, futile, throw of the dice.
They might be telling each other it’s just the coronavirus, that it’ll be right when there’s a vaccine, but in their hearts, they must know it’s not only that: in the past five years, trimmed mean underlying inflation has averaged 0.4 per cent per quarter; in the five years before that, 0.6 per cent; and in the five years before that 0.8 per cent. It has been a long, inexorable decline.
Of course, this year’s sharp recession and unemployment hasn’t helped, even though aggregate income has increased because of government transfers and has been saved, not spent. Next Tuesday governor Philip Lowe will be forced to announce something he said he wouldn’t do: take the official cash rate below 0.25 per cent, which he said was equivalent to zero in Australia.
But it will be little more than symbolic. The market cash rate is already near enough to 0.1 per cent because of the liquidity the RBA has been flooding the system with, deliberately using cash as the rate cut you have before you have a rate cut.
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Health Issues.
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Returning to a healthy weight is a bridge too far for overweight Aussie men
Once Australian men are fat, they rarely return to a healthy weight, a government study shows.
And the older we get, the fatter we get, the Australian Institute of Family Studies published on Thursday reveals.
Twenty per cent of 10-14 year old boys are overweight or obese, but by the time men reach 25-34, it is 60 per cent. More than 70 per cent of 35-57 year olds are too heavy.
The AIFS longitudinal study of more than 16,000 Australian males, Ten to Men, found about nine in 10 men aged 35-57 who were overweight or obese in 2013 remained so two years later.
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International Issues.
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Tense days ahead as Trump blitz narrows gaps in battleground states
Jacob Greber United States correspondent
Updated Oct 25, 2020 – 4.58pm, first published at 2.26pm
Washington | Donald Trump is riding a bump in support across battleground states as he accelerates a campaign blitz reminiscent of 2016, when he shattered experts' conviction that he could not close the gap to his Democratic rival in time.
In a campaign blitzkrieg that mirrors his winning strategy from four years ago, Mr Trump did three rallies alone on Saturday (Sunday AEDT). Campaign sources say this is likely to set the pace right up until election day, with up to four rallies a day possible.
The frenetic schedule, which began with Mr Trump's recovery from his bout of COVID-19 ten days ago, has helped him make modest but material inroads into Joe Biden's lead.
Even though Mr Trump continues to trail Mr Biden nationally by more than 8 percentage points – 5 points more than where Hillary Clinton was on election eve in 2016 – the race in several key swing states has narrowed.
As of late on Saturday (Sunday AEDT), Mr Trump was 3.8 points behind Mr Biden in a RealClearPolitics average of polls across Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Arizona. The pollsters put the President at 45.5 per cent support versus the former vice-president's 49.3 per cent.
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Australia will benefit if American craziness subsides
By Michael Fullilove
October 26, 2020 — 12.01am
In most US presidential election years – say, for the Clinton-Bush race in 1992, or Bush-Gore in 2000, or Obama-Romney in 2012 – a respectable debate can be had as to which candidate tracks more closely with Australia’s interests. 2020 is not such a year.
Would Donald Trump’s re-election favour Australia’s interests? To ask the question is to answer it. Making the argument for Trump may give its proponents a transgressive thrill, but it is not a serious proposition – at least for those of us who wish the United States well.
Australia’s interests are served when the United States is well-governed, cohesive, attractive to the world, and strong enough to deter bad behaviour by adversaries. Under Donald Trump’s presidency, the United States is poorly governed, divided, unappealing to the world, and weak – which leaves all of us vulnerable to malign actors.
On foreign policy, Trump’s actions run counter to our instincts. Australians are alliance believers; Trump thinks allies are scroungers. Australians are inclined towards internationalism; Trump is sympathetic to isolationism. Australia is a trading nation; Trump withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and attacked the World Trade Organisation. Australia is an old democracy and a free society; Trump swoons over strongmen like Vladimir Putin and – for much of his presidency – Xi Jinping.
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US 2020 race: Trump has given up on controlling coronavirus: Biden
Joe Biden has accused Donald Trump of surrendering to the coronavirus after the president’s chief of staff admitted that the US is ‘not going to control the pandemic.’
The stark admission by Mark Meadows came despite Mr Trump telling his supporters the US is ‘rounding the turn’ on the virus even as infections have hit record new highs.
“We’re not going to control the pandemic … because it’s a contagious virus,” Mr Meadows said. “What we need to do is make sure we have the proper mitigation factors to make sure people don’t die.’
Mr Trump’s Democrat opponent, Mr Biden hit out at the comments, saying it showed the Trump administration had given up on protecting Americans.
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Sweet moment for Republicans: Amy Coney Barrett confirmed as Supreme Court judge
By Matthew Knott
October 27, 2020 — 11.21am
Washington: When Ruth Bader Ginsberg died in mid-September, you could feel the tectonic plates of American politics shifting. Republicans announced almost immediately that they would move to fill the progressive icon's Supreme Court seat as soon as possible, setting up a highly-charged fight just weeks out from election day. Here was an issue, conservatives thought, that would fire up their base and shift the national conversation away from the coronavirus pandemic.
On Tuesday (AEDT) the nomination process came to end when the Senate voted to confirm Amy Coney Barrett in a 52-48 vote. Never before in US history has a Supreme Court justice been appointed so close to election day.
It's a sweet moment for Republicans, locking in a 6-3 conservative majority on the nation's most powerful court. President Donald Trump has now appointed three justices to the court in four years - more than Barack Obama, George W Bush or Bill Clinton appointed during their two-term presidencies.
Aged just 48, Barrett will likely sit on the bench for decades to come. And while some justices go "rogue" after being appointed, Republicans feel confident that Barrett will be a solid conservative vote on issues such as abortion and gun rights.
"This is the most openly pro-life judicial nominee to the Supreme Court in my lifetime," Republican Senator Josh Hawley said as the final confirmation vote approached. "This is an individual who has been open in her criticism of that illegitimate decision: Roe vs Wade."
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Trump goes with his gut, even if the world beyond the US goes belly-up
Peter Hartcher
Political and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age
October 27, 2020 — 12.00am
When Donald Trump hired John Bolton in 2018, he said that some people thought his new national security adviser was a "bad cop". He was invoking the idea that they could deploy the good cop-bad cop routine in managing other countries.
Then Trump delivered the punchline: "The trouble is, we've got two bad cops."
Bolton didn't reject the description. His hardline policy views are even more notorious than his exuberant moustache. But by the time he left the White House a year and a half later, he had a firm view of the essential difference between the "two bad cops".
"I had a world view," Bolton tells me. "And he didn't. He doesn't think in philosophical terms, or in terms of grand strategy, or in terms of policy as we conventionally understand it. That makes him different from all other presidents," says Bolton, who has worked for five now, all Republicans.
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In the US election's shadow, Chinese leaders try to define next decade
By Eryk Bagshaw
October 26, 2020 — 5.37pm
The Chinese Communist Party's top decision makers are expected to formalise Beijing's priorities for the next five years in a series of closed-door meetings that will establish protections for the local economy, expand social welfare and further concentrate power in the hands of President Xi Jinping.
The closely guarded plenum between 205 powerbrokers in the party's Central Committee is taking place in the shadow of the US election but its ramifications will extend beyond the term of the next US President. The Party will finalise its 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), and its "2035 vision" during the discussions this week.
It is the third major policy push from Xi in as many weeks after two key celebrations, the 40th anniversary of the city of Shenzhen and 70th anniversary of the Korean War were used by the party to ramp up its pursuit of socialist modernisation, stir nationalist sentiment and fend off foreign threats.
The 205 members of the Central Committee and 171 alternate members are selected from more than 2300 members of the Party Congress. The Central Committee elects the seven highest ranking members of the party to the Politburo Standing Committee and the General Secretary, also known as the President, making it the largest influential decision making body in China.
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Isolating the contagion has China leading America again
China's fight COVID-19-first strategy has it on track for a sustained recovery. Donald Trump's economy-first policy has the US headed for a double-dip recession.
Stephen Roach Contributor
Oct 27, 2020 – 12.40pm
Just as China led the world in economic recovery in the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008, it is playing a similar role today.
Its post-COVID-19 rebound is gathering momentum amid a developed world that remains on shaky ground.
Unfortunately, this is a bitter pill for many to swallow – especially in the United States, where demonisation of China has reached epic proportions.
The two crises are, of course, different. Wall Street was ground zero for the 2008 crisis, while the COVID-19 pandemic was spawned in the wet markets of Wuhan.
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https://www.afr.com/world/asia/china-s-covid-triumphalism-could-be-premature-20201027-p568wl
China’s virus triumphalism could be premature
Leader cults rarely end well anywhere – and there is little reason to believe that China under Xi Jinping will ultimately be any different.
Gideon Rachman Columnist
Oct 27, 2020 – 9.32am
In 2009, Martin Jacques, a British author, published a bestselling book, When China Rules the World. Mr Jacques is now running a victory lap. He recently proclaimed that “we will remember 2020 as the moment of the Great Transition. The year when China replaced the US as the world’s leading power.”
Believers in a “great transition” see COVID-19 as the handmaiden of history. The pandemic started in China. But the Chinese government has done a much better job of containing the disease than the US.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the total number of US deaths from COVID-19 stood at over 223,000 at the end of last week compared with 4379 in China. With the disease contained, the Chinese economy is rebounding and looks set to grow 2 per cent this year, making it the only G20 economy to expand. The US economy is likely to shrink by 3 to 5 per cent and the major European economies are in trouble.
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US global role at stake in next week's election
Constructive and competent leadership by a democratic US is needed more than ever, given the rising power of an increasingly autocratic China, the success of charismatic autocrats elsewhere and the great global challenges of our age. Trump cannot lead such a US.
Martin Wolf Columnist
Oct 28, 2020 – 9.26am
This US election is the most important since 1932, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president in the depths of the Depression. With much trial and error, FDR saved democracy, at home and abroad.
The re-election of Donald Trump would undo much, if not all, of that legacy. Yet his defeat would not end the danger. If that is to happen, American politics has to be transformed.
This election is so important, because the US plays a unique role in the world. It has long been the paramount model of a functioning liberal democracy, leader of the countries that share these values and an essential player in resolving any big global challenge.
The re-election of Trump would signify a rejection of all three roles by the American people. No other country or group of countries is able to take its place. The world would be transformed — and not at all for the better.
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Narrowing battleground race stokes fear of disputed election
It's happening again. Donald Trump has captured that most sought-after commodity in the dying days of any election: momentum.
Jacob Greber United States correspondent
Oct 28, 2020 – 12.39pm
Washington | It's happening again. Donald Trump is behind, but he's closing the gap – this time to Joe Biden and not to Hillary Clinton.
While Biden's chances of winning next week are still considerably greater than Trump's, the President has captured that most sought-after commodity in the dying days of any election: momentum.
He's generated it at the last possible moment, with a week to go, and mostly in Pennsylvania. It's probably still too late. In the meantime, however, all confident assertions of a Biden win should be tempered with a healthy dose of humility.
The momentum shift has taken place over the two weeks since Trump left hospital and has intensified since last Thursday's (Friday AEDT) final debate between the two candidates. It's being supercharged by a flurry of splashy supporter rallies that has reawakened memories of four years ago.
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https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/i-was-a-lot-more-confident-three-weeks-ago-20201028-p569i0
'I was a lot more confident three weeks ago'
Oct 29, 2020 – 12.00am
Former US correspondent John Kehoe spoke with Washington correspondent Jacob Greber this week about the tightening race to the White House.
In this interview they cover:
- The mood on the ground. "You can feel it with people you meet, it's all on the line when it comes to this vote, there is no in between."
- The very different campaigns. "There is a massive contrast in the campaigns....and the danger is Trump looks more hungry."
- Whether the polls can be trusted this time. "The same patterns are emerging four years later...Biden is slightly better off but that's not a lot."
- The states to watch. "Ohio is a must-win for Trump."
- The impact of the coronavirus pandemic. "There's forecasts by early January you will have 400,000 people dead. I don't know how an economy recovers from that."
- The impact on financial markets. "Biden has big, ambitious plans, he wants to spend $US2 trillion in the green energy space which is good news for a bunch of Australian companies."
- The fight for control of the Senate. "There's a bunch of races that are incredibly tight."
- Who will win. "I was a lot more confident three weeks ago, I thought it would be Biden in a landslide."
Kehoe and Greber will be back next Thursday, the day after the election for all the fallout.
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'Overwhelmed': Germany, France return to lockdown as virus cases soar in Europe
By Bevan Shields
October 29, 2020 — 6.56am
London: Europe is bracing for a new spate of national lockdowns as COVID-19 surges across the continent and threatens to fill hospitals with more patients than the first deadly wave of earlier this year.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday announced fresh lockdowns to bring down the rapidly growing number of infections, hospitalisations and deaths in each country.
The decisions mark a milestone in Europe's battle with the disease because governments had until now resisted the sort of mass closures ordered during the outbreak of March and April.
In an address to the nation, Macron said France had been "overwhelmed" and warned the second wave would kill more people over winter than 30,000 who died in the spring.
He said avoiding a lockdown was not acceptable because it would kill 400,000 citizens.
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Investors fearing a catastrophic market crash more than they have in years
By Robert J. Shiller
October 29, 2020 — 7.40am
The coronavirus crisis and the November election have driven fears of a major market crash to the highest levels in many years.
At the same time, stocks are trading at very high levels. That volatile combination doesn't mean that a crash will occur, but it suggests that the risk of one is relatively high. This is a time to be careful.
I base these conclusions largely on research I've been doing for years, including findings from the stock market confidence indexes that I began to develop more than three decades ago. These indexes are drawn from surveys of a random sample of high-income individual investors and institutional investors in the United States that are now conducted monthly by the International Centre for Finance at the Yale School of Management.
Consider what my Crash Confidence Index is telling us. That measurement of sentiment about the safety of the stock market is based on this question:
"What do you think is the probability of a catastrophic stock market crash in the US, like that of October 28, 1929, or October 19, 1987, in the next six months, including the case that a crash occurred in the other countries and spreads to the US?"
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What in the world if Trump wins?
· The Wall Street Journal
The odds are against him again, but Donald Trump has every intention of winning four more years in office. In foreign policy at least, his second term would likely be even more transformative and unconventional than his first.
Most second-term presidents look to make a mark in foreign policy. This is partly because a president’s political clout at home diminishes as the definitive end of his mandate approaches, while overseas a president has a relatively free hand even at the end of a second term. So commanders in chief often go looking for diplomatic breakthroughs.
Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both devoted great efforts to getting an Israeli-Palestinian agreement in their second terms. Barack Obama signed the Iran deal and the Paris Climate Accords. As unconventional a figure as Mr Trump is, he is likely to look for trophy achievements overseas too.
Second-term presidents have another important trait: They tend to trust their instincts more. Getting elected once might mean you are lucky; getting elected twice must mean you are good.
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US election opinion polls paint a different picture after quick fix
On the election trail, the first thing almost every Donald Trump supporter tells me is that they don’t believe the polls that show Joe Biden is leading.
“The polls were wrong in 2016 and they’ll be wrong again,” they say. So you don’t believe that Biden is ahead of Trump by more than seven points nationally? I ask. “No way. Not even close. Trump is a landslide.”
The polling industry in the US is still recovering from the historic black eye it received in 2016 when the polls fooled people into thinking Hillary Clinton would defeat Trump.
Since then pollsters have been trying to improve their poll methods so that this 2020 election gets it right and restores faith in the very notion of political polls.
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Trump to use misleading GDP data in 11th-hour voter pitch
Donald Trump, who is desperately seeking to close a persistent polling gap to Joe Biden, has already taken credit for the third-quarter bounce, crowing that it will be the biggest on record. The calculations, however, hide a grim truth.
Jacob Greber United States correspondent
Updated Oct 29, 2020 – 5.02pm, first published at 5.00pm
Washington | A partial rebound in third-quarter economic growth late on Thursday (AEDT) will give Donald Trump bragging rights in the final days of the 2020 campaign, while at the same time confirming the world's biggest economy is struggling to regain momentum as COVID-19 rates spike and the deadweight loss of the President's tariff wars linger.
America, which is still wedded to the distorting methodology of "annualising" quarterly gross domestic product numbers, is likely to be flooded by headlines showing the economy expanded by an eye-popping 32 per cent in the September quarter, after shrinking 31.4 per cent in the previous three months.
Translated to terms Australians recognise, that equates to a quarter-on-quarter GDP increase of about 7.2 per cent in the wake of the second quarter's 9 per cent contraction.
For context, it's worth noting that prior to the pandemic the US economy grew at an annualised rate of between 2 and 3 per cent. Even after the third quarter's surge, GDP will probably be 4 per cent below its pre-crisis peak, forecasters say.
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France church attack suspect had been expelled from Italy weeks ago
By Nick Squires
October 30, 2020 — 8.00am
Rome: The 21-year-old Tunisian Nice attack suspect arrived in France via the Italian island of Lampedusa only a few weeks ago, sources close to the inquiry said.
The revelation that Brahim Aouissaoui, the suspect, landed in late September on the tiny island south of Sicily sparked a major political row in Italy.
Italian authorities reportedly placed him in quarantine for two weeks on board a ship, the Rhapsody.
He was interviewed by immigration officials on October 8, Italian media reported last night. But they released him, giving him an expulsion order and telling him to leave Italy.
Instead, he travelled to the southern city of Bari, in the region of Puglia, and from there made his way to France in early October. It was reported that the French authorities identified him from a document he had been given by the Italian Red Cross.
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The world's largest economy was hit by a bus. It’s healing, but slowly.
By Neil Irwin
October 30, 2020 — 7.34am
To understand what the latest numbers on US gross domestic product are telling us, imagine you are an obsessive sort who takes various measures of your health every day, puts those readings into a spreadsheet, and then every three months averages those daily numbers to get a summary of whether you are getting better or worse.
Then, around mid-March, you're hit by a bus.
You spend the last two weeks of March in a hospital room with catastrophic injuries. But because you had been perfectly healthy for the first 2 1/2 months of the quarter, your average for that quarter shows only a modest worsening of your condition.
The second quarter, though, shows a different story. It covers a time when you were still in the hospital barely able to move (April), and then the time when you were home to begin healing and rehabilitation (May and June). But your average health level for those three months still showed a disaster compared with the first quarter.
Which brings us to the third quarter. The entire period, July through September, represents a time when you are healing. Gone are the days when you were confined to a hospital bed; you can move around a little bit, regain some strength in atrophied limbs, cut back on pain medication.
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France raises attack alert after knifeman kills three at church
France has raised its terror alert to the highest level following the brutal killing of three people inside a Nice church on the Côte d’Azure.
Amid escalating tensions between France and the Muslim world, the scene at the Notre Dame Basilica overnight (AEDT) was described by police as “a vision of horror”.
A 21-year-old Tunisian migrant, Brahim Aoussaoui, rampaged inside the church, screaming “Allahu Akbar” as he beheaded a 70-year-old parishioner and then fatally stabbed a 45-year-old church warden Vincent Loques. According to French reports, Aoussaoui arrived in Europe just a few weeks ago.
A third victim, a woman aged about 40, was also stabbed inside the church but fled to an adjacent cafe where she died of her injuries. Her heartbreaking last words were later made public.
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China plots its path to 2035
The elite of the Chinese Communist Party has announced a vision for China in 2035 that will be stronger, richer and possibly still led by General Secretary Xi Jinping.
Days before the US presidential election, the Party’s central committee concluded a pivotal four-day, closed-door meeting in Beijing to plot China’s 2021-25 five year plan and the outlook to 2035.
The entire post-meeting communique was read for 30 minutes on Thursday evening on the state broadcaster China Central Television, a sign of its importance in the country’s highly organised political system.
The communique traditionally offers guidance of the policy focus of the more detailed five-year-plan, which is expected to be released at the National People’s Congress next March.
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The global debt pile will grow by $US20 trillion this year, S&P says
The world’s debt burden will surge to a record $US200 trillion this year, or almost 260 per cent of total global economic output, Standard & Poor’s says.
In a new report, the ratings agency said borrowing by governments, businesses and households through the COVID-19 recession will lift total debt by 10 per cent in 2020, before levelling off in coming years as an expected recovery takes hold.
Despite surging debt around the world, S&P said “a near-term debt crisis will likely be averted” provided economic activity lifts and rates stay low and finance easy to attain.
S&P said its forecast for “a continuing, albeit choppy, global economic recovery” was predicated on a vaccine becoming available from mid-2021.
In Australia, total gross debt will lift by 19 percentage points to 251 per cent of GDP by the end of this year. Household borrowings will stay relatively steady at a lofty 125 per cent of output, or close to double the global rate.
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How Trump beat Covid-19
Doctors ‘threw the kitchen sink’ at Donald Trump when treating him for the virus. Researchers are trying to work out how to treat the rest of us.
October 29, 2020
When US President Donald Trump contracted coronavirus, many were pessimistic about his chances of making a quick recovery. At 74, Trump’s risk of death was elevated. He is 190cm tall and weighs 111kg, putting him in the obese range, another risk factor for severe disease.
When Trump appeared to make a speedy recovery from COVID-19 after spending only three days in hospital, he credited an experimental antibody cocktail with his return to health and proclaimed that he wanted all Americans who fell ill with coronavirus to be given the same treatment.
It’s impossible to know whether the investigational antibody cocktail that Trump was given — developed by US biotech Regeneron Pharmaceuticals — reduced the severity of the President’s illness. Trump also took the corticosteroid dexamethasone, and the antiviral drug remdesivir, as well as zinc, vitamin D, the heartburn medication famotidine, melatonin and aspirin.
“They threw the kitchen sink at the guy,” says Australian immunologist John Dwyer.
There’s good evidence that dexamethasone reduces mortality rates, and some evidence that remdesivir reduces illness duration by a modest amount. Antibody treatments have shown promising results in test tube studies, but clinical trials are yet to prove the efficacy of the cutting-edge therapy.
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https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/america-is-holding-its-breath-20201030-p569zu
America is holding its breath
After four years of Trump, a presidential race that has robbed the experts of all their confidence may be this year's biggest “October Surprise”.
Jacob Greber United States correspondent
Oct 31, 2020 – 12.00am
The weather reports look good. Election Day next Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT) will dawn sunny and warm in Florida, Texas, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina.
Further north, in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan, there will be a seasonal chill. But the sun will be out to keep the edge off. There are no hurricanes in the immediate forecast. No windstorms. No Arctic blasts.
In other words, the deck is clear across America. November 3 will be as fine a day as you’d possibly want for voting. Especially in those states that matter.
After almost four years of continuous campaigning by Donald Trump, an interminable and tortuous Democratic primary that saw the party opt for a fading stalwart, a presidential impeachment, Russian interference, an ongoing pandemic that has killed 230,000 and counting, and a crashed and now partially recovered economy, the race for the White House is coming down to the intangibles like whether snow or rain keeps voters at home.
It’s been an epic marathon, centred almost entirely on a single character – Donald Trump. And it began the day he was elected four years ago.
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Trumpism has taken over; What is the future of the GOP?
Win or lose next week, the Trump family will continue rallying their white working-class fans around the country for the next four years.
Joe Aston Columnist
Updated Oct 30, 2020 – 11.35am, first published at 10.45am
Donald Trump jnr appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT) fresh from headlining a Make America Great Again rally for 3000 people in Vero Beach, Florida.
“I love how the son of the president gets a big crowd too,” Hannity marvelled. “Maybe that’s a harbinger of things to come?”
“I’d like to think so,” the 42-year-old conceded.
Whether President Trump navigates a second narrow election victory next week or leaves Washington DC on January 20 a repudiated man, the Republican Party he remade four years ago is about to undergo some level of bracing renewal.
Inevitably, electoral defeat for the President will cause maximum upheaval in conservative politics, leaving the base to coalesce around national leadership aspirants such as former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a host of Republican senators and yes, even Donald jnr.
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China's five-year plan keeps US ties and talks up peace
By Eryk Bagshaw
October 30, 2020 — 5.01pm
The Chinese Communist Party has emerged from days of secretive meetings to declare it has no interest in severing economic ties with the United States, will ramp up investment in renewable technology and pursue a peaceful unification with Taiwan.
Laying out its plans for the next five years, the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee hosted a rare press conference on Friday to put innovation at the top of China's agenda for the first time, signalling it will pursue home-grown technology to protect itself from international tensions at the same time as it calls for renewed engagement with the US.
Han Wenxiu, the Party's deputy director of the Office of Financial Affairs, said links between China and the US were shaped by their complimentary economies.
"Complete decoupling is not realistic at all," he said, pointing to data that showed that trade between the superpowers had grown by 16 per cent in the September quarter. "It is not good for China, the US and the whole world."
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US election 2020: Global stability needs change in White House
This week’s 2020 American election will be a transforming event — for the United States, for democracy and for the world. Donald Trump and Joe Biden are contrasting candidates separated by values, style and substance, putting America at a turning point.
There is no return to the pre-2016 world before the Trump Revolution. America is engulfed in an internal schism with almost no prospect of domestic stability post-election. The forces driving fundamental change cannot be denied — the failure of governing elites over the previous 15 years, the intensity of the populist revolt that Trump exploited, the dimensions of the China challenge and the destruction wrought by COVID-19 sure to extend into the 2020s.
Trump and Biden bring a conflicting ideological outlook to this uncertain world. A Trump victory will constitute one of the most remarkable recoveries in US political history — in defiance of the coronavirus, the polls, the media, the liberal establishment, institutional power from New York to California and despite a campaign that largely abandoned any disciplined and cohesive strategy.
Such a victory will see Trump unleashed. It will be an unprecedented spectacle — Trump vindicated, raging in celebration, his visceral instincts triumphant, his opponents vanquished, Biden following Hillary Clinton as another loser, the American progressive movement facing its darkest night and the greatest narcissist to occupy the White House rewarded in his narcissism. In this scenario Trump would double down.
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China’s need for our iron ore a ‘nightmare’
Geoff Raby is a former Australian Ambassador to China.
China’s dependence on Australian iron ore and other key resources is a “nightmare” for its strategic and defence planners, according to Australia’s former China ambassador, Geoff Raby.
Beijing’s anxieties — irrespective of its relationship with Canberra — will see the more than $60bn-a-year export shrink in coming years, Mr Raby, who was previously a board member on iron ore mining giant Fortescue Metals Group, said.
“For normal strategic risk mitigation, China will seek to diversify its iron ore sources. It goes beyond the state of the bilateral relationship,” Mr Raby said.
“Any strategic planner will not want to be as dependent on one country — especially the closest ally of the United States — for one its most critical raw materials.” Beijing’s acute anxiety over its resource dependency is a key reason the former ambassador argues China is a “constrained superpower” in his book “China’s Grand Strategy and Australia’s Future in the New Global Order”.
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Australia’s future is at stake in the US election
The US unipolar moment is over and a transition to a new global order is under way. Trump’s victory in 2016 was just a symptom.
By PAUL MONK
· From Inquirer
October 30, 2020
Australia has a lot at stake in who wins the looming American presidential election. Donald Trump or Joe Biden, the US unipolar moment is over and a transition to a new global order is under way. Trump’s victory in 2016 was a symptom of this shift in world affairs, not its cause.
While his idiosyncrasies have disconcerted many people, they have dramatised the basic reality. Consequently, Australia is having to seriously rethink its national security assumptions and planning. That debate, well under way by 2016, intensified in 2020.
Should Trump be re-elected, the consequences could be cascading. Should Biden win, his administration will face major challenges in rethinking American commitments and alliance structures. It will not have the option of simply making some grandiose declaration that America is “ready to lead again”.
Its leadership has been all but forfeited by Trump, is under direct challenge from China and Russia and needs fundamental institutional rebalancing, if it is to underpin a viable global order in the 2020s.
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https://www.afr.com/world/europe/england-to-enter-new-lockdown-20201101-p56afl
England to enter new lockdown
Jill Lawless
Nov 1, 2020 – 8.05am
London| British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday announced a new month-long lockdown for England after being warned that without tough action a resurgent coronavirus outbreak will overwhelm hospitals in weeks.
On the day the UK passed 1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, Mr Johnson made a sudden about-face and confirmed that stringent restrictions on business and daily life would begin Thursday and last until December 2.
He said at a televised news conference that “no responsible prime minister” could ignore the grim figures.
“Unless we act, we could see deaths in this country running at several thousand a day,” said Mr Johnson, who was hospitalised earlier this year for a serious case of COVID-19.
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Panicked Johnson orders new lockdown, second wave on course to kill 85,000
By Bevan Shields
November 1, 2020 — 7.03am
London: Prime Minister Boris Johnson has ordered a sweeping national lockdown after being told the second wave striking England is more severe than the government's worst-case scenario forecasts and could collapse the health system.
"Unless we act, we could see deaths in this country running at several thousand a day," Johnson said in a hastily convened press conference on Saturday night. "No responsible prime minister can ignore the message of those figures."
Sunday, November 1: England will go back into lockdown until at least December, Boris Johnson has announced, as coronavirus cases surge past 1 million.
The government believes the disease could kill 85,000 people in Britain over winter - on top of the 60,000 who have died since the pandemic began earlier this year.
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New Zealanders vote 'yes' to euthanasia, 'no' to legalising cannabis
By James Massola
Updated October 30, 2020 — 3.40pmfirst published at 12.28pm
Two-thirds of New Zealand voters have chosen to legalise euthanasia, but a push to legalise marijuana for recreational use has been narrowly defeated.
The country's election commission on Friday released the preliminary results of two referendums held on the same day as the October 17 parliamentary election.
Of the 2,415,547 people who cast ballots, 65.2 per cent voted to support the End of Life Choice Act 2019 — the euthanasia bill — which will now come into effect on November 6, 2021.
But the push to legalise recreational cannabis and allow it to be grown and sold under controlled circumstances was defeated. The "yes" vote had 46.1 per cent support while 53.1 per cent of people voted "no".
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Don't get too fixated on Trump's America. We trade much more with others
Matt Wade
Senior economics writer
November 1, 2020 — 12.05am
America’s election drama has us hooked.
The big audiences reading story after story about US politics on the websites of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age show how fixated Australia has become with Tuesday’s presidential ballot.
I know Donald Trump is hard to ignore. But might we be paying just a bit too much attention?
It's true the US is still the world’s biggest economy. Yes, America is Australia’s most important ally. And sure, our two nations have deep cultural links.
But our fixation on Trump’s America is not matched by our trade with the US.
Throughout the 1980s and much of the 1990s, the US consistently purchased more than 10 per cent of Australia’s exports, but that share has declined steadily since the turn of the century.
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US election 2020: Trump warns of ‘bedlam’ without a clear result on election night
Donald Trump has warned of ‘bedlam’ in America if there is no clear result on election night, as he and his opponent Joe Biden blitzed key Midwest battleground states with just three days until the poll.
The move came amid a continued surge in early voting with an unprecedented 90 million votes already cast by mail or person - two thirds of the total votes cast in the 2016 election.
It also came as new coronavirus cases jumped to a record 100,000 cases a day, giving a boost to Mr Biden who has accused the president of fatally mishandling the panic which has claimed more than 230,000 lives.
Mr Trump held four rallies in the key swing state of Pennsylvania on Sunday (AEDT), accusing the former vice president of threatening thousands of jobs in the state with his opposition to fossil fuels and fracking.
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
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