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Clearly the big news is the change in the US to the Biden Administration and what goes on until the new President is inaugurated. How it plays out is anyone’s guess complicated by the worsening COVID19 issue. It seems clear it is the virus turned election to Biden.
In the UK we have the 2nd lockdown underway and we are now hoping it might work….
In OZ the trade relationship with China is front and centre and seemingly beyond the Morrion to remedy. More effort is clearly required!
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Major Issues.
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Economies malfunction when we can’t trust our leaders
Ross Gittins
Economics Editor
November 2, 2020 — 12.00am
With the federal, NSW and Victorian governments all mired in questionable conduct but refusing to accept responsibility for their actions, a reminder of the value of ethical behaviour to the good governance of the nation is timely.
A report, The Ethical Advantage, by John O’Mahony, of Deloitte Access Economics, and commissioned by Dr Simon Longstaff’s Ethics Centre, reminds us that while ethical behaviour and trust are different things, a long record of ethical behaviour builds trust, which can be quickly destroyed by unethical behaviour.
To be successful, business leaders need the trust of their customers, employees and suppliers. The less people trust them, the harder they must work – and the more they must spend on marketing and security – to remain profitable.
It’s true you can go for a fair while abusing the trust of others, but when eventually they wake up, they tend to be pretty dirty about it. For years our banks took advantage of their customers’ trusting inattention by, for instance, failing to advise loyal customers of the better deals they were offering new customers. Now they wonder why their customers hate and distrust them.
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Australian exporters to China face $6 billion 'D-Day'
By Eryk Bagshaw, Darren Gray and Nick Toscano
November 3, 2020 — 3.59pm
Australian exporters to China are facing a $6 billion cliff after unconfirmed instructions from Chinese customs authorities threatened to ban Australian wine, copper, barley, coal, sugar, timber and lobster from Friday.
The notice, distributed by a customs clearance agent on Tuesday, has not been confirmed by the Chinese government, but its publication was enough to send shares in ASX-listed copper miner Sandfire Resources falling by 8 per cent.
Some Australian wine exporters have been notified by Chinese importers that Australian wine will not be cleared through Chinese customs from this Friday onwards. Australia exports $1.2 billion of wine to China each year.
Tony Battaglene, chief executive of wine industry group Australian Grape and Wine, said the message was going right across the industry to exporters of all sizes.
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The US election will change the world, regardless of who wins
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
Updated November 4, 2020 — 12.39pmfirst published at 12.24pm
The outcome of the US election has profound consequences for the rest of the world, and America’s relationship with it.
Do we get another four years of the Trump administration’s "America First" isolationism and protectionism and its transaction-driven approach to global issues - or does the US return to something closer to the role it has played for most of the past 70 or so years as the leader of a liberal international order?
An extension of the Trump presidency will inevitably see an emboldened Donald Trump and a more insular America, doubling down on its view of globalisation and international relationships as zero sum games, with an overly-benevolent America inevitably losing to unscrupulous and cheating allies and rivals.
The withdrawal from multilateralism and multilateralist institutions – the World Trade Organisation, the World Health Organisation, UNESCO, NATO, international agreements on climate change and economic co-operation -- will continue, as will Trump’s trade wars and the escalation of the confrontation with China.
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High Court rejects Palmer bid to end WA border ban
Ronald Mizen Reporter
Nov 6, 2020 – 10.00am
The High Court has rejected billionaire businessman Clive Palmer's bid to have Western Australia's hard border ban ruled invalid.
The decision is a major victory for state premiers who have faced growing criticism from the Morrison government over border restrictions.
In a brief decision handed down on Friday, the High Court ruled the McGowan government's application of WA's Emergency Management Act was compatible with section 92 of the Commonwealth Constitution.
Section 92 requires, among other things, intercourse between states – that is, the movement of people between jurisdictions – to be absolutely free, but the High Court has recognised an exception on health and safety grounds.
WA's victory is a repudiation of the Morrison government's attacks on state premiers over their tough border restrictions.
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How the hope of our First Nations can unite us all
Indigenous advocacy for Australia is not shaped by our anger; anger is the emotion of war: war is not who we are.
Thomas Mayor
Nov 6, 2020 – 9.37am
When I told my six-year-old son I was writing a book that would be titled Finding the Heart of the Nation, he asked me, "Where is the heart of the nation?" I pulled him close, put my hand on his heart and told him, "The heart of the nation is here." From the way his smile met his cheeks and his cheeks touched his eyes, I could see he was proud to hear my answer. He understood that the book was for him.
Not for him individually, a Torres Strait Islander boy born on Larrakia country in Darwin. No. It was written for all the children of Australia who, with the innocence of youth, imagine they will inherit a nation no longer trapped in its colonial past. Our children imagine Australia as it should be.
I had in mind what Australia should be as I wrote the book, a gift to the peoples’ movement for legal, political and structural change in this country – the movement to establish a constitutionally enshrined First Nations Voice to Parliament, as proposed in the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
Finding the Heart of the Nation also holds the gift of many voices within its pages: 20 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were generous enough to share their experiences – to inform the Australian people why they should walk with us.
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Hamish Douglass says US election a 'nirvana' outcome
Tom Richardson Markets reporter and commentator
Nov 5, 2020 – 4.45pm
Magellan chairman and billionaire Hamish Douglass has told investors the likely US election win for Democrat Joe Biden offset by a Republican controlled senate is a "nirvana" outcome for the sharemarket.
The fund manager said that rebounding markets had breathed a huge sigh of relief in the past 24 hours as enough was now known about the US polls to rule out the blue wave of a Democrat controlled executive and Congress.
"Even though we don't know precisely who the President's going to be, the outcome is the nirvana," Mr Douglass told a Livewire Markets seminar. "Almost the perfect outcome from an investment perspective has been the outcome of this election."
The fund manager said he believed the latest US election vote count means it looks like the Democrats will fail to win control of the US Senate, which in turn equalled the probable continuance of gridlock-style filibuster tactics capable of blocking legislation too far from a moderate consensus in Congress.
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Melbourne man charged over foreign interference
By Anthony Galloway and Paul Sakkal
November 5, 2020 — 3.52pm
A Melbourne man has been charged with preparing an act of foreign interference within Australia after a year-long investigation by counter-espionage agency ASIO and the Australian Federal Police.
The 65-year-old man, who police believe has a connection with a foreign intelligence agency, appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Thursday after the AFP raided a number of properties in the greater Melbourne area on October 16.
Di Sanh Duong faces a maximum of ten years in prison. He was granted bail on Thursday afternoon.
He will appear for a committal mention hearing on March 11 next year.
It follows a year-long investigation by the Counter Foreign Interference (CFI) Taskforce, led by ASIO and the AFP, which was probing the man’s relationship with a foreign intelligence agency.
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China's trade threats hit Australia with 'psychological warfare'
By Eryk Bagshaw and Darren Gray
November 6, 2020 — 6.00pm
Australian exporters to China are angry with the Morrison government's handling of the trade relationship between the two economies, accusing the government of abandoning them as Beijing's trade tactics and propaganda show the first signs of significant political impact.
Local wine exporters say they are being told they can not ship to China and barley is being rejected by Chinese importers. Australian timber, copper, and coal are also facing restrictions and tonnes of live lobster has died on the tarmac at a Shanghai airport.
The fallout from verbal directives by Chinese customs agents to stop importing seven Australian products from Friday has rattled markets and forced other exporters to keep their stock in Australia to avoid being rejected by Chinese authorities.
The Commonwealth Bank estimates the verbal instructions, which have been repeated by Chinese state media but not the Chinese government, now threaten to cover more than $27 billion of Australia's exports to China if they were applied across entire industries.
The Chinese government has also urged students and tourists to travel elsewhere, leaving Australia facing a $45 billion hit - 10 per cent of Australia's annual exports - as the economy attempts to recover from the coronavirus without the support of its largest trading partner.
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America's faultlines are ours, too. We are polarised nations
George Megalogenis
Columnist
November 7, 2020 — 12.00am
To borrow a catchphrase from Scott Morrison, how good is Victoria right now? On Friday, the state recorded its seventh consecutive day of zeroes – no new cases, or lives lost, to the coronavirus. In that same week, as the world stopped for the US elections, the Americans logged 629,390 new cases and 6084 deaths.
America's rolling seven-day total was a day behind ours, released on Thursday, not Friday, but is certain to climb further. The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said new cases of COVID-19 were rising in 79 per cent of the country, and the seven-day average increased by 20 per cent compared with the previous week.
Comparing a single Australian state against the 50 of the US might seem unfair. But consider Massachusetts, the American state that is most like Victoria in terms of population and politics. Its seven-day total was 8439 new cases and 136 deaths.
I don’t want to jinx my home state’s belated run of good news, or forget the policy blunders of the Andrews and Morrison governments in hotel quarantine and aged care respectively. But the bullet Victorians have taken for the rest of the country – a suffocating lockdown that ran for the equivalent of a regular footy season, and the spring racing carnival – has Australia firmly back in global favour. As a headline writer for The Washington Post put it on Thursday, “Australia has almost eliminated the coronavirus – by putting faith in science”.
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Prime Minister says report on Australian Defence Force is ‘highly sensitive’
· NCA NewsWire
An explosive report into allegations of war crimes by Australian troops will be taken “very seriously” by the government, the Prime Minister has said.
Defence chief Angus Campbell has received the report from the inspector-general of the Australian Defence Force, who was tasked in 2016 with investigating dozens of incidents, including alleged unlawful killings, in Afghanistan from 2005 until that year.
“It is a very, very serious issue and the government will be taking it very seriously,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Saturday.
“We will be abiding by the proper legal and institutional processes that are appropriate here.”
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Coronavirus And Impacts.
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Italians get 48-hour warning of tougher restrictions to come
By Andrea Vogt
November 2, 2020 — 8.00am
Bologna: Italy is bracing for a new round of restrictive coronavirus measures to be announced on Monday, local time, amid spiralling infection rates and rising social tensions.
Health Minister Roberto Speranza said on Sunday that thanks to "terrifying" new data on infection rates, the country had just two days to approve further restrictions to curb its spread. His remarks led to the phrase "we have 48 hours" trending on Twitter.
The new emergency decree is expected to impose even stricter measures than the one imposed last week, which ordered bars and restaurants to close at 6pm, and shut gyms, cinemas and theatres.
Many cities and regions, including Milan, Turin and Naples, have also enacted local curfews, sparking social uprisings by small groups of extremist protesters.
Sergio Mattarella, the president, called for national unity during a visit to a cemetery on Sunday in northern Italy, where thieves recently stole a large bronze cross erected in memory of COVID-19 victims. While Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has repeatedly ruled out a second nationwide lockdown, he is under pressure to take more drastic action as infection rates continue to rise sharply.
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Coronavirus does not care about how our federation works
We need unity that goes beyond open state borders.
John Kaldor
Contributor
November 1, 2020 — 11.56pm
Victoria has successfully contained its second wave, with no new cases reported again on Sunday. So for the first time since June, the Australian states and territories are on roughly equal terms, COVID-wise. All jurisdictions have either no cases or very very few and the Australian government expects all state borders to be reopened by Christmas. So what next?
One thing is clear from many countries in Europe and the Americas: If you let the virus go, it goes, and many people get very sick and a substantial proportion, mostly those aged over 60, cannot be saved, even by the best that today’s medicine can offer. This is why the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, faced with predictions of daily deaths into the thousands and overwhelmed hospitals by the end of November, announced that England was taking the step the scientific experts had recommended some weeks ago and entering another national lockdown.
The pandemic has given voice to many newly minted expert commentators, all armed with inspiring confidence in their prescriptions for what should have been done and what should be done now. In fact, public authorities really do not have many options. It’s all about keeping people who have COVID-19 infection from being in contact with those who do not, by some form of physical separation, as well as masks and basic hygiene.
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Anti-curfew lawsuit fails in Victorian Supreme Court
· NCA NewsWire
A lawsuit challenging the legality of Victoria’s former curfew has failed.
Judge Timothy Ginnane said on Monday the curfew was “proportionate” considering its aim of tackling the state’s second wave of COVID-19.
The lawsuit was brought by Mornington Peninsula cafe owner, and Liberal Party member, Michelle Loielo.
It named the public servant who signed the curfew directive, then Deputy Public Health Commander Michelle Giles.
Ms Loielo, a widowed mum-of-three, had told the court her human rights were breached by the strict measure.
But Justice Ginnane dismissed the argument in an online sitting of the Supreme Court of Victoria on Monday.
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'Deep scars': IMF urges Australia to reform tax system post-virus
By Shane Wright
November 3, 2020 — 2.00am
Expanding the GST and overhauling property taxes are two of the most important reforms Australia should embrace after the coronavirus recession, the International Monetary Fund says, warning the pandemic will leave enduring economic scars.
In a report that backs the Morrison government's plans to reform the nation's bankruptcy laws, the IMF argues Australia also has to boost childcare spending or look at other ways to make it easier for women to work in the post-virus environment.
The paper, compiled for the governments of the world's 20 largest economies, which includes the United States, China, Brazil and Australia, is a blueprint for nations to rebuild following the largest economic downturn since the Great Depression.
While most nations are expected to show a lift in economic growth in the recently completed September quarter, the re-emergence of coronavirus cases in many northern hemisphere nations has prompted fears of a double-dip global downturn.
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Sweden's top banker backs controversial pandemic approach
By Hanna Hoikkala and Frances Schwartzkopff
November 3, 2020 — 8.02am
The chief executive officer of Sweden's biggest bank has a lot of good things to say about her country's strategy for tackling the coronavirus pandemic, at least when it comes to its effect on businesses.
Carina Akerstrom, CEO of Svenska Handelsbanken AB, says the "way the Swedish government has handled this issue about the pandemic, I think it's been good."
"We have been more open," she said after releasing third-quarter results. "I think that we could see the wheels start moving forward." Sweden's strategy has "been good, if you just talk about business."
Sweden never imposed a lockdown. It's a decision that may have helped its economy, but at a significant human cost. Gyms, schools, restaurants and shops have stayed open and face masks are hardly used across most of the country. The strategy has been hugely controversial, and a commission has been appointed by the government to investigate whether Sweden chose the right path.
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Will the pandemic see Americans rally around the flag?
Jill Margo Health editor
Nov 4, 2020 – 11.25am
COVID-19 was always going to be a key issue in the US election and as Americans voted, the pandemic was out of control across large tracts of the country.
In round figures, national cases were nudging 9.5 million and deaths were surging beyond 230,000.
Opinion polls showed voters thought US President Donald Trump handled the pandemic badly, but at his rallies hard-core supporters cheered when he minimised its importance.
Although many of them would have encountered the virus, become ill or lost loved ones, they remained loyal. Why?
“We may be seeing a ‘rally around the flag’ effect in some communities where things are very difficult,” said Michael Fullilove, executive director of the Lowy Institute.
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Climate Change
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Unchecked climate change tipped to dwarf impact of coronavirus recession
By Shane Wright and Mike Foley
November 2, 2020 — 12.01am
New research has found that if climate change goes unchecked, it would cost Australia $3.4 trillion and almost 900,000 jobs by 2070, dwarfing the impact of the coronavirus recession and devastating key industries such as tourism and mining.
The research by Deloitte Access Economics suggests the country could adopt a net-zero emissions policy at a fraction of the cost of dealing with the pandemic that would help grow the economy over the next half century and add a quarter-of-a-million jobs.
The report, based on the assumption of a three-degree increase in global average temperatures by 2070, examines the economic fallout if nothing is done to address climate change. It differs from most other economic models because it takes into account the impact of higher global temperatures whereas almost all others assume there is no cost from a hotter, drier and more variable climate.
According to Deloitte Access, unchecked climate change would reduce Australian economic growth by 3.6 per cent a year and cost 310,000 jobs annually by 2050. By 2070, the economic cost will have almost doubled to 6 per cent, or $3.4 trillion in present value terms, and 880,000 jobs.
The impact is around the same as the economic cost of the coronavirus pandemic until 2055 and then grows.
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Royal Commissions And The Like.
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There are no entries this week.
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National Budget Issues.
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https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2020/mr-20-28.html
Media Release Statement by Philip Lowe, Governor: Monetary Policy Decision
Number 2020-28
Date 3 November 2020
At its meeting today, the Board decided on a package of further measures to support job creation and the recovery of the Australian economy from the pandemic. With Australia facing a period of high unemployment, the Reserve Bank is committed to doing what it can to support the creation of jobs. Encouragingly, the recent economic data have been a bit better than expected and the near-term outlook is better than it was three months ago. Even so, the recovery is still expected to be bumpy and drawn out and the outlook remains dependent on successful containment of the virus.
The elements of today's package are as follows:
- a reduction in the cash rate target to 0.1 per cent
- a reduction in the target for the yield on the 3-year Australian Government bond to around 0.1 per cent
- a reduction in the interest rate on new drawings under the Term Funding Facility to 0.1 per cent
- a reduction in the interest rate on Exchange Settlement balances to zero
- the purchase of $100 billion of government bonds of maturities of around 5 to 10 years over the next six months.
Under the program to purchase longer-dated bonds, the Bank will buy bonds issued by the Australian Government and by the states and territories, with an expected 80/20 split. These bonds will be bought in the secondary market through regular auctions, with the first auction to be held this Thursday for Australian Government securities. Further details of the auctions are provided in the accompanying market notice.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/near-zero-rate-could-last-for-three-years-20201103-p56b16
RBA nails low rates to the floor
Matthew Cranston Economics correspondent
Nov 3, 2020 – 7.12pm
The Reserve Bank promised to keep its official cash rate at 0.10 per cent for at least the next three years and will buy $100 billion of bonds in the coming six months to force cheaper bank lending to boost the economy's jobs recovery.
RBA governor Philip Lowe announced a $5 billion-per-week buying program – worth about 5 per cent of GDP in total – along with a suite of lower rates for bank funding, while also upgrading forecasts for economic growth from 4 per cent to 6 per cent by June next year.
The Australian dollar fell to as low as US70.34¢, while bonds yields were also driven lower in expectation of the ramp up in purchases by the bank.
However, the governor said a slower jobs recovery, as well as upward pressure on the Australian dollar from trillions of dollars in bond purchases from other central banks, meant the trigger now had to be pulled on the country's first formal quantitative easing program.
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Did the RBA just do the right thing? It's very hard to tell
Imagining that central bankers have magical powers obscures a lot of other important policy conversations.
Richard Holden and Greg Kaplan
Nov 3, 2020 – 3.47pm
The Reserve Bank of Australia did exactly as it signalled and markets expected by cutting the cash rate to 0.1 per cent and expanding its bond-buying program on Tuesday.
Now that the RBA is getting very close to having no ammunition left it’s a good time to reflect on what the bank can achieve, and, more importantly, what we should expect from it.
A little perspective. Central banks are incredibly important in stabilising economies.
This was nicely put by the governor and later chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, in celebrating Milton Friedman’s 90th birthday. Bernanke said: “Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again”.
That is what central bankers can do – they can inject liquidity to avoid massive economic downturns from bank failures or a collapse in aggregate demand. This was most notably on display during the 2008 financial crisis when the US Fed and the RBA acted quickly and decisively.
And central bankers also have a hugely important role to play in anchoring long-run inflation expectations – which ended the self-fulfilling prophecies of wage-price spirals from the 1970s.
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The dilemma facing savers following RBA's historic move
The RBA specifically says it wants asset prices to rise as it joins the world's central banks in quantitative easing. Shares and property will be in the sights of those holding low-yield deposits.
Nov 4, 2020 – 12.00am
The Reserve Bank of Australia's historic move to quantitative easing will light a fire under asset prices and force savers to take more risks in the quest for yield.
Shares will be more attractive to investors due to lower borrowing costs, a weaker exchange rate and increased incentives for banks to use $104 billion in RBA funding for small and large businesses.
Retirees and other conservative savers reliant on bank term deposits or market-linked fixed income products will face a dilemma.
RBA governor Philip Lowe has ponied up and increased cheaper funding for business. David Rowe
They can either take more risks by moving into property, equities and other high-yielding alternatives or suffer a fall in their living standards as they adjust to lower levels of income.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/rba-s-philip-lowe-has-thrown-the-kitchen-sink-20201103-p56az6
RBA's Philip Lowe has thrown the kitchen sink
As monetary policy loses its effect, the central bank has to take greater and greater risks with unintended consequences.
Warren Hogan Columnist
Nov 3, 2020 – 7.41pm
The RBA board continues to see the inflation target as the cornerstone of Australia’s monetary policy framework, but the clear focus for this central bank is getting unemployment down.
The rationale for this latest policy package is a concern that unemployment will remain stubbornly high well into the future.
The RBA’s latest policy package has seen a reduction in their three interest rate targets to a rock bottom level of 0.1 per cent. This is now the effective lower bound for interest rates. Negative interest rates are extraordinarily unlikely, according to RBA governor Philip Lowe.
It is no longer paying any interest to banks for their exchange settlement balances at the end of each day and we now have an official program of quantitative easing (QE).
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/the-rba-s-new-funny-money-game-plan-20201103-p56b1p
The RBA's new 'funny money' game plan
Aleks Vickovich, Sarah Turner and Matthew Cranston
Nov 4, 2020 – 8.16am
So underwhelming was the crowd-less coronavirus era Melbourne Cup that it may well have been overshadowed by a wonky but monumental decision by Australia's central bank.
The Reserve Bank of Australia on Tuesday afternoon confirmed it was commencing a so-called quantitative easing program worth $100 billion, alongside a cut in the official cash rate from 0.25 per cent to 0.10 per cent.
Quantitative easing, or QE, is about as controversial a topic as they come in economic circles – despised by free market libertarians but warmly welcomed by those who believe it is the central bank's job to intervene in the economy and keep it running smoothly.
It involves a central bank buying assets off private investors or market participants. The US Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan have all gone down this thorny path.
Specifically, the RBA's foray into QE will involve it purchasing about $5 billion worth of five- to 10-year federal and state government bonds (or debt turned into financial products) each week.
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Unleash hell: Reserve Bank launches fresh battle to save the economy
By Shane Wright
November 3, 2020 — 6.42pm
It lacked Germanic tribes, Roman centurions and Russell Crowe urging his troops to "unleash hell".
But the package of measures unveiled by the Reserve Bank on Tuesday to safeguard the Australian economy is as close as governor Philip Lowe will go to channelling his inner gladiator.
The cash rate taken to (another) record low. Banks that leave money with the RBA overnight getting zero interest. The creation of $100 billion to buy federal and state government debt to help drive down the interest rate on those bonds. And an interest rate of just 0.1 per cent on the $200 billion offered to banks to on-lend to small and medium sized businesses.
In central banker terms, it's bigger and more pervasive than Crowe's military assault.
Yet matched against the economic forecasts, which suggests inflation well short of the RBA's own target band and a jobless rate of 6 per cent at the end of 2022, the bank is a long way from declaring victory.
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Zero gravity: RBA's emergency measures take us far from normal
By Shane Wright
November 6, 2020 — 6.00pm
The last time the Reserve Bank of Australia increased interest rates was Melbourne Cup Day, 2010.
Then governor Glenn Stevens used a press release to announce the official cash rate would be lifted to 4.75 per cent, arguing the country was facing a "large expansionary shock" due to high prices for our key commodities.
There was a "risk of inflation rising" over the next few years, with the governor and board both confident of a lift in wages.
Five prime ministers, a recession and 10 Melbourne Cups later, Stevens' successor Phil Lowe this week held his second-ever press conference to explain why the RBA was taking official interest rates to a record low and preparing to create money to buy government debt.
While Stevens and his RBA could see threats of inflation and wages breakout in every shadow, Lowe and his team are pushing back calls from some quarters to take official interest rates into negative territory.
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Currency wars blur distinction between quantitative easing and MMT
In launching proper quantitative easing this week for the first time, the Reserve Bank has not thrown in the intellectual towel and joined the modern monetary theorists; it is simply engaging in old-fashioned currency warfare.
And the market’s immediate verdict? It wasn’t enough, especially after the result of the US election. The reflation trade has been unwound because the Republicans won the Senate and are likely to block further fiscal stimulus, which has seen American long bond yields and the US dollar fall sharply.
It’s a fine but important distinction between defending the currency with QE and MMT: in six months the RBA will own about half of the government bonds on issue and will probably keep buying them faster than they are issued, at least for a year or two, so it is MMT (or more precisely the monetisation of government debt) in all but name; it’s just that the bonds have been laundered in private ownership first.
But the idea that the RBA is like any other buyer of bonds — put forward by governor Philip Lowe on Tuesday — is simply ridiculous. The central bank is an arm of government.
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Health Issues.
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'Well below what's reasonable': Death prompts rethink on regional hospitals
By Amelia McGuire
November 2, 2020 — 12.00am
A 10-year-old falls ill while playing on a remote property. They have a distended abdomen and a laceration on their liver. A pregnant 21-year-old woman presents to a regional hospital feeling unwell. She is diagnosed with preeclampsia.
Without the physical presence of a doctor, both could have died.
Concerns have been raised about the standard of care in regional NSW hospitals after the death of a 66-year old woman in Gulgong led to the revelation at least seven hospitals in the state do not have physical doctors and rely on telehealth for emergency care.
Labor Health spokesman Ryan Park says recent changes to the resources of regional areas have been made without sufficient consultation with their communities.
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Health insurers see overall profit cut in half as 11 funds sink into the red
Almost a third of Australia’s health insurers operated at a loss in the past financial year, with industry profit halving to $723m as the financial regulator diagnoses an anaemic outlook in the near-term as funds continue to reel from COVID-19.
The Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority has released its annual report into private health insurers, which shows 11 of the country’s 37 health insurers have sunk into the red, with the COVID-19 pandemic hitting mainly mid-tier and smaller insurers including CBHS, HCF, and Latrobe.
This compares with only five insurers operating at a loss in 2019. Revenue from policyholders remained steady across the industry at $25bn but investment revenue collapsed 69 per cent to about $150m as global share markets faced their worst rout in 30 years in March.
Medibank strengthened its dominance as Australia’s biggest health insurer, gaining 0.6 points to account for 26.9 per cent of the overall market. Bupa, despite easing 0.8 points, maintained its spot as the second biggest insurer, with a 25.4 per cent share.
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'Psychiatry has lost its way': Prize winners shine light on children's mental health, lack of diagnoses
By Rachel Clun
November 5, 2020 — 7.00pm
Children's mental health needs urgent attention and people deserve specific diagnoses for their mental health conditions, say the dual winners of this year's Australian Mental Health Prize.
Professor Gordon Parker and Professor Helen Milroy used the award to highlight mental health issues, some of which they said had been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Professor Helen Milroy says talk about prevention and early detection is all well and good but there are many families with children who need help now.
Professor Milroy, a Palkyu woman and the Stan Perron chair of child and adolescent psychiatry at Perth Children's Hospital and the University of Western Australia, said data on suicides among young people before the pandemic was concerning.
"We've got a big issue on our hands and this will be much worse with COVID," she said. "Kids are no more immune to mental health than anyone else and as much as kids can be remarkably resilient, we can't rely on that."
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Nib banks on 'strong recovery' in international student market
By Emma Koehn
November 5, 2020 — 5.00pm
Nib chief executive Mark Fitzgibbon has told investors the health insurer expects a strong recovery of international inbound insurance sales as it expects Australia to become a more attractive destination for students and workers in the wake of the pandemic.
Given the global volatility and new waves of infections ravaging markets across the northern hemisphere, "we do expect a strong recovery post-COVID-19," Mr Fitzgibbon said at the company's annual general meeting on Thursday. "Not that we celebrate the conditions in Europe or the USA — but they are conditions that will likely encourage more and more students and international workers to consider Australia as a safer destination."
He made his prediction after the $2 billion fund saw profits drop 40 per cent in August. The result included a “deferred claims” provision of $98.8 million in anticipation that members would make claims in the 2021 year that had been delayed due to COVID-19 shutdowns.
In a quarterly update at the company's annual general meeting, Mr Fitzgibbon said hospital benefits paid in the three months to September showed an increase of 6.1 per cent excluding Victoria, while eligibility checks from members were up by 7 per cent compared with 2020, excluding the locked-down Victorian market.
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International Issues.
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China seeks technology self-reliance in five-year economic plan
Michael Smith China correspondent
Oct 30, 2020 – 11.46am
Sydney | China has pledged to become less reliant on foreign technology and raise its per capita GDP to the level of moderately developed countries under a five-year economic blueprint which focuses on making the world's second-largest economy less dependent on American imports.
Against the backdrop of next week's US presidential election where both candidates have promised to maintain a hard line on Beijing, more than 200 of China's leaders met this week to set economic goals as far out as 2035.
The closed-door meeting known as the Fifth Plenum was presided over by Xi Jinping who has emphasised the need for China to be more self-reliant, particularly in the technology sector after the Trump administration restricted trade with Chinese semiconductor companies.
"China's economic and technological strength and composite national strength will increase significantly," a communique for the meeting published by state media on Thursday night said.
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How Donald Trump killed off principled conservatism
The President parades his shameless behaviour as moral courage. It's part of his true creed of anti-liberalism and self-interest.
Bret Stephens Contributor
Nov 2, 2020 – 12.39pm
If Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation to the Supreme Court turns out to be the last major act of a one-term Trump presidency, it will be a fitting finale. Republicans, like the Federalist Party of yore, will consolidate power in the judiciary. Apart from that, they will have spent the past four years squandering their reputation, forsaking their principles, and trashing the kind of political culture they once claimed to hold dear.
As victories go, the word pyrrhic comes to mind.
How did the conservative movement reach this pass? Hemingway's great line about how one goes bankrupt – "gradually, then suddenly" – seems apt. But the tipping point arrived on a precise date: July 20, 2015.
That was the day Rush Limbaugh came to Donald Trump's political rescue after the developer nearly self-immolated with his remark that John McCain, who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war, refusing early release at the price of gruesome torture, should not be considered a war hero.
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https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/democracy-can-fail-anywhere-even-in-america-20201103-p56azr
Democracy can fail anywhere, even in America
When efforts at democracy promotion fail in Egypt or Iraq it is a tragedy for the country concerned. If democracy fails in the US, it will be a global tragedy.
Gideon Rachman Columnist
Nov 3, 2020 – 9.47am
The US has long rejoiced in the title “leader of the free world”. The American presidential election was the ultimate example of democracy in action. But we are about to witness an election night like no other.
People around the world will be acutely attuned not just to the vote tally, but to any sign that the results are going to be contested in the courts or on the streets.
The failure of democracy is something most Americans thought happened only in foreign lands, but democracies can fail anywhere. Painful lessons learnt from the nation’s own faltering efforts at “democracy promotion” abroad could also apply in the US.
One common idea is that democracy is about more than voting. If election results are not to be undermined or overturned, democracy also requires a free media, a strong civil service, independent courts, a secure constitutional framework and — perhaps most important of all — a democratic culture in which the election losers will accept defeat.
All of these things used to be taken for granted in the US. But perhaps no longer. The willingness of Donald Trump to accept defeat is clearly in question. The President has repeatedly suggested that he will not acknowledge a result that he deems “rigged”. Many Democrats believe Mr Trump’s complaints are simply a front for his own plans to steal the election.
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This election will be one for the history books
By Jennifer S. Hunt
November 3, 2020 — 10.08am
With nearly 100 million votes already cast, the US election is well under way. An estimated 50 million more votes are expected on the last day of in-person voting on Tuesday, with mail-in ballots still making their way through the postal service, including from overseas and military voters.
Up for grabs are not only the White House, but all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and a third of the 100-seat Senate. In addition, 11 gubernatorial races, various state legislatures and a plethora of local judges, sheriffs, school boards and supervisory roles are on the ballot. A quick glance at a US ballot illustrates how America has more democratically elected positions per capita than any other democratic country in the world.
This election will be one for the history books. The White House incumbent, impeached on abuse of power charges and litigating against Congressional oversight of potential financial conflicts of interest, has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power.
In the year following more than 1000 former federal prosecutors confirming that the President would be indicted if not for the current immunity the Oval office provides him, Trump has stepped up rhetoric that any election that he does not win is “rigged”.
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Vienna terror attack: Gunmen on loose, ‘several’ dead, 15 injured
At least one attacker is still at large after a terror attack in Vienna which killed “several” people, with an assailant shot dead, an incident described as “repulsive” by Austria’s chancellor.
“According to what we currently know there is at least one attacker who is still on the run,” Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer told reporters.
At the same press conference the general director for public security Franz Ruf said there would be strengthened controls at Austria’s borders and police cordons in central Vienna.
Mr Nehammer told Austrian broadcaster ORF that there were “also several injured, probably also dead”.
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Trump has committed sacrilege and set in motion a fateful chain of events
Donald Trump has lost both the popular vote and the electoral college vote, yet he is pulling out all the stops to subvert the result.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Nov 5, 2020 – 11.22am
Donald Trump has denied his likely successor the consecrating ritual of concession. America's mechanism for handing over power has broken down, and there is no constitutional procedure for removing a president who refuses to accept defeat (if that is what occurs when the final votes are tallied).
The Founding Fathers assumed that incumbents would behave with honour, though Thomas Jefferson always feared that a new Caesar might one day overstay his welcome – with Hamilton immediately in mind.
President Trump's late-night declaration of victory before he had earned it was an act of political sacrilege. It was also ruthlessly focused, the opening move of a scorched-earth strategy long-prepared by his inner circle should he be at risk of losing the vote.
His allegation of a giant "fraud on the American people" was not an off-the-cuff remark in the heat of the moment. Leaked tapes from his Election Day Operations team leave no doubt that this gambit was pre-planned, a calculated move to discredit what he knew would be a late surge of Democrat votes as postal ballots are counted.
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Whoever wins, Australia can't rely on its great and powerful friend
Donald Trump has done little to counter China, and Joe Biden would do no better. Australia must therefore face up to a future of fading US power in our region.
Hugh White Contributor
Nov 4, 2020 – 6.13pm
Leaders matter. Whether nations flourish or stumble in the face of challenges depends a lot on how well they are led. America today faces its gravest challenges in many decades, so the quality of its leadership matters more than ever. And yet this year American voters have been offered a choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
What a choice. Trump is wholly unfit for the job in terms of experience, intellect and character, and he has demeaned his office and his country for four long, sad years. Biden is a lacklustre journeyman politician with few ideas and no charisma, whose only compelling claim to the presidency is that he is not Donald Trump.
It is still not clear that Americans, through the dysfunctional electoral system they inherited from the 18th century, have rejected Trump. How deeply disheartening. How could it be that, after his disastrous first term, Trump still commands so much support that he remains within striking distance of a second term? We know what that would be like, and we know how bad it would be for America and the world.
Thankfully Joe Biden still has a good chance, though a close result risks endless wrangling in the courts or, even worse, on the streets. If he makes it to the Oval Office, Biden would restore decency, decorum and a measure of professional competence to the presidency of the United States. But relief at that prospect must be tempered by realism. Biden is not the leader to restore America’s cohesion at home and leadership abroad.
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One thing is clear: America remains bitterly divided
The more disturbing issue is not who wins the presidency, but how they will they govern when the US is more polarised than at any time since the Civil War.
Tom Switzer Columnist
Nov 4, 2020 – 6.54pm
An extraordinary election, still too close to call or to concede, has left America and the world in a state of political uncertainty.
Donald Trump and Joe Biden owe it to their supporters to allow the postal vote counting process to continue in those battleground states – Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – that will determine the electoral college vote.
The President, with typical boorishness, has suggested that Democrats are trying to steal the election. But, like Biden, he owes it to his nation to avoid taking steps that will undercut the presidential election’s eventual legitimacy.
It’s likely to be days before the final result is determined. However, one thing is clear: America, no matter who wins, is bitterly divided and uncertain as to how it should proceed.
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A divided electorate spells trouble for the US economy
Regardless of who ultimately wins this nail-biting election, a politically divided US means a more challenged domestic economy at a time when a second COVID-19 wave is already disrupting activity in much of the West.
Mohamed El-Erian Contributor
Updated Nov 5, 2020 – 10.10am, first published at 9.52am
In the wake of the US presidential vote, there are three things that are clear at this stage that spell trouble for the US economy, and well beyond that.
The 2020 election has confirmed that the US remains a deeply divided country facing mounting challenges that threaten both this and future generations. Despite a collective wake-up call in the form of a severe health and economic crisis, the country seems both unwilling and unable to embark on the decisive measures needed.
The unwillingness comes from fundamental differences of views on how best to pursue economic and financial reforms while urgently dealing with the threats from COVID-19. The inability is due to a probably divided Congress, where the damage of the past few years to the most basic of cross-party working relationships has been accentuated by the past month’s rush to approve a new Supreme Court justice.
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https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/there-was-a-loser-last-night-it-was-america-20201105-p56bpp
There was a loser last night. It was America
There will be no landslide in the US election – no overwhelming majority telling Trump and those around him that enough was enough.
Thomas L. Friedman
Nov 5, 2020 – 10.47am
We still do not know who is the winner of the presidential election. But we do know who is the loser: the United States of America.
We have just experienced four years of the most divisive and dishonest presidency in American history, which attacked the twin pillars of our democracy – truth and trust. President Donald Trump did not spend a single day of his term trying to be president of all the people, and he broke rules and trashed norms in ways that no president ever dared – right up to Tuesday night (Wednesday AEDT), when he falsely claimed election fraud and summoned the Supreme Court to step in and stop the voting, as if such a thing were even remotely possible.
"Frankly, we did win this election," Trump declared, while millions of ballots remained to be counted in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.
"We'll be going to the US Supreme Court," Trump added, without explaining how or on what basis. "We want all voting to stop.''
We want all voting to stop? You can't do that.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/post-election-america-is-a-dangerous-mess-20201104-p56bju
Post-election, America is a dangerous mess
The once-proud nation that dominated the Western world is in a post-election mess, where the road to recovery is unclear.
Andrew Clark Senior writer
Nov 4, 2020 – 7.18pm
America – the home of the free, the beacon of light to the world – is in a mess.
The nation that just about single-handedly ordained the international order after World War II has reached a total crisis point about ordering its own affairs.
Crippled by the COVID-19 pandemic, pulverised by right-wing shows of force and widespread demonstrations in its cities, and now paralysed by what could be a highly contested election result, it is veering towards a sort of national psychic meltdown.
Whatever the final result of this tumultuous US election, an already deeply troubled America will remain polarised. Either way, tensions will rise. A roiling backdrop of Black Lives Matter demonstrations, vitriol on social media, and a contagion of conspiracy theories will not be assuaged by a close result. Indeed, the opposite will be the case, so an American house divided will further escalate tensions.
Even the most sympathetic observer may well ask how an America that has become so internally fraught can deal with the great challenges of the pandemic, a pestilence-damaged economy, and a racial divide.
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Scarred nation braces for more hurt and division
Bruce Wolpe
Senior fellow at the United States Studies Centre and former political staffer.
November 4, 2020 — 5.23pm
American baseball great Frank Robinson got this election night right: "Closeness doesn't count in baseball. Closeness only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades."
Joe Biden was playing hardball – to take out the President of the United States. He is close after a night of counting, but his hand grenades were not direct hits. Florida stuck with Trump. Texas too. The counting lagged in the three crucial midwest industrial states that spurned the Democrats and turned to Trump in 2016: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. The votes could not be banked fast enough for Biden to claim victory on day one of counting. Iowa and North Carolina are not fully reported yet either. Biden has a clear shot in Georgia.
Biden therefore does have a roadmap to victory, especially with Arizona in hand, but Donald Trump has the bully pulpit, the Oval Office megaphone, the Fox News platform, the full bench strength of the United States Department of Justice, an army of lawyers, and a conservative Supreme Court that appears to be just waiting for the right election counting case to come before it.
The nation was exceptionally tense these past few days. Everyone, whether you were for Trump or against him, had knots in their stomachs. Everyone agitated. Too many armed. Trump convoys surrounded a Biden-Harris bus in Texas, nearly running it off the road. Trump car carnivals stalled highways and bridges in New Jersey and New York. Merchants boarded up buildings from Washington DC to Beverly Hills.
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Wall Street likes gridlock, regardless of who is in the White House
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
November 5, 2020 — 11.40am
The lack of a clear outcome in the US presidential election and the probability that there will be none for weeks, if not longer, means financial markets are likely to be volatile until the occupant of the White House is decided.
What is already apparent though is that the sharemarket, while initially taken aback by the absence of the anticipated "Blue Wave" for the Democrats, now likes the outcome of the Congressional voting, with the Republicans near-certain to retain their majority in the Senate and the ability to frustrate a Joe Biden presidency, if that is what the voting and the courts ultimately decided.
Biden is on the cusp of taking the White House but Donald Trump - after his premature (and, it appears, erroneous) declaration of victory and his anti-democratic demand that the counting of mail-in votes should be halted - is already heading to the courts to try to overturn what appear likely Biden victories in the states that are deciding the outcome.
The sharemarket response to the voting was erratic.
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Kim regime building submarine able to fire ballistic missiles: South
By Sangmi Cha
November 4, 2020 — 1.29pm
Seoul: North Korea is building two new submarines, including one capable of firing ballistic missiles, a South Korean MP said, following a closed-door briefing by the South's National Intelligence Service.
North Korea has a large submarine fleet but only one known experimental submarine capable of carrying a ballistic missile.
"One of the submarines North Korea is building can carry a submarine-launched ballistic missile [SLBM]," Ha Tae-keung, an opposition party MP on parliament’s intelligence committee, said. "One is a modified Romeo Class and the other is a new medium-large size one."
North Korea has been subject to UN Security Council sanctions since 2006 over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump have met three times since 2018, but failed to make progress on US calls for Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons and North Korea's demands for an end to sanctions.
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US election: ‘They’re trying to steal the election’, Donald Trump tweets
· AFP
President Donald Trump early Wednesday said he expected a “big win” and accused Democrats of trying to “steal” the election after rival Joe Biden predicted victory.
The 2020 election has come down to a few key swing states including the rust belt states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, as well as Trump heartland in Georgia.
President Trump tweeted not long after Mr Biden got off stage that he is “up big”.
“We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election,” Trump wrote on Twitter moments after Biden told supporters he expected to win.
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Another epic fail for the liberal elite
The clanging bias, euphemistic pussy-footing and pie-eyed focus of many major media outlets played right into Trump's hands.
Parnell Palme McGuinness Columnist
Nov 6, 2020 – 12.00am
There are none so blind as those who will not see. Those words should be emblazoned above the keyboard of every journalist, above the entrance to every newsroom, on every camera and microphone.
In a year in which the word “unprecedented” has been much abused, the US election has also been heavily adorned with the descriptor. And yet in many ways it has been the most precedented election in recent history, with lessons for Australia too.
Let’s start with the sudden rush of insight that flooded through election panels everywhere a bit after 12pm Wednesday (AEDT), when Florida fell to sitting president Donald Trump. In an echo of Trump’s surprise win in 2016, of Scott Morrison’s surprise win in 2018 and of Boris Johnson’s surprise win of 2019, panels of commentators started telling each other about disenfranchised conservative voters who distrust the airy promises of energy transition and place jobs and the economy above a raft of urban priorities.
Given the fact that this “silent majority” or “shy Trump voter” has been all but fetishised, it is beyond comprehension that their ballot box motivations still come as such a shock.
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Win or lose, Trump will remain a powerful force
Trump could position himself as the de facto leader of the party, wielding an extraordinary database of information about his supporters that future candidates would love to rent or otherwise access.
Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman
Nov 6, 2020 – 9.17am
If US President Donald Trump loses his bid for re-election, as looks increasingly likely, it would be the first defeat of an incumbent president in 28 years. But one thing seemed certain: Win or lose, he will not go quietly away.
Trailing former vice-president Joe Biden, Trump spent the day trying to discredit the election based on invented fraud claims, hoping either to hang onto power or explain away a loss. He could find a narrow path to reelection among states still counting, but he has made clear that he would not shrink from the scene should he lose.
At the very least, he has 76 days left in office to use his power as he sees fit and to seek revenge on some of his perceived adversaries. Angry at a defeat, he may fire or sideline a variety of senior officials who failed to carry out his wishes as he saw it, including Christopher Wray, the FBI director, and Dr Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious diseases specialist in the middle of a pandemic.
And if he is forced to vacate the White House on January 20, Trump is likely to prove more resilient than expected and almost surely will remain a powerful and disruptive force in American life. He received at least 68 million votes, or 5 million more votes than he did in 2016 and commanded about 48 per cent of the popular vote, meaning he retained the support of nearly half of the public despite four years of scandal, setbacks, impeachment and the brutal coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 233,000 Americans.
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The two reasons US pollsters got it so wrong
Tom Burton Government editor
Nov 6, 2020 – 12.00am
Social bias against unpopular causes and low response rates are making political polls unreliable and raising questions about their ability to accurately predict election results, according to an academic expert.
Questions about the reliability of political polling emerged after expectations by pollsters and election modellers of an emphatic win by US presidential candidate Joe Biden failed to emerge in Tuesday's election.
The national US polls predicted Mr Biden up by around 8.5 percentage points, with some of the higher-quality national surveys showing him ahead by even more. But with the polling still coming in Mr Biden is sitting on a national lead of around 2.5 per cent, well below expectations.
Similar misses seem to have occurred in the midwestern states where polling had Mr Biden an easy winner in both Wisconsin – where some pollsters were predicting double digit percentage point wins – and to a lesser extent Michigan.
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Trump falsely claims election fraud in first address since election night
By Matthew Knott
Updated November 6, 2020 — 11.46amfirst published at 11.20am
Washington: Donald Trump has doubled down on his false claims that he is being cheated out of victory in the US election, declaring in his first address to the nation since election-night that he will win if only "legal votes" are counted.
Trump spoke as his Democratic opponent Joe Biden appeared to be closing in on victory by picking up votes rapidly in Pennsylvania and with Trump's lead in Georgia shrinking dramatically.
"If you count the legal votes, I easily win," Trump said in a prime-time address at the White House that contained a stream of misleading or false claims. "If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us."
Trump did not present any evidence of illegal activity beyond votes being counted after election day which occurs routinely at every election.
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China still in the mood to pull Australia their way
Even as the world has been transfixed by the vulnerabilities and the excitements of democracy in America, Beijing has underlined its own hugely contrasting pathway of power.
It has in recent days announced it will double its economy by 2035 — with Xi Jinping, seemingly, staying in control at least until then. It has trashed what was to be the world’s biggest stockmarket float for $US34bn ($47.5bn), captained by Alibaba founder Jack Ma, just two days out, underlining who is boss. And it has extended its commercial coercion of Australia, impacting sector after sector.
The Victorian government’s staunchly maintained adoption of the Belt and Road Initiative underlines that China’s continuing influence on Australian elites has only ever been exceeded by Britain’s.
Victoria’s memorandum of understanding with Beijing will remain in effect until October 8, 2023 unless terminated by three months’ written notice, which would be an awkward diplomatic step to take as lobbying of Canberra intensifies to ingratiate itself more to Beijing.
Despite setbacks earlier this year including COVID-19, the People’s Republic of China has resumed its extraordinarily influential engagement with key elites, especially in corporations, academia, and regional and local governments, around the world — including Australia.
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https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/trump-leaves-biden-a-scorched-democracy-20201106-p56c7u
Trump leaves Biden a scorched democracy
Jacob Greber United States correspondent
Nov 6, 2020 – 4.05pm
It’s time to watch the generals.
And the giants from American business like Blackstone co-founder Stephen Schwarzman, one of Donald Trump’s closest Wall Street whisperers.
And the top Capitol Hill Republicans, who will most likely control the Senate for the next two years and know how to count and what it means when elections are said and done.
The people whose fealty is to a higher authority than the president.
If they stay silent, American democracy will edge a step closer towards an unthinkable crisis. It’s happened before and the results were devastating.
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Endgame in America lays bare our strategic position
Drama in Washington, menace from Beijing, and warnings from the RBA and Treasury show how narrow our options are.
Laura Tingle Columnist
Nov 6, 2020 – 4.37pm
The desperate and dishonest ramblings of Donald Trump’s Friday (AEDT) press conference proved too much for America’s main television networks, which took the extraordinary step of stopping their broadcast of a presidential press conference and telling viewers they were doing so because what the President was saying was “untrue”.
Around the same time, Steve Bannon, Trump’s former top adviser, was being suspended from Twitter and had a YouTube clip removed after he called for the beheading of the United States’ chief infectious diseases expert, Anthony Fauci, and the head of the FBI, Christopher Wray.
The madness of America, even as the continuing count suggested the cynical and self-serving presidency of Trump would soon be history, is a story that will continue to reverberate over coming years, no matter what the final numbers – and not just because of threats of vigilante action or civil unrest.
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Biden win, split Congress a welcome result for markets
William McInnes Reporter
Nov 6, 2020 – 4.37pm
A Biden presidency and gridlocked Congress is set to provide a Goldilocks environment for markets, with the election result supporting a strong rally in local shares and global tech stocks this week.
While the final outcome of the US election was yet to be announced before the market close on Friday, markets have already priced in a win for Joe Biden.
The S&P/ASX 200 Index rose 50.6 points, or 0.8 per cent, to 6190.2 on Friday, extending a strong start to the week's trading and giving the local market its best performance in a US election week since at least 1980.
The market had rallied in the days ahead of the election, betting heavily on a Democrat clean sweep, hopeful it would quickly push through a large scale stimulus package in order to support the economy in the midst of rising COVID-19 cases.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/don-t-expect-too-much-from-a-biden-presidency-20201106-p56c2r
Don't expect too much from a Biden presidency
US voters did not rush to the polls demanding the president expend more blood and treasure restoring the US as the world’s policeman.
Philip Stephens Contributor
Nov 6, 2020 – 10.30am
Decency has been pushing aside demagogy. There are votes still to be counted and legal challenges to be heard, so caveats apply.
But the path from the election has shown Joe Biden edging ahead. If confirmed, the toppling of Donald Trump would be momentous. The US would again have a president who cherishes its constitutional laws and freedoms.
It is easy to imprison a putative Biden presidency in qualifications. The polarisation of politics has robbed the US of its political centre.
The nativist isolationism of Trump’s term is unlikely to disappear in the face of immense economic challenges and deep social and cultural divides. A Republican party in thrall to populism may well hold on to the Senate.
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https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/has-america-lost-its-soul-20201107-p56cdl.html
Has America lost its soul?
By Peter Singer
November 7, 2020 — 11.47am
As I write, the US presidential election remains undecided. Former Vice-President Joe Biden has said that he believes he is on track to win. President Donald Trump has said, without qualification but also without evidence: “We did win this election,” adding that he will go to the Supreme Court to prevent “a major fraud on our nation.” But in several states, the result will come down to the last few thousand votes to be counted. Recounts are inevitable. If the election ends up in the courts, an official result may still be some days away, as the courts decide whether to exclude some ballots.
In his speech at the Democratic National Convention this past August, Biden proclaimed that the election was a “battle for the soul of America”. If we go along with this metaphor, we might conclude that the incomplete election results show that the devil already has a firm grip on a large part of it. Win or lose, Trump will have received the votes of about 70 million American voters. Biden has 73 million, but still, Trump won nearly half of all votes cast.
Nor am I letting off the hook those who were eligible to vote but chose not to do so. Given that about 160 million votes were cast, and 239 million Americans were eligible to vote, and generously assuming that five million of those who did not vote were ill or faced other serious obstacles to voting (even by mail!), that adds 74 million Americans whose souls are stained by their failure to care enough about the fate of their country, and of the world, to cast a ballot. It seems, therefore, that for the souls of a total of 144 million Americans, or close to six in every ten eligible voters, the battle has already been lost.
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Why they love Trump to death: explaining America's 48 per cent
Peter Hartcher
Political and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age
November 6, 2020 — 7.10pm
Australia overwhelmingly is relieved that America’s voters decided not to return Donald Trump to the White House. But Australians are astonished that even more Americans voted for him this week than four years ago.
And not just a few. According to the count in progress two days after election day, almost 7 million more Americans voted for him this week than in 2016. Despite everything.
So even though he lost the popular vote and, ultimately, will lose the Electoral College vote, he still managed to increase his number of supporters at the ballot box by 10 per cent.
On election day, and every day now, 1000 Americans are dying of COVID-19. These deaths, we know from the experience of other countries, including our own, are mostly preventable. Almost a quarter-of-a-million Americans have lost their lives because of the preventable transmission of a virus.
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US Election: just plain wrong on so many counts
Donald Trump’s press briefing alleging widespread and systematic election fraud was riddled with unproven allegations.
CLAIM: This is a case where they’re trying to steal an election, they’re trying to rig an election, and we can’t let that happen.
FACT: Trump has not provided any credible evidence to show that his opponents are trying to “rig” or “steal” an election.
CLAIM: If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us, if you count the votes that came in late.
FACT: Mail-in votes do not “come in late” illegally. Some states, such as Pennsylvania, allow mail-in votes to be counted days after the election, as long as they are postmarked on or before election day.
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Vladimir Putin to get protection from prosecution for life
· The Times
Vladimir Putin is expected to gain lifelong immunity from prosecution for any alleged crimes committed before, during and after his time in office under a proposed law to be discussed by Russia’s rubber-stamp parliament.
The move is being seen as a Kremlin plan to ensure his personal safety in the event that he eventually relinquishes power. This week Mr Putin, 68, began steps to push through legislation that would allow him to become a senator for life when or if he steps down as president.
Recent amendments to the constitution mean that Mr Putin, who will celebrate 21 years in power on New Year’s Eve, can remain in the Kremlin as the Russian leader until 2036, when he will be 83.
Under Russian law it is only illegal to charge former presidents with crimes committed in office. However, Mr Putin has been dogged by allegations of corruption since the early 1990s, when he was a deputy to the mayor of St Petersburg, his home city.
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Joe Biden declared 46th president-elect, Harris first female deputy
Jacob Greber United States correspondent
Updated Nov 8, 2020 – 6.16am, first published at 4.13am
Washington | Joe Biden has been declared America's 46th president-elect after clinching an agonising Electoral College victory over Donald Trump, who received the news while playing golf on his resort outside Washington.
After four days of tense counting, NBC, CNN and the Associated Press declared Mr Biden the winner at around 11.30am on Saturday (3.30am Sunday AEDT). Fox news followed a short time later.
Streets erupted with spontaneous cheering and car honking as news of the decision spread, and large crowds formed in major cities including on Black Lives Matter Plaza outside the White House.
As a party-like atmosphere spread, emotions spilled out into the open. TV pundits on at least two networks burst into tears.
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https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/citizen-trump-will-face-legal-woes-20201108-p56ch2
Citizen Trump will face legal woes
Makini Brice and Jan Wolfe
Nov 8, 2020 – 6.02am
Washington | Since taking office in January 2017, President Donald Trump has been besieged by civil lawsuits and criminal investigations of his inner circle.
With Democrat Joe Biden capturing the presidency on Saturday (early Sunday AEDT), according to all major US television networks, Trump's legal woes are likely to deepen because in January he will lose the protections the US legal system affords to a sitting president, former prosecutors said.
Here are some of the lawsuits and criminal probes that may haunt Trump as he leaves office.
A New York prosecutor
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, who enforces New York state laws, has been conducting a criminal investigation into Trump and the Trump Organisation for more than two years.
The probe originally focused on hush money payments that Trump's former lawyer and self-described fixer Michael Cohen paid before the 2016 election to two women who said they had sexual encounters with Trump, which the president has denied.
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The top priorities for the Biden transition team
Will Weissert
Updated Nov 8, 2020 – 7.16am, first published at 5.32am
Wilmington, Delaware | Joe Biden just won the presidency. That may turn out to be the easy part.
The president-elect already was braced to deal with the worst health crisis the nation has seen in more than a century and the economic havoc it has wreaked.
Biden plans to name a 12-member task force to combat and contain the spread of the coronavirus on Monday, sources told Axios shortly after the election was called.
Joe Biden has won the US presidency after defeating Donald Trump in critical state of Pennsylvania.
Now, he has to build a government while contending with a Senate that could stay in GOP hands, a House sure to feature fewer Democratic allies and a public that includes more than 70 million people who would prefer that President Donald Trump keep the job.
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Trump's chief of staff diagnosed with COVID-19
Nov 7, 2020 – 3.28pm
Washington | President Donald Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows has been diagnosed with the coronavirus as the nation sets daily records for confirmed cases for the pandemic.
Two senior administration officials confirmed on Friday (Saturday AEDT) that Meadows had tested positive for the virus, which has killed more than 236,000 Americans so far this year.
They offered no details on when the chief of staff came down with the virus or his current condition.
Meadows travelled with Trump in the run-up to election day and last appeared in public early Wednesday morning without a mask as Trump falsely declared victory in the vote count.
He had been one of the close aides around Trump when the president came down with the virus more than a month ago, but was tested daily and maintained his regular work schedule.
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Apologists turn their backs on true conservative values
Destroying faith in democracy is the first act of a tyrant but Trump was more hypnotist than Hitler. Now he’s just a sad clown.
· From Inquirer
November 6, 2020
With Donald Trump’s presidency coming to an end at the hands of the American people, I’m genuinely curious what new and inventive ways Trump apologists will find to lecture the rest of us about how they are the ones in touch with the mainstream. Their attempts at virtue signalling are off the charts.
The Trump apologists will contort their way collectively to dismissing the highest vote for a presidential candidate in the history of the republic.
Joe Biden didn’t just out-poll Trump, he set new records when doing so. The final tally is likely to reveal a popular vote advantage for Biden over Trump of more than six million. That’s a landslide. Are there no mainstream voters among that lot?
You can point out the majority drubbing Trump received at the same time as accepting the electoral college voting system, which is set to deliver Biden the presidency anyway. With states such as Georgia and Arizona hanging in the balance, it is still possible Biden doesn’t just win the 270 electoral college votes he needs to become the 46th US president. He could push past 300 votes if everything goes his way.
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
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