July 15, 2021 Edition
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In the US it has been quiet as the US leaves Afghanistan claiming to have won while actually have been humiliated after a 20 year war. The country looks likely to revert to total Taliban control within months. What more proof do we need that regime replacement is fools errand unless the populace really want it.
In the UK
Boris has become unhinged wanting to open up in the light of rising COVID
cases. Unless he reverses course I see disaster ahead. Time will surely tell!
In OZ the
entire country is nervously watching NSW’s battle with the delta variant. We
need to see progress soon! Sadly there seems to be very little progress in NSW and Victoria is starting a lockdown as well. Bad virus this delta variant.
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Major Issues.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/pm-s-plan-going-nowhere-fast-20210703-p586lg
PM’s plan going nowhere fast
The national plan is political filler for the deep holes in the government’s approach to vaccination.
Jennifer Hewett Columnist
Jul 4, 2021 – 5.51pm
The impeccable Sir Humphrey, bureaucratic star of the famed Yes Minister British TV series on political bungling, now features in a short online video discussing the four-stage strategy for a government facing a crisis.
The Morrison government will reject any such parody of its own four-stage plan for COVID-19 but the comparison is impossible to avoid. What was announced with such fanfare on Friday is a political bad joke on the Australian public 18 months into the pandemic. It merely obscures the obvious. There is no real plan.
In Sir Humphrey’s world, stage one means accepting that nothing is going to happen. Stage two, he sombrely explains, means something may happen but that the government should do nothing about it. In stage three, the government maybe should do something but, unfortunately, there’s nothing it can do. Stage four involves explaining that perhaps there was something the government could have done but it’s too late now. Regretful pursing of lips.
Scott Morrison, ever the politician, sounds more forceful. But beyond reassuring rhetoric, Australia will remain trapped well in its COVID-19 cage well into next year, with lockdowns still the almost automatic response to further outbreaks for most state governments. Premiers claim they already only use this measure as a “last resort” – just as the plan decrees.
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Our aspirations for a Big Australia need a big trim
Economics Editor
July 5, 2021 — 12.05am
Almost all the nation’s business people, economists and politicians believe too much population growth is never enough. But if there’s one thing I hope to be remembered for, it’s that I always subjected this case of group think to critical examination.
I remain to be convinced that a Big Australia would be better either for our material living standards or for our efforts to limit the damage our economic activity is doing to our natural environment – the erosion of the nation’s “natural capital”.
But, in any case, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s intergenerational report last week is a useful warning that our aspirations for a Big Australia need a big trim.
The pandemic is an immediate setback to such ambitions, but beyond that is the likelihood that most countries’ population growth is slowing and, in many countries, will eventually begin falling.
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Scott Morrison spills on Jesus and religion
6:18AM July 5, 2021
Uncovering more than superficial insights into Scott Morrison’s private Christian faith has been difficult during his prime ministership. However, that’s all about to change.
Diary understands that ScoMo is about to finally put his personal religious beliefs on the record, as part of a new book in which he is said to have talked candidly, frankly and at length about his faith.
The new book, authored by The Australian’s foreign editor Greg Sheridan and to be released early next month, will be titled: Christians: The Urgent Case for Jesus in our World.
But the feature of the new book that will no doubt help it to sell plenty of copies is a lengthy chapter devoted solely to Australia’s first openly Pentecostal PM and his faith.
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Super ‘incapable of self-regulation’ after junking ethics code
Michael Roddan Senior companies reporter
Jul 5, 2021 – 5.00am
The superannuation industry has shown it is “incapable of effective self-regulation” after dumping a key consumer protection code just months before it was due to come into force.
Consumer groups Super Consumers Australia and the Financial Rights Legal Centre slammed the move as self-interested after The Australian Financial Review last week revealed the Insurance in Superannuation Voluntary Code of Practice would be junked in favour of watered-down practical guidance.
The Code of Practice was launched in 2017 by the Insurance in Superannuation Working Group, led by industry veteran Jim Minto, which had the sector agree to a voluntary and non-binding code that sought to clamp down on the costs of insurance and hold funds to greater standards for dealing with customers who lodged claims.
But, last week, three industry groups responsible for the code – the Financial Services Council, the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees and the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia – said they would walk away from the voluntary code and replace the claims handling rules with informal guidance. Informal guidance will also be issued on how to deal with customers deemed “vulnerable”.
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What will Australia do with its mountains of super money?
By mid-century our super savings will have long outgrown Australia’s sharemarkets, banks and the entire economy. We need to think about the implications of this now.
Jeremy Cooper
Jul 5, 2021 – 2.31pm
The fifth Intergenerational Report (IGR) released on June 28 spent five pages on what our private sector super system might look like in 40 years’ time.
Those pages packed a punch. Total super assets are projected to balloon to around 244 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2061, up from 157 per cent at the end of March this year. This implies a faster growth rate than GDP itself. In other words, Treasury says that super will grow faster than the economy for many decades ahead.
How could this be? Aren’t super investments just a rough proxy for the economy? Aren’t more people going to move into retirement and spend their money?
The IGR forecasts that by 2061, the Australian super system will be worth $34 trillion in 2061 dollars. That is 10.6 times its current size of around $3.2 trillion. It’s hard to imagine anything else in our economy that will be able to match that growth.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/finance-minister-s-bankrupt-defence-20210704-p586r0
Finance Minister’s bankrupt defence
Simon Birmingham’s real job is stewardship of the public finances, not offering hyper-politicised rationalisations of indefensible rorts.
Jul 5, 2021 – 4.42pm
Simon Birmingham’s bankrupt defence of the Morrison government’s $660 million National Commuter Car Park Fund rort is beneath the office of Australia’s Minister for Finance.
It follows last week’s scathing Australian National Audit Office report that damned the Morrison government’s decision to promise 47 car parks and upgrades near train stations before the 2019 election as a vote-buying exercise.
The rort didn’t occur on his watch as Finance Minister. However, Senator Birmingham maintains that the “Australian people had their chance and voted the Morrison government back in the next election”. The program was justified because the political bribes worked, because this is what the electorate expects and votes for governments to do.
This is an astoundingly misplaced transactional attitude to the allocation of scarce taxpayer-funded resources by the minister responsible for stewarding the public finances.
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US must be clear to China: hit an ally and we hit back
12:00AM July 6, 2021
The editor of Beijing’s Global Times – which belongs to the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily – has threatened Australia with “retaliatory punishment”, with missile strikes “on the military facilities and relevant key facilities on Australian soil”, if we send Australian Defence Force troops to assist the US and participate in war with the People’s Liberation Army over Taiwan.
The specific threat made by editor Hu Xijin on May 7 is: “China has a strong production capability, including producing additional long-range missiles with conventional warheads that target military objectives in Australia when the situation becomes highly tense.” It is remarkable that such a blatant threat has received so little attention by the Australian media.
The key phrase used by the Global Times is “long-range missiles with conventional warheads”. But, even with sophisticated intelligence methods, it can be virtually impossible to detect reliably the difference between an incoming missile with a conventional warhead from one with a nuclear warhead. This is made more difficult by the fact China co-mingles conventional with nuclear warheads in its theatre missile forces. But why the emphasis on conventional? It may be aimed at reassuring the US that China will not be attacking Australia with nuclear weapons.
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Chinese ties ‘vital’ to trade survival, say resource states
11:15PM July 5, 2021
Queensland and Western Australia say their ties to China must continue unimpeded to secure billions of dollars’ worth of trade and thousands of jobs, as the resource states’ deals with the Asian superpower come under the scrutiny of the Morrison government.
Months after cancelling the controversial Belt and Road Agreement between China and the Andrews government in Victoria, Foreign Minister Marise Payne is set to decide whether to allow nearly 50 deals between Chinese entities and other state governments.
While many of the deals with China are likely to survive, the Queensland government warned Canberra on Monday that its agreements with the communist nation were helping to preserve government-to-government contact in the midst of a low point in bilateral relations.
And the West Australian government said it was vital it keep its ties with China to support $110bn worth of trade.
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https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2021/mr-21-13.html
Statement by Philip Lowe, Governor: Monetary Policy Decision
Number 2021-13
Date 6 July 2021
At its meeting today, the Board decided to:
- retain the April 2024 bond as the bond for the yield target and retain the target of 10 basis points
- continue purchasing government bonds after the completion of the current bond purchase program in early September. These purchases will be at the rate of $4 billion a week until at least mid November
- maintain the cash rate target at 10 basis points and the interest rate on Exchange Settlement balances of zero per cent.
These measures will provide the continuing monetary support that the economy needs as it transitions from the recovery phase to the expansion phase. The Board is committed to achieving the goals of full employment and inflation consistent with the target. Today's decisions, together with those taken previously, have the economy on a path to achieve those objectives.
The economic recovery in Australia is stronger than earlier expected and is forecast to continue. The outlook for investment has improved and household and business balance sheets are generally in good shape. National income is also being supported by the high prices for commodity exports. Domestic financial conditions are very supportive and the exchange rate has depreciated a little recently. One near-term uncertainty is the effect of the recent virus outbreaks and the lockdowns. But the experience to date has been that once outbreaks are contained and restrictions are eased, the economy bounces back quickly.
The labour market has continued to recover faster than expected. The unemployment rate
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The great lie at the heart of Australia’s de facto COVID-19 strategy is about to be exposed
Nine News Political Editor
July 7, 2021 — 5.30am
You wouldn’t rush to get a painkiller if you were warned the side effects included the chance of tarry bloody black stools, blood in your urine and potentially fatal liver damage.
Your enthusiasm would no doubt wane further, if you learnt a decade-long study found it was responsible for an average of 9566 hospitalisations and 20 deaths each year.
Yet that’s what an overdose of paracetamol can do, and you can buy it at any supermarket in Australia.
What if you knew that as many as 14,000 people died here every year from “iatrogenic harm”, which also caused some form of permanent disability in up to another 30,000 people.
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Retirees flock to reverse mortgages to tap equity in their homes
By John Collett
July 6, 2021 — 10.30pm
The number of participants in the federal government’s reverse mortgage scheme has grown more than five-fold in less than two years as more retirees tap the equity tied up in their homes to pay for living expenses.
Just 768 people had accessed the scheme at the end of the 2018-19 financial year but their numbers swelled to 4039 by the end of March this year.
The Pension Loans Scheme (PLS) allows those who have reached age pension age to top-up their income, where their family home (or other real estate) is put up as collateral. When the house is sold, the loan is repaid from the proceeds.
However, the scheme has to approached carefully. As the loan is not repaid until the sale, interest is capitalised and over time the debt can grow to erode a large part of the property’s value.
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Labor’s plan for casuals is an election bombshell for jobs
Portable perks would not just halve the number of casual jobs, it would consign them to the outer margins of the workforce.
Mark Wooden
Jul 7, 2021 – 1.34pm
One of the many features of the Australian labour market that sets it apart from that of other Western nations is the high incidence of casual employment. The general consensus is that, for most of the past two decades, about one in every five workers (and close to one in every four employees) in Australia is employed on a casual basis.
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, this high level of casualisation has come under increased scrutiny. In part this reflects the realisation that casual workers bear the brunt of job losses in an economic downturn, and in part concerns that casual workers may have contributed to the spread of the virus because of their lack of entitlement to paid sick leave.
ACTU secretary, Sally McManus, in a speech to the National Press Club in December last year, called for a halving of the number of insecure jobs by the end of the decade, which would require a serious reduction in casual employment. And we are talking about no small change here: as at February this year, more than 2.5 million employees did not have access to paid leave entitlements (a characteristic that is common to most casual employees) in their main job.
The ACTU has been campaigning for action in this space for at least a decade, but with little success. At the start of the century, employees without paid leave entitlements represented 20 per cent of all workers, while 19 years on, in August 2020, this fraction was little different, at 19.7 per cent.
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https://www.afr.com/rear-window/auditor-general-to-probe-scomo-s-ethics-20210707-p587i3
Auditor-General to probe ScoMo’s ethics
Michael Roddan Senior companies reporter
Jul 8, 2021 – 5.00am
Ever since inquisitor-in-chief Vivienne Thom found “a number of potential breaches of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act” when Australia paid for James Shipton’s $118,557 tax advice bill, the corporate regulator has evidently taken the PGPA Act more seriously.
Since May this year, ASIC has spent $146,100 on PGPA Act training and workshops for the regulator’s commissioners and senior executives and compliance assurance regarding the laws.
The expenses debacle was set off by a letter sent in October last year by Auditor-General Grant Hehir to Josh Frydenberg, outlining his concern with the former ASIC chairman’s expenses. (Thom’s review recommended Treasury get further legal advice, Frydenberg ultimately made no adverse findings against Shipton.)
Going by the fine print in the Australian National Audit Office’s annual corporate plan released on Tuesday, Hehir would look fondly upon ASIC’s renewed enthusiasm for PGPA Act compliance.
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Why it’s not time to worry about rising interest rates yet
Senior economics writer
July 7, 2021 — 11.55pm
I believe it was Paul Keating who first introduced Australians to the inflation “genie”.
After rampant, double-digit inflation for much of the 1970s and 1980s, Keating famously declared in 1992 that “we’ve broken the back of Australian inflation” and “we won’t be letting that genie out of the bottle again”.
Treasurer Wayne Swan would later complain the Howard government had subsequently “let the inflation genie out of the bottle”. That was early February 2008, consumer prices were on the march and the Reserve Bank was poised to take its cash rate above 7 per cent, to the howls of political pain from mortgage holders.
Of course, Swan was also at the time still referring to the US “sub-prime crisis”, which we now know would soon morph into the global financial crisis, which engulfed the global economy.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/rba-boss-admits-high-immigration-has-hurt-wages-20210708-p587zy
RBA boss admits high immigration has hurt wages
RBA governor Philip Lowe has lit a fuse under the Big Australia debate, becoming the first RBA boss in living memory to suggest that high immigration has contributed to the country’s weak wages growth.
John Kehoe Economics editor
Jul 8, 2021 – 2.49pm
Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe has lit a fuse under the Big Australia debate, becoming the first RBA boss in living memory to suggest that high immigration has contributed to the country’s weak wages growth.
Lowe’s pivotal speech on the labour market will force the political class and business community to reflect on their strong backing for relatively cheap, easy growth via the large importation of foreign workers.
His admission will inadvertently pressure the federal government to adopt a more highly targeted and skilled immigration program, perhaps at lower than pre-pandemic levels once the international border eventually reopens.
The timing and level of the return of skilled workers could also influence the future outlook for interest rates, given the inextricable link between wages and inflation.
Lowe says if skilled workers in short supply are able to re-enter in six to 12 months this will alleviate wage “pressure points”.
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Super’s exceptionalism is a systematic failure
The compulsory super system paints itself as an assembly of rogue operators, but it is the only major sector without an industry code of conduct. This should be remedied.
Michael Roddan Senior companies reporter
Jul 9, 2021 – 5.00am
The idea of the exceptionalism of the superannuation sector doesn’t extend to super funds being exceptional.
One only has to look at the latest data published by the Australian Financial Complaints Authority that shows super funds are the fourth-most complained about industry (behind lenders, insurers and deposit takers).
Or perhaps the latest claims filed in the Federal Court to see the daily submissions of aggrieved consumers disputing a life insurance claim that has been knocked back by a super fund.
Consider, even, the number of current investigations into super funds by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, which, at more than 20, is equal to more than 10 per cent of Australia’s funds, if funds were not subject to more than one probe.
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https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/the-reddit-army-s-passive-attack-20210707-p587sg
The Reddit army’s passive attack on vanilla ETFs
Investors in two of the safest and cheapest funds on the ASX got a rude shock on the last day of the financial year.
Jonathan Shapiro Senior reporter
Jul 8, 2021 – 11.35am
In the age of the meme stock, the social media platform Reddit is synonymous with unbridled speculation and excessive use of emojis.
But the outrage and emotion doesn’t always relate to GameStop and Elon Musk tweets. In fact, this week, the FI (Financial Independence) Australia sub-Reddit descended into outrage around an investment that is the exact boring vanilla type made by responsible adults – index tracking exchange traded funds (ETFs).
The funds were issued by the stalwarts of the industry, Vanguard and BlackRock, which have a reputation for reliable, low-cost products. So how could one’s temperature possibly be raised in relation to a low-cost passive ETF after one of the best years ever for global stocks?
Well, it relates to a bumper dividend paid by at least two ASX-listed global stock ETFs, which had the added safety feature of being hedged to protect against adverse currency moves.
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Pandemic exit plan locks up Australia until 2022
Hannah Wootton and Mark Ludlow
Jul 4, 2021 – 7.57pm
The Morrison government’s four-phase exit plan from the pandemic means Australia will be locked away from the rest of the world until late 2022 and its economic recovery “held hostage to vaccine hesitancy”, Ai Group CEO Innes Willox has warned.
Other business leaders agreed with the grim assessment, saying that unrealistic vaccination targets for reopening and lack of a clear timeline meant Australia would continue to face lockdowns and talent shortages as the rest of the world speeds towards recovery.
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce called for vaccine availability, rather than uptake, to trigger the border reopening, as advocated by some state governments.
“I’d agree with the Victorian and Queensland Premiers when they say the trigger for opening up is everyone who wants the vaccine getting it,” he said.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/car-park-rorts-rot-the-body-politic-20210707-p587r7
Car park rorts rot the body politic
If we grow weary of saying ‘No’ to pork barrelling, we risk normalising deviancy and making unthinkable political practices acceptable.
Simon Longstaff Contributor
Jul 8, 2021 – 11.11am
I have spent the past two weeks wondering about whether or not there is any point to writing yet another article condemning political corruption among our governments. After all, nothing done or said to date has made the slightest bit of difference. If anything, government ministers have become even more brazen in their contempt for standards of political ethics.
At one point, I thought we had hit “rock bottom” when, last November, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian defended the blatant misuse of public funds for private political purposes (pork barrelling) by saying that it was “not illegal” and common when she observed, “That is what our process rightly or wrongly is part of ... it’s not, unfortunately, unique or uncommon to my government”.
However, Berejiklian’s digging of a deep ethical hole was nothing compared to the Stygian cavern created by Finance Minister Simon Birmingham.
In fact, from all of what I have heard of Birmingham – and his character – I still cannot believe the words he uttered on Sunday are truly his. For there he was, on national television, effectively arguing that a political bribe is not a bribe if it works!
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https://www.afr.com/wealth/personal-finance/make-your-will-iron-clad-20210708-p587yu
Make your will iron-clad
Having the last say on your assets could save family disputes and crippling legal bills.
Duncan Hughes Reporter
Jul 10, 2021 – 12.00am
Estate planning is becoming an intergenerational battlefront as the number of disputes over wills and mediations about who should control ageing parents’ assets continues to rise.
Forced mediations involving children seeking guardianship over assets have more than doubled as people live longer and rising asset values, particularly real estate, hugely inflate wealth.
“It’s often a power play to take control over relatives’ affairs,” says Andrew Meiliunas, state litigation leader for lawyers’ Maurice Blackburn, about the sharp rise in guardianship applications.
Family disputes about wills and estates have jumped by more than 80 per cent in the past decade as the number of “blended families” rose sharply, adds Anna Hacker, national manager of estate planning with Australian Unity Trustees.
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Your food bill has shot up? You’re not alone
By Adam Taylor
July 7, 2021 — 7.21pm
Washington: A year of coronavirus pandemic saw a pot of jollof rice, a classic Nigerian dish, grow steadily more expensive in Nyanya. At the Nyanya market, near Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, the price of the rice that forms the base for the dish has gone up by 10 per cent.
A small tin of tomatoes? Twenty-nine per cent costlier. And the onions? Their price jumped by a third, according to a Nigerian research firm.
Surging consumer food prices are a local problem – and a global one.
In Russia, an increase in pasta prices left President Vladimir Putin boiling. In India, it’s cooking oil, and in Lebanon, bread. In meat-loving Argentina, the cost of some cuts of beef has doubled, and beef consumption is at an all-time low.
The issue has made headlines the world over, including in the United States, where inflation has climbed to 5 per cent, the highest level in 13 years.
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‘Heads should roll’ after NDIS reforms dumped
12:04AM July 10, 2021
A plan to tighten eligibility and packages for the NDIS has been dumped, as Labor calls for the disability insurance scheme’s leadership to be sacked.
Federal NDIS Minister Linda Reynolds confirmed late on Friday that the independent assessments process as it stands will not go ahead after a meeting with state counterparts, and she will now work on a new model to rein in costs.
The Morrison government for months backed the independent assessments proposal by which contracted allied professionals would assess whether a disabled person should be on the NDIS, rather than the current model under which the assessment is based on evidence provided by the participants’ own specialists.
In the days ahead of the meeting, Senator Reynolds acknowledged that the proposals had frightened disabled Australians and foreshadowed a significant redraft.
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Nuclear stacks up - cue the meltdown
12:00AM July 10, 2021
Australia has a unique distinction among the G20 nations. We have taken a stand, outlawing a practice every other G20 member allows and almost every G20 member engages in.
We are environmental outliers, in effect climate deniers. We outlaw a pro-green, emissions-reducing practice that is increasingly important across the planet.
What could it be? Are we doing something weird to assist our vital minerals sector, the source of our national wealth, or our agricultural sector?
No, our action is purely negative, and more or less insane.
Alone among G20 nations, we have a legislative prohibition on nuclear energy.
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Coronavirus And Impacts.
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The long goodbye to Covid-19
The Economist
3:12PM July 4, 2021
When will it end? For a year and a half, Covid-19 has gripped one country after another. Just when you think the virus is beaten, a new variant comes storming back, more infectious than the last.
And yet, as the number of vaccinations passes 3 billion, glimpses of post-Covid life are emerging. Already, two things are clear: that the last phase of the pandemic will be drawn-out and painful; and that Covid will leave behind a different world.
This week The Economist publishes a normalcy index, which reflects both these realities. Taking the pre-pandemic average as 100, it tracks such things as flights, traffic and retailing across 50 countries comprising 76 per cent of Earth’s population. Today it stands at 66, almost double the level in April 2020.
Yet the ravages of Covid -19 are still apparent in many countries. Consider our index’s worst performer, Malaysia, which is suffering a wave of infections six times more deadly than the surge in January and scores just 27. The main reason for this is that vaccination remains incomplete.
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The UK is now a test tube for a future where jabs replace COVID restrictions
July 6, 2021 — 11.22am
London: Boris Johnson can’t resist a good metaphor and the coronavirus pandemic has offered ample opportunity to indulge.
Promising vaccine trials sounded like “drumming hooves of the cavalry coming over the brow of the hill”, the British Prime Minister said last year. A reduction in cases at the end of winter was “the crocus of hope poking through the frost”. He has also praised vaccine researchers for performing “biological jiu-jitsu” to turn the virus on itself.
The former journalist now has a new favourite line: Britain’s world-leading inoculation program has built the medical equivalent of a “protective wall”. And by abolishing all remaining restrictions while infections surge, he is setting up a major test of how strong that wall really is.
The removal of restrictions is not particularly unique and has occurred in plenty of other countries, including the United States.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/facts-on-covid-19-politicians-won-t-tell-you-20210705-p586za
Facts on COVID-19 that politicians won’t tell you
Nobody in the political class and very few people in the sensationalist media are prepared to whisper some indisputable facts about the pandemic, relying instead on fear.
John Kehoe Economics editor
Jul 7, 2021 – 12.18pm
An elderly relative emailed me last week, curious to know about the reliability of COVID-19 death statistics.
Sadly, her 90-year-old friend in Geneva had been dying in hospital with oesophageal cancer and had also suffered a stroke. He was, according to my relative, non compos mentis and was very soon expected to die.
In his final days, he caught COVID-19. His death was officially attributed to the virus.
Similarly, my relative’s walking group friend also knew someone who was officially listed as dying from the virus but was about to die any day from cancer of the spleen.
“My question is, if these sorts of deaths come under ‘COVID virus’. does this not upset the statistics for what the real cause of death actually is?” my relative asked.
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Berejiklian sends a dire message to NSW, and her cabinet
Sensing an internal revolt over the Sydney lockdown, the NSW premier was clear that she intends to stamp out the delta COVID-19 variant.
Aaron Patrick Senior correspondent
Jul 9, 2021 – 2.05pm
Gladys Berejiklian had a message for her state on Friday, and her cabinet: I’m going to crush delta COVID-19.
The NSW Premier’s previous encouragement to exercise common sense and assurances that health authorities have the outbreak under control were gone.
The new message was dire and definitive. “We are facing the greatest threat that we have faced in NSW since the pandemic started,” she told reporters.
The Premier might have included herself in the statement. On Friday morning the Sydney Morning Herald reported that three NSW government ministers had suggested it was time to consider abandoning the battle to kill the virus.
Amid an outbreak the government does not have under control, the leak demonstrated a remarkable display of internal self-doubt.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/how-we-got-into-this-vaccine-mess-20210708-p587v7
How Australia got into this vaccine mess
Targets for vaccine take-up aren’t expected to be released until August, but all agree there’s only one way out of the health and economic crisis of COVID-19.
Tom McIlroy Political reporter
Jul 9, 2021 – 1.12pm
When Prime Minister Scott Morrison tapped Lieutenant-General John Frewen to take charge of the nation’s faltering vaccine rollout, the straight-talking military man faced an immense task.
After successfully navigating the immediate health crisis posed by COVID-19 – flattening the virus curve and using closed borders to keep out new dangerous new variants – Australia finds itself at risk of being left behind.
Overseas supply problems and confusing changes to medical advice on the workhorse AstraZeneca vaccine has seen the country slip from the ranks of international first movers, leaving us shut off from the world and hamstrung in the international recovery.
From “the front of the queue” in February to “the back of the queue” by July, the Morrison government now faces growing anger about the pace of the rollout, copping blame for Sydney’s extended lockdown from politicians and punters alike.
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Gold standard tarnish as virus charges through Sydney
The mounting political and logistical challenges in NSW are going to need more than Scott Morrison’s last-minute vaccine deal.
Laura Tingle Columnist
Jul 9, 2021 – 4.52pm
Around the middle of this week, the people working for the NSW health system who do modelling on the likely path of a COVID-19 outbreak started to feel a bit pale and queasy.
It wasn’t that they had caught the disease, just the dreadful realisation of the extent to which the spread of the delta variant was blowing out, despite a partial lockdown. It had almost certainly seeded in a whole new series of communities, probably including communities outside Sydney, and they could no longer be sure they knew where all the chains of communication ran.
Thursday’s official NSW figures, but particularly Friday’s figures, illustrated these points – and their implications – very starkly.
The number of close contacts of people found to be infectious in NSW doubled overnight between Thursday and Friday from 7000 to 14,000, including 2000 linked to a case at an Ikea store.
There were 37 cases that had not been directly linked to a known case or cluster on Friday, with a further 117 linked to these 37 unlinked cases.
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Another month of lockdown restrictions predicted for Sydney
Tom Burton Government editor
Jul 9, 2021 – 5.02pm
Sydney’s outbreak is on a “knife-edge” of losing control with epidemiologists warning the outbreak has yet to peak, predicting it will take at least a month of restrictions to stop community transmission of the highly infectious delta variant.
The epidemiologists all focused on the need to enforce strict controls, to bring the number of infected people who have not been in isolation down to zero, as the key to suppressing the outbreak.
“I don’t think we’re near the peak,” UNSW Kirby Institute professor of global biosecurity Raina MacIntyre said.
“I think we’re on the absolute knife-edge of it of losing control of this epidemic.
“We’ve had two weeks of a partial lockdown and at the end of that two weeks you would hope to see the numbers down to the low single digits. But the opposite has happened.”
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First in line for vaccines, but it’s not a race. The PM can’t spin vaccines into arms
Columnist and senior journalist
July 11, 2021 — 5.00am
“The Eagle has landed,” Health Minister Greg Hunt told reporters on February 15. “I am pleased to be able to tell Australians that shortly after midday, the first shipment of Pfizer vaccines arrived in Australia.”
The language was borrowed from the moon landing – the greatest feat of human ingenuity ever accomplished. The preciseness of the arrival time – “shortly after midday” – heightened the sense of occasion.
There was footage of large crates being removed from a plane. Soon, politicians were baring pasty upper arms for vaccination photo opps. Hunt even got a lollipop.
These photo opps were the natural progression of the earlier photo opps, the ones of Prime Minister Scott Morrison strolling through laboratories and squinting into microscopes, wearing a lab coat and a serious expression as he inspected scientists toiling over vaccines.
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Harsher lockdown the only ‘real option’ left to save Sydney from Covid-19
An expert has warned there’s only one “real option” left to save Sydney – and it involves a raft of extremely harsh new restrictions.
July 11, 20218:24am
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is being urged to call in the military to enforce a total lockdown in greater Sydney as a last-ditch effort to control the virus numbers amid fears infection rates are set to spike in coming days.
Epidemiologist Tony Blakely told news.com.au that the state faces three grim choices after daily case numbers spiked to 50 in a single day and the only “real option” was a draconian lockdown enforced with troops on the streets.
Those three options are: the ‘let it rip’ approach and allowing the Delta variant to circulate in the community, continue with a partial lockdown with many retail stores still open and a third option which is send in the troops and more police.
Divisions have emerged in recent days in the Berejiklian Government amid reports there was opposition in NSW cabinet to extending the lockdown, including from Treasurer Dominic Perrottet who is working on a major rescue and support package for businesses and workers left reeling from the shutdown.
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Climate Change.
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Big $300m battery to be built without government aid in market first
By Peter Hannam
July 5, 2021 — 4.52pm
Victoria will get Australia’s first grid-scale battery built without government support by the end of 2022, marking what its proponent says is a tipping point in the electricity sector as storage prices tumble.
Lumea, the commercial arm of TransGrid, began taking expressions of interest on Monday for a giant 300-megawatt battery to be built at its Deer Park substation, west of Melbourne.
Lumea, a spinoff from the TransGrid company, plans to build a giant new battery at Deer Park, in Melbourne’s west. The project is a turning point because the owners say it won’t need any government support to proceed.
Lumea’s head of infrastructure, Nigel Buchanan, said the array of lithium-ion batteries would be able to supply 580 megawatt hours of electricity, enough to power about 1 million homes for half an hour before needing to be recharged.
It would come online in 12 to 18 months at a cost of $270 million to $300 million. In a first, the venture would be fully financed by the private sector.
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Royal Commissions And The Like.
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No entries in this section.
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National Budget Issues.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/the-first-mover-advantage-on-economic-tightening-20210703-p586li
The first mover advantage on economic tightening
The election cycle will factor into the government’s thinking about when the tightening of the purse strings begins.
Ronald Mizen Economics correspondent
Jul 5, 2021 – 5.00am
With the jobless rate well below official forecasts and likely to keep falling, the conditions for monetary and fiscal tightening look set to be met ahead of official forecasts.
The suggestion from a growing cohort of economists is the continuation of the strong economic data seen in recent months will force the Reserve Bank to lift rates ahead of the current 2024 suggestion.
This has been reflected in a recalibration of expectations for when the cash rate will begin to lift; the most notable being the Commonwealth Bank’s call for late-2022, and Westpac’s for early-2023.
But monetary policy isn’t the only tool to slow the hot recovery.
And hot it is – more than 115,000 people found jobs in May, driving unemployment from 5.5 per cent to 5.1 per cent.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/rba-scales-back-stimulus-on-stronger-recovery-20210706-p5877i
RBA scales back stimulus on ‘stronger’ recovery
Ronald Mizen Economics correspondent
Jul 6, 2021 – 3.14pm
The Reserve Bank has kept the cash rate at a record low 0.1 per cent but will move to a more flexible, scaled back bond buying program to reflect the strength of Australia’s economic recovery.
Following the conclusion of the current six-month $100 billion bond buy-up, the central bank will transition to a more flexible program of $4 billion per week, down from $5 billion, which will be reviewed in November.
The market had expected a shift to a flexible purchase program, but the reduction in the size came as a surprise to many economists.
The previous profile for quantitative easing was $100 billion worth of bond purchases over six months – $200 billion total since November last year.
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Reserve Bank makes slow and steady exodus from monetary stimulus
Karen Maley Columnist
Jul 6, 2021 – 5.59pm
Reserve Bank boss Phil Lowe has now laid out his plans for adjusting monetary policy as the economy bounces back vigorously from the devastation wreaked by the coronavirus pandemic.
There’ll be no abrupt changes in direction that could easily startle investors, businesses and households. Rather, monetary stimulus will be eased back gradually, and very much in tandem with the economy’s performance.
Lowe’s very nuanced approach was on full display on Tuesday. A number of economists have been arguing that the Reserve Bank will be forced to bring forward its timetable for raising interest rates, given the strength of the economic recovery, and particularly the robust performance of the jobs market.
But Lowe opted for a much more deliberate and measured approach to winding back the Reserve Bank’s monetary stimulus.
For instance, instead of committing the Reserve Bank into a new bond-buying program of a pre-determined size, Lowe has opted to take a more flexible approach.
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RBA flags changes to housing market and interest rates as economy bounces back
By Shane Wright and Jennifer Duke
Updated July 6, 2021 — 6.35pmfirst published at 2.44pm
Official interest rates could be hiked before 2024 due to the nation’s rapid economic bounce-back from the coronavirus pandemic as the Reserve Bank reveals it is already war gaming how to take heat out of the nation’s booming property market.
The RBA kept interest rates on hold at its July meeting but governor Philip Lowe said in a rare press conference on Tuesday afternoon that the economy has now shifted into an expansion phase and had recovered faster than expected from the coronavirus recession.
Ahead of the meeting the bank had said interest rates would not be lifted until 2024 “at the earliest” but Dr Lowe signalled the strength of the recovery meant this point may be brought forward.
“Our central scenario continues to be that the condition for an increase in the cash rate will not be met until 2024,” Dr Lowe said. “But there are alternative plausible scenarios as well ... This means that probabilities have shifted”.
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Health Issues.
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Curing cancer, designer babies, supersoldiers: How will gene-editing change us?
Saving lives or playing God? Why are the stakes so high in genetic engineering? In the second part of our series exploring the science behind science fiction, we consider where the gene-editing revolution might lead.
July 4, 2021
When the twin girls were born, one October night in 2018, they carried a secret: a hidden tweak in their DNA even the hospital in China didn’t know about. They were the world’s first genetically engineered humans.
The next month, news of their existence broke just as the scientist behind the engineering, Dr He Jiankui, was addressing peers at a global summit. Facing down an uncharacteristically rowdy hall of scientists, he explained: with fertility treatments illegal for prospective parents with HIV in China, he had instead edited the girls as embryos to be resistant to the AIDS virus carried by their father. He said genetic testing showed that “Lulu” and “Nana” were “as healthy as any babies”. Their real identity is now a state secret in China and it is not known how they are doing.
But Dr He has been jailed for three years and his research internationally condemned as rogue “Frankenstein” science. He had faked tests, kept doctors in the dark, and bypassed ethics boards in his quest to be the first to “cross the germline” and engineer humans. Some even suspected he had targeted the specific gene in question not only because it was linked to HIV infection but because it had been shown to boost brain power, when removed in mice. What had been feared by many in the scientific community, especially since the creation of the breakthrough gene-editing tool CRISPR, had come to pass.
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Bright start for rapid tester Lumos, but Australia not its target
By Emma Koehn
July 5, 2021 — 3.56pm
The boss of the ASX’s newest biotech debutante Lumos says the company is looking overseas to crack the $40 billion rapid testing sector because Australia is lagging behind in demand in the use of diganostic testing.
Lumos Diagnostics shares reached a high of $1.50 on Monday after making its debut on the Australian sharemarket - 20 per cent up on the company’s $1.25 offer price - before settling at $1.33 in mid afternoon trade.
Lumos, which was spun out of Melbourne health-tech commercialisation group Planet Innovation, produces two diagnostic tests designed for use at a doctor’s office, to deliver a result in minutes without the need to send samples to a lab.
One test, FebriDx, is designed to distinguish between viral and bacterial infections and has been used to triage COVID-19 patients in the UK by identifying which ones have a virus and require further isolation and testing. It is hoped the test will help the fight against resistance by stopping antibiotics from being prescribed when they aren’t needed.
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International Issues.
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British TV news channel looks to fix things after ‘rocky start’
Hans van Leeuwen Europe correspondent
Jul 4, 2021 – 1.54pm
London | Britain’s colourful and controversial debutant TV channel GB News enters its fourth week of life, having pushed through its tumultuous reception to steady the ship, overcoming technical glitches and advertiser reticence – but also losing viewers.
The channel – launched on June 13 by one of Britain’s foremost interviewers Andrew Neil and helmed by former Sky News Australia boss Angelos Frangopoulos – is seen as a right-wing squawk box, but claims to be no more than a counterweight to the perceived biases and preoccupations of the liberal metropolitan media.
That was enough to lure 250,000 viewers on opening night and a reported 2.2 million on June 14, the first full day of broadcasting. But media reports suggest the number of daily viewers has halved since then, falling behind the news channels of Sky and the BBC.
Neil’s 8pm show has been the standout success, and industry data suggests he was initially commanding twice as many viewers as those who tuned in to BBC News and Sky News.
But after just a fortnight on air, he announced he was taking a break for “a few weeks” to “replenish my batteries after the rigours of the launch”.
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Biden’s China policy still a work in progress
James Curran Columnist
Updated Jul 4, 2021 – 2.25pm, first published at 1.47pm
As Joe Biden approaches six months in office, his China policy is still under construction.
Biden represents continuity with Donald Trump without aping entirely his predecessor’s confrontational stance, sensitivity to Congressional and domestic political pressures without being hostage to them. Issuing sonorous reassurances to allies, it’s not yet clear how he can formalise collective action in response to Beijing’s assertiveness.
But the assumption pervasive in Canberra, that Biden will prosecute a new Cold War against China, may well prove mistaken.
Interviewed for this column on Biden’s China policy, Evan Medeiros, formerly senior director for Asia in president Barack Obama’s National Security Council (NSC), stresses that “engagement is not inconsistent with competition … that is a false dichotomy. Rather, the two policies are mutually supportive”.
That doesn’t mean, however, that statecraft can eradicate the deep divisions that plague the American polity and cloud calls for unity on China. As distinguished US journalist George Packer has noted, how to tap patriotic feeling in a fractured America remains fraught.
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The three big hurdles to global tax deal
Sweeping changes aimed at discouraging companies from shopping around for the countries with the lowest rates have a tough road ahead.
Karen Maley Columnist
Jul 4, 2021 – 5.02pm
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is no doubt jubilant at the idea of picking up an extra $3 billion in tax revenue as a result of the new global tax deal, but he shouldn’t be too hasty in booking the extra proceeds.
Because there are three major hurdles to be overcome before the new tax rules are enacted.
Last week, officials from 130 countries agreed to sweeping changes to the global tax system aimed at discouraging companies from shopping around for the countries with the lowest tax rates.
The new rules enshrine a 15 per cent minimum corporate tax rate, and introduce changes that will force large corporations – including tech giants such as Amazon and Facebook – to pay taxes in countries where their goods and services are sold, even if they have no physical presence there.
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Exit from Afghanistan seems illogical; Why it’s happening anyway
Dow Jones
July 6, 2021
The US military hasn’t suffered a fatality in Afghanistan since February 2020 — that is, for 16 months. So the tangible costs of staying in the country, at the reduced troop levels that had become the new normal, would have been relatively low.
Meantime, the intangible risks of leaving, on humanitarian as well as strategic grounds, are relatively high.
So what is it about the mood of America today that is compelling a departure? The question is largely rhetorical at this point, because the departure is happening.
The Pentagon said last week that the withdrawal will be completed by the end of August, a few weeks earlier than expected when President Biden said forces would be out by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that prompted the move into Afghanistan in the first place.
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Video shows how Chinese army would strike Taiwan
By Didi Tang
The Times
10:43PM July 5, 2021
A Chinese magazine has marked the ruling Communist Party’s centenary by releasing a video simulating a military attack on Taiwan. It follows a warning by President Xi Jinping that any move to separate the island nation from China would be resolutely opposed.
“Let’s together make the deafening voice: Taiwan independence is a dead-end road,” declared Naval and Merchant Ships, a magazine published by the Chinese Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers.
It said on social media that the 11-minute video was a compilation of “wisdom and innovative ideas” by its director, scriptwriters and many web users on “Taiwan liberation”.
The video shows China launching hundreds of missiles and taking the Taiwanese forces by surprise.
Taiwan’s warning system fails, and its fighter jets are destroyed before they can take off. After disabling Taiwan’s anti-air missiles, Chinese forces sink its warships.
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Can England’s manager deliver both victory and progressive patriotism?
The truth is that sport is wonderful at creating fleeting moments of euphoria. Lasting social or political change is a much bigger ask.
Gideon Rachman Columnist
Jul 6, 2021 – 9.21am
The prospect that England might win a major football tournament for the first time in 55 years will transfix the country over the coming week. Over 26 million people, almost half the population of England, tuned in to watch the win against Ukraine on Saturday.
Hysteria is building steadily ahead of a semi-final on Wednesday (Thursday AEST) and a possible final at the weekend.
For the Johnson government the symbolism of an England triumph, just six months after Brexit, would be delightful. The prime minister has so far resisted the temptation to make the connection, but some of his allies have been less restrained.
After England beat Germany, Lord Moylan, a former Johnson aide, crowed: “Poor Germans, this wasn’t the Brexit narrative fed them by their press, was it?”
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Biden’s Asia tsar has a warning for Australia about China
Matthew Cranston United States correspondent
Updated Jul 7, 2021 – 8.02am, first published at 1.50am
Washington | The world, particularly Australia, should settle in for a low-yield, long-haul fight with China, but prepare for even greater support from the United States a senior White House official said.
In a pessimistic outlook for the Australia-China relationship, the Biden Administration’s White House Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, Kurt Campbell, said it was clear China was continuing to isolate Australia and that the Chinese looked increasingly less likely to change their diplomatic position, especially following last week’s speech of nationalist aggression from President Xi Jinping.
He also said any attempts by China to do with Taiwan what it had done with Hong Kong, would be “catastrophic.“
Mr Campbell, regarded as President Joe Biden’s so-called “Asia tsar”, reiterated a promise made five months ago that the US would not leave Australia on the field and would, in fact, be increasing its support and presence in the region in coming months and years.
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Xi seeks reset with Europe as rivalry with US, Australia grows
Michael Smith China correspondent
Jul 6, 2021 – 5.12pm
A week after warning Beijing would not be bullied by foreign powers, China’s President Xi Jinping is working to mend ties with Europe after securing commitments from the leaders of France and Germany to resurrect a major investment treaty.
As relations with Australia, the United States and Japan soured further on Tuesday, China’s state media talked up a three-way video call overnight between Mr Xi, France’s Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
While Mr Macron and Ms Merkel broached the sensitive subject of China’s human rights record, according to Chinese summaries of the call, they also expressed support for a European Union investment pact with China that had been stalled by concerns about the treatment of Xinjiang’s Uighur Muslims.
Keen to undermine US President Joe Biden’s efforts for a united pushback by Western democracies against China, Mr Xi called for stronger co-operation between Europe and Beijing in the areas of trade and culture, and in tackling the pandemic and climate change.
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Ivanka Trump would turn on her father to avoid jail, says Mary Trump
Martha Ross
Jul 7, 2021 – 4.35am
New York | Donald Trump may have showered Ivanka Trump with adoration all her life and given her a job in his White House, but none of that would stop her from co-operating with prosecutors if it would keep her out of prison, said Mary Trump, the former president’s niece.
“She’s much less likely to stay loyal than Allen Weisselberg,” Mary Trump said in a recent interview with the Daily Beast’s “New Abnormal” podcast. Mary Trump, who famously shared Trump family secrets in her 2020 book, Too Much and Never Enough, was referring to the Trump Organisation CFO who was indicted last week on tax fraud charges related to the former president’s real estate development company.
Prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office want to get Mr Weisselberg to flip on his former boss. But Mary Trump said her cousin, Ivanka, would have even more motivation to co-operate with prosecutors than the longtime CFO. Before working for her father in the White House, Ivanka Trump worked with her brothers, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, as an executive vice president for the family business.
While Mary Trump said it’s hard to believe that Ivanka Trump would turn on her father in such a “low rent” Shakespearean move, she noted that all relationships between Donald Trump and his four adult children are “transactional and conditional”.
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Unfolding disaster on our doorstep demands Australia’s attention
July 7, 2021 — 8.10am
Singapore: For days, as Indonesia’s hospitals have buckled, oxygen has run low and COVID-19 infections and deaths have soared to record levels, the Indonesian President’s point man on the crisis engulfing Australia’s near neighbour has insisted there is no need to panic.
“Everything is under control,” said senior minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Joko Widodo’s most trusted lieutenant on Monday, the day after 33 patients died in a hospital in Yogyakarta while its oxygen supply was depleted.
The message has been maintained as space in intensive-care units has been exhausted, emergency tents have been erected and as hundreds have died at home.
As the outbreak accelerates in the world’s fourth most populous country, however, there is an acceptance now that help from outside may be needed.
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Europe refuses to heed COVID lessons from Britain as fourth wave hits
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
July 7, 2021 — 10.00am
For our free coronavirus pandemic coverage, learn more here.
Europe has again misjudged the contours, time-lags and politics of the pandemic. Large swathes of the continent will be in an incontrovertible fourth wave by the end of this month, before they are sufficiently vaccinated to ignore the medical consequences. This will be hard to explain.
COVID cases in Spain’s Catalonia region are currently running above UK levels on a per capita basis. Portugal is tracking the UK’s trajectory with only a slight delay, while France’s health minister Olivier Véran says his country may be overwhelmed by late July. As if it were an omen, Luxembourg’s prime minister has been hospitalised with COVID days after attending a summit of EU leaders in Brussels.
Yet Europe’s internal borders remain wide open. The imperative of saving this year’s tourist season has paralysed political leaders.
In a surreal twist, the European Commission is actively threatening measures against Germany for imposing a quarantine requirement on its own residents returning from Portugal - that is to say, for trying to prevent more deaths in Germany as a result of largely unnecessary travel. Justice commissioner Didier Reynders says the rules must be exactly the same for everybody. It is doctrinal madness.
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Why is a country as wealthy as the US tearing itself apart?
Whatever its cause, America’s economic and civic decoupling is easy to spin favourably. The story is not that a rich country is so politically broken but that a politically broken country is so rich.
Janan Ganesh Contributor
Jul 7, 2021 – 9.47am
Here follow pairs of facts about the contemporary US. The economy added 850,000 jobs in one month; a third of voters believe the last presidential election was stolen.
A lockdown with no peacetime precedent cost just 3.5 per cent of national output; states as large as Georgia are curbing the independence of election officials.
At 7 per cent, anticipated economic growth this year is that of mid-2000s China; a twice-impeached president is near-favourite to clinch the next Republican nomination.
America’s economic and civic prospects could hardly be more divergent. The war against cliché stops me reciting the first sentence of A Tale of Two Cities. But Americans really can claim to have “everything before us” and “nothing before us”, to be savouring spring and enduring winter all at once.
Their nation has arrived at a sort of affluent dysfunction.
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Fed minutes reveal confusion and uncertainty about the economic outlook
Senior business columnist
July 8, 2021 — 12.01pm
The Federal Reserve Board’s minutes of the June meeting of the committee that decides monetary policies reek of confusion. So it’s probably not surprising there is a similar polarity of views in financial markets.
The results of the June meeting of the Open Market Committee were notable for the shift in the balance of opinions and projections within the committee as America faces the highest inflation numbers in nearly 30 years and an economy that has been rebounding hard after it began to reopen from the worst impact of the pandemic.
Growth and inflation expectations were revised up, and the expected start of a tapering of the Fed’s $US120 billion ($160 billion) monthly bond and mortgage purchases and of interest rate rises were brought forward.
The minutes of that meeting, however, show that the abrupt shift in the Fed’s tone wasn’t as “hawkish” as its economic projections and its famous “dot plot” of interest rate expectations suggested.
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US abandons Afghanistan to totalitarian hell
12:00AM July 8, 2021
Afghans who have worked closely with either the US or its allies are now in extreme danger, and it is vital that their prompt resettlement to the countries that they have assisted not become entangled in the red tape for which migration-control bureaucracies are notorious.
Those Afghans have been put in peril by President Joe Biden’s announcement that all US forces would be withdrawn by September 11. This week it was revealed the US had already deserted Bagram, its biggest air base in the country, reportedly without informing the Afghan military. How this will end remains to be seen, but it is timely to reflect on the dangers; both for Afghans and for their erstwhile supporters in the wider world.
While the US committed vast sums to Afghanistan — and by 2021 it had become popular in the US to refer to Afghanistan as “America’s longest war” — for much of the preceding two decades, the attention the US paid to Afghanistan was fitful and prone to drift.
The US had great difficulty in developing a coherent strategic narrative to animate its various activities in Afghanistan, and tended to rely on propaganda to project an aura of success. And from 2002 onwards, US leaders became preoccupied with Iraq, at the expense of the Afghan theatre of operations.
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Chinese military threat is overstated
12:00AM July 9, 2021
Comments in May by a Beijing newspaper editor suggesting strategic missile strikes on Australian targets under some circumstances should not alarm Australians. They were made in response to comments coming out of Australia about supporting the US in any conflict over Taiwan, and in the context of the Chinese Communist Party’s 100th anniversary celebrations.
Such strikes – even if with conventional warheads – would only be conceivable in a major US-led conflict with China that included Australian forces, in which the US was conducting strikes against strategic targets in mainland China.
The primary role of the Chinese strategic missile force is to deter a US, or Russian, first strike on China. On paper, China’s People’s Liberation Army certainly looks impressive in terms of total numbers of active military personnel (2.18 million). China has the world’s largest military force and second-largest defence budget, although it is still only one third of the US defence budget.
Some analysts warn China has one of the fastest modernising militaries in the world – that it’s a budding military superpower. It has an impressive range of advanced military equipment, often developed through cyber-theft of other nations’ military research. (According to the US National Security Agency, China stole “many terabytes” of sensitive military information on the Joint Strike Fighter.)
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Richard Nixon warned of US decline 50 years ago
9:00AM July 7, 2021
The US has been through dark times before — and in living memory. Fifty years ago this week, President Richard Nixon spoke frankly about America’s doldrums in a speech that didn’t get enough attention from the media at the time or historians since. On July 6, 1971, the 37th president addressed senior midwestern media executives in Kansas City, Mo., amid racial unrest, campus agitation and anti-war protests.
The columns of the National Archives Building in Washington reminded Nixon of ancient fallen empires. “I think of what happened to Greece and Rome, and you see what is left — only the pillars. What has happened, of course, is that the great civilisations of the past, as they have become wealthy, as they have lost their will to live, to improve, they then have become subject to decadence that eventually destroys the civilisation.” Nixon’s lament: “The United States is now reaching that period.”
America, he said, needed to find the “moral and spiritual strength” to shape the emerging post-Vietnam era. Counterculture revolutionaries wanted to define America as “an ugly country.” Nixon urged his countrymen to reject “negativism” and “defeatism” and concentrate on building a nation that was “healthy” both morally and physically.
“The United States no longer is in the position of complete pre-eminence or predominance,” he said, because “we now face a situation where four other powers” — the Soviet Union, Western Europe, Japan and China — “have the ability to challenge us on every front.” Yet this “can be a constructive thing.” A few months later, he told Time magazine: “I think it will be a safer world and a better world if we have a strong, healthy United States, Europe, Soviet Union, China, Japan, each balancing the other.”
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G20 endorses historic global tax reform
AFP
4:45AM July 11, 2021
G20 finance ministers on Saturday gave their backing to a historic deal to overhaul the way multinational companies are taxed, and urged hold-out countries to get on board.
Some 132 countries have already signed up to a framework for international tax reform, including a minimum corporate rate of 15 percent, struck earlier this month.
"We have achieved a historic agreement on a more stable and fairer international tax architecture," the ministers said in a final statement following two days of talks in Venice, hosted by G20 president Italy.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, among those attending the grouping's first face-to-face meeting since February 2020, said the momentum must not now be lost.
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
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