July 4, 2019 Edition.
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Well it looks like the world has survived the G20 meeting in Osaka with Trump and Xi agreeing to start working again on a trade agreement and a few concessions from both sides to calm and smooth the way. What happens with the Koreas will be interesting, but thus far it looks like a fizzer. July 4 with tanks is a bit of a change and many Americans are not impressed. Trump's damage to the global economy is a real worry and now South Korea / Japan are fighting the 1940's war about "comfort women" yet again. More damage to world trade..
Brexit continues to be an absolute swamp!
Mr Morrison has had a good G20 but now faces the return of Parliament and all that brings. In the first few days the deals have been done and the tax package has been passed as interest rates reach 1%. One suspects all is not well!
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Major Issues.
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A sudden belch of methane has NASA searching for life on Mars
By Kenneth Chang
June 23, 2019 — 2.05pm
Mars, it appears, is belching a large amount of a gas that could be a sign of microbes living on the planet today.
In a measurement taken on Wednesday, NASA's Curiosity rover discovered startlingly high amounts of methane in the Martian air, a gas that on Earth is usually produced by living things. The data arrived back on Earth on Thursday, and by Friday, scientists working on the mission were excitedly discussing the news, which has not yet been announced by NASA.
"Given this surprising result, we've reorganised the weekend to run a follow-up experiment," Ashwin R. Vasavada, the project scientist for the mission, wrote to the science team in an email that was obtained by The New York Times.
The mission's controllers on Earth sent new instructions to the rover on Friday to follow up on the readings, bumping previously planned science work. The results of these observations are expected back on the ground on Monday.
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High Court judgment still leaves donor-conceived families in limbo about who is a legal parent
June 21, 2019 12.41pm AEST
Authors
Lecturer in Law, La Trobe University
Professor, Law School, La Trobe University
Families formed using donor conception have, for a decade or more, assumed donors of sperm and eggs are not legal parents because state and territory laws state they are not.
Over time, judges have opened up cracks in that apparent certainty, particularly for lesbian families and single mothers.
This week’s High Court’s decision in the Masson case blasts those cracks wide open, leaving the legal parentage of many donor-conceived children uncertain.
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'Survival of the fittest' as equity managers exit
Jun 24, 2019 — 12.00am
Numerous active equity funds have closed their doors in the first six months of 2019 due to a volatile trading environment and investors switching to passive funds with lower fees, according to those in the industry.
Some of the names that have shut up shop or are in the process of winding down operations are KIS Capital, Sigma Funds Management, JCP Investment Partners, Western Australia's The Dual Momentum Fund and the Australian equities operation of British giant Janus Henderson.
Tribeca Investment Partners portfolio manager Jun Bei Liu said she believed there were two main reasons behind the closures.
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'You can't bet against a cycle', says Aberdeen boss
Jun 24, 2019 — 12.00am
Aberdeen Standard's new head of Australian equities and expert flamenco dancer Michelle Lopez says both markets and dancing are all about timing and investors should start to prepare for the end of a long cycle where valuations have hit extremes.
Lopez takes over as head of Australian equities at the fund management giant from incumbent Robert Penaloza on July 1 after joining the firm about 15 years ago as a graduate.
It's a key moment to step into a high-profile role in Australian equities, with the sharemarket pushing toward an all-time high as government bond yields plummet to record lows.
"It's a strange time and this is why you always have to remember that markets are markets and there are always cycles to them. This is an extended cycle but it's still a cycle," she says.
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How to make money during a recession
By Barry Ritholtz
June 24, 2019 — 9.45am
Ever since the Great Recession ended in June 2009, investors have been treated to a stream of forecasts warning that another slump is right around the corner. As we have seen, none of these predictions have come to pass. Smart investors paid little heed to predictions that were subjective and of little value.
Enter Campbell R. Harvey. He's a finance professor at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. He also is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, which among other things provides the official start and end dates of expansions and contractions. Most important of all, he maintains one of the more rigorous models for analyzing the potential for a future economic contraction.
Harvey is not an alarmist; to the contrary, he is a sober-minded researcher. In a recent YouTube discussion of the warning signs of an impending recession, he cited four signals. One is the Duke-CFO Global Business Outlook survey, which this month found that more than two-thirds of corporate chief financial officers expect that a recession will be underway by the end of 2020. His second factor is "the realization of anti-growth protectionism," aka tariffs and rising trade-war tensions; the third is market volatility, which he notes frequently gives false signals, but has generally been on the rise the past few months.
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Super system ‘far too complex, expensive’
- 12:00AM June 24, 2019
Two Nobel Prize-winning economists have slammed the efficiency of superannuation and urged major reform, just weeks after Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced another inquiry into the beleaguered $2.8 trillion sector.
Eugene Fama and Richard Thaler, who won their prizes in 2013 and 2017, were shocked at the fees and “mind-boggling” array of investment options Australia’s 26-year-old compulsory saving system had produced, backing calls for lower-cost default funds.
“The default option in a government-mandated program should be low-fee passive funds,” said Professor Fama, sometimes dubbed the “father of index investing” owing to his “efficient markets hypothesis”, which implies fund managers can’t consistently beat the market.
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RBA doesn't 'really understand' investors
Updated Jun 24, 2019 — 1.14pm, first published at 10.41am
Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe said he didn't understand why the same investors who are betting on central banks cutting interest rates are also driving the sharemarket to record highs.
"There are investors who think the outlook is sufficiently weak that they expect central banks right around the world to cut interest rates but they are not worried about corporate profits or credit risk."
"I don't really understand that," Dr Lowe said. He pointed out the contradiction as central banks lower rates at the same time as equity markets "are very strong" and credit spreads are narrow. "So to me it's a strange world."
Narrower credit spreads suggest investors are confident about corporate profits and the ability of companies to repay their debts. This is generally viewed as a vote of confidence in the economy.
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The RBA should not be confused
There are good reasons why stocks and bonds have both rallied hard this year, and central bank policy is at the heart of it.
Jun 24, 2019 — 3.57pm
This year’s massive rally in both stocks and bonds - and gold - has raised eyebrows all around the world.
Isn't it odd that riskier assets and traditional safehavens are surging at the same time?
As it turns out, some of those arched eyebrows belong to our top central bankers.
Sitting on a panel in Canberra on Monday morning, RBA boss Philip Lowe said he “doesn’t really understand” why the same investors who are betting on central banks cutting interest rates are also driving the sharemarket to record highs.
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Lowe on the market's confusion
Jun 24, 2019 — 5.37pm
A rather bemused sounding Philip Lowe calls it a “strange world”. His puzzlement is due to the combination of investors expecting ”central banks will ride to the rescue” with a reduction in interest rates globally while remaining somehow unconcerned about corporate profits or credit risk.
He also points to the limits of what further monetary easing can achieve anyway. That includes the fact that with so many central banks expected to cut rates almost simultaneously over the course of the year, the usual stimulatory benefit of a decline in the exchange rate for any one country effectively disappears.
Lowe hardly counts as a pessimist, referring to recent IMF predictions global growth will still be higher next year – at 3.6 per cent – than this year’s expectation of 3.3 per cent. Nor does he think another global financial crisis likely given the increased resilience of the world’s financial system.
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Labor deals itself out of tax cuts
Jun 25, 2019 — 12.00am
Key Points
- The government is likely to rely on a deal with Senate crossbencher Jacquie Lambie and the Centre Alliance to pass its three-stage, $158 billion tax package.
- Labor wants government to split the bill and bring forward the second stage by three years - to July 1.
- It still does not support the third stage of the tax package.
A deal with the Senate crossbench to pass the $158 billion in tax cuts is looking increasingly likely after Labor effectively ruled itself out of the debate with a complicated compromise offer that was rejected immediately by the government.
Should the government win crossbench support, a divided Labor Party might still find itself having to explain to voters whether it will repeal the top end tax cuts if it wins the next election, potentially keeping the issue alive for years.
At a meeting of the shadow cabinet on Monday, Labor resolved that it would ask the government to split the bill for its three stage, $158 billion tax package when it came to Parliament next week.
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Australia has an especially acute problem if US and Iran go to war
Peter Hartcher
Political and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald
June 25, 2019 — 12.00am
Iran is far from Australia. Yet if it goes to war with America the consequences could be uncomfortably near.
US President Donald Trump is promising to impose major sanctions on Iran, which he claims will prevent them from obtaining nuclear weapons.
The leadership in Tehran repeatedly has said that if Iran is not allowed to export oil through the Persian Gulf, no one will. "Either everyone will export, or no one," as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei's international adviser Ali Akbar Velayati put it. And, just now, the US ban on Iran's oil exports is biting hard. They've fallen from last year's peak of 2.8 million barrels a day to less than 1 million, and still falling month by month.
So if Iran acts on its threat and disrupts the flow of one-fifth of the world's seaborne oil supply, the world has a problem. But Australia has an especially acute problem. We have one of the smallest stockpiles in the world. With only around three weeks' supply on hand in Australia, we are the most vulnerable of 25 countries in Asia, according to a fuel resilience measure published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
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Morrison calls for US and China to act in global interest
- 12:00AM June 26, 2019
Scott Morrison has vowed Australia will not stand by “passively” as China and the US slug it out in a global power contest, and he will act in Australia’s security and economic interests if the superpower relationship continues to deteriorate.
In a blunt assessment of the strategic situation before he heads to Osaka for a G20 meeting of world leaders, the Prime Minister will today warn that the collateral damage from the trade clash and strategic struggle is spreading through the region.
Asserting Australia’s growing influence as a middle power, Mr Morrison will call on both countries to act in the global interest and not just their own, urging them to de-escalate tensions as other countries seek to rebalance their own interests in the face of a new world order.
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PM says US gripes 'legitimate'
Jun 26, 2019 — 12.00am
Prime Minister Scott Morrison will call for urgent reform of the World Trade Organisation today by recognising the legitimacy of many of the United States' grievances with China and declaring international trade rules are no longer capable of dealing with Beijing's behaviour.
At the same time the Prime Minister will warn the "collateral damage'' caused by the US-China trade war was spreading and that both sides needed to resolve their dispute in a way which did not undermine the interests of other nations, including Australia.
Without taking sides, he will flag a more assertive role for Australia in trying to mediate a resolution to the rising economic and military tensions rather than "sit back and passively await our fate in the wake of a major power contest''.
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Morrison toughens stance on China, US over 'collateral damage' on trade
By David Crowe
June 26, 2019 — 12.00am
Prime Minister Scott Morrison will set out a more assertive Australian stance on the growing trade war between China and the United States in a new warning about the threat of "coercive power" that damages the global economy.
Mr Morrison will acknowledge key complaints on both sides of the escalating dispute, but will call on both "great powers" to accept that the collateral damage from their conflict will hurt other nations as well as themselves.
In an important declaration of his approach to negotiations at the Group of 20 summit of world leaders in Japan this Friday and Saturday, Mr Morrison will declare that Australia will not be a "passive bystander" if China and the US cannot resolve their dispute in peace.
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Lowy Institute poll 2019
26 Jun 2019
2019 is a year of elections in the Asia-Pacific region, including in Indonesia, India and Australia. Each of these three democracies has re-elected incumbents, choosing stability in difficult times.
Every day, the liberal international order seems less liberal, less international and less orderly. Both Washington and Beijing are seeking to revise the international status quo. Australia’s leadership role in the Pacific is being tested. Cracks in the international economy appear to be widening.
These issues were all but invisible, however, in the 2019 Australian federal election campaign. The world hardly intruded on our national debate. This is too bad. The rapid changes to Australia’s external circumstances deserve serious discussion.
Certainly, Australians are aware of developments abroad and some of their opinions on international issues are changing. Notably, Australians’ views towards China seem to have soured. In 2019, trust in and warmth towards China are at their lowest points in the Poll’s history. Most Australians say that Australia’s economy is too dependent on China and Australia should do more to resist China’s military activities in our region. Scepticism continues about Chinese investment in Australia and China’s intentions in the Pacific.
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Australians increasingly suspicious of Beijing
Jun 26, 2019 — 12.00am
Beijing's rising authoritarianism and complaints of meddling in Australia's democracy have seen public sentiment towards China turn savagely, according to a top foreign policy think-tank's long-running poll.
The number of Australians who trust China to "act responsibly in the world" has plunged 20 points to 32 per cent over the past 12 months, while nearly three-quarters fear the country has become too economically dependent on China, the Lowy Institute's annual poll of attitudes towards foreign affairs has found.
The poll also confirmed strong backing for Australia's ban on Huawei contributing to the construction of the 5G network and introduction of foreign interference laws, two major sources of tension with Beijing.
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India cuts dependence on Australian coal as exports to China halve
By Sudarshan Varadhan and Muyu Xu
June 26, 2019 — 10.27am
Shipments of coking coal from the United States and Canada to India jumped during the year ended March 2019, as steelmakers in the coal-guzzling country look to cut their dependence on Australia.
Australia's share in India's coking coal market fell to 71 per cent, or 36.91 million tonnes, during the year ended March 2019 from about 88 per cent three years ago, India coal ministry data reviewed by Reuters showed. The United States and Canada had a 5.6 per cent share of the market three years ago.
The Indian figures came a day after customs data revealed China's imports of Australian coking coal almost halved in May from a month earlier, as buyers held off purchases because of uncertainty regarding government policy on Australian imports.
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The 'average' retiree is now self-funded
Jun 26, 2019 — 12.13am
Australia has reached a major milestone, with most new retirees having enough savings to be self-funded rather than reliant on the age pension, new research shows.
More than half of 66-year-olds were not accessing the age pension at December 2018 because their assets and income were too high, while 20 per cent were on a part pension.
Only 25 per cent were drawing a full age pension.
According to Jeremy Cooper, chairman of retirement income at Challenger who conducted a review of the super system for the then Labor government in 2009, the figures are proof the superannuation system is working.
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Everything many of us think about rising retail prices and profits is wrong
Ross Gittins
Economics Editor
June 25, 2019 — 11.55pm
If I told you that a big reason we're feeling such cost-of-living pressure is the increasing profits of the big supermarket chains, department stores, discount stores and other retailers, would you believe me? A lot of people would.
But that would just show how little we understand of the strange things happening in the economy in recent years. The economy in which we live and work keeps changing and getting more complicated, the digital revolution is disrupting industry after industry, but we have far too little time to check out what's happening – especially behind the scenes – so we rely on the casual impressions we gain along the way and on our long-held views about who's ripping it off and who's getting screwed.
Which are often off-beam. Perhaps because in many respects it's a good news story, few people realise the way digital disruption is putting retailing, a pretty big part of the economy, and a big part of household budgets, through the wringer.
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Behind the open banking revolution
It is not just banks that should worry about the implementation of open banking. It could destroy the Facebook business model according to leading British banker, David Duffy.
Jun 27, 2019 — 12.00am
At a time when Australian bankers are pulling back from cross-selling products and dismantling vertically integrated business models, David Duffy is moving the other way as he turns the former loss making National Australia Bank subsidiary, CYBG Plc, into Virgin Money.
He is putting the Virgin Money bank at the centre of a suite of Virgin brands including Virgin Holidays, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Active, Virgin Voyages, Virgin Hotels and Virgin Sport. This is a banker’s cross-selling nirvana thanks to the formidable power of the Virgin brand and a new customer loyalty program.
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Morrison steps out on China, carefully
Faced with the US-China trade war, Scott Morrison has to outline Australia's version of a necessary truce - at the risk of offending China.
Jun 26, 2019 — 4.09pm
The US-China trade war means the Australian government now has little choice but to try to define the national interest more clearly. It’s a risky path to negotiate publicly, but the risks to Australia of ignoring gathering storm clouds are also becoming much greater.
The agenda of the Australia China Business Council networking day in Canberra helps explain why. Australian businesses spent much of last year increasingly anxious about the badly frayed diplomatic relationship between China and Australia, hoping for a smoother environment after the Malcolm Turnbull “re-set speech” of last August. The then prime minister’s demise immediately afterwards put this on hold until after the election amid expectations, including in China, of a new Labor government.
China is now assessing the implications of the return of the Morrison government in a political atmosphere only becoming more strained due to growing friction between our most important security partner and most important trading partner.
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Let Folau follow St Paul's teachings on gays, and let us find them ridiculous
By Pru Goward
June 27, 2019 — 12.00am
However did it get to this? Every day there is some further development in the Israel Folau story that outrages someone more and provokes further demands, counter-demands and still more outrage. Add to outrage Folau’s sporting fame and the fuse to this particular timebomb has been well and truly lit.
Only in Australia could the views of a fullback who’s changed football codes more often than
most of us have changed post codes and counts himself as a Pentecostal – not exactly a word on everyone’s lips, but nothing to do with five beaches – matter so much.
most of us have changed post codes and counts himself as a Pentecostal – not exactly a word on everyone’s lips, but nothing to do with five beaches – matter so much.
Personally, I think Israel Folau’s interventions have been ignorant and cruel. But then so were St Paul's, and no one is thinking about banning him.
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Morrison navigates sensible course in stormy waters
- 12:00AM June 27, 2019
Scott Morrison’s speech to Asialink on his government’s approach to the economic dimensions of the Indo-Pacific is powerful, well structured and indicates the stability of key Australian policy. It is a balanced speech that is positive towards all Australia’s regional friends and partners but acknowledges problems with Beijing.
Indeed I think most telling is where the Prime Minister basically accepts that the US charges against Beijing on trade are true. These unprovocative, plain-spoken words will make uncomfortable reading in Beijing.
This is a big statement of Australian policy that deserves to be considered in full. It bears Morrison’s stamp and reflects his approach. It also reflects the ongoing limitations of the bureaucracy in three key mistakes.
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We need to talk about our (corporate) culture problem
Corporate regulators ASIC and APRA are under intense pressure to come up with ways to fix our flawed corporate culture. But will their suggestions work?
Jun 27, 2019 — 1.14pm
After being shamed by the Hayne royal commission for being overly indulgent of misconduct, there is huge pressure on the country's corporate regulators to show they are taking vigorous steps to drag standards higher.
There's little doubt there are major culture problems in some of our large corporations - particularly the banks.
And there's little surprise the regulators - the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission - have chosen to focus on remuneration and governance practices as they set about trying to ameliorate corporate behaviour.
In this regard, APRA's long-awaited update on executive remuneration - which bankers expect will be released next week - will play an important role in resetting the financial incentives that were clearly responsible for much of the appalling behaviour in the financial sector.
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Time to embrace cheap debt in radical fiscal experiment
The countries that survive the coming downturn with a modicum of social cohesion will be those willing - or creative enough - to tear up the rule book.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Jun 28, 2019 — 10.04am
London | We are one shock away from global monetary impotence. The US Federal Reserve still has some dry powder to fight a slump. The British, European and Japanese central banks have almost none, so long as they obey the prevailing orthodoxies of Homo Economicus.
The countries that survive the coming downturn with a modicum of social cohesion and democracies intact will be those willing - or creative enough - to tear up the rule book and push fiscal stimulus beyond any historic frontier. "Macroeconomic policy is dangerously ill-equipped to tackle the next recession. We are heading for a car crash if nothing is changed," says the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).
It means ditching budget deficit limits, whether the legacy targets of the Osbornian Dark Age in Britain, or the macroeconomic obscurantism of Europe's Stability Pact.
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Dalio warns of 'mini-bubble' in property
Jun 28, 2019 — 12.00am
Hedge fund legend Ray Dalio fears further interest rate cuts by the Reserve Bank of Australia could further inflate the "mini bubble" in property, and that it will all end in tears.
He says Australia’s property market is vulnerable as a multi-decade global debt binge reaches its natural end.
In an interview with The Australian Financial Review that coincides with the launch of the Sohn Hearts and Minds charity conference, Mr Dalio described Australia’s property market as a “mini-bubble that is unlikely to continue”.
“Because interest rates have come down steadily there’s been a pretty steady rise in debt, particularly related to property debt,” Mr Dalio said.
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Morrison takes trade message to Trump
Here we are again, New city, same situation. The WTO still hasn't been reformed, the trade war is worsening and the world awaits another meeting between Trump and Xi.
Jun 27, 2019 — 7.09pm
On Wednesday, Australia's ambassador to the United States, Joe Hockey, was preparing to travel to Miami to watch the first of a series of debates between aspiring Democratic presidential nominees.
Instead, on early Thursday morning he was on a flight from San Francisco to Osaka in Japan in order to make dinner that night with Scott Morrison and Donald Trump after it was locked in at the last minute.
The Osaka G20 leaders' summit is the second such event in just over six months. The same crowd last gathered at the G20 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in early December.
The atmosphere was the same then with the summit overshadowed by the escalating trade war between Beijing and Washington.
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The head-spinning confusion of power bills
Jun 28, 2019 — 12.00am
Polite email letters from my energy retailer have informed me of a change in my charges for electricity and gas bills from next Monday, July 1. The good news is, apparently, my electricity charges will go down by 5.9 per cent. The bad news is my gas bill will go up by 2.7 per cent.
At least, that’s what I thought I understood from the letters. But when I called the Origin Energy call centre to try to understand the details of my NSW accounts, I only became more confused. A helpful operator, based in South Australia, conceded it was a little unclear given variations between states and with details of new offers not yet available anyway.
But she said that given I was already on a discount electricity contract offering a 22 per reduction for paying on time until August, I might be better to wait until this expired and then compare what was best. Perhaps sensing a certain lack of clarity on my part, she called back to confirm I still get a 10 per cent discount on my gas bill until September but the gas price would automatically go up July 1.
By this stage, my head was spinning faster than a wind turbine in a gale.
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Liberalism has ‘become obsolete’, says Putin
Lionel Barber and Henry Foy
Jun 28, 2019 — 11.06am
Moscow | Vladimir Putin has trumpeted the growth of national populist movements in Europe and America, crowing that liberalism is spent as an ideological force.
In an interview in the Kremlin on the eve of the G20 summit, the Russian President told the Financial Times “the liberal idea” had “outlived its purpose” as the public turned against immigration, open borders and multiculturalism.
Mr Putin’s evisceration of liberalism – the dominant Western ideology since the end of the World War II in 1945 – chimes with anti-establishment leaders from US President Donald Trump to Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Matteo Salvini in Italy, and the Brexit insurgency in the UK.
“[Liberals] cannot simply dictate anything to anyone just like they have been attempting to do over the recent decades,” he said.
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Morrison digs in for long trade war
Jun 28, 2019 — 6.49pm
Osaka: Australia has intensified efforts to strike a free trade deal with the European Union and finalise a new 16-nation Asia-Pacific trade pact to help cushion the impact of what looms as a dangerously-protracted US-China trade war.
After meeting US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 leaders' summit in Osaka' Japan, Mr Morrison said there was no prospect of their dispute being resolved when they meet in Osaka on Saturday.
"I think it would be unrealistic to expect a resolution tomorrow,'' he said.
International Monetary Fund chairwoman Christine Lagarde told assembled G20 leaders that if the war escalated and culminated in further tariffs, as Mr Trump is threatening, forecast global growth for calendar year 2020 will be significantly downgraded from 3.6 per cent to 3.1 per cent.
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Australia will consider Iran request 'very seriously': PM
Jun 28, 2019 — 1.20pm
Osaka | Scott Morrison has not ruled out Australia joining the United States in military action against Iran, saying any request would be considered very seriously and on its merits.
The Iran situation was discussed on Thursday night at a dinner between Mr Morrison and Donald Trump that was also attended by administration hawks including US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton.
Mr Morrison said Australian involvement in any military action "certainly wasn't sought".
"Obviously we talked about these issues and we have been watching them very closely as well, but there are no requests and at this stage I think those issues are a bit premature,'' he said.
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Scott Morrison ramps up regional trade deal after G20 warning on economy
By David Crowe
June 28, 2019 — 6.39pm
Australia will accelerate efforts to strike a new trade deal with regional partners as Prime Minister Scott Morrison warns of a "more serious" threat to global growth from a trade war between the United States and China.
Declaring he would not "sit there and wait" for the two economic powers to stop increasing tariffs on each other, Mr Morrison spoke of sealing an Asian trade agreement that excludes the US.
The G20 leaders heard that the world economy is at risk of sliding to 3.1 per cent growth next calendar year, compared to earlier forecasts of 3.6 per cent, because of the damage from the trade war.
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Morrison gropes towards an agenda, if only he's not Trumped
Peter Hartcher
Political and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald
June 29, 2019 — 12.00am
If it's true that a mind is a terrible thing to waste, as the adage says, then how much worse to waste an entire government? To the surprise of everyone including itself, the Morrison government won the May 18 election. It campaigned on delivering the status quo, plus tax cuts. It's about to get its way with the tax cuts in the coming weeks. So what to do for the next three years?
It could do what the Coalition government did in the last term of Parliament – indulge itself in internal plotting and factional warfare. Scheming against the leader and planning the next coup.
While the private sector and the Reserve Bank ran the economy and the public service ran the public sector.
While the private sector and the Reserve Bank ran the economy and the public service ran the public sector.
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Let me speak freely: our freedom of speech 'crisis' is culture warriors' codswallop
By Tim Soutphommasane
June 29, 2019 — 12.00am
Everyone stop, and repeat after me: There is no crisis of free speech. Freedom of religion has not been suppressed. Political correctness has not gone mad.
Here we are yet again with our tedious culture war. While many of us would prefer it to go away, it’s hard to ignore the frenzied noise of these past few weeks.
Many of us had hoped, of course, that the May federal election would have reset the political debate. That it would have helped put a close to the old, tired ideological contests that have marked the past six years.
That still seems to be some way off. The Morrison government has yet to find for itself an agenda beyond its tax cuts. It seems content to focus the post-election attention on a Labor opposition still grappling with what it stands for. This leaves a vacuum that culture warriors are only too happy to fill.
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Expect worse: Warnings after record heatwave causes deaths across Europe
- By Charles Bremner
- The Times
- 6:57AM June 29, 2019
Temperatures rose to record levels on Friday in one of the worst heatwaves to hit Europe, with several deaths reported and experts warning millions of people across the continent to expect worse.
The temperature reached more than 45C in France, the hottest ever recorded there. In Villevieille, between Nimes and Montpellier, a temperature of 45.1C was noted, a degree above the previous high for the same area in August 2003. That put France into the club of southern European states, including Portugal, Italy, Spain and Greece, where records have historically topped 45C.
In Andalusia, Spain, a 17-year-old farm worker collapsed and later died after being overcome while helping to harvest wheat. In Milan, Italy, a 72-year-old homeless man was found dead at the main railway station. At least four people died in Germany in bathing accidents. In Catalonia, firefighters were battling a forest blaze that is believed to have begun when a pile of manure at a chicken farm spontaneously combusted in the extreme heat.
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Stocks rock in a year of solid gains for sharemarket investors
- 12:00AM June 29, 2019
It was another solid financial year for the Australian sharemarket as central banks rode to the rescue after a difficult first half.
After falling 13 per cent to a two-year low before Christmas as US interest rate hikes and quantitative tightening challenged valuations and China’s deleveraging campaign and trade war with the US slowed growth, the local bourse bounced 23 per cent to a 12-year high as central banks shelved plans to lift rates and then flagged cuts and potential quantitative easing as the trade war reignited.
Australia’s benchmark S&P/ASX 200 share index finished up 6.9 per cent at 6618.8 for the 2018-19 financial year, after rising as high as 6691.5 as the abrupt change of course by the central banks caused a plunge in bond yields that improved sharemarket valuations.
The local bourse has risen 27 per cent in the past three years and 44 per cent on a total return basis.
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Can you afford to retire: How much super will you really need?
By Nina Hendy
June 30, 2019 — 12.00am
Australians are notorious for burying their head in the sand when it comes to contemplating how much retirement savings they will need.
Some experts say you will need to have more than $1 million stashed away. Others argue that even such a significant cash pile won’t be enough to last the distance.
However, the latest figures from the Association of Super Funds of Australia (ASFA) are probably a little more reassuring.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission's MoneySmart website suggests that you will need about two thirds of the income you had before you left your job, in order to maintain the same standard of living in retirement.
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The world needs shock therapy
By Satyajit Das
June 29, 2019 — 11.28am
While any global meeting that involves Donald Trump has the capacity to surprise, one thing is virtually certain about this weekend's G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan: The gathered leaders will issue a pious call to work together to shore up growth, trade and the global financial system.
The challenge they face is much bigger than that, however. And good intentions aren't going to solve it.
The central question is how to restore reasonable levels of growth within resource and environmental constraints. Advanced economies are trapped in what John Maynard Keynes in 1931 called a "semi-slump" -- a torpor marked by low inflation, modest and inconsistent growth, and unstable financial markets sustained by endless monetary easing.
Investors seem strangely content with this situation. Indeed, bad economic news is now taken as good news, since it presages more central bank easing.
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Federal Election.
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June 25 2019 - 5:11PM
Swan stands by Labor's policies, blames leadership, alienation for loss
Kirsten Lawson
Labor Party president Wayne Swan continues to stand by the policies his party took to the failed election in May, blaming insecurity and alienation among voters and Bill Shorten's leadership as factors in the party's loss.
"Leadership standing remains paramount," he said. "In this election campaign, it would be fair to say that Prime Minister [Scott] Morrison, after a shaky start, did very well in getting the Australian public to warm to him, in a way in which Bill Shorten was unsuccessful in getting the Australian public to warm to his leadership."
Mr Swan, speaking at the Crawford leadership forum at the Australian National University on Tuesday, said middle income earners had been comfortable with Labor's tax and climate change policies and "hung in" with the party - with no evidence of swings against Labor in seats where voters owned shares or negatively geared properties in big numbers.
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Royal Commissions And The Like.
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Putting more money into inefficient super 'immoral', says new minister
By Eryk Bagshaw
June 25, 2019 — 12.00am
The newest member of the Morrison government's frontline economic team says it would be immoral to ask Australians to put more of their money into an inefficient super system as she signals a major shakeup of the $2.8 trillion sector.
In her first interview since being promoted by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Jane Hume urged warring industry and retail funds to "lay down their arms" and set a deadline of 2021 for an overhaul of the system - the year the superannuation guarantee is scheduled to rise from 9.5 per cent.
The first step "in a much broader vision for super" would be reintroducing legislation that was gutted last year, the new Assistant Minister for Superannuation and Financial Services said, which would make all superannuation insurance opt-in for those aged under 25 and save $2.6 billion in fees.
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Super fee cut is the right ambition
By David Crowe
June 24, 2019 — 11.45pm
The most cunning feature of the Australian superannuation industry is that it is almost impossible to be sure how much it costs millions of workers every year.
Every dollar loses a fraction of its value as it pours through the super funds and money managers who benefit from Commonwealth laws that force workers to sacrifice income today for a retirement nest egg tomorrow.
That means Jane Hume is absolutely right to argue there is a moral dimension to the policy goal of cutting the fees that erode those retirement savings.
Australians are paying at least $32 billion a year in super fund fees, according to a study by Rainmaker Group last year, but nobody can be certain about the cost of all the fees and charges that make the sector deliberately complex.
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NAB chairman Ken Henry calls on other bosses to face the music
By Sarah Danckert and Max Koslowski
June 24, 2019 — 7.09pm
Former Treasury Secretary and outgoing National Australia Bank chairman Ken Henry has called on business leaders to take responsibility for when their companies fail to meet community expectations or break the law.
Dr Henry announced his departure from the NAB board last year after he and since departed chief executive Andrew Thorburn were personally criticised in the final report of the Hayne banking royal commission.
The former Treasury Secretary, whose royal commission appearance was widely criticised for being out of touch, told a conference in Canberra on Monday that business was not meeting community expectations.
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'I had no idea someone could do that': Hidden cameras reveal shocking secrets
By Julie Power
June 24, 2019 — 6.58pm
When Noleen Hausler watched hidden camera footage showing a nursing home carer attempting to suffocate her defenceless 89-year-old father Clarence, she reported it immediately to the police.
Noleen Hausler detailed how her vulnerable 89-year-old father who had dementia was assaulted by a nursing home carer.
She also reported the assault to managers at Japara Mitcham Aged Care Home in Adelaide where Mr Hausler had lived since 2002.
However, rather than launching its own investigation, the Royal Commission on Aged Care Quality and Safety heard that Japara's staff instead threatened and attacked the messenger, Ms Hausler.
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National Budget Issues.
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Poor Josh Frydenberg: caught on the wrong tram, heading for trouble
Ross Gittins
Economics Editor
June 24, 2019 — 12.45am
It’s not my policy to feel sorry for any politician – they’re all hugely ambitious volunteers – but I do feel sympathy for Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. He’s not the first treasurer to be strong on party dogma but light on economic understanding, but he’s among the first to be heading into stormy weather light on expert advice from a confident and competent Treasury.
There he was, thinking his first budget would be his last, primping up a pre-election budget that claimed to have fixed the economy and delivered on deficit and debt when that was all in the future and built on nothing more than years of wildly optimistic forecasts, combined with a massive tax bribe whose cost will keep multiplying for seven years.
Do you think that while cooking up the happy forecasts needed to justify his claims of Mission Accomplished and make his tax cuts seem affordable, Treasury warned him of the risks he was running, making himself and his government hostages to fortune?
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Budget office modelling reveals beneficiaries of Coalition's tax cuts
By Eryk Bagshaw
June 27, 2019 — 11.45pm
More than two thirds of the final stage of the Coalition's $158 billion income tax cut package will flow to workers earning under $180,000, new figures show, as the Morrison government moves within striking distance of its first policy victory since the election.
The Coalition has refused to hand over costings that would detail the benefits that would flow to high-income earners to Labor, but confidential analysis by the independent Parliamentary Budget Office challenges Labor's pre-election claims the third stage would only benefit the "top end of town".
The analysis, commissioned by the Greens, shows those earning over $180,000 will see $29.7 billion in benefits out of the $95 billion total cost of the third stage of the package.
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Health Issues.
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Wrong body part removed from cancer patient at Sydney hospital
By Kate Aubusson
June 24, 2019 — 12.00am
A cancer patient has had the wrong side of his bowel removed at Northern Beaches Hospital (NBH) after a private-contracted laboratory botched his pathology results.
The male patient was undergoing colorectal surgery at the public-private hospital last week when surgeons took out the wrong section of his colon.
A cancer patient has had the wrong side of his bowel removed at Northern Beaches Hospital.
The Herald understands the serious mistake was the result of an error in the patient’s pathology report supplied by NBH’s external pathology provider, Australian Clinical Labs.
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Antibiotic overuse link to superbugs
- 12:00AM June 24, 2019
Reducing broad spectrum antibiotic use in hospitals can protect patients from superbug outbreaks, according to a study in the Medical Journal of Australia.
The misuse of antibiotics helps bacteria build resistance, making infections harder to treat. The study suggests better prescribing practices can deliver benefits at a local level.
While Australian hospitals have sought to improve their practices, about a quarter of antibiotic use is still inappropriate.
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Algorithm tells soldiers the caffeine shot to take
- By Rhys Blakely
- The Times
- 9:48AM June 22, 2019
The US military is coming to the rescue of fatigued civilians with an algorithm that tells you exactly how much coffee to drink to maintain peak performance.
The “caffeine optimisation tool” has been designed to “maximise alertness while avoiding excessive caffeine consumption”.
Tests have suggested that the system, called 2B-Alert, easily outperforms the US army’s guidelines on caffeine use. It helped subjects to cut their caffeine intake by as much as two thirds without diminishing their alertness. The tool, available to use online, allows a user to specify their desirable peak alertness periods, their sleeping schedule, the minimum level of alertness they want to maintain and the maximum daily caffeine intake.
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Pharmacies could take over millions of GP consults in bold UK plan
The NHS is trialling a new way of treating minor illnesses
24th June 2019
Community pharmacists could take over millions of GP consultations under a UK plan to make pharmacies the first stop for minor illnesses.
An estimated 6% or 20.4 million GP consultations could be diverted to community pharmacy, National Health Service director of primary care strategy Ed Waller told the National Pharmacy Association conference in Manchester.
A pilot program where GPs refer patients to pharmacies is set to begin this month in the first four locations.
It will complement another pilot program where patients with minor illnesses who call the NHS urgent medical care advice line are referred to one of 1996 pharmacies.
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Trainee doctors removed from fourth hospital over welfare concerns
By Kate Aubusson
June 26, 2019 — 12.00am
Two junior doctors have been removed from a fourth hospital in NSW by a peak medical college over concerns for their welfare, this time due to gruelling hours and understaffing.
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG) temporarily withdrew its two trainees from Tamworth Hospital’s under pressure obstetrics and gynaecology department.
The loss of the doctors was a significant blow to the regional hospital’s capacity to provide medical care to pregnant women.
Last week, the Herald revealed St George Hospital's intensive care unit had been barred from training junior doctors by the College of Intensive Care Medicine amid protracted allegations of bullying and dysfunction among senior doctors.
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Junior doctors on life support
By Kate Aubusson
June 29, 2019 — 12.00am
Trainee doctors are masters of black comedy.
There’s the one about the paediatric registrar who crashed his car twice in the past month: “maybe tonight’s the trifecta”.
Or the emergency trainee who smacks his lips as he sinks a fork into the dinner he’s eating for breakfast two days after he scraped it into a tupperware container before his kids had finished singing 'happy birthday'.
Their macabre jokes waft down hospital hallways with the beeping and the whirring of blood pressure monitor and breathing machines.
They’ll compose longing limericks about the catheter bag filled with a partient’s urine. Their bladder hasn't been emptied for over 12 hours.
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International Issues.
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Has Mark Zuckerberg picked the zeitgeist a tad too well?
Jun 24, 2019 — 12.00am
It's impossible not to admire Mark Zuckerberg's exquisite timing in unveiling Facebook's new global digital currency at a moment when investor confidence in paper currencies has been sorely shaken by the increasingly dovish tilt of the world's major central banks.
Although the US Federal Reserve kept interest rates steady at its meeting last week, it strongly hinted that a July easing was on the cards. Meanwhile, the European Central Bank is openly canvassing rate cuts as well as restarting its massive €2.6 trillion ($4.3 trillion) bond-buying program as it struggles to fan inflation.
This growing dovishness from major central banks has sent bond yields tumbling around the globe, with a record $US13 trillion ($18.8 trillion) in bonds - issued by both governments and major companies - now boasting negative yields.
Investors' willingness to accept guaranteed losses suggests that they're willing to pay for protection from the threat of deflation as global economic growth sputters.
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Turkey's Erdogan suffers stinging defeat in Istanbul vote rerun
Ezgi Erkoyun and Ali Kucukgocmen
Jun 24, 2019 — 9.32am
Istanbul | Turkey's main opposition claimed a decisive victory on Sunday (Monday AEST) in Istanbul's re-run election, dealing one of the biggest blows to President Tayyip Erdogan during his 16 years in power and promising a new beginning in the country's largest city.
Ekrem Imamoglu, mayoral candidate of the secularist Republican People's Party (CHP), was leading with 54 per cent of votes versus 45 per cent for Erdogan's AK Party (AKP) candidate, with more than 99 per cent of ballots opened, Turkish broadcasters said.
The election was Istanbul's second in three months after results of an initial March vote were scrapped, setting up the do-over as a test of Turks' ability to check what many saw as their president's increasingly authoritarian power.
"Today, 16 million Istanbul residents have renewed our faith in democracy and refreshed our trust in justice," Imamoglu told supporters.
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Donald Trump manoeuvres near a war he doesn’t want
- By Gerald F. Seib
- The Wall Street Journal
- 1:01PM June 22, 2019
At the rally this week officially kicking off his 2020 re-election campaign, Us President Donald Trump boasted that he withdrew the US from the “disastrous Iran deal and imposed the toughest ever sanctions” on Tehran.
In the very next passage of his speech, he declared that he is “starting to remove a lot of troops” from the Middle East because “great nations do not want to fight endless wars”.
That juxtaposition explains the awkward position in which the President now finds himself: he is at the edge of a war with Iran he doesn’t actually want, and for which there is a limited domestic constituency, in part because he has stoked anti-war sentiment within his own Republican Party.
The paradox led him to authorise a retaliatory military strike against Iran on Thursday night US time, and then pull it back at the last minute.
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The coming Sino-American bust-up
Nouriel Roubini
Jun 26, 2019 — 11.45pm
The nascent Sino-American cold war is the key source of uncertainty in today’s global economy. How the conflict plays out will affect consumer and asset markets of all kinds, as well as the trajectory of inflation, monetary policy, and fiscal conditions around the world. Escalation of the tensions between the world’s two largest economies could well produce a global recession and subsequent financial crisis by 2020, even if the US Federal Reserve and other major central banks pursue aggressive monetary easing.
Much, therefore, depends on whether the dispute does indeed evolve into a persistent state of economic and political conflict. In the short term, a planned meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, at the G20 Summit in Osaka on June 28-29 is a key event to watch. A truce could leave tariffs frozen at the current level, while sparing the Chinese technology giant Huawei from the crippling sanctions that Trump has put forward; failure to reach an agreement could set off a progressive escalation, ultimately leading to the balkanisation of the entire global economy.
Jaw-jaw or war-war?
Viewed broadly, there are three scenarios for how the situation might develop between now and the end of 2020, when the United States will hold its next presidential election. One possibility is that Trump and Xi will find a truce or modus vivendi in Osaka, paving the way for a negotiated settlement toward the end of this year. On the trade front, the US wants China to buy more American goods, reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers, open more financial and service sectors to foreign direct investment, and commit to maintaining currency stability and transparency with respect to foreign-exchange data.
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Indonesia's trade war pushback
Jun 27, 2019 — 12.00am
A coalition of nations led by Indonesia with Australia's backing is working to stop the US and China's trade fight derailing the push for broader reform of world trade rules at the G20, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison securing an early face-to-face meeting with US President Donald Trump to try keep negotiations on track.
As Beijing's top diplomat in Australia warned China was willing to "fight to the end" against the US over trade, Mr Morrison pledged he and other leaders would make the case it was in the global interest for two superpowers to end their hostilities.
Sources said Indonesian President Joko Widodo plans to take a leading a role during the two-day summit, which commences on Friday in Osaka, Japan, and intends to make a statement to fellow leaders to argue for the preservation of the multilateral trading system and tackle thorny issues including subsidies, dispute resolution and treatment of developing nations.
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Australia takes potshot at Trump's farm subsidies
Jun 27, 2019 — 10.17am
London | The Morrison Government has fired off a salvo of criticism at US President Donald Trump's new $US16 billion ($23 billion) package of farm subsidies, describing them as a "dangerous precedent" that could "distort the global market".
Australian diplomats are understood to have broken cover with the stinging critique during an apparently heated meeting on agriculture at the World Trade Organisation this week, with China and the European Union also joining the fray.
Concerns have risen because the new US farm support package announced in late May was the second round of subsidies, after what was supposedly a one-off $US12 billion ($17.2 billion) package last year.
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'Growing uncertainties': Fed chief sends warning on US economy
By Martin Crutsinger
June 26, 2019 — 6.40am
Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell said on Tuesday the economic outlook has become cloudier since early May, with rising uncertainties over trade and global growth causing the central bank to reassess its next move on interest rates.
Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Powell said the Fed is now grappling with the question of whether those uncertainties will continue to weigh on the outlook and require action.
Powell did not commit to a rate cut but said the central bank will closely monitor incoming data and be prepared to "act as appropriate to sustain the expansion."
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China says Australia must meet it halfway to reset relations
Jun 28, 2019 — 10.20am
Osaka | Beijing says it hopes Australia will "meet China halfway" to improve relations between the two countries as it noted Prime Minister Scott Morrison's foreign policy address which warns of "collateral damage" from the Sino-US trade dispute.
"China always believes that a sound and stable China-US relationship serves the fundamental interests of the two peoples and is conducive to regional peace, stability and prosperity," a spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry said.
"We hope Australia will meet China halfway and promote the healthy and steady development of the bilateral relations on the basis of mutual trust and mutual benefit.called an end to the Sino-US trade dispute."
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The $74 trillion shadow hanging over world markets
By Ambrose Evans- Pritchard
June 28, 2019 — 11.10am
Worrying excesses are building up in the world's $US52 trillion ($74.2 trillion) nexus of shadow banking, and investors risk serious losses when the financial cycle turns, the ratings agency DBRS has warned.
The hunt for higher yield has led to a surge in leveraged loans, collateralised loan obligations (CLOs) and other -arcane high-risk instruments with echoes of the Lehman crisis.
While banks have been forced to raise their capital buffers and are deemed much safer than in 2008, the hazards have migrated to dark pockets of the vast non-bank sector. This now makes up 62 per cent of the $US97 trillion assets of the financial industry.
The sector lends directly for takeover bids and corporate activity much like the banking industry, but is not regulated as strictly.
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World's biggest hedge fund founder believes 'defining moment' looms
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
June 28, 2019 — 12.00am
When the founder and co-chairman of the world’s largest hedge fund likens the global environment to that of the 1930s and sees the current tensions between the US and China as something wider, more permanent and more threatening than a trade conflict it is disconcerting.
It’s even more so when Ray Dalio, the founder and co-chairman of Bridgewater, sees the necessary response to the economic threats as an unprecedented level of co-operation and co-ordination between fiscal and monetary policies and bipartisanship between political parties.
Dalio, who will be in Australia in November as the keynote speaker for the Sohn Hearts & Minds Investment Leaders conference in Sydney, in which Australian and the world’s leading fund managers share their best investment ideas to raise funds for medical research, believes the world has entered a new era.
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Dangers for Australia in rift with China
- 7:26AM June 28, 2019
While Scott Morrison was dining with President Donald Trump in Osaka and Trade Minister Simon Birmingham was hosting a vital ASEAN meeting in Melbourne, it masked another drama.
When the Chinese party landed at Tullamarine airport they were undertaking a journey that is now very rare for Chinese officials.
Although China is our main trading partner there has been a continued deterioration in our relations with the Middle Kingdom.
Back in February, under the heading “Australia catches a glimpse of China’s claws”, I set out the events that led to the decline in relations.
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Wall Street finishes best June in decades, thanks to five companies
By Thomas Heath
June 29, 2019 — 8.29am
Wall Street on Friday finished its best June in decades, capping a strong first half of 2019 and a big rebound from May's market downer.
But the good news is tempered by the fact that investors relied on five giant companies for a third of the gains over the last quarter, reflecting the digital economy's remarkable growth and its potential for fragility.
Three of the Standard & Poor's 500 index leaders - Facebook, Apple and Amazon - have come under scrutiny from regulators and politicians in the last several months for their consumer dominance. Microsoft and Walt Disney round out the big five performers.
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Trump and Xi agree to new trade war ceasefire
Jun 29, 2019 — 4.42pm
Osaka | US president Donald Trump has lifted a ban on American companies selling parts to Huawei as part of an deal to resume negotiations with China to end their trade war, putting on hold for now a threat to impose tariffs on another $US300 billion of Chinese imports.
Following a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 leaders' summit in Osaka, Japan, Mr Trump also said China had agreed to buy a "tremendous amount" of US agricultural products as part of a new ceasefire.
"We are holding on tariffs and they are buying farm products," Mr Trump told a news conference.
“We agreed today that we would continue the negotations. We agreed I would not be putting tariffs on the $US325 billion that I would have the ability to put on if I wanted."
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How healthy is the U.S. economy? Here’s what 7 key indicators reveal.
The U.S. economy is in an odd place. Jobs are plentiful and the stock market is at record levels, but businesses leaders are worried enough about the future to pull back on spending. President Trump calls this the “greatest economy” ever, yet he’s also demanding the U.S. central bank inject more stimulus into the economy ASAP, something that typically happens only when a lot of yellow and red flags appear.
The overwhelming consensus among experts is that the U.S. economy is slowing after a pretty hot 2018. But there’s heated debate over how fast it’s cooling. Some argue that by the end of this year the U.S. economy is likely to look and feel a lot as it did in 2016: decent but not great. Others say the nation is likely to slip into a moderate downturn akin to those in 1990 or 2001. (The White House is adamant that there’s no slowing).
The Washington Post asked top economic forecasters what metrics they are watching closely right now. Many pointed to seven key indicators that have done a decent job signaling recessions in the past: manufacturing purchases (PMI), trucking volumes, heavy truck sales, business capital spending, temporary hires, bank lending conditions (i.e., how easy it is to get a loan) and new claims for unemployment benefits.
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
