-----
Again we find the pandemic is leading most of the news – with maybe some hope in a few places while others are still struggling. The US is now seemingly descending into chaos with many protestors wanting their lives back while huge numbers – 1500+ - are still dying nationally! What nitwits some people are!
In the UK the PM is claiming – after 28,000 deaths – that the corner has been turned. I reckon it needs another week or two to be sure!
It is going to big a week in Australia as the National Cabinet will decide if we can begin to ease off on some restrictions – before everyone looses it! Friday will be a big day!
I also wonder just how bad the fight that both OZ and the US are picking with China will get. It could go badly if common sense does not prevail!
I also wonder just how bad the fight that both OZ and the US are picking with China will get. It could go badly if common sense does not prevail!
-----
Major Issues.
-----
Investors baffled by soaring stocks in ‘monster’ depression
What was once dismissed as a mere "bear market rally" has now turned into a 23 per cent jump for global stocks. Technically, that qualifies as a new bull market.
Robin Wigglesworth
Apr 26, 2020 – 11.47am
Oslo | The divergence between the flying sharemarket and the dying economy is so extreme it is leaving many analysts scrambling for explanations.
The recent string of economic data releases reflecting life under global coronavirus lockdowns has been even grimmer than expected, spurring the IMF this week to forecast the biggest global recession since the 1930s’ Great Depression.
Some investors are in awe at the scale of the shock. "We really are in uncharted territory," said Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab. "We have a monster mash-up of the Great Depression in size, the crash of 1987 in speed, and 9-11 attack in terms of fear."
And yet, stock markets have been on a tear for a month. What was once dismissed as a mere "bear market rally" – often strong but ultimately doomed bounces that can occur in the middle of severe downturns – has now turned into a 23 per cent jump for global stocks. Technically, that qualifies as a new bull market.
-----
China consumer backlash looms over Morrison's coronavirus probe
Apr 26, 2020 – 8.07pm
Beijing's ambassador has warned the Morrison government that its pursuit of an independent inquiry into the coronavirus pandemic could spark a Chinese consumer boycott of students and tourists visiting Australia, as well as sales of popular agricultural exports like beef and wine.
In an exclusive interview with The Australian Financial Review, Chinese Ambassador to Australia Cheng Jingye denounced Prime Minister Scott Morrison's push for an inquiry as "dangerous" and predicted it would fail to gain traction among global leaders.
"Resorting to suspicion, recrimination or division at such a critical time could only undermine global efforts to fight against this pandemic," he said.
Mr Cheng also refused to accept that the virus had started in a Wuhan "wet market", claiming the scientific jury remained out on its origins.
-----
NAB cuts dividend, raises $3.5b new equity
Apr 27, 2020 – 8.29am
National Australia Bank has released its half-year results 11 days before schedule, cutting the interim dividend to 30 cents per share and unveiling a $3 billion placement to bolster capital ahead of an expected spike in credit losses.
The underwritten, $3 billion institutional placement will be accompanied by a share purchase plan to raise a further $500 million, as the bank "seeks to provide a buffer to assist with credit losses" and soaring risk that could result from "a severe and prolonged downturn," the bank said in presentation slides released in a flurry of surprise ASX announcements on Monday morning.
"In light of the uncertain economic outlook due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are taking proactive steps to build capital via an equity raising and a reduction in the interim dividend," said NAB chairman Philip Chronican and group CEO Ross McEwan in a joint letter to shareholders.
-----
Why investment icons fear existential crisis
Paul Singer has joined the likes of Ray Dalio and Howard Marks in worrying central banks are killing the system they've prospered in.
Apr 27, 2020 – 12.00am
One of the fascinating side-effects of coronavirus is the near existential crisis it is causing among some of the legends of global investing.
Not because these elder statesmen are confronting their own mortality. Rather, they suddenly fear for the future of the financial system they’ve prospered in for decades.
There are examples everywhere.
On Friday, Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio shared the first parts of his new book, The Changing World Order, arguing the world is “classically near the end of a long-term debt cycle” where big debts and traditional monetary policy stops working.
Oaktree’s Howard Marks and Third Point’s Daniel Loeb are among many to question the Federal Reserve’s decision to prop up companies by buying corporate bonds. Loeb told his investors last week the “socialising of this risk is fraught with moral hazard”.
Jim Rogers, co-founder of Quantum, argues the Fed and other central banks have saddled future generations with debt to save the short term. “They don’t care about my children, they care about getting Mr Trump re-elected.”
But these views are mild compared with that of Paul Singer, the founder of activist hedge fund Elliott Management, which famously stalked BHP a few years ago.
-----
We need to rethink our China relationship, but disengagement is no option
Penny Wong
Senator
April 27, 2020 — 12.00am
Even before this pandemic, Australia’s relationship with China was anything but straightforward. At the end of 2019, reports of interference by the Chinese Communist Party in our democracy, violent crackdowns in Hong Kong, clashes in the South China Sea, upstream Chinese dams of Mekong tributaries threatening water security in Vietnam and Laos, and leaked documents outlining mass detention of Uighurs coloured the debate about the future direction of the bilateral relationship.
After decades in which economic opportunities and hope for greater freedoms shaped Australia’s consciousness of China, our relationship had clearly entered a new phase.
As China’s weight has grown, it has asserted itself much more. Exerting interests is what all countries do – not least great powers. But our interests differ, as do our values: China is an authoritarian one-party state; Australia is a democracy.
Australia’s task is to engage productively with China, to manage differences while standing up for our values, sovereignty and democracy. This has become more challenging as a result of COVID-19.
-----
NAB's result raises a red flag for Australian economy
Apr 27, 2020 – 1.53pm
National Australia Bank's move to raise $3.5 billion in capital and slash its dividend by 64 per cent suggests NAB's new chief executive, Ross McEwan, is deeply worried about Australia's economic outlook and that of his new bank.
No bank boss will be more acutely aware of the risk around leverage than McEwan given he earned his reputation as the "crisis banker" in rescuing Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) from $54 billion of cumulative losses after the global financial crisis.
Prior to the GFC, RBS had become the largest bank in the world by loan book and perhaps the most leveraged, with the GFC resulting in a government bailout and 98 per cent share price plunge from peak to trough.
At NAB, McEwan's emergency cash grab will add 81 basis points to its pro-forma capital adequacy ratio via the $3.5 billion capital raising, with 37 basis points added from the $1.6 billion or 53¢ per share reduction in dividends.
-----
Australia hits back at China's 'economic coercion'
Apr 27, 2020 – 11.00am
Foreign Minister Marise Payne has repudiated China's attempt at "economic coercion" to force Australia to drop its global lobbying campaign for an independent international inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
In an exclusive interview with The Australian Financial Review, Ambassador Cheng Jingye warned of a potential Chinese consumer boycott against Australian goods and services over the Morrison government's pursuit of a probe and efforts to boost the World Health Organisation's powers of inspection.
Universities, tourism, wine and beef were the sectors Mr Cheng cited that could be vulnerable to a China backlash.
"The Chinese public is frustrated, dismayed and disappointed with what Australia is doing now," he said.
-----
NAB ushers in banking’s ugly new normal
The banks have stood tall in the COVID-19 crisis. But by slashing its dividend and raising $3.5 billion, NAB boss Ross McEwan has reminded investors they need to wear the pain of this crisis too.
Updated Apr 27, 2020 – 3.57pm, first published at 11.44am
Ross McEwan has an army of economists and thousands of data points to tell him how bad the economy is suffering from the COVID-19 shutdown. But it’s the conversations he has been having with business people that have been most telling.
“One day they’re running a business and the next day their income’s completely stopped,” McEwan tells Chanticleer.
“It was a very clear signal that we’ll win when our customers win, and when they’re not, we should be taking some of the pain with them.”
McEwan, his leadership team and his board will personally feel that pain, after taking pay cuts of 20 per cent and cancelling bonuses.
-----
Australia could lose billions from Chinese government boycott threat
By Anthony Galloway and Eryk Bagshaw
April 27, 2020 — 10.30pm
Australia could lose billions of dollars every year under a Chinese boycott of universities, tourism and agriculture as tensions intensify between Beijing and Canberra over the handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
Foreign Minister Marise Payne on Monday slapped down China's unprecedented threat of economic retaliation for the Morrison government's push for a global review into the origin and handling of COVID-19, as national security experts warned Australia needed to reduce our economic reliance on our biggest export market.
In response to an explicit threat from Chinese ambassador Cheng Jingye that our pursuit of a global COVID-19 review could spark a Chinese consumer boycott of significant Australian services and products, Senator Payne rejected "any suggestion that economic coercion is an appropriate response to a call for such an assessment, when what is needed is global co-operation".
-----
Unis fear $12b hit as Chinese students stay home
Robert Bolton Education editor
Apr 28, 2020 – 1.57pm
More than $12 billion in Chinese student fees alone could be wiped off university income in the next two years given the "high probability" Beijing will instruct students not to start courses here in 2021, said China watcher and associate professor at Sydney University, Salvatore Babones.
He predicted there would be no new Chinese students in the coming academic year in the northern hemisphere and Beijing will almost certainly extend its ban to Australia in 2021.
On Monday the Chinese Ambassador to Australia Cheng Jingye told The Australian Financial Review Chinese consumers and students could boycott Australia in retaliation for Canberra pressuring Beijing over the origins of the coronavirus.
-----
Westpac flags commercial property downturn
Chanticleer understands the economic forecast underpinning the $1.6 billion impairment includes a severe downturn in commercial property valuations and a spike in mortgage defaults along with up to a 15 per cent decline in residential property prices.
Apr 28, 2020 – 12.04pm
Dig below the surface of Westpac Banking Corp's $1.6 billion COVID-19 impairment charge and you will find a worrying analysis of the commercial property market.
The bank believes we are heading for a severe downturn in commercial property valuations, which will trigger a sharp rise in loan losses in Westpac's business and institutional banking divisions.
Chanticleer understands these two divisions account for the bulk of the $1.6 billion in forward provisioning recorded for the six months to March and due to be formally released with the bank's half-year profit next Monday.
Rising delinquencies, downgrades and defaults in commercial property would not be surprising given the devastating impact of the virus on rental income.
-----
VanEck: Gold miners will have the Midas touch in 2020
Apr 28, 2020 – 3.11pm
Global investment manager VanEck expects gold miners will have the Midas touch in 2020 as investors seek to hedge against inflation and the excessive debt created by central banks.
An unprecedented amount of spending by governments, funded by their own monetary policymakers, has blown out balance sheets with politicians pledging to do everything possible to keep the global economy afloat during the COVID-19 crisis.
As hedge fund manager Kyle Bass of Hayman Capital Management said: "Buying gold is just buying a put against the idiocy of the political cycle. It's that simple."
This has created a strong tailwind for gold. The big spending from US Congress in the last few weeks only supports the attractiveness of the precious metal further.
-----
Coronavirus: Expert on China Warwick Smith quits key position amid rising tensions
The man appointed by the Morrison government to spearhead a revamp of ties with Beijing has quietly resigned his post as diplomatic relations deteriorate and China’s ambassador issues new demands for Australia to stop playing “political games”
Former federal MP Warwick Smith stepped down several weeks ago as chairman of the National Foundation for Australia-China Relations and is understood to hold concerns about the new body after it replaced the 40-year-old Australia-China Council, of which he was longstanding chairman.
The Australian can also reveal the Morrison government will further anger China by pursuing its call for a review into the origins and handling of the COVID-19 pandemic at a meeting of the World Health Organisation’s decision-making body next month.
The growing tensions between the countries were exacerbated on Tuesday when Chinese ambassador Cheng Jingye revealed details of a private conversation with Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade secretary Frances Adamson. The embassy claimed Ms Adamson had “congratulated” China on its suppression of the virus in Wuhan and “tried her best to defend Australia’s proposal about the independent review” but admitted it was “not the time to commence the review now”.
-----
Beijing’s COVID-19 diplomacy faces blowback
· AAP
China’s shipments of ventilators and personal protective equipment as the coronavirus outbreak was flaring in Europe earlier this year were initially well received.
Billboards with the image of Chinese President Xi Jinping sprung up in Serbia late last month, with the message “Thank you, Brother Xi” written in Serbian and Chinese.
Italy’s Foreign Minister posted a video on his Facebook page of Chinese medical supplies arriving in Italy in mid-March, after European countries initially failed to answer Rome’s request for help.
Consequently, the percentage of Italians who said they considered China a “friend” of Italy shot up from 10 per cent in January to 52 per cent last month, according to the SWG polling institute.
-----
Survey sparks medicine supply concerns
Wednesday, 29 April, 2020
A survey undertaken by the Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia (SHPA) reveals that hospital orders for medicines necessary to support ventilated beds are not being met. Results from the survey raise concerns that the planned return of elective surgeries will add further pressure to medicines supply, refuting misconceptions that hospitals are ‘stockpiling’ medicines during COVID-19.
In releasing findings from its first weekly COVID-19 Hospital Pharmacy Capacity Snapshot, SHPA voiced support for the ongoing collaborative effort led by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) to safeguard the country’s supply of essential medicines, critical to managing a surge in COVID-19 inpatient cases if it eventuates.
SHPA Chief Executive Kristin Michaels said access to key medicines, including propofol and cisatracurium, have emerged as factors likely to reduce Australia’s capacity to treat a surge of COVID-19 patients.
-----
ASX rises 2.4pc, capping off best month since 1988
Apr 30, 2020 – 4.35pm
The Australian sharemarket has capped off its best month since March 1988 on Thursday, as strong earnings, rebounding oil and an upbeat Federal Reserve boosted sentiment across global markets.
The S&P/ASX 200 Index advanced 129 points, or 2.4 per cent, to 5522.4, rising to a six-week high as it extended its rebound from a heavy loss through February and March, rising 9.5 per cent through April.
Positive earnings results from some of the major tech stocks in the US boosted optimism on Wall Street on Wednesday. Alphabet, Facebook and Microsoft all reported strong numbers in the first quarter of calendar 2020 with Alphabet saying there were early signs of users returning to normal commercial behaviour.
There were also signs Gilead Science's antiviral drug remdesivir could be used to treat COVID-19. Preliminary results from a US government trial showed patients showed given the drug recovered 31 per cent faster than those on a placebo.
-----
Hundreds of unsold homes piling up as buyers disappear
Apr 30, 2020 – 4.32pm
Housing supply is rapidly outpacing demand as unsold properties and completed homes pile up, prompting concerns surplus stock could stall the market's recovery.
A large number of properties that first went to auction as far back as February are still for sale under private treaty after failing to sell under the hammer, consultancy firm SQM Research found.
For example, of 794 homes scheduled for auction in Sydney on February 22, 110 were passed in or withdrawn and then readvertised as private sales within 48 hours.
SQM found that 77 were still on the market on April 27.
-----
House prices slow as sellers and buyers desert the market
By Shane Wright
May 1, 2020 — 10.00am
Buyers and sellers have deserted the national property market in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic with new figures showing a modest slowdown in prices in Sydney and an outright drop in Melbourne.
CoreLogic on Friday reported house values in Sydney improved by 0.3 per cent through April while in Melbourne they eased by 0.4 per cent.
The performance was in stark performance to recent months, with both cities recording an average monthly growth rate of 1.7 per cent in the six months to March.
-----
At last, we prefer experts to noisy pretenders
By Gregory Hywood
May 1, 2020 — 12.00am
When the bronze statues are cast to commemorate the COVID-19 pandemic they should depict health professionals clad head to toe in personal protective equipment. Visually anonymous in their PPE, it is these highly trained combatants in the new order of warfare who have earned a gratitude and respect once reserved for military heroes.
And it’s an attitude spilling beyond those on the front line. Anecdotally doctors across a range of clinical professions are reporting unprecedented praise and gratitude from patients. It’s been a long time coming. Doctors spend at least a decade of rigorous, time-consuming, family-sapping training to reach their speciality. In our semi-socialised medical system they obtain well above average incomes but nothing like the fortunes available in the corporate and celebrity world over the past few decades.
The same gratitude should go to the nurses, scientists, academics, civil servants, schoolteachers and the plethora of well-trained professionals who until now have got little credit for keeping our communities civil and safe.
-----
Socialism for investors, capitalism for everyone else
By Steven Pearlstein
May 1, 2020 — 4.26pm
Over the past several weeks, you might have found it rather curious that at a time when coronavirus deaths were still climbing and economists and business leaders were warning of a long and deep recession, a rally was underway on financial markets.
Stock prices have regained half of what they lost since their peak in February, while on the bond market, companies were borrowing near-record amounts, and the interest rates paid by the most heavily indebted companies were going down, not up.
It's not only curious - it's disturbing. What it suggests is that American capitalism has entered a new and dangerous phase, one in which the Federal Reserve has assumed the role as a financial backstop and lender of last resort to every major corporation, along with the banks and investors that provide them with capital.
By declaring that it will do "whatever it takes" to assure that a corporate sector that borrowed too much can borrow a bit more, the Fed has effectively put a floor under stock and bond prices. As a result, it's no longer just banks that are too big to fail - it's now the entire corporate sector.
-----
Mortgage redraw risk revealed as lenders raid savings
Nicole Pedersen-McKinnon
Money contributor
April 30, 2020 — 6.21pm
I've written for years that it is dangerous to park money inside your mortgage, rather than alongside it. Well, I'm distraught to report that thousands of Aussies have just had this expensively and traumatically confirmed.
Parking money "inside" a mortgage involves paying more than the minimum payments into the loan itself. It relies on redraw and trusts that your bank will let you have the extra money sitting in your loan account, if and when you need it.
However, having your cash "alongside" your loan uses a separate but attached offset account to effectively quarantine your extra payments, giving you full flexibility of access.
The safer offset approach saves an identical amount of interest.
-----
Bushfire Crisis And Climate Policy
-----
There are no entries in this category.
-----
Coronavirus And Impacts.
-----
Inside the failed efforts to dismantle Australia's coronavirus response
By Michael Koziol
April 25, 2020 — 11.30pm
It was the first week of April, and John Roskam was frustrated. The boss of the Institute of Public Affairs, well connected to Liberals including federal Health Minister Greg Hunt, was aghast at the strict enforcement of lockdown measures in Victoria and NSW, where police were driving through Rushcutters Bay Park moving on sunbathers.
At the time, Roskam thought some fellow travellers in the Liberal Party were prepared to speak out about this perceived injustice. Federal MP Jason Falinski had publicly called the laws "an anathema to the country that we live in" and "a major infringement on a free and fair society".
Roskam then spoke of the "growing unease amongst Liberal MPs and in Liberal ranks" about the heavy-handed approach to coronavirus restrictions, especially in the two major states.
But that unease never materialised into something more than mild, occasional grumbling. Indeed, Prime Minister Scott Morrison's office had already ordered Falinski and other MPs to shut up and preserve unity. Despite the biggest infringements on individual liberty in the nation's history, as well as divided opinion among epidemiologists about what was necessary, mass opposition to the lockdown measures has not manifested.
-----
Teachers reject report claiming COVID-19 infection risk is low
Robert Bolton Education editor
Apr 27, 2020 – 12.01am
Teachers in NSW have rejected a report showing zero COVID-19 teacher-to-teacher infection rates, saying the sample size is too small and they are still struggling under the weight of contradictions in government policy.
The National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance said the spread of COVID-19 has been "very limited" and it found no cases of teacher-to-teacher infection, which has been the basis of objections by the NSW Teachers Federation.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison referred to the report on Friday when he said on the basis of expert medical advice social distancing was no longer needed in schools.
Lead author of the study Kristine Macartney said the report did not say there was no risk, but it revealed there was very low risk.
The report was not released until Sunday.
-----
New lockdown spending habits will outlive the coronavirus pandemic
By Matt Wade
April 27, 2020 — 12.10am
Spending habits forged during the coronavirus lockdown are set to permanently reshape consumer behaviour in Australia.
There has been a surge in demand for household services such as home delivery and subscription television since the onset of the pandemic, according to a real-time spending tracker developed by analytics firm AlphaBeta, which is part of Accenture, and the credit bureau illion.
Food delivery has led the way, with spending 192 per cent higher last week than the pre-pandemic norm.
AlphaBeta director Dr Andrew Charlton, who was economic adviser to prime minister Kevin Rudd, said new modes of spending adopted by households during the lockdown would endure.
“There are a lot of consumer trends that this crisis has really accelerated,” Dr Charlton said.
-----
WHO backs Australian move to ease restrictions
April 27, 2020 — 12.01am
A senior World Health Organisation official has backed Australia's move to gradually ease restrictions and its push for a global review of the coronavirus outbreak.
Margaret Harris has also opened the door to Prime Minister Scott Morrison's plan to give the world health body more powers, saying Australia was a "great honest broker" that "punches way above its weight in public health and is listened to across the spectrum".
Mr Morrison has committed to reviewing the restrictions in mid-May, saying they will be eased if transmission rates continue to fall, a bolstered health system is ready to respond to any outbreaks and a significant number of Australians have signed up to its phone-tracing application.
-----
WHO backtracks on 'no immunity' advice
By David Millward
April 27, 2020 — 8.00am
Washington: The World Health Organisation has rewritten guidance that suggested those who recovered from the virus would have no immunity, to instead say that survivors can expect some level of protection.
The clarification follows concern from scientists about the brief originally issued by the UN agency.
It had cautioned against the issuing of so-called "immunity passports", which some countries are considering using as a route out of total lockdown by allowing those who have recovered to resume a normal life.
"There is no evidence yet that people who have had COVID-19 will not get a second infection," WHO said in its original scientific brief.
-----
Virus to broaden financial inequality
Andrew Charlton
Founder of AlphaBeta and economic adviser to the Prime Minister during the global financial crisis in 2008-2009.
April 27, 2020 — 12.05am
There is a stark geographic divide across Australia’s cities showing up in data tracking the economic impact of COVID-19. Spending in the wealthiest suburbs has diverged from spending in the least affluent suburbs, but not in the way you might think.
Spending in affluent Sydney local government areas like Woollahra, Ku-ring-gai and Willoughby has fallen by a massive 32 per cent on average, while spending in poorer suburbs such as Liverpool, Campbelltown and Blacktown is holding relatively steady.
Coronavirus seems to have flipped the “latte line”. People in the affluent north and east are cutting back harder than people in the west and south.
-----
Business warns of $400b virus economic hit
A six-month recovery plan from coronavirus measures would cost Australia's economy more than $400 billion, modelling by the Business Council of Australia shows.
Daniel McCulloch
Australian Associated Press April 27, 202012:11pm
Australian businesses have warned the national economy could take a $400 billion hit if coronavirus restrictions are kept in place for six months.
Modelling by the Business Council of Australia shows the economy could shrink by more than 20 per cent this year.
But if a rapid "V-shaped" approach to recovery is taken, the economy could contract far less, to $197.3 billion.
The business lobby group is campaigning for an early easing of trading restrictions to get the economy going again.
-----
Coronavirus Australia: Relaxation a tonic for economic recovery
The nation could sidestep economic catastrophe if COVID-19 restrictions are eased within weeks but will need to embrace sweeping economic reforms to avoid the risk of consigning a generation of older workers to permanent unemployment.
New modelling to be released by the Business Council of Australia estimates the impact of COVID-19 social distancing, border closures and business shutdowns at $200bn in the first month, rising to $280bn after three months and $400bn if the lockdown extends for six months.
The Ernst & Young modelling, to be released on Monday, shows the government would need to substantially lift restrictions by June to ensure a “V-shaped” economic recovery and reverse the huge employment stand-downs that have occurred over the past month. National cabinet is scheduled to begin debating the relaxation of restrictions in three weeks.
Until the government’s economic rescue package was handed down, the BCA found that the 40 per cent of workers most likely to enter the ranks of the long-term unemployed were the same group who never found work again after the recession of the early 1990s.
-----
Reform agenda amid the coronavirus pandemic? Give us a break
5:18AM April 27, 2020
For some strange reason people are starting to talk about economic reform. Perhaps it’s the boredom; everyone’s going stir crazy.
Press conferences and interviews with the Prime Minister or the Treasurer now invariably include a question about it, trying to get them to say they’re going to increase the GST, and over the weekend John Durie had an article in these pages starting with the words: “Big business has embraced the policy reform agenda”.
Reform agenda? Good grief. We are in the midst of a global pandemic and an economic depression, with government deficits rising to telephone numbers, and vested interests are rolling up their sleeves to ensure this is a crisis that doesn’t go to waste.
-----
A stark preview of shopping after lockdown
Apr 28, 2020 – 12.48am
London | Fancy a shopping trip with friends, to try on a few clothes, browse for a gift, linger in a bookstore? The coronavirus peak may have passed, but those plans might be on ice for a long while yet, if guidance from the British retail industry is anything to go by.
In a set of post-lockdown guidelines for non-food shops, Britain's retail industry body and the main retail trade union have painted a picture of shopping that makes it look a lot more functional than fun.
Here's what your visit may look like, according to the British Retail Consortium and the Usdaw union. First, a maximum number of people will be allowed in the shop at any time, so you'll start your visit by queueing outside, at a distance of 2m from everyone else.
When you get in, a shop assistant or security guard will be greeting customers with a smiling but stern reminder to keep your distance while inside. They might point out the one-way system around the aisles.
You'll see staff regularly wiping door handles, lift buttons, handrails. You might be given hand sanitiser or towels to wipe down your own trolley or basket.
-----
A 'very pro-growth' agenda will be tricky to sell
Shane Wright
Senior economics correspondent
April 28, 2020 — 12.00am
When Scott Morrison declared the government was going to put in place economic policies that were "very pro-growth", it prompted an obvious question.
What sort of economic policies had the government in place before the advent of the coronavirus pandemic? Were they not very pro-growth, only pro-growth or maybe just fair to middling growth?
It was the economic version of Spinal Tap and the amplifier that goes to 11.
The concept behind the slogan – of finding ways to get the economy zooming along post-virus – is absolutely spot on. Policies will be needed to help the hundreds of thousands of Australians tossed out of work, to assist businesses fighting for survival and to pay down the government debt left by the virus battle. The way to do that is to get the economy growing strongly.
-----
Economic virus shock outspeeds depression
Treasury boss Steven Kennedy has warned some businesses will be lost permanently as a result of the economic shock of coronavirus.
Matt Coughlan
Australian Associated Press April 28, 202010:57am
The economic shock of coronavirus in Australia has smashed jobs and businesses faster than the Great Depression.
Treasury predicts unemployment to peak at 10 per cent as a result of the pandemic, with some businesses expected to go under.
While the jobless rate was higher during economic devastation through the 1930s, the numbers steadily rose over the course of years rather than months.
"We have never seen an economic shock of this speed, magnitude and shape, reflecting that this is both a significant demand and supply shock," Treasury boss Steven Kennedy told a Senate committee in Canberra on Tuesday.
He said the world economy could change in important and sustained ways after the shock of the virus subsides.
-----
Economic shock outpaces Great Depression, says Treasury
Apr 28, 2020 – 11.22am
Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy says he expects some jobs and businesses will be permanently lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis which has seen a faster economic shock than the Great Depression.
In his testimony to a parliamentary inquiry into the government's response to COVID-19, Dr Kennedy while a 10 per cent unemployment rate expected by Treasury by June was not as high as the Great Depression the speed at which it would happen was unprecedented.
"Unemployment rose to higher levels in the Great Depression, but it did that over the course of a couple of years. These movements are happening in just a couple of months.
"We have never seen an economic shock of this speed, magnitude and shock and reflecting this is a significant demand shock."
-----
COVID-19 Roadmap to Recovery – A Report for the Nation
Covid-19 has changed the course of history. What started off as a flu-like illness in one person in one corner of the world, has changed the lives, livelihoods and futures of billions.
Australia saw its first case on January 25 and now has over 6,600 cases, the country is in partial lockdown, schools and universities have left their campuses, hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost. Fortunately, the tide appears to be turning and we can start thinking of Recovery.
To chart a Roadmap to Recovery we convened a group of over a hundred of the country’s leading epidemiologists, infectious disease consultants, public health specialists, healthcare professionals, mental health and well-being practitioners, indigenous scholars, communications and behaviour change experts, ethicists, philosophers, political scientists, economists and business scholars from the Group of Eight (Go8) universities. The group developed this Roadmap in less than three weeks, through remote meetings and a special collaborative reasoning platform, in the context of a rapidly changing pandemic.
Report Downloads
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australian-leaders-given-two-strategies-for-rebounding-from-covid-19-20200428-p54nwh.html
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australian-leaders-given-two-strategies-for-rebounding-from-covid-19-20200428-p54nwh.html
Australian leaders given two strategies for rebounding from COVID-19
By Fergus Hunter
April 29, 2020 — 12.00am
Maintaining
strict lockdowns until June could drive a 50 per cent greater economic
boost than if measures were slowly eased a month earlier, under one of
two COVID-19 recovery plans presented to the government.
University
researchers have given government leaders two strategies to recover
from the coronavirus pandemic – controlled adaptation with restrictions
eased sooner, or elimination, which could keep restrictions in place
until June but increase public confidence and economic activity.
More than 100 researchers from the Group of Eight universities contributed to the "Roadmap to Recovery" report,
which was delivered to Health Minister Greg Hunt and the Australian
Health Protection Principal Committee this week. It is the most
comprehensive analysis performed on the economic, social and health
trade-offs involved in the national recovery from the pandemic.
Prime
Minister Scott Morrison has said no national restrictions will be eased
before May 11. With only 12 new cases of COVID-19 in the 24 hours to
Tuesday – and only one a confirmed community transmission – some states
and territories want to relax some rules. Mr Hunt labelled the low
number of cases a "cause for hope".
-----
https://www.miragenews.com/racgp-applauds-decision-to-pull-magazine-from-supermarket-shelves/RACGP applauds decision to pull magazine from supermarket shelves
Royal Australian College of GPs
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) has applauded major supermarket chains for playing their part in halting the spread of false and pseudo-scientific medical “advice” being disseminated to Australians.
As reported on Tuesday evening a magazine “What Doctors Don’t Tell You” promoting “alternative medicines” and telling readers how to protect themselves from 5G has been promptly removed from Coles and Woolworths supermarket stores.
RACGP President Dr Harry Nespolon has welcomed the move.
“I applaud the decision of Coles and Woolworths to exercise sound corporate responsibility and pull this magazine from their shelves. Doctors aren’t keeping anything from you, we are working as hard as we can to help our patients every day.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/national/i-wouldn-t-want-to-be-in-scott-morrison-s-shoes-20200428-p54nuy.html
I wouldn't want to be in Scott Morrison's shoes
Ross Gittins
Economics Editor
April 29, 2020 — 12.00am
They say Australians always respond well to a crisis, and it seems it's true. Even in these days of disposable leaders, Kevin Rudd deftly stopped the global financial crisis from sucking us into the Great Recession, and now Scott Morrison has got on top of the corona crisis in a way few would have expected. His approval rating has soared. But I still wouldn't want to be in his shoes.
Why not? Because, as an old econocrat explained to me long ago, if you dispose of a crisis with too much ease – without a titanic struggle – you get precious little gratitude from the voters. If it was that easy to fix, it can't have been much of a crisis in the first place. Indeed, all that money you spent – well, most of it must have been a waste. That's the very way his political opponents have sought unceasingly to denigrate Rudd's unbelievably skilled performance in 2009.
And now Morrison faces the same risk. Everyone's saying he – along with the premier cats he's been herding – has done surprisingly well in controlling the outbreak. But that's not true. The unvarnished truth is that – if you'll forgive the expression – he hasn't just done well, he's killed it. He set out merely to "flatten the curve" but in fact has driven it down almost to zero. And done so with just 80 or so people losing their lives so far.
-----
Struggling international students to get state government lifeline
By Adam Carey
April 28, 2020 — 6.29pm
Tens of millions of dollars in relief funding for international students left in dire financial straits by Victoria’s coronavirus lockdown will be announced by the state government on Wednesday.
International students have been seen lining up in their hundreds at food banks across Melbourne this month after many lost casual work at retail and hospitality businesses hit hard by the lockdown.
Government relief in the form of JobSeeker and JobKeeper payments have not been extended to international students.
The Andrews government would not provide firm figures on the size of the support package for students, but Minister for Trade Martin Pakula said: “International students are valued members of the Victorian community and we will have more to say on dedicated support for this important sector shortly.”
-----
Science strike force warns winter could help virus spread faster
By Liam Mannix
April 28, 2020 — 11.47pm
Australia's top researchers and science leaders have formed a strike force to help the federal government navigate the COVID-19 crisis.
The group known as the Rapid Research Information Forum has warned the virus that causes COVID-19 is likely to spread faster in cold weather and says Australia and the world could face annual winter coronavirus seasons.
The chairman of the forum is Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel, and its 35 members include state and territory chief scientists. Its operations are led by the Australian Academy of Science.
Launched two weeks ago, the group meets daily by email to consider questions from cabinet ministers.
-----
Clinical trial of remdesivir may be a turning point
Melissa Healy
Apr 30, 2020 – 7.46am
In the first clear signal that a drug can effectively treat those sickened by the coronavirus, government researchers reported Wednesday (Thursday AEST) that the antiviral medication remdesivir helped patients with advanced COVID-19 recover more quickly than a placebo treatment.
The early results, emerging from a large clinical trial sponsored by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, appear to position the drug as the standard therapy for hospitalised COVID-19 patients going forward.
In the trial, patients who received remdesivir recovered 31 per cent faster than those who received a placebo, a finding of superiority that could not be attributed to chance, researchers reported.
Specifically, half of the patients who were randomly selected to be treated with remdesivir were considered completely recovered within 11 days, and half of those patients took longer. By comparison, it took 15 days for half of those who received the placebo to recover.
-----
Australia, NZ have 'world's best' COVID health and economic response
Apr 30, 2020 – 3.18am
Washington | Australia's "novel" coronavirus pandemic response is being hailed as one of the world's best for both containing the virus and preserving the nation's economic fabric without throwing millions of workers into potentially permanent unemployment.
A preliminary study of leading advanced economies by the highly-regarded Brookings Institution in Washington said Australia, New Zealand, Denmark and Germany have been "the most successful".
"Among this group of 20 countries, none have been more successful than Australia and New Zealand at containing the coronavirus," said Jonathan Rothwell, Gallup's principal economist, and Hannah Van Drie, a program coordinator at Brookings.
-----
Why Australia's coronavirus wars have only just begun
At least three separate policy battles over COVID-19 have replaced a decade of climate wars for the time being.
Apr 30, 2020 – 3.01pm
For 10 years, Australia has been riven by the climate wars. For 10 weeks, we have played host to the corona wars, as debate about how to respond to the coronavirus pandemic has revealed deep divisions about policy choices.
Three key divisions are shaping national policy on the COVID-19 health and economic crisis.
The first is the tension between the "slow the spreaders" and the "stop the spreaders".
-----
After Covid-19: Australia and the world rebuild
In the years leading up to the global Covid-19 crisis, Australia, like many countries, failed to heed health specialists’ warnings on the likelihood and consequences of a global pandemic. Critical pandemic readiness was an insurance policy deemed too expensive by most nations. That decision left our nation’s pandemic policies exposed to short-sighted efficiency budget cuts.
By 9 March 2020, Prime Minister Scott Morrison was warning us, ‘Whatever you thought 2020 was going to be about, think again.’ On 23 March, Morrison, with implied bipartisan support, told Australians young and old that because of Covid-19 we’re likely to face the ‘toughest year of our lives’.
Fortunately, Australia has been able to implement policies that have slowed and, at the time of writing, flattened the rate of infection. Deaths, social isolation, rising unemployment, global economic recession and intergenerational national debt will ensure that Covid-19 leaves an indelible mark on our individual and collective memories.
But now is no time to rest. Australia needs to be ready to deal with the crisis after the crisis.
-----
'Not out of the woods yet': Health authorities probe 17 coronavirus clusters
By Melissa Cunningham and Liam Mannix
May 1, 2020 — 7.45pm
Victorian health authorities are racing to track the source of infection of 17 coronavirus clusters which have locked down major hospitals, psychiatric clinics and aged-care homes.
Fresh figures from the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services obtained by The Age revealed that the cause of the 17 coronavirus clusters was still under investigation, down from the 58 outbreaks identified in January.
An outbreak at Hawthorn Grange, an assisted living facility for the elderly in Melbourne’s east is among the clusters still being probed.
The cluster, revealed on Thursday, led to five people - a staff member and four residents - being infected to date, with residents forced to isolate in their rooms as extensive testing and cleaning is undertaken.
-----
Coronavirus: Pandemics remind us of the power of community
Disasters have a nasty habit of appearing from nowhere. They catch communities unaware, and people struggle to understand what a disaster such as COVID-19 really means. Finding meaning in an apparently meaningless threat to human lives has continually invited theologians and philosophers to provide much-needed explanations.
Today, we seek help from scientists and other experts, and rely on their evidence and modelling to give meaning to the global COVID-19 epidemic. However, in the end the meaning a community attaches to a disaster is rarely based simply on science but on the values and customs that prevail.
As we know from the tragedy of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the US, catastrophes serve as historical markers. The phrase “after this event nothing will ever be the same again” has been repeated frequently after many other disasters. Frederick Francis Cook, chronicler of the 1871 fire that destroyed a large part of Chicago, wrote “in the minds of Chicagoans the city’s past is demarcated from the present by the great fire of 1871”.
-----
Little guys drown in debt as big business weathers the corona storm with equity
History’s first deliberate lockdown recession — as opposed to the usual accidentally-on-purpose credit squeeze variety — is leaving the economic punditry floundering, weighing the mysteries of epidemiology against the flood of fiscal and monetary stimulus.
And since markets and economists understand money better than germs, and since the money available from central banks is not just mountainous but infinite, they’re going with the optimism of a V-shaped recovery.
As the economy tips into its worst downturn since the 1930s, the Australian sharemarket just had its best month since 1988, for goodness sake.
And why not? Don’t fight the Fed, right? And at least this time the central banks are trying. Between 1930 and 1933, the Fed actually removed cash from the system, reducing America’s money supply by a third, turning the 1929 sharemarket crash into the Great Depression. So maybe a V it is this time. Or not. The short term is entirely up to the virus. Predicting the long-term economic and social costs of the 2020 pandemic recession is even more difficult, but one thing is for sure: there will definitely be some.
-----
10:00pm, May 2, 2020 Updated: 9:01pm, May 2
Hundreds of medications in short supply due to COVID-19 and panic buying
The effects of people panic buying medication because of COVID-19 are being felt across the nation with the number of those in short supply ballooning to almost 600.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration has now listed 572 medications in short supply, including commonly used medication such as Ventolin, breast cancer medicine Tamoxifen, and the flu shot.
Stock-piling of medications such as Ventolin added to the pre-existing supply chain issues, which have been felt globally after a reduction in output from factories in China and Indian.
National president of The Pharmacy Guild of Australia George Tambassis said he had never seen so many medications out of stock.
-----
A virus cluster at an Auckland school has Australian parents worried. Should they be?
By Michael Koziol
May 3, 2020 — 12.00am
Medical experts have assured Australian parents a coronavirus cluster at a New Zealand school that has so far infected 94 people is no reason to fear sending their children back to classrooms.
The cluster began at Marist College in Auckland, a Catholic girls' school, with a teacher who tested positive on March 22. The New Zealand Herald reported she had not been overseas or in contact with any returned traveller, and the origin of her infection is still unknown.
The 750-pupil school closed immediately, for what was initially expected to be three days. But on March 25 the entire country went into lockdown, and by the following day the Marist caseload - by then officially a cluster - had grown to 11 cases including the principal, six other staff members and four students, "mostly seniors" according to the Herald.
-----
Parents ponder repeating their children after pandemic disruption
By Caitlin Fitzsimmons
May 3, 2020 — 12.00am
Kylie Gough is reluctant to send her five-year-old daughter Mia back to school until the pandemic is over and is considering whether she will need to repeat kindergarten.
She’s not alone. The Sun-Herald has heard from dozens of parents pondering the prospect of having their child repeat a year if they fall too far behind academically and miss out on crucial socialisation as a result of the coronavirus-related school closures.
Most schools in NSW are using remote learning, with face-to-face teaching to resume in week three at public schools with children initially rostered to return one day a week.
"I’m definitely not sending her back, knowing there are cases in NSW and Victoria of children with COVID-19," Ms Gough said.
-----
Coronavirus: huge hit as migration is slashed
Scott Morrison has revealed that overseas net migration is forecast to fall by about 85 per cent to just 36,000 people in 2020-21 as a result of tough COVID-19 border restrictions, with the decline thought to represent about a $50bn hit to national income.
The Prime Minister said he would seek to combat the economic blow by setting out a plan to help turbocharge the recovery and help people return to work as the country emerges from the shadow of the pandemic.
Speaking after the national cabinet meeting on Friday, Mr Morrison said the government was expecting “just over a 30 per cent fall” for net overseas migration in 2019-20 when compared with the previous year.
Mr Morrison said that in 2020-21 there would be an “85 per cent fall off those 2018-19 levels as well — so they are quite significant falls”.
-----
Royal Commissions And The Like.
-----
There are no entries in this category.
-----
National Budget Issues.
-----
No snapback: A post-virus economy is going to be different
By Shane Wright
April 28, 2020 — 7.45pm
Nothing is good if your comparison point is the Great Depression.
Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy, fronting a Senate inquiry into how the hundreds of billions in government support is being shuffled out the front door, noted on Tuesday that while the jobless rate in the 1930s rose to unprecedented heights, it had occurred over a space of years.
There's never been an economic shock like the one caused by the coronavirus according to Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy, who has given some indication how the economy on the other side of the virus will be different to the one before.
The coronavirus-induced shutdown of the Australian economy would likely see unemployment fall short of Great Depression levels, but a great many people would have lost their jobs in an astonishingly short period of time.
"We have never seen an economic shock of this speed, magnitude and shape, reflecting that this is both a significant supply and demand shock," he said.
-----
Inflation tops 2pc for the first time since 2018
A 9 per cent spike in the cost of vegetables lifted annual inflation above 2 per cent for the first time since 2018, as drought and bushfire pushed food prices higher over the first three months of the year, according to data which captured only the very early impact of the COVID-19 crisis.
The consumer price index rose 0.3 per cent in the March quarter, bringing the annual rate to 2.2 per cent, the highest since September 2014, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Headline CPI rose by 1.8 per cent last year, after lifting 0.7 per cent over the three months to December.
-----
Why hours worked is a better jobless number
Apr 29, 2020 – 2.07pm
A plunge in the number of hours worked will be a better guide to the labour market's performance during the coronavirus downturn, because the official unemployment rate will be artificially suppressed.
The Reserve Bank of Australia forecasts a "staggering" 20 per cent collapse in the number of hours worked.
Economists said the government's $130 billion JobKeeper wage subsidy package and people giving up searching for work would keep a lid on the official unemployment rate to about 10 per cent.
ANZ economist David Plank said the "shadow" unemployment rate would be much higher than the official jobless rate.
-----
Banks triage for $45b bad debt tidal wave
May 2, 2020 – 12.01am
The major banks are setting up special triage units to prepare for a "tidal wave" of bad debts that could reach $45 billion over three years at the big four alone.
Estimates of losses from COVID-19 across the big four of $45 billion tops previous estimates by $10 billion. AAP
National Australia Bank, Westpac and ANZ this week announced additional provisions to cover the costs of COVID-19 totalling $3.4 billion, and analysts say that is just the beginning.
Evans and Partners' Matthew Wilson updated his bad-debt scenario for the big four banks on Friday, estimating 1.5 per cent of total loans would not be repaid – elevating COVID-19 to the status of a global financial crisis-level event, where 1.6 per cent of loans turned sour.
-----
What an 85pc fall in migration means for the economy and housing
May 1, 2020 – 5.37pm
The number of long-term immigrants into Australia could drop by almost 300,000, over the next two years, according to federal government forecasts, robbing the economy of consumers, skilled labour, taxpayers and homebuyers.
Population growth has been a major driver of economic growth in recent years and has propped up housing construction, rents and house prices.
"Migration is a very housing intensive activity because when a family moves to Australia they need a dwelling," ANZ chief economist Richard Yetsenga said.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Friday that a more than 30 per cent decline in net overseas migration was expected this financial year and an 85 per cent fall was forecast for 2020-21 compared with the 2018-19 level of 240,000 people.
-----
After the anti-social lockdown comes the anti-jobs recession
Ross Gittins
Economics Editor
May 2, 2020 — 12.00am
Until now, old farts like me have thought it a terrible thing that next to no one under 50 has any experience of how terrible recessions are. Even ABC guru Dr Norman Swan sees the costs of the lockdown as mainly social: the boredom, loneliness, anxiety, depression, suicide and domestic violence. Really? That’s as bad as it gets, eh?
But at least our lack of herd immunity from unrealistic expectations means only us old-timers will be expecting this recession to be pretty much the same as those we experienced in the early 1990s, the early ’80s and the mid-1970s. That’s good because this recession will be markedly different to any of those.
Usually, recessions happen because of governments’ policy error. Their attention wanders while the economy is speeding down the road, but then they realise how high inflation’s getting and they panic. They jam on the interest-rate brakes but hit them too hard for too long, and the economy ends up careering off the road and hitting a tree, with many people losing their jobs.
That’s why former prime minister Paul Keating said our last major recession was “the recession we had to have”. He was trying to conceal the truth that all recessions happen by accident.
-----
Tough gig for bank investors
Shareholders looking for regular income from dividends are wondering whether they should finally call time on what has been an anxious few years.
May 2, 2020 – 12.00am
The coronavirus has delivered an unprecedented challenge for the banks, with share prices plummeting, huge provisions set aside to deal with bad loans and dividends firmly on the chopping block.
This comes after a tough few years for bank investors. The emergence of big foreign players in the mortgage market, a bruising royal commission, a sharp housing downturn and record low interest rates have taken their toll on banks, with share prices largely going nowhere in the last four years.
Investors had weathered dividend cuts, leadership changes, asset sales and restructuring but all that finally looked to be in the rear vision mirror as 2020 approached.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia delivered its first "clean" result for years in February, with no new remuneration payments to wronged customers, giving investors hope the others would be able to follow suit soon, with the worst seemingly in the past for the big four.
-----
A very different economy is taking shape
The prime minister says we can’t “keep Australia under the doona” but the very agents of activity that drive our economy, along with others around the world, are changing.
May 1, 2020 – 4.10pm
COVID-19 has been playing havoc with our sense of time over the past couple of months. But that stretching and shrinking of time and events is about to take on a completely different political dimension.
The decision this week by respected MP Mike Kelly to finally pull the plug on his career representing the people of the NSW seat of Eden-Monaro due to ill-health inevitably puts a new time dimension into politics.
Even the timing of Kelly’s decision has been affected by the coronavirus. Dr Kelly’s long service with the Australian Army has left him with a terrible medical legacy. Colleagues on all sides of politics were aware that it had just become too difficult for him to serve in the Parliament.
So his departure had been expected for some time. He said at an emotional press conference on Thursday that the final timing had been partly determined by an expectation that the coronavirus lockdown might be starting to ease soon – which would make the running of an election a bit easier.
-----
Hundreds of thousands more expected to lose work
By Dana McCauley
The
Morrison government is preparing for another 400,000 Australians to
lose their jobs by September, after bureaucrats estimated almost a
million workers would be added to the Centrelink queue six months into
the COVID-19 economic crisis.
Department
of Social Services secretary Kathryn Campbell told a Senate inquiry
hearing this morning that roughly half a million extra Australians had
put in claims for JobSeeker payments in the eight weeks to April 24,
taking the total to 1.3 million - a figure "broadly in line with what we
were expecting".
The
department estimates a total of 1.7 million people will be on the
JobSeeker payments by September, acting deputy secretary Shane Bennett
told the hearing.
Ms
Bennett said that was based on an estimation from before the JobKeeper
package, aimed at keeping Australians employed, was announced.
The welfare payment has been effectively doubled until September under the $14.1 billion coronavirus supplement package.
----- Australia's dependence on immigration faces its biggest economic test
By Shane Wright
May 2, 2020 — 9.05pm
Australia's dependence on immigration to grow the economy is about to be sorely tested.
One of the secret ingredients to Australia's unparalleled run of economic growth since the country's last recession has been strong population growth.
While local mums have played their part in swelling the number of locals, the heavy lifting has been done by people from nations such as China, India, Britain, New Zealand and the Philippines who have decided to call Australia home.
Over the past decade, the nation's permanent population has grown by 3.7 million to more than 25 million. Of that increase, 60 per cent was due to net migration.
-----
'More like Europe': Economy facing population slowdown shock
By Shane Wright
May 1, 2020 — 4.41pm
Businesses and states depending on large population growth are facing a coronavirus shock with the Morrison government expecting a fall of up to 300,000 people moving to Australia over the next two years.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Friday revealed the government expects net overseas migration to fall by 30 per cent in the current financial year before crashing by 85 per cent in 2020-21.
This year's budget had assumed a net 270,000 increase in migration for 2019-20 and just a small drop off the following year. An 85 per cent drop would take net migration down to 40,500, the lowest rate in decades.
-----
SA's economic pain from COVID-19: report
· Australian Associated Press
The COVID-19 pandemic will impact South Australia's economy and jobs until 2024, with double-digit unemployment, a plunge in Gross State Product and a slow recovery predicted in a new report.
Flinders University's analysis of the effect of the virus suggested stimulus packages, like JobKeeper and JobSeeker, would be needed longer than the expected six months.
The report found unemployment was predicted to more than double from 52,000 to 117,000 in the current quarter, with its peak expected to reach 13.3 per cent.
The jobless rate is expected to remain above 10 per cent at the end of 2023.
The analysis also found the state's direct economic losses totalled almost $5.1billion.
-----
Health Issues.
-----
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/hunt-starts-from-a-long-way-back-with-app-pitch-20200426-p54nbz
Hunt starts from a long way back with app pitch
It makes no sense to me to become agitated about health authorities using my data to combat COVID-19. Yet I still seem to be in a minority and that's a very big problem.
Apr 26, 2020 – 6.14pm
I was ready and waiting to download the government’s new COVIDSafe app as soon as it became available Sunday. I am less sure of how much difference it will make.
Trying almost any technology that might make it a little safer and easier to open the economy and social movement makes sense to me.
Perhaps more Australians will heed the call from Scott Morrison and Greg Hunt, backed up by a long list of medical and public health groups. David Rowe
But the apparent reluctance of so many Australians to download the app, as well the strict limits placed on the technology, may restrict its practical effectiveness.
In principle, I don’t share the mistrust of many of my friends and family about the impact on my privacy. This is less a blanket statement of confidence in government and more an acknowledgement that individual data privacy has become a mirage thanks to Google & Co.
-----
International Issues.
-----
No rallies and no golf, just the TV to rankle him
Katie Rogers and Annie Karni
Apr 25, 2020 – 5.28pm
Washington| President Donald Trump arrives in the Oval Office these days as late as noon, when he is usually in a sour mood after his morning marathon of television.
He has been up in the White House master bedroom as early as 5 am watching Fox News, then CNN, with a dollop of MSNBC thrown in for rage viewing. He makes calls with the TV on in the background, his routine since he first arrived at the White House.
But now there are differences.
The president sees few allies no matter which channel he clicks. He is angry even with Fox, an old security blanket, for not portraying him as he would like to be seen.
And he makes time to watch Governor Andrew Cuomo's briefings from New York, closely monitoring for a sporadic compliment or snipe.
-----
Death toll doesn't mean we're overreacting. It means shutdowns help.
Sandra McCoy and Pia MacDonald
Apr 27, 2020 – 7.04am
COVID-19 has killed more than 50,000 people in the United States so far - fewer than the 100,000 deaths originally projected. Hospital systems outside New York, New Jersey and Louisiana have mostly avoided being overwhelmed with coronavirus patients. Some states such as California may have managed to "flatten the curve" and slow the number of infections.
Now some people believe this suggests that the US control strategy, with its disastrous economic consequences, was an extreme overreaction. Small but vocal protests have been organised in some states, calling for restrictions to be lifted immediately. President Donald Trump has called to "liberate" states with businesses closed by social distancing orders. Seeking to ease economic strain, governors in Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina and other places are considering easing restrictions and opening some, if not all, businesses in the coming days.
But public health professionals like us see the current mitigation strategy as proportionate and warranted. The lower-than-expected death tolls don't demonstrate that the US response to the coronavirus pandemic was a mistake - they show that it's working.
Of course we should rigorously interrogate the rationale of an epidemic-control strategy that exacerbates societal inequity and has resulted in more than 95 per cent of Americans being told to stay at home and 22 million newly unemployed workers since March 14. And it's smart to consider alternative explanations for epidemic trends we observe and ask whether the control strategies are really responsible for those trends; this sort of question is, in fact, key to the scientific process.
-----
How Trump is losing politics of pandemic
President’s musing that injecting disinfectant could be a treatment was merely his latest failure to reassure a nervous nation it has the right leader.
27 April, 2020
Donald Trump is going through the darkest days of his presidency. He is losing the politics of the pandemic and is in growing danger of losing the coming election.
He has lost, through no fault of his own, the robust economy that was his strongest case for re-election. But now Trump appears to be gradually losing the confidence of Americans in his ability to steer the nation through the coronavirus crisis.
A 17-state survey commissioned by the Republican National Committee has found that the president is struggling in key election battleground states and is on course to lose the election without some sort of economic rebound before the November poll.
And yet, polls also show that two-thirds of Americans are more fearful of the virus that has claimed more than 55,000 lives than they are of the ramifications of the collapsed economy. As much as these voters want better economic circumstances, they are fearful of the economy being reopened too quickly and triggering a deadly second wave of infections.
-----
Clock running down on America Inc
Updated Apr 28, 2020 – 10.13am, first published at 8.46am
Washington | Another three months - that's about how long American businesses can handle the brutal coronavirus-triggered economic deep winter freeze.
After that, they won't be reopening, says Wells Fargo acting chief economist Jay Bryson.
"The sudden stop in economic activity that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused means that many businesses will need to rely on their cash reserves to survive the next few months," Mr Bryson wrote on Monday (Tuesday AEST).
"If businesses can forgo profits temporarily and do not need to purchase most inputs, then we estimate that the overall business sector could hold on for roughly four more months."
-----
'Very worried': Britain issues alert as possible new coronavirus syndrome emerges in children
By Bevan Shields
April 28, 2020 — 4.15am
London: Health officials in Britain warn that a potential new coronavirus-related syndrome is emerging in children, with a rise in cases prompting an urgent alert to doctors across the country.
The alert revealed an "apparent rise in the number of children of all ages presenting with a multi-system inflammatory state requiring intensive care across London and also in other regions of the United Kingdom".
Cases have been building over the past three weeks, according to the warning from National Health Service officials and distributed to doctors by the Paediatric Intensive Care Society.
"There is a growing concern that a [COVID-19] related inflammatory syndrome is emerging in children in the UK, or that there may be another, as yet unidentified, infectious pathogen associated with these cases," the advisory note said.
-----
China's man in Canberra has unmasked the regime's true face
Peter Hartcher
Political and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald
April 28, 2020 — 12.01am
Ambassador Cheng Jingye has done Australia a great service. He has taken off the mask.
China's ambassador has shown us the true face of the Chinese government's feeling for Australia.
The Chinese Communist Party for years has been working systematically to undermine Australia's sovereignty. To "take over" our political system, in the words of Australia's former national security adviser and ASIO chief, Duncan Lewis.
But the Chinese regime always kept the smiling mask of friendship in place. President Xi Jinping told Australia's Parliament in 2014 that the two countries should "be harmonious neighbours who stick together in both good times and bad times".
-----
More Americans killed by COVID-19 than in Vietnam
Lisa Shumaker
Apr 29, 2020 – 9.24am
Washington | The US death toll from the novel coronavirus exceeded the 58,220 American lives lost during the Vietnam War as cases topped 1 million, according to a Reuters tally.
US cases have doubled in 18 days and make up one-third of all infections in the world, according to the tally.
The actual number of cases is thought to be higher, with state public health officials cautioning that shortages of trained workers and materials have limited testing capacity.
About 30 per cent of the cases have occurred in New York state, the epicentre of the US outbreak, followed by New Jersey, Massachusetts, California and Pennsylvania.
-----
The US and China have reached the end of their road together
Coming clean on how the virus spread in both nations is the only way out of an angry blame game that may consume their economic ties.
Apr 28, 2020 – 1.23pm
It didn't have to end this way, but the die is now cast. After 48 years of painstaking progress, a major rupture of the US-China relationship is at hand. This is a tragic outcome for both sides – and for the world. From an unnecessary trade war to an increasingly desperate coronavirus war, two angry countries are trapped in a blame game with no easy way out.
A nationalistic American public is fed up with China. According to a new poll by the Pew Research Centre, 66 per cent of US citizens view China in an unfavourable light – six points worse than last northern summer and the highest negative reading since Pew introduced this question 15 years ago.
While this shift was more evident for Republicans, those older than 50 and college graduates, unfavourable sentiment among Democrats, younger cohorts and the less educated also hit record highs.
An equally nationalistic Chinese public is also irate at the United States. That is not just because President Donald Trump insisted on dubbing a global pandemic the "Chinese virus". It is also because whispers turned into shouts linking the outbreak of COVID-19 to alleged suspicious activities at the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory.
-----
Britain's true coronavirus death toll 40 per cent higher than official figures
By Bevan Shields
April 29, 2020 — 5.31am
London: Damning new evidence shows tens of thousands of people will die from coronavirus in addition to those who have succumbed to the disease in hospital, with Britain's true death toll as of mid-April nearly 40 per cent higher than what the public had been told.
The pandemic has claimed large numbers of victims in care homes across England, where 4343 residents died in the two weeks to April 24. The concentration of coronavirus deaths in the final five days of the fortnight suggests the virus has not yet peaked in care homes in the same way it has in public hospitals, where admissions and deaths are falling.
The total number of people dying from all causes in the United Kingdom is now double what it normally is for this time of year, fuelling fears that the pandemic is not just taking lives directly but also forcing some people to miss life-saving hospital treatment.
The revelations have put new pressure on Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government and will serve as a warning to other less affected countries - including Australia - about the need to properly shield the elderly and sick when lockdowns are eased.
-----
Trump's 'spectacular' recovery is about to bump up against cold hard facts
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
April 28, 2020 — 11.53am
The economic fallout from the coronavirus must be less than it’s been made out to be. Wall Street is technically back in bull market territory and Donald Trump is foreshadowing a dramatic recovery in the US economy starting in the September quarter.
"The third, and fourth quarter particularly, I think are going to be spectacular," he told a press briefing on Tuesday morning. "I think we’re going to have an incredible fourth quarter and an incredible next year. I think it will be a tremendous, tremendous comeback,” he said, subsequently claiming to have built "the greatest economy the world has ever seen".
Real GDP growth in the US last calendar year was, incidentally, a less-than-spectacular 2.3 per cent. Australia’s was 2.2 per cent.
At face value, the market agrees with Trump’s bombastic assessment.
-----
America's COVID-19 consensus is shattering mid-crisis
As the number of confirmed cases roars past a million and deaths clear 58,000, there's no longer accord on how the world's biggest economy should proceed.
Updated Apr 29, 2020 – 10.58am, first published at 10.54am
Washington | America's weeks-old consensus on how to manage the coronavirus pandemic is starting to fracture.
As the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases roared past 1 million and deaths cleared 58,000 people on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST) – and as the economic and fiscal fallout intensifies – there's no longer a clear agreement on how the world's biggest economy should proceed.
During the initial panicked phase of the crisis, from early February to the end of March, both sides of America's bitter partisan divide came together to approve more than $US2.3 trillion ($3.5 trillion) in support for what most believed would be a serious but relatively brief downturn.
-----
US GDP collapses by 4.8pc in worst fall since 2008
Apr 30, 2020 – 5.33am
Washington | Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell has warned Congress and state leaders there may be a need for even more dramatic rescue measures to help the world's biggest economy recover from an unprecedented and "extraordinary" shock.
As official figures showed that US gross domestic product collapsed at an annualised 4.8 per cent last quarter, Mr Powell issued a bleak catalogue of risks ahead, from a lack of any potential COVID-19 virus vaccine to the dangers of long-term unemployment.
"This is the time to use the great fiscal power of the United States to try to support the economy and get through this with as little damage to the productive capacity of the economy," Mr Powell said after vowing to keep Fed rates near zero for as long as needed.
He added that "this is not the time" to worry about America's ballooning debt levels which he said would "get in the way of us winning this battle".
-----
Donald Tump's fury at campaign team as poll numbers slide
By Jonathan Lemire
April 30, 2020 — 11.14am
Washington: US President Donald Trump erupted at his top political advisers last week when they presented him with worrisome polling data that showed his support eroding in a series of battleground states as his response to the coronavirus comes under criticism.
As the virus takes its deadly toll and much of the nation's economy remains shuttered, new surveys by the Republican National Committee and Trump's campaign pointed to a harrowing picture for the president as he faces reelection.
While Trump saw some of the best approval ratings of his presidency during the early weeks of the crisis, aides highlighted the growing political cost of the crisis and the unforced errors by Trump in his freewheeling press briefings.
Trump reacted with defiance, incredulous that he could be losing to someone he viewed as a weak candidate.
"I am not f---ing losing to Joe Biden," he repeated in a series of heated conference calls with his top campaign officials, according to five people with knowledge of the conversations. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly about private discussions.
-----
True scars of our war against COVID-19 are yet to reveal themselves
Jessica Irvine
Economics writer
April 29, 2020 — 11.32pm
Economists are renowned for their impenetrable language. But when it comes to the terrible toll wrought by joblessness, they don’t mince their words.
"Scarring" is the term economists apply to the long-term adverse effects of losing a job.
Similar to physical scarring, the traumatic experience of losing a job can leave a worker with mental, financial and social scarring for decades to come – if not the rest of their lives.
According to Deloitte Access Economics economist Chris Richardson, if a person is made redundant during a recession and is not rehired within two years, it is likely they will never work again.
-----
China's factory activity steady but export orders slump
Updated Apr 30, 2020 – 4.39pm, first published at 4.04pm
Shanghai | China's manufacturers reported a slump in overseas orders in April, although factory activity remained in positive territory as the coronavirus pandemic sapped demand for goods from major economies around the world.
China said on Thursday official Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI) was 50.8 for the month, weaker than the 52 reported in March but a significant improvement on the record low 35.7 reported in January and February.
While weaker than expected, the data confirmed China's manufacturing sector was stable, but also that the biggest challenge to the country's economic recovery would be dwindling exports as the global economy heads into recession due to the pandemic.
A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while one below reflects contraction.
-----
Warren Buffett's favourite market indicator is signalling a crash
Theron Mohamed
May 1, 2020 – 7.51am
Key Points
- Warren Buffett’s preferred stock-market gauge hit a record high, signalling stocks are overvalued and a crash could be coming.
- The “Buffett indicator” divides the total value of publicly traded stocks by quarterly GDP.
- It is “probably the best single measure of where valuations stand at any given moment,” Buffett wrote in Fortune magazine in 2001.
- The famed investor and Berkshire Hathaway boss said it was a “very strong warning signal” when the indicator peaked just before the dot-com bubble burst.
Warren Buffett’s favourite sharemarket indicator has climbed to a record high, signalling stocks are overvalued and another crash could be coming.
The so-called “Buffett Indicator” takes the combined market capitalisations of a country’s publicly traded stocks and divides that by quarterly gross domestic product. Investors use it to gauge whether the sharemarket is overvalued or undervalued relative to the size of the economy.
-----
ResMed gains $US35m in ventilator sales
May 1, 2020 – 9.27am
Medical device and software company ResMed said revenue jumped 16 per cent in the third quarter to $US769.5 million ($1.19 billion) driven by strong sales across mask and device product portfolios, including increased demand for ventilators due to COVID-19.
ResMed tripled its ventilator production during the three months ended March 31, while masks were up 10-fold compared to a year ago due to the surging demand from COVID-19 sufferers but, as expected, its core sleep apnoea business saw significant double-digit declines in new patient diagnosis as people stayed away from hospitals and doctors.
Chief executive Mick Farrell said on a call to investors that it is “extremely challenging global times” not only for ResMed but many companies, but he remained upbeat about the outlook.
-----
US jobless claims soar past 30 million as Europe also reels
May 1, 2020 — 2.02am
New York: The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits because of the coronavirus has soared past 30 million, worsening a crisis unmatched since the 1930s and turning up the pressure on political leaders to lift restrictions that are choking the economy.
Government figures released on Thursday showed that 3.8 million laid-off workers applied for jobless benefits last week, raising the total to about 30.3 million in the six weeks since the outbreak took hold and forced the shutdown of factories and other businesses from coast to coast.
The lay-offs amount to 1 in 6 American workers and encompass more people than the entire population of Texas, or more people than live in the New York and Chicago metropolitan areas combined.
There was also bleak new data in Europe, where over 130,000 people with the virus have died so far.
-----
US manufacturing activity plunges to 11-year low as orders sink
Lucia Mutikani
May 2, 2020 – 4.10am
Washington | US manufacturing activity plunged to an 11-year low in April as the novel coronavirus wreaked havoc on supply chains, suggesting the economy was sinking deeper into recession.
The survey from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) added to a raft of grim data this week, including a collapse in consumer spending in March and a surge to 30.3 million in the number of Americans who have filed claims for unemployment benefits in the last six weeks.
Strict measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus, have almost paralysed the country, leading to the deepest economic contraction since the Great Recession in the first quarter.
"The backdrop for manufacturers is very bleak, with collapsing global demand, ongoing supply chain disruptions, and high levels of uncertainty all posing very significant challenges," said Oren Klachkin, lead US economist at Oxford Economics in New York. "We do not expect output losses to be recouped until 2021."
-----
Warren Buffett sees a path to economic recovery from COVID-19
· Dow Jones
Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting kicked off with Warren Buffett offering reassurance that the US economy will recover steadily from the coronavirus pandemic.
Speaking onstage at an empty arena in downtown Omaha, Nebraska on Saturday, Mr Buffett said the range of possibilities from the pandemic was wide, but it had significantly narrowed in recent weeks.
He said it now seemed unlikely the world would face the worst possible health and economic scenarios from the novel coronavirus, compared with some of the predictions from earlier this year. Moreover, the US economy will recover with time, Mr Buffett said.
“We’ve faced tougher problems and the American miracle, the American magic, has always prevailed,” he said in livestreamed remarks, adding that it would do so again.
-----
I look forward to comments on all this!
-----
David.
