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The polls, if they can believed, suggest the four years of Trumpism are coming to an end. Frankly on can only rejoice if that turns out to be the case. At this point in time little else matters until the election is over!
In the UK and Europe – as well as in the US – the COVID is running amok and seems totally out of control. It is hard to know where this will end right now.
In Australia we see Victoria having beaten the second wave of the virus and calls for rapid opening up which will happen but a little more slowly I suspect. Otherwise we have seen a very large spending budget, which was clearly needed, but it is clear we will take a decade to get things more under control. The virus has really wrought terrible pain!
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Major Issues.
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Uni students prefer online learning: study
Robert Bolton Education editor
Oct 12, 2020 – 12.01am
As debate rages over the benefits of working online versus working from the office, a survey of postgraduate university students found that more than three-quarters who have studied at home during the pandemic think digital learning is equal to or better than face-to-face learning.
Consultancy Deloitte say the results are a green light for universities to do more blended teaching, which combines online with face-to-face.
On a satisfaction score, students said online was equal to blended or face-to-face learning when it came to "tailoring a curriculum" that suited their needs.
And they gave online teaching an eight out of 10 satisfaction score for meeting their personal and professional interests, which was better than the result for face-to-face or blended classes.
Overall 77 per cent said digital learning was equal to or better than face-to-face learning.
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China orders steelmakers to stop buying Australian coal, say traders
Michael Smith China correspondent
Updated Oct 13, 2020 – 8.28am, first published at 8.10am
Sydney | China has told some of its state-owned steelmakers and power plants to stop importing Australian coal, in the latest sign Beijing is using economic retaliation to pressure the Morrison government.
Coal traders in China confirmed reports on industry websites that some buyers had been told to stop purchasing coal from Australia, although it was unclear how damaging those instructions would be as some power generators had already hit their import quota in July.
Five coal traders and analysts told The Australian Financial Review on Monday night that reports about a verbal notice banning Australian coal were true. One said this applied to both thermal and coking coal.
"I believe this is a political sanction against Australia," one analyst, who did not want to be named because of the politically-sensitive nature of the ban, said.
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Back to the drawing board on our survival strategy
Hugh White Columnist
Oct 12, 2020 – 12.01am
Scott Morrison was not exaggerating back in July when he compared Australia’s strategic circumstances today with the late 1930s and the lead-up to World War II.
Back then a rising regional power with big strategic ambitions looked more and more threatening, while our major ally, Great Britain, looked less and less reliable.
Australians had no choice but to start thinking seriously about what they could do for their own defence, but they left it too late and they were quite unprepared when the disaster fell in 1941. Luckily America came to our rescue.
Of course China today is nothing like Japan in 1941. But it is clearly determined to take America’s place as the leading power in East Asia and the Western Pacific.
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There's a limit on China's coal appetite, literally
Peter Ker Resources reporter
Oct 13, 2020 – 11.35am
No one in Australia knows for sure whether the latest curbs on Chinese coal imports are a case of geopolitical muscle flexing or something more procedural, but there is plenty of circumstantial evidence that points to the latter.
China has a big effort under way to support jobs in its domestic coal mining sector, and has been willing to pay a high price to protect those jobs.
At times this year Chinese power generators could have saved $US25 ($34.68) on every tonne of coal they bought, had they opted to buy from foreign miners rather than Chinese miners.
But the "buy local" campaign remained in force as China sought to bolster its economic recovery from the pandemic lockdowns, and the huge arbitrage between the price for Chinese and non-Chinese coal has remained throughout much of the year.
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RBA considers adding longer bonds as it weighs case for easing
Matthew Cranston and Jonathan Shapiro
Oct 15, 2020 – 9.54am
Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe has signalled the central bank is willing to consider further easing, including buying longer term bonds, despite the traditional impacts on asset prices and incomes.
"Is there benefit of us buying more longer term bonds and what benefit would that have? If we buy bonds in the five- to ten-year range, will that create more jobs? That's what we are discussing at our meetings," Dr Lowe told the Citi investment conference in Sydney on Thursday morning.
"Expectations about future interest rates affect people's decisions and asset pricing, so we seek to be as transparent as we reasonably can," he said.
Dr Lowe said that while the central bank board had not yet made any decisions on interest rates, it was considering the effects of further monetary easing on financial stability and longer-term macroeconomic stability.
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ASIO foils plot to infiltrate Australian government
By Anthony Galloway
October 15, 2020 — 8.35pm
The domestic spy agency ASIO has foiled a plot by foreign intelligence operatives to recruit senior government staffers to provide classified information about Australia's counterespionage activities.
A foreign national based in Australia was working with a team of spies overseas to penetrate senior levels of the government.
The primary goal was to covertly acquire classified information about Australian intelligence agencies' operations and capabilities - especially those directed at their country.
The concerning plot is revealed in the annual report of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation which was tabled in parliament on Thursday.
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https://www.smh.com.au/national/democracy-is-fragile-handle-with-care-20201016-p565vm.html
Democracy is fragile. Handle with care
Peter Hartcher
Political and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age
October 16, 2020 — 6.45pm
On the night Barack Obama won the US presidency, most of Washington DC was euphoric. City intersections spontaneously filled with dancing, chanting, ecstatic crowds.
But as the news of his victory came through, one Democrat election-watching party remained subdued. The host of the party, Madeleine Albright, America's first female secretary of state, stood on a chair to speak and the crowd of some 200 revellers fell silent.
"I want to give thanks that we are witnessing the democratic transfer of power without bloodshed in America tonight," she said. I was surprised. Was it ever an option that America would see a bloody one?
We now know the answer: Yes. It is an option. It is a distressingly realistic prospect for an American election due in 17 days.
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Can Australia depend on our Asian neighbours for security?
For a half-century, Australian defence policy has shifted uneasily between self-reliance and dependence on the US. But the government’s 2020 Defence Strategic Update, released in July, marks an important change in direction.
Both approaches are largely abandoned and, instead, Australia will seek its security principally as part of a coalition of Asian countries.
The government hopes this coalition will be led by the US, but that is not taken for granted. If America fails us, we will look not to ourselves but to our Asian neighbours — as John Curtin might have put it, “free of any pangs”. Can Australia credibly depend on our Asian neighbours for our security? What are the alternatives?
The government’s abandonment of self-reliance is a stark change. Every defence policy statement from 1976 to 2013 has declared this to be Australia’s highest priority. The 2016 defence white paper steps back from that by stating that defending Australia is one of three core missions, along with contributing to operations in maritime South-East Asia and the South Pacific, and to global coalitions.
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Australia’s new global industry – BNPL
The government is channelling some of the $74bn JobMaker Plan into supporting manufacturing and R&D (4.7 per cent of it to be precise, and wringing a lot more than 4.7 per cent of the picfac/photo-op value out of it).
And on Friday the Australian Business Growth Fund was officially launched with capital of $540m from the government and the banks to invest.
But sometimes the best things in life are free. Sometimes they sneak up on you, and don’t use government money, are not picfacable, and even look a little bit shonky. I’m talking now about “buy now pay later” (BNPL).
It turns out that this is Australia’s innovative new global industry. No government money has gone into it, and in fact it’s a fair bet that no policy brainpower has been applied to it at all, but this is the first significant global industry to have originated in Australia since the Cochlear implant.
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Labor wins sixth straight ACT election
Andrew Tillett Political correspondent
Oct 17, 2020 – 8.21pm
Labor is set to continue its two decade-long rule in the Australian Capital Territory in a minority government with the Greens, with voters endorsing Chief Minister Andrew Barr's handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Labor looked to have clinched at least 11 seats in the territory's 25 member Legislative Assembly, while the Greens had banked at least two seats and could gain more on preferences, according to the ABC's election analyst Antony Green.
The Liberals won at least eight seats after suffering a 2.7 per cent swing against the party.
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Coronavirus And Impacts.
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No cure, but Trump has a point about antibody cocktails
Early trial results for the drugs mimic the body’s natural defences against COVID-19 are promising. Frontrunners Regeneron and Eli Lilly can hope for a boost to their reputation and, to a lesser extent, their profits.
The Lex Column
Oct 11, 2020 – 4.19pm
It is no miracle cure. But President Donald Trump’s enthusiasm for antibody cocktails is better grounded than some of his other medical endorsements.
Early trial results for the drugs, which mimic the body’s natural defences against COVID-19, are promising. Frontrunners Regeneron and Eli Lilly can hope for a boost to their reputation and, to a lesser extent, their profits.
Normally, US regulators would insist on more proof of effectiveness but there is a good chance they will give the go-ahead for emergency use quickly. They are familiar with this class of drugs, called monoclonal antibodies, which have delivered big advances against diseases from asthma to cancer.
Shares of Regeneron and Eli Lilly rose after Trump’s endorsement. Each company could rake in about $US1.5 billion ($2 billion) next year from sales of the antibodies, estimates Bernstein. Success would move the dial more for Regeneron, which is less than half the size of Eli Lilly.
That is, after this year’s 60 per cent share price rise for Regeneron, fuelled by optimism about another antibody drug, anti-inflammatory Dupixent.
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Rising COVID cases take Europe and US off the travel list for next year
By Anthony Galloway
October 11, 2020 — 12.00am
Australians should take Europe and the United States off their travel list for the whole of next year if there is no coronavirus vaccine, with Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham declaring the Morrison government's priority is to establish travel bubbles with "other low-risk nations".
Many European countries experienced huge spikes in new COVID-19 cases last week, making it less likely the continent will get a handle on the global pandemic as it heads into winter.
A surge in COVID-19 cases in Europe and the United States means they'll almost certainly be off the holiday list for Australians for all of next year, unless there's a vaccine.
But Senator Birmingham revealed Australians could be travelling to New Zealand by the end of the year, which will then be used as a blueprint to open up to other countries in Asia and the Pacific.
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Why bankers are so worried about their small business loan books
The Commonwealth Bank's latest update on its home loan deferrals confirms the industry view that between 55 and 60 per cent of borrowers are now confident to resume mortgage payments.
Karen Maley Columnist
Oct 12, 2020 – 6.52pm
There's some good news and some not-so-good tidings for investors in the Commonwealth Bank's latest update regarding its progress in weaning its home loan and small business customers off their loan deferrals.
CBA boss, Matt Comyn, appeared to recognise the equivocal nature of the update – which came ahead of the bank's virtual AGM on Tuesday.
He described the trends as "encouraging", but added the bank was "conscious that many of our customers still require our ongoing support, particularly in regions most affected by COVID-19, such as Victoria, which is reflected in requests for deferral extensions."
Still, investors will be relieved to see that the number of borrowers who are in dire need of loan relief is falling sharply as most states emerge from the pandemic-driven recession.
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Business unites to tackle mental health in the workplace
Carrie LaFrenz Senior reporter
Updated Oct 13, 2020 – 6.22pm, first published at 9.07am
A network of business leaders from Bunnings to Microsoft have joined forces to form an alliance to help work out how to best address mental health at work.
A key issue resulting from the pandemic is a significant increase in mental health illness. The recent federal budget committed $62.1 million over four years to improve access to mental health services and double the number of rebated psychology sessions to 20 sessions on Medicare.
Bunnings Group boss Mike Schneider told The Australian Financial Review that not only were retail staff on the front line dealing with people who are anxious about COVID-19, but support teams in Melbourne had also spent eight months working in isolation.
"They are now watching everyone else get their life back together," said Mr Schneider, who is a founding member of the Corporate Mental Health Alliance Australia (CMHAA).
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Australia has suffered no extra deaths from COVID-19
Jill Margo Health editor
Oct 14, 2020 – 8.00pm
Australia has suffered no excess deaths from COVID-19, according to an important study of 21 industrialised countries published in the journal Nature Medicine.
Led by Imperial College, London, the study assessed how many people were expected to die in a normal year in each country and compared this with how many did die over the first wave.
In the 21 countries – which did not include the US – the researchers estimated that 206,000 more people died than would have, had there been no pandemic from mid-February till the end of May.
However, Australia and New Zealand had "no detectable excess deaths" during these 10 weeks. This compares with increases of 37 per cent in England and Wales and 38 per cent in Spain.
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France's Macron announces nightly curfews to fight coronavirus surge
By Benoit Van Overstraeten and Christian Lowe
October 15, 2020 — 7.07am
Paris: France will impose a nightly curfew on almost one third of the country's 67 million people to tackle a resurgent coronavirus, but a new national lockdown is not envisaged, President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday.
Macron announced the curfews, which will take effect from Saturday and run each night from 9pm to 6am the following morning, shortly after the government declared a new public health state of emergency. The restrictions will last for at least four weeks.
The president said curfews would be imposed in the greater Paris region, Marseille, Toulouse, Montpellier and five other cities.
"We're in a second wave," Macron said in an interview on national television. "We have to react."
France, like other European countries, is grappling with how to slow the virus’ spread and ease pressure on a once-again strained healthcare system while keeping its €2.3 trillion ($2.71 trillion) economy open and protecting jobs.
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With its coronavirus consensus in tatters, Europe faces a grim winter ahead
By Bevan Shields
October 16, 2020 — 7.12am
London: Europe's worsening coronavirus outbreak has claimed a big victim: consensus. It was a key weapon in the battle earlier this year but has been wiped out amid a second wave which has arrived much earlier and harder than expected.
The most obvious example is Britain, where the number of confirmed cases is approaching 20,000 a day, although some studies suggest could be as high as 45,000 in England alone. Nearly 5000 patients are in hospital in the United Kingdom - 600 on ventilators - and 701 people have died from the disease in the past week alone.
At this rate, Europe's hardest hit nation during spring is on course for a very grim winter. A prolonged lockdown, however, remains unlikely.
Why? The political and public consensus that saw the nation rally and flatten the curve earlier this year has since evaporated. 'Lockdown' is a dirty word for politicians across Europe. Even the World Health Organisation seems to have gone cold on it.
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How global healthcare disruption can make you money
With a technology-led revolution in medicine fast approaching, investors need to be ready – for themselves and their portfolio's health.
Tony Featherstone Contributor
Oct 17, 2020 – 12.00am
COVID-19 is providing a shot of adrenalin for healthcare investing as technology hastens change across the sector and re-imagines medicine's future.
Fund managers believe this year's telehealth boom will spark sweeping digitisation across healthcare. And that technology will disrupt everything from drug discovery to patient care.
Telehealth has become a global phenomenon. Virtual-care consultations will top 1 billion globally by December, predicts Forrester Research.
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Who is watching over the rivers of COVID-19 cash?
Governments are handing out vast amounts of money at speed with less supervision as they try to stem the economic pain of the pandemic. It's a recipe for trouble.
John Kehoe Senior writer
Oct 16, 2020 – 4.45pm
If the virtuous NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian can have her conduct grilled by the Independent Commission Against Corruption, no wonder the federal government has been dragging its feet for years on setting up an independent corruption watchdog.
Yet with buckets of taxpayer cash being splurged during COVID-19 and all sorts of unprecedented government decisions being taken at warp speed, the case for the prying eye of a national independent integrity commission is stronger than ever.
Federal spending is set to soar 35 per cent to $677 billion this financial year.
During COVID-19, some ministers have their own special spending funds worth billions of dollars, and can unilaterally make temporary regulations helping or hindering business and industries without the direct approval of Parliament.
Public servants in Canberra, many working from home, away from the watchful eye of managers and colleagues, also have extra leeway.
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Coronavirus: Trial shows tested drugs have no impact on mortality rates
A major clinical trial by the World Health Organisation into the effects of four repurposed drugs to treat COVID-19 has found none of them has any effect on mortality rates.
The Solidarity Therapeutics Trial reported results from studies examining the effect of the antiviral drugs remdesivir, the antimalarial hydroxychloroquine, the HIV drug lopinavir and the auto-immune drug interferon, with the results published by the preprint server medRxiv on Friday.
The trial began six months ago and involved 11,266 COVID-19 patients in 450 hospitals in 30 countries.
“These remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir and interferon regimens appeared to have little effect on in-hospital mortality,” the study found.
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Climate Change
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'An uninhabitable hell': UN says climate change 'doubled the rate' of disasters
By Olivia Rudgard
October 13, 2020 — 7.29am
New York: Climate change is largely responsible for a doubling in the number of natural disasters since 2000, the United Nations says, as it warns that the Earth is becoming uninhabitable for millions of humans.
Three quarters of a billion more people were affected by catastrophic events of nature over the past two decades than in the 20 years before, the UN's office for disaster risk reduction said.
Calling humanity "wilfully destructive", it said the data was a wake-up call to governments that had failed to take the threat of climate change seriously or to prepare for more natural disasters.
"It is baffling that we willingly and knowingly continue to sow the seeds of our own destruction, despite the science and evidence that we are turning our home into an uninhabitable hell for millions of people," the authors said.
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Royal Commissions And The Like.
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Coronavirus: Just one in five people trust the aged care system, new report warns
Just 15 per cent of Australians aged between 60 and 80 trust the aged-care industry, a survey shows.
And there has been a significant increase in those aged between 50 and 70 considering the use of in-home aged-care services, the survey of more than 2000 people reveals.
Commissioned by aged-care providers, the survey confirms the sector has a long way to go to win back public trust in the industry.
More than two in three people using an aged-care service don’t trust it, the research found, with the proportion even worse for family members and people not engaged in the sector.
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Coronavirus: 75pc of deaths have been in aged-care homes
Three-quarters of COVID-19 deaths in Australia have been in aged-care homes, new international research shows, ranking it third behind Slovenia and Canada as the country with the highest proportion of deaths among aged-care residents.
The International Long-term Care Policy Network, based at the London School of Economic and Political Science, found 75 per cent of Australia’s coronavirus deaths were in aged-care homes compared to 81 per cent in Slovenia and 80 per cent in Canada.
In the US, the percentage of deaths in aged care was 41 per cent of all deaths compared to 44 per cent in Britain and 11 per cent in Singapore.
The latest federal government statistics, which will be updated on Friday, show 669 COVID-19 deaths have been in residential aged-care centres out of a total 904 deaths.
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National Budget Issues.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/cheaper-childcare-pays-for-itself-20201011-p563xj
Cheaper childcare pays for itself
Higher female participation will provide a GDP boost double the cost Labor's childcare plan.
Danielle Wood and Kate Griffiths
Oct 11, 2020 – 12.05pm
Labor went bold in its budget reply with a plan for cheaper childcare and a long-term vision for a universal system. While it is an important social policy, it is arguably an even more important economic reform.
Labor plans to increase the maximum Child Care Subsidy from 85 per cent to 90 per cent, slow down the rate at which the subsidy tapers off, and remove the annual cap. These changes would make childcare more affordable for almost every family using it.
Australia's out-of-pocket childcare costs are high by international standards, and half of Australians with children under 5 say they struggle with the cost of childcare.
The government stresses that 70 per cent of families have out-of-pocket costs of less than $5 an hour per child for centre-based care. But $5 an hour translates to about $50 a day, $250 a week, or $13,000 a year for each child in full-time care. We estimate that under Labor's plans more than half of families will pay less than $20 a day per child.
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Rethink on university research needs a business-like footing
Jennifer Martin and Les Coleman
Oct 11, 2020 – 1.55pm
In the wake of COVID-19, the GFC and other crises, shell-shocked businesses, employees and governments should be clamouring "This must never happen again!"
In this spirit, we write to highlight long-standing structural issues in the planning and support of research by Australian universities that have been on full display with COVID-19.
The government has allocated close to $100 million for COVID-19 medical research on top of research billions in previous years. Despite that, we are almost a year into the pandemic and there are few therapies and nil vaccines available; and we rely on techniques of isolation, masks and hand-washing that date to the Spanish Flu pandemic a century ago.
It is certain that new crises will hit the health, finance and other critical sectors. Australians deserve the opportunity to be prepared, and have no alternative but to rethink our research systems and leaders.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/anti-mmt-frydenberg-says-debt-must-be-controlled-20201014-p564w4
Anti-MMT Frydenberg says debt must be controlled
Matthew Cranston Economics correspondent
Oct 14, 2020 – 10.12am
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has strongly resisted suggestions to embrace so-called modern monetary theory (MMT), whereby governments force central banks to print money to fund fiscal expenditure.
Last week, Mr Frydenberg announced a record $213.7 billion deficit with $50 billion in new tax relief for businesses and low- and middle-income earners to return the economy.
"I never thought as a Liberal Treasurer that I would be here with the highest deficit and the debt," Mr Frydenberg told the annual Citi Investment Conference on Wednesday.
However, he said he was against MMT as a framework for funding future spending.
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Zombies take their medicine as some companies accept reality
Matthew Cranston Economics correspondent
Oct 14, 2020 – 12.01am
Victoria recorded a 24 per cent spike in business administrations in September while in NSW they decreased, CreditorWatch's latest data shows.
Last month the Morrison government extended insolvent trading relief out to 2021 in a bid to prevent further job losses and avoid another hit to the economy.
Since then, the number of days businesses have taken to pay their bills has improved by 10 per cent.
However, tough decisions on viability are finally starting to be made, leading to the first monthly spike in national business administrations since June.
CreditorWatch Business Risk Review reports that the number of businesses entering some form of administration rose 11 per cent in September to 436. The number of business defaults increased by 23 per cent in the month, the first increase recorded since May.
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Australia to escape worst of recession but faces debt mountain: IMF
By Shane Wright
October 14, 2020 — 12.01am
The coronavirus recession will not be as deep as feared for Australia, the International Monetary Fund believes, but it will take years to recover with ongoing high levels of unemployment and government debt.
In its world economic outlook released overnight, the fund said it expects the Australian economy to contract by 4.2 per cent this year before growing by 3 per cent in 2021.
The forecasts are a sharp improvement on what the IMF was expecting in April, during the depths of nation-wide health restrictions, when it believed the economy would shrink by 6.7 per cent before growing by 6.1 per cent.
National Editor Tory Maguire along with Economics Editor Ross Gittins, Chief Political Correspondent David Crowe and Senior Economics Correspondent Shane Wright, discuss the fallout from one of the most anticipated budgets in recent history.
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Shopper confidence jumps in wake of the federal budget
By Shane Wright
October 14, 2020 — 11.16am
Consumer confidence has soared to its highest level in more than two years on the back of the Morrison government's big spending federal budget.
Westpac's closely watched measure of consumer sentiment jumped by 11.9 per cent in October, with optimists out-numbering pessimists for the first time since 2018.
The bank's chief economist, Bill Evans, said the development was due to last week's budget plus ongoing success across the country in containing the coronavirus outbreak.
"This is an extraordinary result. The index has now lifted by 32 per cent over the last two months to the highest level since July 2018," he said.
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Reserve Bank lays ground for November rate cut
Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe says cutting rates to 0.1 per cent as the economy opens back up would “get more traction” than was the case during widespread restrictions earlier in the year, laying the rhetorical ground work for further easing at the bank’s next board meeting on November 3.
“When the pandemic was at its worst and there were severe restrictions on activity we judged that there was little to be gained from further monetary easing,” Dr Lowe said in a speech this morning at the Citi Investment conference in Sydney.
“The solutions to the problems the country faced lay elsewhere,” he said. “As the economy opens up, though, it is reasonable to expect that further monetary easing would get more traction than was the case earlier.”
This philosophy squares with a central bank prepared to ease monetary policy even as the economy recovers from the worst downturn since the 1930s.
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Another 30,000 jobs go as unemployment rises to 6.9pc
Matthew Cranston Economics correspondent
Oct 15, 2020 – 11.50am
Australia's unemployment rate rose slightly to 6.9 per cent in September after the economy lost 30,000 jobs in the extended COVID-19 lockdown.
Full-time employment decreased by 20,100 to 8.5 million people, and part-time employment fell by 9400 to 4 million.
Economists were expecting the unemployment rate to rise to 7 per cent for September, up from 6.8 per cent in August with 30,000 jobs expected to have been cut.
ANZ expected an employment loss of 50,000 with the unemployment rate to rise to 7.2 per cent.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/lowe-flags-rba-policy-shake-up-20201015-p565ag
Lowe flags RBA policy shake up
Not only is the RBA boss flagging more extraordinary stimulus, but he is also signalling a more fundamental shift in the monetary policy inflation-targeting framework.
John Kehoe Senior writer
Oct 15, 2020 – 12.52pm
Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe's incredibly dovish speech on Thursday, paving the way for more marginal monetary stimulus, sets up a historic turning point for interest rate policy.
Not only is Lowe flagging the bank will soon trim interest rates even closer to zero and buy billions of dollars of longer-term government debt to try to put downward pressure on the currency and support jobs.
He is also signalling a more fundamental reconsideration of the monetary policy inflation-targeting framework, after conceding the bank can't hit its 2-3 per cent inflation goal for many years.
Above all else during the COVID-19 recession, the number one objective of the RBA board is to help the government push down the 6.9 per cent unemployment rate - still expected to rise to 8 per cent - towards 5 per cent.
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https://www.afr.com/wealth/personal-finance/rba-adapts-to-fight-pandemic-20201014-p56511
RBA pivots to crush borrowing costs across the economy
In the age of the pandemic, Australia's central bank is turning its focus to crushing our rising unemployment rate via lowering long-term interest rates.
Christopher Joye Columnist
Oct 16, 2020 – 9.33am
Cometh the hour, cometh the man (or woman). There's no doubt the COVID-19 crisis has brought the best out of our policy leaders, including the Reserve Bank of Australia’s governor and deputy governor, Phil Lowe and Guy Debelle, and the nation’s brilliant banking regulator, Wayne Byres.
A step behind them in the shadows has been Treasury’s no-less-impressive secretary, Steven Kennedy, who is perhaps playing the most significant part via one of the world’s most powerful fiscal stimulus programs (as a share of GDP).
Australians have been protected by this Praetorian Guard of outstanding public servants during the pandemic. I am proud of them, and you should be too. As hammy as it might sound, it has truly been a Team Australia effort with politicians like Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg rising to the challenge, as have leading bankers like CBA’s Matt Comyn.
It reminds one of the unconquerable Aussie spirit and what it means to be a member of our uniquely creative, resilient and multicultural tribe. A tribe that refuses to accept defeat, and always finds a novel way to prevail over adversity.
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Health Issues.
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https://www.afr.com/wealth/personal-finance/take-control-of-aged-care-at-home-20201013-p564o9
Take control of aged care at home
How to navigate government help in living at home for longer, as well as what to do when you need to finance these costs yourself.
Louise Biti Contributor
Oct 14, 2020 – 12.00am
Home care is increasing in popularity for older Australians as an alternative to residential care. This is because you can choose where to live – either at your home or in a retirement community or perhaps with the kids – and bring the care you need to you.
But with popularity comes some downsides – demand for home care packages exceeds the number that have been made available. Once you are approved for a package, your name goes on the waiting list until funding becomes available. This could be a wait of 12-18 months.
About 152,000 older Australians receive help through a home care package, with another more than 100,000 people waiting for a package to be allocated. Some people waiting might receive a lower level of care so they have access to some support while waiting. This year’s federal budget saw the government allocate an additional $1.6 billion to provide 23,000 more home care packages, but even so, the wait is still expected to be long.
The government-subsidised home care packages are funded at four levels. Each level has a different amount of funding (budget) available for you to spend on care, with the packages ranging from $12,443 to $53,732 per year.
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International Issues.
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Deficit-weary Republicans look beyond Trump
Deadlocked stimulus talks show that Senate Republicans are no longer willing to write blank cheques for Donald Trump's re-election, and are preparing for a post-MAGA future.
Jacob Greber United States correspondent
Oct 11, 2020 – 2.14pm
Washington | Paul Keating used to say never get between state premiers and a bucket of money.
The same is true of Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi; despite their vast political differences they're on a unity ticket for another giant debt-funded cash splash.
In fact, despite all the political posturing by Pelosi, Senate Republicans are the only real barrier to the latest deal – and their resistance to White House demands shows some of them are already preparing for a post-Trump future.
Incredibly, the 2020 presidential election is just 23 days away and the on-again, off-again coronavirus relief spending talks are still to yield fruit.
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Second wave douses prospects of European, UK economic recovery
Hans van Leeuwen Europe correspondent
Updated Oct 11, 2020 – 3.39pm, first published at 3.27pm
London | The COVID-19 second wave now engulfing Europe is likely to douse an already slowing economic recovery, economists have warned.
They say striking the balance between containing the second wave without inflicting more damage on European economies is becoming increasingly difficult.
Business groups are issuing dire warnings that whole industries could collapse if restrictions go too far, while sporadic protests, usually though not always limited to a political fringe, have broken out.
"The eurozone economy is chilling rapidly," said Daniela Ordonez, an economist at Oxford Economics.
"As COVID-19 infections remain on a worrying upward trend, new containment and social distancing measures are being reintroduced in several countries. Against this background, there are increasing risks of output contracting again in the fourth quarter in some service sectors."
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Why President Biden will expect Australia to muscle up on China
Even with a Democrat in the White House, Washington will pressure Canberra to pull its weight against Beijing, pushing the alliance in a direction not in our national interest.
James Curran Contributor
Oct 11, 2020 – 12.27pm
Occasionally the mask of American officialdom drops to reveal what it really thinks of Australia.
During a discussion in Washington some years ago with Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former National Security Adviser to president Jimmy Carter, Brzezinski said the Australians and British were the kinds of alliance partners who, like his native Poland, thrived on the very status of being a US ally: chests puffed out for ceremonies on the White House South Lawn, glorying in "access".
Brzezinski was talking in the aftermath of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, a war he opposed. He was in no mood for honeyed rhetoric about allies that had encouraged Washington to compound its Middle East folly.
Yet only two years ago a senior staffer to vice president Joe Biden made the pointed remark that Australia was a "great ally of the US everywhere in the world, except Asia".
That reflected growing frustration among some in the Obama administration that Australia was not muscling up to a rising China in the way Washington believed it should. Around the same time, a former senior official in the Howard government lamented that "no one in Washington says Australia punches above its weight anymore".
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Who are America’s private militias?
· Dow Jones
Seven of the 13 men charged last week in the plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor were part of a self-styled militia known as the “Wolverine Watchmen,” prosecutors say.
Concerns about such groups from US law-enforcement officials have been mounting, particularly after protesters armed with AR-15 style rifles showed up at Michigan’s state capital earlier this year, calling for Governor Gretchen Whitmer to reopen businesses barred from operating during the coronavirus pandemic.
Law-enforcement officials and researchers have also expressed concerns that private militias will turn up at polling sites during the November 3 US presidential election.
What is a militia?
Strictly defined, militias are groups of people supported by the government who can be mobilised to supplement traditional armed services.
“The US constitution and state laws use the term ‘militia’ to refer to all able-bodied residents between certain ages who may be called forth by the government when there is a specific need,” according to the Georgetown University Law Centre’s website.
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US-China rift drives Australia's defence agenda
Ronald Mizen Reporter
Oct 13, 2020 – 12.01am
An increasingly assertive China in the Indo-Pacific and a volatile US President Donald Trump means that when it comes to national security, Australia has had to step up, and fast.
Defence white papers, which outline a 20-year horizon for defending the nation and its strategic interests, have come thick and fast in the past decade, with three released between 2009 and 2016.
Earlier this year, the government released a major strategic update to the 2016 white paper to reflect the rapidly changing threat environment.
“This will ensure we are able to shape our environment, deter actions against our interests and, if required, respond with military force," Prime Minister Scott Morrison said at the time.
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https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/the-great-wall-street-of-china-20201013-p564j6
The Great Wall (Street) of China
If 2020 has been the year when Sino-American tensions escalated to resemble the 1980s stand-off between the US and the USSR, it has also been the year when Beijing finally threw open its doors to Wall Street.
Patrick Jenkins
Oct 13, 2020 – 9.29am
At the high point of Donald Trump’s relationship with Xi Jinping, when they met in Beijing three years ago, the Chinese President responded to his US counterpart’s pressure to liberalise financial services with a pledge: “We will never close our doors. They will only open wider and wider.”
Barely had Air Force One whisked Trump from Beijing than, sure enough, China’s finance ministry announced sweeping reforms to remove ownership limits on foreign financial services companies operating in the country — much to the delight of Wall Street.
As the Financial Times series on the “New Cold War” outlined last week, US-China relations today look very different. A battle is being fought on many fronts between the world’s top two economies. Yet in the realm of finance, there is no evidence of relations breaking down.
JPMorgan is just completing the $US1 billion ($1.4 billion) buyout of a joint venture partner in asset management to give it full control of China International Fund Management. The bank has also set in train a process to take control of its Chinese securities and futures joint ventures.
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https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/western-world-waking-up-to-beijing-s-bullying-20201012-p5647l.html
Western world waking up to Beijing's bullying
Nations need to group in new partnerships if they hope for any stability in a churning world.
Peter Hartcher
Political and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age
October 13, 2020 — 12.10am
The French embassy in Canberra had a frantic couple of months at the pandemic's outset. The staff helped organised the repatriation of some 12,000 French citizens who'd been in Australia.
Why? "We didn't know Australia would be so successful" in managing the plague, says France's ambassador to Australia, Christophe Penot.
If they'd known Australia's death rate would amount to 35 lives per million population and France's 500, the authorities might have taken a different decision.
Next week, Penot himself will repatriate after three years in Canberra. But not to escape Australia so much as to re-engage. France has created a new post of ambassador for the Indo-Pacific, a sign of our times. Penot will be the first.
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Trump tests negative to COVID-19 on consecutive days: White House doctor
Updated October 13, 2020 — 9.15am first published at 9.01am
Washington: Just a week after his release from hospital, President Donald Trump returned to the campaign trail on Monday for the first time since contracting the coronavirus as he tries to stage a late comeback in the US election's final stretch.
Trump, whose doctor said on Monday for the first time that he had received a negative test for COVID-19, faces a stubborn deficit in national and battleground state polling.
His doctor, Navy commander Scott Conley, had said in a written memo released over the weekend that Trump was no longer at risk of spreading the virus to others.
After Air Force One lifted off from Joint Base Andrews, the President's doctor released the update on his health that said Trump had tested negative for the virus — and had done so on consecutive days.
In the fresh update, Conley said that Trump tested negative for COVID-19 using a newer 15-minute test. He did not say when Trump was tested. Conley said that the President's tests, taking in conjunction with other data, including viral load, led him to conclude that Trump was not contagious.
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How QAnon has jumped from the virtual world to the streets of Germany
By Katrin Bennhold
October 12, 2020 — 12.00pm
Berlin: Early in the pandemic, as thousands of American troops began NATO manoeuvres in Germany, Attila Hildmann did a YouTube search to see what it was all about. He quickly came across videos posted by German followers of QAnon.
In their telling, this was no NATO exercise. It was a covert operation by US President Donald Trump to liberate Germany from Chancellor Angela Merkel's government — something they applauded.
"The Q movement said these are troops that will free the German people from Merkel," said Hildmann, a vegan celebrity cook who had not heard of QAnon before last spring. "I very much hope that Q is real."
In the United States, QAnon has already evolved from a fringe internet subculture into a mass movement veering into the mainstream. But the pandemic is supercharging conspiracy theories far beyond American shores, and QAnon is metastasising in Europe as well.
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Chinese military simulates island invasion to rattle Taiwan
· The Times
China’s military simulated a large-scale amphibious invasion while Taiwan celebrated its National Day at the weekend, the latest in a series of drills raising tensions in the region.
Beijing, which has increased pressure on independently governed Taiwan in recent months, said that it had foiled “hundreds of espionage attempts” by the island’s agents to sabotage efforts to reunify it with the mainland.
In its latest exercise, China’s air, navy and ground forces simulated an attack on an island after reconnaissance units had infiltrated it at night, according to footage shown on China Central Television, the state broadcaster.
A drone ship cleared obstacles for landing vessels to reach the shore, while military helicopters hovered above the water as the attack began.
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Britain puts scientists back in their box in COVID-19 fight
Hans van Leeuwen Europe correspondent
Oct 14, 2020 – 5.11am
London | Britain has joined Ireland in shrugging off the advice of its expert scientific and medical advisers over defeating the COVID-19 pandemic's second wave, eschewing calls for a blanket lockdown as they seek to prop up their flagging economies.
Almost as soon as Prime Minister Boris Johnson had unveiled a three-tier system of restrictions early on Tuesday (AEDT), the government released documents from its own medical advisory committee, SAGE, showing the scientists had recommended a two-week full lockdown.
But even the strictest tier of Mr Johnson's regime allows schools, universities, shops, restaurants and hairdressers to remain open - only pubs and bars are closed - and there's advice, rather than a requirement, to work from home and avoid travel.
Opposition Leader Keir Starmer told journalists on Wednesday (AEDT) that Mr Johnson should follow the scientific advice, and Labour would back a return to a full lockdown lasting two or three weeks.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/trump-lacks-appeal-in-a-low-immigration-world-20201015-p5659u
Trump lacks appeal in a low-immigration world
The election of Donald Trump in 2016 was above all a howl against demographic upheaval. His growing chances of defeat this year reflect the easing of that angst.
Janan Ganesh Contributor
Updated Oct 15, 2020 – 10.00am, first published at 9.58am
Donald Trump was a teenager when Lyndon Johnson, the 36th US president, signed the bill that helped him become the 45th. The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act gets lost in the lore of the 1960s, but few events outside war and the Depression have done more to change America.
By ending the preference for European immigrants, the law expanded the US population over time and made it enormously less white. It also led to the build-up of ethnic angst that broke through half a century later.
The election of Trump in 2016 was above all a howl against demographic upheaval.
His growing chances of defeat this year reflect the easing of that angst. Among the reasons for Trump’s polling woes — the bungling of the coronavirus pandemic, the shrewdness of his Democratic challenger Joe Biden — one of the least examined is the collapse of immigration as a political issue. The subject on which Mr Trump defined himself against the Republican establishment, and then Democrat Hillary Clinton, has gone mostly undiscussed in this otherwise raucous election.
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Republicans on warpath over Twitter 'censorship' of newspaper
Jacob Greber United States correspondent
Oct 16, 2020 – 5.44am
Washington | Republican Senator Ted Cruz says he will subpoena Twitter chief executive officer Jack Dorsey to explain why the social media company is "censoring" stories alleging corruption by Joe Biden's son.
Twitter and Facebook limited distribution on Thursday (Friday AEDT) and Wednesday of two New York Post stories to prevent the spread of potentially false information. A Twitter spokesman cited rules against "content obtained through hacking that contains private information" for the decision.
The move has enraged conservatives, who have long accused social media tech giants of suppressing their freedom of speech, and many have pointed to The New York Times' recent revelations about President Donald Trump's taxes as an example of how they're not applying their own rules equally.
Unlike in 2016 when the big tech firms ran amok, publishing mis-truths, lies and distortions without consequence or sanction, this year's election has put them under unprecedented scrutiny and stoked calls for them to be broken up. But it's also plunged them into the middle of the election contest by forcing them to take on the thorny challenge of becoming gatekeepers and arbiters of politically sensitive information.
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Records set across Europe as virus spirals out of control
Michael Birnbaum, Chico Harlan and William Booth
Oct 16, 2020 – 10.54am
Brussels/Rome/London| Coronavirus infections in Europe set records this week and a World Health Organisation official warned that winter death rates could be five times worse than the April peak if people were not strict about masks and social distancing.
The WHO was seeing "exponential increases" in daily cases in Europe, said Hans Kluge, the agency's director for the continent, noting that at 8000 deaths a day, COVID-19 was now Europe's fifth-leading cause of death.
In just the past 10 days, a million new coronavirus cases have been recorded in Europe, raising the total since the start of the pandemic to 7 million in the WHO's 53 European member countries.
By January, daily deaths could be "four to five times higher than what we recorded in April", Mr Kluge said.
The alarm echoed warnings from London to Latvia that the virus is rapidly spiralling out of control. France, Germany, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, Croatia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic all posted records on Thursday (Friday AEDT). Britain would have as well if not for an earlier glitch in its case counts.
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https://quillette.com/2020/09/30/pasha-glubb-and-avoiding-the-fate-of-empires/
Published on September 30, 2020
John Glubb and Avoiding the Fate of Empires
written by Leo Nicolletto
Empires rise, and empires fall. This fact of history—so obvious looking backwards—is all but inconceivable to those living through an empire’s peak. Human life is so short in the scheme of civilisations that we tend to overemphasise the importance and length of our own era, while past ages blur together. We live closer in time to Cleopatra than she did to the builders of the pyramids, but Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome all blend in the popular imagination into a shadowy and distant past.
Culture biases us as much as our sense of time. The Arabic-speaking Moors ruled large parts of what is now Spain for nearly eight centuries—that is, for a third as long again as the 600 years that have passed since they (or at least, their leaders) were driven out by the newly-united Catholic monarchs of Aragon and Castile. Yet through contemporary European eyes, Moorish rule is typically viewed as an “interlude” in the history of the Spanish nation—a nation that, in reality, didn’t come into political being until the late 15th century. And—as many Basques, Catalonians, and Galicians would argue—a nation that has perhaps never truly existed culturally.
Nevertheless, the relative stability of political hegemony lets us overlook many cultural differences and tensions. Today’s Catalan and Basque independence movements may threaten the Spanish state, but they don’t challenge the “empire”—that is, the North Atlantic order, centred on the United States, the European Union, and institutions like the UN, NATO, and the WTO. Similarly, during the golden age of the Emirate of Córdoba, the tensions and rebellions of the Latin-speaking, post-Visigothic kingdoms to the north might have threatened various aspects of the Iberian state, but had little bearing on the sense of hegemonic stability that pervaded the Caliphate, which stretched across the Maghreb through the Middle East to India.
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Trump fatigue: Are Americans turning the channel on Donald's show?
By Matthew Knott
October 17, 2020 — 9.00am
Washington: Despite his repeated attacks on journalists as "fake news" and the "enemy of the people", Donald Trump has in many ways been a gift to the media.
"It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS," Leslie Moonves, the former chairman of CBS, one of America's main broadcast networks, famously said during Trump's rise to the top of the Republican primary field in 2016.
In 2018 Jeff Zucker, the head of CNN, defended the network's near constant focus on Trump: "We’ve seen that anytime you break away from the Trump story and cover other events in this era, the audience goes away. So we know that, right now, Donald Trump dominates."
Newspapers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post received a surge in subscriptions following Trump's victory, a phenomenon known as the "Trump bump".
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Trump defeat will transform US in way we haven't seen in decades
Tom Switzer
Columnist
October 17, 2020 — 12.01am
Whenever seasoned observers of American politics predict an emphatic Joe Biden victory on November 3, we ought to acknowledge we were wrong last time. Like the pollsters and the betting markets, virtually all the pundits thought Donald Trump would lose to Hillary Clinton four years ago.
True, some of us recognised a Republican path to victory. In these pages in September 2016, I argued Trump could win an Electoral College majority if he suppressed the Democratic base vote and at the same time turned out enough of the "great unwashed", especially white working-class constituencies in the Midwestern rust-belt states. Trump shocked us, but he was helped by Clinton, who demeaned his supporters and took her own for granted.
Now, as a campaign that seemed to have started two years ago winds down into its final two weeks, it's a fair bet that, far from scoring another upset victory, Trump really is doomed.
How so? Well, simply put, Americans are in a seriously bad way. Large pluralities think their nation is heading in the wrong direction and their satisfaction with the nation's condition stands near a record low.
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US election 2020: For decency’s sake, Trump must not be returned
If Donald Trump wins the presidential election in just over two weeks I’ll be staggered. Not because I’ll be surprised: plenty of evidence has accumulated in recent years that anything can happen in politics. I’ll be disappointed because it will mean enough Americans rewarded his bad behaviour and poor performance.
It was one thing when the Democrats were arrogant enough to put forward someone as divisive as Hillary Clinton as the alternative candidate, when Trump was untested and there was a prospect that he might grow into the role like so many others before him. But four years on? Against the far less offensive and more experienced Joe Biden? And after so many examples of Trump acting shamefully?
If we truly do get the politicians we deserve, America will deserve the divisive painful four years coming its way following a Trump return to the White House.
My mother was born in Boston, a daughter of the American Revolution. A member of our family has fought in every war the US has been involved in, dating right back to the war of independence. I hold US citizenship and rarely fail to shed a tear when listening to the American national anthem. Corny, yes, but true. I was raised to be incredibly proud of my American heritage, for the democratic ideals of the US and its relative benevolence as a superpower compared with the way past great powers acted.
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US election 2020: Voters are tired of Trump’s catastrophic presidency
Donald Trump can still win the US election. But he would need the greatest comeback in presidential history. The reality is that Trump is on track to lose by a landslide. This has been evident all year. Why? Not because the election is rigged, the political system is corrupt or the media is biased, but because Trump has been a catastrophic president.
It is not surprising that Trump is trailing Joe Biden by an average of nine to 10 points in national polls. Biden is reaching into the early 50s while Trump struggles in the low 40s. Biden’s national lead is far greater than Hillary Clinton ever achieved. It is the biggest lead any challenger has had since 1936. This is an important electoral sign but it is not necessarily predictive. Trump lost the popular vote four years ago.
More worrying for Trump is the battleground states. Trump is well behind in the three midwestern states he won unexpectedly, although narrowly, in 2016: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Trump trails Biden by six to eight points in these states. If the same margin of error four years ago is repeated, Trump will still lose all of them. It is difficult to see a pathway to victory for Trump without winning these states. Moreover, Biden has stable polling leads in Arizona, Florida and North Carolina. Biden also is leading in the average of polls taken in Georgia, Iowa and Ohio.
Trump won all of these states in 2016. If Trump loses Florida, it is probably all over.
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https://www.afr.com/world/pacific/ardern-claims-historic-win-in-new-zealand-20201017-p5662g
Ardern-slide: Labour's 'antidote to anxiety' win
Praveen Menon
Updated Oct 17, 2020 – 9.29pm, first published at 6.57pm
Wellington | Jacinda Ardern's centre-left Labour Party won a landslide victory in New Zealand's general election on Saturday as voters rewarded her for a decisive response to COVID-19.
The mandate means Prime Minister Ardern, 40, could form the first single-party government in decades, and face the challenge of delivering on the progressive transformation she promised but failed to deliver in her first term, where Labour shared power with a nationalist party.
“This has not been an ordinary election, and it's not an ordinary time,” Ms Ardern told hundreds of cheering supporters during a victory speech in Auckland. “It's been full of uncertainty and anxiety, and we set out to be an antidote to that."
Ardern promised not to take her new supporters for granted and to govern for all New Zealanders.
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
