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Only a couple of weeks till Trump goes – the
20th Jan. – and hopefully some normality will return. Just how the
pandemic will resolve is hard to know – as right now it is just terrible and
very, very sad. The invasion of the US Capitol by Trump supporters egged on by Trump himself is just the worst to date! Surely it won't get worse?
In the UK the combination of Brexit and COVID seems to be bringing the U.K. to its knees and the situation is terribly grim.
In Australia we are all wondering just where the Avalon COVID cluster and its children will go and if it will be snuffed out or rage on. The will tell! Otherwise it seems we might be on the cusp of some improvement in Aust. – China relationship – which would surely be a good thing!
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Major Issues.
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There's no more wizardry in our leaders' words and Australia's poorer for it
Martin McKenzie-Murray
Regular columnist and former political speechwriter
December 28, 2020 — 12.00am
Years ago, as an earnest young speechwriter, it was easy to become enchanted by the examples of elder Labor writers — not least because the party’s worship of men such as Graham Freudenberg and Don Watson meant the valourisation of my craft. To drink from the fountain of myth could make me feel better about abridging media releases on daylight savings.
Oh, the stories! I bathed in them. It was said that Kingston Town ran on the fumes of Freudy’s budget reply speeches, read to him by jockeys in lieu of a whip. The phonemic resonance of a Don Watson speech, when spoken by Paul Keating, once provoked an earthquake in the Simpson Desert. Considering this magic, you can’t help but wonder if the Great Emu War of 1932 — when flightless birds trounced our troops — might’ve gone differently if the two soldiers were galvanised not by machine guns, but ol’ Freudy’s alliteration.
These weren’t writers, but wizards.
If today the party’s adoration of these men feels more obliged than felt — the average age of an opposition staffer precludes memory of September 11, much less Whitlam’s mellifluous pomp — the aspiring hack might still mourn an age where speeches seemed to matter.
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Crackdown on far-right groups opens a Pandora’s box
A new federal parliamentary inquiry into extremist movements will throw the spotlight on a “Pandora’s box” of far-right groups active in Australia, offering them a public voice as MPs consider whether new rules are needed to ban them.
The inquiry, which gets under way next year, will face difficult questions about “what we will and won’t tolerate” in Australia, experts say, and whether groups promoting violent, revolutionary ideologies should be treated in the same way as terrorist groups.
Australia has 27 organisations listed as terrorist groups, none of which is a right-wing outfit.
Peta Lowe, a consultant in countering terrorism and violent extremism, said there were many groups active in Australia espousing far-right extremist views.
But Ms Lowe, who prepared a sentencing report on far-right terrorist Phillip Galea, said determining which groups should be banned was a difficult task.
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‘Chronic’ trouble with chopper fleet
Defence’s troubled Airbus helicopters, the MRH-90 Taipan and ARH Tiger, are suffering from a raft of newly disclosed problems ranging from “chronic” spare parts shortages to issues with doors and rotors, slashing availability of the key military aircraft.
Amid growing pressure for Defence to buy American, the department has detailed fresh problems with the European-designed helicopters which cut the MRH-90’s flying hours by 46 per cent, and the ARH’s by 35 per cent, against planned 2019-20 targets.
Labor has called for an independent audit of Defence’s entire helicopter acquisition program after the department provided a detailed update on the problems with both helicopters.
Defence said “chronic shortages” of spare parts had resulted in a maintenance backlog affecting all MRH-90s — the army’s workhorse troop transport helicopter.
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If you can ride a bubble, it may not burst
Even in normal times, there is an element of drama to the markets.
The oil price may spike or slump in reaction to a geopolitical wobble, bond yields may leap on strong jobs figures and shareholders may pump up a stock that posted juicy profits.
But 2020 has taken the drama to an extreme. The equity sell-off in March was unmatched in its swiftness — stocks lost 30 per cent of their value in a month.
The yield on 10-year American Treasuries, the most important asset worldwide, fell by half between January and the middle of March, and then by half again in a matter of days before seizing up and yo-yoing.
The contract for imminently delivered barrels of American oil briefly went negative. Over the course of 2020 timber prices have fallen by half, doubled, doubled again, fallen by half once more and then doubled again (overall, they have doubled in 2020).
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ad2ed334-011b-493a-bc71-821a68017885
Australia just got one step closer to a High Court selected on ideological grounds
Michael Bradley 21 December, 2020
Keep your eye on Amanda Stoker. The new assistant minister to the attorney-general has some big ideas about the future of Australian justice.
Scott Morrison's pre-Christmas ministerial shuffle has passed without much notice -- unsurprising given that almost nobody in the country would be able to name any of the affected MPs. A bit of excitement in the Twitterverse about Alan Tudge being sent to education to underline the government's contempt for that sector, but that was about it.
For the afficionados, however, there was one minor elevation on which a marker should be placed. Queensland LNP Senator Amanda Stoker, who was given George Brandis' Senate seat when he retired in 2018, has risen from the backbench to the role of assistant minister to the attorney-general.
Stoker is what the media like to call a "firebrand", and she has noisily established herself as an upand-coming member of the religious right wing of the Coalition. She is anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia, anti-transgender and considers sexuality to be a "choice". You get the idea.
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The search for yield will be the dominant story of 2021
The Aussie economy and housing should outperform in the new year, although nontrivial risks lurk in respect of major power conflict.
Christopher Joye Columnist
Dec 28, 2020 – 2.51pm
After experiencing the mother of all “known unknowns” via this awful, one-in-100-year pandemic, you’d be brave to venture into the forecasting business in the 21st year of the 21st century.
Before we do, it is worth asking what we learnt from 2020. For those in the prediction game, there were several lessons.
The first is sheer creativity: we can always do a better job of harnessing our imagination to contemplate the unthinkable. In December 2019 nobody anticipated a global pathogenic contagion, and yet that is what we have grappled with.
In this vein, our central tail-risk offering is the possibility of a bona fide military conflict between the US and our irritable trading partner up north. That probability has leapt from about 10 per cent a decade ago to as high as 50 per cent in 2021 according to our internal estimates and those of our most accurate geopolitical advisers.
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Hunt for yield leaves investors baying for blood
Liam Walsh and Jonathan Shapiro
Dec 29, 2020 – 12.01am
Bruce Golightly is a diesel and heavy-earthmoving mechanic, who has worked for 30 years in bad parts of the world from troublespots in Africa to southeast Asia. Now he is 55, fears he has lost $1 million and seething.
“I want to go and f---ing kill some of these pricks that worked for Mayfair,” he tells AFRWeekend.
The rhetorical flourish from Cairns-based Golightly shows the range of emotions spilling from the hundreds of people who invested more than $210 million in sleekly advertised products of Mayfair 101, an upstart investment outfit that made a splash by buying – and losing – Dunk Island.
Those investor funds are now frozen. It’s made Mayfair the poster-child of how things can go wrong in pitching to investors lucrative investments in a low interest rate world.
It’s also among deals in the past 12 months concerning regulators and market experts, and, when the situation melts down, leaving investors distraught, afraid, angry. Even suicidal.
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https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/the-everything-bubble-is-back-in-business-20201221-p56pcn
The 'everything bubble' is back in business
Global stocks have boomed on $40 trillion of stimulus as cheap money reshapes the economic and financial landscape.
Robert Guy Senior Writer
Dec 29, 2020 – 12.00am
Among the many victims felled by COVID-19, spare a thought for one of the more tragic: the perma-bear.
A global pandemic, which reaped a grim human toll in excess of 1 million lives, ignited the sharpest growth contraction in generations as economies were shut down, and triggered a vicious first-quarter sell-off across global markets that should have heralded a golden moment for rusted-on doomsayers.
But instead of loading up on baked beans, guns and ammo, investors bought stocks. Lots of stocks. And property. And commodities. And Bitcoin.
Welcome to pandenomics, where $US30 trillion ($40 trillion) of monetary and fiscal stimulus has been unleashed to revive growth, inoculate against the threat of deflation and, most importantly, shield a highly financialised global economy from the perils of falling asset prices.
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Bang for retirement bucks is the political battle of 2021
The case for increasing superannuation is weak when the retirement income system could deliver more for post-work Australians than it actually does.
John Kehoe Senior writer
Dec 29, 2020 – 12.00am
One of the big political and economic debates poised to rage in 2021 is whether or not the scheduled rises in compulsory superannuation contributions should go ahead, or be made optional for workers.
The government's 648-page retirement income review, publicly released in November, will be in the backs of the minds of Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg during the summer holidays.
While not making recommendations, the evidenced-based review shows there is weak economic and social grounds for the legislated incremental rise in superannuation from the current 9.5 per cent to 12 per cent between July 2021 and 2025 – especially when the economy is recovering from recession.
The trade-offs of higher super are lower wage growth, people forgoing consumption during working years, a reduction in living standards before retirement, a larger cost to the federal budget via tax breaks outweighing minimal taxpayer savings on the pension, and greater inequity because high income earners and males will disproportionately benefit.
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F-35A stealth jets ready for operations, Defence says
Australia’s fleet of F-35A Lightning II stealth jets has been declared ready to send on operations, giving the nation an air capability edge against all but the most advanced opponents.
After two years of testing, Defence has certified the fifth-generation Joint Strike Fighters as achieving “initial operating capability”, allowing them to be deployed on combat missions should the need arise.
The RAAF took delivery of its 30th F-35A — the conventional take-off and landing variant being purchased by Australia — in September, and has another three awaiting shipping in the US.
Australia will eventually acquire 72 of the aircraft at a total program cost of $17bn.
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How free money will remake the economy
Debt levels exploded in 2020 and a battle royal now looms over how sustainable the global easy-money settings will be.
Dec 29, 2020 – 12.00am
In the dying days and hours of Congress’ tense last-minute pre-Christmas rush to pass yet another blockbuster pandemic fiscal stimulus package, one senator almost derailed the show.
Patrick Toomey, a Republican from Pennsylvania, insisted he wouldn’t support a $US900 billion ($1.2 trillion) COVID-19 relief bill if it didn’t include withdrawing some emergency Federal Reserve lending powers.
The Fed’s facilities were granted by Congress as a temporary backstop after the pandemic sent financial markets into meltdown in March. They were due to end by the end of December but the new bill extended their lifespan.
“These are unprecedented, extraordinary powers, and they’re only justifiable in a real emergency,” Toomey said on December 21. Continued use would result in “tremendous political pressure to misuse these” powers, he added.
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Indigenous art is rising and this time it's part of a global trend
Growing international interest in Australian Indigenous art is part of a rapid reappraisal of works by non-white artists that could see prices continue to climb.
Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Summer Celebration, 1991, sold at Sotheby's Aboriginal Art auction in New York last year for $US480,000 (hammer), the second highest price for the artist at auction.
Gabriella Coslovich Saleroom writer
Dec 29, 2020 – 12.00am
The market for Australian Indigenous art has been an area of unexpected resilience and growth this year, notably so on the world stage, backed by global powerhouses such as Sotheby’s and Gagosian.
Sotheby’s New York held its second dedicated Aboriginal art auction this year, while contemporary giant Gagosian followed up on exhibitions in New York and Los Angeles last year by bringing Australian Indigenous art to the Asian market for the first time, with an exhibition in Hong Kong in September.
The passion for Australian Indigenous art beyond our shores is not new. Some of the most prominent collections have been formed in Europe and the United States.
In the latest show of this appreciation, Swiss private investor Bruno Raschle is understood to have paid around $US10 million in what has been touted as the largest single private acquisition of Australian Indigenous art in history.
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https://www.afr.com/wealth/personal-finance/the-new-rules-of-investing-for-2021-20201221-p56pcx
The new rules of investing for 2021
The first would be don't forget the old basics of investing and their enduring value in crises. And the second: adapt those rules for a fast-changing world.
Tony Featherstone Finance writer
Dec 29, 2020 – 12.00am
For investors, 2020 terrified and thrilled. The terror came from COVID-19 and the March sharemarket crash; the thrill from the recovery that followed.
Market volatility whiplashed portfolio returns. In Australia, some forecasters tipped collapsing house prices, skyrocketing unemployment and a tsunami of bad debts. Others predicted the demise of office towers, shopping malls and CBDs. For a time, the market valued toll roads and airports like stranded assets, and the tech sector became a defensive haven.
In a world turned upside down, investors could have permanently distanced themselves from the sharemarket, such was the gut-wrenching volatility and wealth destruction.
But those who avoided the market missed the mother of all recoveries. Good vaccine news and signs that the bearish forecasts were hopelessly wrong boosted global equities.
From its March low, the S&P/ASX 200 Index soared 46 per cent. Remarkably, Australian shares will finish the year almost flat – an outcome few predicted.
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A theory of (almost) everything for financial markets
The theory that passive investing would inevitably blow up and rip a hole in financial markets when the tide recedes seems a little fatuous today.
Robin Wigglesworth
Dec 30, 2020 – 4.33pm
Two young fish swim through the ocean, passing an older fish, who says: “Hey boys, how’s the water?” The two younger fish swim on, until one turns to the other and asks: “What the hell is water?”
The late writer David Foster Wallace used this parable to illustrate how “the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about”. For some analysts, it is also the perfect way to describe the pervasive, under-appreciated effect that passive investing is having on markets.
Quantitative-orientated investors seeing their models fizzle? Equity valuations at illogical highs? Imperious stockpickers reduced to impotent dunces? Odd movements in the bowels of markets? Supposedly idiosyncratic securities moving together like they are doing a tango? The weird phenomenon of most stock market gains happening overnight rather than during the trading day?
All this and more can be laid at the feet of the swelling tide of passive investing, according to a band of sceptics informally spearheaded by Michael Green, chief strategist at Logica Capital Advisers.
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Ignore all 2021 market predictions - except this one
The 2020s have the potential to be very friendly to financial assets with value stocks outperforming growth stocks, a weaker dollar and rising commodity prices.
Jared Dillian
Dec 30, 2020 – 10.17am
As long as Wall Street has been in existence, it has been a tradition around this time of year for market participants to make predictions about what might happen to stock prices, interest rates, commodities and exchange rates in the following 12 months.
These predictions garner a lot of attention, as they are made by very smart people with access to the best data and vast resources at their disposal. And yet, far more often than not these predictions end up being hilariously wrong.
If anything, 2020 should have proven once and for all the futility of trying to make accurate market predictions.
Coming into this year, nobody said a killer virus would emerge that plunge the global economy into the worst recession since the Great Depression, leading to one of the biggest stock market crashes in history and the price of oil tumbling to be below zero dollars a barrel, only to be followed by one of the fastest economic and market recoveries in history.
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https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/taking-a-stand-against-extremism-20201231-p56qyf
Taking a stand against extremism
We may have more dark days ahead, but I will not let my light be put out. I will not allow fear to drive my decision making.
Saskia Hostetler Lippy
Dec 31, 2020 – 4.56am
Lately, I have been reflecting on what I have in common with extremists. It turns out that the list is longer than I thought.
I share their passion for change, an ability to withstand discomfort and a lack of tolerance for passivity and denial. Extremists are people of action. I am a person of action. I empathise with their demand to be heard and seen.
The Southern Poverty Law Centre Hate Map shows that hate groups have increased from 599 in the year 2000 to 940 in 2019. My own state, Oregon, boasts 15 groups and Portland finds itself surrounded by and infused with hate, in situ and imported.
“What can be done?” many of us are asking. It’s a good question.
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https://www.smh.com.au/national/we-ignore-growing-inequality-at-our-own-peril-20201230-p56qsj.html
We ignore growing inequality at our own peril
John Hewson
Columnist and former Liberal opposition leader
December 30, 2020 — 11.30pm
An important issue that will dominate politics and challenge governments in coming years is inequality, both income and wealth inequality.
Trump’s ascendancy to the US presidency was built on "playing the inequality card", skilfully crafted by adviser Steve Bannon as an appeal to those who "had been left behind" – initially the so-called "angry white males" who hadn’t seen an improvement in their standard of living in a couple of decades.
It was an easy get – to blame this on Washington elites, cheap Chinese and Mexican imports, weak borders and excessive immigration, promising to "drain the Washington swamp", create jobs, restore the glory of the rust belt states, build a wall and impose tariffs.
Of course, none of this was delivered. Inequality continues to worsen in the US, seriously compounded by COVID-19 and its economic and social policy consequences.
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Changes to laws, tax, restrictions, rules, incentives coming in from January 1, 2021
As we step into a new year, there are raft of new rules, regulations and incentives being introduced. Here’s what you need to know.
Kathy Skantzos
December 31, 202012:18pm
Many of us will be happy to put 2020 behind us and embrace a fresh new year.
But along with New Year’s resolutions comes a raft of new rules, regulations, taxes and some benefits you need to know about.
Here are all the changes coming in 2021.
COVID-19 VACCINE ROLLOUT
The Australian Government is aiming to have as many people vaccinated against COVID-19 as possible in 2021.
The first vaccinations will likely be rolled out in Australia in March 2021.
Priority groups will get the first available doses, provided they are proven safe and effective, but more people will be have access to a vaccine as more doses become available throughout the year.
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Shrinking population, economic hot water
Australia’s population shifts because of changes in immigration, internal migration and the natural increase of births over deaths have been affected by COVID-19 in ways not yet fully measured, much less understood.
But it’s worth the effort to give it a go because the change in population growth and its distribution across the regions is the long economic shadow of the pandemic, and it will be played out in the next four to five years or longer. And it is irreversible.
With international travel halted and net overseas migration nationally predicted to hit reverse next year and in 2022, the suburbs hardest hit by population declines include not only established Asian migrant communities but also those university dormitory suburbs dominated by surges in what Peter Costello recently called “soft visa” sales for foreign students.
We’re looking here at the Melbourne central business district, officially known by the Australian Bureau of Statistics as Melbourne Statistical Area 2, which last year received a net overseas migration boost of 3500 people. Internal migration — locals moving out — last year numbered about 1000 and the natural population increase was a modest 232. That’s a lot of students and potential part-time delivery drivers out of a population of a touch above 54,000 this year.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/time-to-let-zombie-businesses-die-20201231-p56r2j
Time to let zombie businesses die
Ronald Mizen Reporter
Jan 1, 2021 – 12.00am
The expiry of temporary insolvency protections has been welcomed by economists who say they helped prop up zombie operations.
Announced by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in March and designed to help businesses through the worst of the COVID-19 economic crisis, the measures ended at midnight on January 1.
From the new year, the threshold for commencing insolvency proceedings reverted to $2000 from a temporary level of $20,000, while the timeframe for responding to statutory demands reverted to 21 days from six months.
Protections for company directors from insolvent trading provisions in the Corporations Act also came to an end.
CreditorWatch chief economist Harley Dale said the end of the protections would mean clearer air and greater transparency in 2021.
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Toxic politics, polarisation 'fracturing Australia': former deputy PM
Tom McIlroy Political reporter
Jan 1, 2021 – 12.00am
Polarisation and a political "fracturing" in the Australian community are making it harder to find consensus for major economic reform, former deputy prime minister John Anderson has warned.
The former Nationals leader and deputy to John Howard between 1999 and 2005 said major changes akin to the introduction of the GST are becoming increasingly difficult as consensus politics recedes and leaders with strong ideological foundations struggle to break through.
Addressing a National Archives of Australia event to mark the release of cabinet papers from 2000, Mr Anderson sounded the alarm about rising debt from COVID-19 economic assistance measures, saying future generations would not inherit a country in good order.
He said the decades-long argument about a GST was the last time Australia had a "full-blooded and real debate" on important issues.
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Fireworks explode over empty streets as 2020 slinks away into history
Jan 1, 2021 – 1.16am
The Sydney Opera House fireworks soared into the sky, but the harbourside streets below were empty as a ghost town, a fittingly creepy send-off for a year that will not be missed.
No light show will illuminate Beijing from the top of the TV tower. The lions of London's Trafalgar Square will be barricaded off. In Rome, crowds will not assemble in St Peter's Square, the Pope will lead no mass, and revellers will not make their yearly dive into the Tiber.
The New Year's Eve ball will drop on Broadway. But in place of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers packed shoulder-to-shoulder into Times Square, the audience will be a small pre-selected group of nurses, doctors and other key workers, their families kept six feet apart in socially distanced pens.
Good riddance, 2020. Hello, 2021.
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‘Debt necessary but a burden on future generations’
John Howard, John Anderson and Peter Costello urge the Morrison government to aim for future budget surpluses.
December 31, 2020
John Howard, John Anderson and Peter Costello have encouraged the Morrison government to anchor fiscal policy towards future budget surpluses, concerned about the massive financial burden on future generations, warning that if interest rates rise, then debt will have to be paid down faster.
“It is going to be quite a challenge (because) as time goes by and memories of the pandemic fade, the debt will still be there,” former prime minister Mr Howard said. “I supported what the government did. There will be burden, of course, but what was the alternative? The alternative would have been to have done far less, done very little.
“The most effective way of bringing (debt) down is to get our economy growing. So much of the debt has come about because of the expansion of transfer payments. You are now dealing in eye-glazing numbers such as deficits of $200bn but we are fortunate that interest rates are the lowest they have been in any person’s lifetime.”
With a $197.7bn budget deficit this financial year, and $456bn over four years, and gross debt to exceed $1 trillion by 2030, Mr Costello warned that Australians will have to endure “fiscal pain” to balance the budget and retire debt in future years. He said Australians would have to bear the cost of government debt over their lifetimes.
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2021 can be a year of recovery for US now Trump is gone
It’s an obvious thing to say that 2020 was a shocker of a year, the pandemic of course being the primary cause. Frankly, it has been a hard year to find positives in, but here is one huge positive from 2020: Donald Trump lost the US Presidential election.
Sure he might still be in denial about that. Sure some of his supporters are too. And between them they won’t make life easy for incoming President Joe Biden when he takes over later this month.
But for all the negatives surrounding 2020, the demise of Trump is one hell of a positive to round out the year. America needed Trump to get booted out the way he did to help ensure 2021 became a year of recovery, notwithstanding how hard that will be.
Not that everyone agrees of course. Many people voted for Trump. Plenty of commentators also defended him. Some of them prematurely claimed victory on election night, unable to understand the US electoral system as the votes were coming in.
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Albanese hammers final nail in 'retiree tax' coffin
Ronald Mizen Reporter
Jan 1, 2021 – 10.39pm
Labor leader Anthony Albanese has driven the final nail into the coffin of the so called "retiree tax", promising his party would not take a policy to change franking credits to the next election.
The move comes as Labor establishes a National Campaign Committee in preparation for a possible federal poll later this year.
In an online address to party faithful on Saturday, Mr Albanese will say the Opposition had used 2020 to prepare a suite of election policies which were "ready for finalisation and announcement".
But learning from the mistakes of the 2019 election and heeding the advice of the party's election review, Labor will put forward a streamlined agenda, hinting at a more traditional small target campaign.
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Coronavirus And Impacts.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/mutant-strain-spreads-around-the-world-20201228-p56qdc
New COVID-19 strains detected across the globe
The UK Daily Telegraph
New cases of the COVID-19 mutation that originated in Britain were detected in Portugal, Norway, Jordan and Canada over the weekend, while India launched a manhunt for more than 150 travellers returning from the UK who provided false contact details.
Health officials in Ontario said two confirmed cases of the new and highly infectious coronavirus variant had appeared in the Canadian province.
On the Portuguese island of Madeira, a number of cases of the new strain of the virus have been found, according to local officials, who did not give an exact figure.
And Norway confirmed last night that at least two people who arrived recently from Britain were infected with the variant.
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Australians back crackdown on COVID-19 anti-vaxxers
Jill Margo Health editor
Dec 28, 2020 – 6.20am
Most Australians are concerned that online misinformation poses a threat to the planned roll-out of vaccines, according a poll of more than 1,000 citizens.
Two thirds of them want to see greater transparency to reveal the extent of misinformation being published about vaccines for COVID-19 on social media platforms.
The poll, was conducted in mid-December by Reset Australia, an affiliate of a global initiative working to counter digital threats to democracy, backed by billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.
The YouGov poll, which went to a representatve sample, showed 85 per cent of respondents agreed that misleading claims about a vaccine would discourage Australians from being vaccinated.
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Feared British COVID-19 strain leaps blockade, found across globe
By Miriam Berger
December 27, 2020 — 11.38am
Washington DC: The highly transmissible variant of the coronavirus first detected in England has now been documented in several European countries, as well as Australia, Canada, Japan and Lebanon, despite efforts to curb its spread through massive global disruptions in travel and movement.
On December 21, the new British strain was identified in positive coronavirus cases in two people in hotel quarantine in NSW, but Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly ruled out tougher measures, arguing Australia's fortnight of mandatory quarantine was sufficient to keep it in check.
Fears over the fast-spreading form of the virus come in sharp contrast to a wave of hope sweeping some countries and communities as vaccination programs begin to be rolled out. Scientists do not think the British variant is more deadly or resistant to the current coronavirus vaccines.
In Europe, the variant has been detected in France, Denmark, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy.
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The power to order Covid-19 vaccinations already exists
Australians must be vaccinated if the pandemic is to end. Scientific experts have made it clear there is no other viable means of preventing community transmission. They have estimated that herd immunity will be reached if two-thirds of the population receive a vaccine that is 90 per cent effective. Our governments must ensure Australia meets this target in 2021. But how far will they go in using their powers to achieve this?
Judges have long recognised that people are entitled to their bodily integrity, and so can refuse medical treatment. This can be taken to extreme lengths. In 2009 the courts dealt with the case of Christian Rossiter, who had become a quadriplegic and was unable to undertake any basic human functions. He instructed his carers to remove a feeding tube from his stomach so he would starve to death.
Rossiter’s carers were concerned they might be charged with murder if they accepted his request. They took the issue to court. Western Australian Chief Justice Wayne Martin upheld Rossiter’s right to refuse food to the point of death. The judge applied the principle that every competent person can consent to or refuse medical treatment. Rossiter died soon after.
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Mutant virus may not be behind the UK's surge
Jill Margo Health editor
Dec 28, 2020 – 9.42am
As new strains of the virus spread aggressively across the world, some experts have begun to question why this is happening.
The public is being told these mutants are not more virulent but are more infectious, meaning they are not making people sicker but are spreading faster.
Although this suggests the virus has become fitter, there is no solid evidence for this yet and there is another possible explanation, says Marc Pellegrini, joint head of infectious diseases and immune defence at Melbourne’s Walter and Eliza Hall Institute.
“There have obviously been changes with the virus, but the question is whether it has gained fitness by putting on running shoes or by having a massive wind behind it," Professor Pellegrini said.
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'People have tried to minimise the errors': Leaders call for royal commission into nation's COVID response
By Shane Wright and Katina Curtis
December 28, 2020 — 11.56pm
Former premiers from both sides of politics and experts in public policy are urging the federal and state governments to hold a royal commission into the nation's response to the coronavirus pandemic, from the massive cost of measures to lockdowns and state border closures.
Political leaders including Jeff Kennett and Peter Beattie believe there is a strong case for a formal independent investigation into the handling of the pandemic that will leave the federal government with more than $1 trillion in gross debt, interest rates at near-zero for years and the states dealing with quarantine and health issues.
Mr Kennett, who led Victoria for seven years, said an "educative" royal commission was needed because there would be another crisis in the future.
"I still support very much the concept of a royal commission for education reasons, to learn and to look at the damage that's been done," the former Liberal premier said. "Look at what's happened to the farming communities, have a look at what's happened to tourism, have a look at what's happened to hospitality. Could we have avoided or could we have lessened that?"
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'Extreme concern' as UK records 53,000 new virus cases
By Latika Bourke
December 30, 2020 — 6.13am
London: Britain's health service is under "unprecedented pressure" officials said, as the country reported more than 53,000 cases, another record high.
A total 272,551 people have tested positive of the virus in the last seven days, up 22.7 per cent on the week prior.
On Wednesday AEDT, 53,135 more infections were recorded. Infections have surged because of a variant of COVID-19 that emerged in south-east England that is more transmissible than earlier versions of the virus that had been previously circulating.
Britain is struggling to roll out vaccines before the National Health Service is overwhelmed, with paramedics reporting queues of ambulances outside hospitals.
The number of patients in hospital in England now exceeds the number at the height of Britain's first peak in April.
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'It was like she was experiencing a movie, like ‘Kill Bill'
Pam Belluck
Dec 30, 2020 – 12.22pm
Almost immediately, Dr Hisam Goueli could tell that the patient who came to his psychiatric hospital on Long Island this summer was unusual.
The patient, a 42-year-old physical therapist and mother of four young children, had never had psychiatric symptoms or any family history of mental illness.
Yet there she was, sitting at a table in a beige-walled room at South Oaks Hospital in Amityville, New York, sobbing and saying that she kept seeing her children, ages 2 to 10, being gruesomely murdered and that she herself had crafted plans to kill them.
"It was like she was experiencing a movie, like 'Kill Bill,'" Goueli, a psychiatrist, said.
The patient described one of her children being run over by a truck and another decapitated. "It's a horrifying thing that here's this well-accomplished woman and she's like 'I love my kids, and I don't know why I feel this way that I want to decapitate them,'" he said.
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A year into the pandemic, WHO warns there's worse to come
Jill Margo Health editor
Dec 30, 2020 – 2.10pm
While the World Health Organisation has marked COVID-19’s first anniversary with a grim message that the globe should brace for even more severe pandemics in the future, not everyone agrees fully with this view.
Some say COVID-19 has hit a spot that has made it particularly dangerous.
WHO was first alerted to this pandemic on December 31 last year, when Chinese officials reported they were investigating a cluster of viral pneumonia in Wuhan.
Since then, COVID-19 has become the deadliest disease in the world, outstripping the big three: malaria, tuberculosis and HIV.
While this trio kills between 500,000 and 1.5 million people each per year, COVID-19 has caused more than 1.7 million deaths and is now officially out of control in several countries, from the US to South Africa.
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Crowds at SCG during Sydney COVID-19 outbreak: It's just not cricket
Raina MacIntyre
Head of the Biosecurity Research Program at the Kirby Institute, UNSW Medicine.
December 30, 2020 — 3.45pm
The growing outbreak of COVID-19 in Sydney has seen outdoor gatherings limited to 30 people for New Year’s Eve. People are not allowed on the Sydney foreshore for the New Year’s Eve fireworks, and Carols in The Domain was televised, without a live audience.
Yet the third Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground is going ahead as planned during the biggest community outbreak of COVID-19 to date in Sydney, at 50 per cent crowd capacity, which is about 24,000 people.
When some mass gatherings are allowed but others are not, this sends mixed messages to the community, who are being asked to forgo other large gatherings including wedding celebrations. It may therefore reduce compliance and result in more breaches of restrictions.
Sydney is experiencing the largest community epidemic of the pandemic to date, bigger than the Crossroads Hotel or Thai Rock outbreaks. The current epidemic has also come at a particularly bad time, during the holiday period.
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Victoria Covid hotspots: Full list of venue alerts
· NCA NewsWire
Acting Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan has revealed that all three further coronavirus cases in Melbourne announced yesterday dined at the Smile Buffalo Thai restaurant in Black Rock on December 21.
Anyone who visited the restaurant on that date is ordered to get tested for COVID-19 and isolate until they received a negative result.
Victorian health authorities have identified 52 close contacts of the three women who tested positive for COVID-19.
“Those close contacts are across a wide area of Melbourne,” Chief tester Jeroen Weimar said.
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Sydney is in the middle of a super-spreader trifecta
Jill Margo Health editor
Dec 31, 2020 – 2.44pm
Sydney is progressing through a trifecta of super-spreading events that could push the pandemic beyond control and see the country in trouble by Australia Day.
Experts say the periods of time between Christmas, New Year’s Eve and the Australia- India cricket Test, are perfect for accelerating the spread of the virus.
Most people infected at Christmas were expected to be infectious by New Year's Eve, and most of those infected during new year festivities will be infectious by the time of the Test, which begins on January 7. Most of these infections will be asymptomatic, and the and the spread of the virus could be exponential.
While Australia has experienced several super-spreading events this year, including at the Crossroads Hotel in Sydney and quarantine hotels in Melbourne, they have all been relatively small and unexpected – almost isolated events.
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A slight against the next generation': Anderson warns of debt hangover left by pandemic
By Shane Wright
January 1, 2021 — 5.01am
The mountain of debt accumulated to deal with the coronavirus pandemic is inter-generational theft, former deputy prime minister John Anderson has warned, as he urged the business community to stand up and demand far-reaching tax reform to help pay it down.
Mr Anderson, a key member of the Howard government, which was the last administration to deliver a budget surplus and clear federal net debt, said he had been stunned by the apparent collapse in concern about debt and the acceptance of "printing money".
After promising to deliver the first budget surplus since 2007-08, the Morrison government is this year expecting a record deficit of $197.7 billion this financial year. Gross debt is at a record $807 billion and forecast to climb to $1.1 trillion by the end of the decade.
The Reserve Bank has cut official interest rates to a record low of 0.1 per cent while engaging in quantitative easing to support the economy. It is creating more than $160 billion to buy government debt while extending a $200 billion line of credit to commercial banks.
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Britain in 'eye of the storm' with massive surge in cases
Pan Pylas
Jan 1, 2021 – 10.54pm
London | British medics warned Friday that hospitals around the country face a perilous few weeks amid surging new coronavirus infections that have been blamed on a new variant of the virus.
A day after the UK posted a record 55,892 new infections and another 964 coronavirus-related deaths, concerns are mounting about the impact on the overstretched National Health Service. Field hospitals that were constructed in the early days of the pandemic but were subsequently mothballed are now being reactivated.
The Royal College of Nursing’s England director, Mike Adams, told Sky News that the UK was in the “eye of the storm” and that it was “infuriating” to see people not following the social distancing guidance or wearing masks.
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UK reactivates emergency COVID-19 hospitals, closes London primary schools
By Kate Holton
January 2, 2021 — 8.30am
London: Britain has reactivated emergency hospitals built at the start of the pandemic and shut primary schools in London on Friday to counter the rapid spread of a much more infectious variant of the coronavirus.
With more than 50,000 new daily cases of COVID-19 for the last four days, the health service said it was preparing for an anticipated rush of patients and needed more beds.
The announcement comes just days after the Royal London Hospital told staff in an email it was now in "disaster medicine mode" and unable to provide high standard critical care.
With the capital one of the areas worst-hit by the new variant, which is up to 70 per cent more infectious, the government also decided to close all London primary schools, reversing a decision made just two days ago.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/victoria-to-update-on-numbers-20210102-p56rag
NSW makes masks mandatory as cluster grows
Updated Jan 2, 2021 – 11.57am, first published at 9.00am
Key Points
- NSW makes masks mandatory from midnight after reporting 7 new cases. NSW venue alerts here.
- Victoria reported 10 new local cases today, all linked to the Sydney cluster. See Victoria's venue alerts here.
- Britain in 'eye of the storm' with massive surge in cases.
- The US has recorded more than 20 million cases of COVID-19, with 25,000 deaths in California alone.
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Mandatory mask policy is timely, but compliance in Sydney may prove a problem
By Abrar Chughtai
January 2, 2021 — 7.30pm
Finally, Premier Gladys Berejiklian has made mask use mandatory in public indoor settings in Greater Sydney. This is definitely a timely decision, given there is a high risk of large COVID-19 outbreaks after Christmas and New Year gatherings.
Mandatory mask use will also send a strong signal to the community about the risk of spread of the current outbreak and importance of wearing masks to prevent this. Moreover, Sydney is about to host a mega-event – the Test match between Australia and India – with about 24,000 spectators.
Although the outdoor environment and stadium capacity is reduced to 50 per cent, the risk of spread through air and surfaces is still there. Thousands of people will be travelling to and from Stadium using public transport.
So, this could be a super-spreading event, and the mandatory mask use policy might have been introduced at this stage to reduce the risk of transmission during this event.
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Climate Change
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No entries in this section this week.
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Royal Commissions And The Like.
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No entries in this section this week.
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National Budget Issues.
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Interest rate collapse saves home buyers thousands but hits savers
By Shane Wright
December 27, 2020 — 7.00pm
The pandemic recession will end up delivering savings worth tens of thousands of dollars to the nation's home buyers due to a collapse in mortgage interest rates, but will also cruel the savings plans of millions more.
Data compiled by Canstar reveals the extent of the drop in mortgage rates through 2020 that will deliver ongoing benefits to those buying new or refinancing their existing home loan.
The fall in mortgage rates this year will deliver savings worth tens of thousands of dollars, while helping support property prices.
At the start of the year a person with a $300,000, 25-year mortgage faced an average variable mortgage rate of 3.73 per cent. The monthly repayments on such a loan were $1539 and over the life of the mortgage the buyer would repay $461,739.
By year's end, the average interest rate on a $300,000 mortgage had fallen to 3.32 per cent. The monthly repayment is $1473 with the buyer repaying $441,920 over the life of the mortgage.
The savings have been even bigger for those able to sniff out the lowest mortgage rates on the market.
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Evil Lord Keynes flies to rescue of disbelieving Liberals
Ross Gittins
Economics Editor
December 28, 2020 — 12.00am
When we entered lockdown in March this year, many people (including me) pooh-poohed Scott Morrison’s assurance that the economy would “snap back” once the lockdown was lifted. Turned out he was more right than wrong. Question is, why?
Two reasons. But first let’s recap the facts. About 85 per cent of the jobs lost in April and May had been recovered by November, with more likely this month. It’s a similar story when you look at the rebound in total hours worked per month (thereby taking account of underemployment).
In consequence, the rate of unemployment is expected to peak at 7.5 per cent – way lower than the plateaus of 10 per cent after the recession of the early 1980s and 11 per cent after the recession of the 1990s. And the new peak is expected in the next three months.
At this stage, the unemployment rate is expected to be back down to where it was before the recession in four years. If you think that’s a terribly long time, it is. But it’s a lot better than the six years it took in the ’80s, and the 10 years in the ’90s.
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End of the golden age with angry Red China
One of the big challenges for Australian business in 2021 will be for those companies relying on exports to China, still Australia’s largest trading partner, to re-evaluate their future.
While the iron ore industry still seems to have strong ties with China, the gamut of businesses in what was a $150bn a year export trade to China – from coal, barley, wine, wool, beef and lobster to travel and tourism – is now rethinking its future.
Looking back, the end of 2019 looks like a golden period when Australia was benefiting from record numbers of Chinese tourists and students and selling a record amount of iron ore, wine, beef, barley and other products to China.
The China Australia Free Trade Agreement was powering ever increasing bilateral trade by removing tariffs and other trade impediments.
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India trade pivot to counter Chinese bans
New Trade Minister Dan Tehan will make securing an Australia-India free-trade agreement one of his top priorities in the job, as the government moves to diversify the nation’s export markets to counter punitive Chinese bans on Australian products.
Mr Tehan committed to strengthening the trade relationship between the two countries after India’s top business group identified Australia as an ideal partner to secure its resources security, and provide technology, healthcare and agribusiness expertise to support its economic growth plans.
Scott Morrison and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi elevated the bilateral relationship to the status of “comprehensive strategic partnership” in June, but negotiations on a proposed bilateral trade deal, known as the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement, have languished for nine years.
Now, after China slammed the door on at least $20bn of Australian exports, Mr Tehan said it was time to get back to the negotiating table with India.
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RBA paying $20,000 a year to Sydney Institute, Centre for Independent Studies
By Shane Wright
December 31, 2020 — 9.37am
The Reserve Bank has revealed it has been paying $20,000 a year to two right-aligned policy think tanks for more than a decade as part of its mandate to promote the nation's economic welfare, but nothing to more centrist or left-leaning institutions.
In a written response to questions raised in a recent hearing of the House of Representatives' economics committee, RBA governor Philip Lowe confirmed the bank had been providing ongoing support to both the Centre for Independent Studies and the Sydney Institute.
The bank spent more than $362,000 last financial year on research and education with the biggest single contribution of $99,000 to the Melbourne Institute to support its monthly survey of inflation intentions.
It also pays corporate membership fees to the Ethics Centre's Ethics Alliance, the Committee for Economic Development of Australia and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research.
When pressed by Labor's Peta Murphy on why the bank appeared to be supporting conservative think tanks, Dr Lowe said the RBA had been providing both the CIS and Sydney Institute financial assistance since the early 2000s. Bank records showed each organisation received an annual contribution of $20,000 since 2006.
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Why much of what we're told about the effects of taxes is off beam
Ross Gittins
Economics Editor
January 2, 2021 — 12.00am
There are lots of ways to describe the subject matter of economics, but the ponciest way is to say it’s about “the study of incentives”. It’s true, but a less grandiose way to put it is that conventional economists are obsessed by prices and not much else.
If you’ve heard someone being accused of knowing “the price of everything, but the value of nothing”, that phrase could have been purpose-built for economists. Read on and you’ll see why economists so often make bad predictions and give bum advice.
They often can’t see past the price tag.
The early weeks of most courses in economics are devoted to explaining the economists’ version of how markets work. How the demand for a particular good or service interacts with the supply of the particular item to determine its price.
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Health Issues.
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See COVID Section.
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International Issues.
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Wall St edges toward euphoria despite COVID's toll
Matt Phillips
Dec 27, 2020 – 8.49am
The stock market will not quit.
Already notable for its mostly unstoppable rise this year — despite a pandemic that has killed more than 300,000 people, put millions out of work and shuttered businesses around the country — the market is now tipping into outright euphoria.
Big investors who have been bullish for much of 2020 are finding new causes for confidence in the Federal Reserve's continued moves to keep markets stable and interest rates low.
And individual investors, who have piled into the market this year, are trading stocks at a pace not seen in over a decade, driving a significant part of the market's upward trajectory.
"The market right now is clearly foaming at the mouth," said Charlie McElligott, a market analyst with Nomura Securities in New York.
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Trump signs Covid-19 aid bill, averting government shutdown
· The Wall Street Journal
President Donald Trump has signed a sweeping pandemic-aid bill, according to people with knowledge of the matter, ending a standoff with Congress and paving the way for millions of Americans to get economic relief as the coronavirus pandemic surges across the country.
Mr Trump objected to the legislation last week, after it had already passed Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support, saying that lawmakers needed to increase the size of direct payments to Americans to $US2000, up from $US600 per adult and per child for individuals with adjusted gross incomes under $US75,000.
He signed the legislation under pressure from lawmakers of both parties.
The massive year-end package also includes a $US1.4 trillion bill to continue government funding into September.
The President’s decision to sign the bill caps days of uncertainty and confusion in Washington as the coronavirus pandemic continued to rage in the US, with experts raising concerns about increasing hospitalisations in many parts of the country.
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Rupert Murdoch's New York Post tells Trump to 'give it up'
Elizabeth Wasserman
Dec 29, 2020 – 5.47am
President Donald Trump's continued effort to overturn the November 3 election results got a front-page rebuke from one his most loyal backers: the New York Post.
"Mr President, it's time to end this dark charade," the New York City tabloid's editorial board wrote in Monday's edition. The paper, which endorsed Trump for president, tells Trump to "Give it up", adding "for your sake and the nation's".
Trump is a regular reader of the New York Post. When he cut off White House subscriptions to certain newspapers last year, the Post wasn't one of them. Paper copies have been delivered to the White House throughout his presidency.
Before the election, a columnist for the newspaper, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, called Trump an "invincible hero". The paper had also made a controversial decision to publish an expose on the contents of the laptop said to belong to President-elect Joe Biden's son, Hunter -- information the Post said was provided by Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
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'We crossed a lot of red lines': The year Jerome Powell's Fed changed forever
By Jeanna Smialek
December 28, 2020 — 11.45am
Washington — As Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chairman, rang in 2020 in Florida, where he was celebrating his son's wedding, his work life seemed to be entering a period of relative calm. President Donald Trump's public attacks on the central bank had eased up after 18 months of steady criticism, and the trade war with China seemed to be cooling, brightening the outlook for markets and the economy.
Yet the earliest signs of a new — and far more dangerous — crisis were surfacing some 8000 miles away. The novel coronavirus had been detected in Wuhan, China. Powell and his colleagues were about to face some of the most trying months in Fed history.
By mid-March, as markets were crashing, the Fed had cut interest rates to near zero to protect the economy. By March 23, to avert a full-blown financial crisis, the Fed had rolled out nearly its entire 2008 menu of emergency loan programs, while teaming up with the Treasury Department to announce programs that had never been tried — including plans to support lending to small and medium-size businesses and buy corporate debt. In early April, it tacked on a plan to get credit flowing to states.
"We crossed a lot of red lines that had not been crossed before," Powell said at an event earlier this year.
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There are reasons to feel OK about 2020, but a long-forgotten worry got worse
Sam Roggeveen
Contributor
December 29, 2020 — 12.00am
We’re all itching to see the back of 2020, but here are a few reasons to feel slightly less depressed. Not about everything, but about three issues you probably spent a lot of time worrying about this year: COVID-19, climate change, and the state of democracy around the world. Fair warning, though: it’s not all good news. This piece ends with a caution about one issue that you probably stopped worrying about a long time ago.
Let’s begin with the good news. First, the unprecedented pace of COVID-19 vaccine development. As science magazine Nature reported, the fastest any vaccine had been developed previously was four years. The first COVID-19 vaccine was approved in early December and is already being rolled out to millions. This is partly a victory for technology, but it also needed government and private funders who were willing to take risks on various vaccine projects knowing that not all of them would work out.
It’s a reminder that when government and private industry work together and compete with one another on an urgent problem, they can get big things done.
Which brings us to climate change, and specifically the fact that it is getting cheaper – much cheaper – to generate electricity without increasing CO2 emissions that warm the atmosphere. Researcher Max Roser from Our World in Data reported on December 1 that the price of solar electricity generation had decreased by 89 per cent over the last decade. For onshore wind energy, that figure is 70 per cent.
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Advice holds: see China as it is, not as it ought to be
A good mate of mine died this year. He was 90 — four decades my senior — and I think of him a lot and miss him very much. His name was Owen Harries, once a significant foreign policy player in Canberra and Washington.
During the 25 years of our intimate friendship, I never completed a discussion with Owen without having been made to think about something that mattered. Many more important people — from Liberal figures Malcolm Fraser and Andrew Peacock to leading neoconservatives Irving Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, to US national security advisers Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski — would have said the same.
According to Scott Morrison and Marise Payne, Owen was “one of the architects of Australia’s modern foreign policy”.
I often wonder what Owen would make of the deteriorating state of relations with China this year. Like most Australians, he supported engagement — as he wrote in 2000, “an illusionless engagement that does not mistake itself for partnership, that is tough-minded and alert to abuse of the relationship by Beijing”. He also represented the realist school of foreign policy thought, with its belief in the inevitability of power politics. If Owen were alive today, my sense is he would see China as it is, not how it ought to be.
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France, Germany retake reins as Britain leaves EU’s economic orbit
Laurence Norman
· Dow Jones
Britain long played a special role within the EU, as a nuclear power and permanent UN Security Council member that had Washington’s ear. It was also a budget hawk that insisted on keeping the bloc’s spending in check.
Some EU officials worried that the UK’s exit from the bloc would weaken a union that had been under pressure since Britons voted in 2016 to depart. That vote confronted the EU with the risk of disintegration and strengthened the hand of Eurosceptic movements from Italy to Hungary.
Instead, as the UK prepares to leave the EU’s economic orbit on Friday, the EU has regained confidence, helped partly by a revived Franco-German partnership and encouraged by the anticipated arrival of the Biden administration in Washington. Meanwhile, Paris, now the bloc’s dominant foreign-policy actor, is driving debate on everything from relations with Washington and Moscow to expanding the EU’s military capabilities.
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Pushback on Xi’s vision for China spreads beyond US
· Dow Jones
In March 2019, Xi Jinping flew to Paris to meet French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the then-president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker.
After toasting with flutes of Champagne, the Chinese president pressed the three leaders, according to an official present. A recent European Union policy paper had described China as a “systemic rival.” Did the Europeans really mean it?
Ms Merkel demurred with a compliment for Mr Xi, saying the language showed Europe recognised China’s growing strength and influence, the official said. Mr Juncker cut the tension with a joke about the EU’s inability to agree on what China was. But Mr Macron was blunt, the official recalled.
It’s true, the French president said. You are a rival.
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How the op-ed pages became 2020's outrage machine
Guest columns published on the page opposite a newspaper's own editorials (hence, "op-ed") still retain their power to provoke and outrage 50 years after they were first introduced.
Paul Farhi
Dec 29, 2020 – 3.43pm
Joseph Epstein says he has a lot of hate mail but no regrets.
A few weeks ago, the veteran writer and former university lecturer dashed off a few hundred words for the Wall Street Journal, to which he regularly contributes guest columns. He intended to make a point about advanced degrees and the pretentiousness of titles.
Epstein focused on incoming first lady Jill Biden, who holds a doctorate in education, urging her not to use the honorific "Dr." The sub-headline on his piece said it was a "fraudulent, even comic" title.
Epstein's op-ed became one of the most talked about, and most loathed, articles of the year. People took to social media to denounce it and him as misogynistic, condescending and contemptible. At last count, Epstein said he'd gotten 200 pieces of hate mail, many from women and many using sexist, homophobic or anti-Semitic slurs. Some urged him to die.
"My reaction is one of great sadness," he told The Washington Post this week, sounding more rueful than rebuked. "I'm not sorry I wrote it at all. I'm just mildly depressed about how stupid [the reaction] was. What struck me is how people are so content to put labels on you - 'you're sexist,' 'you're racist.' Well, labels aren't thoughts."
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'Don't the fight the Fed' isn't enough anymore
Timothy Moore Online editor
Dec 30, 2020 – 6.31am
"Don't fight the Fed" has lost its value as an investment approach because the US central bank has redefined what it's willing to do to both bolster the economy and steady markets, strategists say.
"The [Federal Reserve] was tested in 2020 with a unique economic crisis that, in its own way, was as challenging as 2008," LPL Financial's Ryan Detrick said. "So far the Fed has passed that test and helped the economy get back on steadier footing.
"At least for now, the Fed is signalling it will remain very supportive for some time to come. We’ll be keeping that in mind as we look back at 2020’s reminders that the odds favour moving with the Fed, not against it."
While the Fed’s influence is not unlimited and monetary policy is not a cure for all that ails the economy, Mr Detrick said "the Fed is at its best in a crisis, when its natural role as the lender of last resort and liquidity provider becomes especially important".
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'A criminal like Trump': Federal judge ridicules President's pardons
By Ryan J. Foley
December 30, 2020 — 7.18am
Iowa City: A federal judge in Iowa who has warned against political corruption is ridiculing President Donald Trump’s pardons, including those issued to convicted Republican campaign operatives and former members of Congress.
“It’s not surprising that a criminal like Trump pardons other criminals,” senior US District Judge Robert Pratt of the Southern District of Iowa told The Associated Press in a brief phone interview Monday. In a bit of humour, he said: “But apparently to get a pardon, one has to be either a Republican, a convicted child murderer or a turkey.”
Pratt was referring to pardons Trump granted to his former campaign aides convicted during the special counsel's Russia inquiry, former GOP congressmen who committed crimes, and security contractors convicted of killing innocent civilians in Iraq. Trump also pardons turkeys — this year two from Iowa — annually before Thanksgiving.
Pratt has been on the bench since his appointment by President Bill Clinton in 1997. He has had a reduced caseload since 2012, when he assumed senior status.
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America can't compete with Chinese tech by walling itself off
By sealing itself behind an economic Iron Curtain, the US risks repeating the mistakes made by its vanquished Cold War rival, the Soviet Union.
Noah Smith
Dec 30, 2020 – 2.57am
The election of Joe Biden will not end the US-China trade war.
Biden has already vowed to keep outgoing President Donald Trump's tariffs as leverage for negotiations. That signals the dawn of a permanent new era of economic competition between the two superpowers.
But beyond the flashy, headline-grabbing issue of tariffs and trade deals, there's another, more important economic struggle being waged -- the battle to control technology industries. And the US is deploying some very risky weapons to win it.
As China approaches technological parity with the US in a variety of high-value industries, the US has acted to maintain supremacy.
Under Trump, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) dramatically stepped up its blockage of Chinese acquisitions of US companies -- a major way that China appropriates advanced technology. Though natural security is the official justification for this, retaining US commercial dominance is undoubtedly an additional goal.
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The one number that mattered most to global markets in 2020
By Robert Burgess
December 29, 2020 — 3.02pm
When it came to financial markets in 2020, the most frequently asked question was why. Why, in the midst of a global pandemic that has killed some 1.7 million people worldwide and plunged the economy into the worst crisis since the Great Depression, did equity markets stage a historic rebound to reach new highs and become completely disconnected from reality?
And it wasn't just stocks, as anything smacking of carrying any semblance of risk, from junk bonds to Bitcoin, had epic rallies.
Everyone has an explanation for how markets performed. They range from the cerebral (markets are "forward-looking" and investors are anticipating a roaring economy once COVID-19 has been eradicated) to the cynical (just buy the dip).
True, the market is always about what will happen rather than what has happened, and it's been highly profitable in recent years to buy whenever the market pulls back. Still, neither adequately explains the jaw-dropping 66 per cent surge in the MSCI All-Country World Index of stocks from its low in late March, the record-low yields in junk bonds, the more than five-fold increase in the price of Bitcoin or any of the other seemingly inexplicable market moves.
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EU, China agree to investment pact despite forced labour concerns
By Emily Rauhala
December 31, 2020 — 8.21am
Washington: The European Union and China reached an agreement in principle Wednesday on a long-stalled investment pact, a diplomatic victory for China and a snub to the incoming Biden administration, which had pointedly called for Europe to wait.
The agreement, which must be ratified by the European Parliament, gives European and Chinese companies better access to each others' markets. It was pushed forward by Germany and China but is viewed with scepticism by people concerned about China's use of forced labour, among other abuses.
Last week, as the negotiations picked up, Jake Sullivan, a senior aide to President-elect Joe Biden, urged European leaders to stall, calling for "early consultations" with the new administration. On Wednesday, Europe pressed ahead without them.
European leaders cast the agreement as a market access issue, arguing that the deal offers the EU something along the lines of the "Phase 1" US-China trade deal between the United States and China and claiming to have secured a "lever" with which to press China on forced labour.
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China wants Australia relationship back on track 'as early as possible'
By Latika Bourke
December 31, 2020 — 5.41am
China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi has said that the deterioration in China's relationship with Australia is not something Beijing wanted to see and that he would like the relationship back on the right track "as early as possible".
However, Wang also said that the ball was in Australia's court, despite the Australian government repeatedly complaining that calls to Beijing to mend the relationship had gone unanswered.
The comments made during a conversation with former prime minister Kevin Rudd at a private event livestreamed two weeks ago offered hope of reconciliation even as the relationship between the two nations reached a new nadir.
Wang said Australia and China could again be partners, not enemies, on Saturday, December 19 (AEDT), just days after Australia asked the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to investigate the tariffs China had imposed on Australian barley in May.
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The key takeaways for global markets in 2020
By Mohamed A. El-Erian
December 31, 2020 — 11.21am
A year like no other for most of us around the world will be remembered in the US and international financial markets for five remarkable features:
The great disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street
Apart from a few weeks culminating in the 2020 market lows of March 23, stocks managed to shrug off what has been a drastic collapse in global economic activity with significant immediate and longer-term consequences.
This incredible decoupling has shown no sign of slowing even as markets trade at historically elevated valuation levels. If anything, an already exceptional disconnect has become larger at the end of the year.
Stocks have established one record after another while economies have had to deal with another wave of COVID-19 hospitalisations and deaths that has surprised most in terms of intensity and speed of spread while complicating the journey to vaccine-induced herd immunity.Explanations
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Argentina legalises abortion in close Senate vote
· AFP
Argentina on Wednesday became one of only a handful of South American nations to legalise abortion, after hours of debate in the Senate.
Hundreds of thousands of illegal abortions are carried out every year in the nation of 44 million, and pro-choice campaigners have long-urged authorities to put an end to dangerous backstreet terminations by legalising the process.
“It becomes law,” said Senate president Cristina Kirchner, who is also Argentina’s vice-president. after more than 12 hours of debate.
Thousands of pro-choice activists cheered in the streets of the capital after the bill was approved 38 to 29, with one abstention.
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Dow, S&P 500 end year at record highs
Timothy Moore Online editor
Jan 1, 2021 – 7.25am
All three US benchmarks rose in the final session of the year in New York, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 closing at record highs. The Nasdaq finished within 1 per cent of its record high.
The strong finish to the year has bolstered bulls about the prospects for equities heading into 2021.
"The S&P 500 gained an average of more than 18 per cent the year following a 10 per cent or more surge during the final two months of the year," LPL Financial's Ryan Detrick said. The index rose more than 14 per cent in November and December.
The final 2020 sentiment survey of small investors by the American Association of Individual Investors found that bullishness increased 2.5 percentage points to 46.1 per cent in the week ended December 30.
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Day traders put stamp on market with unprecedented stock frenzy
Gearoid Reidy, Ishika Mookerjee and Sarah Ponczek
Jan 1, 2021 – 4.08am
Look at a screen at almost any point in 2020, and chances are you saw something like this: A company that nobody had ever heard of 12 months ago was in the process of trading 20 million shares in a day.
Ideanomics, fuboTV, Vaxart -- names that would've elicited a collective "who?" in January are obscure no longer, after seducing the retail day-trader horde whose presence defined the coronavirus era in equities.
A mattress maker called Purple Innovation saw turnover surge 13-fold as it went from $US5 to $US25 in three months. Blank-check-born Fisker posted four sessions in which volume topped 40 million shares each.
Buttressed by equally huge demand for older names like Eastman Kodak and Carnival, it added up. At a time when headlines were dominated by a raging virus, recession and the fastest-ever bear market, a record $US120 trillion ($156 trillion) of stock changed hands on US stock exchanges this year, up 50 per cent from 2019 to a record.
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Vatican says $2.3 billion transferred to Australia 'like science fiction'
By Philip Pullella
January 1, 2021 — 9.40am
Vatican City: The Vatican and the Australian Catholic Church have both denied knowledge of transfers worth US$1.8 billion ($2.3 billion) which Australia's financial watchdog says have been sent from Rome to Australia in the past seven years.
"That amount of money and that number of transfers did not leave the Vatican City," a senior Vatican official with knowledge of the city-state's finances said on Wednesday, local time.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Vatican would be seeking details from Australian authorities on the specific origin and destination of the money.
"It's not our money because we don't have that kind of money," he said. "I am absolutely stunned."
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US warns of potential Iran-linked attack, send B52s to region
By Dan Lamothe
December 31, 2020 — 10.31am
Washington: The US military is bracing for a possible attack on American personnel and interests in Iraq, US defence officials said, days before the first anniversary of an American drone strike that killed an Iranian general in Baghdad.
The officials spoke as two B-52 bombers carried out a round-trip, 30-hour mission from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to the Middle East ending on Wednesday, in an effort to show American presence and military might in the region to deter Iran. The Air Force carried out similar missions twice before in the last 45 days.
"The United States continues to deploy combat-ready capabilities into the US Central Command area of responsibility to deter any potential adversary, and make clear that we are ready and able to respond to any aggression directed at Americans or our interests," said General Frank McKenzie, chief of US Central Command.
"We do not seek conflict, but no one should underestimate our ability to defend our forces or to act decisively in response to any attack."
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China denounces 'provocation' as US warships transit Taiwan Strait
By Ben Blanchard
December 31, 2020 — 3.27pm
Taipei: Two US warships sailed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait on Thursday, local time, drawing protest from Beijing, the second such mission this month and coming almost two weeks after a Chinese aircraft carrier group used the same waterway.
China, which claims democratically run Taiwan as its own territory, has been angered by stepped-up US support for the island, including arms sales and sailing warships through the Taiwan Strait, further souring Beijing-Washington relations.
The US Navy said the guided missile destroyers USS John S. McCain and USS Curtis Wilbur had "conducted a routine Taiwan Strait transit December 31 in accordance with international law".
"The ships' transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific. The United States military will continue to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows."
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Britannia to brave waves in search for partners after Brexit
The Economist
The transition is over and Britain is fully out of the EU. On December 24 the sides agreed on a trade deal. It spares them the even greater upheaval of no deal at all. It is minimal, though, along the lines first signalled months ago. It largely overlooks services and marks the start of endless haggling. And, on British insistence, foreign policy and defence are ignored. Looking across the seas with an estranged continent at its back, a lonesome Britain thus faces a bracing question: what role should it now play in the world?
It is a question the country has grappled with off and on for centuries, and in recent decades British thinking has often been clouded by nostalgia for lost empire and great-power status. Membership of the European club provided an answer of sorts. Britain, as Tony Blair put it, could be a “bridge” between America and Europe, with influence in both Washington and Brussels. Now it must think afresh.
One possibility would be for Britons to accept their country’s diminished status and focus on things at home — becoming a big Denmark, a decent north European place without great-power pretensions. Sure enough, in September 38 per cent of Britons told Ipsos-MORI’s pollsters that Britain should “stop pretending it is an important power in the world”; only 28 per cent disagreed. Yet Britons should not take the benefits of influence for granted. It is to their advantage to try to sway the world in ways that suit British interests, whether on trade, climate change or democracy (including, like Denmark, through the power of example).
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US stocks defied pandemic for stellar 2020
· The Wall Street Journal
Here is something many investors would have found difficult to believe during March’s stomach-churning sell-off: 2020 would turn out to be a stellar year for the stock market.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the year at a record, rising about 0.7 per cent on Thursday alongside the S&P 500, which finished the year up 16 per cent at its own new high.
The market for initial public offerings is flourishing. Just weeks ago, home-rental start-up Airbnb Inc. made a stockmarket debut so stunning that its chief executive was briefly left speechless on live television.
These are things that would be easy to imagine in boom times. But 2020 has been anything but that for the world outside Wall Street. The cold reality is that the market’s rally has occurred in the midst of a catastrophic pandemic that has killed more than a million people, halted business and travel and wreaked havoc on the economy. Although there are plenty of reasons for the market’s comeback, not the least of which is the Federal Reserve’s massive intervention, the staggering rally is still difficult to comprehend for many investors.
“The path we took to get here is something we never, ever, ever would have foreseen,” said Ralph Bassett, head of equities for North America at Aberdeen Standard Investments.
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How Trump's COVID-19 response went from bad to worse
Michael D. Shear, Maggie Haberman, Noah Weiland, Sharon LaFraniere and Mark Mazzetti
Jan 1, 2021 – 2.27pm
Washington | It was a warm summer Wednesday, Election Day was looming and President Donald Trump was even angrier than usual at the relentless focus on the coronavirus pandemic.
"You're killing me! This whole thing is! We've got all the damn cases," Trump yelled at Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and senior adviser, during a gathering of top aides in the Oval Office on August 19. "I want to do what Mexico does. They don't give you a test till you get to the emergency room and you're vomiting."
Mexico's record in fighting the virus was hardly one for the United States to emulate. But the President had long seen testing not as a vital way to track and contain the pandemic but as a mechanism for making him look bad by driving up the number of known cases.
And on that day he was especially furious after being informed by Dr Francis Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, that it would be days before the government could give emergency approval to the use of convalescent plasma as a treatment, something Trump was eager to promote as a personal victory going into the Republican National Convention the following week.
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With the worst possible PM at the worst possible time, Britain's got no chance of a happy new year
Alastair Campbell
Journalist and political aide
January 2, 2021 — 12.10am
This year more than ever, with most of Britain in lockdown again, we took our lead into the new year from fireworks exploding over Sydney Harbour Bridge. Confined to our own homes as COVID-19 cases hit new highs, with travel restricted, house parties banned and pubs and restaurants closed, celebrations here were necessarily muted.
Australia’s time lead, however, was not the only indicator of Britain being left behind by the rest of the world. We are in a big mess, and if you’re British, then unless you’re a fully fledged member of the Boris Johnson fan club, and prepared to buy the bull about the Brexit trade deal being the best possible Christmas present, so far as "Happy New Year" goes … you really have to be joking.
New Year celebrations have been scaled back across the country due to COVID-19 restrictions.
A Christmas present that takes away the freedom to live, work, trade and travel freely in a peaceful and largely prosperous union of almost half a billion people. That strangles business with red tape the Brexiteers promised to abolish, and hampers trade with non-tariff barriers they said would never be erected. That sells out the fishermen for whom they went through the charade of a no-deal threat.
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Iraq explosives experts working to defuse limpet mine on oil tanker
January 2, 2021 — 7.42am
Baghdad: Iraqi explosives experts were working to defuse a large mine discovered on an oil tanker in the Persian Gulf and evacuate its crew, authorities said Friday.
The statement came a day after two private security firms said sailors feared they had found a limpet mine on the MT Pola, a Liberian-flagged tanker in the waters off the Iraqi port of Basra. A limpet mine is a type of naval mine that attaches to the side of a ship, usually by a diver-member of special forces. It later explodes, and can significantly damage a vessel.
The Iraqi statement said the mine had been attached to a tanker rented from Iraq’s Oil Marketing Company SOMO that was refuelling another vessel. Iraq’s naval forces were making “a great effort to accomplish the mission” safely, said Iraq's Security Media Cell, which is affiliated with the country’s security forces.
It was the first official Iraqi confirmation that a mine was discovered on an Iraqi tanker transferring fuel in the Persian Gulf to another vessel. It did not identify either vessels or provide more details.
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Congress overrides Trump veto of defence bill
MATTHEW DALY
Jan 2, 2021 – 9.14am
Washington | Congress on Friday overrode President Donald Trump's veto of a defence policy bill, a first by lawmakers since he took office nearly four years ago, ensuring that the measure becomes law despite Trump's rejection.
In an extraordinary New Year's Day session, the Republican-controlled Senate easily turned aside the veto, dismissing Trump's objections to the $740 billion bill and handing him a stinging rebuke just weeks before he leaves the White House.
Trump lashed out on Twitter, saying the Senate missed an opportunity to eliminate protections for social media platforms that he said give "unlimited power to Big Tech companies. Pathetic!!!''
Trump also slammed lawmakers for rejecting his call to increase COVID-19 relief payments to $2,000: "They want to give people ravaged by the China Virus $600, rather than the $2000 which they so desperately need. Not fair, or smart!''
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Kremlin to test missile that ‘beats all defence systems’
· The Times
The military is preparing to carry out flight tests of its next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile, a weapon it claims can overcome any defences.
The RS-28 Sarmat is destined to replace the R-36, named SS-18 Satan by NATO. Weighing 208 tonnes and with a range of about 6200 miles (9977km), the Sarmat will carry up to 16 warheads and, according to Moscow, will be capable of bypassing any missile defence system. It could carry a payload capable of destroying an area the size of Texas or France, according to Zvezda, the Russian defence ministry’s TV channel.
The introduction of the missile has been put back several times because of delays in testing but Alexei Krivoruchko, the deputy defence minister, told Krasnaya Zvezda, a military newspaper, that long-distance launches were imminent.
“I will note that ejection tests of the Sarmat missile are completed with positive results,” he said. “In the near future we will begin carrying out flight tests of this rocket complex.”
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
