December 29,
2022 Edition
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In the US we
are seeing the country digging itself out from a biblical blizzard that has
killed many.
In Europe the
war drags on and the mood is hardly festive.
In China
COVID is running rampart and the limits of Chinese power are being tested.
In OZ we seem
to actually be having a few days of Summer and the year end torpor drags on!
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Major Issues.
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https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/hey-rba-boomer-things-have-changed-a-lot-since-the-1970s-20221218-p5c78m.html
Hey RBA boomer, things have changed a lot since the 1970s
Ross Gittins
Economics
Editor
December 18,
2022 — 1.45pm
Sorry, but
Reserve Bank governor Dr Philip Lowe’s call for ordinary Australians to make
further sacrifice next year in his unfinished fight against “the scourge of
inflation” doesn’t hold water. His crusade to save us all from a wage-price
spiral is like Don Quixote tilting at windmills only he can see.
In one of his
last
speeches for the year, Lowe “highlighted the possibility of a wage-price
spiral” in Australia. A lesson from the high inflation we experienced in the
1970s and ’80s is that “bringing inflation back down again after it becomes
ingrained in people’s expectations is very costly and almost certainly involves
a recession”.
He noted that
this was a real risk in “a number of other advanced economies [which] are
experiencing much faster rates of wages growth”.
But not to
worry. “This is an area we are watching carefully.” The Reserve Bank board is
“resolute in its determination to return inflation to target, and we will do
what is necessary to achieve that”.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/voters-choose-labor-on-the-issues-that-matter-20221218-p5c797
Voters choose Labor on the issues that matter
Phillip Coorey Political
editor
Dec 19, 2022
– 5.00am
Federal Labor
has pulled strong leads over the Coalition in almost all key areas of voter
concern, and is level pegging with the Liberals on their signature strength as economic managers,
according to an exclusive new poll.
The poll by
Freshwater Strategy finds that on the issue of the greatest concern to voters,
the cost and standard of living, Labor is the preferred manager by 41 per cent
to 27 per cent.
The online
poll of 1209 voters, taken from Friday to Sunday, confirms the cost of living
dominates every other concern with 71 per cent listing it as one of the three
most important issues the federal government needs to deal with.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/the-cascading-shocks-that-could-come-from-one-rate-rise-too-many-20221212-p5c5je
The cascading shocks that could come from ‘one rate rise too many’
Ronald Mizen Economics
correspondent
Dec 19, 2022
– 5.00am
What happens
to the Australian economy if house prices fall 30 per cent? Or if the country
experiences a period of stagflation?
These are two
“low probability, high-impact” situations actuaries have been thinking about
since another such scenario – the
COVID-19 pandemic –turned the world on its head for the better part of two
years.
“[The
pandemic] demonstrated more than ever that a lot of the traditional sensitivity
testing done in financial markets and in financial services don’t prepare you
for these sorts of big shocks,” actuary Hugh Miller says.
A paper being
released on Monday by the Actuaries Institute, The Long Run: Low probability,
high-impact scenarios for the Australian economy and financial markets, aims to
fill in the gaps.
So, what
happens if house prices drop 30 per cent – double
the current consensus – because people become convinced the market is
overpriced?
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/trust-frays-as-ceos-become-wary-of-canberra-20221217-p5c74u
Trust frays as CEOs become wary of Canberra
What most
corporate leaders believed would be a moderate, business friendly Labor
government is showing distinct signs of being far more interventionist than
expected.
Jennifer Hewett
Columnist
Dec 18, 2022
– 5.00pm
The business
community didn’t see it coming. What most business leaders believed would be a
moderate, business-friendly Labor government is showing distinct signs of being
far more interventionist than they had expected.
This has
certainly not severed Labor’s relationship with business in general or frozen
either sides’ stated ambitions for further co-operation, but trust is fraying
as a new wariness sets in about what might come next.
After the
government’s industrial relations legislation that was roundly condemned by
business, an appalled
gas industry is reeling at what it sees as the ambush of Labor’s energy
plan.
Not that all
of the business community shares the opposition to the government’s energy
measures, of course. Manufacturing companies in particular argue it’s vital for
the government to do what’s necessary to help protect them from the sharp rise
in energy prices for households and businesses.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/libs-failed-to-represent-community/news-story/3c3ac0de1215bb70b9084aaf455045b5
Liberals must change culture to win: Dan Tehan
By SIMON BENSON
and GEOFF CHAMBERS
10:35AM
December 19, 2022
Senior
Liberal frontbencher Dan Tehan has called for wholesale cultural change within
the party, claiming the Coalition could not win the next election until it
reformed from the grassroots up.
A
post-election review to be handed to the party’s federal executive this week
will deliver a damning assessment of the State Liberal party divisions,
claiming that they no longer represented modern Australia.
Mr Tehan, the
shadow minister for immigration, said it was vital the party adopted the
recommendations of the review. It will also recommend the need for more women
and greater ethnic representation.
“Well, what
the review shows is that we’ve got to make sure that we’re doing that outreach,
doing that engagement and ensuring that we are in touch with modern Australia,”
he said.
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https://www.afr.com/wealth/personal-finance/when-it-s-time-to-say-goodbye-to-your-diy-super-fund-20221117-p5byza
When it’s time to say goodbye to your DIY super fund
Just
because an SMSF was a great idea when it was set up doesn’t mean it will stay
that way forever. So, what might prompt winding one up?
Meg Heffron Contributor
Dec 20, 2022
– 5.00am
Most people
who set up a self-managed superannuation fund hope to keep it running for their
whole lives; probably a little longer, as in however long it takes their
beneficiaries to get
the money out after they die and wind up the fund.
But just
because an SMSF was a great idea when it was set up doesn’t mean it will stay
that way forever. So, what might prompt winding one up?
The flippant
answer to when an SMSF should be wound up is “when
the members don’t want to do it any more” but in fact, that’s not a bad
place to start. An SMSF takes time, effort and attention. The moment that
effort outweighs the benefits is a perfectly reasonably time to wind up.
Diminishing
capacity
Another
trigger is diminishing capacity. Often two members of a couple belong to an
SMSF, so it’s not such a problem when the first member starts to decline. The
second member can simply take over the running of the fund as long as there is
an important document known as an “enduring power of attorney” in place. But it
can be a problem at some point if neither can look after the fund.
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https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australia-has-a-habit-of-sensing-global-political-shifts-so-what-s-coming-20221218-p5c7a9.html
Australia has a habit of sensing global political shifts. So, what’s
coming?
Nick Bryant
Journalist
and author
December 20,
2022 — 5.00am
Australia has
developed a habit over the years of offering a glimpse into the political
future for other Western nations. Bob Hawke and Paul Keating served up a
governing blueprint for Tony Blair’s New Labour. John Howard’s focus at the
start of the century on border security foreshadowed how the politics of fear
and the “othering” of immigrants would become a dominant theme of the populist
right, as evidenced by the Brexit referendum and the victory of Donald Trump.
Fifteen years
ago, it was easy to identify a growing disaffection in Australia with the
emergence of a professional political class: what looked like a closed shop of
MPs who had graduated from student or union politics into paid positions as
political aides and, from there, pre-selection and parliament. The rejection of
political elites, whether it was Hillary Clinton or cosmopolitan Remainers,
became another recurring theme of the populist revolt.
Tony Abbott’s skill
at sloganeering, with pithy phases such as “Axe the Tax” and “Stop the
Boats”, anticipated the trend of simplifying complex issues with words that
could fit on a bumper sticker. “Take Back Control” became the battle cry of the
Brexiteers. “Make America Great Again” found an echo in the derelict factories
of the Rust Belt.
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https://www.afr.com/wealth/personal-finance/six-inheritance-strategies-to-make-your-children-richer-20221123-p5c0ql
Six inheritance strategies to make your children richer
Bequests and
gifts are a potential legal minefield, not to mention tax implications and
family fallouts. These strategies will help you get succession right.
Duncan Hughes Reporter
Dec 21, 2022
– 5.00am
Baby Boomers
planning to give an estimated $3.5 trillion in cash and other assets to future
generations are facing closer
scrutiny by courts and tax authorities in addition to having to deal with
more complex family structures and finances.
Longer lives
and record wealth means the nation’s richest generation in history will be
passing on an estimated $224 billion a year in inheritances by 2050, the
Productivity Commission says.
By
comparison, Boomers’ children and other beneficiaries are often facing big
debts from university, more expensive housing, less generous company pensions
than older generations and rising costs of living.
“The most
critical ingredient in effective estate planning is periodic reviews,” says
Anne-Marie Tassoni, partner at Cameron Harrison, a wealth-management company.
“Families
change, circumstances change, finances and law changes,” says Tassoni. “Death
can occur quickly and unexpectedly, which means you need to adapt to changing
circumstances quickly and effectively.”
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/scott-morrison-looks-to-a-business-career-after-politics-20221220-p5c7r2
Scott Morrison looks to a business career after politics
Aaron Patrick Senior
correspondent
Dec 22, 2022
– 5.00am
Former prime
minister Scott Morrison does not intend to remain in parliament for the long
term and is likely to start thinking about pursuing a business career in the
new year, according to confidants.
As an
opposition backbencher, the 54-four-year-old former head of Tourism Australia,
the New Zealand Office of Tourism and Sport and the NSW Liberal Party is on a
salary of $217,060.
With two
young children and a wife to support, Mr Morrison was considering working for
or consulting to a large company, sources said, a step that would require him
to resign from the House of Representatives. He also intends to give speeches
around the world on leadership.
With the
Coalition out of office, Mr Morrison is unlikely to be appointed to a
government position, unlike another former prime minister, Kevin Rudd, who will
become Australia’s
next ambassador to the United States.
Former senior
political leaders have had mixed success establishing or re-establishing
business careers, in part because of limited experience before entering
politics and the notoriety from being associated with political controversy.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/the-future-is-now-and-politics-has-to-cope-with-the-consequences-20221220-p5c7sf
The future is now, and politics has to cope with the consequences
This was
the year when so many dire predictions came true. Events have transformed the
discussion about what governments can afford to do, and about investments in
the future.
Laura Tingle Columnist
Dec 21, 2022
– 5.18pm
Dire warnings
of momentous consequences if issues aren’t addressed are part of the everyday
business of politics.
Whether it’s
the opposition sparring with the government of the day over issues that it is
not confronting, or third parties releasing reports highlighting looming
problems in one policy area or another, projections of what will happen without
action are a staple of our media diet.
It is part of
the process of trying to set the agenda – and expectations – for what we talk
about as a country.
Conspicuous
examples: the country will become so bogged in debt it won’t be able to
function; the hospital system will collapse without an urgent injection of
extra funding; or the climate will deteriorate alarmingly to a point where we
face persistent natural disasters.
Then there
are the international trends which are beyond our capacity to control but loom
in our consciousness, whether that be terrorism or the rise of
China.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/liberal-brand-not-fit-for-purpose/news-story/f578702b43a3a98c8947bcb7727a25e3
‘Liberal brand not fit for purpose’
By SIMON BENSON
10:51AM
December 22, 2022
An official
post mortem examination of the federal election has warned that the Liberal
Party was no longer “fit for purpose” and had presided over the collapse of its
volunteer base which left it incapable of defending key seats against teal
independents.
Party
membership levels had also hit crisis point after years of deliberate hollowing
out by the factional warlords in control of state divisions, the review has
found.
The review
will also reinforce findings of the ALP post-election review that former prime minister
Scott Morrison’s unpopularity was a decisive factor in the election loss on May
21.
The
Australian understands that the post-election review, conducted by former
Liberal Party federal director Brian Loughnane and Victorian senator Jane Hume
was presented to the 30-member federal executive on Wednesday and is due to be
released on Thursday.
It is highly
critical in its assessment of the party’s separate state divisions – which were
riddled with factional infighting and personality cults – and blames them for a
“grassroots” failure and neglect of community networks.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/zelensky-arrives-at-white-house-20221222-p5c85w
Coalition ‘lost control of its brand’: Liberal review
Georgie Moore
22-Dec-2022
A damning
Liberal post-mortem following its crushing election loss has called for an
overhaul to ensure the party is “fit for purpose meet the demands and
sophistication of modern elections”.
Factional
warring, the demands of managing the COVID-19 pandemic, instability and
scandals within the former Morrison government and allegations of poor
treatment of women are among reasons pointed to in a review of the party’s fall
from power.
“Put simply,
by the time of the election the Coalition had lost control of its brand, with
the parties and their leaders being defined in the public’s mind by our
opponents,” the review said.
“We were not
in control of the politics, and we were unable to frame the electoral contest.
Rather it was set by our opponents.”
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https://www.afr.com/politics/the-9-reasons-the-liberal-party-thinks-it-lost-the-election-20221222-p5c8a7
The nine reasons the Liberal Party thinks it lost the election
Michael Read Reporter
Dec 22, 2022
– 3.10pm
Scott
Morrison’s unpopularity, factional brawls, and falling support from women and
Chinese-Australians were key drivers of the Liberal Party’s drubbing at the May
election.
The findings
were included in former Liberal Party federal director Brian Loughnane and
Victorian senator Jane Hume’s long-awaited review into the party’s election
loss, released on Thursday.
Here is a
summary of what they found.
Scott
Morrison
Scott
Morrison’s unpopularity was a “significant negative” with voters who saw the
former prime minister and the party he led as “out of touch”.
“The
leadership choice between Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese became the most
influential driver of voting intention during the campaign period,” according
to Senator Hume and Mr Loughnane.
“The
Coalition did not define Labor and its leader before the campaign.
Consequently, Anthony
Albanese came to be seen as an acceptable, low-risk alternate prime minister.”
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https://www.afr.com/companies/games-and-wagering/the-good-bad-and-ugly-of-business-in-2022-20221219-p5c7ft
The good, bad and ugly of business in 2022
Heroes became
villains and green became gold – or at least copper. Here are the biggest
thrills and spills from a huge year in business.
James Thomson Columnist
Dec 21, 2022
– 9.15am
As
Australians head for the airport and their summer holidays, it’s a good time to
reflect on one business leader who defied characterisation in our annual good,
bad and ugly list: Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce.
For
shareholders, Joyce has been very good, delivering a $400 million buyback and
an 18 per cent share price gain for the year, including a 43 per cent rise
since mid-July.
But for many
members of the travelling public, a year of cancelled
flights and lost luggage would place Joyce and his airline somewhere
between “bad” and “ugly”. After all, It’s not every year a CEO gets turned into
a verb – for a while there, having your travel plans blown up meant you’d been
“Joyced”.
But perhaps
it’s fitting that we couldn’t fit Joyce into 2022’s list. This is a year in
which heroes like Elon Musk and Hamish Douglass became villains for many
investors, and seemingly groundbreaking ideas like cryptocurrency became
poison. Green turned into gold (or at least copper), a Star fell to earth, and
central bankers found themselves in a harsh spotlight.
If anything,
2023 looms as an even more fascinating year, when the true impacts of war,
rising interest rates and a spluttering energy transition are fully felt. But
that’s tomorrow’s story. For now, bask in a year of stunning highs and
staggering lows.
Just don’t
miss your flight.
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https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/reserve-bank-put-on-notice-by-house-economics-committee-over-rate-hikes-20221222-p5c8bz.html
Reserve Bank put on notice by House economics committee over rate hikes
By Shane Wright
Updated
December 22, 2022 — 5.44pmfirst published at 4.33pm
Parliament’s
high-powered economics committee has taken a swipe at the Reserve Bank of
Australia, saying that lifting interest rates could be the wrong response to
inflation that is being driven by international supply-chain factors, and risked
harming Australian households.
In a
departure from previous annual reports into the Reserve Bank, the House of
Representatives’ economics committee on Thursday also urged the RBA to learn
from its missteps including its repeated forecasts that interest rates would
remain on hold until 2024.
The economics
committee oversees the bank, holding public hearings with the governor every
six months. The latest committee, now headed by Labor MP Daniel Mulino - who
holds a PhD in economics from Yale University - grilled governor Philip Lowe in
September this year.
The annual
report, which had unanimous cross-party support, said the committee understood
the difficulties forecasting the economic outlook given this year’s unexpected
lift in inflation.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/wealth/brace-yourself-for-these-seven-challenges-in-the-year-ahead/news-story/3147be3a4a98411495793f0c961776ba
Brace yourself for these seven challenges in the year ahead
By James Kirby
9:41AM
December 23, 2022
After what we
just went through in 2022, your capacity to be surprised may well be
diminished.
But never
fear, the investment market offers infinite possibilities to catch you off
guard. If you have been reading the Wealth section in recent weeks, we have
covered the distinct possibility that both property and the share market could
recover by the end of 2023. Inflation may subside and the need for rate rises
may ebb.
Alternatively,
we could just as easily have another year of rotten markets, as many economists
suggest.
It’s time to
think ahead. As an investor you must be ready for just about anything,
including the seven potential surprises of 2023.
Government
intervention skews the markets in which you invest
One of the
fundamental changes to the Australian economy in 2022 was the return of
government intervention in markets. The headline move has been the Federal
Government move in the gas and coal sector, where there are now capped prices.
At its most extreme in the state of Victoria, the state government bought back
into the State Electricity Commission of Victoria (SECV).
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/legal-affairs/voice-would-undermine-equal-rights-of-citizens/news-story/de2862c343e9bb067473e056df945854
Voice would undermine equal rights of citizens
Chris Merritt
5:58PM
December 22, 2022
As the year
draws to a close, there is no avoiding the fact that these are dark times for
two great principles that were once unquestioned: equal rights as citizens and
the presumption of innocence.
These are the
institutional pillars that enabled this nation to shake off its authoritarian
beginnings and transform itself into the land of the fair go.
But these
pillars will be tested next year in two important matters: the first is the
debate over the proposed Indigenous voice to parliament; the second is the
question of whether the federal and ACT governments can repair the damage caused
by the catastrophic handling of the Brittany Higgins affair.
This
unresolved rape accusation has left doubts about the probity of the ACT justice
system and the federal compensation payout to Higgins.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/defence-chiefs-want-more-weapons-fast-20221209-p5c51c
Submarines or tanks: Australia’s pressing military puzzle
The
Albanese government is promising to muscle up as the strategic outlook
deteriorates. Whatever it chooses will carry a supersize price tag.
Andrew Tillett
Political correspondent
Dec 22, 2022
– 5.00am
If Ukraine
ultimately prevails over Russia, a factory in rural Arkansas will have played
an instrumental part in victory.
The plant,
owned by US defence giant Lockheed Martin, churns out the High
Mobility Artillery Rocket System, better known as HIMARS, a truck-like
vehicle with a rocket and missile launcher on the back.
Known for its
ability to “shoot and scoot”, HIMARS can fire GPS-guided missiles 80
kilometres, double the range of howitzer guns, allowing Ukrainian soldiers to
accurately hit hundreds of targets well beyond the enemy frontline such as
ammunition dumps and bridges used to resupply troops.
Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelensky credited the system for helping recapture the city
of Kherson last month.
HIMARS was
recently named the “coolest thing made in Arkansas” in a competition run by the
state chamber of commerce, beating snack food Cheetos among its rivals.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/what-weve-learned-from-the-albanese-experiment/news-story/295113d7b8e1f9aa5c4202f41d45e1aa
What we have learned from the Albanese experiment
Forget the
modesty of its ‘safety first’ election mandate. What began as a cautious, even
tentative government, has begun to reveal its true character.
By PAUL KELLY
December 24,
2022
Australia in
2022 embarked upon a new national experiment – a Labor government under a
down-to-earth progressive political veteran, Anthony Albanese, who just managed
to form a majority government in May but who governs with an assurance that has
surprised his own party.
The lesson
from recent weeks is that what began as a cautious, even tentative government,
has begun to reveal its true character – a government with the audacity and
reforming mission to change Australia’s national direction, its priorities
and its governing values.
Forget the
modesty of its “safety first” election mandate. At year’s end, the story is
that Albanese Labor has the will, the momentum and the parliamentary control to
offer a new pathway for the nation.
This is
partly a pre-planned agenda but mainly a response to structural challenges
Australia faces – including inflation, energy costs, lagging wages, struggling
living standards, the climate-change transition, a deepening US alliance
and fresh openings with an assertive China that has revised its tactics.
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https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/rba-warning-our-supply-side-problems-have-only-just-begun-20221223-p5c8i2.html
RBA warning: Our supply-side problems have only just begun
Ross Gittins
Economics
Editor
December 23,
2022 — 11.51am
In one of his
last speeches for the year, Reserve Bank governor Dr Philip Lowe has issued a
sobering warning. Even when we’ve got on top of the present inflation outbreak,
the disruptions to supply we’ve struggled with this year are likely to be a
recurring problem in the years ahead.
Economists
think of the economy as having two sides. The supply side refers to our
production of goods and services, whereas the demand side refers to our
spending on those goods and services, partly for investment in new production
capacity, but mainly for consumption by households.
Lowe notes
that, until inflation raised its ugly head, the world had enjoyed about three
decades in which there were few major “shocks” (sudden big disruptions) to the
continuing production and supply of goods and services.
When
something happens that disrupts supply, so that it can’t keep up with demand,
prices jump – as we’ve seen this year with disruptions caused by the pandemic
and its lockdowns, and with Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/radical-intervention-threatens-a-return-to-fortress-australia/news-story/eec2457f2479e0f90c021ee6c4e7ad54
Radical intervention threatens a return to Fortress Australia
Tom Dusevic
12:00AM
December 24, 2022
One of the
buzzwords at large in the globalist arena is polycrisis. It describes the
confluence of today’s economic, health, social, climate and security maladies,
which sees populist, desperate and spendthrift governments lunging for the
controls: from price freezes to cash handouts, industry subsidies to curbs on foreign
investment.
Intervention
is back and, bit by bit, globalisation is being reversed, as countries
disengage from the trading order that has been the engine of prosperity for
decades. Lower growth and higher prices are just the beginning of this
disintegration.
Visiting
Australia last month, World Trade Organisation director-general Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala said deglobalisation would prove to be not only economically
costly but also “would leave all countries more vulnerable to the global
commons problems that now represent some of the biggest threats to our
lives and livelihoods”.
“As the world
navigates the polycrisis – climate change, pandemic, the war in Ukraine,
economic slowdown, inflation, food insecurity, monetary tightening and debt
distress – we need multilateral co-operation and solidarity more than ever,”
Okonjo-Iweala told the Lowy Institute in Sydney.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/bulldozed-review-not-even-divine-intervention-could-save-scott-morrison/news-story/e45e3c52e1e034498fbfe9418a29322c
ScoMo, we hardly knew you
Niki Savva
has written the definitive study of the fall of the Morrison government. It is
as powerful as it is persuasive.
By Stephen
Loosely
From Review
December 24,
2022
There is a
platinum law in Australian politics that applies equally to both sides of the
political aisle. It is simply this. If a government dodges a bullet electorally
at one election, it will be hit by a shotgun blast at the next.
The key
element in such a devastating landslide occurring is that the government
concerned misreads the electorate when winning an election, unexpectedly, in an
environment which favours the Opposition. The classic example is in 2019 when
the Morrison Coalition government was returned against the predictions of most
pundits. Something similar happened with the victory of the Keating government
in 1993.
In the wake
of the 2019 surprise outcome, Prime Minister Morrison declared that he believed
in miracles. He seemed to believe that divine intervention had saved his
government. The truth was far less biblical and far less inspiring.
Federal Labor
under Bill Shorten was travelling along the third rail of Australian politics,
being tax policy. It was ambitious and the electorate recoiled in uncertainty.
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COVID-19 Information.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/economic-modelling-shows-vaccine-rollout-saved-billions-and-142000-jobs/news-story/64cc2e5f9b43d953bd4a0d0658eae275
Economic modelling shows vaccine rollout saved billions and 142,000 jobs
By REMY VARGA
12:00AM
December 19, 2022
The vaccine
rollout saved the national economy $181bn in potential damage that could have
been inflicted by ongoing lockdowns if a jab had been unavailable, new economic
modelling says.
The peer-reviewed
research also estimates the comparatively quick availability of vaccines
against Covid-19 saved 142,000 jobs and prevented the pandemic knocking $395bn
off gross domestic product.
The
modelling, produced by consultancy Biointelect and Victoria University with
support from Pfizer Australia, said the vaccine rollout also pumped $28bn into
tourism exports and $26bn into education exports.
Biointelect
co-founder and report author Jennifer Herz said the Therapeutic Goods
Administration took on average about 1375 days to approve a new vaccine under
normal circumstances.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/asia/xi-jinping-s-huge-covid-gamble-20221214-p5c64y
Xi Jinping’s huge COVID gamble
Dec 15, 2022
– 6.00am
This week in The Fin podcast, North Asia
correspondent Michael Smith explains China’s U-turn on COVID-zero, whether it
will work and what it means for both the global economy and Xi Jinping’s grip
on power.
In late
November, a surprising wave of dissent swept across China. After three years of
snap lockdowns, mass testing and harsh quarantines to stamp out COVID-19, young
people gathered to protest against the restrictions.
At some
demonstrations, they even called for China’s President Xi Jinping to step down.
And then last
week, an even bigger surprise. China’s leaders backed down, reversing the
COVID-zero policy that had brought the country to breaking point.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/china-s-reopening-from-covid-isn-t-going-well-20221220-p5c7ms.html
China’s reopening from COVID isn’t going well
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior
business columnist
December 20,
2022 — 12.00pm
China’s
reopening after relaxing its draconian COVID policies isn’t going well. In
fact, the early experience appears even worse than even the pessimists had
predicted.
Infections
are soaring, hospitals are being overwhelmed, there are shortages of
medications, the streets of major cities are deserted and economic activity is
being as disrupted by the reopening as it was by the harsh former “zero COVID”
approach to the pandemic.
The abrupt
reopening in response to the wave of protests in major cities against the
previous approach to outbreaks of COVID, which included widespread and severe
lockdowns, has revealed a complete lack of preparation by authorities that have
had the best part of three years to put the infrastructure, people and supplies
in place to manage living with COVID.
That suggests
that, if not for the protests, China’s authorities were convinced the zero
COVID approach could and would be maintained indefinitely.
-----
https://www.news.com.au/world/asia/matter-of-time-photos-show-bodies-piling-up-in-china-as-covid-cases-explode/news-story/43f940ad0788434d4dae4c212181594c
‘Matter of time’: Photos show bodies piling up in China as Covid cases
explode
Beijing is
downplaying the Covid crisis suddenly sweeping the nation – but disturbing
photos reveal a very different story.
Alexis Carey
December 21,
2022 - 10:08AM
Scores of
horrifying photos and videos have revealed just how devastating China’s current
Covid crisis has become, despite authorities insisting the situation is under control.
Recent
pictures taken in the nation – which has quickly emerged as the world’s Covid
hotspot – show piles of bodies lying on the ground in morgues and hospital
hallways, with footage revealing medical centres already stretched to the
limits and funeral parlours buckling under a sudden surge in demand.
However,
despite the clear evidence of the escalating crisis, the official Covid death
toll for December stands at just 10, with officials doubling down on the
decision to abandon China’s zero-Covid policy after years of draconian
lockdowns.
Within days
of the harsh restrictions lifting, cases began to explode, with international
epidemiologists and studies predicting the latest wave could result in millions
of deaths.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/mystery-of-covid-smell-loss-may-be-solved/news-story/49531830552490ffae34fea7d9d58362
Mystery of Covid smell loss may be solved
By Dominique
Mosbergen
Dow Jones
10:03AM
December 22, 2022
The nose
knows why some people still can’t smell long after recovering from Covid-19.
A haywire
immune response in the olfactory system was found to explain why some people
still can’t smell long after symptoms of the disease have abated, according to
a small study published Wednesday in the journal Science Translational
Medicine. In some cases, the inflammation was detected in patients with smell
loss years after recovery from Covid-19.
Compared with
people who can smell normally, patients with long-term smell loss had fewer
olfactory sensory neurons, cells in the nose responsible for detecting smells
and sending that information to the brain. Patients with lingering loss of
smell had an average of 75 per cent fewer of the neurons compared with healthy
people, said Brad Goldstein, a study co-author and sinus surgeon at Duke
University.
“We think the
reduction of sensory neurons is almost definitely related to the inflammation,”
Dr Goldstein said.
Loss of smell
is a common Covid-19 symptom, though its prevalence varies widely depending on
factors including which variant caused the infection, head and neck specialists
said.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/asia/as-covid-cases-spiral-china-s-official-death-toll-convinces-no-one-20221224-p5c8mz
As COVID cases spiral, China’s official death toll convinces no one
Keith
Bradsher, Amy Chang Chien and Joy Dong
Dec 24, 2022
– 9.51am
BEIJING — The
hearses bearing black and yellow funeral paper flowers crept in a steady stream
toward the Dongjiao crematory in eastern Beijing. Several dozen people crowded
around the closed gate waiting to be let in. A man unable to get a spot in line
could only watch, wondering what to do with the body of a relative who had just
died of COVID-19.
The hospital
could not keep the body — there were already too many in its morgue. When he
called the crematory, an employee told him he had to wait a week. When he
called again, nobody answered.
A country
trying to mourn its dead from an explosive COVID-19 outbreak is grappling with
a system unprepared for the surge in fatalities. Two weeks after China abruptly
abandoned its “zero-COVID” policy, cases
have soared in cities like Beijing, along with reports of people dying.
Funeral home
directors and sellers of funeral supplies describe a flood of phone calls from
families needing help handling the bodies of relatives. On Chinese social
media, people are sharing videos and photos of morgues crowded with bodies, as
well as their own personal accounts of losing loved ones to the outbreak.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/entire-greater-shanghai-will-fall-hospital-warns-of-tragic-battle-with-covid-20221222-p5c8f9.html
‘Entire Greater Shanghai will fall’: Hospital warns of ‘tragic battle’
with COVID
By Zoey Zhang
and Bernard Orr
Updated
December 23, 2022 — 12.52pmfirst published December 22, 2022 — 10.05pm
Shanghai: A
Shanghai hospital has told its staff to prepare for a “tragic battle” with COVID-19
as it expects half of the city’s 25 million people will get infected by the end
of next week, while the virus sweeps through China largely unchecked.
After
widespread protests against strict mitigation measures, China this month began
dismantling its zero-COVID regime, which had taken a great financial and
psychological toll on its 1.4 billion people.
China’s
official death count since the pandemic began three years ago stands at 5241 –
a fraction of what most other countries faced – but now looks bound to rise
sharply.
It reported
no new COVID deaths for a third consecutive day for Thursday, even as funeral
parlour workers say demand for their services has increased sharply over the
past week.
Authorities –
who have narrowed the criteria for COVID deaths, prompting criticism from many
disease experts – confirmed 393,067 cases with symptoms on the same day.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/national/post-christmas-covid-wave-looms-as-some-get-infected-for-a-fifth-time-20221222-p5c86j.html
Post-Christmas COVID wave looms as some get infected for a fifth time
By Melissa Cunningham, Liam Mannix and Andrew Taylor
Updated December
24, 2022 — 7.30pmfirst published at 5.00am
Some
Australians are battling their fifth bout of COVID-19 as the Christmas period
fuels another surge of infections and newer sub-variants make it increasingly
difficult to predict the latest wave.
For some,
their re-infection is milder, but others are more sick with the virus than
they’ve ever been.
Infectious
diseases physician Paul Griffin, who is director at Mater Health in Brisbane,
said the emergence of new, more evasive sub-variants of Omicron, posed an
increased threat to both vaccinated and previously infected people, sparking an
extraordinary rise in reinfections.
“Many people
assume they will have less severe infections on successive re-infection, that’s
not necessarily the case,” Griffin said. “We’ve certainly seen people who have
had COVID a few times: they’ve been hospitalised with their third or fourth or
fifth infection and that’s the one that’s turned out to be more significant and
more severe.”
His warning
comes as Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton confirmed on Friday that
the state’s latest wave was being driven by multiple immunity-dodging Omicron
offshoots most notably the recombinant strain XBF, which now makes up almost a
third of wastewater detections.
-----
Climate Change.
-----
https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/how-timely-targeted-and-temporary-is-the-energy-market-intervention-20221218-p5c78t
How timely, targeted and temporary is the energy market intervention?
How does
the government’s energy plan measure up against the three-part test economists
use to judge unusual interventions into the market?
Chris Richardson
Economist
Dec 18, 2022
– 2.29pm
Economists
usually hate market intervention, especially heavy-handed intervention. But
I’ve been calling for it in electricity and gas markets for many months. Why
the unthinkable? Because the war in Ukraine came on top of two existing
failures: how we tax
gas, and how we regulate east coast energy markets.
Adding war to
those two failures means electricity and gas prices are now a key problem for
inflation, which means they’re also central to what the Reserve Bank does next
on interest rates, to what happens to the economy’s growth from here, and to
what’s happening to the cost of living for families.
So yes,
they’re a big deal.
That’s why
intervention, usually a dumb idea, became the best available alternative – it
would take much too long to fix how we tax gas and regulate east coast electricity
markets, so we wouldn’t so much be intervening in markets as we would be
intervening in a mess.
Well,
the government’s plan is now public. How did they do?
Economists
use a three-part test of unusual interventions like these, looking for them to
be timely, targeted and temporary.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/this-could-be-existential-behind-gas-desperate-global-game-plan-20221213-p5c60p.html
‘This could be existential’: Behind gas’ desperate global game plan
By Peter Milne
December 18,
2022 — 5.00am
One of the
world’s largest gas producers’ lobby groups is coordinating a global campaign
to rebrand gas as green to skew the climate change debate, according to an
environmental group that has obtained its internal documents.
The climate
change debate is “potentially existential for the global natural gas value
chain” and regulatory changes, combined with less access to finance, “could
have highly damaging effects” according to the International Gas Union’s
strategy documents, which were inadvertently left accessible to the public on
its website.
Santos and
Origin remain gas union members; Woodside has left, but is considering
rejoining; AGL has left. Credit:Gas industry lobby group messaging for members
and former members.
UK-based
InfluenceMap, which has tracked corporate lobbying on climate issues for five
years, on Thursday released a report based on documents whose publication dates
ranged from 2017 to 2021.
InfluenceMap
program manager Faye Holder said the documents exposed the playbook of one of
the world’s largest gas lobby groups.
“They reveal
the industry’s rebranding strategy to promote gas as ‘green’ despite the
increasingly urgent warnings from climate scientists,” she said.
-----
https://www.afr.com/politics/albanese-plan-has-dealt-a-blow-to-east-coast-gas-supply-20221222-p5c8ah
Albanese plan has ‘dealt a blow’ to east coast gas supply
Samantha Hutchinson
National reporter
Dec 22, 2022
– 3.24pm
A federal
government plan to lower energy bills by capping the price of gas and coal has
been attacked as a heavy-handed and “radical” move that puts at risk more
investment beyond Senex
Energy’s decision to pause its $1 billion expansion plan in Queensland.
A day after
the NSW Parliament passed
coal price-capping legislation that functions as a central plank of the
federal government plan, energy and gas players have blasted the legislation as
rushed and damaging to the country’s prospects for new supply.
On Wednesday
evening, The Australian Financial Review revealed Senex
Energy had suspended plans for a $1 billion expansion of its Surat Basin
developments.
Senex Energy
chief executive Ian Davies said that after the passing of the gas measures last
week, including a mandatory code of conduct and a temporary $12 a gigajoule
wholesale price cap, it was “prudent” to review all investments. It was also
not possible to sign new gas sales contracts despite demand.
-----
Royal Commissions And The Like.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/bupa-named-and-shamed-on-aged-care/news-story/0122e58adc67a95bbef04fd7d24285b1
Bupa named and shamed on aged care
By STEPHEN LUNN
and SARAH ISON
12:39AM
December 20, 2022
Australia’s
best and worst nursing homes have now been identified, with aged-care provider
Bupa the poorest performer under the government’s new star rating system, but
the highly anticipated rollout was marred by hundreds of homes not yet being
allocated a rating.
Of the 22
nursing homes to receive a one-star rating out of five, Bupa owned four, in
Clemton Park and Waratah in NSW, Bairnsdale in Victoria’s east and Woodville in
South Australia.
A further
eight of Bupa’s 59 facilities were rated two stars, below the standard
considered acceptable by the federal government.
Eighteen
aged-care facilities across the nation received the top rating of five stars,
including Carinya Nursing Home in Melbourne’s southeast and Regents Garden Four
Seasons in Booragoon, WA.
-----
National Budget Issues.
-----
https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/no-easy-way-out-future-fund-urges-investing-reset-20221216-p5c6zu
‘No easy way out’: Future Fund urges investing reset
Jonathan Shapiro
Senior reporter
Dec 19, 2022
– 5.00am
Australia’s
Future Fund says it has repositioned its $200 billion portfolio for a world of
higher inflation and increased volatility, lifting its exposure to select
commodities including gold, and lowering its proportion to equities, as well as
being wary of regulatory risk in areas such as utilities.
The Future
Fund is also investing in real estate and infrastructure but only if the assets
are sufficiently resilient to higher inflation, as it revealed that it now owns
a 3 per cent stake in Sydney Airport.
Dr Raphael
Arndt, the chief executive of the sovereign wealth
fund, said the paradigm of falling interest rates and central bank rescues
had likely come to an end, which would challenge equities and bond valuations.
“Central
banks are causing the problem, and if they didn’t do that we would have a bigger
problem which is unsustainable inflation,” he told The Australian Financial
Review.
-----
https://www.afr.com/chanticleer/future-fund-has-a-stark-warning-for-investors-20221218-p5c77x
Future Fund has a stark warning for investors
Future
Fund boss Raphael Arndt says the investment community is wrong to hope the
tools it has used for decades will work in a dangerous new economic
world.
Dec 19, 2022
– 5.00am
Raphael
Arndt, the chief executive and chief investment officer of Australia’s $200
billion Future Fund, wants to deliver a blunt warning to Australian investors
and the financial community that exists to serve them.
Simply
waiting for the world to go back to normal is not a plan.
For the
second straight year, Arndt has released a white paper
that sets out how the Future Fund believes the economic and market environment
is changing, and how the sovereign wealth fund is restructuring its portfolio
in response.
Although many
investors are banking on inflation quickly fading and central banks responding
to slowing economic growth with rate cuts – thus taking markets back towards
the lower-rate environment of the past decade – the Future Fund sees a much
more challenging scenario ahead.
The recent
drivers of economic growth have probably stalled, Arndt says, and persistent
inflation will mean rates remain higher. A highly volatile, stagflationary
environment like in the 1970s is coming, but it will have some nasty
twists, including climate change, demographic headwinds and high debt levels.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/markets/giant-future-fund-adds-risk-amid-historic-market-shift-its-time-to-act/news-story/49ae05b0874de066bf05b136e423d4ae
Giant Future Fund adds risk amid historic market shift: ‘It’s time to act’
By Eric Johnston
5:00AM
December 19, 2022
The $190bn
Future Fund has signalled a major shift in how it invests as it pushes up the
risk curve by taking on more private equity, moving into commodities such as
gold and prepares further big-ticket infrastructure buyouts.
Chief
executive Raphael Arndt says the way global markets operate is at a turning
point.
The giant
investment fund argues a combination of factors – war; a move away from
globalisation; increasingly populist policies; high government debt; an energy
transition; and the view that inflation is going to be more persistent in
future – requires a change of investment style to continue to secure
market-beating returns.
Dr Arndt said
the Future Fund’s strategies needed to respond to structural forces that were
overturning many of the assumptions underpinning investing over the past three
decades.
His comments
are significant, because given the size of the Canberra-backed fund, small
changes in investments can have outsized effects on markets. At the same time,
big super funds could start moving down a similar path.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/economics/economists-predict-vanilla-slowdown-for-2023/news-story/c1be08c3ae0bcdea53c45485a46bb737
Economists predict ‘vanilla’ slowdown for 2023
By PATRICK COMMINS
10:00PM
December 19, 2022
Australia’s
economy will “muddle through” in 2023, experts say, as this year’s string of
interest rate rises, along with recessions across large parts of the developed
world, take the heat out of inflation, at the price of rising unemployment and
sharply slower growth.
For many
households, 2022 has been a year of climbing anxieties: about the
cost-of-living pressures, declining real wages, sharp house price falls, and
surging interest rates.
But it has
also been a year of wealth and opportunity, with more Australians in work than
ever before and the lowest unemployment rate in a generation.
KPMG chief
economist Brendan Rynne said “as next year progresses, economic conditions are
going to feel tighter and tighter”.
-----
Health Issues.
-----
https://www.afr.com/companies/healthcare-and-fitness/csl-s-new-boss-eyes-fresh-drivers-of-growth-20221216-p5c6w1
CSL’s new boss eyes fresh drivers of growth
Yolanda Redrup Reporter
Dec 18, 2022
– 2.48pm
Incoming CSL
chief executive Paul McKenzie will not be able to rely on the growth drivers
that have propelled the company in the last five years when he steps into the
job next March, but that’s why analysts say he’s the right man for the job.
Coming off
years of strong earnings growth driven by CSL’s flu vaccine business Seqirus
and its speciality products Kcentra and Haegarda, new CSL chief executive Paul
McKenzie will need to find operational efficiencies to maintain profit growth
in the short-term, while it waits for products in the pipeline to progress
through clinical trials and hopefully be approved by regulators.
Speaking to
The Australian Financial Review, Barrenjoey’s Saul Hadassin said Mr
McKenzie’s operational experience made him a logical replacement for outgoing
CEO Paul Perreault.
“It makes
sense in terms of where the business is heading. It has invested a lot in capex
and facilities in the last few years,” he said.
-----
https://www.ama.com.au/media/private-health-insurers-big-profits-and-high-management-expenses-fail-value-members-test
Media
release
Private health insurers with big profits and high management expenses fail
value for members test
Published 20
December 2022
Private
health insurer profits are up on the back of increased member numbers and
reduced elective surgeries, with management expenses for executive salaries
also on the rise, the Australian Medical Association’s Private Health Insurance
Report card has found.
The 2022
report card showed a continued two-year upward trend in members with 45.2 per
cent (up 0.7 of a percentage point from June 2021) of people with hospital
treatment insurance, AMA President Professor Stephen Robson said.
Professor
Robson said the challenge for private health insurers now was to deliver better
value for money to their policyholders — including the 235,699 new members with
hospital cover, to try and ensure the membership uptick is not a flash in the
pan.
“Insurers’
profitability rose in recent years not only because of growth in new members,
but also elective surgery cutbacks during the pandemic,” Professor Robson
said.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/a-giant-leap-for-blood-clot-research/news-story/12bcee0ccdc8192b328b0cacbae4ea66
A giant leap for blood clot research?
By Rhys
Blakely
The Times
11:00AM
December 23, 2022
When glass
frogs fall asleep in the trees of the tropics they fade from view. The muscles
and bellies of these small amphibians become translucent, hence their name.
Now
scientists have discovered how they perform this vanishing act: by hiding
almost all of their bright-red blood in a unique mirror-coated liver.
This makes
much of the frogs’ bodies see-through, which helps them to hide from predators.
The findings
could open new avenues of research into blood clots, which the frogs somehow
avoid even though they regularly cram about 90 per cent of their red blood
cells into their livers each day.
“There are
more than 150 species of known glass frogs in the world, and yet we’re really
just starting to learn about some of the really incredible ways they interact
with their environment,” said Dr Jesse Delia of New York’s American Museum of
Natural History, a co-author of the study, which has been published in the
journal Science.
-----
International Issues.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/europe/russia-s-war-plans-show-a-series-of-mistakes-that-started-with-putin-20221218-p5c79d
Russia’s war plans show a series of mistakes that started with Putin
The military
expected an easy victory. Instead, Putin faces his nation’s greatest human and
strategic calamity since the end of the Soviet Union.
Michael
Schwirtz, Anton Troianovski, Yousur Al-Hlou, Masha Froliak, Adam Entous and
Thomas Gibbons-Neff
Dec 18, 2022
– 6.00pm
They never
had a chance.
Fumbling
blindly through cratered farms, the troops from Russia’s 155th Naval Infantry
Brigade had no maps, medical kits or working walkie-talkies, they said. Just a
few weeks earlier, they had been factory workers and truck drivers, watching an
endless showcase of supposed Russian military victories at home on state
television before being drafted in September. One medic was a former barista
who had never had any medical training.
Now, they
were piled onto the tops of overcrowded armoured vehicles, lumbering through
fallow autumn fields with Kalashnikov rifles from a half-century ago and
virtually nothing to eat, they said. Russia had been at war most of the year,
yet its army seemed less prepared than ever. In interviews, members of the
brigade said some of them had barely fired a gun before and described having
almost no bullets anyway, let alone air cover or artillery. But it didn’t
frighten them too much, they said. They would never see combat, their
commanders had promised.
Only when the
shells began crashing around them, ripping their comrades to pieces, did they
realise how badly they had been duped.
Flung to the
ground, a drafted Russian soldier named Mikhail recalled opening his eyes to a
shock: the shredded bodies of his comrades littering the field. Shrapnel had sliced
open his belly, too. Desperate to escape, he said, he crawled to a thicket of
trees and tried to dig a ditch with his hands.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/ukraine-20-ways-the-war-has-changed-the-world/news-story/c9e88fa0c6a5fdab4df9c11a4271d4fd
20 ways the Ukraine war has changed the world
Vladimir
Putin’s invasion of Russia’s neighbour is a watershed in modern history. The
impact of the invasion stretches from nuclear fears to longer holiday flights.
By Peter
Conradi
From The
Times
December 19,
2022
1:
Weakened Putin – and Russia
On the eve of
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Vladimir Putin seemed at the top
of his game. Ten months later, the Russian President is trapped in a war that
has gone disastrously wrong – with no exit strategy.
The
cancellation last week of his traditional marathon end-of-year press conference
suggested he is concerned about the growing unpopularity of the conflict and
fuelled rumours that he may be terminally ill and planning to flee. “The
increasingly untenable Ukraine war is undermining Putin’s popular legitimacy
and his standing with a ruthlessly pragmatic elite that wonders whether he is
still the ruler they need,” argues Mark Galeotti, the author of more than 20
books on Russia, Ukraine and the Soviet Union. “Paradoxically, though, this also
makes him more dangerous – repression is having to replace genuine authority.”
Putin has
found an unexpected new status in the developing world as “an anti-colonial
warrior”, Galeotti adds.
“Countries
with experience of Western imperialism are susceptible to Putin’s claims to be
pushing back against an arrogant US using Ukraine as a proxy.”
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/january-6-committee-considers-donald-trump-charges-20221219-p5c7kf
January 6 committee considers Donald Trump charges
Patricia
Zengerle
Dec 19, 2022
– 6.26pm
Washington |
The US House of Representatives committee probing the January 6, 2021, assault
on the Capitol by Donald Trump supporters moves to wrap up its work this week
with what could be as many as three criminal referrals against the former
president.
The
Democratic-led panel has spent 18 months probing the unprecedented attempt to
prevent the peaceful transfer of power by thousands of backers of the
Republican president, inspired by Mr
Trump’s false claims that his 2020 election loss to Democratic President
Joe Biden was the result of widespread fraud.
Possible
criminal referrals to the Justice Department could be on charges including
obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress, conspiracy to defraud the
United States, and insurrection, multiple media reports say.
The committee
is scheduled to meet on Monday (Tuesday AEDT) to consider referrals and vote on
its final report, which it expects to release in full on Wednesday. Panel
members have declined to provide specifics ahead of the meeting.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/the-wall-street-journal/lessons-from-2022-for-elitists-and-authoritarians/news-story/cb8c64af6871cf4ff73021d73d8b81ec
Lessons from 2022 for elitists and authoritarians
Gerard Baker
9:59AM
December 20, 2022
Annus
mirabilis or horribilis? The temptation to look back on a passing year for
clues to a larger historical narrative is irresistible. Despite the inevitable
short-termism of late-December amateur historiography, I’m not going to resist
it.
For some,
2022 was the year when liberty fought back. After a decade of liberal
democratic recession and the seeming supremacy of “strongmen” and their
authoritarian style, the world’s top three poster boys of tyranny, Vladimir
Putin, Xi Jinping and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, got a reminder of the limitations
of autocracy. Russia’s disastrous war in Ukraine, China’s futile war on Covid
and Iran’s brutal war on its own women are testaments to the evil and folly of
a system in which leaders face no accountability. Their failures and cruelties
— and the tragic human cost — call for humility from those in the West who have
spent the past few years denouncing liberal democracy and its works.
Still, we
should be mindful of that temptation of short-termism. This could prove to be
not the twilight of the tyrants but a prelude to a darker era. Neither Mr.
Putin, Mr. Xi nor Mr. Khamenei seems especially chastened. Only a real optimist
sees the writing on their walls in 2023.
In the West,
these reversals have been aligned by the voices of the ancien regime with this
year’s setbacks to the supposed existential threat to democracy posed by the
rise of populism. In the re-election of Emmanuel Macron in France, the ouster
of Boris Johnson in Britain, the defeat of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and, above
all, the various blows to Donald Trump’s hopes of a restoration in the U.S.,
the establishment sees the cultural and political revolution launched against
its rule in the past decade as all but over — proof that it was merely a brief
spasm of anger by tribes of “deplorables,” fuelled by nefarious right-wing
media, “disinformation” and foreign interference in elections.
-----
https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/wall-street-s-2023-profit-decline-could-rival-gfc-20221220-p5c7n2
Wall Street’s 2023 profit decline could rival GFC
Alex Gluyas Markets
reporter
Dec 20, 2022
– 11.08am
US stocks
could be facing the largest fall in corporate profits next year since the
global financial crisis, a scenario that is plainly underestimated by investors
heading into 2023, Morgan Stanley warned.
While equity
markets have continued
their fixation on inflation and the US Federal Reserve, the broker believes
that Wall Street’s latest decline has been triggered by investors finally
starting to turn their attention to the deteriorating earnings outlook.
However, the
severity of the looming wave of earnings downgrades is still underappreciated
and cannot be ignored for much longer, says Michael Wilson, Morgan Stanley’s
chief US equity strategist.
“The earnings
recession by itself could be similar to what transpired in 2008-09,” Mr Wilson
said. “Our advice – don’t assume the market is pricing this kind of outcome
until it actually happens.”
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/asia/what-the-bank-of-japan-decision-means-to-the-rest-of-the-world-20221221-p5c7x6
What the Bank of Japan decision means to the rest of the world
The BoJ is
now starting to take the strong medicine it needs. It will have to maintain a
steely resolve. Investors globally will be on watch.
Marcus
Ashworth
Dec 21, 2022
– 7.22am
The year
isn’t yet done with rattling investors’ cages. The Bank of Japan’s surprise
widening of its yield curve-control policy on 10-year government bonds will
have an impact far beyond its shores.
The decision
may be ostensibly designed to improve the functioning of its domestic
government and corporate bond markets – which have sunk into an illiquid
quagmire – but the unspecified reasons may be more compelling.
Most
importantly, the move adds weight to the recent downturn in the strength
of the US dollar. The BoJ had been struggling to square a circle: to boost
inflation by maintaining super-easy monetary policy without having the yen
suffer disproportionately.
According to
Kit Juckes, currency strategist at Société Générale, the yen is at its lowest
real effective rate since 1973. In October, when the yen briefly topped 150 to
the dollar, Japan had some tactical success turning the tide when it deployed
foreign exchange reserves. Now there is some definitive policy strategy to back
it up.
-----
https://www.afr.com/markets/debt-markets/bank-of-japan-stuns-world-inches-towards-policy-reset-20221220-p5c7rz
Bank of Japan stuns world, inches towards policy reset
Cecile Lefort Markets
reporter
Dec 20, 2022
– 6.12pm
The Japanese
yen rocketed and equities in Asia suffered sharp selloffs after the Bank of
Japan stunned financial markets by loosening its grip on the benchmark
government bond rate, paving the way for a possible departure from decades of
easy money policy.
The BoJ will
widen the band within which it allows the 10-year government bond yield to
trade at, being 0.5 per cent above or below its zero per cent target. It was
previously 0.25 per cent.
The surprise
decision caused Japan’s risk-free rate to immediately rise to the upper end of
the BoJ’s cap. The
S&P/ASX 200 Index fell 1.5 per cent to 7024.3 points and the Nikkei 255
dropped 2.5 per cent, dragged lower by the manufacturing sector and its
flagship exporters Mitsubishi, Olympus and Mazda.
The US dollar
plunged 3 per cent against the yen to ¥132.78, a level last seen in August.
“It does
suggest that change is afoot and speculation on a formal change of policy next
year will intensify,” said Ray Attrill, head of FX strategy at NAB. “The very
fact they’ve done it when the governor just a month or two ago was saying that
they had no intention of doing it is clearly significant.”
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/stanford-university-to-erase-phrases-causing-harm/news-story/fec818d5f22a6c089e09ba564ecc349f
Top university erase common phrases ‘causing harm’
To ensure
that no humans or animals are upset by Stanford University’s websites, IT
administrators have embarked on a bold bid to eliminate all harmful language — including
the phrase ‘trigger warning’.
By Will Pavia
From The
Times
December 21,
2022
In an effort
to ensure that no humans or animals are upset by the websites of Stanford
University, administrators at the college have embarked on a bold effort to eliminate
all harmful language from its pages and computer code.
Users of
these websites should not be referred to as “users”, for a start, lest they
feel that they are being compared with drug addicts, though one should not say
“addict” either as the word tends to “define people by just one of their
characteristics”. You have to be careful with the word “addicted” too, if using
it to describe your devotion to a TV series or a bar of chocolate, as this
“trivialises the experiences of people who deal with substance abuse issues”.
The
Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative, launched by Stanford’s IT
department, followed on from the efforts of other US universities including
Brandeis to help students and staff prune from their vocabulary words and
phrases that might cause offence.
At Brandeis
this initiative was called the Oppressive Language List, although in August
last year the list itself was retitled as the Suggested Language List. Its
critics included the novelist Joyce Carol Oates, who noted that even the phrase
“trigger warning”, meant to protect the unwitting from language or images they
might find distressing, was now being proscribed. Oates felt it was strange
“that while the word ‘picnic’ is suggested for censorship, because it evokes,
in some persons, lynchings of black persons in the US, the word ‘lynching’ is
not itself censored”.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/dolphin-strandings-may-be-caused-by-dementia/news-story/128145f5a0a97a7c488237cac23b7e63
Dolphin strandings may be caused by dementia
By Rhys
Blakely
The Times
7:19PM
December 20, 2022
Dolphins may
become stranded in shallow waters because they follow leaders with a condition
similar to Alzheimer’s disease, a study suggests.
An analysis
of the brains of dolphins found beached on the shores of Scotland found changes
also seen in people with Alzheimer’s, the most common type of dementia.
The findings
may support the “sick leader” theory; the idea that otherwise healthy pods of
whales and dolphins sometimes find themselves in dangerously shallow waters
because they have followed a leader that has become confused or lost through
illness.
“In humans
with Alzheimer’s, normal spatial and time awareness is affected,” said Mark Dagleish
of the University of Glasgow, who led the research. “This still needs to be
investigated, but if a parallel condition exists in dolphins, it could
certainly explain some mass strandings.”
-----
https://www.afr.com/wealth/investing/xi-jinping-may-cost-china-27-trillion-20221221-p5c7xy
Xi Jinping may cost China $27 trillion
The
leader’s authoritarian policies may contribute to a slowdown in the Chinese the
economy that prevents it surpassing the US.
Aaron Patrick Senior
correspondent
Dec 21, 2022
– 12.22pm
The
underlying force propelling Australia’s relationship with China is an
assumption that the Middle Kingdom will become, within a decade or two, the
world’s largest economy. Everything flows from this presumed pre-eminence: the
structure of the Australian economy, strategic positioning, even its cultural
development.
Xi Jinping
may be now challenging the assumption. This month, Japan’s Centre for Economic
Research, a private think tank, said that it no longer expected China’s economy
to surpass America’s, an event of historic importance it had predicted would
happen in 2029.
The reasons:
China’s ageing workforce, newly protectionist trade policies, and Xi’s authoritarian
leadership. These growth brakes will cost China the equivalent of a year’s
economic output, $US18 trillion ($27 trillion), in the decade starting 2025,
according to the think tank.
It sees no
convergence between the US and Chinese economies. A $US5 trillion-a-year
economic gap will persist for the foreseeable future, it predicts. If correct,
this should allow the US to preserve its global geostrategic leadership for
decades.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/glimmers-of-light-in-a-terrible-year-20221221-p5c84o
Glimmers of light in a terrible year
It is easy
to be overwhelmed by the dangers, injustices, conflicts and failures of our
world. Surely, enough of them exist. But not all that happened this year was a
disaster.
Martin Wolf Columnist
Dec 21, 2022
– 6.04pm
Few will
regret the passing of 2022. It has seen a brutal onslaught on a peaceful
neighbour by a vile
despot. It has seen soaring inflation and falling real incomes in a global
cost-of-living crisis.
It has seen
rising interest rates, a strong dollar and widespread difficulties over debt:
according to the IMF, 60 per cent of low-income countries are in debt distress
or at high risk of being so.
The year has
seen falling asset prices and heightened volatility in markets. It has seen
important moves towards uncoupling between the United States and China and the
formation of competing blocs centred on the two superpowers, with Russia firmly
in China’s camp.
It has seen
the failure
of the COP27 conference to bend the curve of emissions of greenhouse gases
downwards. It has not even seen full recovery from the dire outcomes of the
COVID-19 pandemic, especially among the world’s poorest people.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/internal-revenue-let-trump-avoid-tax-audits-while-in-office-20221221-p5c836
Internal Revenue let Trump avoid tax audits while in office
Charlie
Savage, Emily Cochrane, Stephanie Lai and Alan Rappeport
Dec 21, 2022
– 4.37pm
Washington |
The Internal Revenue Service failed to audit former US president Donald Trump’s
tax filings during his first two years in office despite a program that makes
the auditing of sitting presidents mandatory, a House committee revealed on
Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT) after an extraordinary vote to make public six years
of his tax returns.
Mr Trump
filed returns in 2017 for the two previous tax years, but the IRS began
auditing those filings only in 2019 – the first on the same day in April that
the Ways and Means Committee requested access to his taxes and any associated
audits, a report by the panel said. The IRS has yet to complete those audits,
it said, and the agency started auditing his filings covering his income while
president only after he left office.
The
revelation could transform the political context of the committee’s nearly
four-year fight to obtain information about Mr Trump’s taxes and any related
audits. Its chairman, Representative Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts, had said
the panel needed the data to assess the IRS’ mandatory presidential audit
program, but Mr Trump’s lawyers and Republicans called that a pretext for a
politically motivated fishing expedition.
The
suggestion of dysfunction in the auditing program was an early takeaway in what
could be a series of disclosures related to the release of Mr Trump’s returns.
Democrats said it might be several days before thousands of pages of tax
filings from Mr Trump and several associated businesses from 2015 to 2020 became
public as they redacted sensitive details, such as street addresses and bank
account numbers.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/why-petulant-oligarchs-like-elon-musk-rule-our-world-20221220-p5c7rn.html
Why petulant oligarchs like Elon Musk rule our world
By Paul
Krugman
December 20,
2022 — 3.38pm
Some years
ago — I think it was 2015 — I got a quick lesson in how easy it is to become a
horrible person. I was a featured speaker at a conference in São Paulo, Brazil,
and my arrival flight was badly delayed. The organisers, worried that I would
miss my slot thanks to the city’s notorious traffic, arranged to have me met at
the airport and flown directly to the hotel’s roof by helicopter.
Then, when
the conference was over, there was a car waiting to take me back to the
airport. And just for a minute I found myself thinking, “What? I have to take a
car?”
By the way,
in real life I mostly get around on the subway.
Anyway, the
lesson I took from my moment of pettiness was that privilege corrupts, that it
very easily breeds a sense of entitlement. And surely, to paraphrase Lord
Acton, enormous privilege corrupts enormously, in part because the very
privileged are normally surrounded by people who would never dare tell them
that they’re behaving badly.
That’s why
I’m not shocked by the spectacle of Elon Musk’s reputational self-immolation.
Fascinated,
yes; who isn’t? But when an immensely rich man, accustomed not just to getting
whatever he wants but also to being a much-admired icon, finds himself not just
losing his aura but becoming a subject of widespread ridicule, of course he
lashes out erratically, and in so doing makes his problems even worse.
-----
https://www.afr.com/markets/debt-markets/why-japan-s-bombshell-risks-another-global-credit-crunch-20221223-p5c8g5
Why Japan’s bombshell risks another global credit crunch
The Bank of
Japan has gone from a bad but stable equilibrium to an unstable equilibrium.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Dec 23, 2022
– 8.01am
Japan is the
world’s top creditor with $US3.6 trillion ($5.4 trillion) of net assets
overseas. It is the marginal buyer of British, eurozone, and American debt, and
a central pillar of the international bond market.
In good
times, the constant flow of investment via the yen “carry trade” is like a
global ATM for needy debtors. When the flows reverse and the Japanese
repatriate their money – as they did in late 2007 and 2008 – it can lead very
quickly to a systemic credit crunch and a financial chain reaction.
“Ultra-easy
monetary policy in Japan has been holding down yields in the rest of the world,
but the tectonic plates are now moving,” said Mark Dowding from BlueBay Asset
Management.
Western bonds
markets suffered instant contagion this week after the Bank of Japan (BoJ) lifted its cap on
10-year yields from 25 to 50 basis points, setting off convulsions in the
country’s domestic bond market. This may be the first taste of what may become
a wholesale Japanese retreat from the world markets.
The Japanese
stopped buying Western bonds months ago. NatWest Markets estimates that they
sold €33 billion of debt from the eurozone’s big four since April, and have
sold $US136 billion of US debt since late last year. Liz Truss chose a bad
moment to test market appetite for fiscal hooliganism.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/asia/xi-jinping-s-big-test-as-covid-bodies-pile-up-20221215-p5c6jz
Crunch time for Xi Jinping as COVID bodies pile up
With
reports that funeral homes and crematoriums across Beijing are struggling to
keep up with demand, the risks of China’s rapid post-pandemic reopening are
skyrocketing.
Michael Smith North Asia
correspondent
Dec 22, 2022 –
5.00am
In a few
weeks’ time, hundreds of millions of Chinese people will cram into planes,
trains and cars to celebrate an annual tradition denied to them for the past
three years.
The world’s
biggest mass migration kicks off in late January when many in China make
the annual pilgrimage home for the Lunar New Year celebrations to see distant
relatives and celebrate the country’s most important holiday.
This
tradition has not been possible since the early days of the global pandemic
three years ago. COVID-19 restrictions made travelling long distances in China
a risky proposition. Even during periods when outbreaks were contained, there
was the risk of being trapped and isolated far from home if you were a close
contact and your health code turned red.
Three years
after the pandemic started in the central city of Wuhan, people in China are on
the move again. Xi Jinping’s abrupt retreat from his “all-out war” against
COVID-19 means the country’s 1.4 billion people can suddenly travel without
restrictions. There are now suggestions the country’s borders will fully reopen
to the outside world as early as January.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/january-6-panel-unveils-report-describes-trump-conspiracy-20221223-p5c8kv.html
Trump found to be ‘central cause’ of US Capitol riots: final report
By Farrah Tomazin
Updated
December 23, 2022 — 4.39pmfirst published at 2.04pm
Washington:
The January 6 Committee’s final report into the US Capitol riots has concluded
that Donald Trump was the “central cause” of the attack and that the
extraordinary assault on American democracy would never have happened without
him.
After an
18-month probe involving 1000 witnesses, a million documents and 10 public
hearings, the committee has released its 814-page account of the event,
asserting that Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to
overturn the lawful result of the 2020 presidential election and that he failed
to act to stop his supporters from attacking the building.
It also
warned America would be at risk of future coup attempts without sweeping
changes to its electoral system and called for those responsible to be held
accountable – including Trump.
“Evidence has
led to an overriding and straightforward conclusion: the central cause of
January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed,”
the committee wrote. “None of the events of January 6th would have happened
without him.”
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/kremlin-says-joe-biden-and-volodymyr-zelensky-ignoring-russias-concerns/news-story/291bc83db28d355a7adf0e4f84f177a9
Kremlin says Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelensky ignoring ‘Russia’s concerns’
By AFP
6:18PM
December 23, 2022
The Kremlin
has accused Kyiv and Washington of turning a deaf ear to its concerns and
charged the US was using Ukraine as a battleground to weaken Russia.
It came as
President Vladimir Putin insisted Russia was aiming for a speedy end to the
fighting.
“Our goal is
… to end this conflict. We are striving for this,” he said. “We will seek to
make sure that it all ends, and the sooner, the better. All conflicts end, some
way or another, with talks … The faster our adversaries (in Kyiv) understand
that, the better it will be.”
However, US
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Russia has shown no real interest in
ending the war in Ukraine.
Mr Blinken
said he spoke virtually on Thursday with G7 foreign ministers about ideas for a
“just peace” proposed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a
historic visit to Washington a day before.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/china-s-future-isn-t-what-it-used-to-be-20221223-p5c8jw
China’s future isn’t what it used to be
Paul Krugman
Dec 24, 2022
– 3.18pm
The world’s
two most powerful leaders have just had very different years.
At the
beginning of 2022, Joe Biden was widely portrayed as a failed president. His
legislative agenda appeared stalled, while economic troubles seemed to
guarantee devastating losses in the midterms. What happened instead was that
the Inflation Reduction Act — which is mainly a game-changing climate bill —
was enacted; the much-hyped “red wave” was a ripple; and while many economists
are still predicting a recession, unemployment
is still low and inflation has been subsiding.
By contrast,
early this year Xi Jinping, China’s paramount leader, was still boasting about
his triumph over COVID-19. Indeed, for a while, people commonly heard
assertions that China’s apparent success in pandemic management heralded its
emergence as the world’s leading power. Now, however, Xi has abruptly ended his
signature “zero COVID” policy, with all
indications pointing to a huge surge in hospitalisations and deaths that
will stress health care to the breaking point; the Chinese economy seems set to
face major problems over the next two or three years; and long-term projections
of Chinese economic growth are being marked down.
China’s
future, it seems, is not what it used to be. Why?
China’s
ability to limit the spread of the coronavirus with Draconian lockdowns was
supposed to demonstrate the superiority of a regime that doesn’t need to
consult the public, that can simply do what needs to be done. At this point,
however, Xi’s refusal to make preparations to move on, his failure to adopt the
most effective vaccines and get shots in the arms of his most vulnerable
citizens, have highlighted the weakness of authoritarian governments in which
nobody can tell the leader when he’s getting it wrong.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/asia/how-xi-s-covid-failure-has-put-the-global-economy-at-risk-20221224-p5c8n1
How Xi’s COVID failure has put the global economy at risk
China is
on the brink of a catastrophe that will undermine the president and hit supply
chains across the world.
Matt Oliver
Dec 24, 2022 –
9.00pm
Smoke billows
round the clock from the chimneys of Beijing’s crematoriums, as hearses queue
outside and body bags pile up in metal containers. Elsewhere, the city’s
hospital wards are overflowing with severely ill patients.
In
state-controlled media, there is little sense of this unfolding catastrophe.
But to experts around the world, it is clear China is gripped by a devastating
new wave of Covid-19.
After the
sudden easing of President Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID rules, the country is now on
course for up to 280 million infections and at least a million deaths as the
virus rips through the population, according to some models.
In addition
to the brutal human toll, the virus risks crippling the world’s second-largest
economy just as it was attempting to reopen.
As ports shut
down because of sickness, supply chains seize up and millions of consumers panic,
the implications are dire - both for China and the West. Could China’s Covid
disaster prove to be the “black swan” moment of 2023?
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/kyiv-outflanks-analogue-russia-with-ammunition-from-big-tech/news-story/e09c778472cfc4d28ecda2bcba50415c
Kyiv outflanks analogue Russia with ammunition from big tech
By George
Grylls
The Times
4:48PM
December 24, 2022
Ukrainian
soldiers have revolutionised the way battles will be fought in the 21st century
by waging an “algorithmic war” that enables Kyiv to outgun invading forces with
far fewer troops.
Artificial
intelligence developed by companies in the West has given Ukraine a
technological edge over Russia, military experts said, turning the tide of the
war.
Artillery
continues to dominate the war in a way that would be familiar to generals
fighting battles centuries ago. However, the accuracy, speed and deadliness of
Ukrainian strikes has dramatically increased thanks to software developed by
Palantir, a US tech firm co-founded by the Republican billionaire Peter Thiel.
Those who
have witnessed the AI in action have been left in no doubt about its
revolutionary power. “The Russians are using their artillery like it’s the
First World War. What the Ukrainians are doing is completely different,” one
defence source said. “A digital army is fighting an analogue army. What you are
seeing is that the digital army, despite being a fraction of the size, is able
to massively outperform its analogue adversary.”
-----
David.