August 27, 2020 Edition.
-----
For this week, after the Biden / Harris ticket
is endorsed for the Democrats, we have a critique of Trump from Republicans.
Just about says is all!
https://www.defendingdemocracytogether.org/national-security/
In the UK we are seeing some hints of a
second wave emerging. They will need to be very careful! Brexit also appears to
be a total mess with not many weeks to go.
In OZ we are seeing a spectacular amount of
finger pointing and blame shifting between the Commonwealth and the States on
issues like aged care. We are also seeing all sorts of little breakouts and new
clusters popping up all over…a worry. Parliament has been interesting for its
first week!
-----
Major Issues.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/seven-australian-universities-in-the-worlds-top-100/news-story/d9b798b3eaf92209ee72dfc693896c39
Seven Australian universities in
the world’s top 100
Tim Dodd
·
August 16, 2020
Australia’s
seven highest ranking universities have held onto their prized positions in the
world’s top 100 in the latest annual list from the Academic Ranking of World
Universities.
And
Australia’s leading institution, the University of Melbourne. rose to its
highest ever position of 35th in the world in the 2020 rankings, released by
the China-based ShanghaiRanking Consultancy on Saturday.
Other
universities named in the world’s top 100 are the University of Queensland
(54th), the Australian National University (67th), UNSW and the University of
Sydney (equal 74th), and Monash University and the University of Western Australia
(equal 85th).
All
Australian universities in the top seven, except Monash, managed to maintain or
improve on their 2019 ranking in the ARWU, which is mainly based on a
university’s high level research performance in science, technology and
medicine.
-----
https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/education/government-must-act-on-uni-research-shortfall-20200812-p55kxn
Government must act on uni
research shortfall
Australia
needs a strong and vibrant research base, not only to stop COVID-19 rampaging
around the country, but for the discoveries and innovations that will drive long-term
economic recovery.
John Carroll
Aug
17, 2020 – 12.01am
COVID-19 has illuminated the
fundamental flaws in how we fund and support research and discovery in
Australia.
The vast majority of Australia’s
research effort is undertaken in universities and specialised institutes
supported by the federal government through bodies such as the Australian
Research Council (ARC) and the National Health and Medical Research Council
(NHMRC). With only 8 per cent and 15 per cent of applications being successful
after peer review, respectively, it is fair to say that only the very best are
successful.
These outstanding research
projects do not come fully funded, but the ingenuity of universities has
resulted in the gap being covered, largely by international student revenue. With this revenue stream now
unavailable, it has exposed the chronic underfunding of government
research,
so that a generation of researchers are now at risk.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/unis-demand-government-retreat-on-fee-hikes-and-student-failure-crackdown-20200817-p55mkx.html
Unis demand government retreat on
fee hikes and student failure crackdown
August 17, 2020 — 6.20pm
Universities have called on the
Morrison government to retreat from key elements of its funding shake-up,
including significant fee increases for students and a crackdown on academic
failure rates.
Following the release of draft
legislation last week, university groups have for the first time detailed their
concerns about the overhaul, which seeks to fund tens of thousands more
university places in the coming decade in response to growing demand.
The Innovative Research
Universities, a grouping of seven institutions including La Trobe University
and Western Sydney University, has urged the government to water down a central
feature of the package: the steep fee rises for some courses
alongside discounts for disciplines deemed "job-relevant".
Under the overhaul, humanities
courses will more than double in price, with a full year of study costing
$14,500. Fees for law and commerce will increase 28 per cent to $14,500.
Teaching, nursing, clinical psychology, English, languages, maths and
agriculture courses will drop by 46 to 62 per cent, costing $3700. Subjects
will fall into four student fee clusters, from cheapest to most expensive,
based on national job priorities.
-----
https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/ameo-s-central-plan-will-keep-lights-on-and-power-prices-down-20200818-p55mp9
AEMO's central plan will keep
lights on and power prices down
Contrary to reports, the Integrated System
Plan will drive market-based investment in reliable and cheaper electricity for
consumers.
Audrey
Zibelman
Aug
18, 2020 – 12.14pm
Contributor Matthew Warren ('Who's in charge of keeping the
lights on?')
seems to misunderstand the nature and purpose of the National Electricity
Market’s (NEM) Integrated System Plan (ISP), and the role of the Australian
Energy Market Operator
(AEMO) more broadly.
Implicit in the question posed by
Mr Warren – ‘Who is keeping the lights on?’ – were three other questions: do we
need an integrated system plan? Does the ISP move the NEM away from markets and
towards central planning? And is AEMO concerned with cost and consumer impacts?
The ISP is geared to managing
Australia's transition to a renewables-based energy system.
By design and action, the ISP’s
fundamental purpose is to identify investment choices and essential actions
that optimise consumer benefits. Much like you would not build a new airport or
highway system without a good demographic blueprint and economic forecast, the ISP maps least-cost pathways to replace the NEM’s ageing coal
fleet, consistent with government policies.
-----
https://apo.org.au/node/307604
Cancelled! How ideological
cleansing threatens Australia
17
Aug 2020
Peter Kurti
Publisher
Centre
for Independent Studies
Social outcomes Cultural diplomacy Freedom of speech Ideology Political correctness Race relations Academic freedom Australian history Australia
Resources
Cancelled!
How ideological cleansing threatens Australia
Description
‘Cancel culture’ campaigns in Australia
are intended to erase elements of our history and to deny the record of those
who helped found this country. The impulse to impose a revised interpretation
of the past poses a danger that threatens to corrode civility, destroy civic
trust, and fuel community discord.
The drive to eradicate offensive
words, images, and opinions from the public square is rapidly displacing
liberal commitments to freedom of speech. For ‘cancel campaigners’, freedom of
speech is not a right; but something permissible only insofar as it conforms
with conceptions of social justice regarding race, gender, sexual orientation,
and ethnicity.
Black Lives Matter (BLM) campaigns emerged as
protests against racial injustice. Today, racism attracts the most severe moral
disapprobation. But racism is now detected in all areas of society. Those
determined to expose racism stop at nothing in their efforts to attack institutions
of the state, eradicate one point of view and install another in its place.
BLM and ‘cancel culture’ campaigns
are forcing a dangerous orthodoxy on us which imposes heavy penalties on those
who dare to dissent. Imposition of this orthodoxy threatens the fabric of
social cohesion and the health of our community life. These dangers must be
taken seriously. Failure to do so will only compound the harm being visited
upon us in the name of progress and purity.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/indefensible-labor-wants-18m-national-security-review-released-20200819-p55n5t.html
'Indefensible': Labor wants $18m national
security review released
August 19, 2020 — 9.00pm
The biggest review of the nation's
spy laws in 40 years won't be released until almost a year after it was handed
to government, as Australia's intelligence agencies look to combat a rise in
cyber crime, espionage and foreign interference.
The federal opposition is calling
on the Morrison government to release former ASIO boss Dennis Richardson's
review immediately, with parliament set to debate a number of significant
national security reforms before the end of the year.
These include an overhaul of
ASIO’s compulsory questioning powers and new cyber security laws to protect the
nation’s critical infrastructure.
Mr Richardson handed in his report
to the government prior to Christmas last year, and the government has been
sitting on an unclassified version of the document since early June.
Attorney-General Christian Porter flagged it would be released in coming
months.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/australia-stumbles-into-an-independent-foreign-policy-20200820-p55nuf
Australia stumbles into an
independent foreign policy
Andrew Clark Senior writer
Aug
21, 2020 – 2.13pm
Call it "new" or
"independent" or even "accidental", but turmoil-2020 means
Australia’s foreign policy is being cast in a new light. From hedging on
America’s future to China ratcheting up tensions, the rise of a non-US-China
grouping in the region, and the shape of a post-lockdown recovery, it’s a
different ball game.
“What we are seeing is a
freeze-frame moment,” says veteran foreign policy strategist Allan Gyngell. The
result is not an independent Australian foreign policy, but a “new” policy,
according to the Lowy Institute’s Richard McGregor.
For John Lee, a one-time adviser
to former foreign minister Julie Bishop, Australia’s 2020 reality is more
nuanced. Our foreign relations have not changed “at a policy level, but at a
temperamental and diplomatic level”, largely as the result of the change of
prime ministers from Malcolm Turnbull to Scott Morrison.
Just doing nuance may not,
however, be enough. Bob Carr, a former Labor foreign minister, says Australia
should prepare for a possible Joe Biden presidency, one where America will take
seriously its “alliances, multilateralism, and, above all, climate diplomacy”.
A Biden abiding world would “not just be defined by US-China competition, but
elements of collaboration” between both superpowers regarding “pandemics and
climate”, says Carr, who is also a former head of the Australia-China Relations
Institute.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/asia/a-not-quite-sober-look-at-china-s-coronavirus-controls-20200817-p55mj7
A (not quite) sober look at
China's coronavirus controls
China's
confidence that it can manage the coronavirus pandemic was on full display at a
seaside beer festival in Qingdao this week.
Michael Smith China
correspondent
Aug
21, 2020 – 11.38am
The pavilion is packed with
thousands of revellers dancing on tables and drinking frequently from huge kegs
of beer.
Techno music floods the room
before a rap singer belts out an ear-piercing chant in Mandarin. The crowd goes
wild. The air is thick with sweat and the humidity of a Chinese summer. The
portaloos outside are equipped with special buckets for anyone needing to throw
up.
There was hardly a face mask in
sight by 9pm at the Golden Beach Beer City in the east coast city of Qingdao
last Saturday night. Social distancing had gone out the window hours earlier.
A group of drinkers dancing at the
next table with their shirts off suddenly notice our group of caucasians and
venture over.
"Where are you from? Welcome
to China," they bellow before shaking our hands enthusiastically and even
offering a hug. No sign of Sino-Australian political tensions at this party.
-----
Climate Policy
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/new-global-temperature-record-may-have-been-set-in-california-s-death-valley-20200818-p55mny.html
New global temperature record may
have been set in California's Death Valley
By Jonathan
Allen and Kanishka Singh
August 18, 2020 — 4.37am
The hottest air temperature
recorded anywhere on the planet in at least a century, and possibly ever, was
reached in Death Valley in California's Mojave Desert on Sunday afternoon when
it soared to 54.4 degrees.
An automated observation system
run by the US National Weather Service at Furnace Creek reported the record at
3.41pm, local time.
It was a dry heat: humidity fell
to 7 per cent. But it felt "insanely hot" all the same, according to
meteorologist Daniel Berc, who is based in the NWS Las Vegas bureau and
forecast that the heat wave would continue all week.
"It's literally like being in
an oven," he said. "Today is another day we could take another run at
130F (54.4 degrees Celsius)."
-----
Coronavirus And Impacts.
-----
https://theconversation.com/i-will-never-come-to-australia-again-new-research-reveals-the-suffering-of-temporary-migrants-during-the-covid-19-crisis-143351
‘I will never come to Australia again’: new research reveals
the suffering of temporary migrants during the COVID-19 crisis
August
17, 2020 6.14am AEST
Authors
1. Laurie Berg
2. Bassina Farbenblum
In the early days of the COVID-19
lockdown in March, many temporary visa holders working in heavily casualised
industries, such as hospitality and retail, lost their jobs and struggled to
meet basic living expenses.
These included international
students, backpackers, graduates, sponsored workers and refugees, among others.
Despite the devastating financial
impact on these temporary migrants, the government excluded them from JobKeeper and JobSeeker. Instead, Prime Minister Scott
Morrison said if they could not support themselves, it was time to go home.
Today, UnionsNSW is releasing the findings of a
large-scale survey showing just how badly temporary migrants have suffered due
to the lockdown and lack of financial support from the government. The survey
of over 5,000 visa holders, conducted in late March and early April, paints a
devastating picture:
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/the-coronavirus-end-game-is-no-clearer-20200816-p55m86
The coronavirus end game is no
clearer
Victoria's numbers are coming down to general
relief. But there's no agreed end game for the country when it comes to living
with the virus.
Jennifer Hewett Columnist
Aug
16, 2020 – 3.54pm
The increasing optimism Victoria
is slowly advancing in its battle to control the second wave of COVID-19
doesn’t answer what will count as actually winning the fight.
Victoria, NSW and the federal government still insist the official goal is suppression of the virus in a
way that identifies, isolates and quickly controls any outbreaks.
The other states are really
insisting the only acceptable option must be elimination of any community
transmission, zero domestically acquired cases, and are strongly backed by the
great majority of their voters.
That suggests state borders will
stay closed indefinitely while there is even a low level of community
transmission circulating in NSW and Victoria.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/international-student-flights-to-australia-to-restart-in-september-20200816-p55m8t.html
International student flights to
Australia to restart in September
August 16, 2020 — 6.10pm
International students and
universities will be forced to stump up the cost of travel and quarantine as
the federal government prepares for the first batch of students to arrive in
Australia.
Trade Minister Simon Birmingham
announced on Sunday that up to 300 students would start arriving in Adelaide as
part of a pilot program to restart the international education sector which has
been pummelled by the coronavirus pandemic.
Universities are bracing for a
potential $3 billion hit to their budgets from the COVID-19 outbreak. The Group
of Eight - including the University of Sydney and the University of Melbourne -
account for 65,000 of the more than 100,000 Chinese students stranded overseas,
while students from other key markets including India, Nepal and Vietnam have
also been stuck at home.
The students will travel from
Singapore on flights arriving by early September. The group also includes
students from Hong Kong, China and Japan.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/priority-to-foreign-students-while-aussies-stranded-overseas/news-story/568228830fd5fab4e603b5b7ff6b154c
Priority to foreign students while
Aussies stranded overseas
Jacquelin
Magnay
·
7:22AM August 17, 2020
The
Australian government will prioritise international fee-paying students above
thousands of Australians who remain stranded in Europe, the US and in Middle
East transit points.
In
a pilot scheme, 300 students from China, Hong Kong and Japan will be flown on a
charter flight from Singapore to Adelaide where they will undergo quarantine
for two weeks before beginning their studies.
Students
or the universities will pick up the tab.
But
the move has angered Australians overseas who have been repeatedly bumped off
commercial flights because of the government’s unique cap on international
arrivals.
International
airline carriers have been demanding returning Australians pay for expensive
first- and business-class fares to try to get on to the few allowed seats on
one of the few flights still flying into the country. Some flights carry as few
as 30 Australians. The allowable weekly cap numbers are so low, even those
willing to pay inflated fare prices cannot get home for weeks or months.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/we-can-t-cure-the-virus-by-making-the-economy-sick-20200817-p55mcg
We can't cure the virus by making
the economy sick
The
economy is a mass activity of individuals living their lives. When it does not
work properly, people also suffer and die.
Gigi Foster and Peter
Godfrey-Smith
Aug
17, 2020 – 2.04pm
Last week's sudden new lockdown of
Auckland, New Zealand, reminds us of the immense difficulty of protecting a
general population from a highly infectious disease in the absence of a
vaccine, especially a disease that has few noticeable effects on large numbers
of those infected.
Wholesale lockdowns are
accompanied by reports of countless small businesses closing, high levels of
mental health problems, and growing alienation in school-age children.
As the costs of lockdowns become
more evident, so too are we learning more about COVID-19 itself. With this
emerging information, it is time to reconsider the policies followed so far in
response to the pandemic, and the assumptions and habits of thought on which
those policies have been based.
Every day, the reported death toll
associated with COVID-19 climbs. But those numbers need to be given context.
Consider the toll of COVID-19 when measured in excess deaths during a particular period – deaths over and above those
seen within a similar time period during normal times. It is easy to forget
that many thousands die of non-COVID-19 causes every day.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/national/queensland/experts-call-for-health-overhaul-to-fight-ongoing-pandemic-of-racism-20200813-p55ljn.html
Experts call for health overhaul
to fight 'ongoing pandemic of racism'
August 17, 2020 — 12.01am
A group of health experts have
issued a scathing rebuke of federal and state governments, calling on them to
do more to address racial violence in the health system.
Writing in
the Medical Journal of Australia, professionals led by University
of Queensland Associate Professor Chelsea Bond said many organisations and
institutions had paid lip service to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Professor Bond and her colleagues
said those lives, especially among Indigenous Australians, were still falling
through the cracks when it came to healthcare.
"Tragically, despite the
parlous state of Indigenous health, we have not been met here with the kind of
urgency that the global Black Lives Matter movement has spurred
elsewhere," they wrote.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/coronavirus-we-should-kiss-these-lockdowns-goodbye/news-story/61ef8a4b068abf59ada7d7a6140e036f
Coronavirus:
We should kiss these lockdowns goodbye
Adam
Creighton
·
12:00AM August 18, 2020
We
can probably excuse Henry VI for trying to ban kissing in 1439 without a
serious cost-benefit analysis. The Black Death was wiping out close to a third
of all people, after all, so it was natural the precautionary principle would
swing into action.
But
the spectacle of millions of masked-up Victorians, clinking elbows if they find
someone else bold enough to have stepped outside, suggests our response is over
the top, born of a mistaken belief that governments have more control over the
course of events than they really do.
King
Canute realised he couldn’t control the tides. Outbreaks of the coronavirus in
Victoria and New Zealand should remind us that controlling the spread of an
invisible, highly contagious virus is not much easier.
Much
damage can be done trying though.
Doing
whatever feels right because it “might” help isn’t acceptable when in one of
the worst affected countries, Sweden, 99.95 per cent have survived.
“Elimination” is a hubristic pipe dream.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/lockdowns-could-eventually-be-seen-as-an-overreaction-says-philosopher-peter-singer/news-story/f5e9ede7faca62182f4ebbdf1aee0e68
Lockdowns could eventually be seen
as an over-reaction, says philosopher Peter Singer
·
EXCLUSIVE
Adam
Creighton
·
1:17PM August 13, 2020
One
of the nation’s best known philosophers Peter Singer said the response to the
coronavirus could eventually be seen as an “over-reaction” given the social and
economic costs of lockdowns.
Speaking
from Melbourne, Professor Singer, who is known for his books on applied ethics,
said lockdowns had been implemented with “relatively unsure evidence” and that
he was “a bit surprised” governments had taken such responses without
presenting cost benefit analyses.
“It’s
been done on the basis of relatively unsure evidence, both about the costs and
the benefits … It’s a bit surprising society hasn’t had more of a debate,” he
told The Australian.
His
comments came as Victoria recorded 278 new cases and eight deaths on Thursday.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/breaking-news/virus-experts-testify-at-melbourne-hotel-quarantine-inquiry/news-story/34f690ec5ebd4836759432e768a9be30
Rydges, Stamford Plaza source of
Victoria’s COVID-19 outbreak
·
By Lane Sainty
·
NCA NewsWire
·
August 18, 2020
About
90 per cent of Victoria’s COVID-19 cases are likely traceable back to
Melbourne’s Rydges Hotel in Swanston St where COVID-19 travellers were
quarantined, an inquiry has heard.
The
remaining cases are likely connected to another quarantine hotel, the Stamford
Plaza, an expert says, with 99 per cent of all cases in the state linked to the
bungled hotel quarantine program.
In
a statement tendered to the Melbourne hotel quarantine inquiry, epidemiologist
Dr Charles Alpren said the department of health had concluded almost all cases
genomically sequenced so far originated at the hotels.
At
the time of the Rydges outbreak, there were very few other cases of COVID-19 in
Victoria. Early outbreaks died out by May 30, Mr Alpren said.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/reconstruction-can-blow-post-virus-dog-days-away-20200818-p55mp8
Reconstruction can blow post-virus
dog days away
If
Australia breaks sharply with pre-COVID-19 politics and policy, the economy can
snap back better from the most severe downturn since the 1930s.
Ross Garnaut Contributor
Aug
18, 2020 – 2.17pm
Whatever else happens with COVID-19
from now on, it will leave us with by far the most severe economic problems
since the Great Depression.
The most severe for Australia, and for the world. How long will it last, how
deep will it go and how will it affect long-term prosperity political systems
and international order? A great deal. Whether partly for good or entirely for
ill depends on receptivity to knowledge, and our political system’s capacity to
act decisively in the national interest in response to knowledge.
It is impossible to snap back to
what we had last year. Nor should we want to snap back. Australia’s economy
performed badly for most of its citizens in the seven years between the China
resources boom and the pandemic – the dog days. Unemployment and
underemployment in the later dog days remained well above developed countries
that suffered much greater damage from the GFC. Real household income per person
and real wages stagnated.
Growth of productivity and output per person were lower than in the developed
world as a whole, the US and even Japan.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education/why-aged-care-was-never-going-to-cope-with-covid-19-20200817-p55mng
Why aged care was never going to
cope with COVID-19
Jill Margo Health editor
Aug
19, 2020 – 7.42am
The way the aged care sector has
been pilloried during the coronavirus pandemic was appalling because it was
unreasonable to expect more from a largely unskilled, low-paid workforce.
That is the view of Steve
Macfarlane, a leading expert in old age psychiatry.
Nearly 70 per cent of Australia’s
coronavirus deaths are linked to aged care facilities
“We seem to be pillorying aged
care for perceived failures when it was not reasonable for them ever to have
been expected to succeed,” he said.
Associate Professor Macfarlane,
chairman of the Faculty of Old Age Psychiatry of the Royal Australian and NZ
College of Psychiatry, said staff and residents had limited ability to practice
proper infection control to protect themselves from COVID-19.
“For a start, a basic aged care
qualification gives very little, if any, infection control training. The
education requirements to get an aged care certificate are very low.
-----
https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/why-bankers-find-it-harder-to-second-guess-this-recession-20200818-p55mvz
Why bankers find it harder to
second-guess this recession
Karen Maley Columnist
Aug
19, 2020 – 12.01am
One of the bitter lessons that
bankers have learnt from past economic downturns is that when the economy
enters a recession, you can be sure that it will be the banks' exposure to
commercial property loan books that causes the worst grief.
So it's come as something as a
surprise to bankers to discover that isn't the case in the coronavirus
pandemic-induced recession. Instead, it's now firms exposed to the tourism, accommodation and hospitality sectors that are doing it toughest.
In its third-quarter update released on Tuesday, Westpac provided a detailed
break-down of the support it's providing to small businesses, which
demonstrates the different pattern of the bank's problem loans in this
recession compared with past downturns.
According to the release, the
Sydney-based bank said it has granted loan repayment holidays to more than
31,000 small and medium-sized business customers, with loans up to $10 million.
Altogether, these deferred business loans totalled more than $9 billion, or 14
per cent of the bank's total business lending book.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education/single-focus-approach-on-virus-takes-its-toll-20200808-p55jry
Our narrow virus focus is costing
lives elsewhere
COVID-19
deaths are immediate and tangible. The other diabolical costs of lockdown
imposed on millions are more complex and long term, when politicians will no
longer be facing re-election.
John Kehoe Senior writer
Aug
19, 2020 – 12.01am
The reality dawning on doctors
that hundreds more cancer and chronic disease sufferers will probably die as a
result of Melbourne's stage four lockdown scaring people from taking medical
tests could prove to be a tipping point to scrutinise the trade-offs of the
policy responses to COVID-19.
Non-COVID-19 "excess
deaths" facts such as this, revealed by The Australian
Financial Review
last week,
have scantly been acknowledged.
The direct and indirect long-term
health, social and economic consequences of the rolling lockdowns are
staggering.
Most politicians and media focus
squarely on the daily "COVID-19 scoreboard" – the shock and awe of
case numbers and deaths linked to the virus.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/free-dose-for-every-aussie-agreement-to-buy-oxford-vaccine-if-it-works-20200818-p55mz7.html
Free dose for every Aussie:
Agreement to buy Oxford vaccine if it works
Every Australian will get a free
coronavirus vaccine dose as the Morrison government confirms on Wednesday an
agreement to secure at least 25 million doses with a British pharmaceutical
giant if trials prove successful.
The deal with AstraZeneca, valued
in the hundreds of millions of dollars, will ensure Australians will be among
the first in the world to receive the Oxford University COVID-19 vaccine if
human trials are judged as successful, safe and effective.
The government will on Wednesday
also release its multibillion-dollar vaccine strategy, to be led by Department
of Health secretary Brendan Murphy. It includes a $24.7 million deal with
American medical technology giant Becton Dickinson to secure 100 million
needles and syringes.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said
under the deal, every Australian would be able to receive the Oxford University
vaccine free. Priority candidates for the first doses will probably include
over-60s and Australians with co-morbidities such as asthma, heart disease,
transplant recipients and cancer patients.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education/why-we-can-t-pin-all-our-hopes-on-the-new-vaccine-plan-20200819-p55n89
Why the vaccine may not be the end
of the virus
Jill Margo Health editor
Aug
20, 2020 – 12.00am
While the country celebrates the Morrison government's new COVID-19 vaccine plan, it is unlikely to return
Australia to the old normal of 2019.
Some experts say although the
vaccine the government has selected is a leading one, it might turn out to be
more like an influenza vaccine than one for measles, which confers lifelong
immunity.
While it might well protect people
from serious illness and death, they say it may not protect them against being
carriers of the virus.
This means they could still get
infected and still be able to pass the virus onto others.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/victoria/how-covid-19-stigma-is-turning-victorians-away-from-testing-20200819-p55n84.html
How COVID-19 stigma is turning
Victorians away from testing
August 19, 2020 — 11.30pm
The stigma of having COVID-19 is
deterring some Victorians from getting tested and preventing others from
accessing help.
As the state government raised
concerns about a 17 per cent drop in testing rates over the past week, Royal
Australian College of General Practitioners board member Lara Roeske said some
patients were sitting on symptoms for days because they were fearful of what a
positive test might mean.
“We are dealing with a disease
that engenders a great deal of fear and anxiety,” the Melbourne GP said.
Dr Roeske said the shame of
spluttering in public had led to patients seeking help for coughs associated
with other underlying medical conditions.
“They say, ‘People stare at me,
move away or mumble under their breath’,” she said.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australians-to-be-2850-a-year-worse-off-without-quick-vaccine-kpmg-20200820-p55nh7.html
Australians to be $2850 a year
worse off without quick vaccine: KPMG
August 21, 2020 — 12.00am
Tough travel restrictions could
shave $117 billion off the economy over the next decade, leaving each
Australian $2850 a year worse off, unless a vaccine is found and widely
distributed within two years.
KPMG analysts forecast Australia's
population to be 1.1 million below pre-pandemic estimates of 29.1 million by
2029-30 if a vaccine isn't approved quickly and international border
constraints remain, dragging down economic growth.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison this
week signed a letter of intent with UK
drug company AstraZeneca
to manufacture 25 million doses of Oxford University's COVID-19 vaccine for
Australians if trials prove successful. If approved, Mr Morrison has indicated
the vaccine may be available as soon as early 2021.
"The challenge for government
is: How are we going to come out of this without a significant fall in living
standards?" KPMG chief economist Brendan Rynne said. "The longer [the
virus] runs, the more there's an impact on the psyche and there is missing
confidence."
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/france-records-more-than-4700-virus-infections-in-post-lockdown-daily-record-20200821-p55num.html
France records more than 4700
virus infections in post-lockdown daily record
August 21, 2020 — 4.18am
View all comments
The French health ministry
reported 4711 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, a new
post-lockdown record and a level last seen during the height of the epidemic in
France.
During lockdown, France saw a peak
of 7578 infections per day on March 31, but since then, there have been only a
few days with the number of new infections per day rising above 4500.
The infection rate has been
soaring in the past few days, but the number of people in hospital with
COVID-19 has been relatively stable and the numbers of new deaths per day have
also been stable in the low double digits. Twelve new deaths were reported on
Thursday.
French President Emmanuel Macron
discussed the escalating coronavirus crisis with German Chancellor Angela
Merkel on Thursday as Europe struggles with a resurgence of the disease that
threatens its recovery.
-----
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/the-race-for-a-vaccine-started-with-disease-x-20200820-p55np4
The race for a vaccine started
with Disease X
News
that a 'vaccine' might be available in Australia as early as the start of 2021
caused a wave of excitement this week. But don't go booking your overseas
travel just yet.
Ronald Mizen Reporter
Aug
22, 2020 – 12.00am
The development of the Oxford
University coronavirus vaccine – which offers Australia's best hope of
returning to a level of normality – began long before anyone had heard of
COVID-19. It started with Disease X.
In 2017, a coalition of
governments, universities, research institutions and philanthropic
organisations formed the view that a major global pandemic was a matter of
when, not if, and they wanted to be prepared.
Showing a level of prescience that
perhaps explains his tenure atop the list of the world's richest people,
Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates poured $US100 million into the
group known as the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and
issued a stern warning.
"We ignore the link between
health security and international security at our peril," Gates said
during a speech at the Munich Security Conference in February 2017. He added
that "the preventive capacity of a vaccine won't help if a pathogen has
already spread out of control".
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/coronavirus-things-are-getting-better-but-no-one-really-knows-why/news-story/3749cb65fcf152ec24faf15d0f37faee
Coronavirus: Things are getting
better but no one really knows why
·
By Tom Whipple
·
The Times
·
5:49PM August 22, 2020
At
the beginning, when beds were full and deaths common, doctors were still trying
to understand the best treatment for coronavirus. “In March, if you came in and
had trouble breathing, you’d be put straight on a ventilator,” says Alison
Pittard, dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine.
This
was what, in frantic Zoom calls to Italy and China, they had been told was the
best approach. The learning curve since then has been steep.
These
days, Dr Pittard and her colleagues are more careful about who is put on
ventilators, lest invasive treatment causes more problems. They also have a
drug, dexamethasone, that can significantly improve survival among those who do
reach ventilators.
It
would be easy to claim that we are seeing the results of this. In Britain, even
as recorded cases rise, deaths are not following. In the western world daily
deaths and death rates are falling.
-----
Royal Commissions And The Like.
-----
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/australia-s-aged-care-disaster-fixing-a-broken-system-20200820-p55npv
Australia's aged care disaster:
fixing a broken system
There is hope the aged care crisis during the
pandemic could be the spark for meaningful reform across the sector.
Tom
McIlroy Political reporter
Aug 22, 2020 – 12.00am
A small group of armed police huddled at the
back of Parliament House is a sure sign the Prime Minister is at work.
Amid the chaos of coronavirus, the officers
monitor movement around the ministerial wing entrance, working earlier and
earlier across dark winter mornings.
Inside — first thing each day — Scott
Morrison gathers health chiefs and senior ministers to track the spread of
COVID-19 among the most vulnerable demographic: Australia's
elderly.
Such is the scale of death and infection in
the nation's aged care homes, industry players and advocates for older
Australians say the pandemic must be the spark for meaningful reform of the
sector — worth the equivalent of 1.1 per cent of GDP.
Nearly 300 residents have died so far, mostly
in Victoria, and already-acute workforce shortages are compounded by more than
1000 infections among staff. Divided accountability between state and federal
governments and a sector splintered among private, public and non-profit
operators is struggling to cope.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/national/toothless-staff-at-aged-care-regulator-claim-they-lack-resources-and-power-20200819-p55nay.html
Toothless: staff at aged care
regulator claim they lack resources and power
August 21, 2020 — 12.00am
Federal officials investigating
whether Australia's 2632 aged care facilities meet quality and safety standards
claim they are unable to spot gaps that may put residents at risk because the
regulator is toothless, under resourced and understaffed.
Complaints have skyrocketed during
COVID - particularly about infection control - and response times have blown
out to more than 190 days in many cases, according to the union representing staff
at the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (ACQSC).
In a submission to the aged care
royal commission in June, the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) said
morale among union members and other staff at the regulator has been
"incredibly low".
This claim was disputed by the
regulator's commissioner, Janet Anderson, who said staff feedback during
COVID-19 had been positive.
-----
National Budget Issues.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/economics/unemployment-not-the-reserve-banks-highest-priority/news-story/c7a21d88e0545fd6533113bb71671ef2
Unemployment:
not the Reserve Bank’s highest priority?
Alan
Kohler
·
7:10AM August 17, 2020
In
his opening statement to the House Standing Committee on Economics on Friday,
RBA Governor Philip Lowe said that addressing unemployment “should be high on
our list of national priorities”.
Just
high? Not highest? What could possibly be higher at the moment than
unemployment?
That
unremarked doozy left the Governor’s lips after he said the RBA expects
unemployment to be 10 per cent later this year and still be above 7 per cent in
“a few years’ time”, and also that the “true unemployment rate is higher than
the published measure”.
A
quick check of the “objectives of monetary policy” on the RBA website reveals
that “the maintenance of full employment in Australia”, is, indeed, not the
highest priority – it’s at point B. Point A is “the stability of the currency
of Australia”; point C is “the economic prosperity and welfare of the people of
Australia”.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education/why-childcare-must-be-made-free-20200817-p55mce
Why childcare must be made free
Expensive
childcare is an unfair levy on jobs. And free child care hours will improve
life chances all round.
Sam Crosby Contributor
Aug
17, 2020 – 12.10pm
To make sense of Australia’s
childcare system in 2020, consider the laryngeal nerve of the giraffe.
Like all vertebrates, a giraffe’s
voice box is connected to its brain via two nerves. One of them, the superior
laryngeal, takes a five-centimetre direct route. The other, the recurrent
laryngeal, takes a bizarre five-metre detour, shooting past the voice box all
the way down to a main artery near the heart, where it does a U-turn and
returns back up the other side of the neck.
Why? Because when these nerves
first evolved in our fish ancestors, it made abundant sense to go via the heart
given fish have no necks. As the transition to mammals occurred over millions
of years the nerve just kept adapting and stretching in convoluted ways.
Particularly so for giraffes.
------
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/economics/coronavirus-lack-of-skilled-workers-threatens-australias-infrastructureled-recovery/news-story/5d2e937c83bd4bdf4ae67a80519c28e7
Coronavirus: Lack of skilled
workers threatens Australia’s infrastructure-led recovery
Patrick
Commins
·
7:16PM August 20, 2020
A
looming skills shortage in the civil construction sector is a “severe risk” to
the federal and state governments’ infrastructure-led post-COVID recovery plan,
a leading industry body has warned.
Civil
Contractors Forum chief executive Chris Melham said there was an urgent need
for such skills as bridge, road and tunnel constructors, civil plant operators,
pipe layers and line markers to be added to the National Skills Commission’s
Skills Needs List.
Mr
Melham said this would allow employers, apprentices and education providers to
gain access to a range of government incentives to help drive new entrants into
industry roles.
“This
will ensure employers have enough apprentices coming through to build the
roads, the bridges, the pipelines that all the state premiers have been
announcing for the past six months,” he told The Australian.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/economics/coronavirus-foreign-students-could-fill-population-shortfall/news-story/f87da31ac296151804bead1fcd8ab88e
Coronavirus: Foreign students
‘could fill population shortfall’
Adam Creighton
·
12:00AM August 21, 2020
Unless
a vaccine for the coronavirus is found within two years the nation’s population
will fall more than one million people short of expectations by 2030 — and annual
national income will slump $117bn — according to new analysis by KPMG.
The
massive hit to overseas migration from international travel restrictions —
which the consulting giant expects to last four or five years without a vaccine
— will see the national population rise to 28 million rather than 29 million by
2030, according to KPMG chief economist Brendan Rynne.
“Even
in a case there they find a vaccine within 12 months we see GDP being $45.3bn
lower in 2030 and the population 420,000 smaller,” he said, urging the government
to relax full-time work restrictions on foreign students in order to make up
some of the population shortfall.
“This would kill two birds with one stone.
You’ll be getting more people and also more skilled people, who ultimately
will help lift productivity and living standards,” he said.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/property/leasing-code-warning-as-scentre-group-boards-up-mosaic-brands-stores/news-story/bf7b39a106ec5a30174bb87dec574980
Leasing code warning as Scentre
Group boards up Mosaic Brands’ stores
Ben
Wilmot
·
7:53AM August 21, 2020
The
powerful property industry has warned that an extension of the Morrison
government’s leasing code for small tenants until March next year could see the
overall cost of the scheme blow out to about $15bn.
The
caution comes as Scentre Group, owner of the local Westfield empire, this week
boarded up about 129 stores run by Mosaic Brands, owner of the Noni B, Millers,
Rivers, Katies, Crossroads and EziBuy brands, that sit outside the code.
The
parties declined to comment but the dispute escalated from Tuesday when Scentre
demanded payment of outstanding rent and the chain was locked out of 24 stores,
with the remainder also temporarily closed on Wednesday night.
The
stand-off between the chain and shopping centre owner demonstrates both sides
are taking hard-line approaches as landlords try to prevent chains from locking
in more permanent shifts to turnover based rental structures.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/it-may-be-a-terrible-recession-but-it-could-have-been-worse-20200821-p55o01.html
It may be a terrible recession,
but it could have been worse
Economics Editor
August 21, 2020 — 3.00pm
In economics, everything is
relative. Relative to you, the coronacession is likely to be the worst economic
disaster you’ll experience in your lifetime. Relative to Australia, it is – as
the media (including yours truly) keep telling us – the worst recession since
the Great Depression of the 1930s.
But, as a report published this week by the Lowy
Institute reminds us, there’s another side of the story. Relative to what we
were expecting initially, the recession isn’t as bad as feared. And relative to
many other developed economies, we’ve got off lightly.
The report is by Dr John Edwards,
a former member of the Reserve Bank board. Perhaps in reaction to his former
career as a journalist, Edwards has a penchant for highlighting the aspects of
an economic story his former colleagues have tended to gloss over. Which means
he finds the not-so-bad bits – and so is always worth hearing from.
How badly a country is suffering
economically is largely a function of how well it responded to the pandemic.
Those that followed the medicos' injunction to "go early, go hard"
have done better than those that procrastinated. Fortunately, and thanks in
large part to Scott Morrison’s leadership, we’re in the former group.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/coronavirus-rba-governor-phillip-lowe-calls-on-states-to-spend-40bn/news-story/79c60b0048fa3bde8de2ceba26a1743f
Coronavirus: RBA governor Phillip
Lowe calls on states to spend extra $40bn
Simon
Benson
Patrick
Commins
·
5:43AM August 22, 2020
The
states and territories need to inject another $40bn into job-creating
infrastructure after being told by Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe they must
muscle up to help the national economic recovery.
In
a briefing to national cabinet on Friday, Dr Lowe told the states to
effectively double their stimulus spending after last week accusing them of
preserving their credit ratings at the expense of rolling out stimulus measures
that would create jobs.
The
premiers and chief ministers endorsed Dr Lowe’s calls to spend more on major
infrastructure projects and job programs after a similar appeal from Scott
Morrison two weeks ago, who said the federal government had done the heavy
lifting.
Announcing
the lifting of pandemic spending on the crisis-stricken aged-care sector to
more than $1bn, the Prime Minister also brokered an agreement over the borders
impasse between the states. The nation’s chief health advisers have been tasked
with defining COVID-19 hotspots on medical grounds rather than arbitrary
declarations by the states.
-----
Health Issues.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/coronavirus-private-health-woes-hit-hospital-system/news-story/d9e2376424b83fb32422c64ac050a313
Coronavirus: Private health woes
‘hit hospital system’
Natasha
Robinson
·
9:34PM August 17, 2020
Health
insurers have backed reform calls issued by the Australian Medical Association
to counter a critical decline in the numbers of young people holding private
insurance.
The
AMA has warned the decline in private health insurance membership is
“threatening the delicate balance” of Australia’s combined public and private
hospital capacity, with the risk taxpayers will ultimately foot the bill as
previously privately insured patients flood public hospitals.
The
medical body is calling for urgent budgetary reform aimed at increasing the
Medicare Levy Surcharge for high-income earners who do not take out health
insurance, increasing the private health insurance rebate, reviewing the
lifetime health cover loading, and increasing the discounts available to young
people taking out insurance.
The
AMA also wants to see legislation that would require health funds to pay out 90
per cent of their premium revenue in benefits to members.
-----
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/no-jab-no-play-the-wrong-approach-to-covid-19-vaccine-doctors-warn-20200821-p55o70.html
'No jab, no play' the wrong
approach to COVID-19 vaccine, doctors warn
August 23, 2020 — 12.06am
Doctors are urging governments not
to compel Australians to get a COVID-19 vaccine, warning the fast-tracked
approval process could create a risk of harmful side effects.
Australian Medical Association
President Omar Khorshid said while the peak body was "very supportive of
vaccination generally because of its extensive science behind the safety, it's
not going to be the case for a COVID vaccine, at least initially."
Dr Khorshid said tying vaccination
to access to services such as childcare, school or social security payments, as
state and federal governments do with paediatric vaccines under 'no jab, no
play' and 'no jab, no pay' laws, could not be justified with a brand new
COVID-19 vaccine.
"We have to acknowledge it is
a rushed approval process and even if the phase three trials on this Oxford
vaccine go really well, it's still not absolutely proven that it is safe, not
as proven as is normally the case," he said.
-----
International Issues.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/japan-s-economy-shrinks-at-record-pace-as-pandemic-hits-spending-20200817-p55mev.html
Japan's economy shrinks at record
pace
By
Leika Kihara and Tetsushi Kajimoto
August 17, 2020 — 10.29am
Japan suffered its biggest
economic contraction on record in the second quarter as the coronavirus
pandemic crushed business and consumer spending, keeping policymakers under
pressure for bolder action to prevent the recession deepening.
While the economy is emerging from
the doldrums after lockdowns were lifted in late May, many analysts expect any
rebound in July-September growth to be modest as a renewed rise in infections
keep consumers' purse-strings tight.
Gross domestic product (GDP)
shrank an annualised 27.8 per cent in April-June, government data showed on
Monday, marking the biggest decline since comparable data became available in
1980.
It was the third straight quarter
of contraction and a bigger decline than a median market forecast for a 27.2
per cent drop.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/us-post-office-chief-backs-down-on-service-cuts-after-democrat-outrage-20200819-p55n1b
US Post Office chief backs down on
service cuts after Democrat outrage
Jacob Greber United
States correspondent
Updated
Aug 19, 2020 – 7.48am, first published at 6.36am
Washington | The great post office election scandal of 2020 has taken a pause. For
now.
After weeks of growing alarm among
Democrats over US Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's
plans for cost-cutting service changes, the national carrier appears to have
backed down.
Mr DeJoy, a political ally and big
political donor of Donald Trump appointed in June, said on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST)
that there would be no alterations to the way the post office operated until
after the November 3 elections.
Critics of the changes say they
threaten to slow mail delivery just as Americans prepare to cast what many
believe will be a record number of postal ballots because of fears of
contracting COVID-19 at polling booths.
The overhaul proposed by Mr DeJoy
includes cuts to overtime, limits on additional mail transport trips, and new
mail and delivery policies. There have also been claims the Post Office has
been removing mail-sorting machines and letter boxes.
-----
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/gun-deaths-soar-as-americans-pull-trigger-to-settle-arguments-q3vzbvmgl
Gun deaths soar as Americans pull
trigger to settle arguments
Will Pavia, New York
Wednesday August 19 2020, 12.01am BST,
The Times
On
a recent Sunday afternoon Major Greg Volker of the Kansas City Police
Department arrived at a petrol station in the southern suburbs of the city,
where the body of a young man lay on the ground beneath a sheet.
Jayvon
McCray, 28, had gone to the petrol station with his girlfriend to buy a beer.
From what Major Volker’s detectives could piece together, another man had
looked at him “in a funny or strange way”. The two had faced off, “nose to
nose” in the shop. Stepping outside, Mr McCray had drawn a gun and the two men
fought over it, the weapon pointed skyward until Mr McCray’s girlfriend made a
grab for it and knocked it to the ground.
The
other man, who was there with his wife and five
small children, then got a gun from his car and shot Mr McCray several times.
He was dead before the paramedics arrived.
“There’s
family members outside the crime scene that are crying,” Major Volker said.
“You are trying to explain to them why a crime occurred, with you not
understanding in the first place. People have arguments all the time.”
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/the-wall-street-journal/chinas-xi-jinping-tightens-grip-on-domestic-security-forces-in-first-broad-purge/news-story/0e6c4373be1a1eff70432e021bdecb5a
China’s Xi Jinping tightens grip
on domestic security forces in first broad purge
·
By Chun Han Wong
·
11:13AM August 19, 2020
A
senior ally of Chinese leader Xi Jinping called for a Mao-style purge of
China’s domestic-security apparatus last month, saying it was time to “turn the
blade inwards and scrape the poison off the bone.”
The
cleansing commenced swiftly.
Within
the first week after the call to action, Communist Party enforcers had launched
investigations into at least 21 police and judicial officials, according to a
media tally cited by the party’s top law-enforcement commission. Dozens more have
since been taken down, including the police chief of Shanghai, the most senior
target thus far, and cadres who have won awards for good performance.
The
rash of investigations marks the first time that Mr. Xi has unleashed a
sweeping and systematic clean-up of the country’s powerful domestic-security
apparatus. His push to forge police, prosecutors and judges who are “absolutely
loyal, absolutely pure and absolutely reliable” — as officials running the
campaign have demanded — points to thorny concerns that Mr. Xi faces at home
even as he seeks to slow a downward spiral in relations with the U.S.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/populism-is-back-in-the-us-election-but-not-as-you-know-it-20200817-p55mfb
Populism is back in the US
election, but not as you know it
It's not Donald Trump's campaign but Joe
Biden's economic agenda that is being shaped by the much maligned movement.
Andrew Clark Senior
writer
Aug
21, 2020 – 12.00am
Populism, a serially abused
movement, is making a comeback. As the US staggers under a record level of COVID-19 deaths and the weird verbal meanderings
of President Donald Trump, a uniquely American form of democratic radicalism
known as populism is re-emerging during the 10-week run-up to the November 3 presidential election.
It’s not the same populism that
has become just about the most popular term of abuse and is used to describe
slick left-wing movements that peddle glib answers or proto-fascist governments
in countries like Hungary and Poland, with echoes in Trump’s America. "New
populism" is more the inheritor of a radical democratic movement that
swept the great plains in US states like Kansas, Nebraska and Minnesota in the
1890s.
Like a meteor, populism soared
across the American firmament, threatening to upend the US two-party system.
But it crashed in a ball of political flame just five years later. More strangely,
some of its leading adherents who advocated a radical and inclusive re-ordering
of American society, later re-emerged as obscurantists and nativists, opposing
the teaching of evolution, or as prominent members of the Ku Klux Klan.
However, the issues that gave
populism its raison d’etre back in the 1890s, like inequality, malfunctioning
financial markets, and monopoly corporate power, resonate today. They show up
in calls for US government intervention in health care, Wall Street, American
workplace relations, gender and minority rights, and curbing the power of the
FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google) companies. Collectively,
these demands amount to a radical reset of what populists vaguely refer to as
“economic rights”.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/blind-spots-trump-missed-the-chance-to-make-the-economy-truly-great-20200821-p55nuu.html
Turning a blind eye: Trump missed
the chance to make the economy great
By Jim
Tankersley
August 21, 2020 — 8.10am
On a warm day in North Carolina
last month, President Donald Trump warmed up a crowd with familiar boasts about
the American economy in the time before the pandemic. "We made and brought
this country to the greatest point in its history," he said. "We
never had an economy like we had. . . . We never had numbers like it. We are going
to have them again. And everyone knows I'm going to rebuild it." This is a
familiar talking point for Trump, who returns often to the theme of how much he
juiced "the greatest economy that we've had in our history, the
best."
None of those historical claims
are true. In his first three years, he wrought slightly less employment growth
than his predecessor did, the same gross domestic product growth, slightly
better stockmarket growth and the same wage growth. Before the pandemic,
Trump's economic record was unremarkable for a 21st-century president, even
though he was able to enact a large amount of the agenda he ran on in 2016, and
even though he enjoyed what by one measure was more supportive policy from
Congress and the Federal Reserve than any president in a generation.
But Trump could have produced the
stellar figures he pretends to have scored. The president inherited a growing
economy with low unemployment,which was primed for the sort of middle-class
surge that the country last enjoyed in the late 1990s. If he had heeded the
lessons of the last multi-decade middle-class boom, which followed World War
II, he could have uncorked a new wave of shared prosperity that would have
pulled millions of workers into the economic stability that we have come to
call the American Dream.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/the-real-state-of-china-s-economy-remains-a-mystery-20200821-p55nyt.html
The real state of China's economy
remains a mystery
By
Anjani Trivedi
August 21, 2020 — 10.58am
One of the most severe floods in
decades is ravaging the industrial heartland, just as China struggles to shake
off the impact of COVID-19. The Yangtze River's inundation has so far caused
direct economic losses of 178.9 billion yuan ($35.9 billion), including
collapsed buildings, flooded factory floors and homes and livelihoods lost for
millions of people. Average rainfall for June and July surpassed previous
years; fixing the damage has barely begun.
The latest disaster feeds into a
picture of an uneven turnaround as China picks itself up from the pandemic.
Beijing has pumped in trillions of yuan in stimulus and relief, and there are
signs of upticks in activity. But it's getting harder to say what the true
state of the Chinese economy is. The numbers are all over the place. For
investors buying into a cyclical rebound, it may be worth a deeper look.
Parsing through more granular data
shows that heavy trucks are selling like hotcakes – up 89 per cent last month
from a year earlier. Excavator sales rose almost 30 per cent. Demand for
automation machinery has picked up, as has movement of goods across the
country. Machine use hours fell 3 per cent overall, and were flat in
flood-stricken southern China. Monthly electricity generation is down, and
cement inventory levels are higher than in previous years. Government spending
on fixed assets is rising strongly, but industrial production and manufacturing
investment are sagging.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/trump-accuses-deep-state-of-delaying-coronavirus-vaccine-until-after-us-election-20200823-p55ode.html
Trump accuses 'deep state' of
delaying coronavirus vaccine until after US election
August 23, 2020 — 2.49am
Washington: US President Donald Trump on
Saturday accused members of the "deep state" at the Food and Drug
Administration, without providing evidence, of working to slow testing of
COVID-19 vaccines until after the November presidential election.
In a Twitter post, Trump said the
deep state "or whoever" at the FDA was making it very difficult for
drug companies to enroll people in clinical trials to test vaccines and therapies
for the novel coronavirus.
US President Donald Trump has
described the Democratic convention as ‘gloomy’, suggesting Joe Biden sees American
‘darkness’.
The comment came after Reuters
exclusively reported on Thursday that a top FDA official said he would resign
if the Trump administration approved a vaccine before it was shown to be safe
and effective.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/2020-race-joe-biden-to-america-ill-lead-you-out-of-the-dark/news-story/55d7e9f2cc06ae6eb1ef035bf6fc00a4
2020 race: Joe Biden to America:
‘I’ll lead you out of the dark’
Cameron
Stewart
·
6:21PM August 21, 2020
It
was the moment Joe Biden has dreamed since he was a young senator in the early
1970s. Yet it took almost half a century, two failed presidential bids and
untold family tragedy before the now 77-year-old former vice-president finally
won the right to accept the Democratic nomination for president.
Mr
Biden — a poor orator at the best of times — surprised his detractors on
Thursday night (Friday AEST) by giving what may have been the best speech of
his long political life to the Democratic National Convention.
Standing
in front of American flags in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, Mr Biden
pledged to lead the US through its “season of darkness” by bringing a divided nation
together to restore jobs, dignity and respect with a dramatically different
style of presidency.
In
a crisp and often emotional speech to accept his nomination, he laid out a
vision of an America that he said would be “generous and strong, selfless and
humble”.
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I
look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
