Wry & Dry: a cynical and irreverent review of the week in politics, economics and life. For intelligent Readers who disdain the trivial.
But first, a snapshot of this week’s Investment Matters:
Challenger – updated research: opportunities to grow its retirement income products
To read Investment Matters, just click on the link at the bottom of this week’s Wry & Dry. Or here.
Home, sweet home
A man’s home is his castle. And it’s nobody else’s business. Even if the man is the prime minister preaching about a housing shortage and his castle is a $4.3m shack on New South Wales’ Central Coast.
Good grief, the man earns over $587,000 per annum. A multiple of 7 times salary for a home is below a Goldilocks’ price.1
The Australian media is clearly trying to outdo the UK tabloids for hysteria. They fail on so many fronts, not least of which is a witty headline.
Wry & Dry wishes Albo all the best in his new matrimonial home. May he and his upcoming bride be fertile and raise many children in their new home.
1 Actually, it’s quite a bit cheaper, the current multiple of median house prices to median annual income is about 9.5. Was there a prime ministerial discount?
Would you like to downsize that?
Readers would have read in Wry & Dry about large American IT companies (e.g. Microsoft, Amazon) agreeing to buy most or all of the future power output from nuclear power plants. These companies need massive and certain power for the increasing energy needs of data centres.
Google has now followed suit. And Amazon has again upped the ante. But not by using existing nuclear power plants. They are building downsized reactors.
Google has ordered six or seven new ‘small modular nuclear reactors’2 from a company called Kairos Power. Total capacity will be 500MW.3
The first reactor will be online by 2030 and the additional ones by 2035. The costs have not been released.
Amazon announced it will work with Dominion Energy to develop SMRs to the sum of 5,000MW by 2039.
These companies and the US government are not faffing around.
2 There are three SMRs in operation, two in China, one in Russia. SMRs under construction are in Argentina, China (3), Russia (3) and Japan. Readers may wish to visit: How small modular reactors could expand nuclear power in the U.S. (cnbc.com).
3 Victoria’s brown-coal fired Loy Yang B power station has a capacity of 1,000MW.
For whom the polls tell
It’s extraordinary. A party with just one policy (“a nuclear power plant near you”) has managed to take a 51/49 lead in Newspoll.4
Which says that the lead has little to do with Uncle Fester Dutton. But, rather, the extraordinary incompetence of Albo. But Uncle Fester shouldn’t crow before dawn.
Firstly, the difference from last poll’s 50/50 result was a small decline the Greens primary vote and a corresponding increase in that of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.
Secondly, Albo has led on a 2PP basis for 875 days, more than any PM this millennium except the Ruddster (891 days).
In fact, a prime minister’s party that was behind on a 2PP basis at some time only won at the next election if there were a change in leader.5 The only exception was John Howard.
Labor’s primary vote has remained on 31%, which is astounding given the ongoing shambles led by the omni-shambolic Albo. Importantly, there hasn’t, so far, been an anti-Israel protest-leakage of votes away from Labor to other minor parties. In any case, these voters would probably preference Labor ahead of the Coalition.
So, to push the needle further, Uncle Fester will have to balance his shrieks with some positive policies. Otherwise, minority government beckons for Albo. And Uncle Fester will have another three years to find another policy. Or another job.
4 Newspoll, in The Australian, Monday 14 October 2024.
5 Rudd to Gillard, Abbott to Turnbull, Turnbull to Morrison.
Not closing the sale
There’s just over two weeks to go before they-the-people trudge off to make the most awful choice that has ever confronted them.
Wry & Dry’s conundrum is why isn’t Kamala Kamala doing better? For a short time, she had the Big Mo: Sleepy Joe gave himself the DCM (or believes that it was voluntary); she gave a convention acceptance speech that surprised on the upside; and then she demolished the Trumpster in the televised debate. Her campaign has raised much more dosh than the Trumpster’s; and the Trumpster’s campaign rallies are getting even more weird.
And her competitor is the man who has been ranked as the worst US president, ever.6
But she still hasn’t closed the sale.
The reasons? Wry & Dry posits three: She is too closely aligned with Sleepy Joe on immigration. Ditto, the economy. And she comes across as a populist high school prefect.
Until her interview on Wednesday on Fox News. When she came across as a populist high school prefect who became grumpy when she forgot the question.
Unless something changes, the leader of free world will again be run by a rapidly ageing, certifiable nutter.
6 Well, not quite. There have been 45 US presidents (excluding Sleepy Joe). In the most recent surveys of historians, the Trumpster ranks between 41st and 45th. There is almost universal agreement as to the top five, but no agreement as to order: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt T, Roosevelt F. The most recent top-decile ranked president was Reagan.
Used EV prices crash
It had to happen. The premium that buyers were prepared to pay to drive an electric vehicle has disappeared. Tesla recognised this some time ago, and it slashed the prices of its Model 3 and Model Y vehicles in the face of rising competition from Chinese EVs.
And this has flipped over onto the sale price of second-hand EVs.
In summary, the average sale price of a three-year old EV has crashed by 25% in just under two years.
The below chart is from the US. The prices are in USD and there is a reference to ‘gasoline’, a parochial term meaning petrol.
The unpredicted consequence of this price drop is that owners are selling their EVs earlier, making the market worse. And therefore, the owners of the 77% of EVs that are leased will have higher net lease payouts.
Ouch.
Meat grinder
Away from the headlines of the Middle East, Tsar Vlad continues to throw Russians into the meat grinder that is his ’special operation’ in Ukraine. Daily deaths of Russian soldiers are now about 1,200.
Since the war began, the total of Russians killed is about 73,000.7
But, recently, the meat grinder is successful for Tsar Vlad’s purposes: since 2022 some 800 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory has fallen to Tsar Vlad’s empire.
Wry & Dry doubts that the body bags returning to Russia will cause Tsar Vlad to lose sleep.
7 Source: Mediazona, a Russian independent media outlet and BBC Russia.
The Three Stooges
The three stooges who tried to give the Victorian Leader of the Opposition the DCM found that they either couldn’t ‘count numbers’ (err, what other sort of counting is there?) or couldn’t agree on who would lead the coup.
The ‘still searching for a role’ Bev McArthur, long-toothed Kim Wells and neophytic Chris Crewther will now wait to see if their leader, John Pesutto, loses the defamation case brought against him by a former colleague.
If the judge decides against him, Pesutto will fall on his sword. Readers would imagine that the Three Stooges would then themselves fall on their swords, mission accomplished, one way or the other. The older Stooges (age 75 and 66) would, of course, show greater concern for adding young people to the party than their own career opportunities. The younger Stooge would show great self-awareness and realise that he doesn’t have the smarts to make an impression in parliament, much less on its plump seats.
If the judge leans in Pesutto’s favour, the Three Stooges should then get their act together and mount a serious leadership challenge. And when it fails, they will then get a real sense of what both the party and the wider world thinks of their collective ambitions.
Giveaways
Readers will know that the fine folk of the Sunshine State go to the polls on 26 October. The opinion polls suggest that a significant number of Labor MPs will down be at Centrelink on 28 October.
As the Labor government’s ship of state slowly sinks into the Coral Sea, its feverished captain, Premier Miles, continues to offer gifts to the sea gods in the hope of a miracle.
The latest: free lunches for every primary school child (cost of $1.4bn). This on top of $1,000 energy rebate ($2.5bn), $0.50 public transport fares ($300mn p.a.), 20% cut in car registration fees ($435mn), and $200 children’s sports vouchers ($40mn).
This idiocy will not move the needle on the election outcome. And may save one or two marginal seats. But it does point to extraordinary abuse of the role of Premier of Queensland.
But, after all, this is Queensland.
Outlier
Babies not booming
The number of babies born in Australia each year continues to drop. In 2023 it was just 286,998, the lowest in 17 years. The corresponding fertility rate of 1.5 birth per woman is the lowest since records were first kept in 1935.
There are two obvious consequences. Firstly, cancel those plans for fancy new maternity wards. Secondly, if the government wishes the country’s population to increase, then it’s up to immigration.
There are two obvious questions to ask. Firstly, why does Australia need to have an immigration programme greater than that which plugs the gap to keep population growth at zero. Secondly, what is the matter with Australian men?
Snippets from all over
1. 7 October architect killed
Israel has confirmed that Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas and the mastermind of the October 7 terror attacks, has been killed. (Various)
Wry & Dry comments: “You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall before you by the sword.”8 Or by a tank. Had there been a ceasefire, it is most likely that Sinwar would still be a functioning sociopath, ready to continue his genocidal brutalities.
8 Leviticus 26:7-8.
2. North Korean soldiers to Ukraine
A battalion of 3,000 North Korean soldiers will shortly join Russian troops in fighting Ukraine, marking Pyongyang’s full entry into the war. (UK Telegraph)
Wry & Dry comments: Using the attrition rate noted earlier, the 3,000 North Koreans will be in body bags in three days.
3. Surrendering the Michelin star
A restaurant in Tuscany [The Giglio in Lucca] has become the latest to renounce its Michelin star in favour of a more informal dining experience, compounding fears that gourmet eating is in decline. (The Times)
Wry & Dry comments: The owner wants a lower stress and higher profit life.
4. Weight-loss drug for obese unemployed
Unemployed people [in the UK] will be given weight-loss jabs under Government plans to get them back to work. (UK Telegraph)
Wry & Dry comments: Obesity costs the UK health system £11 billion a year, which is more than that of smoking.
5. Columbus’ remains confirmed
After decades of investigation, scientists, using DNA, have determined that Christopher Columbus was a Sephardic Jew, and the hotly disputed remains in Seville Cathedral are really his. As to his nationality, all they can say is that he was western European. (Economist)
Wry & Dry comments: Had Columbus’ sponsors, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain (parents of Catherine of Aragon, Henry XIII’s first wife), known that he was Jewish would they have come up with the dosh? It was Isabella and Ferdinand who commenced the Spanish Inquisition and the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492.
It figures
- 4.1%: Australia – unemployment rate, unchanged.
- 64,000: Australia – new jobs in September, over double that expected. There goes any chance of an interest rate cut in the near future. And 82% of new jobs were in the ‘non-market’ sector i.e. tax-payer supported: NDIS, public service jobs, etc. There goes an increase in productivity.
- 3.25%: Eurozone – the ECB again cut interest rates by 0.25%
- 1.7%: UK – inflation in year to September
- 0.4%: China – inflation in year to September
- 4.1%: Singapore – GDP growth in the year to end September
And to soothe your troubled mind…
“Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, which will serve as protection, or it must be part of some kind of alliance. Apart from Nato, we do not know of such an effective alliance.”
Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine, speaking to European leaders.
Wry & Dry comments: Firstly, perhaps he should get Tsar Vlad’s tanks off his front lawn.
Disclaimer
The comments in Wry & Dry do not necessarily reflect those of First Samuel, its Directors or Associates.
Cheers!
Read this week’s edition of Investment Matters.
Share this article