Wry & Dry: a cynical and irreverent review of the week in politics, economics and life. For intelligent Readers who disdain the trivial.
Investment Matters
Craig this week catches up on portfolio news, especially:
- Rare earths and the Trump/Albanese deal
- Gold price falters
- Reliance Worldwide – a research update
To read Investment Matters, you can still just click on the link at the bottom of this week’s Wry & Dry. Or here.
Wry & Dry’s musings…
For the first time in four years Uncle Albo both earned applause and squashed even more the Coalition. The world welcomes former deputy PM Barnaby Joyce back to the front page. The French red faces about The Heist could be seen from outer space. Uncle Albo is the new Robert Menzies, as the centre and right wings of Australian federal politics disintegrate, presaging a repeat of Labor’s split of 1957 that gave Menzies four more election victories.
1. Uncle Albo brings home the bacon
Uncle Albo looked as happy as a clam. Not even Ruddster’s mortification as the ghosts of his chickens’ past came home to roost could dampen the ebullience. Hats off to Uncle Albo’s team for the many months of back-channel planning. The optics of Trumpster being Uncle Albo’s new best buddy were outstanding.
Now the reality, in two parts.
Firstly, Trumpster was happy because Uncle Albo had what he wanted: those deliciously named minerals called rare earths1 (see Investment Matters for a deep report) and a submarine partnership2 to give Emperor Eleven a headache you could photograph. Hence Trumpster’s wide welcome mat to the Australian delegation.
Emperor Eleven predicably cranked up his level of grumpiness, complaining about Australia wanting both sides of the coin. Perhaps the Emperor had forgotten that not only does he want both sides of the coin, but also the edges.
Secondly, Uncle Albo has now more than ever wedded his country to Trumpster’s. But, contrarily, at the same time, he and Grim Jim have also tied Australia’s future budget balances to Emperor Eleven. That is, success in selling millions of tonnes of iron ore to the Empire.
Perhaps no-one has told Uncle Albo about a massive new iron ore mine in Guinea: Simandou.3 This hill has an estimated 2.4 billion tonnes of 65% grade iron ore. At full capacity, starting next year, some 95 million tonnes per annum will be mined, most of it destined for Emperor Eleven. This is about 35% of what Australia currently ships to China.
Now watch China force down the price of iron ore. And if Emperor Eleven gets really grumpy about those submarines, the price won’t even matter if he pauses or even ceases buying iron ore made in Australia.
How will Grim Jim explain that? Will he have Uncle Albo at his side.
1 Which are not too rare. It’s the processing of them that is costly, time consuming and environmentally damaging. And it will take about 10 years to go from exploration to production. Speaking of rare earths, the following is by Patrick Cook, with apologies to Tom Lehrer:
2 The egg-laying-mammal-sounding AUKUS. This is a security partnership between Australia, UK and US. Part of it is a deal for:
- a Submarine Rotational Force-West based near Perth, which will include 1 UK Astute-class and 4 US Virginia-class nuclear powered submarines
- Australia to buy 3 Virginia-class submarines starting in 2032
- Australia to buy 8 SSN-AUKUS nuclear powered submarines, Australian built, based on UK design and US technology.
3 Guinea is in West Africa, on the Atlantic, sort of opposite the northern part of Brazil. An encyclopedia notes: “Formerly French Guinea, it achieved independence in 1958. Guinea has a history of military coups d’état. After decades of authoritarian rule, it held its first democratic election in 2010. As it continued to hold multi-party elections, the country still faces ethnic conflicts, corruption, and abuses by the military and police.” But it’s got iron ore that Emperor eleven wants.
2. Barnaby’s back!
Just when it seemed that Trumpster was the only clown in town, Barnaby Joyce this week made a comeback. Whether it was RDS or a serious tilt at a political outcome remains to be seen. But his plan to give himself the DCM from the Gnats got the desired headlines.
But why would a politician on a lovely compensation package want to risk employment in the private sector?
The answer is that he won’t. He wants to desert to One Nation, that motley bunch of populists run by Pauline Hanson. With a view to taking over when she hangs up her megaphone.
Barnaby currently earns $239,270 plus superannuation. But if he heads a minor party (less than 10 MPs) he gets a 45% loading. That’s $340,900 in total.
Nice work, if you can get it.
3. The French Job
There’s a German word now being used to describe the global reaction to proud France’s most embarrassing moment since Hitler’s armies conquered France’s much larger army in just six weeks: schadenfreude.4
Blame the French Crown Jewel’s heist on the bank closures. With fewer bank branches to rob and less cash in the till, the thieves are turning to art. Of all sorts. What better place to start than the Louvre? And so they did.
A nice little earner, some $100m of gems in seven minutes work. And consider the apparatuses used: a mobile furniture lift and an angle grinder.
Inspector Clouseau has Danny Ocean and Rusty Ryan on his list of suspects. And Captain Louis Renault has already rounded up the other usual suspects.
4 That is, taking pleasure from another person’s discomfort.
4. Washing away
The spectrum of Australian federal politics from the centre to the extreme right is being washed away like a sandcastle on the incoming tide.
As a result, Uncle Albo can now seriously consider challenging the eight consecutive elections that former PM Menzies won for the Coalition. Menzies’ winning streak (1949-1966) was significantly helped by the wrecking ball of the left-wing of the Labor Party and its incompetent leadership.
This eventually caused an anti-Communist group within the Labor Party to be expelled. This group formed the Democratic Labor Party in 1957. After which the DLP directed its electoral preferences to the Coalition, which helped Menzies win the next four elections.
Fast forward to this week. The Liberal moderate marquee is being assailed from the conservative tent, led by wannabe PM Andrew Hastie, aided by the sniping Jane Hume. Both of whom just couldn’t support their neophyte leader over the past 24 hours.
In the Gnats tent, Barnaby Joyce has given himself the DCM, and wants to join Pauline Hanson’s four-person tent. Ms Hanson’s party is now polling at 14% and she wants to recruit other unhappy Gnats. The Gnats themselves are tearing themselves apart over what might be an ephemeral Net Zero policy.
Uncle Albo now bestrides Australian politics like a Colossus.
5. Tsar Vlad’s Rasputin-like hold
All was going so well. Trumpster had just made the short-list for the next Nobel Peace Prize; the world applauded his statesmanship in managing the Gaza war; and he was loudly pondering sending tomahawk missiles for Ukraine to land on Tsar Vlad’s front lawn.
Then, Tsar Vlad read about the tomahawk missiles in the Moscow Times. So, he phoned Trumpster and told him to sheath those tomahawks. Trumpster shamelessly agreed.
Trumpster then needed to regain the seeming upper hand and proposed a summit in Hungary to agree a ceasefire. But Tsar Vlad wouldn’t agree to a ceasefire that froze the existing front lines. So, no trip to Hungary. Trumpster then thought he had to do something else, otherwise the pejorative TACO5 comments would restart (they started anyway).
Then Trumpster bullishly announced more sanctions on Tsar Vlad’s oil exports. But these are not going to make any difference at all to Tsar Vlad. Y’see, Tsar Vlad has passed the point of no return.6
He has lost well over 100,000 Russians killed this year alone and five times that wounded7 and not added much territory this year (just 0.4% of Ukraine) for all the body bags. He has got too much skin in the game to agree to a ceasefire without tangible success. And that success is either or both of lots more of Ukraine becoming part of Russia or the imposition of a puppet government in Kiev.
It’s TACO all over again. Tsar Vlad has a type of Rasputin-like hold over Trumpster. As one UK journalist noted, Tsar Vlad has fewer cards in his hand than Trumpster assumes. But one of those cards is Trumpster himself.
Whatever it is, Trumpster is not going to put effective steps in place to support Ukraine.
5 Trump Chickens Out Again.
6 Known to pilots as V1. It is the take-off decision speed. It’s the speed during the take-off roll at which the pilot must decide whether to continue the take-off or abort.
7 The Economist last weekend estimated that this year, Tsar Vlad has lost 984,000–1,438,000 casualties, including 190,000–480,000 dead.
6. Prince Andrew: too late to train?
Revelations (allegations?) have arisen that Prince Andrew tried to obtain personal information about his sexual abuse-accuser Virginia Giuffre. His objective being to discredit her allegations against him. If true, these are criminal offences.
The last time a member of the royal family was criminally charged was in 2002, when Princess Anne was charged with violating the Dangerous Dogs Act 1992. Her dog, Dotty, bit two children whilst they were cycling. She (Princess Anne, not Dotty) pleaded guilting and was fined GBP500.
The magistrate also ordered the pooch to undergo training, but didn’t direct the pooch be put down.
It’s too late for Prince Andrew to undergo training of any sort. And there is now strong public opinion for him to… Oh, never mind.
Now that he has been de-duked, un-earled, un-baroned and the HRH has been RIP’d, there’s not much defenestration left to do. Just de-prince him and give him the DCM from his 30 room home for which he and his venal and vulgar ex-wife pay zero rent.
There is only one question. The first published photographs of him with the already convicted paedophile and sex trafficker Epstein were in 2010. Why did it take 15 years for someone in whatever palace/castle these people work to realise that perhaps, just perhaps, the man was a UXB.8
King Charles is probably dreaming of a “butt of Malmsey wine.”9
8 Unexploded bomb.
9 The Duke of Clarence, a member of the House of York and younger brother of Edward IV, was convicted of treason in 1478, and executed, allegedly by being drowned in a butt (477 litres) of malmsey wine. He appears in Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part III, and Richard III: “Take him on the costard (i.e. head) with the hilts of thy sword, and then throw him into the malmsey-butt in the next room.” Richard III Act 1, Scene iv.
7. Expense claims
Trumpster has put in an expense claim for about $230 million of compensation for discontinued federal investigations into him.
Any settlement must be decided by people in the Justice Department, who just happen to work for him.
Trumpster doesn’t know what conflict of interest is. But he knows how to fill in an expense-claim form.
Snippets from all over
1. “Stupid political stunt”
US vice-president JD Vance branded a vote by Israel’s parliament backing annexation of the occupied West Bank a “very stupid political stunt” in a sign of the tensions between the Trump administration and Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right allies. (Financial Times)
Wry & Dry comments: The bill will die. But its introduction prompted Saudi Arabia to get on the blower to Washington. To which far-right Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich lashed out by telling the kingdom to “keep riding your camels.”
2. Emperor Eleven’s Five-Year Plan approved
President Xi has used a key Communist Party meeting in Beijing to defy critics at home and abroad and demand ambitious targets to reinvigorate the slowing Chinese economy. (The Times)
Wry & Dry comments: The Central Committee gave approval to Emperor Eleven’s five-year plan. No surprises there.
3. Trumpster: pay for pardons
President Trump granted a pardon to Changpeng Zhao, the billionaire founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, wiping away one of the U.S. government’s most significant crackdowns on crypto crime. (New York Times)
Wry & Dry comments: To seek the pardon, Mr. Zhao hired lawyers and lobbyists with ties to the Trump administration, while Binance struck a business deal with World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s crypto start-up. That deal alone is poised to generate tens of millions of dollars a year for the Trumps and the family of Steve Witkoff, the president’s top Middle East adviser.
4. Tesla’s profit falls 29%
Tesla said its quarterly profit fell more than a quarter as the loss of emissions credit revenue, increased costs from US tariffs and the vast expense of its pivot to robotics and artificial intelligence ate into its margins. (Financial Times)
Wry & Dry comments: It’s mostly about the cost of Trumpster’s tariffs; and a little bit about the ongoing decline in profit from schemes allowing Tesla to sell emissions credits to rivals that build more polluting petrol vehicles.
5. Sarkozy goes to the slammer
[Former President of France] Nicolas Sarkozy was clapped and cheered as he headed to jail to begin his five-year sentence, after being found guilty of seeking to acquire Libyan funding for his 2007 presidential run. (UK Telegraph)
Wry & Dry comments: Sarkozy, France’s Right-wing leader from 2007 to 2012 and now aged 70, was found guilty last month of conspiring to finance his presidential campaign with funds from Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator assassinated in 2011.
It figures
- 4.8%: China. GDP growth in the year to end September. Not quite the planned 5%, but still good in spite of tariffs.
- $4,500: Australia. The sale price of a just released 25-year-old single malt whisky from Tasmania. In 2014, it won the World’s Best Single Malt at the World Whiskies Awards in London. Sullivans Cove is the distillery.
And to soothe your troubled mind…
“I don’t know anything about him. If he said bad, then maybe he’ll like to apologise.”
Trumpster, responding to journalist’s question about Ambassador Ruddster’s previous pejorative comments about Trumpster.
Wry & Dry comments: It was a moment of exquisite mortification for the Ruddster, as the ghosts of chickens past came home to roost. But Uncle Albo had the last laugh – the Australian media sided with Ruddster and Opposition Leader Ley was as lonely as a cloud in calling for Ruddster to get the DCM.
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.
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