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 is out of the office this week.
Wry & Dry’s musings…
Treasurer Grim Jim became CACO as the poor CPI data was released. Another metal’s processor puts out the begging bowl. Trumpster thinks a no-deal is a deal. The UK Labour government has a popularity rating lower than Andrew Mountbatten Windson.
1. Grim Jim gets grimmer
Whilst Uncle Albo was lapping up the accolades for sitting next to his new best-buddy1 at a dinner at the APEC summit in South Korea, Treasurer Grim Jim was taking a beating for the latest inflation data.
Well, a digital beating, as it were. When there was an announcement of falling inflation, Grim Jim would always toothily front a media conference, taking credit for all the good news.
This time, in view of the poor data2, Grim Jim became CACO – Chalmers Again Chickens Out – and did not front the media.
He issued a media release.
1 Trumpster.
2 Up to 3% for the year to September, well above economists’ expectations on 2.7%.
2. The corporate begging bowl is again out
To have one struggling metals processor rescued by the taxpayer may be regarded as a misfortune, to have four looks like there is an underlying issue. And there is: energy prices. That’s not to say that there are not other issues.
But consider: Whyalla (steel), Port Pirie (lead) and Hobart (zinc), Mt Isa (copper) and now upcoming Tomago (aluminium).
Tomago is Australia’s largest aluminium smelter. And its problem is simply energy prices. Y’see, its current electricity contract expires in 2028, and it then expects energy prices to double. This would make the plant unviable.
One of its part owners, Norsk Hydro, has shown zero optimism in its future and written down the value of its investment to zero.
The irresistible failed promises of Climate Change and Energy Minister Bowen that renewable energy will cause prices to fall has met the immovable fact that there are thousands of direct and indirect jobs at risk in the Hunter Valley.
The irresistible outcome will be the sound of “ka-ching.” Uncle Albo and the NSW government have offered a joint bailout of over $1bn. And this has been rejected as being inadequate.
How many more billions of dollars in long-term subsidies might be paid to keep another minerals processor operating?
Federal Industry Minister Tim Ayres clearly is on top of it all: “There’s no sort of free money here. There is equal and proportionate responses that I am demanding as part of fixing these smelters up. I want contestability because ownership is important…”
When asked what this meant, he replied, “I’m open to every option.” But then he said he wasn’t, as he wants “a commercial pathway through,” one that requires “investment from the facilities owners.”
Phew. For a moment, Wry & Dry thought that he didn’t know what he was talking about.
3. Trump: goes east
Trumpster showed his mastery of both math and hyperbole by saying that his meeting with Emperor Eleven rated “12 on a scale of 1 to 10.”
The reality is somewhat different. The deal is that there is no deal. Essentially, for a trial period of 12 months, the US/China tariff regime is, more-or-less, back to where it was when Trumpster was crowned king. Emperor Eleven led Trumpster on a merry dance.
The possible deal is the US lowering tariffs on Chinese imports and China suspending controls on the export of rare earths and to resume buying American soybeans.
Good grief, back to square one. All that fuss for nothing. A couple of roosters having a roost-off. And it looks like Emperor Eleven will win the long game and Trumpster will think he has won something for the next 12 months.
4. UK Labour sinking
Sir Keir Starmer’s UK Labour government is only marginally more popular than Prince Andrew, as it slumps to its worst poll on record. And, like the twelfth of never, that’s a long time.
The final push into the record books was Starmer’s party electing as his deputy a person to whom he had given the DCM from his ministry last month.
Chart source: UK Telegraph
Is Starmer’s premiership safe? Looking at the above polling result, the answer is it doesn’t matter.
5. New Yoik, New Yoik
Start spreading the news, New Yoik New Yoik is about to commence the descent into fiscal oblivion, if not social disharmony.
On Melbourne Cup Day, the winner of the mayoral election will almost certainly be Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old extreme left radical Shia Muslim ‘democratic socialist’ who has had extreme difficulty condemning Hamas. And this in a city with the largest Jewish population outside Israel.
Leaving aside his anti-Semitism, his fiscal policies are reminiscent of Jim Cairns, the first Treasurer of the DCM’d PM Gough Whitlam. Older Readers will know how that ended. Zohran wants free buses citywide, universal childcare for all families, rent freezes, municipal investment in housing, school construction and ‘cooperative economic models’, etc.
And to pay for it all? Increased taxes on wealthy people and companies. The trouble is he cannot raise the taxes he proposes as these require state-level approval, which has already been denied. The trouble is that New York City is legally required to run a balanced budget for operating expenses. Debt can be used for capital investments.
Of course, free buses and universal childcare are capital investments.
6. The genocide no-one cares about
It’s a gruesome matter. And if Readers do not have strong stomachs, skip to item 7.
There is an extraordinary genocide being undertaken in Sudan. And there are no street demonstrators in Melbourne with placards demanding an end to the genocide. It’s all happening in el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, Sudan.
Darfur is no stranger to genocide. In the early 2000s some 300,000 non-Arab ethnic Sudanese were slaughtered by the feared Janjaweed, a nationalist Sudanese-Arab militia.
And now the Rapid Support Forces, the militia ‘bastard child’ of Janjaweed, has resumed the genocide of black Africans. In 2023, it was in El Geneina that the ethnic cleansing of 15,000 non-Arab Sudanese occurred. In 2025, the massacre is in El Fasher. The RSF has taken the city from government forces.
Over 2,000 civilians have been massacred over last few days. Which adds to the estimated 150,000 that have died in last 18 months. The RSF had “deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence,” said a US government report.
And then, on Tuesday, about 140 patients and companions were slaughtered by the RSF at the Saudi Maternity Hospital.
A cynical person might ask, “Where’s Greta?” And the equally cynical response would be: “It’s a war between Muslim groups. No Jews, no news.”
7. A nation divided
Some parts of the media were working themselves up to a frenzy that Trumpster’s net approval rating has continued its lazy downward slide, to -18%.
Readers probably guessed as much. But the detail shows how divided is the nation. When asked “What is the most important issue facing America?” there was bifurcation.
Sure, inflation and the economy were agreeably important, with Republicans not surprisingly about 4% points more concerned than Democrats in these two areas. After that, the loose camaraderie melts away.
Taxes, immigration and health care data revealed large divergences. But Democrats rated civil rights as their second highest priority (after inflation) and a massive 15% points more than Republicans.
The other large divergence was in National Security, which only 1% of Democrats considered a priority, compared to Republicans’ 11%.
What does this mean? Theoretically, a lot in the short term; these sorts of results will drive the issues in mid-term elections in 12 months’ time. These elections are for all of the House and one third of the Senate.
Trumpster might lose control of the House, the Democrats need to ‘flip’ just 3 seats to regain control. But the Democrats have little chance of regaining the Senate, needing to flip 4 seats and where it will be defending seats in Trumpster-won states, like Georgia and Michigan.
The reality is different. Trumpster now rules by decree, not unlike a Caesar. The House and Senate are mere echo chambers.
8. T-Shirt? Really?
Coalition Leader Sussan Ley is frantically trying to lash together pieces of the flotsam to build a life raft. The flotsam is from the wreckage caused by the implosion of the election campaign of Top Gun Pete.3
She was managing to stay afloat. Just. And then in a brain fade usually the hallmark of Barnaby Joyce she pounced on an encrypted message hidden somewhere on the t-shirt of Uncle Albo as he de-planed his latest overseas trip.
Somehow, in Ley’s mind, the words ‘Joy Division’ conveyed a message that Uncle Albo was anti-Semitic.
Firstly, Ley failed to undertake research before speaking into a right-wing echo chamber. Joy Division was a UK ‘post-punk’ rock band that lasted about three years in the late 1980s. The name was chosen from the brothel of a Nazi concentration camp mentioned in a 1953 novel House of Dolls.
Without diminishing the shocking treatment meted out to women inmates who were forced into brothels, none were Jewish. The media have made the same mistake as Ms Ley. The forced prostitutes were German, Russian, or Polish – “none of them were Jewish.”4 Nazi concentration camps were not only for Jews but also for Slavs and ‘undesirable’ Germans.
Secondly, this week’s government incompetence meant that two of Uncle Albo’s superstars, Treasurer Grim Jim and Climate Change and Energy Minister Bowen, walked around with ‘kick me’ sign on their butts. Ley failed to nudge, much less kick.
The t-shirt sideshow might be the beginning of the end of the penny section for Ms Ley.
3 Former Coalition Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton. Remember?
4 Sources: https://ww2gravestone.com/ and Bos, Pascale; Sommer, Robert (2014). Earl, Hilary; Schleunes, Karl A. (eds.). Lessons and Legacies Volume XI: Expanding Perspectives on the Holocaust in a Changing World. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press. pp. 60–89.
9. Age shall not weary him…
Next Tuesday is the first anniversary of the second presidential election won by Trumpster. It’s also the date when Sleepy Joe might have won the election had not Kamala Harris intervened and had not 10.3 million illegal immigrants entered the US in the latter’s term.5
But she did and they did. Good grief, Sleepy Joe he would have been just 82 had he stood and won against Trumpster.
Too old? Nuh. Consider Cameroon, that sleepy and amazingly corrupt Central African country located where Africa’s west coast runs up from South Africa and abruptly turns left. Its 92-year-old president claimed yet another electoral victory on Monday, giving the world’s oldest leader seven more years in office.
Paul Biya, who has ruled the country of 30 million since 1982, was declared the winner of presidential elections with 53.75% of the vote.
Five countries clockwise (Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Ghana in between) is Ivory Coast, where Alassane Ouattara, currently aged 83, has just won his fourth term as president. He gets another five years in the top gig.
If only Sleepy Joe had won a second term…
5 Source: US Customs and Border Protection.
10. The Royal DCM
In the ultimate DCM, Prince Andrew has lost his princedom, his “Style, Titles and Honours” and his stately home. He will move to the wilds of Norfolk, far from the madding crowd. The Tower of London might have been more appropriate.
He will become Mr. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. And his vulgar, vapid and venal ex-wife will have to find her own premises.
And it might get worse. An anti-monarchy campaign group said it had instructed lawyers to investigate whether it could bring a private prosecution over allegations of sexual assault, corruption and misconduct in public office.
11. A bridge too far
Readers will remember some months ago that Italy’s PM Giorgia Meloni announced the plan to build a €13.5bn (A$24bn) bridge across the Staits of Messina, connecting mainland Italy with Sicily. Much excitement!
And building it: not a problem. It would be only 3.7km long… Hang on. That’s over 1.5km longer than the world’s longest single span bridge, the 1915 Çanakkale Bridge6 across Dardanelles.
Oops. Hold the phone. The Italian Corte dei Conti (Court of Audit) has tossed out the proposal. The judges expressed concerns about the project’s financial sustainability, arguing that the costs were not properly outlined and the documentation supporting the estimates was incomplete and outdated.
Sound familiar for a large infrastructure project. You betcha!
Perhaps the Victorian Premier Jacinta Andrews should send the documentation relating to the Suburban Rail Loop to the Corte dei Conti for a ruling on its financial sustainability.
6 The year “1915” in the official Turkish name honours an important Ottoman victory in the Gallipoli campaign comprising an unsuccessful invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula by the forces of Australia, New Zealand, France, and Great Britain, on 25 April 1915.
Snippets from all over
1. Another hit to Boeing’s bottom line
Boeing has taken a $4.9bn charge related to the delay of its next generation 777X jet, even as it reported an improved financial performance in its third quarter. (Financial Times)
Wry & Dry comments: Boeing, Boeing, gone?
2. Microsoft hits $4tn on Open AI restructure
OpenAI has completed a long-awaited restructuring, handing its largest shareholder Microsoft a $135bn stake and propelling the software giant to a $4tn market capitalisation. (Financial Times)
Wry & Dry comments: The $135bn stake is 10 times the value of investments that Microsoft has invested in OpenAI since 2019. Nice work, if you can get it.
3. Amazon to slash 30,000 jobs
Amazon.com plans to lay off as many as 30,000 starting as early as Tuesday, according to people familiar with the matter, the latest cost-cutting move for the tech giant that is seeking to slim down and conserve cash. (Wall Street Journal)
Wry & Dry comments: Amazon says that the figure is 14,000. There is more than one canary in the coal mine on US employment: JPMorgan Chase’s Chief Financial Officer told investors recently that the bank now has a “very strong bias against having the reflective response” to hire more people.
4. Argentina’s pro-market reforms voted back
Argentina’s currency and government bonds surged on Monday as investors bet that a landslide midterm election victory for Javier Milei’s party has rescued US-backed pro-market reforms and stopped an immediate run on the peso. (Financial Times)
Wry & Dry comments: It’s a happy result. But there’s a long way to go for Argentina.
5. Hezbollah rearms
Lebanese militant group Hezbollah is rebuilding its armaments and battered ranks, defying the terms of a cease-fire agreement and raising the prospect of renewed conflict with Israel. (Wall Street Journal)
Wry & Dry comments: The death hand of Iran still moves.
It figures
- 3.2%: Australia. Inflation in the year to end September, the highest in three years. There goes the interest rate cuts.
- 3.75%: USA. Interest rates after the Fed lowered rates by 0.25% points.
And to soothe your troubled mind…
“Any notion that President Trump is willing to make trade-offs between our national and economic security is flat-out false.”
Kush Desai, Trumpster’s deputy press secretary, speaking after Trumpster’s non-deal deal. And failing to convince anybody that was actually the case.
Wry & Dry comments: There is a lot more in the fine print.
Disclaimer
The comments in Wry & Dry do not necessarily reflect those of First Samuel, its Directors or Associates.
Cheers!
Anthony