Wry & Dry: a cynical and irreverent review of the week in politics, economics and life. For intelligent Readers who disdain the trivial.
Investment Matters
This week Craig does a very deep dive into two significant strategic asset plays:
- Takeover of BlueScope Steel by SGH Ltd (formerly Seven Group Holdings) and Steel Dynamics
- Merger of Rio Tinto and Glencore
To read Investment Matters, you can still click at the bottom of this week’s Wry & Dry. Or here.
Wry & Dry’s ponderings…
Happy New Year! Wry & Dry returns early because it’s all happening out there. Trumpster’s boredom with Gaza and Ukraine means that his Times Atlas of the World has had a workout: maps of Venezuela, Greenland and Iran are now smudged with stains of the detritus from his Big Mac lunches.
Uncle Albo counted the votes and turned his coat. Ruddster gives himself the DCM. And Greta is rallying her acolytes to sail up the Persian Gulf, in support of the oppressed Iranians. Isn’t she?
1. Uncle Albo saw the electoral writing on the wall1
It is easy to put noble intentions behind Uncle Albo’s anti-semitism royal commission U-turn. Wry & Dry is a little more cynical.
Uncle Albo’s initial decision to not hold a royal commission was patently driven by electoral numerology. The top ten federal electorates with Muslim voters are held by Labor, ranging from 32% to 11% of the electorate. All are very safe Labor seats.
[Only two federal seats have more than 10% Jewish voters: Wentworth is held by a Teal and Macnamara by Labor. The data for both strongly Muslim and Jewish seats probably says more about the Liberal Party than anything else. Although Liberal Tim Wilson holds Goldstein, with 8% Jewish voters.]
Now consider the irony: Uncle Albo’s royal commission U-turn was also driven by electoral numerology. Labor’s majority is 18 seats. Labor holds 19 seats with margins of less than 3.8%.
QED. Better to upset voters in safe seats where you have a comfortable lead than those in marginal seats where you don’t.
And more irony. The passing of Uncle Albo’s hate speech laws might rest on him making a deal with the Greens, who have been a large part of the normalisation of anti-semetism.
No, it wouldn’t be irony. It would be an abomination.
1 “The writing on the wall” is from the Book of Daniel, about Babylonian King Belshazzar’s feast. A mysterious hand inscribed the Aramaic words mene, mene, tekel, upharsin on the palace wall. The inscription foretold the downfall of Belshazzar’s kingdom: it was “numbered, weighed, and divided.” The Persians invaded Babylon, and Belshazzar was killed. Readers may be familiar with Rembrandt’s Belshazzar’s Feast, in London’s National Gallery.
Source: Google
2. Trumpster covets his neighbour’s ox
Greenland looks bigger on a map than it actually is.2 Which, to a man who thinks that size is everything, is why Trumpster covets it.
His covetousness cannot be about defence. Denmark has sovereignty over Greenland. But a range of agreements from 1951 to 2025 between Denmark and the US effectively give the US carte blanche to militarily do as it wishes in Greenland. For example, whilst explicitly recognising Danish sovereignty, the agreements:
- Grant the US the right to establish, operate, and maintain “defense areas” in Greenland
- Enable unrestricted movement of U.S. military personnel, ships, aircraft, and vehicles
- Enhance U.S. military access to Danish territories (including Greenland)
- Grant U.S. forces exclusive legal jurisdiction over their personnel and operations
There is no military case to annexe Greenland.
Which leaves Trumpster’s ego. Especially about real estate. And his possible desire to match the US’ 1867 purchase of Alaska from Russia (‘Alaska Purchase’), or the 1803 purchase of part or all of 15 current US states and 2 Canadian provinces from France (‘Louisiana Purchase’). And have the fifty-first state named after himself.
Using the cost per square kilometre in today’s dollars of the Alaska purchase ($86.84 – Tsar Alexander II did not well negotiate), Trumpster would have to find a mere $188m to buy the island. Even if he had to pay market value of about $22bn (using Greenland’s GDP at a PPP multiple of 3 times, and adding a strategic premium), the Danish government will not accept the deal.
And even if it did, given the state of the US budget, Denmark should accept only a bank cheque. Or payment in specie.
2 This is because the commonly used ‘Mercator’ map projection stretches areas near the poles (high latitudes) to keep the map’s grid square for navigation. That’s why Greenland looks huge compared to its actual size. In fact, Australia is 3.5 times larger than Greenland.
3. Ruddster gives himself the DCM
The Ruddster has the dubious distinction of winning the silver medal in the Most Embarrassing Moment on Live Television for 2025. The gold was taken by the president of Ukraine, who was eviscerated by both Trumpster and his menacing deputy JD Vance.
Ruddster’s red-face arose from legacy comments (e.g. “village idiot”) about Trumpster’s suitability for office. Trumpster, in a broadcast meeting with Uncle Albo at which Ruddster attended, declared to the world, “I don’t like you either. I don’t. And I probably never will.”
But Trumpster’s bile didn’t affect the good work that Ruddster did in Washington. Wry & Dry dips his lid to him. Sure, he was a disastrous politician (for both the Labor Party and the country) and an ex-politician who suffered from chronic RDS.
However, he found his niche as Australia’s man in Washington. His past tiffs with Trumpster were of little matter. The important work is done not with the president, but with Congressmen and their advisers and influencers. And in that role he did the hard yards, especially successful on AUKUS, tariffs and critical minerals.
Ruddster’s book on Emperor Eleven, On Xi Jinping, has been very well reviewed. His frank observations that Emperor Eleven has a deeply entrenched and dangerous Marxist/ Leninist persona (that is politically and economically far left and far right on foreign policy) contrasts with the gentle and avuncular view given by Paul Keating. And also better explains Dan Andrew’s hero worship.
4. Where’s Greta and Melbourne’s demonstrators?
Wry & Dry is trying to join the dots. Thousands of Muslims beaten, immiserated, massacred, and tortured. Not just this week, but for 40 years. So where are the demonstrators against the mullahs of Iran?
Why hasn’t Greta Thunberg led a flotilla of boats to the Persian Gulf in support of the people of Iran, especially the appallingly oppressed women? Why are the streets of Melbourne and Sydney (and London, etc for that matter) empty of protesters linking arms in support of Iran? Does not the massacre of over 2,000 Iranians merit the very public support of those celebrities and others?
The answer to their ideological silence is simple. For these people, their medieval hatred of a faith from antiquity is much greater than the cause they support. To speak out for Iranians would expose their hypocrisy.
5. Spot the trend – Trumpster’s judicial appointees
Chart source: New York Times 11 January 2026
6. Venezuela – Trumpster’s razor?
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that Trumpster has the attention span of a goldfish.3 He is easily bored. He likes action. And sees every decision of what Wry & Dry will name Trumpster’s Razor.
This is a sort of Occam’s’ Razor decision. Occam’s Razor is, essentially, of two competing theories, the simpler explanation is to be preferred.
Trumpster has turned the principle to one of action: of two competing actions, the one that is most likely to get the desired outcome the quickest is to be preferred, even if it means breaking established norms, customs and behaviours.
Which brings Wry & Dry to the banana cocaine republic of Venezuela, where a classic Trumpster’s Razor event has happened. As a former diplomat observed, he has brought “a brutal, corrupt dictator and drug trafficker to justice in an American court of law, something which no amount of human rights declarations, international law or indictments in the International Criminal Court were able to achieve.”4
However, Trumpster’s Razor only operates to the point of TACO. That is, where Trump Again Chickens Out, as he did yesterday. After encouraging Iranians to take to the streets and yelling that “help is on the way”, when it came to action there was only the sound of crickets.
3 “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Opening lines, Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen.
4 Lord Mandelson, former UK ambassador to Washington. Sadly, his insights on geopolitical matters dwarfed those on the wisdom of some personal relationships.
7. Spot the trend – UK
Chart source: The Times 9 January 2026
Who’s who in the unpopular UK zoo (reading bottom up):
- Starmer = current UK Prime Minister and Leader of left-wing Labour Party.
- Farage = Leader of far-right Reform Party.
- Badenoch = Leader of centre-right Conservative Party
- Davey = Leader of centre-left Democrats
- Polanski = Leader of far-left Greens
8. Spot the trend – Germany
Chart source: UK Telegraph 10 January 2026
9. Cost of UK’s Net Zero is Net $9 with 12 zeros
As much effort has been spent on calculating the cost of Australia’s Net Zero ambition as there is about who Trumpster will next kidnap.
But in the UK, the National Energy System Operator (Neso), the body responsible for running its power networks has just estimated that achieving Net Zero will cost about A$9 trillion. This is almost 10 times the figure estimated by the Office of Budget Responsibility (the rough equivalent to Australia’s Parliamentary Budget Office).
As Readers might expect, all sides of UK politics, of which there are many, came out fighting in the media.
It might be easier to forecast Trumpster’s next hostage.
10. Spot the trend – USA
Chart source: Wall Street Journal 10 January 2026
Snippets from all over
1. Boeing beats Airbus
Boeing secured more orders than its European rival Airbus last year for the first time this decade as countries rushed to buy US aircraft to curry favour with the Trump administration. (Financial Times)
Wry & Dry comments: Wry & Dry is not suggesting that Trumpster’s tariff threats trade negotiations were a factor. However:
- In May last year, Qatar Airways said it was ordering up to 210 wide-body planes from Boeing, including 130 787 Dreamliners and 30 777X aircraft, in a $96bn deal signed during a visit by Trump to Qatar.
- Japan Airlines agreed to buy 100 Boeing aircraft as part of a trade deal with the US announced in July.
- Korean Air announced it was placing a record order for 103 Boeing passenger jets hours after South Korean President Lee Jae Myung met Trump for trade talks at the White House in August.
2. Google hits $1tn
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, hit a market valuation of $4tn, becoming the fourth tech company, after Nvidia, Apple and Microsoft, to do so. (The Economist)
Wry & Dry comments: It’s all about AI. As is every success these days.
3. Trumpster directs Fed Chair to be prosecuted
The chair of the US Federal Reserve, Jay Powell, faces a criminal investigation over a $2.5bn refurbishment of the central bank’s headquarters as the Trump administration intensifies its attacks on the institution. (The Times)
Wry & Dry comments: Wry & Dry is not suggesting that Trumpster has directed the prosecution because Powell did not follow Trumpster’s desire for interest rates to be lowered.
4. Trumpster directs museum to change exhibit
The Smithsonian Museum has removed wall text referring to [Donald Trump’s] two impeachments from an exhibit about US presidents. (UK Telegraph, 12 January)
Wry & Dry comments: The previous text around Trumpster included information about his scandals, reading in part: “Impeached twice, on charges of abuse of power and incitement of insurrection after supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, he was acquitted by the Senate in both trials.” It also noted that he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.
Wry & Dry is not suggesting that The Smithsonian was pressured by Trumpster.
5. Hamas re-arms
Israel and Hamas are preparing for renewed fighting as the Palestinian militant group is refusing to disarm, a requirement that is holding up progress on President Trump’s peace plan for Gaza. (Wall Street Journal, 10 January)
Wry & Dry comments: As Trumpster has said that there will not be any rebuilding of Gaza until Hamas disarms, Gazans’ future becomes even less certain.
6. Trumpster invests in Saudi Arabia
Donald Trump’s family business has announced $10bn in luxury developments in Saudi Arabia as it expands its footprint in the Gulf. The $7bn project would include a Trump-branded hotel and golf course.(Financial Times, 12 January)
Wry & Dry comments: The announcement comes weeks after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s heir apparent, met Trumpster in the White House and agreed a series of deals in defence, AI and nuclear energy.
Wry & Dry is not suggesting that there is a link…
It figures
Nothing to see, here. This week.
And to soothe your troubled mind…
“If we look at the legal and commercial constructs … in Venezuela today, it’s uninvestable.”
Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, the world’s largest oil company, at a meeting with Trumpster. Trumpster had stage-managed a meeting with executives from nearly two dozen oil companies to encourage them to plant flags in Venezuela and “drill baby, drill.”
Wry & Dry comments: Trumpster was not impressed. In fact, very not impressed: “I’ll probably be inclined to keep Exxon out,” he later said.
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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