Wry & Dry: a cynical and irreverent review of the week in politics, economics and life. For intelligent Readers who disdain the trivial.
But firstly, a snapshot of this week’s Investment Matters:
The semi-annual company reporting season finishes today. Several companies our clients hold have reported: it’s been another good week. This week we provide comments on key stocks:
- QBE Insurance Group
- nib Group
- Ingham’s Group
To read Investment Matters, just click on the link at the bottom of this week’s Wry & Dry. Or here.
Author’s preamble
Wry & Dry makes no apology for the weekly-ballooning references to Trumpster. This lunatic seamlessly blends megalomania, idiocy, revenge, corruption and irrationality with being the leader of world’s most powerful country. A scary blend. So, the content opportunity is endless. Read on.
1. Medispend
In a maths contortion that would confuse a five-year old, Uncle Fester Dutton said that his government would save “about $6bn a year” by “letting go of” public servants. Those savings would be enough to fund his $9bn Medicare rescue policy, announced a nanosecond after Albo’s $8.5bn Medicare rescue policy.
Hold the phone! $9bn spent, $6bn saved. This is not the first time Uncle Fester’s brain has been found to be devoid of any cells capable of adding up.1 Perhaps he should divert some of his Medicare rescue funds toward maths education.
But, if the polls were not as they are, there is no way that Albo would have proposed spending $8.5bn of we-the-taxpayers’ ‘ard earned on a Medicare rescue. If Medicare was in such a poor way, he should have announced this repair job three years ago. But, well, there’s an election coming, so no real mystery.
1 Readers will remember that in 2018, he counted numbers and thought he had enough heads to win the Liberal leadership ballot after Croesus Turnbull lost a ‘spill’ motion. In an act of, well, treachery, Miracle Morrison, stood and won. Aside: Julie Cloths-horse Bishop also stood for the top job, and apparently received two votes.
2. Invade during the curfew
It’s a bit cowardly of Emperor Eleven’s navy to start live-firing exercises off Australia’s coast. Why not go the whole nine metres, so to speak, and launch an invasion.
Lieutenant James Cook1 is accused of invading Australia with just one ship. But actually, Cook didn’t wait around to invade. Or maybe it was Captain Arthur Phillip, who 12 years later sailed into Port Jackson with just two Royal Navy vessels (plus three storeships and six convict transports).
Surely, three modern warships of Emperor Eleven’s finest could creep into Port Jackson, unseen? After all, it took a commercial airliner to discover the ships lobbing ammunition at fish off the coast of Australia. So, all it would take would be for those ships to arrive in the middle of the night. After the curfew at Sydney airport, of course – no planes around.
And then Emperor Eleven could claim Australia as part of his Empire. Just get a naval lackey to plant a Chinese flag at Sydney Cove.
1 For the avoidance of doubt, he was only a lieutenant when he sailed into Botany Bay. The whole ‘Captain Cook’ thing is a misnomer.
3. This week in Trumpsterland 1
Early on Monday, the United Nations General Assembly (of 193 nations) voted to approve a Ukrainian resolution pinning the blame on Russia for the war.
Only sixteen countries voted against the resolution, led by… the US.
Russia, and such other paragons of democracy as North Korea, Syria and Belarus also followed the US. Trumpster is now well and truly Tsar Vlad’s marionette.
But it gets worse. Later that day, in the Security Council, the U.S. sided with Russia and China to win backing for a similar resolution crafted in Washington but that didn’t blame Moscow (but it called for a swift end to the conflict).
The U.S. secured 10 votes from the Security Council in favour of its resolution. Five European countries (UK, France, Denmark, Greece and Slovenia) abstained.
Trumpster is now voting with the world’s rogues rather than its allies. The US is an accessory to Tsar Vlad’s crimes.
4. University reality. At last.
It took one of their own to call out their self-delusion.
Catherine Livingstone, the Chancellor of the University of Technology Sydney, panned Australian universities for their ‘entitled’ demands for more public funding and their ‘tin ear’ on the issue of foreign students’ impact on housing availability and affordability.
She went further, saying that universities were (a) selling a product with (b) an embedded promise of a graduate salary premium on (c) deferred but interest-bearing payment terms.
Ouch. Any financial advisor would then ask, “where is the Product Disclosure Statement?”
There was immediate push-back. The CEO of Universities Australia, Luke Sheehy, called for universities to be funded as much as the amount recently spent on road projects.
Wry & Dry was grateful that he didn’t call for parity with the amount promised to be spent on rail projects, specifically rail projects in the Bankrupt State of Victoria. That would really see the ‘general coffers empty’.
5. This week in Trumpsterland 2
Wry & Dry is curious that Trumpster wants reimbursement from Ukraine for the US’ military support of Ukraine.
Surely, Trumpster should seek the repayment from Tsar Vlad? After all…
6. This week in Trumpsterland 3
Trumpster has put on the table that he trusts Tsar Vlad. This morning in a media conference with the UK PM, he said, “I think he’ll keep his word. I’ve known him for a long time now and I don’t believe he’s going to violate his word. When we make a deal, I think it’s going to hold.”
Wry & Dry reminds Readers of last week’s article, when he referred to the 1973 sellout of South Vietnam by Nixon and Kissinger. In 1975 North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon.
It may take more than two years before the Russian flag flies over Kyiv. But it will happen.
7. Next week in Trumpsterland
Trumpster will sell Alaska back to Tsar Vlad. For an undisclosed sum. Which would mean that Sarah Palin really could see Russia from her house2.
2 Sarah Palin is a former governor of Alaska and Republican Vice-presidential running mate to John McCain in 2008. She was famous for being stupid. It is urban folklore that she said “I can see Russia from my house” in a television interview. The quote was in fact made in a parody by Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live.
8. South-South China Sea?
Emperor Eleven is jealous of Trumpster’s creation of the Gulf of America. And he wants the South Pacific to be known as the South-South China Sea. He started it with his ‘takeover’ of the Solomon Islands.
The takeover continued last week. His bathtub boats were menacing the fish in the Xi Tasman Sea.
And this week, he signed a five-year seabed exploration agreement with the Xi Cook Islands, as part of a ‘comprehensive agreement covering education, the economy, infrastructure, fisheries, and disaster management’.
Readers will recall that Wry & Dry hoisted a signal that the PM of the Cook Islands went to Beijing two weeks ago to be fêted by Emperor Eleven.
Wry & Dry has researched, but cannot find any evidence that the PM of the Cook Islands first went to New Zealand to seek such a comprehensive agreement. Or even to Australia. What could possibly have enticed him to choose Emperor Eleven?
But had he come to Australia, each of Albo and Uncle Fester Dutton would have leapt at the chance of influencing the votes of some 28,000 Cook Islanders who live in Australia. He would have been paid handsomely.
9. Turning Irish
It’s all about passport-free travel. Well, mostly. Y’see, Ireland is in the EU, but the UK is no longer.
The lure of traipsing around the EU without having to worry about a passport has caused more and more Brits to become Irish.
But there is more. There are stronger job opportunities in the EU, especially in the south. And, importantly, rules about property purchases are tightening. Access for non-EU buyers is more difficult, especially in Spain.
All that is needed for Irish citizenship is one Irish parent or grandparent and a bit of form filling-in.
But it’s not only the Brits who are turning Irish. Last year, about 13,000 Americans took up Irish citizenship, about half as many as those from the UK.
Readers can expect more Irish-Americans to return to their roots, as it were, as Trumpster’s vision of his America becomes more apparent.
10. Gallic envy
On Monday, the president of France met with Trumpster. But didn’t bring a gift.
Yesterday, the prime minister of the UK met with the Trumpster. And brought a personal invitation for Trumpster and Mrs Trumpster from HM King Charles III to visit Balmoral Castle and Dumfries (King Charles’ special hideaway).
Trumpster was tickled pink, which was a change from the usual orange.
M Macron would be green.
11. Deep dive: German elections: far-right leaps
The east is red, err, light blue.
Whilst the winner of Sunday’s German elections was the centre-right Union coalition (dark blue in the maps, below) with 29% of the vote, the happier party was the far-right Alliance for Germany (AfD – light-blue) which doubled its vote to 21% of the poll.
The AfD won its big swing because of its anti-immigration (especially anti-Muslim) policies. Its other core policies of exit from the EU, increased defence spending and opposing same-sex marriage were lesser influences.
Compare and contrast the below maps, the before on the left and the after on the right.
Source: Wikipedia
The critical result is that the AfD won all five former East German states, mostly at the expense of the centre-left SPD – red on the maps).
The Greens lost almost 30% of its seats, mostly to Linke (i.e. the Left Party). The FDP, a libertarian party, was blown out of the water.
Readers will recall that the AfD was supported by Elon Musk, Trumpster’s bestie, and also J.D. Vance, Trumpster’s second bestie.
The AfD’s vote in Nuremberg leapt to 20% from 4%. Those with long memories will be afraid.3
3 Nuremberg held great significance during the Nazi German era. After Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 the Nuremberg rallies became huge Nazi propaganda events, some with over 700,000 Nazis attending. At the 1935 rally, Hitler specifically ordered the Reichstag to convene at Nuremberg to pass the Nuremberg Laws which revoked German citizenship for all Jews and other non-Aryans.
Snippets from all over
1. Fewer Japanese
The number of babies born in Japan last year fell to the lowest level since records began 125 years ago as the country’s demographic crisis deepens and government efforts to reverse the decline continue to fail. (Economist)
Wry & Dry comments: Japan’s population fell by almost 1 million in 2024.
2. Trumpster ups tariffs on China
Donald Trump said on Thursday he would impose an additional 10 per cent tariff on imports from China and press ahead with levies on Mexico and Canada from next week, raising the spectre of a global trade war. (Financial Times)
Wry & Dry comments: There’s a long way to go.
3. Tesla’s flat battery
Tesla’s valuation (market capitalisation) has fallen below $1 trillion for the first time since November after the electric car maker suffered a 45% drop in sales across Europe. (UK Telegraph)
Wry & Dry comments: Could the Muskovite’s support for Trumpster be causing EV buyers to use other makers? Overall EV sales in Europe rose by 37%. A sample of one of the many anti-Musk bumper stickers:
4. Consumer confidence plummets
U.S. consumer confidence plummeted in February, the biggest monthly decline in more than four years, with inflation seemingly stuck and a trade war under President Donald Trump seen by a growing number of Americans as inevitable. (Associated Press)
Wry & Dry comments: The first canary in Trumpster’s coal mine?
5. Job reviews
Elon Musk gave all federal employees just over 48 hours to explain what they had worked on in the past week or face dismissal, hours after Mr Trump pushed the DOGE boss to “get more aggressive”. (Economist)
Wry & Dry comments: There are over 3 million federal employees in the US. Musk will have to employ many more to review the work reviews, the work of whom will have to be reviewed. No doubt.
It figures
- 2.5%: Australia – inflation in year to January. But underlying inflation rises.
And to soothe your troubled mind…
“Is anyone unhappy with Elon? – Then we’ll kick him out.”
Trumpster, at the first meeting of his cabinet.
Wry & Dry comments: No-one had the cajones to say yes. Thereby confirming who is really in charge.
Disclaimer
The comments in Wry & Dry do not necessarily reflect those of First Samuel, its Directors or Associates.
Cheers!