Glasgow’s Melbourne games. FIFA snores. Rough sleeping.
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 focuses on:
- the upcoming company profit reporting season; and
- the very interesting RBA survey on Australians economic literacy.
Read this week’s Investment Matters.
1. Wry & Dry’s ponderings…
Victorians were reminded that the Commonwealth Games and a bucket of cash were given to a village in Scotland. Meanwhile potholes in Victoria’s roads reproduce themselves. A sporting event in the USA was watched by millions of insomniacs. The UK has a new PM, who, unlike his predecessor, has a pulse. The ASX realises that its role is to price securities, not implement social policy. And Trumpster’s Iranian ceasefire successfully pushes the price of oil above $100.
2. The Games nobody played
A long time ago in a brain far, far away, then Victorian Premier Dan Andrews decided to bid for the 2026 Commonwealth Games. Only a cynic would suggest that Andrew’s brain was focused solely on holding a massive sporting event in Melbourne (and in significantly upgraded regional centres) just months before an election.
He then appointed Jacinta Allan to run them; a bit like handing someone the keys to a car you already suspect has no brakes. Within 15 months of winning the bid, the car crash occurred: Allan’s level of competence thus became even more apparent. The $2.6bn games would now cost $6bn.
That cost blowout was so eye-watering that economists, journalists, and possibly Andrews himself struggled to keep a straight face while citing it to announce the Games would get the DCM.
The cancellation of the Games cost Victorians over $600 million. This is an expensive way to avoid an expensive mistake. But Readers will then recall the East-West road project, that Andrews cancelled at a cost of $1.1bn.
Wry & Dry wonders whether the Games’ number was real, or simply large enough to bury Allan’s looming embarrassment before she inherited the Premier’s chair. Her promotion to Premier has let her monumental incompetence spread statewide, much like how Covid 19 was supposed to develop.
But no-one has locked-down Allan. However, there are rumours of a lock-out. How To Dump A Leader is now the most frequent Google search in Victoria.
Glasgow, meanwhile, has gratefully accepted Melbourne’s leftovers, opening last night as a slimmed-down, understated Games. Its budget is $300m, at least $200m of which might well have been spent on fixing potholes in Victoria. Glasgow will emerge with shiny new venues paid for by taxpayers who will never see a baton passed through them.
And somewhere, in a drawer, an “I Stand With Dan” t-shirt gathers dust, unworn, unmentioned, unaccountable.
3. Drinks’ breaks briefly interrupted by football
The FIFA World Cup final delivered ninety-plus minutes of grown men falling over fallen leaves, clutching their ankles, knees or whatever bodily part was alleged to sustain a life-threatening blow. That medical drama was followed by the real entertainment: full-scale handbag-swinging after the whistle.
Argentina, reduced to ten men late in extra time, responded to its 1-0 loss with the kind of sportsmanship usually reserved for pub car parks: wannabe macho shoving and wild air swings.
Purists clutched their scarves at the Americanisation of the interminable FIFA event: dynamic pricing, ad-break “hydration” pauses, and an interval stretched to Broadway length. And what about the half-time show? Madonna, Shakira, Bieber, etc, because nothing says “the world’s game” like a wholesale borrowing the NFL’s Super Bowl’s format.
The final debacle was the interposition of Trumpster by Trumpster himself in the award ceremony photos. Which really epitomised the event.
Wry & Dry’s enjoyment appeared at one stage to be limited to the earlier exit of the USA team. But Argentina’s synchronised group sulk during Spain’s trophy lift gave a delightful feeling of schadenfreude.
4. Rough sleeping in Downing Street
Newbie UK PM Andy Burnham arrived at Downing Street doing what new prime ministers do best: promise the biggest change in 40 years while standing on a street that hasn’t changed in 300. Ditching the traditional lectern for a more “casual” Downing Street doorstop presser, Britain’s seventh PM in a decade unveiled his first instruction. This was to end ‘rough sleeping’, which got the sort of applause usually reserved for a mildly amusing wedding speech by the uncle of the bride.
It would be terribly bad form of Wry & Dry to mention that Burnham ran an almost identical policy as Mayor of Greater Manchester, where early policy success morphed into an inadvertent population increase: rough sleepers relocated to Manchester for much better treatment, and the number of rough sleepers duly rebounded. Did anyone say moral hazard?
Still, why let a documented policy failure interrupt a good photo opportunity, especially on Day One on the Downing Street Doorstep?
Burnham now inherits an economy at which investors are shoulder-shrugging, a Reform UK snapping at his heels from his right and the Greens and other extreme left nutters tugging from his left. And the small problem of governing an increasingly small country held together by two glue sticks: the fact that America’s language is also English and the Royal Family is a peerless head of state family, notwithstanding some recalcitrant and self-indulgent members.
Burnham’s Downing Street vibes were immaculate. But homelessness will not be solved by vibes. Nor will the UK’s plethora of economic potholes.
5. ASX rediscovers minding its own business
The ASX has finally noticed that it runs a securities exchange, not a confessional. Quietly shelved: a plan requiring directors to publicly declare their sexuality and religion, presumably so shareholders could assess dividend prospects alongside personal disclosures for which nobody asked.
Quite why the policy existed remains a mystery, though “virtue signalling masquerading as governance” seems the leading theory. The 19-member Corporate Governance Council dreamed up this expansion; directors must disclose their race, religion, sexual orientation, and socio-economic background. It did so apparently convinced that knowing a director’s faith says more about audit quality than, say, reading the audit. The market promptly revolted, and the council was disbanded for its trouble.
The fifth edition principles retain the 30% female board target — measurable, sensible, requiring no confession — while a new advisory group takes over, presumably briefed that the ASX’s job is pricing securities, not auditing souls.
The Association of Superannuation Funds backed the original overreach, which says plenty about what some in that industry think governance means.
6. The bazaar doesn’t do deals
Five months into his war with Iran, Trumpster has discovered what a first-year Middle East studies’ student could have told him for free: theocracies run by militant enforcers don’t fold because the Dow got jittery.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps doesn’t answer to shareholders, didn’t read the Art of the Deal, and certainly doesn’t care whether the man in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar can afford bread.1 But nuance was never really the product line.
Perhaps someone ought to mention Iraq to Trumpster. Or Vietnam. Or any of the several wars’ history that have already run as a controlled experiment in what happens when bluster substitutes for strategy.
Every wartime leader who mattered understood the enemy, defined the objective, and shut up occasionally. Trumpster live-tweets the war and still can’t tell you what winning looks like.
Meanwhile the Houthis, another Iranian terrorist proxy inconveniently located (see map, below), sensing weakness the way sharks sense blood, have announced a Red Sea blockade. Why? Because nothing says “credible deterrent” like a burning tanker at midnight while the world’s most powerful military looks on, its president apparently surprised. The price of oil hit a century, again.
The Gulf burns on. Self-awareness for Trumpster remains on back-order, indefinitely.
1 The Grand Bazaar is one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world, and is split into several corridors that are over 10 kilometres in length, each specialising in different types of goods
Source: New York Times
7. A bridge too fabulous
Trumpster has finally allowed a $4.7 billion bridge to Canada to open. He then marked this rare moment of continental harmony the only way he knows how: with 50% tariffs on Canada. On booze, industrial goods, hockey sticks: the full frostbitten works. Terrifying on paper, until you notice the exemptions carve it down to a mere 5% of US imports from Canada, which may explain why Trumpster’s Truth Social stayed unusually calm.
Any Trumpster fury left over was clearly rerouted toward Canadian wildfire smoke, upon which he recently threatened to apply tariffs for the crime of drifting south. And to recirculate a map showing Canada as the 51st state — though his ambassador insists Washington isn’t actually bankrolling Albertan secessionists. Just a coincidence, apparently.
Through it all, Canadian PM Mark Carney has perfected the art of looking thoroughly unbothered, noting drily that the US has been “transforming” all its trade relationships lately, while he quietly courts China, India, the EU, etc. But wait, there’s more and genuinely startling stuff. He entered Canada into Eurovision.
The bridge toll-sharing deal, meanwhile, remains exactly as it was before Trumpster declared what he saw as a victory.
8. Fool’s gold
The US Mint has unveiled a new dollar coin bearing Trumpster’s visage — gold in appearance, alloy in substance. Which is either a metallurgical choice or the most honest metaphor Washington has produced in years.
There is, inconveniently, an 1866 law reserving American currency for the dead. The Mint appears to have skipped this detail, raising a delicious question: do they know something the rest of us don’t?
Trumpster’s likeness already graces the American passport. The coin now makes two portable mementos. Given the pace of things, further but larger tributes seem inevitable — a statue in every town square, strongman-chic; a fifth face bolted onto Mount Rushmore;2 perhaps the Statue of Liberty’s female head quietly re-cast with Trumpster’s profile (torch optional).
Numismatists call the Trump coin a departure from tradition. Everyone else might simply call it what it is: a man who has mistaken currency for a mirror.
2 The incumbents being genuine and deserved presidents:
- George Washington: The first President of the United States.
- Thomas Jefferson: The principal author of the Declaration of Independence.
- Theodore Roosevelt: Known for his progressive policies and the Panama Canal.
- Abraham Lincoln: Led the country during the Civil War and worked to end slavery
9. The BYD that ate Germany
Volkswagen built an empire on three pillars: cheap Russian gas, insatiable Chinese demand, and the quiet assumption that Germans simply build things better. All three have now evaporated with the tidiness of a Swiss train timetable.
Exhibit A, from sunny Australia: BYD, a company most locals couldn’t have named two years ago, has spent 2026 gate-crashing the top of the sales’ charts, at one point finishing a mere 243 cars behind Toyota — previously considered as unassailable as death and the Ashes. Kia, Hyundai, BMW and Range Rover are all watching a Chinese battery-maker-turned-car-company eat their lunch, dessert and the tablecloth. It isn’t cheap and cheerful anymore; it’s cheap, clever and increasingly premium.
Back in Germany, the bill for Wolfsburg’s (VW’s HQ) misjudged confidence has hit the VW C-Suite3: reportedly up to 100,000 jobs to be lost, four massive German manufacturing plants on the chopping block, and a model lineup being quietly halved. Even Porsche and Audi, the crown jewels, face talk of a corporate split just to make the balance sheet less terrifying.
What does it say about German manufacturing? That engineering brilliance is no substitute for an agile business model — and that gas, China, and superiority were always just expensive guesses.
3 Business jargon for the floor of an office building where executives with titles commencing with “Chief” reside. Hence Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer; Chief Technology Officer, etc.
Snippets from all over
Trumpster and Saudis in nuclear power deal, if…
President Trump upended a multibillion-dollar nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia less than 24 hours after it was signed as the White House said it would be “off” unless the kingdom normalised relations with Israel. (The Times 24 July)
Wry & Dry comments: Riyadh has long demanded progress towards a Palestinian state as a fundamental condition for it to sign the accords, making Trump’s new condition effectively a dealbreaker.
Tesla’s profits fall
Tesla’s profits dropped unexpectedly in the second quarter as Elon Musk’s group offered discounts to boost electric-vehicle sales as revenue from sales of regulatory credits to rivals dried up. (UK Telegraph 10 July)
Wry & Dry comments: The fall in profit was 17%.
France and social media
France’s parliament passed a bill banning under-15s from using social media. (Economist 22 July)
Wry & Dry comments: Australia’s teenagers have already outsmarted a similar law.
Trumpster’s new toy back in the workshop
President Trump’s new Air Force One, the Boeing luxury jet donated by Qatar, will be taken out of service for about one month this fall [i.e. autumn] for “additional upgrades and enhancements,” the White House press secretary said on Monday. (New York Times 21 July)
Wry & Dry comments: Trumpster has long complained about the old Air Force One and has been frustrated by the years long delay in readying two brand-new planes from Boeing. The Qatari-donated jet, a roughly 14-year-old plane, went through a costly yet relatively rushed process before Trumpster first flew on it earlier this month.
Luxury groups cannot destroy unsold goods
Large fashion groups including LVMH, Prada, Chanel and Inditex will be banned from destroying unsold clothes and footwear in the EU from this week, forcing the industry to overhaul the way it handles excess stock and customer returns. (Financial Times 20 July)
Wry & Dry comments: Which means it will be destroyed in the third world.
It figures
- 4.4%: Australia. Unemployment rate, unchanged. But Victoria’s hit 5.1%, the highest since the 6th covid lockdown of 2021.
And to soothe your troubled mind…
“Heinz would be interested – baked bean cans.”
Sir Tim Clark, president of Emirates, on what Boeing might do with the 10 777X aircraft that Emirates had expected to be delivered in 2020, but were still to be reconfigured in 2026. He has refused delivery. He is grumpy: Emirates has ordered 270 of the aircraft.
Wry & Dry comments: The delivery of the first 777-X is yet to happen. Launch airline Lufthansa now expects delivery to commence in 2027, some 13 years after it ordered the plane.
Disclaimer
The comments in Wry & Dry do not necessarily reflect those of First Samuel, its Directors or Associates.
Cheers!