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:
- Budget reflections
- Company research: Healius (pathology and diagnostic imaging)
To read Investment Matters, just click on the link at the bottom of this week’s Wry & Dry. Or here.
Wry & Dry’s rant
It was the worst kept secret since Trumpster’s barely sentient defence leaders sloppily announced to the world that the US was going to bomb a part of Yemen. And the secret was Albo announcing that we-the-suffering-people of this land girt by sea will have to endure 35 days of electioneering hell.
It’s a chromophiliac election. The unbelievably boring and insipid Albo in the red corner; the very earnest and humourless Top Gun Pete in the blue corner; the narrow-minded and Trotskyite Adam the Bandit in the green corner; and the colourless Teals in the teal corner. Oh, Death. Where is thy sting?
But there are bigger issues than curating the possibilities of the next five weeks. Here are ten of them, in no particular order…
1. Election signs
In the second biggest embarrassment of the week, an election candidate’s husband is videoed trashing an election poster belonging to the opposing candidate. Really, who cares?
Well, Monique Ryan does – hers is the marginal seat in question. She is a member of what might be a government-determining collective: the Teal Collective.1 Y’see, if the polls are correct, Albo will lose his majority and will need to rely on the Teal Collective (and the Greens) to govern.
Ms. Ryan’s leverage could be enormous. Which leads Wry & Dry to ask: in view of this criticality, why is Ms. Ryan’s campaign so bereft of election workers? Such that she has to rely on her easily-identified husband to do the dirty work?
That sort of election poster trashing is usually undertaken by enthusiastic and idealistic students, filling in time between their 8 ‘contact hours’ per week at the day-care centre called university.
So, in the absence of students it was up to the husband to take out, so to speak, what she considered to be trash. Just like at home.
Given the vast electioneering resources at Ms. Ryan’s disposal (she spent over $1.8m in 2022), surely some funds could be made available to pay poor, downtrodden students to undertake the essential dirty work.
1 In a fit of chromophilia, the name was chosen as it was seen to be a blend of the Greens’ green and Liberal blue. This is a misnomer as Teals almost always votes with Labor. Perhaps Yellows (a blend of red and green light) or Browns (a blend of red and green pigments) would be more apposite.
2. Budget? Smudge it.
Grim Jim Chalmers misled, promised, explained and deceived in his budget, like the best of all Treasurers. But, oh for the wit, entertainment and expertise of Keating or Costello at the despatch box2. Weep. No less than 30 minutes of unedifying speechifying where the word ‘billion’ was uttered more than once every 60 seconds.
His claim of good fiscal management confuses good luck with good policy. Simply, tax revenue over the last four years of $396bn greater than that forecast had zero to do with government policy. It was mostly the taxes on the greater than expected Australian company profits from Emperor Eleven’s insatiable appetite for Australia’s iron ore.
AMP chief economist Shane Oliver has calculated that 96% of those gains have been spent. “The budget is in poor health,” he tactfully opined.
Mr Oliver is being polite. This budget is one that Albo didn’t want delivered, the outlook is so bad. But for Cyclone Alfred, it would have been delivered after the election.
2 The despatch boxes in the House of Representatives were gifts from King George V to mark the opening of the Old Parliament House in Canberra on 9 May 1927. They are ceremonial, and were originally used for members to carry documents into the chamber. The practice dates from the House of Commons in the reign of Elizabeth I
3. Budget response: me too
It is now clear that Top Gun Pete failed to take advantage of his then four-point lead in the polls (and Albo’s then flailing) to announce a range of sensible and far-sighted policies. Instead, we-the-voter have been drip-fed TGP’s thought bubbles popping-up like musings of Snoopy sitting on his kennel.
Y’see, Grim Jim’s insipid and timid budget had the seemingly shrewd pre-election giveaway of tiny tax cuts of $5 per week for low-income earners.
TGP couldn’t help himself and offered a bribe of $10 per week, by way of halving the fuel price excise (i.e. tax) for 12 months. Really? And where are the savings to pay for this?
Take #1: “Oops. Sorry. We’ll get back to you. But in the meantime, think about the savings galore that will be achieved when we slash the number of federal public servants.”
And will that also pay for all the promises you have made to match the government’s Medicare promises?
Take #2: “Oops. Sorry. We’ll get back to you. But in the meantime, think about the savings galore that will be achieved for working Australians when we cut the price of gas.”
Rinse. Repeat.
TGP’s count-on-the-finger-of-one-finger policies will be washed away by the flood of election noise.
Voters rarely listen to promises made during a campaign. The winner of the election will be the leader in Monday’s Newspoll.
4. Competence wasn’t in the job description
Trumpster’s administration is blundering from bad to embarrassing. His supporters who once thought that he played three-dimensional chess in his head are now beginning to see a large cranial cavity.
Readers will now know that a journalist was added to a recent government group chat on a public messaging app. Trouble was that group chat was effectively a virtual war room about the US attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The Trumpster has downplayed the Keystone Cops snafu. But it’s a snafu of his own making. He chose sycophants for senior positions in his administration. Competence wasn’t in the job description, so competence isn’t among the results. Pete Hesgeth, his Defense (sic) Secretary was a former Fox News weekend host. The whole event is a DEFCON43 level fiasco.
But it’s what the globe has come to expect from this shambolic administration. See more, next.
The grand British experiment of 249 years ago giving its colony on the east coast of the North American continent to the settlers is not working today, under Trumpster.
There is now merit in Canada taking over.
3There are five levels of US DEFense readiness CONdition: DEFCON 1 is nuclear war is imminent or already begun; 2: next step to nuclear war; 3: increase in force readiness’ 4: increase intelligence watch; 5: lowest state of readiness. DEFCON 1 has never been used. DEFCON 2 was used in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis (1,479 strike aircraft; 182 Atlas, Titan, and Minuteman missiles; 2,962 total nuclear weapons; and 1,003 refuelling tankers were ready to launch within one hour). DEFCON 3 was used in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, when it was feared the Soviet Union would intervene.
By the way…
… there are two ‘special elections’ (i.e. by-elections) in Florida on Tuesday. They are to elect replacements for former House members Mike Waltz (who resigned to become one of Trumpster’s bootlickers) and Matt Gaetz. The Congressional Districts (i.e. electorates) are very safe Republican seats. Trumpster won the votes in both by over 30 points in November.
Wry & Dry is guessing that there will be swings against the Republican candidates. Just sayin’.
5. Trumpster drives the US over the edge
Well, not quite. But Trumpster has ordered that a 25% tariff be imposed from 3 April on all cars and car parts imported into the US. And don’t worry about free trade agreements lads.
Almost 50% of all vehicles sold and 60% of parts of vehicles assembled in the US are imported.
Peter Navarro, the nutzo senior counsellor to Trumpster on trade and manufacturing, told reporters Wednesday that “foreign trade cheaters have turned America into a lower-wage assembly operation for foreign parts.”
Hold the phone. It is the American consumer who prefers a German made Mercedes GLS to a Lincoln Navigator (Ford)? The German government didn’t force him/her to buy Mercedes.
6. Privacy
A person who was once a good golfer put out on X (aka Twitter) that he was in lurv. And “At this time, we would appreciate privacy for all those close to our hearts.”
The ‘we’ is Tiger Woods and Vanessa Trump, former daughter-in-law of Trumpster.
Yes. Of course. The need for privacy. Which is explained by the use of X to publicise to his 6.4m followers their desire for privacy. Of course.
And no suggestion of when “at this time” expires.
7. WFO or WFH?
The one subject that draws more arguments than Tsar Vlad v Ukraine, Netanyahu v Hamas or Albo v TGP is the merits of WFH.
Wry & Dry will not dare venture a toe into those crocodilian waters. But only to present some data from Jone Lang LaSalle (JLL), a massive global commercial real estate company.
Nothing to see here. Of course China, India, South Korea and Japan fill the top four places; a blend of a strong work ethic with strong incentives not to WFH.
The UK was always going to be near the bottom of the pile – a casual work ethic is part of the DNA of Brits. The surprise is the US, where almost everything is becoming binary. Wry & Dry suspects the use of a median metric instead of average would produce a different outcome.
Australia is in a Goldilocks position – seeming to meet a sensible desire for work flexibility with the need for productivity.
8. UK civil service cuts: a desk too far?4
The UK sky is indeed falling. Even more. The newbie Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer now wishes to go even further. And wants to slash some 50,000 civil service jobs.
This is five times more than previously mooted.
This would put the size of Britain’s civil service back to where it was in 2019. Has the British public received additional benefits/ services from having the extra 50,000 bodies on the government payroll?
UK Readers can expect the pushback to be massive.
4 A ‘bridge too far’ was the epithet for Montgomery’s disastrous plan to capture nine Nazi-held bridges with combined American and British forces in 1944. The aim was to create a 100km incursion into German held territory in the Netherlands, as a precursor to an Allied invasion of northern Germany. The costs were enormous, which led to a succinct conclusion: “My country can never again afford the luxury of another ‘Montgomery success’,” stated Bernhard, the Prince of the Netherlands.
9. Speaking of too many desks…
Chip Le Grand, a journalist, wrote in a most incisive piece in yesterday’s The Age of the number of Victorian government agencies. He was musing about the massive increase in the number of Victorian public servants since Chairman Dan took office.
In 2014, it cost $52bn p.a. to open all the government’s doors in Victoria. Ten years later, adjust for inflation and population increase, that figure should be $66.6bn. It was actually $101.6bn! And that excludes any infrastructure spending.
But that is not his main point. He asks what is the difference between the entities in each of the following clusters?
- Developer Victoria, Economic Growth Victoria, Engage Victoria, Launch Victoria and Breakthrough Victoria.
- Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission; Disability Services Commissioner; Disability Workers Commissioner; LGBTIQA+ Communities Commissioner, Public Sector Gender Equality Commissioner, Commissioner for Children and Young People, and Commissioner for Senior Victorians.
Can some savings be made?
Will some savings be made?
10. Sultan of oppression
It’s called a competitive authoritarian regime.
These regimes have a facade of democracy but operate in ways that manipulate the media and suppress opposition. Readers might consider Russia under Tsar Vlad or Hungary under Viktor Orbán.
Turkey’s Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has now locked himself even more firmly in the class of ruling a competitive authoritarian regime.
Y’see, last week, Ekrem Imamoglu, the Turkish opposition’s star politician was arrested. Imamoglu was elected mayor of Istanbul in 2019 and again last year – he is the Sultan’s most serious rival in the next elections.
The critical issue is that elections are not held until 2028. The Sultan fears the rise of Imamoglu so much that he’s not taking any chances. Imamoglu will probably be locked away until after the election.
Why is the West silent about this egregious behaviour. Simply because the Sultan is needed by the West to play a stable role in the Middle East, possibly also in relation to a Ukrainian ceasefire.
Democratic principles are not allowed to get in the way of geopolitical management.
Appendix. If Readers have trouble sleeping…
There is much ado about the proposed deal between Trumpster and Ukraine concerning the division of ‘critical’ and rare earth minerals that lie beneath Ukraine’s wheatfields. To save Readers the trouble of wondering what are ‘critical’ and rare earth minerals, Wry & Dry now brings Readers an excerpt from the periodic table.
Be excited!
Snippets from all over
1. Trumpster wants reparations
Donald Trump is holding a gun to the head of Volodymyr Zelensky, demanding huge reparations payments and laying claim to half of Ukraine’s oil, gas, and hydrocarbon resources as well as almost all its metals and much of its infrastructure. (UK Telegraph)
Wry & Dry comments: This is an expropriation demand. There are no guarantees, no defence clauses. The US puts up nothing.
2. Tsar Vlad dissembles
Vladimir Putin has refused to implement a new ceasefire deal in the Black Sea unless Donald Trump gets international sanctions on Russia lifted. (New York Times)
Wry & Dry comments: Why are we not surprised?
3. Israel to return to Gaza
Israel’s military has drawn up plans to reconquer Gaza in a bid to finally defeat Hamas, paving the way for a long-running occupation of the besieged enclave. (Financial Times)
Wry & Dry comments: This will not end well. But there has to be an end.
4. US on the nose in Greenland
Relations between Greenland and the United States sank further on Sunday as the Greenlandic Prime Minister erupted over what he called a “highly aggressive” delegation of senior officials the Trump administration said it would send to the island this week. (New York Times)
Wry & Dry comments: A recent poll showed that 85% of Greenlanders do not want to become part of the US, 9% are undecided and only 6% wish to become Americans.
5. Heathrow
Britain launched an investigation into the power failure caused by a fire at an electrical substation that closed Heathrow airport on Friday. (UK Telegraph)
Wry & Dry comments: No hope, no glory and… no power.
It figures
- 2.4%: Australia. Inflation in 12 months to end February. But interest rates unlikely to fall in an election campaign.
- 1.0%: UK. Expected 2025 GDP growth, down from the 2% forecast in October. No hope, no glory, no growth.
And to soothe your troubled mind…
“We want Greenland for national security purposes.”
Trumpster, in a rambling news conference on Tuesday.
Wry & Dry comments: Any parent would tell Trumpsters that “I want” doesn’t get.
Disclaimer
The comments in Wry & Dry do not necessarily reflect those of First Samuel, its Directors or Associates.
Cheers!