6 June 2025
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:
Your Investments and the National Accounts
This week’s release of the National Accounts (i.e. GDP, etc) by the Bureau of Statistics gives cause to reflect on how your investment reflect key positive aspects of the data.
Wry & Dry’s musings
It was looking like groundhog week: Trumpster randomly tossing small threats; Albo’s new government boringly boring on; neutral economic data; etc. And then, wooshka, the megaphones were out.
Trumpster and Musk have at least one thing in common: each loves to hear his own opinions echoing around the galaxy. Each day. And so it came to pass that the opinions were about the other. And neither took a backward step. And each escalated. Wait for Netflix’ first unending series.
1. Egos at 20 paces
When the two biggest egos in the world start throwing verbal rocks at each other, why would the media worry about Trumpster’s phone chat with Emperor Eleven (on tariffs) and meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (Ukraine)? It didn’t.
It all started when Musk labelled Trumpster’s budget as an ‘abomination.’ Trumpster’s glass jaw then shattered into a thousand pieces. And that’s when ego overtook rationality. The exchange of insults blotted out the sun.1
The second last word currently rests with Musk, who wrote that the Trumpster is in the Epstein files.2 “That is the real reason they have not been made public.” Now, that’s opened a maga can of worms.
The last word rests, as always, with the stock market. Tesla’s share price fell by 14.3% yesterday, costing Musk $34bn.
The good news is that Volodymyr Zelensky and Tsar Vlad have offered to negotiate a truce. Not with each other, but between Trumpster and Musk.
1 In the battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, a messenger for the Persian leader said to Sparta’s King Leonidas, “Our arrows will blot out the sun.” Leonidas replied, “Then we will fight in the shade.”
2 The term “Epstein files” refers to thousands of documents, videos, and investigative materials gathered by federal and state authorities across multiple cases tied to Epstein and his associates. Many court documents remain sealed or redacted.
2. Ukraine singes Tsar Vlad’s beard2
“Some units of aviation technology caught fire.”
And so, with those words and a face straighter than that of an Easter Island statue, the Russian Defence Ministry reported Ukraine’s audacious drone attack that sent 40 Russian bomber crews down to Centrelink.
The free world might be thrilled at the chutzpah of the raid, but deeper thinkers will ponder four outcomes.
Firstly, military bloggers might compare this to Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941. But Readers will recall that Japan eventually lost the war.
Secondly, throughout the world, military aircraft are parked on airfield aprons. Thereby making them as vulnerable to drone attack as were Tsar Vlad’s bombers. Kamikaze drones can now be bought at Bunnings. So, expect a sudden increase investment in massive underground aircraft storages. Perhaps Melbourne’s Suburban Rail Loop tunnels could be re-purposed and leased out.
Thirdly, Tsar Vlad will be even more paranoid. Never a good characteristic for a person with a finger on a button.
Finally, Tsar Vlad will also be embarrassed. But it will not quench his desire to see Ukraine’s throat back under Russia’s heel, no matter the cost to Russia’s economy or Russian lives (already 250,000 killed and four times that as casualties)3.
Ukraine’s hope is Tsar Vlad getting the DCM from his peers or Trumpster showing some courage.
2 “Singeing the King of Spain’s beard” was the name given to a series of audacious attacks by English privateer Francis Drake on the Spanish Armada in 1587. The attacks were in the harbour of Cádiz in southern Spain, destroying ships and supplies and ultimately forcing the Armada to delay sailing for an entire year. The delay didn’t help the King of Spain, or the Armada. It sailed in 1588 to invade England and was routed by the Royal Navy off the coast of Calais.
3 Source: The Economist 3-June-25.
3. Australia’s Goldilocks GDP
It was Goldilocks news. An 0.2% GDP increase in the March quarter.
Big enough for Albo to say that the economy was growing and what a great job Albo was doing.
Small enough for the RBA to consider that another interest drop might be needed.
But, then there is the fine print. It’s called GDP per capita, more commonly known as a measure for standard of living. GDP per capita fell by 0.4% in the year to March.
There are two problems in the data. Firstly, business investment continues to be weak. Secondly, labour productivity was flat. And is going backwards in what is known as the non-market sector i.e. healthcare, aged care, disability support services and public administration.
Productivity is where it was in 2016. The below chart tells the shameful tale.
Source: Minack Advisors
This is Albo’s and Grim Jim’s challenge. They have already wasted three years. The porridge is cold.
4. Tasmania makes news on the mainland
It seems that there is excitement in Tasmania, after all. A parliamentary no confidence motion has been passed against the leader of the minority Liberal government. It’s all about management of the state’s finances. Well, actually, it’s not. It’s about power. The Labor opposition want it, of course
Wry & Dry won’t enter into the sordid details of politics in the mendicant state. Anyway, who cares?
Well, someone does. Enough for the political spat to make news on the mainland, for just one reason. And that is Australian football.
Y’see, Tasmanians want a Tasmanian AFL team. The AFL want a Tasmanian AFL team. AFL supporters want a Tasmanian AFL team. But the AFL clubs only want a Tasmanian AFL team if there is a new, fully roofed stadium built. They do not want their precious players to get too cold and wet playing in July in Hobart. The Liberal government took the ‘build it and they will come’ approach. And signed on the AFL’s dotted line.
Both houses of Tasmania’s parliament were due to vote on special enabling legislation designed to grant planning approval for the stadium, within the next six weeks.
But now there is an election, the enabling legislation will be delayed, dooming the ability, apparently of the stadium to be completed by early 2028 – the AFL’s deadline.
But for the stadium issue, the political machinations would not make the first 25 pages of any mainland newspaper.
5. Liberals cave-in to Gnats
For a nano-second, it looked as though a faint whiff of political sense had blown into the brains of the federal Liberals. New Liberal deputy leader Ted O’Brien had made encouraging noises about negotiating with Grim Jim about aspects of the so-called $3m superannuation tax.
The hint was to support the principle of an additional tax for those with considerable superannuation assets, but to oppose the taxing of unrealised capital gains and the non-indexing the $3m threshold.
And Albo said that he was open to negotiating with the coalition. What could possibly go wrong?
Enter Senator Matt Canavan, a member of the space invaders wing of the Gnats. He opposed the whole tax. Thereby wedging his Coalition colleague.
Someone stepped in to again rebuild a temporary bridge over the troubled Coalition waters. And bingo, the Coalition now will oppose the tax in its entirety.
The tax will pass in any case regardless of the Coalition’s view. But the Coalition passed up the opportunity to get a seat at the table, even though the chances of meaningful amendments were slight.
6. “Demography is destiny…”
Or so said former Treasurer, Peter Costello. He was urging Australian couples to have three children, to reduce reliance on net immigration. His plea to boost the fertility rate of Australian women, on average, initially was successful. It rose from a record low of 1.77 to 1.95. But then continued its downward trend.
Australia’s fertility rate is again falling
Source: Australia Fertility Rate 1950-2025 | MacroTrends
Which brings Wry & Dry to a report that caused the gin & tonics in the gentlemen’s clubs of St James, London to be dropped to the floor. White Britons will become a minority in 40 years, the report predicted.4
The cause is not only net immigration, but also fertility rates. UK born Brits are just not up to scratch in reproducing themselves. Their fertility rate is 1.39.5 For those who are foreign born, it is 1.97. For Muslims, it is 2.35 and for non-Muslims 1.54.
This is, of course, good news for the English cricket team. The report doesn’t provide a view on the fertility rate of Indians and Sri Lankans (generally non-Muslim), compared to Pakistani (generally Muslim). But given that the skill of sub-continental cricketers is generally superior to that of white-Brits, this demographic trend can only be blessing for Marylebone Cricket Club.
4 By Prof Matt Goodwin of Buckingham University, quoted in White British people to be minority in 40 years, report claims.
5 Fertility rate is the number of children a woman is expected to have. A fertility rate of 2.1 is required for an unchanged population (ignoring net immigration).
7. Another Quisling
Senator Dorinda Cox (Green W.A.) is up for re-election in 2027. And last week decided that (a) the publicity of her alleged bullying of her Senatorial staff and colleagues; and (b) the decline in the Greens’ 2025 vote might make close to zero her preselection/re-election chances with the Greens.
So, she did what any self-absorbed, unemployable-elsewhere politician would do. Turn her coat, from Green to red. And she was welcomed by Albo into Labor’s team.
She joins a long line of Senators elected on a party ticket who later resign to sit on another bench, as it were. Senator Cox’s capricious and opportunistic persona is shown by her initially belonging to the Labor Party, before joining the Greens. In much the same way that Monique Ryan was a member of the Labor Party before becoming a Teal.
As for Senator Cox, good luck with that project, Albo.
8. Wanna Waymo?
Another noun has morphed into a verb. Google became “to Google.” Uber became “to Uber.” And in San Francisco it’s now “to Waymo.”
Waymo (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) is an amazingly accepted driverless taxi company. It essentially started in San Francisco, and is now operating in Austin, Texas, and then comes Atlanta, Miami and Washington.
The explosive growth is shown in the chart of the number of monthly trips in California. It’s already gone passed 10 million trips in 2025.
Chart as printed in Wall Street Journal.
Naturally, Tesla is planning to launch its competitor robotaxi service, by the end of June. But there is a big difference between the two underlying technologies. Tesla is based on cameras and AI, Waymo on sensors. The latter is apparently safer, but are much more expensive. As Elon Musk put it, ““The issue with Waymo’s cars is they cost way-mo money.”
Waymo taxis are all-electric Jaguar I-Pace vehicles, Teslas taxis will be, well, Teslas.
The problem for Tesla is that Toyota is seeking a partnership with Waymo. But not for taxis, for personally owned vehicles. The world is changing faster than Readers think.
9. Poles move to the right
The fine people of Poland have elected as president a Trumpster-look-alike. Karol Nawrocki won with 50.9% of the vote.
Six months ago, he was an obscure historian dabbling in politics. He was chosen to run for the far-right party. Then he got Trumpster’s unequivocal backing. And a photo opportunity the day before the election. The Poles have a high regard for the US, for historical reasons. And in a tight race, the Trumpster’s influence made the difference.
The bad news for the EU is that he has similar policies as the populist and socially conservative Orban of Hungary and he will seek to destroy Poland’s Europhile premier. But he is a strong supporter of NATO and strongly anti-Russian.
For an understanding of the character of the man, Wry & Dry quotes from Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (considered to be one of Germany’s newspapers of record):
“Even more serious, however, is his past in the hooligan and bouncer milieu as well as his connections to the underworld of his hometown of Gdansk. Asked during the election campaign about his brawls with opposing football fans, Nawrocki was proud to have been involved in “forms of noble, masculine hand-to-hand combat”. In addition, he is said to have swindled the apartment of a criminal in Gdansk and, as a bouncer, brought prostitutes to hotel guests in the Baltic Sea city of Sopot.”
Sigh.
10. Iran, uranium and Taco
It has gone unnoticed in the Australian media. What, with footy, footy, Albo and other domestic issues, It’s hardly surprising.
What’s gone unnoticed is that the International Atomic Energy Agency (the UN nuclear watchdog) has reported that Iran has increased its stockpile of highly enriched uranium by 50% over the last three months. Err, so what?
The ‘so what’ is that Iran now has around 400kg of near weapons-grade material, for which there is no plausible civilian use. Readers can join the dots.
Of course, Iran has denied all of the allegations. Will Trumpster again chicken out?
Snippets from all over
1. Rare earth magnets: a problem for Trumpster
Four major [US] automakers are racing to find workarounds to China’s stranglehold on rare-earth magnets, which they fear could force them to shut down some car production within weeks.
Several traditional and electric-vehicle makers—and their suppliers—are considering shifting some auto-parts manufacturing to China to avoid looming factory shutdowns. (Wall Street Journal)
Wry & Dry comments: The rare earth mineral causing all of the problem is dysprosium. It is mined in China, Myanmar, Australia and the U.S. But transforming it into a usable material is a costly multistep process and most of the expertise for refining the element is concentrated in China.
2. Going nuclear
Meta [inter alia, owner of Facebook] has agreed to buy the output of a nuclear plant in Illinois for two decades, marking its first deal of this kind as it seeks to shore up electricity to power its artificial intelligence efforts and US data centres. (Financial Times)
Wry & Dry comments: The demand for nuclear power keeps on rising.
- UK prepares for war-footing
Britain’s prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, said his government was moving the country to “war-fighting readiness” as he unveiled the results of a strategic defence review. (The Times)
Wry & Dry comments: The review recommended, inter alia, building up to 12 nuclear-powered submarines. It seems that these will be part of AUKUS, i.e. shared with Australia. Or will they be?
4. UK finally sells GFC stake
After nearly 17 years, the UK government has finally sold its last shares in NatWest, formerly known as Royal Bank of Scotland. (Financial Times)
Wry & Dry comments: HM Treasury quietly exited stage left — with an estimated £10bn loss.
5. Trumpster’s even briefer briefing notes
The White House’s intelligence chief is said to be considering turning Donald Trump’s routine briefings into a Fox News-style broadcast, with animations of exploding bombs, to make it easier for him to follow. (UK Telegraph)
Wry & Dry comments: The plan is to revamp the president’s daily brief so it mirrors a television broadcast because “he doesn’t read.”
It figures
- -0.1%: Switzerland. Inflation in 12 months to May. Negative interest rates are possible.
- 3.5%: Australia. Increase in the minimum wage to $24.95 an hour.
- 1.9%: EU. Inflation in the year to end May, better than expected. Interest rates were cut to 2%.
- 48.5: US. Manufacturing activity. A number less than 50 indicates contraction.
- 48.3: China. Manufacturing activity. Ditto.
And to soothe your troubled mind…
German Chancellor Merz to Trumpster, at a meeting in the White House:
“May I remind you that we are having June 6 tomorrow. This is D-Day anniversary when the Americans once ended a war in Europe.”
President Trumpster replied:
“Not a pleasant day for you. That was not a great day.”
Chancellor Merz
“This was the liberation of my country from Nazi dictatorship.”
Wry & Dry comments: Trumpster missed Merz’ subtle point.
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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