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 reviews:
The peace dividend and SGH’s relentless ambition:
- If the guns fall silent: markets and the peace dividend
- A deep dive into SGH’s Investor Day: relentless compounding
Read this week’s Investment Matters.
1. Wry & Dry’s ponderings…
Croesus Turnbull and Teals save us from another boring week of Trumpster. But tax and Trumpster still not out of sight. Uncle Albo’s introduces a new Australia’s global #1 ranking. Trumpster’s new big note. Neale Daniher – a personal anecdote. 60% of year 10 students fail IT exams. Ferrari’s New Coke moment?
2. Croesus Turnbull fills a vacuum with vacuity
Saved! Traditionally humourless sources have provided comic relief from Trumpster’s never-ending-war of peace in no time.
Come on down: Former PM and RDS1 sufferer Croesus Trumbull and the Teals, that cohort of earnest wanna-save-the-world-as-long-as-someone-else-funds-my-election-campaign MPs.
Y’see, the word got out that the Teals – the party you are not when you should be a party – have finally realised that they are ineffective in the House. And have added zero value for either their cause or their constituents since their election in 2022. And we-the-voters are beginning to find out that they are more green than teal. And, on average, vote 78% of the time with the Greens.2
So, some members of the loose-knit anti-party want to form an actual party. And transform the Clayton’s party into a real one. And win some Senate seats, where their vote will count. And a hope that the rightward drift of the anti-Labor parties would create a centrist vacuum.
As Einstein wrote, nature abhors a vacuum. And so, on Monday, into the perceived centrist-party vacuum launched Croesus Turnbull, ever one to fill a vacuum with his own vacuity.
The problem is, of course, that belonging to a party means party discipline. And that is something that most of the Teals do not want. At a planned crossbench press conference to discuss government tax changes on Monday morning, only Teals Steggall and Spender showed up. So much for a common cause.
Still, Croesus Turnbull had his photo and words of wisdom in the media. The RDS was momentarily healed.
1 Relevance Deprivation Syndrome.
2 Source: Parliamentary Hansard, July 2022 to March 2025, quoted in www.tealsrevealed.com.
3. Australia is a global leader in… CGT
It makes one proud to be Australian. Global leader in so many things. Certainly, Australia punches above its weight in clinical medicine research and… cricket.
But now Uncle Albo has made Australia’s capital gains tax rate the #1 in the world (if his proposals are enacted).3 This is Political Hall of Fame – Legend Status. There might even be a Nobel Prize in it for him and Grim Jim.
3 That is the highest applicable rate, equivalent to the highest personal income tax rate. The lowest rate is 30%.
4. Trumpster’s big note
In the never-ending-quest by Trumpster’s useful idiots to replace the old saw with “if it moves, salute it; if it doesn’t name it after Trump,”4 there is a move for the US to issue a $250 note with Trumpster’s countenance affixed.
The significance of the $250 is that 2026 is the 250th anniversary of the 13 colonies declaring UDI from HM King George III. The significance of Trumpster on the front cover is, well, he likes the idea. And he is the incumbent president.
The rub is that only presidents who have departed this mortal coil can have their likeness on US currency.
So, either Trumpster’s survival luck would need to run out, or Congress would need to amend the law. The latter is unlikely. As to the former, as all US currency says, “In God we trust.”
4 Originally quoted as “If it moves salute it, if it doesn’t paint it.”
5. Neale Daniher – a personal story
Readers outside of Australia will not know of Neale Daniher. He was a former champion Australian Football League footballer, who became a successful coach. He later contracted Motor Neuron Disease (MND). He died this week.
But in the 13 years since he contracted MND he raised over $113m to research a cure for MND. He won Australian of the Year in 2025.
I was a director of the Melbourne Football Club when Neale was coach. And got to know him a little bit. I used to host fund raising dinners at my home. You know, get the coach and four famous players around for a quality meal and invite five or six wealthy supporters around to have dinner with their heroes. We’d raise $40-$50,000 each year.
After two years, I phoned Neale and asked him if we could have a different group of players next year. He replied, “Wouldn’t risk it. None of the rest can hold a knife and fork, much less a conversation, with those sorts of people!”
He is so much more worthy of a statue than the politician in whose likeness one has recently been erected in Melbourne.
6. 66% of y-10 students fail IT
Wry & Dry now knows that students who are currently in year ten are termed the Alpha generation. This generation have known only smart phones, social media and computers.
Alert! Over two-thirds of Australian year 10 students failed to meet baseline standards in information and communications technology. Test results of over 10,000 students released this week provided the shattering news. The blame is sheeted at AI, which 60% of students use to produce written content.
Apparently, only 11% of students frequently enter data into a spreadsheet. Well, why would anyone? Just allow AI to do the work. Just like it’s becoming in writing and researching.
Which reminds Wry & Dry of the end of 2001’s HAL (or Hal).
Hal was the sentient artificial general intelligence computer that controlled the systems of a spacecraft in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s complicated, but Hal convivially manages his tasks and relationships with the crew until he begins to make his own arrangements. Chaos ensues and Hal is eventually shut down by the surviving crew member.
Who will be our last survivor?
7. Inflation dip won’t last
Grim Jim was all smiles (is there any other countenance?) with the March quarter inflation data. Down to 4.2% from 4.6%. Three cheers for Jim! [Cue: sounds of crickets].
Err. Hold the phone! The key component of the drop was his introduction a $0.32 per litre drop in fuel excise. That little goodie ends on 30 June.
And there is all of the flow-on costs from the Trumpster I-thought-it-was-a-good-idea-at-the-time to-ignore-the-Strait-of-Hormuz-problem-global-oil-price-hike.
The Chief Teller of the RBA will sit on her hands for a month or two. But there is a very good chance that after that the fingers on those hands will hit the ‘up’ key on her keyboard.
Be afraid.
8. Meanwhile, in the electric lane…
Older Readers might remember when in 1985, Coca-Cola introduced a new coke flavour called ‘New Coke’. And ditched a 99-year proven winner. The change was to compete with Pepsi’s sweeter taste. The Coke aficionados went nutzo: demonstrations, boycotts, letters to the editor, etc.
Three months later, Coca Cola read the graffiti on the wall: the old flavour was re-introduced, under the label ‘Coca-Cola Classic’. Business schools cite the event as the most memorable marketing blunder ever.
Which brings Wry & Dry to Ferrari, apparently an iconic Italian luxury sports motor vehicle manufacturer. It seems that Ferrari is well known for its innovative and enduring designs. And throaty engine roar.
Ferrari has introduced a sleek, post-modern new model, called the Luce. It was years in the making. Costing half a million euro, it was always going to be a tough sell. Even more that its engine is… electric. Aaaarrrgh! Is this a New Coke moment? The stock market thought so, and trashed Ferrari’s market cap by $5.4bn.
The aficionados have gone social-media-nutzo. The problem is, of course, trying to recreate the emotional thrill of a petrol engine with a silent engine. Of course. Or maybe it’s a “reluctance to change.”
Final word goes former Ferrari CEO Luca di Montezemolo: “It is definitely a car that at least the Chinese won’t copy.”
Give them 12 months.
9. Don’t poke the Canadian bear
Don’t poke the Canadian brown bear. Or the black one for that matter. Which is what Trumpster did. His faintly completely absurd idea of the US annexing Canada didn’t go down well north of the 49th parallel.5
Canada’s PM, former central banker of both Canada and the UK Mark Carney, last year stated that Canada was too dependent on the US for its military kit (over 70%). And so, the first magnet has been moved on the board. Canada gave the DCM to Boeing and one other US manufacturer. And will spend more than C$5bn (about A$5.3bn) buying a fleet of Sweden’s Saab’s GlobalEye surveillance aircraft. The aircraft will be built in Canada.
In the scheme of things, that is small beer. However, Canada has on order 88 F35 fighter jets from the US (it already has an initial round of 16) and is considering shifting the order to Saab’s Gripen jet fighter. In many ways, the Gripen is superior to the F-35 (speed, range, 50% less lifetime cost, etc), but the latter has an excellent but declining stealth advantage.
Saab is promising to eventually build its Gripen in Canada. Many Canadians would lurv to see that. If for no other reason than to give Trumpster the bird.
5 The 49th parallel is the line of latitude that forms the main border between Canada and the USA. It was established by the Treaty of Paris of 1783, an agreement between Great Britain and the newly independent United States of America.
10. Trumpster’s ‘Board of Peace’ bank account is empty
Readers will remember when Trumpster announced in February the ‘Board of Peace’ to oversee the Gaza ceasefire. He cast the Board as a collective guarantor of Gaza’s redevelopment.
Lifetime membership would cost a country $1bn. He said that the US would commit $10bn, and that Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and Kuwait had committed $7bn more for Gaza relief.
Waiting, waiting. Zero dollars have been deposited.6
In the meantime, Trumpster’s Board of Peace has been ignored as he has become Bored with Peace.
6 Source: Financial Times 26 May.
11. Emperor Eleven’s revolving door7
Last week, Wry & Dry observed Emperor Eleven’s revolving door: Trumpster had been preceded by Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi and then succeeded by Tsar Vlad.
But wait, there’s been more. Since 1 January, 21 heads of state or government have enjoyed Emperor Eleven’s smiling hospitality, including: Canada, Germany, Mozambique, Pakistan, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Turkmenistan, Uruguay, UK, USA.
Emperor Eleven has yet to use his passport this year.
7 Emperor Eleven means President Xi Jin Ping. A few years ago, an Indian newsreader named him as President Eleven Jin Ping. Clearly her education in Roman Numerals was strong than her knowledge of geo-politically important people.
12. Show me the miles
Ten people were injured on a Cathay Pacific flight from Brisbane to Hong Kong on Monday. The plane hit ‘clear air turbulence’. The incident happened just as economy class passengers were being served breakfast.
In view six flight attendants being injured (and needing hospitalisation on landing in Hong Kong) and the strewn debris, the breakfast service was cancelled. Prompting complaints from some passengers who took to social media to suggest they should be compensated with “miles”.
It is not clear if business class passengers were fed their Eggs Benedict.
Snippets from all over
Samsung’s $400,000 per worker bonus
Workers in Samsung’s semiconductor division are in line to receive bonuses worth more than $400,000 after the company’s union struck a breakthrough deal to ensure they receive a portion of the windfall from the artificial intelligence boom. (UK Times 28 May)
Wry & Dry comments: Nice work. If you can get it.
The Godfather’s loot
The Sicilian mafia’s last godfather, Matteo Messina Denaro, amassed hidden drugs wealth worth $200 million in bank accounts, gold bars and tourist resorts, according to Italian magistrates. (The Times 29 May)
Wry & Dry comments: Denaro once said he “filled a cemetery all by myself”.
Tsar Vlad’s killing fields
Almost half a million Russian soldiers have been killed since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to the head of GCHQ. [Government Communications Headquarters] (The Times 28 May)
Wry & Dry comments: GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) was originally established after the First World War as the Government Code and Cypher School and was known under that name until 1946. During the Second World War it was located at Bletchley Park, where it was responsible for breaking the German Enigma codes.
FIFA subpoenaed over ticket prices
Officials in New York and New Jersey have launched a probe into FIFA’s ticketing practices for the World Cup football tournament, which is due to kick off in North America in just over a fortnight. (Financial Times 28 May)
Wry & Dry comments: Thousands of fans are not happy campers.
Trumpster’s new low
Donald Trump’s net approval rating has hit a new low, according to The Economist’s presidential tracker. (Economist 28 May)
Wry & Dry comments: The net approval rating is negative 24.
It figures
- 4.2%: Australia. Inflation in year to end March, down from 4.6%. Interest rate button on pause.
And to soothe your troubled mind…
“I don’t know what happened. As I watched it, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, he’s having a stroke.”
Jill Biden, former First Lady, in a CBS interview last Sunday, on Sleepy Joe’s listless and lost rambling presidential debate in 2024, when Trumpster routed him – mostly by saying not much.
Wry & Dry comments: Mrs. Biden really knows that Sleepy Joe’s problem wasn’t a stroke. It was dementia, that had set in years earlier.
Read this week’s Investment Matters.
Disclaimer
The comments in Wry & Dry do not necessarily reflect those of First Samuel, its Directors or Associates.
Cheers!