Wry & Dry: a cynical and irreverent review of the week in politics, economics and life. For intelligent Readers who disdain the trivial.
Investment Matters
Company profit reporting season has commenced. This week, First Samuel’s Investment Matters takes a deep dive into Beach Energy and a shallow dive into Garda Property Group.
Additional comments are given on Nanosonics, New World Resources and Minerals 260.
To read Investment Matters, you can still just click on the link at the bottom of this week’s Wry & Dry. Or here.
Wry & Dry’s musings
The Bankrupt State has reverted to extreme idiocy not seen since Chairman Dan ruled with an iron fist: two day Workers From Home unite! And, inevitably, Planet Trumpster continues to circle the Earth in an increasingly eccentric orbit: TACO returns. And meanwhile, across Bass Strait, political dysfunction that would make post-war Italy seem sensible has resumed.
1. Two-day Workers From Home: unite!
The good folk of Victoria had been hoping since Chairman Dan put himself out to pasture to graze upon the rich bounty of government appointments, that a sense of commonsense would wash over his successor.
But no. The dogs bark. But the idiotic caravan moves on. In a policy announcement of idiocy to match Top Gun Pete’s policy to prohibit government workers from WFH, Premier Allen has announced her Two-Day Plan. She will legislate that workers in Victoria have ‘an entitlement’ to WFH two days every week.
The attraction is, of course, that it won’t cost the government a cent. Well, not too many. And it has that essential feel-good factor so beloved by people who feel but don’t think.
Aside from the inconvenient truth that she doesn’t have the power to enact her Two-Day Plan, this is all about ‘wedging’ the Liberal opposition. The latter is a collective of rotary-dialling-brained people in a digital world, whose first instinct in primal: to survive. But like the Polish cavalry facing Hitler’s tanks, the chances are, well, slim.
Unless someone shows a bit of ticker and a smarter approach. The signs are not good. Opposition Leader Brad Battin said that he would “wait for legislative details” of the Two-Day Plan.
Wry & Dry wonders if he would ‘wait for details’ if Premier Allen decided to cut the road toll by introducing a modern Red Flag Act1. The world would rather he got on the front foot.
Victorians should lash themselves to the mast of pain expectation, as there will be more of this nonsense until the November 2026 election.
Readers will know that a Two-Day Plan has an echo of other autocrats’ Five-Year Plans. Readers remember how they ended.2
1 The Locomotive Act 1865 (Red Flag Act) was a UK act of parliament stipulating that ‘self-propelled vehicles’ should be accompanied by a crew of three; if the vehicle was attached to two or more vehicles an additional person was to accompany the vehicles; a man with a red flag was to walk at least 60 yd (55 m) ahead of each vehicle.
2 Badly.
2. Planet Trumpster: eccentric orbit.
Every test cricket match will produce a new record of a miscellaneous statistic.3 In the same way, every week Trumpster creates a new record of miscellaneous absurdity. Consider this week’s highlights…
When the recent US jobs report showed a dramatic slowdown in hiring – the weakest stretch of jobs growth ex-the pandemic since 2010 – in a fit of teenager pique, he gave the DCM to the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The problem for Trumpster is that next week the US’ inflation rate for July will be released, and will likely show that inflation has leapt to 3% over the past 12 months, up from 2.3% in April. Who in the now-headless BLS will take responsibility for what might be an unhappy statistic?
Then there is the approaching deadline he gave to Tsar Vlad to come to the ceasefire table. Predictably, Tsar Vlad has ignored Trumpster. So, TACO4 returns. Trumpster wants to arrange a meeting with Tsar Vlad and Zelensky. Of course, Tsar Vlad played Trumpster: “For this to happen, certain conditions must be created. Unfortunately, we are still far from creating such conditions.” The Ukraine war will continue.
And so it goes on.
3 For example, had Harry Brook not been dismissed for 99 in the recent England v India series, a record 22 centuries would have been scored in the series. Really, who cares?
4 Trump Again Chickens Out.
3. Tasmania: state of dysfunction?
On Wednesday, Jeremy Rockliff was invited by the Governor of Tasmania to form a government. He accepted. This was logical as Liberals hold 14 seats in the House of Assembly, somewhat more than Labor’s 10 seats.
Yee ha!
But it takes 18 votes to have a majority in the House. Y’see, Tasmania has a weird electoral system, called Hare-Clark, whereby each of five electorates have seven MPs. This virtually guarantees that these days no single party will have a working majority.
And this being Tasmania, the birthstate of the Greens, there are five Greens and three green-left independents to ruin Rocky’s party. Rocky will have 11 days to persuade four of the green-tinged octet to join his government. Stranger things have happened.
But he may not want to. Y’see, Tasmania’s Treasury chief has presented a damning assessment of the state’s fiscal position. What was the most damning sentence in his briefing paper to new MPs?
- “The acceleration of the deterioration is alarming;”
- “You can’t grow your way out of this. Mathematically it’s not possible;”
- “We think there’s probably a decade of discipline required;” or
- “It’s a generational burden.”
Close. But no cigar. The correct answer is all of the above. There goes Hobart’s indoor AFL stadium. And with it Tasmania’s AFL team.
Wry & Dry senses over the next few years the state of Tasmania will go the way of the Tasmanian tiger.
4. House prices
This is getting ridiculous.
The ratio of average house prices to average wages is now a record 13.9 times. Which confirms what most young people already know.
Why is it so? Too much demand? Too little supply? Nuh, mostly. Very loose availability of credit is the answer.
5. Only in Italy
In a masterstroke of Italianate Yes Minister, a $15.6bn bridge build has been classified as defence expenditure.
Y’see, for 2,000 years there have been plans for a bridge to link the Italian mainland with Sicily. And in 2011 a decent plan was approved, but dropped because of cost. But the ongoing clamour for a bridge has been unrelenting.
Then along came Trumpster.
He demanded that NATO countries spend 5% of their GDP on defence. The 5% was made up on 3.5% in military kit and 1.5% in military infrastructure.
Cost problem solved. Of course, the bridge was military expenditure, as the US had a base on Siciliy.5 The Italian government has just approved the expenditure on the Straits of Messina bridge – which, when completed will be the world’s longest suspension bridge.
Perhaps the Victorian government could somehow contrive that its massive and unfunded Suburban Rail Loop was military expenditure and get someone else to pay for it.
5 Approximately 5,000 American military and civilian personnel are stationed at Naval Air Station (NAS) Sigonella. The base serves as a key hub for US navy operations in the Mediterranean.
6. More from Planet Trumpster
Elections for the US House of Representatives (and one-third of the Senate) are held every two years. Which means that the Republican majority of seven seats (of 435) is under threat.
Which is why Trumpster is ‘encouraging’ the governor of Texas to gerrymander6 the electorates to give Republicans five seats currently held by Democrats. Of the 38 House seats in Texas, the Republicans hold 25. Trumpster wants the Republican Governor to call a special session of the Texas legislature to redraw the electoral boundaries.
Y’see, in the US, 31 states have their House electoral boundaries drawn by the state legislature. Four states have an advisory commission to draw boundaries, four have an independent commission, four have a political appointee commission and seven states have just one House seat. A nationwide independent electoral commission, as is in Australia, is unheard of.
Of course, gerrymandering is a refined art in the US, the land of the free, the brave and the corrupt.
At the presidential election, Trumpster won 56% of the vote in Texas, but Republicans won 66% of the seats.
Equally, in Massachusetts Trumpster won 36% of the vote, but Democrats won 100% of the nine House seats.
Aside from the obvious outcome of maximising the number of seats in a state, the policy also has the effect of making more safe seats. Only 9% of seats in the US are ‘marginal’, compared to 18% in 2008 and over 20% in Australia’s House.
The US is becoming Trumpstermandered.
6 The term gerrymandering is a portmanteau of a salamander and Elbridge Gerry, Vice President of the United States at the time of his death, who, as governor of Massachusetts in 1812, signed a bill that created a partisan district in the Boston area that was compared to the shape of a mythological salamander.
7. The world’s most difficult job?
Wry & Dry feels sorry for the US customs people, trying to apply import tariffs. The following chart suggests that perhaps a prayer-chain be established to provide support for those beleaguered officials.
Chart source: The Economist
8. The Duke of Hazard.
The Duke of Hazard York is again in the news. And again for the wrong reasons….
Like Trumpster, he is the gift to the media that keeps on giving. He is the magic pudding7 of media content. The latest news is a new biography, Entitled, which author Andrew Lownie says is based on four year’s of forensic research (is there any other kind?) and hundreds of interviews with insiders (but few names named, apparently).
The book sets out an excruciating retelling of the Duke’s public and private life and why his popularity rating is as low as the trousers around his ankles.
7The Magic Pudding is a 1918 Australian children’s book. It tells of a magic pudding, which no matter how often it is eaten, continually reforms to again be eaten. It is less well-known as an allegorical observation on the profligate use by the Government of the perceived infinite source of funds derived from taxpayers.
9. Swiss displease
Last Friday’s news that Trumpster had imposed a 39% tariff on Switzerland caused the gnomes of Zurich and elsewhere to shed their normal reserve demeanour. This is Switzerland’s greatest defeat since 1515, when it lost a battle against the French.8
Like all other countries that got belted with tariffs higher than 15%, the complaints were loud. But most shouting was that it was much higher than the 31% imposed by Trumpster on ‘Liberation Day’. And that Switzerland had undertaken to invest in the US more per capita than other major countries.
Wry & Dry suspects it’s all about gold and Big Pharma.
8 It was at the Battle of Marignaro, near Milan, that the French army defeated the Old Swiss Confederacy. The Swiss had taken control of Milan, which for France, was the gateway to Italy. Francis I, the newly crowned king of France, got grumpy. France got back Milan.
Snippets from all over
1. Israel wants to occupy Gaza
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Thursday, said he wants to hand Gaza over ‘to Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us and giving Gazans a good life,’ adding, ‘That’s not possible with Hamas.’ (Le Monde)
Wry & Dry comments: The logic is good, the reality bad. This will end in tears.
2. US trade deficit collapses
America’s trade deficit fell 16% year on year in June to $60.2bn, its lowest level in nearly two years, as imports of consumer goods dropped sharply. The gap with China shrank by a third to $9.5bn, its narrowest since 2004. (The Economist)
Wry & Dry comments: Trumpster was happy.
3. Iran’s new way to beat inflation
Iran has proposed cutting four zeros from the rial after decades of inflation and economic pain eroded the value of the currency. (Financial Times)
Wry & Dry comments: Sigh. Ah, the problems of hyperinflation; carrying around large amounts of banknotes. Countries, including Turkey, Romania and Zambia, have lopped zeros from their currencies. Israel’s current new shekel was introduced in 1985-86 with the removal of three zeros from the hyperinflated old shekel, which had itself only recently replaced the plummeting Israeli pound.
4. Musk’s $30bn bonus
Tesla’s board awarded Elon Musk around $30bn-worth of the company’s stock. Mr Musk, the chief executive, had threatened to leave the electric-car maker if he wasn’t given more shares. (Financial Times)
Wry & Dry comments: Nice work, if you can get it.
5. Not quite walking on water
Military engineers raised the levels of a river in Ohio so the Secret Service could provide security to Vice President JD Vance during a family boating trip, agency officials said Thursday. (New York Times)
Wry & Dry comments: The excursion was for the vice-president’s 41st birthday.
It figures
- 4.0%: UK. Official interest rate after the Bank of England cut by 0.25% points.
And to soothe your troubled mind…
“I’m sure, [Premier Allen] is responding to what the community have said, which is that flexible working arrangements help workers and they help employers”.
Albo, supporting Premier Allens’ policy of legislating two days per week WFH for Victorian workers, but declining to implement the same policy federally.
Wry & Dry comments: Albo puts on his Captain Obvious cape.
Disclaimer
The comments in Wry & Dry do not necessarily reflect those of First Samuel, its Directors or Associates.
Cheers!