Sunday Supplement: 30 August 2020

‘Trawool Landscape’ 1928, Tom Roberts, Art Gallery of NSW

Macro & Markets

• The world must have no more illusions about America’s global leadership – SCMP
• China could weaponise drug exports to retaliate against US chip restrictions, Beijing adviser says – SCMP
• Which Is The Better Investment: Big Oil Or Renewables? – OilPrice
• Powell’s white-collar world led to Fed pivot for blue-collar jobs – Reuters
• Where the Pandemic Is Cover for Authoritarianism – The Atlantic
• Trump administration says Sinochem and others backed by Chinese military – Reuters
• China’s Missile Volley Sparked by Cold-War-Throwback Spy Plane – Bloomberg

Americas

• The Federal Reserve’s New Strategy Comes With Major Risks – Bloomberg, Duy
• The U.S. Energy Storage Boom Is About To Begin – OilPrice
• Four more years: why America is likely to vote for Donald Trump after all – SCMP
• This Was the Week American Fascism Reached a Tipping Point – Slate
• Trump Has a Different Definition of Corruption – The Atlantic
• How Teachers Are Rethinking the Way They Talk About Race in America – Slate
• Fed’s targeting of higher inflation could backfire, paper suggests – Reuters
• One nation under two per cent: Is it time for a shake-up of the Canadian economy’s most important number? – Financial Post
• The Presidential Platform America Really Needs Now – Bloomberg
• This Is How Biden Loses – The Atlantic
• The Federal Reserve needs the power to buy corporate bonds – VoxEU
• Trump, Biden, and the war over American masculinity – Vox

Asia

• Japan’s Longest-Serving Premier Abe Resigns Due to Health – Bloomberg
• The Big China Disaster That You’re Missing – Bloomberg
• Why the yuan could soon shake off its sluggishness against the US dollar – SCMP
• Is China’s ‘new’ strategy of economic self-reliance just a rehashing of an old idea? This long-time China watcher thinks so – SCMP
• China’s economic future is being influenced by nine economists, but what did they tell Xi Jinping this week? – SCMP
• Taiwan lifting US beef, pork import restrictions an ‘important start for economic cooperation’, Tsai Ing-wen says – SCMP
• Cryptocurrencies help Chinese evade capital and currency controls in moving billions overseas – SCMP
• Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving leader, leaves office a diminished figure with an unfulfilled legacy – The Conversation
• China ‘stuck’ as rigid controls on capital outflows becoming harder to peel back – SCMP
• End of an Abe era for Japan – Asia Times
• The inexorable rise of the Chinese yuan – Asia Times
• UN calls on India to abandon coal – DW
• Japan: Shinzo Abe’s checkered economic legacy – DW
• India wedded to coal even as solar prices plummet – DW

Europe

• Belarus is running out of cash – BNE Intellinews
• Fed up with working from home? Why not work from Georgia instead? – BNE Intellinews…well worth thinking about…
• Zombie firms: Will a wave of insolvencies hit Germany? – DW
• Money for nothing: Germany starts basic income experiment – DW
• Belarus’ Soviet-era economy still propped up by Moscow – DW
• Britain faces mass unemployment unless government acts now – Guardian
• Online sales of used goods on eBay up 30% during UK lockdown – Guardian
• UK businesses offering incentives to coax staff back into the office – Guardian
• Bank of England to stay in emergency mode until recovery ensured, says governor – Guardian
• Coronavirus: Gatwick passenger numbers collapse by 14.7 million – BBC
• Europe has an artificial-intelligence skills shortage – Bruegel

Terra Specufestor

• JobSeeker and JobActive are meant to move people off welfare and into work, but COVID-19 has changed things – ABC, Norman Hermant…bring back the CES and get rid of ‘private’ job agencies…
• Top Chinese diplomat says Australia’s call for coronavirus inquiry was ‘shocking’ – Guardian
• We’re edging towards a big change in how the economy is managed – Ninefax, Gittins
• Australians don’t have a ‘right’ to travel. Does COVID mean our days of carefree overseas trips are over? – The Conversation
• Trouble at the mall as landlords and tenants ponder mutually assured destruction – The Conversation
• Victorians are proving more resilient than the rest of Australia may realise – Ninefax, Megalogenis…George makes some valid points…
• Australians with bank stocks may need to rethink their finances, leading analyst says – ABC
• Business pushing hard to open state borders during coronavirus, but leading economists urge caution – ABC
• John Dee abattoir suspended from exporting meat to China due to chloramphenicol discovery – ABC
• The perils of privatisation and private greed – Pearls & Irritations, Menadue… Privatisation is a fraud…
• Aged Care as part of a National Care Service. – Pearls & Irritations
• A bigger canvas: Russia, China and Australia’s strategic policy – Pearls & Irritations
• China’s wine dumping allegations leave the industry gobsmacked, both in Australia and China – ABC
• MPs’ ‘inexcusable’ behaviour is routinely excused in The Age of No Responsibility – Michael West, Pascoe
• No Body Bags: private aged care, private hospitals expose transport workers to Covid – Michael West
• Australia’s universities: bosses reel in $1m-plus salaries, $1bn profit on back of staff underpayment – – Michael West
• Snouts in the superannuation trough: turbo-charging Paul Keating’s legacy – Michael West
• University of Melbourne business school pulled from rankings – Ninefax…fraud in Uni rankings? Who would have thought it?…
• Everyone is sorry, no one is responsible: COVID exposes lack of ministerial accountability – Ninefax
• Inner-city Sydney growing rapidly before hit from coronavirus – Ninefax…’job making migrants’ should be sole basis for immigration volumes…
• China’s anti-dumping investigation into Australian wine is politically motivated, industry figures say – SCMP
• NZ takes action over stock market cyber attacks – BBC
• Rescue plan to bring home stranded Aussies from overseas – Ninefax
• A decent super balance can prevent a retirement of despair. We must lift the guarantee – Guardian
• Coronavirus vaccines are being fast-tracked and calming fears over safety is vital – ABC
• The ACCC’s ‘bargaining code’: A path towards ‘decentralised regulation’ of dominant digital platforms? – VoxEU

…and furthermore…

• Earth’s water came from space, but not in the way we thought – ABC
• Electric Ships Are Pushing The Boundaries Of Batteries – OilPrice
• Seaweed: The food and fuel of the future? – BBC
• Algorithms workers can’t see are increasingly pulling the management strings – The Conversation
• Space weapons to counter China, Russia ‘coming’ – Asia Times
• New China, Russia sub project puzzles analysts – Asia Times
• The Weird Failures of Algorithm-Generated Images – Slate
• Why It’s So Lonely at the Top – The Atlantic
• Climate Apocalypse Now – Rolling Stone
• Big Pharma’s Covid-19 Profiteers – Rolling Stone, Taibbi
• The surprising truth about digital currencies – DW
• Behind the mask – CBC