Miscellaneous

Lol, you go girl.

Not a good day for precious metals or crypto currencies as Asian share markets also remain in a dour mood after the poor showing on Wall Street overnight.

29 of the 31 provinces on the Chinese mainland have released growth targets for 2026.

Kevin27 is here.

Gunnamatta.Molva · Deep T Australia Day 2026 final   Ahead of the Australia Day long weekend Deep T spoke about Australian demand and interest rate dynamics, and the relationship of global events to domestic policymaking concerns.

Via Judo Bank. Flash Australia Composite PMI Output Index: 55.5  (Dec: 51.0) Flash Australia Services PMI Business Activity Index: 56.0 (Dec: 51.1) Flash Australia Manufacturing PMI: 52.4 (Dec: 51.6) To cope with rising workloads, Australian firms hired additional staff at the start of the new year.

At the May 2025 federal election, the Coalition secured just 21% of the primary vote of the members of Gen Y, only marginally above the Greens at 19% and well below Labor at 37%.

TME with the details.

The first of two current shipments from Simndou has arrived in China. There are no reports of further January shipments. Operations are limited by the return of 18 locomotives to China, which were supposed instead to be made by Wabtec (Westinghouse) or in the US.

There is one great thing we can rely upon when it comes to Albo. His desire to obtain and maintain power is so strong that he will quickly abandon anything that disturbs any significant group of voters. (Apart from the gas cartel, which owns him).

Asian share markets are quite mixed as we go into the final session of the trading week with local shares outperforming.

Perhaps we can be grateful that Australia’s capital city and its national interest policy process are so far gone from sense that no legislation is any longer possible.

Charts thanks to TME.

I would observe this with relief.

Since late December 2025, there have been widespread protests throughout Iran, which were first triggered by the country’s economic woes, including skyrocketing inflation and a catastrophic currency crash.

The burning of the books, along with the rounding up of all intellectuals and historians, are two of the prerequisites for any takeover of a liberal political economy by a tyrant.

  Robber Fly with catch Photo courtesy of Geoff McVeigh     Reads (more coming)   Why is Trump interested in Greenland?

On Friday 2 January 2026 every major media outlet in the country was running the news that 120 Australian Business leaders were calling for the Federal Government to call a Commonwealth Royal Commission into the Bondi Shootings and Anti-Semitism in Australia.

It is the time of year when pundits come out to wrap up the past year and lay the conceptual framework for how they want the world to see the year ahead.

A better finish for Asian share markets in response to a bounce on Wall Street overnight as a softer than expected CPI print was balanced by more evidence of a softening labour market as the US economy slows down due to the Trump regime’s well – “point at everything”….

MB sympathises with all of those affected by yesterday’s Bondi disaster.

My learned colleague, LVO, today argues that wind farms are environmentally destructive.