A dangerous dose of positivity?

A report from Big Four accounting firm KPMG has found that 90 per cent of Australia’s top bosses are optimistic on the growth prospects of the country’s economies.

Of course, these chief executives are responsible to their shareholders, and nothing harms a company’s share price than a gloomy forecast from those responsible for running it.

Even so, this Pollyanna approach flies in the face of a fluctuating trade tariff regime, multiplying wars in various parts of the globe and spreading domestic chaos in the United States, the world’s largest economy.

Globally, bosses are less certain about the future. Even so 82 per cent expressed confidence about their own economies.

KPMG’s top executive in Australia, Andrew Yates (pictured), says he is “not surprised” that his fellow CEOs are optimistic, citing growth in household spending, a Reserve Bank of Australia interest rate cut and the fact that Australia has so far not received the severe US tariff hit of some other countries.

Even so, with the mercurial US President Donald Trump firmly in place for another three-and-a-half years one wonders whether this might not be a case of whistling into the wind.  

 

Time for a new Iron Curtain?

Whenever this terrible war in Ukraine ends – and it looks ever-likely that Ukraine’s brave President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be bludgeoned into accepting a peace agreement carving away large chunks of his territory to reward the illegal invader – this new boundary should mark the eastern frontier of Europe, shutting off Russia from free, democratic and civilised society.

Russia has forfeited the right to call itself a European nation. What values does it share with Europe? By what measure can the Moscow regime rank alongside the parliaments and assemblies of France, Berlin or London?

What right has the lapdog media of Izvestiya, Komsomolskaya Pravda or Rossiya 1, to be mentioned in the same breath as Deutsche Welle, Le Monde or the BBC?

And what right has the smirking Russian President, Vladimir Putin, who in US President Trump’s own words, talks about peace and the next night sends drones to blow up a nursing home, to be considered alongside Starmer, Macron and von der Leyen?

At 17.1 million square kilometres, Russia is by far the biggest country in the world in land mass, almost double the size of the next largest, yet in the last two decades it has nibbled away at Georgia, and Moldova and launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine – all in the spurious claim of protecting ethic Russians and Russian speakers who live within those societies.

Yet while the Russian leader is prepared to go to war over Russians who live beyond his country he is not so concerned over his citizens at home. In no measure of living standards does Russia rank within the top 50 of nations, while in many remote areas life has little changed, or improved, since the days of the Tzars.

It is no wonder that Ukrainians so strenuously resist efforts to incorporate them into Putin’s paradise with its sustained population decline brought about by low birth rates, high death rates, alcoholism and despite the carefully choreographed shows of support, rampant pessimism over the future.

In his refusal to accept these facts about his nation, to allow even constructive debate over how improvements can be made, Putin more closely resembles the leaders of The People’s Republic of China and North Korea than any in the West. He has elected to keep company with the Asian dictatorships and there Russia must remain.  

Europe can do nothing about this, but every effort should be made to ensure Russia remains forever within its western borders. It may be time for a new Iron Curtain to be erected.  

Putin has played fast and loose with the nations it still terms as its “near abroad” for long enough and it is time for a united cry from European capitals, with or without the backing of Washington, that it ends now.     

 

Government by gerontocracy in a suffering world

Donald Trump was born on June 14, 1946. I was born on September 19 in that same year. That makes Trump two months and five days older than me.

 I live in a retirement village in Canberra, Australia. I am unusual among my peers in that I still do a little work — an afternoon of editing other people’s material for a local website.

 Donald Trump is the President of the United States, responsible for decisions that in one way or another have the potential to affect the lives of every person on the planet. 

 I enjoy a social life inside and outside the village. I attend the monthly happy hour, enjoy the occasional lunch in the community centre and at least twice a week take a 20-minute walk to my favourite café for a coffee and an occasional chat with friends.

 Donald Trump has to manage multiple crises at home and abroad, many resulting from his own decisions. He has introduced a system of tariffs that have thrown world economies into chaos. His failure to deal with the war in Ukraine has given impetus to the illegal invaders.

 I can spend my day quietly reading or attending the regular bingo sessions the Village Social Committee organises. There’s a monthly history talk and I can learn new things at University of the Third Age (U3A) lectures.

Donald Trump signs lots of Executive Orders, sacks people whose work makes him ‘look bad’ and plays a lot of golf.

I have been diagnosed with mild cognitive decline.

Trump has doctors who claim he is perfectly capable of performing what many of his predecessors have described as the loneliest most challenging in the world — one of whom (Lyndon Johnson) said could not be done in less than a regular 16-hour day.

Even so, The White House medical opinion appears to be that he will be able to perform these herculean tasks well into his 80s.

This is dangerous. It is irresponsible and for those of us who care for the planet and the people who live on it — it is profoundly worrying.

I am writing this because I can claim lived experience of what it takes to be a functioning human being in their late 70s. I know that outwardly I can still present a reasonable face to the world, hold a decent conversation, even sign an update to my will.

Yet behind the scenes, when a piece of food on my fork misses my mouth and drops on the floor, when my arthritic knee complains in wet weather, and when I go to the cupboard, then wonder why I went there, I know I have limitations that were not there in my 60s.

There are days when I am glad my evenings require no more than a dose of television and an early night; when on a grey miserable morning I have no duties other than to feed and play with the cats.

I am thankful I have a companion of 40 years with whom I can share memories and plan adventures with, even if they are rather tame compared with what we did together in our youth and middle age.

No one, not even the President of the United States, can withstand the march of time. Arteries harden, muscles weaken, memory becomes less reliable.

Maybe a leader in his late seventies and early eighties can survive with good people around him, Churchill managed it in 1950s Britain even if he did occasionally doze off in Cabinet meetings, but Trump’s monstrous ego demands that he should always be seen in charge, and in his second Administration he has weeded out anyone who might question his judgement however irrational, dangerous or downright stupid.

The people of the US are responsible for this second Trump catastrophe and it will be up to them to put it right, to seek to understand how they have allowed a person more than a decade beyond the widely accepted age of retirement to find his way into the most powerful office in the world.

For the billions of non-US citizens who are still young enough to want a future in this world, there is little that can be done other than to put their heads down and hope that America’s flirtation with gerontocracy (after all Biden was 82 when he left office) will end in 2028.  

Spare us this Coalition chaos

I find it difficult to understand all the hand-wringing that has been going on over the on-again-off-again split in the Coalition in the wake of the Federal Election.

The Liberals and the Nationals claim to be two separate parties, both on the conservative side of politics, so why don’t they behave as such?

In virtually every Westminster-style democracy, from New Zealand to Norway, parties contest elections individually and when the result is known go about the business of forming a Government.

In Denmark the system is so ingrained, and an outright winner so unlikely, that accommodation is set aside for the various party leaders to go into negotiations as soon as the poll results are known.

Some years ago the Nationals changed their name from the Country Party, presumably to broaden their appeal in non-rural and regional areas and give conservative voters in suburban and metropolitan seats a choice.

So what happened to that? Why have the two parties remained welded onto each other when it has been made clear in the past few days there are policy differences between them?

Under the Australian political system, there is nothing to prevent the two conservative parties running separate campaigns at election time while preferencing each other.

An election where the conservative side of politics is the overall winner, but with no party having an outright majority, would be the time for coalition negotiations.

Otherwise, there is no point in having two parties on the right. Let them amalgamate, as has happened in the Northern Territory and Queensland, and spare us this political circus.   

 

 

Irish PM calls for curb on Hungary’s EU veto

Ireland's Prime Minister Micheál Martin gave voice to what a lot of other leaders in the European Union are thinking when he said there was a need to reign in Hungary’s maverick leader, Viktor Orbán’s use of the veto in EU resolutions on Ukraine.

Mr Martin (pictured) suggested a stronger use of the Article Seven procedure in the EU Constitution that allows for the suspension of certain rights of a member State if that State is threatening the core values of the institution as a whole.

“Hungary was the only country to oppose the acceptance of aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia at the last two EU summits, and is also opposed to Ukraine's accession to the Union itself,” Mr Martin said.

"It's outrageous what's happening at the moment. In my view, it's essential that Ukraine becomes a member of the European Union for geopolitical reasons.”

Article Seven was introduced in the Treaty of Amsterdam in the 1990s as countries from the defunct Warsaw Pact queued up to join the EU. However, it has never been used because the procedure has never reached the stage when sanctions could be employed.

Mr Orbán, who is often seen as promoting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s views within Europe, claims Ukraine’s membership would bankrupt the EU.

Mr Martin also criticised the ban on Pride marches in Hungary.

"We are very concerned at attempts to undermine the LGBTI community in Hungary, essentially the banning of pride parades. These are very fundamental issues that the European Union has to engage with," he said.

 

War and peace — and war again?

As United States President Donald Trump seeks to strike a bargain with Russian President Vladimir Putin over Ukraine, Benjamin Jensen at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies has looked at how similar attempts worked out in the past.

His prognosis is not good.

Dr Jensen believes it is extremely risky and optimistic to think a deal with Mr Putin will end the Russian leader’s imperialist aims, or undermine the authoritarian axis of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.

“In all instances, while wars end and crises are averted, underlying struggles over power persist. Great powers have great interests and rarely are willing to sacrifice them even when they are exhausted by conflict,” Dr Jensen says.

“This means any grand bargain with Russia should be weighed both in terms of its short-term benefit and long-term risk — and while it is impossible to predict the generational impacts of grand bargains — would Kissinger still go to China in 1971 if he read about the Chinese Communist Party in 2025? It is possible to assess the opportunity costs and likely trade-offs the latest grand bargain foretells.”

He believes any deal of land for peace in Ukraine is more likely to buy a temporary armistice than long-term stability.

“Territorial concessions at the end of the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, enshrined in the Treaty of Shimonoseki, sowed the seeds of future wars in Asia and the rise of a more militaristic Japan in the 20^th century,” Dr Jensen says.

Asking Ukraine to give up territory would gain favour in Moscow but at the cost of acerbating other territorial disputes in the Baltics and Caucasus.

“Furthermore, the Russian economy has become essentially a wartime economy, meaning an end to war is not an end to the business of war.”

 He says that even if Russia gives security guarantees to Ukraine, which are backed by European troops, it won’t necessarily stop their agents from continuing hybrid attacks in Europe, global cyber operations targeting US interests, and a sustained conventional military build-up.

“For the grand bargain to work, Trump will have to trust that Putin won’t use the end of hostilities in Ukraine to accelerate rearming. In the worst case, Putin could wait until Trump’s Presidency ends to launch a new war, potentially timed with a major Chinese action against Taiwan.”

Sadly, these warning will have little impact on Mr Trump’s thinking. This vain and narcissistic man is after one thing, the Nobel Peace Prize.

If whatever deal he makes holds together long enough (and US pressure on the Nobel Committee is sufficiently sustained) he all probably get his wish — no matter if everything goes pear-shaped in the years to come.

Is MAGA losing faith in Trump?

The painfully narrow win for Donald Trump-supported Mike Johnson in the race for the Speakership of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives is an indication that the President-elect may be facing problems with extreme elements of his own party in the months ahead.

It is quite possible that the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement that he created is leaving Trump behind in its ruthless race to create a different kind of society – one rooted in isolationism and a deep distrust of anyone that does not wholly subscribe to its Judo-Christian values.

It is playing out in the war of words between one-time Trump strategist Steve Bannon (pictured) and the President-elect’s “favourite billionaire” Elon Musk.

Musk wants highly-skilled foreign workers to be exempt from Trump’s proposed mass deportation of immigrants, claiming they are needed in his high-tech Tesla and SpaceX industries.

This is anathema to Bannon who claims it is outrageous to suggest Americans are not capable of doing these jobs. Musk and ally, tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswany have countered this, with Ramaswany claiming the “dumbed-down” television culture since the 1990s is responsible for why Americans cannot compete with brainy foreigners.

Musk went further, using the ugly “retarded” slur on his X platform before deleting it amid mounting outrage.

In another possibly significant development, Bannon has started to use religious terminology in relation to MAGA, calling Musk, Ramaswany and other new Trump supporters from the tech world as “recent converts”.

“We love converts, but the converts sit back and study for years and years to make sure they understand the faith and understand the nuances of the faith, and understand how they can internalise the faith,” Bannon said.

“Don’t go to the pulpit in your first week and lecture people about the way things are going to be,” he said, before reverting to more secular language “otherwise we’re going to rip your face off”.  

Since that exchange MAGA figures have begun to highlight Musk’s South African origins and the fact that Ramaswany has Indian immigrant parents in what is looking like an increasingly unpleasant internal struggle within the Republican ranks.

Meanwhile Bannon, still resentful over his short tenure as an insider in the first Trump White House, is positioning himself as the guardian of the fundamental MAGA faith – possibly putting large segments of true believers at odds with Trump when he grapples with the complex realities of governing.   

 

Rising anger at ‘conspicuous loutishness’

In a recent article on LinkedIn an Indian corporate worker unloaded on the millionaires “with two BMWs in the garage” who give lectures on minimalisation; company vice presidents who refuse their workers stock options because “it’s your company anyway”.

Right-wing economists who complained about the cost of public transport having never set foot on a bus and celebrities that bully their way past queues into restaurants and night clubs claiming they would he hassled for selfies and autographs if they had to stand in line.

“All this is just to keep most of us poor, ugly and average – the world is full of hypocrites selling half-truths to protect their advantage,” the worker complained.

India is a country where the gap between rich and poor is often at its glaringly obvious and it is easy to see how resentment might grow, especially among the aspirational middle classes who find the way to further progress blocked by the rich and powerful.

However anger against the wealthy is on the rise around the world, exacerbated by what US researchers have termed “conspicuous loutishness”.

A video of a teenage Chinese girl burning bank notes lit up social media a couple of years ago. The researchers found that first-class passengers on airline flights where three times more likely to be rude to flight attendants than those in economy class and, in their top-of-the line motor vehicles were less likely to stop at zebra crossings for pedestrians.

Some observers believe that while some elements of the entitled classes have always thrown their weight around, social media and mobile phones mean their antics are much more likely to be publicised than in earlier times.

Also the wealthy of old often abided by unwritten rules of behaviour, keeping to the background often emerging only for philanthropic events that enhanced rather than degraded their image.

Now United States President-elect Donald Trump’s billionaire Cabinet with the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, dancing about like a child at a Sunday School picnic, is there for all to see.

Whether culture wars, beloved of think tanks the world over, will metamorphose into conflicts specifically between the haves and the have-nots is still a moot point, but all the indications suggest the answer will come sooner rather than later.