In which the pond only has to brood about renewables and tariffs ...

 

The pond realised this morning how much it sacrificed by remaining loyal to the reptiles. Do they show any gratitude, do they show any appreciation?

The pond began brooding when referred to the Sydney version of the Nine rags and a story about a restauranteur having a brain snap in Newtown.

No need to go there, it's done and dusted, but as a result, the pond stumbled on the poodle, in top form ...

The pond was sorely tempted to stray ... the poodle was in exceptional suck form, and as a man who perfected suckery long ago, that's high praise ...

And the illustration was right down there with the worst the reptiles could offer ...

Dear sweet long absent lord ... was this an attempt to make lizard Oz graphics department look good?

The poodle himself was in top sell-the-farm, toss-out-the-baby form, but the pond was startled when the poodle suggested that climate change was real, thankfully followed by a cry to exploit the bejesus out of the land while there was still time ...

With the melting of the polar ice caps in the Arctic Circle and the melting of the ice in Greenland due to warmer global temperature’s brought about by climate change, Greenland has suddenly become very important thanks to its very significant mineral deposits that everyone wants or needs. While the ice previously prevented these resources being accessed, now they are easier to exploit, and everyone is interested.

It was just like the poodle of old ... acknowledge it, then forget about it and try to make out like a bandit ...

Federal Industry Minister Christopher Pyne went further, telling Channel 9 that Labor's target would hit ordinary Australians - hard.
"Bill Shorten's policy, his thought bubble, 45 per cent reduction, would require them to introduce, or re-introduce, a carbon tax at double the rate of the carbon tax before. He wants to smash household budgets and smash the economy." (SBS, way back in 2015) 

Ever an expert suck, the poodle went the full suck ... you know, there'll be pie in the sky in the sweet bye and bye, for lobbyists at least ...

...The Greenlanders could be among the richest people on the globe if The Great Developer could get his hands on the island.
They would also be among the safest. The US could build naval, air and land bases on all the newly exposed territory that would deter China and Russia from moving into the neighbourhood for the foreseeable future.
The 56,000 cold but proud residents would see their future much more brightly under the umbrella of the US, rather than remaining with the aloof Danes.
Christopher Pyne is executive chairman of lobbying firm Pyne and Partners and a former minister in the Howard, Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments.

Sadly the pond had to stay loyal. 

You can't have poodle infidelity in a monogamous relationship with reptiles, when they're offering the usual splendid serve of Oz bangers and mash each day ...

Top renewables form as usual with that EXCLUSIVE at the top of the page ... never a day goes by when the country isn't ruined by renewables (though strangely there are some weird devotees addicted to rooftop solar).

The pond was sorely tempted by Alexi Demetriadi's shocking reveal, Melbourne preacher warns young Australian Muslims ‘falling to liberal ideologies’, A cleric at a new Islamic centre in Melbourne backed by radical Sydney preacher Wissam Haddad says young Muslims are being ‘brainwashed’, and that the first words spoken by a child shouldn’t be mother or father but ‘Allah’.

The pond was astonished - the silly cleric had failed to mention DEI or the wokerati and their pussified liberal ways, and Alex seemed to be suggesting that the reptiles, liberals one and all, had gone into a full woke reaction to his screeching. 

The pond thought a few corrections to Alex's text might fix the problem:

A cleric at a newly established ­fundamentalist Xian centre in Melbourne backed by radical Sydney* (* pick one, ratbag Angry Sydney Anglican/child molesting Pellist) cleric has ­lamented that young Australian Xians are being “brainwashed … falling victim to liberal ideologies”, and that the first words ­spoken by a child shouldn’t be ­mother or father but “Jesus”.

Remember to hate TG folk and pronouns and DEI and teh gaze and minorities and other sissified woke liberal ideology stuff, like a genuine Murdoch-certified reptile, the preacher intoned.

Put it another way, the way the bromancer did this day ... the role of universities in generating new forms of this ancient hatred underscore the even wider crisis in our civilisation represented by the universities, which in many areas beyond technical subjects have come to be dominated by a corrosive and anti-intellectual hatred of our own society and its traditions. That’s intensely destructive.

That's more like it.

Why if he hadn't been born a fundamentalist Catholic bigot, he could have made a most excellent Islamic preacher.

Moving along, the dog botherer was also out and about, offering a review so predictable the pond thought it could be safely ignored ... New set, new host … but not much has changed at the ABC’s Media Watch, Paul Barry’s successor Linton Besser signalled that, as it has in the past, MediaWatch will continue to attempt to keep journalists contained within Green Left ideological guard rails.

No doubt the dog botherer flinched in the face of enemy fire:

With shots of Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch in the opener, it was clear the program was not going to lose sight of its favourite targets, and The Daily Telegraph gave new host Linton Besser a loosener in the slot outside off stump which he readily dispatched to the boundary.
The paper made a numerical error about family reunion visas issued to the relatives of asylum seekers who arrived by boat, inadvertently turning 2158 into 21,581. Breakfast television, other media and Shadow Home Affairs Minister Senator James Patterson all commented on the story and therefore, inadvertently, the incorrect and much higher number.
(Although I was not mentioned in the report, I am certain I used the figure in on-air discussions on the day of publication and was not aware it was wrong until yesterday.) The Tele corrected the number online but this was a clear and embarrassing blunder - it did not change the relevant facts, although inflating the figure tenfold probably elevated the outrage.
The error provided the perfect opportunity for Besser to slap News Corp and other news media in his first program. Keep in mind he could hardly be too forthright in his criticism having once had a book he co-authored pulped because of a damaging mistake.

Just to add to the comedy, the reptiles added this quote:

“21,000 permanent visas? … the tabloids were off by a factor of 10.
So just how did they get it so wrong?” #MediaWatchpic.twitter.com/EsrmeWZMiS — Media Watch (@ABCmediawatch) February 3, 2025

“ed if the pond knows how ... but the reptiles managed to do it again...

“But Chas Licciardello hasn’t just been using the ABC to produce and promote his own podcast… We believe that in pumping up your podcast on national TV, and pushing merch on an ABC Facebook page, you’ve been in violation of a swathe of rules.”#MediaWatchpic.twitter.com/eFzGrIeA3K — Media Watch (@ABCmediawatch) February 3, 2025

“ it, did they pulp the whole issue?

That led to this truly pathetic dog botherer whine...

There is nothing MediaWatch loves more than pretending it can turn the blowtorch on the ABC by focusing on someone trying to make a buck out of it. You know, the ugly temptations of commercialism corrupting the abstemious billion-dollars-a-year public broadcaster.
That after all, is a very safe play within the walls of the ABC. It is much safer than critiquing the ABC’s coverage of the Middle East, its parroting of Hamas propaganda and downplaying of Islamist terrorism against Israel. It is much safer than exposing the ABC’s misleading coverage of Donald Trump and so-called Russian collusion, or its manipulation of video and audio to frame our soldiers as war criminals. It is much safer than tackling the ABC’s ideological monoculture or endless expansion into puerile digital crevices.
Yet for all that, Besser finished by undercutting his own exposure of Chas’s podcast breaches, signing off with a lame joke while holding a Linton Besser podcast mug. Presumably, this was to take the edge off his criticism of a colleague, enable the ABC to laugh it off and make sure nobody came down too hard on the Chaser boy – the Chaser boys are, after all, a protected species, like Bluey, the Greens and the Teals.

Not as protected as the reptiles lurking in the hive mind, always whining and whingeing when attention is paid to their follies ...

What pathetic snowflakes they are when the step outside their bubble boy bubble ...

The pond didn't think much of the new host - not enough by way of sardonic raised eyebrow or sarcastic sneer at the latest News Corp folly - but the pond kept in mind News Corp's response to a clearly political and damaging mistake.

...The next day, there was also a correction in the printed papers.
You might even spot it all the way at the bottom of the Telegraph’s letters page in tiny, tiny font:
A story published on Tuesday incorrectly reported … the federal government granted 21,581 permanent visas … The correct figure was 2,158. - The Daily Telegraph, 29 January, 2025
As for the others, Nine’s radio presenters in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne all broadcast on-air corrections, but only after we asked why they hadn’t. Sky also ran a correction.
Meanwhile, neither the Today Show nor Sunrise have yet told their viewers, as far as we can tell, that the number was incorrect.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with News Corp and the federal opposition gunning hard on border security.
After all, it’s worked for them in the past.
But when you’re also running a splashy advertising campaign promising your readers: 
… an unwavering commitment to accuracy.- The Daily Telegraph, 22 January, 2025
And:
Stories with every fact checked. - The Daily Telegraph, 22 January, 2025 (You have to watch the show to see the risible ads and the pathetic size of the pathetic correction.) 

No wonder the dog botherer was agitated. 

After all, the lizard Oz itself has performed incredibly silly feats of self-promotion:

"Now's the time to be informed"? 

The pond ran that through its AI reptile decoder and came up with "now's the time to be a barking mad, pig ignorant, renewables hating, climate science denying doofus and member of an expensive hive mind, a cult with many of the same aims as reality-denying Scientology. Volcanoes and aliens coming soon, and if not Candace Owen can help out by explaining that Stanley Kubrick shot the moon landing in a studio and dinosaurs never existed."

Enough with the distractions, the pond realised it would have to eventually move over to the extreme far right to see who was top of the world, ma, this day ...

Ah, the usual stodge from Dame Groan, packed full of carbohydrates, climate science denial and fear and loathing of renewables.

Why is it that the reptiles' favourite terms of abuse are "zealots" and "zealotry"?

It must be projection, what with Dame Groan a formidable zealot, as narrow minded as an Islamic or Xian preacher ...

Zealots of net zero steer us ever closer to energy disaster, The air is going out of the net-zero tyres across the world. To be sure, they are not completely flat, but broadbased government and corporate support for achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 or some other date is fading.

The reptiles clocked the read at five minutes, but because it was the pond's zillionth reading of this sort of tosh, it actually felt like an eternity.

First came the ritual snap of Satan's helper, lip biting, head lowered, as befits a minion of the dark prince, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen. Picture: NewsWire/Jeremy Piper

That got Dame Groan into gear ...

While Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen was inspecting Mrs Dan’s new subsidised electric cooktop stove, he may have missed some important news related to his portfolio. The fact is the air is going out of the net zero tyres across the world.
To be sure, they are not completely flat, but broadbased government and corporate support for achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 or some other date is fading.
This trend has been brought into sharp relief by the inauguration of President Donald Trump in the US.
But the reality is that active backing for net zero was on the wane before Trump’s re-election. Of course, there are still some true believers who are happy to deny what is obvious to others.
The UK’s Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband, has (wishfully) declared that the rise of net zero is “unstoppable, not fast enough, but unstoppable”.
In his mind, “other countries believed it was in their national self-interest to remain in the Paris Agreement and to continue working on these (climate) issues, because they see both the advantages of moving forward on this and the dangers for them of not moving forward”.

Dammit, at this point, the pond couldn't help but think of the zealots. 

Year after year of reptile hard work by the likes of Lloydie of the Amazon, the Bjorn-again one and the Riddster, and there's bloody Steve Turton, some bloody adjunct prof of environmental geography at Central Queensland University, based on the Sunshine Coast, turning up  in  Crikey (paywall) and  blathering away ...

What’s behind these floods?
The ongoing 2025 extreme rainfall event, the 2019 Townsville floods and the 2023 Cairns and Daintree floods are remarkably similar in many ways.
What triggered each of these floods was prolonged heavy rain falling on the southeast flank of a stationary tropical low weather system. Normally, tropical lows bring wind and rain, but move through quite quickly. But in recent years, we have seen a tendency for these systems to stall, sitting in place over or near land and dumping huge volumes of rain.
Last week, the Bureau of Meteorology warned that five tropical lows were forming around northern Australia. Most tropical cyclones form from tropical lows embedded in the region’s monsoon trough, a large low pressure band which forms over summer and draws in warm, moist air from the adjacent tropical seas.
But significant rain events like this one don’t necessarily require a tropical cyclone. Slow-moving deep monsoon lows over land can also deliver huge amounts of rain and widespread flooding.
These atmospheric conditions allow intense rain bands to form between converging winds: warm, moist winds from the northeast and southeast winds originating from the Coral Sea. As the winds collide, they push the moist air up into the cooler parts of the atmosphere where it condenses and falls as torrential rain.
More extreme rainfall and higher frequencies of flooded rivers and flash floods around the world have a clear link to climate change and ongoing global heating.
The main drivers behind these events include warming of the atmosphere. For every 1°C of warming, the atmosphere holds 7% more water vapour. Recent research suggests this figure could be even higher for short duration rainfall.
Hotter oceans hold more energy, meaning they can also amplify the global water cycle when atmospheric conditions are suitable.

What the heck? The pond turned away from the zealotry and rushed back to Dame Groan for a serve of more stodge, only the best denialist gruel ...

In a similar vein, Bowen has flatly dismissed the idea Australia should leave Paris: “We are building Australia’s future, not taking Australia backwards. The world is shifting to net zero. That means there are big opportunities and big benefits for Australia, so long as it acts now to make the most of demand for clean energy and inputs globally.”
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has stated the Liberal Party continues to support net zero by 2050 and staying in Paris. But both he and Bowen have been very quiet about what emissions reduction target will be set for 2035.

Oh indeed, indeed, as if anybody needed to care about the planet. 

Cue a snap of another of Satan's minions, UK Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Miliband. Picture: Getty Images.

By golly, he looks bloody shifty, what with that smirk ...

He must be a "true believer". Yes, whenever you've flogged "zealot" too hard and refused to pay the word Humpty Dumpty overtime, you can always bring on "true believer" as a way to break the wage dispute.

The trouble for the true believers is that the world is a very different place from 2015 when the Paris Agreement was ratified.

That's probably the one thing the pond can agree with Dame Groan about ... it sure is a very different place ...

Get it while you can, the mango Mussolini will likely have it taken down in the next week or so ...

Of course Dame Groan is all on in on the MM and dear, sweet, dinkum, innocent, virginal Oz coal ...

Events moved on even further after the Glasgow COP held in 2021, arguably the apotheosis of the net-zero movement. As the costs and technical difficulties of the decarbonisation process become clearer, the resistance to the net-zero objective increases.
Let’s not forget that at a global level, Paris has been a flop, with emissions increasing by 20 per cent over the period since its signing.
To be sure, some advanced economies have achieved lower emissions, but these have simply been shifted to higher-emitting countries, particularly China.
Consequently, those decarbonising countries have lost large manufacturing establishments and associated activities, and are facing higher energy prices – Germany and the UK are key examples.
One of the first acts of Trump was to pull his country out of Paris . (The US is the second-largest emitter in the world.) There is now a ban on new offshore wind installations, with Trump describing turbines as “inefficient, ugly and a threat to wildlife”. He has reneged on a treaty to restrict methane emissions as well as abolishing various federal government programs and regulations favouring electric vehicles. His clarion call to “drill, baby, drill” has been accompanied by an opening up of new fields for oil exploration.
The various global net zero emissions alliances covering banking, asset managers and insurance, and sponsored by the United Nations, are also falling apart. The Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative has been suspended after the withdrawal of its largest member, Blackrock. Most of the US banks have withdrawn from the Net Zero Banking Alliance, along with four Canadian banks. The large Australian banks remain members.
There are clear lessons for Australia in the recent experience in the UK of having an electricity grid increasingly dominated by intermittent wind and solar generation.
The last coal-fired power plant in the UK closed last year, so in the event of renewable sources not being able to generate power, the grid is dependent on gas, nuclear and power imported from the Continent.

Oh poor coal, and then the reptiles came up with a snap breathtaking in its beauty, Latvia completes a new high-voltage power line to Estonia in December 2020, helping align electricity grids in the Baltic States with European Union neighbours instead of Russia. Picture: AFP

Then it was on with more celebration of dinkum virginal coal ...

It has been a very cold winter. There has also been a lack of wind on several days. Had it not been for the scope to back up the grid with expensive gas as well as secure electrons from several European countries, there would have been widespread blackouts. Batteries can run the grid for fewer than 20 minutes.
The wholesale price of electricity skyrocketed, which then flowed through to the exporting countries. Some of the exporting European countries are now expressing their dislike of having to fill gaps in the electricity grids of both the UK and Germany.
In the meantime, Miliband is intent on shutting down the oil and gas industry in the North Sea, with no more drilling licences being awarded.
It won’t be long before the UK is totally dependent on imported gas, including from Norway. Amazingly, Miliband appears to be living on another plant, unaware of the risks he is imposing on the UK economy.
The currently loyal Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has unconvincingly declared there is no trade-off between climate action and economic growth.
While supporting the building of a third runway at Heathrow – something strongly opposed by Miliband – Reeves maintains “net zero is the industrial opportunity of the 21st century”. Bear in mind here the UK contributes less than 1 per cent of global emissions.
Of course, there are no equivalent European countries that can provide us with electricity when we run short.
We are on our own.
Indeed, were it not for the brown-coal electricity plants in Victoria providing power to South Australia, the state with the highest penetration of renewable energy, that state would be facing recurrent blackouts and load shedding.
It is surely ironic that two diesel-powered plants have been brought into operation in SA to cope with potential problems.

All alone in the world, except perhaps for AEMO chief executive Daniel Westerman. Picture: NCA Newswire /Nicki Connolly

The pond wondered what had happened to nuking the country to save the planet, and anxiously raced through the final gobbet searching for a tip of the hat from Dame Groan...

The news on electricity prices in the NEM is not good. As noted by the Australian Energy Market Operator, “wholesale spot prices averaged $88 per megawatt hour over Q4 2024, up 83 per cent from the corresponding quarter last year, with NSW ($143/MWh) and Queensland ($127/MWh) at Q4 record highs”.
The entirely predictable fragile state of some of the coal plants contributed to this outcome, even though the penetration of renewables is at record highs, particularly during the day.
As for the proposition that renewable energy is the cheapest source of electricity, a favourite of both Bowen and the Prime Minister, that is now discredited as more data comes in from around the world.
As Bjorn Lomborg has noted: “The International Energy Agency’s latest data on solar and wind power generation costs and consumption across nearly 70 countries shows a clear correlation between more solar and wind and higher average household and industry energy prices. In a country with little or no solar and wind, the average electricity cost is about 12 (US) cents a kilowatt-hour. For every 10 per cent increase in solar and wind share, the electricity cost increases by more than US5 cents a kilowatt-hour.”
Bowen should probably take note of the IEA’s finding – President Emmanuel Macron has described that agency as “the armed wing for implementing the Paris Agreement”. This tells you all you need to know about the IEA.
We are now facing the disaster of an electricity grid overloaded with subsidised renewable energy and insufficient firming backup.
It’s up there with the madness of the policy-induced importation of LNG.

Bloody hell, the old biddy plumb clean forgot. Nada, zip, nihil about nuking the country to save the planet.

Sure, there was that statistical genius, the Bjorn-again one, explaining for the umpteenth time that everything was impossible, too difficult, too hard, better to just let the planet burn, but at the end of it all, no hope of nuke redemption.

It was a pity because the pond had wanted to segue to Graham Readfearn in the Graudian, ‘No idea what he’s talking about’: Dutton’s nuclear plan could raise – not cut – electricity bills, experts warn, Opposition leader claims a 44% cost reduction compared with Labor’s plan would be passed onto Australian household bills, but not everyone agrees

He was at it again ...

...Analysis by McConnell suggested the Coalition’s reliance on more coal and gas would add 1.7bn tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere by 2050, compared with Labor’s plan.
Data from the CSIRO suggests using gas for power generation is more expensive than coal, and solar and wind. Nuclear electricity would be at least 50% more expensive than renewables, the CSIRO has said.
Gas prices tripled when the Coalition was in power, according to Tristan Edis, an analyst at Green Energy Markets.
He said energy prices were likely to fall over the next two years after the inflation caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine subsides.
“Beyond this two-year period, it is difficult to understand how the Coalition will lower power prices if they intend to simply rely on the power plants which are already in place and not foster additional competition,” he said.
“The coal plants are getting old and banks are reluctant to finance refurbishment costs. If we rely on additional gas, that will push up power prices, not reduce them – because gas is expensive.”
Edis said the Coalition’s costs for building a 1GW nuclear plant had been set at $1bn, which was “unrealistically low” and could be at least double that. This would push up wholesale electricity prices and household bills, he said.
Frontier Economics released modelling, backed by the Coalition, that compared the cost of Labor’s preferred renewables-based plan with an electricity system that anticipates less demand for electricity and includes nuclear.
Of Dutton’s claim that modelling showed the Coalition’s approach would cost 44% less than Labor’s plan, McConnell was doubtful.
“That’s a clear misunderstanding of what makes up an electricity bill and what the [modelling report] shows.”
He said only about 45% of a household electricity bill related to the cost of the electricity system and the wholesale costs that relate to the cost of the system referred to by Dutton. The rest related to the costs of local poles and wires, retail costs and environmental charges.

And so on and on ...

And so to the bonus, and the pond decided to skip the bromancer - it was just his standard Zionist rant, ironic given the Catholic church's attitude to Jews for a couple of thousand years - and instead turned to a piece about the mango Mussolini and his tariff wars, not because the pond cared much for the text, but because it had a number of 'toons to hand that needed to be used up, including the infallible Pope for the day ...

That sets the mood for Australia needs to craft its own response to Donald Trump’s tariffs, The worst response would be unthinking mimicry. Australia has nothing to gain from raising our own tariffs on imported goods. That would tax consumers and hurt the economy overall.

Better still, it was only rated a three minute read, so there'd be an early mark not long after the obligatory opening snap, President Donald Trump means business with his tariffs move. Picture: AFP

Oh the pond can match that ...

As for the bully and his tariff tactics, the pond is a never no mind, whether doing a Mexico, settling for the quiet life and sending a few troops to the border for theatrical, performative effect of the kind much loved by the MM (divide 3,145 kms of border by 10,000 troops), or fighting back like the proud Canucks, singing their dirge of an anthem and trashing US grog (at least a way to public health benefits).

This Brennan chap had his own take:

The market reaction to Donald Trump’s tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico suggests many were taken by surprise.
This implies naivety or cynicism: naivety to think the worst excesses of the President’s economic agenda could be avoided; cynicism to believe an elected politician would brazenly junk a policy on which he so clearly and consistently campaigned.
What does it mean for Australia, and how should we respond? Canberra will naturally make the case for favourable treatment and continued access to US markets. We are a key ally, and the US runs a bilateral trade surplus with Australia.
But this won’t be the main game, even for Australia.
As RBA deputy Andrew Hauser has pointed out, Australia’s exports to the US are small – among the lowest in the developed world as a share of GDP.
But the true impact of President Trump’s trade policies on Australia are potentially significant, and will come via China.
Previous work by the RBA, co-authored by Gianni La Cava (now at the e61 Institute), has shown that Australia’s export exposure to the US is much greater when measured on a value-added basis.
That is, if we take account of the full value chain, a high share of our resource exports to China end up subsequently exported to the US as finished (or more value-added) products.

Then came a snap of the proud Canucks, Hours after US President Donald Trump announced he would impose steep tariffs on Canada, hockey fans in Ottawa booed the Star-Spangled Banner during a National Hockey League game against a visiting US team.

The pond had a 'toon to match the cultural divide ...

It seemed this Brennan chappie was inclined to the Mexican solution, which happened not to be a Mexican standoff ...

On a value-added basis, the US becomes our third-largest export market, behind China and Japan. A trade war between the US and China is overwhelmingly likely to be bad news for Australia.
Work done by Warwick McKibbin and others for the Washington-based Petersen Institute last year highlights this point. They modelled the effect of (admittedly larger) US tariffs on exports from China. It’s a clear act of self-harm: the US economy would suffer a hit to GDP and hours worked, and a spike in inflation. But the modelled impact on Chinese GDP and employment is much greater. Australia would find it hard to avoid flow-on effects, including via falls in the price of key exports such as iron ore.
None of this takes account of potential policy responses, such as retaliatory Chinese tariffs or an economic stimulus from Beijing, the impact of which is hard to estimate.
At least Australia’s policy response is within our own control.
The worst response would be unthinking mimicry. Australia has nothing to gain from raising our own tariffs on imported goods. That would tax consumers and hurt the economy overall, and could not influence the policies of large countries such as the US or China. It was a mistake to think we had to replicate Joe Biden’s industry subsidies via our own mini version of the Inflation Reduction Act.
We would only compound the damage if we were to copy and paste the latest protectionist offering from the US.
Better to think for ourselves.
A global trade war would be equivalent to a terms-of-trade shock.
We will need some hard-headed realism rather than easy answers.

The pond is all in favour of hard-headed realism ...

Brennan sounded on top of it all ...

Our flexible exchange rate can help cushion the impact of any reduction in our terms of trade.
We will need to reduce the regulations faced by new firms, such as licensing and planning constraints.
We will need continued labour market flexibility so that pay and conditions are set primarily via agreement at the firm level. And we should look to remove barriers to service exports. The cap on international students would be a candidate.

Say what? Is he talking about bloody furriners? How did he get a gig at the lizard Oz? 

To make matters worse, they showed the sort of thing that had ruined the US, A producer checks a plantation of agave, which is a raw material for tequila production, at Tepatitlan in Mexico’s Jalisco State, after news of the US tariffs. Picture: AFP

Saucy doubts and fears then began to creep in ...

Ideally, our fiscal position would be stronger than it is. Any fall in the price of our exports (a lower terms of trade) will be felt through reduced tax revenue and a deteriorating budget position. Unfortunately, it is not at all clear that fiscal stimulus would be the right response to such an income shock. More likely we would need hard decisions, on spending and tax, to restore the budget to balance over time.
It has been claimed that Australia has historically been a great manager of adversity and a poor manager of prosperity. But in truth, Australia has fared best in periods of global growth and openness: the middle part of the 19th century, the post-war expansion, and the three decades from the early 1990s. In each chapter, trade has been central: with Britain, Japan and China respectively.
The inter-war period was, by contrast, a time when the world turned inward; when a previously open, stable world order fragmented and collapsed.
Our policy mix included increased tariffs, labour market regulation and some fiscal adventurism, like a flirtation with debt default by New South Wales. Our economic performance suffered, with flatlining average incomes between 1914 and the late 1930s.
Australian policymakers have spent much of the past decade grappling with the challenge that our biggest trading partner has not been a strategic ally. Now our greatest strategic ally is pursuing an economic policy that could indirectly do us harm.

Or directly... but isn't harm a two way street?

Luckily this isn't a self-respecting family blog ... and enjoyed letting it rip into the wind.

Then came a final clarion cry, a call to arms ...

Whatever domestic enthusiasm exists for other aspects of President Trump’s economic agenda, we cannot ignore the potential damage from these decisions on trade. We should not import bad economic ideas, but craft a policy response that is hard-headed and distinctively our own.
Michael Brennan is CEO of the e61 Institute and a former chair of the Productivity Commission.

Still with the hard-headed. That's it? We must be hard-headed, with hard heads that are distinctively our own.

Is that a cry for Australian exceptionalism to match that dang American exceptionalism?

Call the pond soft-headed if you like, but the pond reckons the mango Mussolini bully would drive a garbage truck through that verbiage. That's what bullies do, unless we send 10,000 troops to the east coast to keep out Tasmanians and Kiwis ...

In short, not particularly exceptional scribbling, lacking a certain reptile fanaticism and fervour, though it did allow for some 'toon boost, even if poor old Wilcox ended up looking singularly depressed ...